Gaza: Beyond the blockade, a humanitarian crisis

Sameh Habeeb reports on the humanitarian crisis taking place inside Gaza’s sealed borders

It has been almost four weeks since Israel decided to completely seal the borders of the Gaza Strip. While Israel has maintained a partial blockade ever since Hamas took power in June of 2007, this is the first time that the Israeli government has elected to stop foreign journalists from entering the Palestinian territory. On Monday, a small number of trucks bringing much-needed fuel and other supplies were permitted to enter for the first time since the full blockade began on November 5th, but within hours the gates had been sealed shut once again in response to rocket fire emanating from inside Gaza. In our conversation with Sameh Habeeb, via phone from inside Gaza City, we hear first hand of the devastating influence that the blockade is having on the lives of those trapped inside the Gaza Strip.

Sameh Habeeb is a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza City

Smoke, gunfire, then a knock

Brockton Ma. couple survive Mumbai hotel siege

By
Keith O’Brien

Globe Staff

/
November 29, 2008

From Room 322, amid the smoke and the darkness, Willy and Gerrie
Stadelmann listened to the gunmen, moving down the hall, room to room,
pounding on doors, then shooting.

Off and on all night, they came and they went, the Brockton couple
recalled yesterday, at times coming just a few doors away. But despite
being trapped inside the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower in Mumbai, India,
the Stadelmanns did not panic.

They kept quiet, they said, and
stayed down, tucked between their king-size bed and the wall. They made
a rope out of sheets in case they needed it to escape their third-floor
hotel room. They pressed wet towels to their faces to help them breathe
through the smoke. And finally, 14 hours later when a knock came at the
door, the Stadelmanns made the right decision.

In answering it, they saved their lives.

“The
scariest part wasn’t the gunfire,” said Willy Stadelmann, a Brockton
electrician. “It was the pounding into the doors. When were they going
to get to your door? That was the question.”

Back in
Massachusetts yesterday, Willy, 66, and Gerrie, 65, recounted the
harrowing events of the past few days: how terrorists stormed their
hotel Wednesday night, killing one member of their tour group; how the
couple waited out the siege in the dark and the smoke; and how they
ultimately escaped, walking down hallways flooded with water from the
sprinkler system and streaked with blood.

The Stadelmanns had
been at the end of their tour of India, where, with a 26-person tour
group, they cruised on the Ganges River, visited the Taj Mahal, and
dined on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Even as they arrived home
yesterday, the siege at the hotel continued with still more gunfire and
explosions.

Indian authorities said they had killed the remaining militants this morning.

At least five Americans are among the more than 195 dead from attacks throughout the city.

But
the Stadelmanns, who raised five children in Brockton and have been
married for 45 years, said they never believed they would die in Room
322.

“We just kept hanging in there, hanging in there,” said
Gerrie, who said the prayers of the rosary, counting on her fingers
during the attacks when she was unable to reach her beads packed away
across the room. “I said, ‘Please, dear God, I don’t want to jump out
that window.’ “

The Stadelmanns, who have traveled in recent
years to China, South Africa, and Russia, planned their Indian vacation
several months ago, booking an 18-day trip organized by
Connecticut-based Tauck World Discovery tours.

By plane, they
jumped all over the country, making new friends within their group,
celebrating an Australian couple’s 42d wedding anniversary, and ending
their journey with a stay at the Taj, a posh, waterfront hotel. There,
the group, made up mostly of seniors, gathered one last time Wednesday
night in a lobby bar to recount their adventures together over
“farewell cocktails.”

Most were headed to the airport, but the Stadelmanns were staying one
more night, bound for Nepal in the morning. They didn’t want to leave
Asia without getting a look at Mount Everest. And that, Willy
Stadelmann said, may have been what saved them.

They were not downstairs like other couples when the terrorists
launched their attack, but upstairs preparing for bed. And while others
on the ground floor ran for cover, the Stadelmanns sat in their room.
They would not find out for hours that one of their fellow travelers -
the 71-year-old man who had just celebrated his wedding anniversary -
was dead. At first they weren’t even sure what they were hearing was
gunfire.

“The hotel called and said, ‘There are gunmen in the
hotel. Security is taking care of it. Stay in your room,’ ” Willy
Stadelmann recalled. “Well, that’s fine until you heard the bombs go
off. That ain’t gunmen.”

With the hotel on fire now and smoke
rolling down the halls, hotel guests began jumping down to a rooftop
about two stories below, the Brockton couple said. But seeing how many
people injured themselves in the fall – and not wanting to expose
themselves to terrorists’ gunfire – the Stadelmanns said they stayed
put, stuffing their comforter under the door.

Still, in the dark,
the smoke crept in. It became hard to breathe, the Stadelmanns said,
and soon they could hear the gunmen moving down the hall, room to room.
While Gerrie prayed, Willy sent brief e-mails to his children back home
on a laptop he had set up under the bed. His message: They were OK -
for now.

“I didn’t know what to do,” said Kristin Stadelmann,
their daughter, who got word of the attacks from her father while
shopping at the Prudential Center on Wednesday and scrambled to contact
embassy officials. “I had no family around me. I was crying
hysterically and people were looking at me like I was a maniac. I was
just thinking, ‘They’re going to die – that’s it.’ “

Her parents, however, were a bit more optimistic.

Wednesday
night felt like it would last forever, Gerrie said, with the gunmen
wandering the hotel and explosions sounding in the night. But with the
sunrise Thursday morning, came “new hope,” Gerrie said. And soon, for
the first time, there was also a knock at the door.

Gerrie wasn’t
sure they should answer it. But hearing commotion outside the door – as
if there were many people standing there, not just one – Willy decided
they had to take a chance. Maybe, he figured, it was help.

“I said, ‘We’ve got to try it,’ ” Willy said. “You’ve got to make that decision, you know?”

And so, inside Room 322, the Brockton man called out.

“Who are you?” he recalled saying.

“Army,” came the reply. “Army.”

He
opened the door to find six Indian soldiers and a hotel security
officer standing there. Armed with guns, the men escorted the tired,
shaken couple out of the hotel and onto the streets of Mumbai. By
ambulance, they were taken to a police station. And a short while after
that, Willy and Gerrie Stadelmann were on an airplane bound for Delhi,
Chicago, and then home.

“I see them!” shouted daughter Tara
Stadelmann about 28 hours later, turning to her sister Kristin as they
waited for their parents inside the terminal at Logan International
Airport. “I see them!”

And then, a moment later, the weary parents fell into the arms of their children.

“You’re so brave,” Kristin kept telling them as she hugged and kissed them. “We’re so glad.”

Her mother just looked at her and smiled.

“We’re glad, too,” she said.

Witnesses: Fatal shooting followed toy store brawl

PALM DESERT, Calif.—The shooting occurred in a crowded toy store on the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, but authorities say it wasn’t related to the bargain-hunting frenzy. Instead, two men pulled guns and killed each other after the women with them erupted into a bloody brawl, witnesses said.

Authorities released few details about the mayhem that broke out at the Toys “R” Us store around 11:30 a.m. Friday, sending scared shoppers fleeing. Riverside County sheriff’s Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said the fight was not over a toy and that handguns were found by the men’s bodies. He refused to say whether the shooting was gang-related.

The victims were identified as Alejandro Moreno, 39, of Desert Hot Springs, and Juan Meza, 28, of Cathedral City. No one else was hurt.

Witnesses Scott and Joan Barrick said they were checking out of the store when the brawl began between two women, each with a man. The women were near the checkout area, but the Barricks did not think the women had purchases.

One woman suddenly started punching the other woman, who fought back as blood flowed from her nose, said Scott Barrick, 41. The man who was with the woman being punched pulled a gun halfway out of his pocket, then shoved it back in, he said.

“He pulled his gun right next to me. I turned to look for my wife, and she was already hiding,” Scott Barrick said.

“I was scared,” said Joan Barrick, 40. “I didn’t want to die today. I really didn’t want to die today, and I think that’s what we were all thinking.”

The other man pulled a gun and pointed it at the first man but forgot to cock it, Scott Barrick said. The first man tried to run but was blocked by the line of people, then ran back toward the store’s electronics section as the other man fired his gun, he said.

The first man reached a dead-end in electronics, turned around and ran toward an exit, pulling his gun and firing back, Scott Barrick said.

“He went up to the cash register, he went to put his hand on the thing and he just went phoomp,” he said, indicating the man fell.

He said he did not see what happened to the other man.

Palm Desert Councilman Jim Ferguson said police told him two men with handguns shot and killed each other.

“I think the obvious question everyone has is who takes loaded weapons into a Toys “R” Us?” he said. “I doubt it was the casual holiday shopper.”

Ray Turner, 20, said he was two aisles away when two women began shouting and screaming at each other and he had a clear view of the fight until a crowd clustered around them. Both women had children, he said.

“We thought it was just a fight and then someone yelled: `He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!’ You really couldn’t see nothing because there was a crowd,” Turner said.

Rafael Gomez, 11, said he and his father had been in the store about 20 minutes before the shooting but were in a nearby Pizza Hut when they saw people pouring out of the store screaming.

“We just saw them running and crying. I was kind of scared,” Rafael said. “We got lucky.”

Toys “R” Us issued a statement expressing outrage over the violence.

“We are working closely with local law enforcement officials to determine the specific details of what occurred,” the statement said. “Our understanding is that this act seems to have been the result of a personal dispute between the individuals involved. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to associate the events of today with Black Friday.”

Palm Desert is a resort town about 120 miles east of Los Angeles.

Source AP

Sought: Wal-Mart shoppers who trampled NY worker

by AP

NEW YORK—Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.

Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday’s video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman.

Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries. The store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.

Police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the Wal-Mart doors before its 5 a.m. opening at a mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the employee, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.

“This crowd was out of control,” Fleming said. He described the scene as “utter chaos,” and said the store didn’t have enough security.

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said. Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store.

Damour, 34, of Queens, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined.

A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital, where she and the baby were reported to be OK, said police Sgt. Anthony Repalone.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like “savages.”

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling `I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’” she said. “They kept shopping.”

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a “tragic situation” and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store. It said it tried to prepare for the crowd by adding staffers and outside security workers, putting up barricades and consulting police.

“Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred,” senior Vice President Hank Mullany said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those impacted.”

A woman reported being trampled by overeager customers at a Wal-Mart opening Friday in Farmingdale, about 15 miles east of Valley Stream, Suffolk County police said. She suffered minor injuries, but finished shopping before filling the report, police said.

Shoppers around the country line up early outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving in the annual bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically been the day when stores broke into profitability for the full year.

Items on sale at the Valley Stream Wal-Mart included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as “The Incredible Hulk” for $9.

——

AP retail writers Anne D’Innocenzio and Mae Anderson contributed to this report.