Dr. Ezz-El-Din Abu El-Aish (I hope I am transliterating correctly) is a Palestinian gynecologist from Beit Lahiya, in the NE corner of the Gaza Strip. He works at Israel's largest hospital, Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv.
This impressive and peaceful man has been stranded at home during the war. Israel's Channel 10 TV has regularly interviewed him by phone about the situation. On one occasion, a tank gun aimed at his home - and Israeli media intervention saved him.
No such luck today.
(the link is a Hebrew site, the clip starts auto-playing after a few seconds. the article comes after a short commercial). What we see in the clip is Israeli anchor Shlomi Eldar holding a cellphone with Dr. Abu El-Aish on the other side, howling with misery. A tank shell has just hit his home and immediately killed three of his children (apparently they cut off the first seconds when the shell actually hit).
Text below the video frame says that the doctor's brother and two of his brother's children also died. Eldar barely holds himself from crying, and then offers help. Ambulances evacuated some of the wounded to Israel.
Transcript and more ->
Transcript of first 2 minutes:
Eldar: ...we have on the line Dr. Abu El-Aish, we have been talking with him over the past period... he [his home] was just shelled, his family is wounded, maybe I can replay...
Dr. Abu El-Aish: No one can get to us... (unclear)... Ya Rabi, Ya Rabi (my god).. [he continues to cry throughout while Eldar talks to the audience]
Eldar: They killed his family, over the past few days we have been... I think I'm a bit overwhelmed too because,... (tearing up) Dr. Abu El-Aish is a Tel Hashomer physician, [to the doctor] Abu El-Aish we are now in the studio, [back to the audience] and he kept fearing his family would get hurt, once this week he went on air to Gabi Gazit [another anchor], because this was the only way [apparently referring to the previous near-miss incident].... In short, he was now hit, who was hurt Abu El-Aish?
Dr. Abu El-Aish: My girls, Ya Allah, Ya Allah
[around 1:00 into clip]
Eldar: He has eight children whom he has protected throughout the war, at his home in Beit Lahiya, maybe the only thing we can do is to ask someone who can, maybe in the IDF, Abu El-Aish can you tell me where your house is, maybe they will enable ambulances to get there
Dr. Abu El-Aish: (unclear) ...to save them, to save them, but they are dead already they were hit in the head, it was in their heads [died] on the spot, on the spot, Shlomi, Ya Allah, ... what have we done, what have we done [repeatedly]... they killed the family... [more screams in the background]
The elipsis (...) marks in the anchor's speech are mostly not ommissions, rather Eldar was himself shaken and kept jumping mid-sentence to start new ones.
An IDF infantry regiment apparently responsible for the shelling,
has quickly claimed that there was sniper fire from the doctor's house. Previous such claims during this war (most notably with the UNRWA shelter
bombed a week ago killing from 30 to 40 civilians) have turned out to be bogus. They appear to be little more than a standard cover-all designed to hold until public attention turns elsewhere.
Meanwhile, as if on another planet, Israel Foreign Minster flew to the US in order to sign a cease-fire agreement with... Secretary Rice. I wonder how this is supposed to help stop the killing.
Please help stop this. Call your Senators. Call your House members and ask them to support the Kucinich bill to end the fighting. Call your Israeli consulate: apparently America is the only place whose opinion might matter to them, so please let them know what you think.
Please help stop this. There is no reason for this to go on even one more second.
UPDATE:
At the end of the clip Eldar asks to leave the studio and continue talking with the doctor in private. If I am not mistaken this happened Friday night (tonight) which is prime time news time of the week in Israel.
I understand there may be tech difficulties playing the clip. Mine didn't auto-play because of some missing media player upgrade, so I had to click a link inside the video frame (second link; the first one goes to a download page).
Also if there's anyone Youtube-savvy enough to cut the clip and post it there and bring the link here, that would help - thanks.
Also, if you are a native Arabic speaker and think I made a mistake transliterating the doctor's name, please let me know.
UPDATE 2:
My friend Tom to whom I sent this story, sent me back a related story running today on Democracy Now: Palestinian NASA astrophysicist from Gaza, whose 10-year old son was killed. This happened on the 3rd day of bombing - but the story is first aired today. He was just making arrangements to bring his family to America.
Thanks to the hands that brought this story to the rec list. I post this story here, because the world - and that includes the DKos world - needs to know what is happening,and that the people getting killed in Gaza are people just like you and me, stuck between the hammer and the anvil. The reality is complex, every reality is complex. The Israeli anchor was visibly shaken almost beyond words, and tried to help the doctor and his family, regardless of his own opinion about the war, Hamas, who's to blame, etc.
To the shrill few who have nothing but "Hamas fault, Hamas fault" to say to all these stories: even my 3-year-old toddler is beyond the stage of denying any responsibility for his actions.
I have been an IDF combat soldier, I have been to Gaza, there is no way in heck the IDF and Israeli government should be allowed to explain away all of this. The IDF spokesman unit in particular has lost all credibility over the past 8 years.
So grow up already.
(and to those who think this is a great occasion to say how Israel is the worst thing that happened to mankind: besides being wrong, you are not helping, in case you haven't noticed)
What does help is to take some concrete action, make some political pressure to change this terrible reality once and for all.
UPDATE 3: Youtube link available h/t Clytemnestra.