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Rapillion's JournalDistraught Dutch Mother: Send my children home
Source: AP
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A distraught, grieving mother summed up a swelling mood of despair and anguish in the Netherlands on Sunday at faltering efforts to repatriate the bodies of loved ones killed in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, appealing directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin to return the bodies of her son and his girlfriend.
Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand, whose son Bryce and his girlfriend, Daisy Oehlers, were killed when the plane was shot down Thursday over Ukraine, said she was appalled their bodies and those of other victims had been left lying for days.
"I am not a politician," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "But I know for sure that Mr. Putin can do something."
Earlier, at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, she made a simple, but heart-rending appeal to the Russian president: "Mr. Putin, send my children home," she told Sky TV. "Send them home. Please."
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/prayers-across-netherlands-ukraine-crash-dead
Israel-Gaza conflict: Israeli military ‘using flechette rounds in Gaza Strip’
Source: Independent (UK)
The Israeli military is reportedly using flechette shells in its offensive in Gaza, weapons described as illegal under “rules of humanitarian law” by an Israeli human rights organisation.
Generally fired by a tank and described as an “imprecise weapon” ill-suited to combat in a built-up area, flechette shells explode in the air above a target, sending out a cone of thousands of tiny steel darts each no more than 4cm (1.57 ins) long.
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), six such shells were fired towards the village of Khuzaa in the Gaza Strip on 17 July, the Guardian reported.
The PCHR was described as saying that a woman, 37-year-old Nahla Khalil Najjar, suffered injuries to her chest in the flechette shelling, and pictures purporting to show the ammunition were passed on by a PCHR fieldworker.
When approached by the newspaper, the Israeli military did not deny using the shells in the conflict, saying that it only deploys weapons “determined lawful under international law”.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israelgaza-conflict-israeli-military-using-flechette-rounds-in-gaza-strip-9617480.html
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