Since the start of the conflict in January 2009, seven thousand civilians are reported to have been killed and thousands more maimed by heavy shellings by the Sri Lankan military and shootings by LTTE fighters.
Mashchermet and neighboring Cherevkivka, both hit last by heavy shelling night, are residential areas where locals estimate up to 70percentt of the civilian population remains.
At the time, the second intifada (uprising) against the Israeli occupation was under way, with an escalating cycle of violence from both sides: frequent suicide bombings carried out by Palestinian militants, and incursions, shootings, shellings and demolitions by the Israeli military.
The regime's reaction, to unilaterally punish communities by bulldozing and shelling entire neighbourhoods in Rafah, is in clear breach of international law.
"Over 50% of the city has been destroyed by air strikes, shelling and during the fights between the YPG and Isis," he said.
This figure includes around 140 people killed by government-aligned forces in airstrikes and shellings of rebel-held areas, 19 of them children, it said.
Omitted are the dozens of IEDs that were found before they went off or didn't injure anyone; numerous small-time shellings and shootings; and discoveries of arms caches by US forces, none of which was large.
Of course it's all illegal, and a risk, but by this point I'd survived massacres, I'd survived shellings... the risk of taking a fake passport to the airport is nothing compared to all that.
Before that, shellings and exchanges of fire between the two rival armies had become a routine since an insurgency supported by Pakistan began in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1990, seeking independence from Indian rule.
On April 19, the police recorded at least seven shellings.
