Palestinian despair as donors meet
By Alan Johnston
BBC News, West Bank
Diplomats and aid donors are gathering in the cool and the calm of a conference centre in Stockholm to consider the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian Territories. And a world away, in the heat and the clamour of Gaza’s alleyways, Imad Marzouk is living that crisis.
The stumps that are all that remain of his legs are still heavily bandaged.
He remembers doing ordinary things on an ordinary evening. He had just propped his bike up against a wall on a street in Gaza City, and started to chat on his mobile phone.
All our dreams are cancelled – everything’s cancelled – our priorities are feeding ourselves and just living
Government worker Nidha Younis
Ramallah, West Bank
But then out of nowhere came an explosion – and horror, and agony.
An Israeli rocket had torn both his legs off.
Sitting in his wheelchair after several operations he said: “I’m looking at myself. I’m looking at my legs, and at what I’ve become. I didn’t have any weapon to go and shoot at Israelis. I never did anything.”
It seems that the rocket was meant for a nearby group of militants.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5304328.stm