Testimonies from Gaza: White Phosphorus " When the second shell hit I dropped my baby girl Shaed from my arm. I could not help it , my arm was burning . At that moment I did not hear the sounds of my children anymore. They melted my children away! ". Sabah Abu Halima Mother of 9 children Beit Lahiya, Gaza March 27,2009 Sabah Abu Halima was holding her baby daughter Shaed in one arm while holding the hand of her son Ali with her other hand when the second shell hit her home in Beit Lahiya ,Gaza on January 4,2009. The shock of the impact and her burning arm caused her to drop her baby into the burning inferno . Her husband and four of her nine children were burned to death inside the home. When family members came to try to help her baby was found dead laying on her father's chest by the doorway. As they tried to evacuate the wounded and the tiny body of Shaed by a wagon attached to a donkey they came under fire by Israeli soldiers who shot on them killing two of the wounded while two others managed to escape. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and others are referring to incidents such as this as qualifying as war crimes. The use of white phosphorus and other incendiary weapons is covered in one protocol of a 1980 international treaty, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, that bans making civilians "the object of attack" by such arms. White phosphorus is used by militaries to provide a smoke screen during troop movements. Israeli Army has denied charges by human rights organizations that its bombardment of heavily populated areas of Gaza with white phosphorus munitions violated international laws and could constitute war crimes. Ten weeks after this horrifying incident yet another family member has died died of her wounds during her medical treatment in Egypt. Farah,3, suffered severe burns as she was held when her mother caught on fire.

Mohammed Hujarat stood in an open grave as his arms reached out for the tiny corpse of his four-year-old son Ammar carefully wrapped in a white cotton shroud that only left the toddler’s face exposed. He wept as he kissed his youngest son’s face carefully lowering him into the grave, as hundreds of residents gathered in shock in the cemetery of the Bedouin town of Bir- al- Maksur near Nazareth on January 7th, 2022. Ammar Hujarat, the second murder victim reported in the Arab community in just a single day, was fatally injured by a stray bullet while at a playground . His name added to the long list of victims killed or wounded by the gun violence that is soaring across the nation’s Arab communities like a pandemic. The toddler was fatally injured the day before when a stray bullet pierced the child's neck while at play with other children . Each week the names of new victims are added to the growing list that includes not only men and women but also children who have been killed and wounded across Arab society because of illegal weapons. Israel’s Arab minority or Palestinian citizens of Israel, as many prefer to be called, accounts for about one-fifth of the population but in recent years it has experienced the majority of the country’s murders. Although in theory Israel’s Arabs have equal rights with Jewish citizens, they routinely complain of state discrimination that has left their towns and villages impoverished, and have held mass demonstrations against the government and police who are not doing enough to reign in the illegal weapons infesting their communities. In 2021, the deaths as a result of violence and crime reported claimed the lives of 126 victims of which 62 were below the age of 30, and 16 of them were women. In some cases, the victims are known criminals, and the murders represent the settling of scores between mafia families and domestic violence. Others are innocent bystanders fatally wounded by the stray bullets. The bloodshed continues and is steadily claiming new victims, nearly every day into the new year.

Legend says that it was first the Queen of Sheba who believed in the mystical healing powers of this ancient body of water known as the Dead Sea since Roman-Greco times which was created millions of years ago .Cleopatra traveled to it and built the first spa.Tourists from all over the world come to bath and absorb its healing powers but today they have to walk further and further to enter its waters as scientist fear the Dead Sea is dying . For thousands of years this body of water, known as one of the saltiest in the world and its shores located at the lowest point on Earth, 1,300 feet below sea level, was able to maintain its equilibrium from a fragile natural cycle . Now its water level is dropping by one meter per year . Since the 1950's the increase of human consumtion in the area has been growing . The Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers, a vital source of fresh water that feeds into the Dead Sea have been diverted for irrigation and have been polluted .The Potash industry is also a major factor as its demand grows. Scientist fear that a plan known as the Dead-Red which would involve Israel, The Palestinian Authority and Jordan could harm it further . This plan, backed my the World Bank would pump water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to restore the water level back to normal , but scientist are unsure that this may not cause more ecological damage and turn the Dead Sea red.

Full article https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/04/08/bucha-images-photographer/ BUCHA, Ukraine — For weeks, I could see the dark plumes of smoke rising above the city of Bucha from the destroyed bridge in Irpin. I focused my lenses on heart wrenching scenes of people carefully trying to keep their balance over the planks of wood placed over the Irpin river- the only gateway toward safety for the massive exodus of refugees fleeing with a handful of belongings. Once I got within walking distance of the city, [on March 10th. I was warned of snipers and photographed people fleeing past the bodies of two Russian soldiers laying over the railroad track. Another corpse lay in the middle of the road and I realized that any attempt to approach closer would be most likely be lethal: I heard too many hideous stories of people trying to flee who were instead shot dead. Even cars with signs marked “children” in Ukrainian and Russian were attacked. Ukrainian forces were engaging in fierce battles against the Russians, but that trapped thousands of civilians, all cut off from media access, cellphone connections, electricity and water. Journalists couldn’t enter Bucha until Russian forces had withdrawn and Ukrainian troops had secured control of a city that now looks like the gateway to hell. The first scenes I photographed along a main road captured burned corpses of Russian soldiers laying by destroyed military vehicles and trucks. One corpse was missing the lower part from the waist down. Inside Bucha, soldiers warned me to follow the footsteps of a commander because there were mines — and even corpses could be booby-trapped. I documented the bodies of civilians found inside their homes and in their yards. It was snowing and freezing, but traumatized civilians who had been seeking shelter underground throughout the fighting were out among all the mangled Russian military equipment. They looked both relieved and traumatized. I met a woman, Larisa Savenko,72, who held her hands up and fought back tears as she explained that she’d had no way to escape, nor did she want to abandon her home. “Five gunmen entered my house,” she said. “They looked at our documents and took our phones away. The Russians told us that we are lucky to have them, because other troops would have already shot us. Andrii Zabarylo, 55, said every group of Russian soldiers he encountered was more aggressive than the ones before. “They told me and my neighbor and his son to lay on the ground, and then they fired shots within 20 cm from our heads,” he said. “One of the soldiers said that they would kill the older men and take my neighbor’s son with them. At that moment, we thought we will be dead. But then their commander told the soldiers not to kill us.”

Text and Photos By Heidi Levine Maj. Rebecca Schieble, 28, had to bind her breasts to stop producing milk when she was deployed to Iraq. Chaplain Maj. Jennifer Johnson says missing her daughter's prom almost broke her heart. Capt. Kristina Connelley wants very much to have a child but is now relegated to hearing her husband, who she outranks, whispering "I love you" as they share a quick, illicit squeeze of hands. Today, female soldiers train alongside male colleagues, learning how to fire assault weapons and move under direct and indirect fire. Accounting for 15 percent of all service people and 10 percent of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, women work as engineers, truck drivers, and pilots and weapons experts, doctors, nurses and military police. Jobs once closed to these women are slowly opening up. But they still face unique problems. Despite this historical record high percentage of females now enlisted in the US armed forces we know very little about these woman, ranging in age from their teens to their 50's. Some of them are fresh out high school trying to navigate their way in life and yet many of them have been seasoned by life and have children and even grandchildren thousands of miles away back home. Some of these women are just falling in love for their first time and yet there are others who are trying to hold their lives together after a torn marriage, others are caught fighting to maintain their family lives the best they can by grasping onto the Internet and their web cam cameras despite the long distance and long separation. Their political views are varied and many have been altered during their deployment but the common thread that intertwines these women of all roles, religion, age and sociological backgrounds together is their goal to be recognized in the US army as not a female nor a male but to become the best soldier they possibly can.