Editor's Note: Hiyam Noir, our correspondent in Palestine and her photographer, Fady Adwan, were there throughout the Zionist onslaught in Gaza. They have carefully documented, in their first 23 reports, the war crimes and the victims of Israel since the first attacks were launched on December 27. The report that follows is among their first on the aftermath of the slaughter. Hiyam's and Fady's courage and faithfulness to report the truth deserve to be recognised and remembered. They too are among the truly heroic Palestinian Resistance. Their resources have been their own bodies and minds. Their weapons - a camera and a computer which the Zionists were unable to find and destroy. Photographs taken by someone whose name we cannot disclose (for his own protection) will be forthcoming in the next 24 hours and will be added to this article with "Updated" added to the title.

- Les Blough, Editor

By Hiyam Noir
Palestine Free Voice*

GAZA - In the vacuum between the US transition of government, the Israelis breached the Egyptian brokered ceasefire with Hamas government in Gaza. Then as planned, the Israeli military unleashed a relentless campaign of air strikes all across Gaza Strip and on January 4, Israeli ground troops invaded Gaza from the northern border. After three weeks of massive slaughter, and a new ceasefire reached with the Hamas government in Gaza Strip, the Israeli military left the city Beit Lahia and the neighboring Al- Attatra village in shambles 9 days ago.

Al-Attatra is erased from the ground, destroyed by air strikes and massive artillery shelling. Most of the buildings are in ruins, peoples possessions are shattered throughout the landscape, a scenery of bloodshed. Under the debris rescue workers still find parts of rotting corpses. Beneath all the rubble of destroyed buildings 105 Martyrs were found, including members of the courageous Palestinian resistance, seven of them were bleeding to death, because the Israeli military prevented ambulances and rescue teams to enter the closed area.

The Israelis attacked the Al-Attatra village, situated in the northern parts of Gaza, prior to the Cast Lead Operation, allegedly in an attempt to "clear the northern borders from booby traps and explosives", before the ground invasion. This was part of the plan - to attack from four positions from the north to the south, supported by airstrikes and the fire from Israeli warships. Then the killing of the Palestinian "terrorists" - [the courageous Palestinian resistance in Gaza] and Palestinian civilians including many children began, ending in a genocide, that started in the early morning hours of the 27th of December.

The infrastructure inside Gaza Strip from the northern to the southern borders is devastated, 22,000 buildings were destroyed by massive air strikes and artillery shelling. Accompanied by tanks and bulldozers, Israeli ground troops invaded the small towns, villages and refuge camps of the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli snipers were positioned on the rooftops targeting the residents including children playing outside, or walking home with their backpacks school.

Israeli F16 warplanes shelled refuge camps, towns and villages including Jabalyia refuge camp, Beit Lahia, and the village of Al-Attatra, the Israelis used prohibited chemical weapons, phosphorus bombs, against the civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip. The use of white phosphorus is legal only when it is confined to the use as a means of creating smoke screens or illuminating targets.

More than 1,350 people were killed and over 5,000 people were wounded, many residents were hit by shells containing white phosphorous, many of them are suffering the loss of limbs, head injuries and large burning wounds. Many were burned to death from the anti-personnel highly flammable chemical phosphorous compound.

Not many of the buildings are standing intact. Local mosques, governmental and public buildings, including schools and universities, pharmacies, hospitals and homes, stores, food markets, farmland, fishing boats, police cars, ambulances, rescue vans and private cars - were targeted, shelled and destroyed. Also many poor animals were killed.

Thousands of people, fled from their homes desperately trying to find shelter in UNRWA schools. To their despair, when reaching what they hoped was a safe refuge, the people found out that the UNRWA schools also would be targeted and hit by the Israelis air strikes and artillery shelling.

In the Al-Attatra and Beit Lahia projects, the water sewer system collapsed and for one full week the inhabitants were living without electricity and drinking water. The US International American School was shelled. The school was located in the western part of Al-Attatra by the main road, where Israeli ground troops from the northern flank trespassed and entered into the Gaza Strip.

The Holy Anan Mosque is partly destroyed and in Beit Lahia the El-Magadma Mosque was hit by an air strike and worshippers were killed. In Gaza City, the headquarters of Hamas government and the General Secretariat of the Council for Ministers, lies in ruins and the National Security building is destroyed. This building was situated in eastern parts of Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip. Also the UNRWA main compound, and the AlQuds Hospital in Gaza City was targeted and hit by airstrikes and shelling.

It is an almost unbearable and heartbreaking sight walking through the ruins of this raped and shattered landscape. The smell of coagulated blood and traces of human flesh is lingering in the air. In defiance of heavy Israeli bombardments, the courageous Palestinian resistance fought a fierce battle, here on these fields in the north, with heavy armed Israelis, many of them died a heroic death after killing and wounding some of the invaders - the Israeli war criminals.

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*Hiyam Noir is Axis of Logic's war correspondent in Gaza. She is a courageous writer, poet, editor and publisher of Palestine Free Voice. Read her bio and all her reports coming directly from Gaza in: 

 PALESTINE FREE VOICE!

and in AXIS OF LOGIC'S

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