permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>]

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/14/news-from-a-red-cros.html
News from a Red Cross Worker In Gaza
Posted by Xeni Jardin, January 14, 2009 9:26 AM | permalink

Boing Boing reader LA Frog writes,

    I do not take sides, as the Gaza civilians are victims of both Hamas and the Israelis, but FYI my nephew is head of 
operations for the ICRC in Gaza, and therefore has first-hand knowledge of what's happening on the ground. His most 
recent official interview for the ICRC is here. http://www.icrc.org/web/fre/sitefre0.nsf/html/palestine-interview-110109
Summary of his [personal] phone call with his mother [my sister-in-law] yesterday [translation from French -- with the 
inevitable ICRC's vow to neutrality]:

    - He's holding on in a bunker with metal shutters, he cannot bail out because he is responsible for too many people 
looking up to him, but 4 ICRC expats have left because of physical/mental exhaustion, and his Palestinian colleagues 
(Red Cross/Red Crescent) are equally exhausted, plus they have to get back to their families at night and organize 
survival (assuming their home hasn't been destroyed yet.)

    - He has to organize the evacuation and taking care of the dead and 
wounded (100 yesterday.)

    - The Israeli army deliberately intimidates, and aims at humanitarian groups, and they did shoot at an ICRC 
ambulance convoy three days ago, nearly killing a driver.

    - Everything is demolished, and sometimes the ICRC has to use donkey carts because it is the only way to get 
through, and get at the dead and wounded. The Israeli army refuses to help.

    - Palestinian kids are traumatized mentally, and forever.

    - Both sides [Hamas & Israelis] have turned mad.

    - The media doesn't always tell the truth. For instance, the supposedly phosphor bombs are only a rumor, and 
nothing is confirmed. My nephew thinks that they are only lighting devices, but that they can burn people.

    - The Norvac (Norwegian doctors) representatives (who keep denouncing the "phosphor bombs") had better take care of 
the wounded rather than spend their time talking to the media. The ICRC doctors privilege doing a great job to talking 
to the press.

    - There were talks about having humanitarian planes taking wounded Palestinian kids to Europe for care-taking. That 
is not the solution: those kids are traumatized to start with ("terrorized" as my nephew put it,) they only speak 
Arabic, they are better kept with their families. There are great doctors in Gaza, but the long Israeli-enforced 
apartheid and subsequent shortages limit their ability to work. The best thing to do is to send doctors in the immediate 
area, i.e. setting field hospitals in Rafat on the border with Egypt, or on the border with Israel with doctors who 
speak Arabic.

    - The ICRC president came for one day to motivate the Gaza team, and said that this conflict was ICRC's worst since 
the Solferino battle, which prompted Henri Dunant to create the Red Cross (Wikipedia reference).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cross

    - The (reduced) IRC team in Gaza has enough food, water and electricity reserves for the time being, but they have 
to work with constant bombardment/shelling, i.e. no sleep. They think that they are doing a great job, but don't have 
much hope for the future of the Gaza people.

Previously: Al Jazeera Releases Gaza Video Archive Under Creative Commons 
License

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/13/al-jazeera-releases.html
Al Jazeera Releases Gaza Video Archive Under Creative Commons License
Posted by Xeni Jardin, January 13, 2009 8:20 PM | permalink

Over at the Creative Commons blog (http://creativecommons.org/), Fred 
Benenson writes:

    Al Jazeera is releasing 12 broadcast quality videos today shot in Gaza under Creative Commons’ least restrictive 
Attribution license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Each professionally recorded video has a detailed 
information page (http://cc.aljazeera.net/node/29) and is hosted on blip.tv (http://www.blip.tv/) allowing for easy 
downloads of the original files and integration into Miro (http://www.getmiro.com/). The value of this footage is best 
described by an International Herald Tribune/New York Times article describing the release:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/11/technology/jazeera.php

    In a conflict where the Western news media have been largely prevented from reporting from Gaza because of 
restrictions imposed by the Israeli military, Al Jazeera has had a distinct advantage. It was already there.

    More importantly, the permissive CC-BY license means that the footage can be used by anyone including, rival 
broadcasters, documentary makers, and bloggers, so long as Al Jazeera is credited.

Al Jazeera Launches Creative Commons Repository (Via Sean Bonner) 
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/12049
and here is the Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository. 
http://cc.aljazeera.net/