The Contradiction within us

You take a deep breath…you try and step out of yourself for a moment to try and re-imagine things, reinterpret them, disassociate from the guilt that expectation places upon you. You try and feel the wind on your face, close your eyes, look for another moment away from this one, somewhere where things were better, where you encountered true happiness, like a trip to the beach with waves crashing against your feet.

It warms your heart a little and then you are back to fight some more and start facing the same sh*t all over again.

See the constant struggle of the circle of life is inside of us. Its the infinite battle that rages within us, asking us to define and then redefine ourselves. The yin in us tries to bring us to a place, where the yang tries to dissuade us from. The pointlessness of it all is brandished repeatedly in our minds in this constant struggle between the two contradictions within us. Just like the feeling that most of us get about being different and just like everyone else at the same time.

Images of grandeur mock us, the sense of our worth confuses us and utmost helplessness we feel diminishes us. One by one we give up on things we once stood up for. One by one we re-prioritize the  priorities using a scale we never thought we would use. Thing like material worth, greed and drive for possessions replace the measures we once believed in such as fairness, civility and humanity. We are consumed by the very world we once found unbearable and pretentious. Shakespeare was right, this world is indeed a stage where we will rage, flicker and disappear, but whilst we are on it….the show must go on. Because whatever our impact or legacy might be, we are only here for the show and will no longer be here to evaluate the merits of existence and judge whether we lived a pointless or purposeful life.
For us there is only the show, it is the sum of our being, the only culmination that we ourselves will ever know.

Forward March

Life it seems is a constant juxtaposition of our carefully vexed out plans coupled with completely random events that turn our plans upside down. You wake up, you look into the mirror and like George from the movie ‘a single man’ you tell yourself to get through the goddamn day. Maybe this is starting the day in the name of God, in a slightly more cynical way. I want to be pretentious and say that we are vessels in this grand ocean of life sailing to our unspecified destinations and coming across numerous ebbs and flows that this ocean of life throws on us. But this would be rather empty and hollow. Instead I will admit that I have constructed my life based on the expectations of everyone around me. Working hard, becoming gainfully employed, the idea of marriage all comes from my interpretation of what is required from me based on the expectations of others. In retrospect everything seemed like a good idea at the time. But they were never my ideas, but expectations that I tried to fulfill. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife and kid, they are the centre of my universe. The only thing is that I feel like an alien in my own universe and the sense of not belonging here gets stronger with every passing day. It is an impasse of sorts I guess, a checkmate of plans if you will of my own making. And I am surprised about being surprised at all of this. I never really knew myself, like finding out only recently that I have been suffering from mild dyslexia all my life which prevents me to sense left from right, a condition that becomes dangerous when I am being given directions whilst driving. I have discovered that I can write as badly with my left hand as I have been writing with my right hand all my life. Feel like going on a Happy Slapping trip targeting all those monstrous teachers who had colored my homework books red with bad handwriting comments. But the pragmatist in me wakes me up by reminding me that this is me trying to blame the world for the pitfalls in my life and mostly of my own making. This pragmatist also holds an insurmountable amount of positivity who reminds me of the blessings that I have and the responsibilities that I need to fulfill. This pragmatist calms me down and brings me back to the path where I rejoin the herds on the forward march of conventionality towards the oblivion.

Saudi Arabia – Myths and Monsters II

Racism in Saudi Arabia

Saudis suffer from what I call a deeply ingrained ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ syndrome. (I should copyright this term). I was at a party recently and was asked the question whether I had suffered any form of racism whilst growing up in the West. My answer was simple, I had experienced more racism in Saudi than I have ever witnessed, let alone experienced in the West. Its true but throughout college, uni and my career the idea that there is a difference between a white and non white person has practically never occurred. For me at least it has always been merit and hardwork that has taken me forward, so to change gears when you arrive in Saudi Arabia is an ironic feeling. A typical case of Lawrence of Arabia Syndrome is the plenthora of Blue Eyed White Consultants and Executives living here on salaries that they can only dream of in the West and are beyond their skills and abilities. The Arabs will give out contracts and accept ludicrously expensive consultative and other work based on how white the sellers are. This is an honest opinion, as I sit with the Arab decision makers and can see their reaction based on what is clearly a racist inferiority complex to the white man. On the other hand they have a superiority complex when it comes to people from the subcontinent. Since the last 50 years, and thanks to the scavenging politicians and generals whereby our economy is digging the pits to go lower, the subcontinent has provided the entire human capital to the Middle East, based on which they have built their cities and infrastructure. We all think that oil is their biggest asset. I disagree, as I strongly believe that the sub-continent’s human capital is their biggest asset. An asset they have used and abused and continue to use and abuse. You can hire a Bangladeshi guy here for less than 500 Riyals per month, which is less than $140 per month. For this amount he will have to work 24/7, doing anything and everything you want. The treatment meted out to these individuals is inhumane and abusive to the core. These people are treated like slaves, whereby their passports are confiscated and they live the lowest grade of life, whilst sending that $140 back home to their families who survive on this pittance. It is the unspoken tragedy of the subcontinent that we have let our lower classes down and have not created enough sustainable opportunities for them, such as the Chinese, in order for them to lose their integrity and sense of self, working for these Arabs. The Arabs are abhorrent and thankless towards this silent workforce which grinds in this mill day in day out. Without these brave sub continental men (Bangaldeshis, Pathans, Keralites etc) this country would not have a single house let alone the huge glass and metal towers that sprout out from the middle of the desert in a phallic competition between Arab builders who represent their tribes.

Education

In a recent survey of the education standards of the world, Saudi State Schools (attended by the majority of Saudis) came out equivalent to Sierra Leone government schools for skills in Mathematics, Sciences and languages. This is a pathetic state of affairs given the amount of resources that these people have available to them. This is largely due to the curriculum which is heavily restricted and controlled by the government, to ensure that Saudis remain a dumb and non questioning race to the squalid nature of their rulers. Good education means free thinking and god forbid if people here started thinking for themselves, the ruling elite would be questioned on the scam that is their rule. Through personal observations I found that the Saudi youth has little or no interest in the ways of the world, preferring to drive their shiny cars up and down the main streets and shouting and whistling at girls in other cars or on the streets. There are no good libraries here and those that I have visited are full of religious books and scholarly thesis. The major bookstores are more like electronic gadget shops with a backroom full of censored books, children books and fashion magazines. There is little or no interest in the world exhibited by people here except when they are off to spend their summer vacations in the West and discuss the party places they would like to visit. I guess there is nothing wrong in being young and carefree as long as a section of your society is filled by people who are interested in education, science and progress. Here unfortunately society has expunged these qualities completely. It is saddening once again, because after witnessing this state affair I understood the decay of Muslims today. Throughout history, the most strong and powerful muslim nations lead the fields of progress, development and education, giving that light to the rest of the Muslim Ummah. The Abbasids did it and so did the ottomans in the beginning, but here the richest, most powerful Muslim nation in the world is darker in the progressive light it emits, than a government school in SWAT. This is one of major reasons of our downfall. I can add to this thesis of mine by saying that the light this nation could have offered to the entire world is replaced by the darkness it offers through political wahhabism, the affects of which we are all witnessing around the world. It is still the case that the Most powerful Muslim nation in the World is still leading the muslim world, but on the wrong road and to the wrong destination. The Observatories of Baghdad have been burned, the universities of Egypt are in disrepute, all that remains are the proverbial darkness and dollars on offer from this place. It is a very sad state of affairs, as us Pakistanis with almost no natural resources to count on and with terrible leaders have achieved and done more in education and sciences with our menial resources than these people can even conceive of with all the resources available to them. It’s a waste that is reverberating across all corners of the Muslim world and the world at Large.

Saudi Arabia – Myths & Monsters I

This is a place which is perceived negatively across the world. Everyone ridicules their culture, their approach to women and the drastic methods they apply for general application of social rules. I am here to confirm the reality of this place. A place called Saudi Arabia.
Now before I begin, let me just give some background about myself in order to clear any accusations of preconceived bias. I was one of the organizers of the Million man march that was undertaken in London after the second invasion of Iraq. Right here on chowk a long time ago, I had been accused of being a terrorist sympathizer and fundamentalist, just for arguing for the Arabs and against the harsh treatment meted out to them in the West and in the western media. I read ‘Road to Mecca’ and the ‘Arabian Sands’ and longed to visit those haunting nomadic places all my life.
Unfortunately, one trip to Saudi Arabia has confirmed to me that all those stereotypes of the Arabs are not only correct they do not go far enough to portray the general insolence of the Arab character. Whatever character traits experienced by Asad and Thesiger, have long since gone and replaced by the Morbid and cringworthy soul of a Modern Arab. The Semitic race, of which I guess I am a member contains two of the worst kind of human beings I have ever experienced. One is an Arab (Saudi/Kuwaiti etc) and the other is the Israeli (Rabid Rabbi I encountered on a flight once, and people I have met during a lifetime of globetrotting). But this is not about the later and only about the first;
The Saudi Soul
Thesiger describes the Arabs as having a sort of grace that could only be honed after centuries of nomadic existence. Well Sir Wilfred, 50 years of petro dollars have washed this grace completely away and what remains is a morose caricature of the classic Arab character. A materialistic, hypocritical being that is obsessed with the status quo and so full of himself, that he cannot contain his flatulence. George Orwell, must have visited Saudi Arabia in its present state through a time machine to have been able to effectively write 1984. Replace the long coats with white kanturas and you have 1984/2010/1431. When a Saudi tells you its 1431, he ain’t F***in kiddin. Infact I re-read 1984 on my stay in the Kingdom and boy was it a surreal experience as over time the degrees of seperation between the book and your surroundings, minimize until they merge. In the West, the egos land, whereas here the ego is a large animal hidden inside every Arab and can only be considered a land mammal. Every Arab is born with a weird sense of entitlement, as if their biggest achievement was to be born as an Arab (Atleast a Saudi/Kuwaiti Arab). This is also their only achievement and makes every thing else they do in life a little less grand. Born with this sense of entitlement and carrying the ego the size of an elephant, this Arab/Saudi is nurtured by maids from distant villages in Indonesia, who themselves are abused (See another future section dedicated to this). To Be Continued……

Amma

I always wondered how we separate times, eras and epochs. As news of Amma’s demise reached me, I found my answer. I never quite knew how time could historically be broken into two… now I know. For my life will always be divided into the time I spent with Amma, and rest of the life without her.

How do I describe my grandmother and the kind of person she was?  How do I put into words the limitless affection and love she bestowed upon us?  How do I begin telling her tale which is so intertwined with my own story? How do I grieve for a person who always and still brings a smile to our faces? The kindest of souls, who would never let frailty of old age, come in the way of standing up for us in order to protect us from any ill. How do I describe her and not describe the basis of who I am as a person, as she helped made us into who we are today. The good things that each of us who were fortunate enough to be her grandchildren, have within us, the dignity we try to bring to our lives, the respect we show to the people around regardless of age and station in life, are all her gifts to us and her children. She was our connection to a noble past and the light it emitted allowed us to be ourselves.

And in our darkest hours, when we have let ourselves down and abandoned our dignity, principles or any other set of values imbibed into us as children, we know that she would not have looked down upon us badly. Save a stern yet kind word she would try and guide us back onto the path never ever giving up on us. And it is that unshakeable belief that she had in the good within us that I miss the most, she believed in us and loved us unconditionally. A kind of love I have never since experienced and will probably never know again.

She was a grand old lady of a famous Muslim feudal household in Ujjain, India, married to a distant cousin who was a son of a renegade Sipah Salar of the Mounted Battalion of the British Raj, who had slapped his white commanding officer as a result of an argument around the thrashing he witnessed of a native by his CO. Costing him his position and spending the rest of his life in rapid obscurity, poverty and defiance. However the world she was born into was a golden one, where carts full of gold and silver coins were brought into the haveli rooms which were used as walk-in safes. A time of excess of everything relived through her nightly stories that I loved and cherished to this day. Then married life beckoned with a person who did not want any stake in the family holdings and instead wanted to make his own way through life. This was followed on by tumultuous partition and the blood ridden train and foot journey to Pakistan. In Pakistan, the dream that never was, began with my grand- father struggling to provide for the family and still inheriting the tenacity and defiance of his father when he refused to accept papers brought in by distant family members about our share of the lands possessed by the Indian Government which could at that time be exchanged with lands within Pakistan. He refused to accept his inheritance, which was immense and preferred to run his pharmacy in the Pakistan Quarters. Then comes the age of the children, where my father stepped into the role of provider and the kids grow up to be relatively well off, albeit through numerous struggles of their own. This was a synopsis of a life well lived and she use to smile as she sometime mentioned the extraction of silver strings sewn into the clothes from her days of grandeur to pay for the basic necessities in those early years in Pakistan. Always a trooper she stuck to the decisions made by her husband and supported him through thick and thin, protecting, shielding and sheltering her family through India-Pakistan Wars, Marshal Laws and witnessing the incessant downwards spiral of the idea of Pakistan.

My first memory of Amma is well, my first memory of anything. I was quickly followed by a sibling which meant that I moved out of the cocoon of my mother’s bed to the floor mat preferred by Amma in her room. And boy were those magical times, her stories of Ujjain, the ghosts haunting the nooks and cranies of the ancestral haveli, the chance encounters by our menfolk with tigers and asebs in abandoned sirayas, the grandeur of a mango harvest on plethora of carts entering the haveli, providing a visually stunning world of lore for a 2 year old. And on those windy nights where a child’s imagination would take hold and a shaking tree outside the window would take on renditions from the stories she told, Amma would always allow her grandson to cuddle up and hold tightly onto her arm. It was the safest place I knew in the world. As an exceptionally shy kid, I remember her to be the only one I could ask for a rupee or two. And she would keep a stack of rupee notes in the bottom of her rajajani tobacco tin. As I sit here and am reminded of the smell of those crumpled rupee notes with the strong tobacco scent, I can just about get a sense of fulfillment that rupee offered, to which all of my earnings since cannot compare to. Those rupees from Amma were precious since there was no expectation tied to them, no catches, and no baggage, just a woman who would give it all to her loved ones and was content with having nothing for herself.

She would go out to India by train to visit her family every few years and whilst seeing her off on the train platform, I would cry childish tears knowing that the safety she offered will not be there for a month or two. Now as I stand here a man and she sets off on a her final journey where no sons or grandsons can be there to accompany her, her warmth, the safety she offered, her affection and her unconditional love is no more, I can almost feel that sinking feeling in my heart again as her train rolls off the station, one final time. It’s the same feeling of utter loss, only this time there is no reunion on offer, no hard biscuits that she would bring back and although surrounded by our families old and new, that sense of loneliness pervades heavily in the core of our being. Echoing those terrible words again and again, Amma is gone, Amma is nomore, Amma will never come back…..

As she leaves us, and our worlds become a little emptier and the idea of home becomes less welcoming, we know that it has been a privilege to know her, to have called her our Amma, to have heard her stories and to have been molded by her into who we are today. And although her children and grandchildren may have lead different lives, it is her sense of contentment with life that I remember the most, a sense which has become dormant and extinct in our generation. Her patience in life, her treating the good and the bad with an equal vigor left an indelible mark on us forever. Regardless to say that all of us who have been touched by her, will remember her, cherish her and share her stories for a long time to come.

I miss you Amma, more than I can bear.

Teendabbaywala (Scrap Metal Recyclers) and the Radioactive Waste

They are truly a Subcontinental cultural icon, I mean no afternoon would be complete without them becrying their arrival with a shrilling ‘Teendabbaywalaaaaeeeee’ outside your house. And whilst the world is spending billions in trying to persuade the ever wasteful westerners to recycle, our recycling history goes back a long way where these champions of recycling movement have made concerted effort to recycle anything and everything, ranging from books, metal scraps, to rotten rotis etc. However the recent teendabbaywala’s purchase of confirmed radioactive and potential nuclear waste from a Delhi University takes this recycling to another level. I mean c’mon guys, giving your nuclear waste to your friendly local teendabbawala is just crazy but we can trust the Indians and Pakistanis to do this.

I mean I have two examples from my own family, whereby the progeny of a grand old man of our family who had been a big shot in World War 2 and passed away in the late 80s, had sold his rusting motorcycle from the War that he had brought over from Europe to a teendabbaywala. Only when looking at some old pictures on a recent visit to their house and enquiring about the bike was I informed that the bike had pretty much disappeared under rust and was sold by the kilo last year to guess who, a teendabbaywala. I had grown up dreaming of riding an original Harley WLA in person, spending my time in exhibitions in the UK and Europe to just to stand next to a restored version and admiring it for hours or until they kicked me out of the exhibition. And here was the original sample standing in an unloved corner of a mansion in North Nazimabad and even that within my own family and some bloody teendabbaywala beat me to it.

Only a few things can make a man cry and that was one of them.

Next is an implausible tale and has probably become an urban legend in the annals of the migrants from India. I would have treated it like an urban legend if I had not heard it from the person who I believe the most in this entire world and who does not have a lying fibre in her body, my grandmother and this tale was reconfirmed by her last surviving Brother who visited us in the 90s and who has since passed away. They spoke about the big metal tijori (Locker) standing in the corner of our family haveli in Ujjain (Haveli still exists, inhabited by our family in India). A rather heavyduty tijori, made unusable by the fact that it was locked and no one had the key to it. The last known usage of it was by my Grand Mother’s Great Grand Father (Yeh we are talking about the late or mid 1700s) and since then generations passed without being able to open this Tijori which became an ignored fixture in the Haveli. In the 1970s a decision was made by one of chiefs of the household that this should be sold to a, yeh take a guess, a teendabbay wala. A transaction was made by weight which was enormous and the deal was done. A few months later the Teendabbaywala, now a rich Indian seth came back confirming that he had found many bricks of gold, weighing a kilo each in the compartments in the tijori as he was trying to break it open to melt the metal pieces. He told us about it, returned a few family papers he thought would be useful as it had lists of the forests and villages owned by our family across Madhya Pardesh, which however had been eaten up by Nehru in the early 50s. The gold was now his and good luck to him. So there you go folks another incredible sale to a teendabbaywala from the subcontinent which makes the recent sale of the radioactive material plausible.

In Exile and the ghosts that accompany us….

When I first landed in this new land, a strange flurry of uncertainty hit every morsel of my being. Here was an exile going into exile again, bequeathing the home he had carved out painstakingly, inch by inch. The thing with being an exile is that it is a permanent state of mind rooted on uncertain foundations. One thinks that where ever we are exiled to we can leave at a moment’s notice, at the first sign of trouble, without having to carry any personal luggage in our hearts and minds. This was the thought that had prepared me for this new self-exile and the minute you land in the new land, the error of this way of thinking hits you and hits you hard.

The truth is that there are degrees of exile for the journeymen. The first time you leave your home for good, it never occurs to you that you have made a permanent transition, that there is no going back, that all perceived bridges have been burned, at least psychologically. We lie to ourselves when we say that this is an opportunity, a current event and if all goes to hell, we always have a home to go back to. However, over the period of time, every time you go back to visit your family and friends you realize that everything feels different and that everyone has changed their behavior with you, treating you differently compared to how things were before. You ponder over this, trying to understand what has changed and you don’t really understand at first. Then it slowly dawns upon you that nothing has really changed, that the old streets you use to effortlessly wander are still the same and still fashioning the same footholes and crevices you use to find exciting to jump over only now you find them inconvenient. You see that the stairways to your apartments are as dirty as they use to be, however forget that now you find the effluence much more pronounced. You find that the group of friends you shared some of the best times of your life, have got the same casual, easygoing attitude towards life as they had before, only you find it much more frustrating as you are used to a much more demanding and cold environment where a casual and easygoing attitude would only mean that you will fall in the race and be dragged under the feet of masses. That your parents and siblings love you exactly the same as before, only they are a bit more intimidated by your demeanor and lack of patience with household and family events, which never bothered you before.

And all this makes you realize the simple truth of the matter, nothing and no one has changed aparts from you. Being in exile has changed the very core of who you are. You have become another person, part deluded, part alone, part hesitant to accept the reality that you have lost your sense of home. You have changed forever and when you realize this the journey back to the land of your abode sad and sobering. At that point you understand that your exile is permanent and that your grand delusions about returning are premature and rather exotic.

So after 15 years of coming to terms with this, what happens when one has to go into another forced self exile? How does it feel when you are standing on the turf of a new part of the world waiting wide eyed to explore this new and scary world. New beginnings yes, however the ghosts of uncertainty are the same and continue to come in large numbers to haunt you all over again. You know you have been here before, only the last time you had no idea what it meant to be in exile and how long it takes to get over your deepest fears of loosing the permanent sense of home.

To be continued…

Mediocrity of our lives, is of our own choosing…..

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves,that we are underlings.

Only shakespeare can say it so eloquently.

Reading this passage, really provides the answer to the question that I have been looking for in my own life. I am at a place of mediocrity because the path I chose to walk upon and the way I chose to walk it has lead me to this place. This is of my own choosing, my own decisions and desires in life. I chose to be here and nothing and no one is to blamed aparts from myself.

I walk through this place hoping that there is something around the corner that propels me into the glorious future of my dreams. Instead I walk underneath demigods, never aiming to topple them. Instead walking underneath them peeping out, reservedly, waiting to get to my dishonourable grave.

This is the single greatest dogma of being an average person. I have tried shock and awe and have thrown myself into paths unknown, yet when I get up and start walking on these paths, that spectre of mediocrity comes back to haunt me. I have tried distant lands, tried exhaustive trades yet this spectre never leaves me.

So the fault has to be in myself… and not in my stars.

Breaking News – Pakistan hysteria links with the 1962 Tanganyika’s outbreak

It has been reported that there have been outbreaks of mass hysteria in Pakistan which have suspected links with the Tanganyika Laughter outbreak from 1962. Only in this case, people are suffering from what has been referred to as Mass Naara Baazi (Sloganeering) and flag waving on the streets. The source of the hysteria was reported to have originated in the Lawyers fraternity who have now transmitted it to wide areas of the Punjab Province. The punjabis, who are pretty hysteric at their best, are now in a state of meltdown. One of the commentators of dubious origin, highlights this to be related to demogasry, which is an infectious gas only recently released in the echeleons of Pakistan. (After a number of previous attempts to release demogasry went up in smoke, quite literally)

Sources also confirm that the military is in the wings ready to upheld the constitution, which in Europeon terms is Pakistan’s answer to the Champion league football. The current Constitutional football league results indicate, the PPP to be two points ahead of the PML-N. PML-N star striker, Nawaz (Ronaldo) Sharif has been suspended with a red card, because he was complaining to the Referee Mr Asif (Maradona) Zardari , who also happens to be the coach, striker, defender, goal keeper and ball boy of the PPP, who immediately showed Sharif the red card, and red cards to his brother and defensive player Shahbaz (Rio) Sharif.

Some of the symptoms of this hysteria includes, watching Geo News (Even the blue screen since the channel has been banned), wearing black coats even if the only law you have read is the ‘No Parking’ sign, jumping up and down to the beats of dholaks, and screaming confusing slogans to remove person A who was only brought in to remove person B with the help of person C who is now supporting person D who does not know what the poppins is going on.

People in pakistan are advised to report any of the above symptoms to their nearest political party’s Qurbani ki Khaal (Sacrificial Skin Collection) centre, whereby they will be transported to an area of mass gathering and sloganeering. The government has already developed and unleashed their anti-dote to this epidemic, which includes a massive dose of Lathi Charge (Baton Charge), kicking and indiscriminate beating. Our Prime Minister has been banned from all such events due to his medical condition called “gropingsherryrehman” fever. Some suspect that Sherry Rehman’s recent resignation was in fear that the PM will again suffer from attack of the aforementioned fever that is caused by such hysteric conditions.

 

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanganyika_Laughter_Epidemic

Nazis back in this world – (Just as the SS Stood by whilst Innocents were Gassed)

Gaza: ICRC demands urgent access to wounded as Israeli army fails to assist wounded Palestinians
Geneva/Jerusalem/Tel Aviv (ICRC) – On the afternoon of 7 January, four Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed to obtain access for the first time to several houses in the Zaytun neighbourhood of Gaza City that had been affected by Israeli shelling.

The ICRC had requested safe passage for ambulances to access this neighbourhood since 3 January but it only received permission to do so from the Israel Defense Forces during the afternoon of 7 January.

The ICRC/PRCS team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses.

In another house, the ICRC/PRCS rescue team found 15 other survivors of this attack including several wounded. In yet another house, they found an additional three corpses. Israeli soldiers posted at a military position some 80 meters away from this house ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do. There were several other positions of the Israel Defense Forces nearby as well as two tanks.

“This is a shocking incident,” said Pierre Wettach, the ICRC’s head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. “The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded.”

Large earth walls erected by the Israeli army had made it impossible to bring ambulances into the neighbourhood. Therefore, the children and the wounded had to be taken to the ambulances on a donkey cart. In total, the ICRC/PRCS rescue team evacuated 18 wounded and 12 others who were extremely exhausted. Two corpses were also evacuated. The ICRC/PRCS will recover the remaining corpses on Thursday.

The ICRC was informed that there are more wounded sheltering in other destroyed houses in this neighbourhood. It demands that the Israeli military grant it and PRCS ambulances safe passage and access immediately to search for any other wounded. Until now, the ICRC has still not received confirmation from the Israeli authorities that this will be allowed.

The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable.

For further information, please contact:
Florian Westphal, ICRC Geneva, tel.: +41 22 730 22 82 or +41 79 217 32 80
Anne-Sophie Bonefeld, ICRC Jerusalem, tel +972 2 582 88 45 or +972 52 601 91 50