1:57

1:57 minutes we have left before the power is shut off in all of Gaza. Most of the power lines from Gaza’s main electricity station have already run dry, two lines remain.

Dr Attallah pointed out that the siege on Iraq lasted two years and then they attacked it. Maybe tonight its Gaza’s turn?

People are panicking and buying up what is left to buy. In less than two hours we wait in the dark to see what is to come.

Two nights ago I spent at Jamal’s place in Beit Lahya refugee camp. It was freezing. Jamal and I got there at 10:30pm knowing that electricity had been out all evening and that it would return some time then. We found his wife Salwa and Maysa, Haitham, Majid and 2 year old Abdullah huddled around a fire. Maysa said they had been there since 5pm. We joined them until Salwa prepared us dinner at which point we moved in doors and used their electric pot, which they use to bake bread turned upside down as a makeshift heater.

Tonight they won’t have the heater and Gaza is out of wood for their fire.

Good night Gaza

My driver tonight informed me all gas stations in Gaza are out of gas. All gas in Gaza enters via Israel, which directly or indirectly controls all of Gaza’s borders. Two days ago Israel allowed the last shipment in.

Yesterday, an empty government building was bombed by an F-16. Over forty civilians were wounded, mainly children. One woman was killed. Most of them were near the building attending a wedding. This incident was a no-no for Israel, but in the overall equation it has already been forgotten, today the world of breaking news is on to bigger and better events. The children with charred faces, one family with a mother less, mourn on. But even they, are already getting used to the matter. They have no other choice.

In Gaza weddings often turn into funerals.

The UN’s food aid trucks are being prevented from entering Gaza as well. This zoo is closed for a few days and its inhabitants will have to wait until its keepers consider letting in the bare necessities.

Bakeries have closed, they are out of flour.

The absurdity of the matter is that Gaza’s keepers will eventually let food and gas in because a humanitarian disaster that draws too much attention is of no benefit to any entertainment park’s administration. So it is only a matter of days till the bakeries are happily selling bread again. Until then, everyone will make due because they too know that a zoo with no feed may actually make a headline or two.

With a much increased siege since June of 2007 there is no cement in Gaza. These days graves, which here are usually covered with cement, are laid over with asbestos or scrap metal.

Electricity comes and goes but tonight I have the honor of turning off my own lights as I go to sleep.

Good night.

Gaza Zoo closed

Christians stream out of Gaza for Christmas

EREZ BORDER CROSSING, Gaza Strip (AFP) — Hundreds of Christians in Gaza flocked to the heavily armed crossing with Israel on Monday after securing permission to leave the Hamas-run territory for Christmas.

Married couples laden with suitcases and young children, teenagers with parents, and grandparents wrapped up against the chill struggled to walk unaided on the long muddy path from the main road to the Erez checkpoint.

Most were hoping to pray on Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, the small town in the West Bank where the Bible says Jesus was born. Others were hoping to visit relatives in the occupied West Bank, Israel or Jerusalem.

"We only got the permission last night. It took a month to come through, so then we had to immediately prepare everything and pack," said Rania Sabieh, guarding the luggage and her two children as her husband went to register.

"We're going to Bethlehem to pray. For one week. We have friends there, but then we'll come back to Gaza. My husband doesn't have a job but the children need to go back to school here," said Rania.

Israel has imposed a total closure on Gaza since Hamas -- a radical Islamist movement officially sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state -- seized armed control of the territory six months ago, routing Palestinian moderates.

Declaring the territory a "hostile entity", Israel has imposed cuts on fuel deliveries and allows in only essential humanitarian supplies.

The United Nations has warned that Israeli restrictions on Gaza are pushing the local economy to the brink of collapse.

Israel has granted permits to 520 of about 3,500 Christians living in Gaza to leave in order to celebrate Christmas and the New Year in Israel and the West Bank until January 2.

"Today we are coordinating for more than 500 Christians in Gaza to go to Israel and the West Bank for the Christmas celebrations," Israeli Colonel Meir Press told AFP by telephone.

"The Christians will be leaving today. It's a special privilege," said Shadi Yassin, spokesman for the Israeli military administration.

"They will be receiving a special permit that allows them to travel between the West Bank and Israel freely and that way they can celebrate and participate in Christmas and New Year as they choose," he said.

Exchanging Donkeys for Cars

Donald McIntyre for the Independent,

For, while working donkeys have been bought and sold in Gaza since before Samson pulled down the Philistines' temple, it is a long time since they have been as valuable as they are now. Prices have risen, according to the traders, by up to 60 per cent since Israel closed off the enclave after Hamas's enforced takeover of the Strip almost six months ago.

Yet despite that – and, he says, that the donkey feed has also gone up from five to 15 shekels (£1.95) a day since June – Mr Sabour has decided it makes sense to sell his car and buy the creature instead. The unemployed Mr Dabour has sold his car and now intends to use a donkey and cart to sell cucumbers, onions and other vegetables door to door. "There are no jobs here, so I am going to create my own work," he said.

read on

Hamas Advisor's letter to Condoleezza Rice

"Your predecessor General Collin Powell stated that the U.S. has to find a way to engage with Hamas because it won the Palestinian elections and it continues to enjoy support among a large portion of the Palestinian people. He did not make that statement because he is less of an American or less committed to the service of America. He simply practiced at home what you are preaching about democracy abroad.

If you were even-handed in this conflict, if you engaged with us openly then the chances of peace would dramatically increase. As it is, you are setting yourself up for failure and with that failure will come more pain and anguish for the Palestinian people, a further colonization of our lands and a blank space in history for the Bush administration's role in making peace in the Middle East."

read the rest of Ahmed Yousef's letter

Today in Gaza

Cutting the Power in Tel Aviv

Notice that appeared on doors of homes in Tel Aviv Today:

"Cutting power is a step taken when no other alternatives remain, and one we are forced to take given the presence, in your city, of neighborhoods full of headquarters of an army that carries out war crimes and harms civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Out of humanitarian concerns, the power cuts will not be total, and we will leave it to your discretion whether to divert the remaining electricity to hospitals, the sewage system, or private homes."

read on

Israel's Chemical Weapons

I recall walking down the isles of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City hearing Dr Attallah speak of the horrendous injuries and deaths he had witnessed during his recent years working there. Little was ever proven, little was ever written about it, but he had seen with his own eyes what could only be the used of some unknown chemical weapon. Others have espoused that Israel uses Gaza as testing ground for newly developed weapons. Just over a year ago Haaretz ran a piece on an Italian investigative team who had issued a report after identifying irregular injuries in the Shifa hospital in Gaza. James Brooks from Aljazeera added this in depth report shortly thereafter.

This letter in the Guardian yesterday speaks of such things.

Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor (Response, November 30) denies Israel used chemical weapons in Gaza. Claims and counterclaims about the use of such weapons have a long history and are often hard to verify. Mr Prosor's denial must be judged against the reports by health workers in Gaza of injured Palestinians suffering from "severe convulsions, muscle spasms, vomiting, amnesia or partial memory loss" after exposure to Israeli gas attacks (multiple references available). Last year the IDF fired powerful gases at a peaceful joint Palestinian and Israeli demonstration against the wall being driven through B'lin, a village in the occupied West Bank. My colleagues and I were able to obtain a sample of the munition. It contained a powerful irritant derived from capsaicin (the analysis was published in the international peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival in October last year).

Claims that the IDF used white phosphorus in the Lebanon war last year were initially denied. They were finally admitted by the Israeli minister Jacob Edery in October 2006. White phosphorus causes intense burns and generates choking fumes. I suspect the Israeli government is basing its denials on a technical quibble about whether the chemicals concerned are explicitly banned in international law - to which, anyhow, it is not a signatory.
Professor Steven Rose
London

A Letter from Gaza

My friend Yasmine wrote me this letter from Gaza.
It speaks for itself of a reality we can only imagine from such a distance.



Dear all,

I'm sorry for not being in touch and for not writing sooner, but words are failing me, and I cannot articulate what Gaza feels like right now. A hopeless prison with a dark gloomy cloud over it. It's been raining for three days now and its starting to get cold. Unfortunately with rainstorms, come power outages, so that means there is no water or electric heaters. Gas heaters are not operatable either because of the high gas price, that's when gas is even available. But also because most people are saving their gas for cooking food, rather than using it for heaters, especially with a possible invasion coming in two weeks and the possible cut off of gas. I feel for people without access to heat. I also feel for people like my aunt whose house was demolished and is living in a half built house with no windows that UNRWA stopped building because they ran out of cement and other building materials. It's the beginning of the winter. It's only going to get colder.

I also can't help but think of Gaza's sick and dying….in their frailty, lying there helpless…wishing…hoping…praying that by God's mercy they would be allowed a permit to leave Gaza, or by some sort of miracle someone will save them. But most are denied access..…and most die a slow agonizing death, and only then are their bodies free.

And the world reads about it, but its just another story, another one of Gaza's tragedies. But I wish the world would realize how real this is and how real these sick people are. Some of these sick patients are my uncle who has heart disease, or my little cousin with a tumor, and now unfortunately my aunt's husband who one day was walking, and the next day woke up crippled from a brain tumor. And when you see people you care about so sick and unable to leave Gaza, you first get angry for having such shitty luck, and for the injustice of the world….the type of anger that turns into fury and consumes you, until it becomes exhausting. You then resign yourself to the reality of Gaza's fate…which finally sinks in. But with that reality comes hopelessness and the crippling feeling of helplessness. And so my uncle, my cousin and my aunt's husband lie in a hospital, waiting for their permits, and none of us can do a thing other than pray or chase around people who may know someone who knows someone who can help us with a permit. But we know full well how real death is, and that most just die while waiting. And then a human rights organization issues a statement, yet again, another Palestinian dies because they were denied access to medical care. And their only crime was being born Palestinian in Gaza and falling ill. Nowhere else will you see this but in Gaza. And no place else will the world remain silent at the obscenity of Israel's inhumane acts, except in Gaza.

It's hard to not feel like we're in a large concentration camp as I see Gaza's empty streets, and the hopeless feeling in the air…and just the gloominess that has covered Gaza. I think most people feel abandoned as we are literally locked up in this small, concentrated space and we don't know what the world plans for us, or what to expect next. It's hard to imagine what being in Gaza does to someone's will until you've come here. You no longer feel alive, in fact, you're not living; you're just killing time until some sort of change happens. Sadly, Gaza has become desensitized to the rest of the world, as it feels like the international community has turned a blind eye to the reality that is Gaza, and as long as Israel is allowing some food in and hasn't completely cut off electricity or gas..and as long as we are kept alive, no one will ask about us.

But just because we are breathing, that doesn't mean we're alive.

Yasmine