An Israeli naval vessel has hit a small boat carrying activists trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Dignity was reportedly taking on water as it limped towards Lebanon on Tuesday. The Free Gaza Movement, which organised the attempt to reach the territory with more than three tonnes of medical aid, said their boat was "rammed" and shots were fired.
http://english.aljazeera.net/
Gaza relief boat carrying Cynthia McKinney rammed by Israelis
An Israeli patrol boat intercepted a yacht carrying three tons of medical supplies to Gaza in international waters early on Tuesday as it attempted to run an Israeli blockade. According to those on board, the patrol boat accused the relief vessel of being involved in terrorist activity and then deliberately rammed it, forcing it to return to port in Lebanon.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Gaza Emergency Appeal: Gaza Hospitals Already Filled to Capacity; Medical Supplies on the Verge of Depletion
Since the beginning of attacks in Gaza three days ago, over 300 people have been reported dead, more than 1000 wounded, and many hundreds more are in need of immediate medical attention. With a medical system already on the verge of collapse as a result of the ongoing closure, 1.4 million civilians are in desperate need of urgent medical help from outside the Gaza Strip. PHR-Israel has the means to transfer this help within days and is seeking to raise 700,000 USD during the next week for purchase and direct transfer of supplies to Gaza hospitals.
http://www.phr.org.il/phr/
Grave threat that Gaza violence will leave thousands more children malnourished
Save the Children warns that thousands more children could be pushed over the limit into malnutrition if there is not a break in the violence so food aid can be distributed. Already before the strikes began, one in four children in Gaza was suffering from malnutrition.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Israeli attacks on Gaza bring death toll to 384, 1,700 injured Tuesday
In the fourth day of massacre on Gaza Israeli forces the death toll has reached 384 with the number of injuries at 1,700 as of 5:30 pm. Targets are vast while those hit include children and families in mourning. Israeli forces dropped a missile which partially destroyed a house that was hosting a gathering of mourners. Speaking to news crews a man with blood coming from his forehead said, "We will all be martyrs."
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
At least 30 children killed in Gaza Strip, Israeli spokesperson says they are legitimate target
Not only are children in the Gaza Strip losing their parents, missing food, medicines and school, they are being killed. Israeli forces took the lives of at least 30 children in Gaza since air attacks began on Saturday. A statement issued by the Global Movement for the Defense of Children says its initial reports indicate that another 150 children are injured.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
At least 10 Palestinians killed in fresh Israeli strikes on Tuesday at dawn
Dr. Moawiya Hassanen, head of the Emergency Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, reported that the Israeli air force carried further air strikes on Tuesday at dawn and killed 10 Palestinians. The army also shelled medics trying to evacuate casualties, injuries were reported. Death toll mounts to more than 360 in less than four days, nearly 1700 wounded.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Hebron University students injured as rally mourning Gaza dead clashes with Israeli forces
The student council at the Hebron University organized a demonstration to condemn Israeli violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip Monday afternoon. The demonstration march became a clash with Israeli troops and nine students were injured. Hundreds of students gathered for a press conference on the university campus where student leaders delivered speeches condemning the attacks.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
PNI Mourns the Vicious Murders of Two Young Girls
Ramallah, 30-12-08: Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, The Secretary General of the Palestinian Initiative has expressed this morning his deepest regrets regarding the latest children killing in the Gaza Strip. This morning, Israeli missiles directly hit a donkey cart driven by two young sisters, aged four and eleven. The sisters were throwing garbage bags into dumpsters outside their home in Jabaliya. Medical sources said Israeli missiles made a direct hit on the girls, and a third sister was loaded onto a donkey carriage and transported to Gaza City's hospital.
http://www.palestinemonitor.
Motorcycle-riding Hamas gunman kills suspected Palestinian collaborator
A gunman on a motorbike shot dead a fellow Palestinian near a Gaza hospital on Monday as militants settled scores with those suspected of collaboration with Israel. Witnesses said the gunman fired three times into the head and chest of a man who fled from detention on Sunday after an Israeli air attack blew up the security complex housing Gaza's main prison.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
200 youth kidnapped by the Israeli army and police in Jerusalem in four days
Israeli media sources reported on Tuesday that the Israeli army and police have kidnapped at least 200 Palestinian young men from several parts of Jerusalem city during the past four days.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Israeli army attacks Nablus city and imposes curfew in nearby town
Palestinian security sources reported that an Israeli army force invaded the Northern West Bank city of Nablus and nearby Hawowra town on Tuesday morning.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Resident of Rafah refuses to leave home despite Israeli attacks
A resident of Yibna camp is staying in his house despite the evacuation of the camp by the Red Crescent following expectations of intensified Israeli attacks on the area. In Yibna Camp in Rafah, Ahmed Mansour has been forced to choose between his life and his home.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/
Red Crescent evacuating neigbourhoods in Rafah
The Red Crescent in Gaza is evacuating people from the neighborhoods in Rafah located along the border with Egypt. According to the international Human Rights Volunteers in Gaza, people are being mobilized to leave the area as urgently as possible.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/
Interviews with residents of Rafah
This is a longer video report, including interviews, of the aftermath of the bombing of the pharmacy in Hi Alijnina on the 28th December.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/
Five Settlers Stabbed in Different Attacks in the West Bank
Israeli Military sources reported that five Israeli settlers were wounded on Monday in two separate stabbing attacks carried out in two of Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, the Arabs48 news website reported.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Projectile attacks kill Israeli soldier, civilian, injure 34 others
Bethlehem – Ma'an – Israeli medical sources announced on Monday night the death of two Israelis as Palestinian projectiles landed in the Israeli cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ofakim in the western Negev, and Nahal Oz military base. One of the dead was a soldier, killed near the border wall in northern Gaza, and the second was a civilian woman who died in an attack on Ashdod. An additional 34 Israelis were injured in the attacks, and were taken to nearby hospitals. Medical sources said three are seriously injured.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
PRC spokesman urges IDF troops to 'fight like men'
Gaza group's spokesman urges Israel to launch ground incursion; death toll in Strip up to 350.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
ANALYSIS / Hamas is hoping for an IDF ground operation in Gaza
Three days into Operation Cast Lead, Israel is proposing a diplomatic exit. A ground operation likely looms in an effort to increase the pressure on Hamas. At the same time, however, others argue that the air force is close to exhausting its target bank, so if Hamas can be brought to accept a cease-fire on terms convenient to Israel in the near future it would be better to do so.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Gaza without electricity, water
GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - As a result of a major Israeli offensive on 27 December against the Gaza Strip a dire humanitarian situation looms, according to aid officials. Gaza had been teetering on the edge of such a crisis even before the Israeli offensive: humanitarian access to Gaza has been severely restricted by Israel since early November. Now infrastructure in several areas has been destroyed, leaving residents without electricity and water.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Gaza hospitals 'overwhelmed' by wounded from IDF strikes
Since the start of Saturday's aerial offensive, the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has reached approximately 340 and the number of wounded passed the 1,000 mark. Every hour the list of killed and wounded grows amid the constant bombardment.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
OPT: Spain sends emergency aid to Gaza
The convoy is carrying fifty crates of hospital supplies, painkillers, and antibiotics with the potential to provide medical assistance for two weeks under the current circumstances, or for three months in a normal situation.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Iraqi gov't orders urgent Gaza aid
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The Iraqi government on Tuesday announced that it will send medical and food assistance to the Gaza Strip, which has been bombarded by Israeli war planes. "The aid stuff will be provided by the ministries of health and trade, and in cooperation with the ministries of defense and foreign affairs," an official [...]
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=
Egypt to keep Gaza border closed: Mubarak
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday slammed what he called Israel's "savage aggression" on the Gaza Strip, and said its "bloodstained hands" were stirring feelings of rage among Arabs. Mubarak however said that Egypt will keep its border crossings with Gaza closed.
http://www.alarabiya.net/
Egypt prevents surgeons from entering into Gaza Strip despite growing death toll
Hamas Movement has deplored on Monday the Egyptian government for blocking Egyptian surgeons from crossing into the beleaguered Gaza Strip to help their Palestinian comrades.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Egypt should 'allow more hurt Gazans through'
Wounded Palestinians finally passed through the Rafah crossing into Egypt yesterday as medical aid went in the other direction to the devastated Gaza Strip.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/
Egypt takes 15 out of 1,700 injured for treatment
Palestinian Minister of Health Dr. Fathi Abu Mgali said today that 15 Palestinians were able to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Officials in the neighboring country issued an invitation to Palestinians on the first day of the Israeli bombings for the injured to enter for treatment.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!
I'm not calling for a coup d'etat, but go talk to your leaders and tell them you do not accept what is happening in Gaza. – Hezbollah Sec-Gen Hasan Nasrallah calling for Egyptians "in millions" to demonstrate their support for opening the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt, 28 December 2008
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/
Spokesman: Egypt "displeased" with consulate attack in Yemen
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned an attack against Egypt's consulate in the Yemeni city of Aden, the state MENA news agency reported. Egypt is "displeased with the attempt to break into its consulate" in Aden, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki was quoted as saying.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Arabs turn on Egypt for collusion over siege
Tens of thousands of Arabs took to the streets for the second day to protest against Israel's deadly assault on Gaza as a huge wave of anger spreads across the Middle East.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
Health ministry: aid started to flow in and some wounded crossed Rafah
Ala' al-Batta, coordinator of medical aid at the ministry of health in the Gaza Strip said that the Egyptian authorities started to allow in medical urgent aid into the Gaza Strip.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Fatah feels pressure as tensions rise
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK // Shops were open in Ramallah yesterday, after being closed on Saturday and Sunday in solidarity with the people of Gaza. But things are far from normal in this West Bank town, the administrative centre of the Palestinian Authority.
http://www.thenational.ae/
Western-backed Arab governments under pressure as Israel continues Gaza strikes
Israel's offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is putting western-backed Arab governments under pressure from Islamist movements at home and in the region, as well as from Iran, which is racheting up its rhetoric against the US and Israel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Iraqi Parliamentarian to His People: "It's Not Between Palestinians and Israelis, it's Between Terrorists and Moderates"
"We understand why this fight started, and if someone starts something, he has to finish," he says. He also referred to connections between some of the extremist religious political parties in Iraq and Hamas, all of whom he says receive funding from Iran, and all of whom are the enemies of free people who oppose terrorism and fanaticism.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
See also comment by Angry Arab:Heather Robinson: a new expert on Iraq
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
American Task Force for Palestine statement
"ATFP deplored the disproportionate force employed by Israel and expressed deep concern for the well-being of the innocent civilian population in Gaza. ATFP also reiterated its demand that the reckless and provocative rocket attacks aimed at Israel immediately stop."
http://www.americantaskforce.
Hamas: Abbas is preparing to take over after Israel leaves Gaza
Hamas' website, the Palestinian Information Center, posted an article accusing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of preparing to take control of the Gaza Strip after Israel topples Hamas.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Fatah leader calls on Hamas to return confiscated weapons
Nablus – Ma'an – A senior West Bank Fatah leader on Tuesday called on Hamas to return weapons confiscated from Fatah militants during the 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip. Ghassan Al-Masri, a leading Fatah official in Nablus, said that in light of Israel's threats to launch a ground invasion, it has become a national duty for Hamas to hand back the confiscated weapons for other militants' use.
He explained that the Palestinian people must unite "under these conditions in order to counter Israeli aggression." He noted that "one Palestinian faction (Hamas)" cannot stop the Israeli invasion "on its own."
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Fatah sidelined, Hamas gains status as principal resistance
RAMALLAH, West Bank - On the wall of the Israeli government press office in Jerusalem is a stack of yellow Post-it notes pasted one on top of the other, with the number 10,048 scrawled on the top one. That is the number of Palestinian rockets and mortar shells fired into Israel from Gaza since 2001.
http://www.boston.com/news/
Palestinian MK tossed out of Israeli Knesset session
Opposition leader Benjamin Natenyahu was the first to offend moderate elements in the room through his vocal support for an aggressive and "bloody" operation against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, applauding atrocities committed by the Israeli army there.
Baraka, unable to restrain himself, told Netanyahu to "shut up and stop dancing over shed blood." Immediately, another member Netanyahu's Likud Party, Gilad Arden, told Baraka to "go to Gaza," causing the latter to answer, "Of course I would go to show solidarity with my people." Another rightist member of the Knesset, Avigdor Liberman, said to Baraka, "Go there and don't come back." Baraka fired back, "I and my people will remain a thorn in your and your likes' throat." Following that comment, Knesset Speaker Dalia Itsik ordered Baraka out of the session. On his way out, an extreme rightist Member of Knesset Ardan said to Baraka, "You are a racist." Baraka replied, "you are a shoe." Following that comment, Knesset Member Auri Ariel told Baraka in a challenging manner, "Hit him with your shoe." Baraka apparently started to oblige, removing his shoe, before Israeli Knesset security removed him from the building.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Three days of mass demonstrations do more for national unity than a month of meetings
ImageBethlehem / Najib Farrag – Bethlehem continued to demonstrate in solidarity with the Gaza Strip for the third day Monday. Residents of Beit Jala, Beit Sahour and villages throughout the province took to the streets and fields where Israeli soldiers are blocking the land, scarring the territory with the grey Wall and sniper towers.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4342&Itemid=1
Israeli strikes in Gaza risk political win for Hamas
The Islamist militants in Gaza may emerge as a symbol of defiance, much as Hezbollah did in its 2006 war with Israel.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1230/p01s04-wome.html
ImageBethlehem / Najib Farrag – Bethlehem continued to demonstrate in solidarity with the Gaza Strip for the third day Monday. Residents of Beit Jala, Beit Sahour and villages throughout the province took to the streets and fields where Israeli soldiers are blocking the land, scarring the territory with the grey Wall and sniper towers.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Israeli strikes in Gaza risk political win for Hamas
The Islamist militants in Gaza may emerge as a symbol of defiance, much as Hezbollah did in its 2006 war with Israel.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/
Arab World Losing Tolerance For Indifferent Leaders
When people feel there is no justice in the world and no legitimate outlet for their justified frustration, things tend to boil over. And that's what happened at a huge anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstration in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a.
http://www.
368 Martyrs, 1,750 Injured as Arab Moderates Hibernate
Israel's genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza has entered its fourth day. More martyrs, more injured, more destruction, more Arab and international silence and more Palestinian steadfastness. The number of Palestinian martyrs has risen in the last few hours to more than 368 people while the number of injured Palestinians has reached 1,750.
http://almanar.com.lb/
Abul Gheit Assails Sayyed Nasrallah Over Protest Calls
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit assailed Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah for calling on the Egyptian people to stand with their brothers being slaughtered in Gaza.
http://almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=68512&language=en
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit assailed Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah for calling on the Egyptian people to stand with their brothers being slaughtered in Gaza.
http://almanar.com.lb/
Hezbollah Restrained By Domestic Politics Watches From Sidelines
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah guerrilla movement _ widely seen as the Arab world's most effective force against Israel _ is a staunch Hamas supporter but has so far held its fire as its Palestinian ally faces down Israel's assault in Gaza.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
UN official says Israel attacked during lull
UNRWA commissioner says Israel may have violated informal truce with Palestinains, as Gazans believed Israel had called a 48-hour truce before attacking
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Only mild Security Council criticism for Israeli attacks
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - After an emergency closed-door session Sunday night, the 15-member Security Council issued a politically bland statement expressing "serious concern" over the devastating Israeli air strikes on Gaza and calling for an "immediate halt to all violence." The statement was predictable because the United States, a traditionally loyal Israeli ally, would never agree to anything smacking of a "censure" or "condemnation" of Israel -- even as the death toll rose to more than 300 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Kucinich: UN should investigate Israeli Gaza strikes
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called for an independent investigation to be led by the United Nations into the recent eruption of violence between Israel and Hamas along the Gaza strip that has killed scores of innocent civilians.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/
Desmond Tutu: 'Gaza attack akin to war crimes'
Israel's bombardment of Gaza "bears all the hallmarks of war crimes", Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said in a statement on Sunday. "In the context of total aerial supremacy, in which one side in a conflict deploys lethal aircraft against opponents with no means of defending themselves, the bombardment bears all the hallmarks of war crimes."
http://www.iol.co.za/index.
EU to press Israel on ceasing Gaza operation
France and Great Britain will present a proposal on Tuesday aimed at forcing a cease-fire on Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Source hints Gaza offensive may spur Hezbollah to attack
A senior Lebanese journalist who is close to Hezbollah hinted Monday that the pro-Iranian Lebanese group could attack Israel in response to the IDF offensive in Gaza. Ibrahim Al-Amin, editor of the Al-Ahbar newspaper, also wrote in an extended article on the events in the Gaza Strip that Hamas would respond with rockets of a new type, capable of striking areas of Israel which were previously out of range.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Resistance to Israeli occupation – a right?
Palestinians are a people under occupation who has the right to self-determination under the UN Charter, the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations from 1970, and Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
http://www.
New U.S. policy needed toward Israelis and Palestinians
Israeli forces have just killed and wounded hundreds of Palestinians in the very neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip where I have worked for decades to help establish clinics. As I walk the orderly San Francisco streets, Gazans struggle to clear the rubble on theirs. I know that my tax dollars have helped pay for the Israeli planes that attacked densely packed Gaza cities, tore bodies asunder and sent schoolchildren fleeing in fear.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
Gaza City viewpoint: 'My cousin is still under the rubble'
Mona El Farra, a paediatrician from Gaza City who now lives in the UK, tells of her feelings about Israel's assault in Gaza
'I didn't see any of my girls, just a pile of bricks'
The family house was small: three rooms, a tiny kitchen and bathroom, built of poor-quality concrete bricks with a corrugated asbestos roof, in block four of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. There are hundreds of similar homes crammed into the overcrowded streets, filled with some of the poorest and most vulnerable families in the Gaza Strip.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Five sisters killed while they slept
The five Palestinian sisters were fast asleep when a night-time Israeli airstrike hit the next-door mosque in Gaza. One of the walls collapsed on to their small asbestos-roofed home and they were all killed in their beds. The eldest sister, Tahrir, was 17 years old, the youngest, Jawaher, just four.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Breakfast delay keeps dad at home ahead of Gaza strikes
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip —Saturday began as another ordinary day in Gaza. I was preparing to leave my apartment, on the sixth floor of a 13-story building in the western part of Gaza City, to drive five minutes to my office near the center. My wife, Beesan, and our three daughters were having breakfast. One of my daughters asked me to have something to eat before I left. At first I told her no, I can't. I'm a little bit late. She insisted that I eat something, so I agreed.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Children too scared to step outside
You can tell those moving about Gaza City by the mattresses on the car roofs. The streets are mostly deserted but some people are shifting from one house to another, trying to guess where the bombs might land and put distance between themselves and possible targets. Others are heading to the bakeries where there are long queues for bread. There is wreckage everywhere.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Amira Hass / Uncertainty and bombing keep Gazans awake and fearful of who will be next
Abu Salah's family lives in Gaza's Nasser neighborhood - close enough to hear the bombings targeting the home next to that of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in the Shati refugee camp, and close enough to hear the attacks on Haniyeh's office, which also hit the UN building.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
'We are all scared. My youngest daughter is panicked … none of us sleep properly'
Salwa El Tibi, Save the Children UK's Gaza programme manager, is in the Gaza Strip with her four children aged seven, 14,15 and 19.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Gaza father: my daughter tries to hide herself in her mother but there is nowhere safe
Moheed Sha'ath is married with a two year old daughter. Their home is near the Islamic University in Gaza City. Both the university, including a girls' dormitory, and neighboring ministerial buildings were specifically targeted two out of the four days of Israeli air attacks. "I want to tell you about the two nights, yesterday and the day before, when we couldn't sleep until five in the morning."
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Robert Fisk: Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony
How easy it is to snap off the history of the Palestinians, to delete the narrative of their tragedy, to avoid a grotesque irony about Gaza which – in any other conflict – journalists would be writing about in their first reports: that the original, legal owners of the Israeli land on which Hamas rockets are detonating live in Gaza.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Seumas Milne: Israel's onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed
Israel's decision to launch its devastating attack on Gaza on a Saturday was a "stroke of brilliance", the country's biggest selling paper Yediot Aharonot crowed: "the element of surprise increased the number of people who were killed". The daily Ma'ariv agreed: "We left them in shock and awe".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Israel's Wanton Aggression On Gaza
It's not the first time and won't be the last. On December 27, AP reported that: 'Israeli aircraft struck Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous attacks, and Hamas and medics reported dozens of people were killed.'
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Analysis: Israel keeps objectives vague
AP - Israel has dropped tons of bombs on the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented show of force to make Hamas stop rocket attacks, but it has not said it will try to topple the Islamic militants who have ruled the territory for 18 months.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
Why would Israel bomb a university?
Last night, during the second night of Israel's unprecedented attack on Gaza, I was awakened by the deafening sound of intensive bombardment on the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). Of course Israeli politicians and generals would claim that IUG is a Hamas stronghold and that it preaches terrorism. As an independent professor, not affiliated with any political party, I can say that IUG is an academic institution which embraces a wide spectrum of political affinities. Dr. Akram Habeeb writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Gaza: A Campaign to Perpetuate the Occupation
Israel's military operation called Molten Lead started on Saturday, December 27, 2008 and took more than 200 lives in its first day, much to the satisfaction of the Israeli public. Already on Friday there were cries of "Go get 'em!" from the columns of the leading newspapers, and on Saturday the Gazans got what Israelis have long been wishing them. This was no spontaneous operation, no mere response to the recent firing of rockets on the towns of the Negev. In the preceding half year of calm, while warning that Hamas was arming itself, Israel carefully planned the attack to extract the highest possible price.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
"They are wrong to think we are the terrorists"
Saturday was supposed to be a normal day -- at least as close to normal as we are allowed to enjoy in Gaza. Where else but in Gaza are students killed in air strikes on their classrooms? From my desk in my university classroom we could see the smoke from Israel's bombing and hear the most terrifying sound of non-stop explosions. Eman Mohammed writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Victims of Israel's Latest Experiment
There is no point in preparing an introduction to this article. Why waste words on compositional niceties when the only thing I can offer is that I'm at a total loss. There are no words or expressions that could ever fully explain what I and other Palestinians are feeling at this moment in time. Since Saturday afternoon, most of us here have been glued to the television, mutely taking in details of the latest bombed target and watching horrific footage of bloodied men, women and children, body parts strewn about, and people offering last minute prayers in the rubble of their homes because they think they're about to die. The hospital scenes offer no consolation, as doctors and nurses wearing bloodied scrubs attempt to aid the injured, knowing full well that they do not have the medical supplies to do so effectively.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Sheket! Why Jews True to Their Heritage, Cannot
'Sheket'! My Hebrew school teacher, Mr. Gold, may his memory be a blessing, would tell me to 'Shut Up!' now, as he did so many times nearly 50 years ago. But I cannot.
The siege and attack on the Palestine in Gaza is so fundamentally Anti-Jewish that I must speak out. To be silent is to stand with the millions who looked on while Jewish baby boys at precisely the time I was born into the world in Virginia, died at the hands of Nazis and their collaborators in Eastern Europe. I know this to be true because I have researched it at the Holocaust Museum. I know the dates, places and the events. Those crimes are part of my family history. Our souls are united; they died and I lived.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Jesse Kornbluth: Dead Children In School Uniforms In Gaza City: A Nagging Thought About 'Collateral Damage'
So Israel chose a non-military target in Gaza City because Hamas had placed its missile-launchers there. Very interesting, if true. Half a world away, reading media that casts every Israeli action as a reaction, I have no idea what's true. All I know is that, as I read the first news report in The New York Times, I kept returning to the paragraphs about the surprise of the Palestinians: police cadets at a graduation ceremony, women in the marketplace, kids finishing their school day. One sentence obsessed me: "The dead included civilians, including several construction workers and at least two children in school uniforms."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Nathan Gonzalez: The Lesson Israel Should Have Never Learned
On August 12, 1982, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign over Beirut that came to be known as "Black Thursday." In the conflagration's aftermath, over five hundred Lebanese and Palestinian civilians lay dead, countless were displaced, and widespread hunger and infestation took hold in the absence of running water and food.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Robert Naiman: The Gaza War is Completely Stoppable
We have seen this movie before. In the summer of 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon. Replace "Hizbullah" with "Hamas" and "Lebanon" with "Gaza," and much we have seen in the last few days is depressingly familiar. Once again, the Israeli military assault is justified on the basis of the need to stop rocket attacks on Israel, even though it is widely conceded that this will not be the result. Once again, establishment voices in Washington give carte blanche to the military action, even though few believe it will accomplish its stated objectives, and everyone understands that it will impose a huge political cost for the United States around the world, especially in the Arab and Muslim world.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Simon Tisdall: International impotence gives Israel a free hand in Gaza
The clamour for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is growing in intensity even as Israel's determination to press home its attack on Hamas grows more dogged. The unfolding result of this fatal divergence is both an escalating humanitarian disaster and a diplomatic debacle for the "international community" that tasked itself with bringing peace to Israel-Palestine.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
How we like our leaders, By Amira Hass
This isn't the time to speak of ethics, but of precise intelligence. Whoever gave the instructions to send 100 of our planes, piloted by the best of our boys, to bomb and strafe enemy targets in Gaza is familiar with the many schools adjacent to those targets - especially police stations. He also knew that at exactly 11:30 A.M. on Saturday, during the surprise assault on the enemy, all the children of the Strip would be in the streets - half just having finished the morning shift at school, the others en route to the afternoon shift.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Greg Mitchell: Isareli Journalist Decries Civilian Casualties in Gaza -- But Who is Amira Hass?
A powerful column appears today in the Jerusalem daily Haaretz, written by one of its top correspondents, Amira Hass, reporting on Gaza, which opens: "This isn't the time to speak of ethics, but of precise intelligence. Whoever gave the instructions to send 100 of our planes, piloted by the best of our boys, to bomb and strafe enemy targets in Gaza is familiar with the many schools adjacent to those targets -- especially police stations. He also knew that at exactly 11:30 A.M. on Saturday, during the surprise assault on the enemy, all the children of the Strip would be in the streets - half just having finished the morning shift at school, the others en route to the afternoon shift."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Gaza and the World: Will Things Ever Change?
In times of crisis, most Arabs tune in to Aljazeera television. Sometimes it's comforting for the truth to be stated the way it is, with all of its gory and unsettling details, without blemishes and without censorship. When Israel carried out massive air strikes against Gaza on Saturday, December 27, terrorizing an already hostage and malnourished population, I too tuned in to Aljazeera.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Déjà vu in Gaza
There it is again, the cyclical "déjà vu war." That same ceremonial bloodshed that again is being poured into the hot lava that has been leading the entire region to misery for dozens of years now. To be honest, one is fatigued by the need to divide the seventh day of the Six-Day War into "operations," "w ars," "battles," "operations," and "campaigns." All of them constitute one ongoing war; one great butcher shop. The war of occupier against occupied, and the war of the occupied against the occupier.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Pro-Palestine Group Tries To Lobby Obama At Golf Course
An interesting political moment occurred Monday as Barack Obama was set to play golf with a group of friends. A couple approached the President-elect's security detail and begged them to deliver a set of "informational" DVDs on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The group delivering the package expressed sympathy for the Palestinian people and concern that Obama's approach to the conflict would mirror that of George W. Bush. Unfortunately for them, the Secret Service refused to deliver the box. And Obama went on to play his round of golf -- after hitting some poor range balls and instructing the press to stop watching him swing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Silence has become complicity
Is the incoming president, world-renowned for his eloquence, about to become better known for his silence? Barack Obama may not have assumed office yet but a war is already being conducted in his name. Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, now says that Israel is engaged in a "war to the bitter end" against Hamas in Gaza. And in justifying this war to Israel's state assembly, the Knesset, Barak said: "Obama said that if rockets were being fired at his home while his two daughters were sleeping, he would do everything he could to prevent it."
http://warincontext.org/2008/
Ben Cohen: Obama's Silence on Gaza is Deafening
Barack Obama must be given a lot of credit for his remarkable ascent to power, particularly in terms of the dignified way in which he did it. But there is a dark side to his rise to the Presidency, one progressives and liberals do not like to acknowledge. Barack Obama had to do two things to persuade the powers that be that he was a viable candidate for President. The first was to assure the financial community that he would commit to a centrist economic platform, and the second was to sell out the Palestinians immediately and jump in bed with AIPAC.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Obama Defers to Bush, for Now, on Gaza Crisis
WASHINGTON — When President-elect Barack Obama went to Israel in July — to the very town, in fact, whose repeated shelling culminated in this weekend's new fighting in Gaza — he all but endorsed the punishing Israeli attacks now unfolding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/
U.S. Middle East Policy a Disaster
If you've ever wondered why there is continued violence between the Israelis and Palestinians for the past 40 years all you need to do is look at U.S. Policy. Let's take the current situation in Gaza. The Israelis claim that they have ended the 40 year seize in Gaza yet Israel's blockade has forced 1.5 million people in Gaza to go without food, medical care, heating fuel, electricity, clean water and facilities and infrastructure necessary to life or even a half-way decent standard of living. Israel controls the land, sea, and air preventing anyone from entering or leaving.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Tariq Ali: In the face of Israel's latest onslaught against Hamas in Gaza, the only option for Palestinian nationalism is to embrace a one-state solution
The assault on Gaza, planned over six months and executed with perfect timing, was designed largely, as Neve Gordon has rightly observed, to help the incumbent parties triumph in the forthcoming Israeli elections. The dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder in a cynical contest between the right and the far right in Israel. Washington and its EU allies, perfectly aware that Gaza was about to be assaulted, as in the case of Lebanon in 2006, sit back and watch.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
The dogs of war
As a consequence of his foreign policy misadventures, Bush leaves the Middle East in flames and America's reputation in tatters. Yet, one thing has remained constant for the aloof president: deference to an Israeli "show of strength" rather than diplomacy. Only a year ago, Bush hosted the Annapolis conference that "relaunched" the "peace process" and then predictably stood by as it stalled out. Unable to launch a war against Iran, capture Osama bin Laden, pacify Afghanistan or Iraq, or broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace, rather than ride into the sunset in the waning days of his presidency, Bush is determined to leave in a final blaze of malicious incompetence. As it has been so often over the past eight years, the site of his enmity is Gaza. Osamah Khalil comments for The Electronic Intifada.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Palestine doesn't get to have a 9/11
In September 2001, a group of terrorists from al Qaeda killed over three thousand Americans in New York. US friends and enemies alike condemned the attacks and the attackers. Debates that occurred were about how discriminate America should be in seeking revenge and justice. The horrors of 9/11 are invoked whenever questions arise about US occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan. The US is allowed to use the suffering and deaths of its people to justify what it has done.
http://www.zcommunications.
U.S. Media Bias on Gaza Crisis Favors Israel
The Islamic University in Gaza is destroyed. Few media question this. The Israeli PR offensive leading up to its calculated assault on the Gaza Strip is paying dividends. The Israeli publicity machine has effectively framed this murderous spree against Palestinians and Hamas in Gaza as a reasoned, defensive measure. Even though it has killed 350 Palestinians, most of whom are civilians, and injured one thousand more, Israel is being presented in media as a normal, morally-acting state.
http://www.kabobfest.com/2008/
Meet the Lebanese Press: Gazing towards Gaza
Like much of the world press, Israel's war on Gaza dominates the headlines in Lebanon. Massive protests in Beirut, particularly at the Egyptian embassy, took place. In an address to the tens of thousands of demonstrators, Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called, among other things, for ordinary Egyptians to open up the crossing at the Egypt-Gaza border by force and in defiance of government security forces. Nasrallah's explicit condemnation of the Egyptian regime and the stern response by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit reflects the long-term impact of the Gaza war on the dynamics of regional alliances playing out in Lebanon.
http://electronicintifada.net/
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant
The assault on the Gaza Ghetto, planned over six months and executed with perfect timing was designed largely to help the incumbent parties triumph in the forthcoming Israeli elections. The dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder in a cynical contest between the Right and the Far Right in Israel. Washington and its EU allies, perfectly aware that Gaza was about to be assaulted, as in the case of Lebanon a few years, sit back and watch. Washington, as is its wont, blames the pro-Hamas Palestinians, with Obama and Bush singing from the same AIPAC hymn sheet.
http://www.counterpunch.com/
Laila El-Haddad: Bloodied in Gaza
"There is a complete blackout in Gaza now. The streets are as still as death." I am speaking to my father, Moussa el-Haddad, a retired physician who lives in Gaza City, on Skype, from Durham, North Carolina in the United States, where I have been since mid 2006 – the month Gaza's borders were hermetically sealed by Israel, and the blockade of the occupied territory further enforced.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Pacifying Gaza
Defense Minister Ehud Barak (the Hebrew surname means "lightning," German "Blitz") did it again: a historic record of over 200 Palestinians killed in a single Sabbath's blitz (Dec. 27). Polls now predict five additional Knesset seats for his Labor Party in the coming February general election. That's 40 Palestinian corpses per seat. No wonder he promises it's just the beginning: at this pace, it will take Labor just about two thousand additional corpses to go from rags to riches, from a dead political party to an absolute majority in parliament like in the good old days.
http://www.antiwar.com/
From Dachau to Gaza
During the summer of 1982 I had the opportunity to visit the Nazi concentration camp just outside Dachau , Germany and then the little town itself. Given the proximity of the town to the camp, my immediate reaction was: "This town is so close to the camp that the citizens of Dachau must have known what was going on out there. Why did they not do anything about it?" I had the exact same reaction during the last two weeks of May 1986 as I traveled up and down the West Bank and Gaza Strip in order to investigate Israel 's atrocities and war crimes against the Palestinians.
http://globalresearch.ca/
The Gaza calamities
AS ISRAELI bombing raids over Gaza kill and maim civilians along with Hamas militants, arguments about which side caused the collapse of a cease-fire that prevailed since last June seem beside the point. The suffering of civilians already subjected to an economic blockade is seen around the world for what it is: a humanitarian calamity. Every day the bombing continues, it distances Israelis and Palestinians from the two-state peace accord both peoples desperately need.
http://www.boston.com/
Israeli electioneering with bombs
Of the three politicians who announced the military assault on Gaza to the world on Saturday, perhaps only the outgoing Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has little to lose -- or gain -- from its outcome. Flanking the Israeli prime minister were two of the main contenders for his job: Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the new leader of Olmert's centrist party, Kadima, and Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the left-wing Labor Party.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Union urges immediate boycott following Gaza university bombing
The Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees condemns in the strongest possible terms the bombing today of the campus of the Islamic University in Gaza. This wanton destruction of an academic institution is only the latest in the ongoing lethal campaign launched by the Israeli government and army against Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. This murderous rampage has caused more than 300 deaths and the injury of close to 1,500 Palestinians. And the carnage continues with impunity.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Falling into the moral abyss
The gradual process of ethnic cleansing in the occupied Palestinian territories is accelerating, and with it so is the moral culpability of Israel and the supporters of its policies in the United States. More and more people from the mainstream of Israeli politics are voicing alarm. In the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg compared the situation in Israel today to Germany on the eve of Nazis coming to power. Writing for The Huffington Post, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy likened Israel to a drunk and the US to a friend who gives them bottle of vodka and keys to his car. Even current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has ordered incessant attacks on Gaza since coming to power, has called recent attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank "pogroms."
http://electronicintifada.net/
Netanyahu knocked off his platform
JERUSALEM // Of the three politicians who announced the military assault on Gaza to the world on Saturday, perhaps only the outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert has little to lose – or gain – from its outcome. Flanking the Israeli prime minister were two of the main contenders for his job: Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the new leader of Mr Olmert's centrist party, Kadima, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister and leader of the left-wing Labor Party.
http://www.jkcook.net/
Videos
RAW VIDEO - Street-Level View of Israeli Bomb Drop on Civilians
http://www.liveleak.com/view?
Pictures of the massacre in Gaza
http://palestinianpundit.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Cartoons
http://palestinianpundit.
http://palestinianpundit.
International Solidarity with Gaza
Iran Jews stage pro-Palestinian rally near UN offices in Tehran
The chairman of Iran's Jewish Union, Rahmatullah Raafi, said the community had come out in support of the Palestinian people. "We are here to express out support and sympathy for the Palestinian nation," he said, adding that Muslim nations could rise up as a single large force against Israel. He also said that the victors of the current conflict were the residents of Gaza.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Beit Sahour: Scores protest the Israeli attacks on Gaza
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Protesting Israel all over the world
http://www.kabobfest.com/2008/
For the fourth day Jerusalem residents continue to protests the Israeli attacks on Gaza
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Video: Al Sadr Front protests against Israeli aggression on Gaza
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/
Violence at Gaza protest in Yemen
http://english.aljazeera.net/
Indonesians rally for Gaza
http://english.aljazeera.net/
Iraqis Demand a Response to Attacks in Gaza
http://baghdadbureau.blogs.
Hizbollah marshals largest protest
http://www.thenational.ae/
Iranian demonstration against the attacks on Gaza
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
From around the world: An Argentinean declaration against the attacks on the Gaza Strip
http://www.kabobfest.com/2008/
New York protest against the attacks
http://www.philipweiss.org/
Hundreds march in Nordic cities against Gaza bombings
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/
Demonstrators in S.F. protest Israeli bombings
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
Pakistanis throng to streets to condemn Israeli bombing on Gaza
http://www.palestine-info.co.
"Against the Slaughter in Gaza, Belfast, 29.12.08" (Video)
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.
Renewed protests against Israeli attack
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
Palestinians in Venezuela hold anti-Israel demonstration
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
7,000 students register in Iran's Isfahan to fight Israel
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Firestorm over Gaza
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Israel Prize laureate opposes Museum of Tolerance
Professor Yehoshua Ben-Arieh cannot converse politely when you mention the Museum of Tolerance that is to be built in the Mamilla Muslim Cemetery in Jerusalem. He knows, of course, that the High Court of Justice rejected the petition against building the museum in the center of the capital, but the Israel Prize laureate in the field of Land of Israel studies, who is considered one of the greatest researchers of Jerusalem, is calling upon the public to urge the museum's management to drop the dangerous idea. He himself has suggested to the American entrepreneurs other sites in Jerusalem for the building of the museum.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
May We No Longer Be Silent
The title of my article comes from the sermon of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, John Bryson Chane, delivered on October 5, 2008, at St. Columba Church. The bishop's eyes were opened to Israel's persecution of Palestinians by his recent trip to Palestine. In his sermon he called on "politicians seeking the highest office in [our] land" to find the courage to "speak out and condemn violations of human rights and religious freedom denied to Palestinian Christians and Muslims" by the state of Israel.
http://www.
Paul: No such thing as an independent Israel
The following is an exclusive Press TV interview with US congressman Ron Paul, a unique conservative politician who wants an end to US military presence on foreign soil, advocates US withdrawal from the UN, NATO and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and opposes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
http://www.presstv.com/detail.
US Special Forces Execution
Video Report: A killing in Iraq puts a spotlight on U.S. special operations. Was it an accident or something more? CNN's Michael Ware reports.
http://www.
A Disturbing Night in Iraq: Witnessing the Abuse of 'Insurgent' Prisoners
U.S. contractors, bound to no legal accountability, are continuing to administer highly questionable treatment of prisoners in Iraq. This is an eyewitness account.
http://www.salem-news.com/
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