(11 Jan) Five Palestinians were killed in separate strikes near Gaza City and in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp on Sunday evening. Despite a so-called lull in fighting for the delivery of humanitarian aid, Israeli shelling killed two Palestinians in the Ash-Shuja'eiyah neighborhood, which is east of Gaza City . Meanwhile, two others died in the northern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Jabaliya , local sources told Ma'an, adding that specifically the Al-Jurn area was hit in the deadly attack. Some 30 Gazans have been killed since midnight Sunday and nearly 100 injured, apparently by newly used weaponry that set fires to both the people and buildings targeted. Israel had not previously used white phosphorous bombs during the Gaza offensive, but by Sunday residents and experts were reporting widespread damage by the weapon, which is not illegal, in the Ghuza'a and Abasan villages east of Khan Younis . [ detailed report of strikes follows]
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Medics: IDF soldiers edge into Gaza City, killing 14 Palestinians
(11 Jan) The location of the fighting, on the southwest side of the Hamas-ruled territory's biggest population centre, suggested Israel was intensifying a more than two week-old offensive. Troops had previously kept to the outskirts of urban areas in Gaza . Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad claimed they ambushed the Israel Defense Forces troops in the city's Sheikh Ajleen neighborhood. It appeared to be one of the fiercest land battles since Israel sent ground forces into Gaza on Jan. 3.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Armed resistance fighters clash with Israeli ground troops in northern Gaza; projectile launches continue
(11 Jan) The Ayman Juda Brigades, an offshoot of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades, announced their attack on a house in Beit Lahiya where Israeli troops were taking cover Sunday near dawn. The Brigades' sniper fire also hit an Israeli soldier in the neck at his station near the American school north of Gaza city. The Abu Ali Mustafa brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) reported detonating three large explosive devices near Israeli armored vehicles Saturday night. The Brigades statement said Israeli armored vehicles were travelling through a mountain pass near Ar-Rayes east of Gaza City , when the explosives were detonated….
http://www.maannews.net/en/
PNGO: Israel using internationally prohibited weapons against Gaza citizens
(11 Jan) Based on the reports of doctors working in Gaza hospitals, PNGO has concluded that new Israeli weapons cause burns that can reach to the bones of those the explosives hit. A second new variety of weapon, said the group, fires smoke and noxious gases that cause breathing difficulties particularly in children. “Evidence from Gaza is clear” said a statement, that civilians are being deliberately killed as are paramedics and health facilities.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Al Mezan : Civilians deliberately targeted; 194 of Gaza's 830 killed are children
(10 Jan) The following sections provide accounts of the consequences of IOF's attacks on the Gaza Strip's five districts between 1pm on 8 January 2009 and 2:30pm today, 10 January 2009 . [ following are careful descriptions of individual raids, including circumstances and names of casualties when known]
http://electronicintifada.net/
Medics: IDF soldiers edge into Gaza City, killing 14 Palestinians
(11 Jan) The location of the fighting, on the southwest side of the Hamas-ruled territory's biggest population centre, suggested Israel was intensifying a more than two-week-old offensive. Troops had previously kept to the outskirts of urban areas in Gaza . Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad claimed they ambushed the Israel Defense Forces troops in the city's Sheikh Ajleen neighborhood. It appeared to be one of the fiercest land battles since Israel sent ground forces into Gaza on Jan. 3.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Twelve bodies pulled from Gaza City rubble
(11 Jan) Twelve dead bodies were pulled from the rubble in the Sheikh Ajlan neighborhood after Israeli forces withdrew for the area southwest of Gaza City Sunday morning. The area had been the site of fierce clashes between troops and resistance fighters, who claimed to have bombed a home where Israeli forces were taking cover in the area. None of the bodies have yet been identified.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Red Cross will no longer escort Palestinian ambulances in Gaza
(11 Jan, AP) The international Red Cross says it is halting its service of escorting Palestinian ambulances in the Gaza Strip. Red Cross spokesman Iyad Nasr says the decision was made after one of its ambulances came under fire. He says the incident occurred on Saturday during a three-hour lull declared by Israel to allow aid groups to do their work in the besieged area.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Gaza Water Authority: Services totally disabled as attacks debilitate water infrastructure
(11 Jan) Gaza 's Water Authority is unable to provide homes in the Strip with water as a result of the ongoing Israeli destruction and violence in the area. The department said in a statement Sunday that service has been near totally disabled, meaning fresh water can no longer be pumped into Gaza homes, leaving residents to haul or pump salty water from nearby wells if available.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
ReliefWeb : NPA car hit by missile in Gaza
(11 Jan) It was Friday night at around 11 pm that a drone missile hit the car. Secretary General of NPA, Petter Eide , tells NRK that the car was clearly marked with the NPA logo, and that it was impossible for the personnel in control of the drone to miss that this was a humanitarian vehicle. The attack happened in the refugee camp Beach Camp, north of Gaza city. According to Petter Eide there is no military targets in the area. None of the residents was injured in the attack. But all the windows in the building was blow in. 25 people was residing in the apartment of Mahmoud Hamada, this was friends and family that during the bombardment have moved in with Hamada hoping that his apartment was safer than theirs. All of them have relocated during the night.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Egypt opens Rafah for medical equipment, European delegation
(11 Jan) " Egypt has allowed for the first time today the entry of food, in addition to eight truckloads of medication and 14 doctors, including two Algerians and eight Jordanians." Egypt also allowed in three ambulances, which were donated by Libya . Zu'rub also said 41 Palestinians needing urgent medical treatment to enter Egypt , while Egypt allowed the body of 18-month-old Sadeq Muhsen , who died at an Egyptian hospital, to be returned to his native Gaza .
http://www.maannews.net/en/
European MEPs enter Gaza
Luisa Morgantini , Vice President of the European Parliament, and the MEPs delegation entered to Gaza Strip, today 11th January 2009 , through Rafah border crossing. The delegation – that is composed by 8 MEPs belonging to different political groups and by one Member of the Italian Senate-will stay in Gaza Strip from Saturday 10 to Tuesday 13 January, when the MEPs will come back to Strasbourg to report back about the situation to the Plenary session of the EU Parliament and they will hold a press conference. In Gaza the delegation will be staying with UNRWA and visit refugee camps, hospitals and towns. The MEP are grateful to the Egyptian Authority and Unrwa for their cooperation and support.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/
Report: 36 new doctors allowed into Gaza
(11 Jan) A medical committee in the Gaza Strip applauded the arrival of 36 specialist doctors through the Rafah crossing on Sunday. According to the International Emergency and Relief Committee in Gaza , the new arrivals will enable life-saving surgeries and participate in the overall reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Free Gaza Movement sends aid ship from Cyprus
(11 Jan) The Free Gaza Movement's ship, the Spirit of Humanity, is set to arrive at the Gaza City Wharf on Tuesday, the group said in a statement to Ma'an. It has notified Israeli authorities of its intentions. The Spirit will leave the Cypriot port city of Larnaca at noon on Monday, the movement said, on an emergency mission to besieged Gaza . The ship will carry desperately needed doctors, journalists, human rights workers and members of several European parliaments, as well as medical supplies.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Al-Mezan : Thousands of Gaza houses destroyed and damaged by Israeli strikes
(11 Jan) During the IOF's military operations, it directly targeted 142 houses with guided missiles and shells. However, the number of houses that have been completely destroyed in these attacks is at least 470 houses. Another 3,000 to 4,000 houses have been partially destroyed.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Ruler of Dubai pledges 600 homes to displaced Gazans
(11 Jan) The Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum pledged 600 homes for the reconstruction efforts in Gaza .
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Save the Children Alliance: Babies dying as Gazans struggle to reach overwhelmed hospitals
(9 Jan) Save the Children fears that babies are dying after reports from Gaza 's biggest paediatric hospital that parents have been unable, or too afraid, to bring their babies to hospital until it is too late. Newborns may also be dying because women are unable to get to hospital to give birth.
There are also concerns that the lives of children in the intensive care unit are at risk as there are only two days of fuel left to keep the unit running. A senior physician at Naser Hospital in Gaza City , who preferred not to be named, told us that babies had already died. He said: "People are bringing their babies to us only when they are seriously ill. Four days ago an 11 month old baby was brought in suffering from meningococcal septicaemia . He was already very sick and died three hours later."
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
IDF investigation shows errant mortar hit UN building in Gaza
(11 Jan) A preliminary investigation into the fatal shooting by the Israel Defense Forces into a United Nations building in northern Gaza on Tuesday reveals the Israeli troops firing on the building missed their targets by some 30 meters. Hamas is claiming the mortar fire killed 42 people and left dozens wounded, but senior IDF officers say the figures are dubious and that Hamas is inflating the numbers.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
550 Palestinian fighters killed in Gaza: Israeli military source
(10 Jan) Israeli forces have killed at least 550 Palestinian militants in Gaza since the start of a massive military blitz on December 27, a senior Israeli military official told AFP on Saturday. At least 250 militants from the Islamist Hamas movement and other armed groups have been killed in air raids while another 300 were killed in ground operations launched on January 3, the official said, quoting a briefing given by a high-ranking army officer.
http://www.africasia.com/
Dead Gaza fighters ‘bulldozed into piles'
GAZA, Jan 9 (Reuters) - A Palestinian man captured by Israeli troops in Gaza said after his release on Friday that he had seen the corpses of many Islamist fighters bulldozed into piles covered with sand …Hamas has not revealed how many Gaza fighters have been killed or wounded. The Israeli army said three days ago it had killed more than 130 since ground combat started.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Massacre of a family seeking sanctuary
(10 Jan) By Donald Macintyre and Said Ghazali in Jerusalem and Fares Akram in Gaza . Bitterly cold, famished, and thirsty they may have been. But the dozens of men, women, children and elderly of the extended Samouni family, sheltering in the unfinished warehouse-like building owned by one of their relatives, at least felt relatively secure. Some explain that Israeli troops had explicitly told them to remain in the building – in several cases after actually escorting them there … It was then, survivors say, that the greatest of all the horrors visited on the Zeitoun district of eastern Gaza City occurred … When the smoke began to clear, [19-year-old Maysaa ] looked around and saw what she says were between 20 and 30 bodies, and 20 wounded. The dead included her own husband Tawfiq , her father-in-law Rashed , who "was hit in the head and whose brain was on the floor", and a five-month-old baby "whose whole brain was outside his body".
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Sources: Hamas has fired anti-aircraft missiles at IAF planes
(11 Jan) Hamas militants in Gaza have tried to down Israeli warplanes with various types of anti-aircraft missiles, defense sources have told the government. The Palestinian Islamist group has not succeeded, however, in downing any Israel Air Force aircraft. This is despite having possession of the sophisticated weaponry, and the many sorties the IAF has flown during Israel 's ongoing offensive against Hamas in the coastal territory.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Report: Hamas official says Shalit's fate is no longer group's concern
(11 Jan) The deputy head of Hamas' politburo Moussa Abu Marzuk has said that his Palestinian Islamist group no longer cares whether or not kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has been wounded, the Lebanese daily Al-Hayat reported Sunday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Palestinian factions launch more attacks on Israeli targets
(11 Jan) Armed Palestinian factions continued firing projectiles on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, claiming responsibility for a number of attacks.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Al-Qassam Brigades says missiles now have range of 50km
(10 Jan) Hamas' military wing said on Saturday evening that its missiles now have a range of 50 kilometers, claiming to have launched a Grad missile at an Israeli military base. In a statement the Al-Qassam Brigades said that it launched the missile at a military base that is used as a storehouse for Patriot missiles and other weaponry.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Gaza: IDF uncovers booby-trapped school, zoo
(11 Jan) IDF forces operating in Gaza on Sunday uncovered an explosive device rigged with a timer that was hidden in a Palestinian school. A fuse attached to the explosives extended to a zoo located dozens of yards away. The soldiers managed to neutralize the bomb before it went off. Numerous weapons, including RPG launchers, grenades and AK-47 assault rifles were found inside the school. At least 27 Palestinians were killed and some 90 more were injured during IDF attacks throughout Gaza on Sunday, thus bringing the Palestinian death toll since the launching of Operation Cast Lead16 days ago to 890. Some 3,500 Gazans have been injured in the offensive so far.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Israelis fired upon from Syria
(11 Jan) Syrian opens fire at group of Israeli civilians, soldiers repairing border fence, then flees the scene; no injuries or casualties reported, but vehicles were damaged. Israel files complaint with UN
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Gush Katif evacuees implore gov't to let them resettle Gaza
(11 Jan) A group of former residents of the Gush Katif settlement bloc on Sunday implored the government to allow them to resettle Gaza , amid Israel 's ongoing offensive against Hamas in the coastal territory. "Let us return home. We are ready at a day's notice to set up tents in the area, until permanent construction," the group said at a news conference at the Museum of Gush Katif in Jerusalem .
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Union of Worker's Unions calls for comprehensive boycott of Israeli products
(11 Jan) The Palestinian Union of Workers' Unions called for a comprehensive boycott of Israeli products effectively immediately. Any product with a non-Israeli alternative should be substituted as an act of defiance and protest against the Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip, said a statement from the union. It also called on the Palestinian government to encourage local production for any products without a viable alternative.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Personal narratives – fromGaza and the diaspora
ISM: Working with Red Cross evacuation team in Gaza
(10 Jan) [Ongoing blog ] By Sharon in Gaza . What startles me first of all is how close the IOF have come. I have heard that they are 2km from the hospital but I guess I didn't quite absorb that; when we all jump in the ambulances to drive there, we jump out again almost immediately. The Israeli Occupation Force is pretty much just round the corner. I haven't seen them in person since 2005. They ain't changed much. Just as I occasionally forget that the planes in the sky are killing machines and assume for a moment they're just jetting folks off on climate damaging holidays, my brain firstly registers the sound of tanks as some sort of roadworks nearby. Which they are in a way, they are unmaking the road. As-Saladiin is the main north-south road and they're doing their best to turn it impassible, with earth mounds and barriers and blockades made of bombed cars. Soldiers point guns at us from behind the earth mounds. Snipers cover us from occupied houses. We all hope Mr Walkie Talkie is saying the right things.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/
Welcome to Hell: Gaza's unending misery
(11 Jan) A family of nine is among the latest Palestinian civilian casualties as the fighting continues. Ibrahim Barzak , Kim Sengupta , Geoffrey Lean and David Randall report – … Earlier yesterday, Israeli aircraft attacked more than 40 targets throughout Gaza, striking 10 rocket-launching sites, weapons-storage facilities, smuggling tunnels, an anti-aircraft missile launcher and gunmen. And civilians. In the day's bloodiest incident, an Israeli tank shell landed outside a home in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya , killing nine people as they sat in their garden. They were all from the same clan, and, said health administrator Adham Hakim, their bodies were so mangled they were brought to hospital in the boot of a civilian car. Two were women and two were children.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
First Person: Living in Gaza, under starlight and bomb blasts
(10 Jan, TIME magazine) By Safa Joudeh /Gaza City . As big sister, I accompany two of my five younger siblings to the roof of our 14-story building. We head up there whenever we can, even if people say it makes us easy targets. We climb 13 floors of stairs just to stand and look out on Gaza and breathe in 15 minutes of air before we duck inside again. "Burning City," the children call it. Columns of smoke rise from various locations in the distance changing the color of the sky and the sun. The entire landscape is transformed. We can make out the locations of several of the many public, residential and landmark buildings that have been turned to piles of rubble. Israeli tanks now block the roads where we used to drive along the coast. Dark, ominous warships look out of place so close to our beautiful Gaza shore, which had been one of the only escapes and source of relaxation for the besieged people of the Gaza Strip.
http://www.time.com/time/
Sleep hard to come by in bombarded Gaza
(10 Jan) Eva Bartlett writing from the occupied Gaza Strip. It's 2:50am and I can't sleep. Some mornings I wake up from a new explosion and realize I've somehow managed to fall into a sleep despite the blasts. Other mornings, I wake up disoriented, first wondering where I am, as I'm sleeping in some hospital waiting room or ambulance office, or the house of a driver since the Red Crescent office in eastern Jabaliya was first shelled and then made off-limits by the invading Israeli forces in the eastern Jabaliya region... and then in the north, the northwest, the east, the south ...
http://electronicintifada.net/
Nowhere to hide from the bombing
(9 Jan) Laila El-Haddad writing from Durham , the United States . "You don't know anymore; you don't know who is alive, you feel you are in a trap, you don't know who is a target," said my friend and neighbor in Gaza City , journalist Taghreed El-Khodary . The fear resonated in her voice while she was on the phone to Al-Jazeera . Taghreed lives on a street near my parents. "Where to?Where can I go seek refuge to?" she continued. "I live next to the parliament which was destroyed; next to the police station, which was destroyed; next to the hospitals, which were bombed; and the Israeli navy is shelling from the sea, the F-16s from the sky, the tanks from the ground ... where to?" she repeated again and again. "First your house shakes, and the windows break, and the fear ... the fear. And when you see all these children around you in the hospital. Some can draw, and what they drawing is unbelievable. A six-year-old boy in my house drew a picture of boy who was alive, and another who was dead. He said the dead boy was his friend, whom the Israelis killed. And the father is unable to protect his child. And the mothers are trying to hide their fear from their kids."
http://electronicintifada.net/
Phoning my in-laws in Gaza
(11 Jan) Xen Hasan writing from Manchester , UK . We haven't been able to get hold of my sister-in-law for a couple of days. It's nerve wracking. Soul destroying. I find myself doing horrifying mental arithmetic. I don't know why, I can't seem to help it. The UN stated on Thursday that 758 people had been killed. That's one person for each 2,000 in Gaza . What are the odds that one of them might be Nareman , or one of her family?… Their windows were blown in a few days ago. They didn't even tell us, we found out from someone else and called Nareman to ask her. She said she hadn't mentioned it because she didn't want to worry us. In the middle of the night the house next to theirs was bombed. The force of the blast blew the whole window, frame and all, onto the girls' bed.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Tunnel vision
(10 Jan) Kathy Kelly writing from al-Arish , Egypt . The Israeli government has, reportedly, already destroyed 80 percent of the tunnels that connect Gaza with the outside world. Israel claims the tunnels are legitimate targets because the Hamas government can use them to import weapons. But the buildup of the tunnel industry was fueled by desperation for goods needed within Gaza because of Israel 's policy, over the past 16 months, to tighten the thumbscrews of its blockade on the territory. If the blockade continues, and if the tunnels are completely destroyed, besieged Gazans will be cut off from secure supplies of food, medicine and fuel, yet another terrifying prospect for people who are desperate to protect their children from further harm.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Witnessing a war waged against your people
(11 Jan) By Mohammed Abu Asaker writing from Sudan . Sixteen days since it began, the war on Gaza rages on. It's a war that does not exempt from its targets a child, a woman, or old man, or a school, a mosque or a house. I am still following the news minute by minute to check on my family in Gaza ; it is so hard to see a real war waged against your people, and you far away and can't do anything to help them … All of my family are staying in one room. Expecting that a missile could attack them any moment, they prefer to die all together. My little brothers and sisters are very scared and don't sleep well and the bombing goes on day and night.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Agony as relatives trapped by invasion
(10 Jan) THE attack in Gaza has brought new agony to a Palestinian family in Bahrain , already separated from relatives in the besieged Strip for eight years. Farah Al Husseini is frightened for her grandparents, who are in their 80s and caught in the midst of the invasion. She and her parents came to Bahrain from their native Ramallah, 10km north of Jerusalem , in the West Bank in 2007, in the hope of a better life.
They go home to Ramallah every three or four months, to spend a few weeks with other relatives and to help keep their home secure. But they have not been allowed into Gaza by Israeli authorities controlling the border for eight years and 25-year-old Ms Al Husseini last saw her grandparents, uncles and aunts in the Strip in 2000.
http://www.gulf-daily-news.
His name is Anwar Khalil Balusha , and 24 hours ago he lost five of his daughters
(4 Jan, translated from the Hebrew) Anwar , 37 years old, has lost his house, just as his father in his days lost his home. But this time it wasn´t Irgun militants who expelled them, at the point of a bayonet, rather the nearly well aimed missile of an F-16. While as in 1948 no family member had died, on this occasion he has lost five daughters. Another three daughters and a boy of 13 months, have survived, as well as his wife. The Balusha family is a family torn to pieces. One of many. An especially painful case. Yet merely the first on a long list of collateral effects, civilian victims of this Israeli offensive over the Gaza strip. Seven of his daughters used to sleep in the same room, Tahreir , 18 years of age, Imam, 16, Ikram , 14, Sammar , 11, Samah , 10, Deina , 8, Jawahar , 4. Of these only Imam and Samah have survived, along their mother and the head of the family, and Mohammed and Barah , who used to sleep in the same bed as their parents. Mohammed is 12 months old and Barah is only 14 days.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_
Stay human
by Dr. Vittorio Arrigoni , trans. from the Italian. ‘Take some kittens, some tender little ones in a box', said Jamal, a surgeon at Al Shifa , Gaza`s main hospital, while a nurse actually placed a couple of blood-stained cardboard boxes in front of us. ‘Seal up the box, then jump on it with all your weight and might, until you feel their little bones crunching, and you hear the last muffled little mew.' I stared at the boxes in astonishment, and the doctor continued: ‘Try to imagine what would happen after such images were circulated. The righteous outrage of public opinion, the complaints of the animal rights organisations '. The doctors went on in this vein, and I was unable to take my eyes off those boxes at our feet. ‘ Israel trapped hundreds of civilians inside a school as if in a box, including many children, and then crushed them with all the might of its bombs. What were the world's reactions?Almost nothing. We would have been better off as animals rather than Palestinians, we would have been more protected.' At this point the doctor leaned towards one of the boxes, and took its lid off in front of me. Inside it are amputated limbs, legs and arms, some from the knee down, others with the entire femur attached, amputated from the injured at the Al Fakhura United Nations school in Jabalia , which resulted in more than fifty casualties.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_
Truce?
Khalid Mash‘al : Hamas rejects permanent truce, international forces in Gaza
(10 Jan) Hamas' leader in exile Khalid Mash'al echoed the sentiments of several factional leaders Saturday, saying international forces in Gaza to enforce a ceasefire are unacceptable and will be viewed as an occupying force. Mash'al's main objective to the presence of international troops in any ceasefire agreement, is that they will act to “subdue the Palestinian people,” and “dictate… political concessions." The fear is that Hamas power will be curtailed; changing the political landscape that Hamas maintains is the will of the people of Gaza . "The resistance organizations are still at full strength” Mash'al was quoted as saying, “they took a beating during the first two days [of the Israeli offensive in Gaza ], but have since taken the initiative," and stepped up attacks on Israeli troops. He accused Israel of “hiding its losses.”
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Abbas' advisor calls Mash‘al stance ‘unrealistic', accuses leader of being out of touch
(11 Jan) Ahmad Abd Ar-Rahman said Mash'al was being unrealistic based on the real situation in the Gaza Strip and the willing support of the initiative by Arab countries. “ Mash'al was speaking as if the Hamas tanks are surrounding Tel Aviv,” Abd Ar-Rahman said. He accused the Damascus head of Hamas of being out of touch, saying his response was as if “he had never been there [ Gaza ]…so he can't recognize the death of so many and the destruction of buildings and homes.” Abd Ar-Rahman said Mash'al's refusal to negotiate will make the situation in Gaza worse, and make the idea of a Palestinian state seem “farfetched.”
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Exiled PFLP member At-Taher rejects ceasefire agreements
(11 Jan) Member of the politburo office for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Maher At-Taher affirmed Saturday that party will not accept any initiative unless it includes an immediate halt to the Israeli offensive in Gaza . At-Taher laid out the conditions of any ceasefire agreement, whether international or Arab, saying it had to include a full and permanent lift of the siege including opening the Rafah crossing, an Israeli withdrawal guarantee and an affirmation that Palestinians have the right to resistance. The comments came during an interview with Al-Jazeera
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Collusion
Palestinian security forces break up Gaza protest
(11 Jan) By Amira Hass. Ramallah residents were shocked on Friday when a protest against the Israeli offensive in Gaza was forcibly dispersed by Palestinian Authority security forces using tear gas and clubs. Youth from the Fatah movement assisted security forces in breaking up a rally of solidarity with the Palestinian faction's rival Hamas in the Gaza Strip…"Welcome to Dayton country," a teary-eyed female Palestinian protester shouted, referring to U.S. General Keith Dayton who trained the PA security forces that dispersed the crowd.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
From a demonstrator in Abu Dhabi
(9 Jan) "A mass rally for Gaza in Abu Dhabi abruptly came to an end this afternoon when out of nowhere, tens of police cars with sirens and flashing lights invaded the street that had been closed off for traffic to allow free movement of the procession. Over a thousand demonstrators ( including children and infants in strollers) nearly trampled each other trying to get onto the sidewalks and away from the onslaught of approaching police cars. I don't know if anyone was hurt, but I would be surprised if there were no injuries."
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Report from Rafah: Doctors stopped at the border
(9-11 Jan) By Bill Quigley /Rafah , Egypt . Dr. Nicolas Doussis-Rassias and many other volunteer doctors have been waiting in Rafah , Egypt for days. Nicolas and the other physicians came to Rafah to go through the border into Gaza to help the 3000 people wounded by Israeli bombs and heavy weapons … But today, instead of helping the thousands of wounded, Nicolas and other doctors are holding up a hand lettered red and blue banner outside the Egyptian border station saying-Let the Doctors Through! Why?Doctors of Peace and numerous other doctors from around the world have been prevented from entering Gaza for seven days. They cannot get in to help through Israel nor Egypt . [ but they seem to have let some doctors in today, not necessarily these]
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Witnesses: IAF planes flying low over Egypt during bombing of Gaza
(11 Jan) The witnesses, who have spent many hours close to the Rafah crossing point between Egypt and Gaza, said they had seen the Israeli planes fly over on several occasions, often at such low altitude that it was clear they were over Egyptian territory. Israeli planes have been bombing on the Gaza side of the border, within a few hundreds of meters of Egypt , targeting tunnels which Israel says the Islamist movement Hamas uses for smuggling weapons into Gaza . The three witnesses said they wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter. The Egyptian government has faced a barrage of criticism for cooperating with Israel in the blockade of Gaza over the past six months.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
The sources of Arab shame: Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia
(10 Jan) by Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar . …For close to 30 years now, many Arab countries have been collaborating with Israel ; some like Egypt (gained independence: 1922) and Jordan (gained independence: 1946) openly, while others like Saudi Arabia (founded: 1932), UAE (founded: 1972) and Kuwait (founded: 1961) from behind the scenes. The reasons for this collaboration vary from country to country but they all have one thing in common: the rulers of these countries are all dictators and need foreign protection from their own people…What they cannot accept is any democratically elected form of government in their midst.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/
Arab silence on Gaza is shameful
(10 Jan) By Khalaf Ahmed Al Habtoor . As an Arab, I am appalled at the deafening silence of leaders of Arab states and governments. Have Arabs become so weak that our leaders can no longer express an opinion?The angry sentiments on our streets are overflowing but they are not being reflected by Arab governments. When Israeli's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was asked whether some Arab countries gave Israel the green light to launch its assault on Gaza , she hesitated before saying, "moderate Arabs" share Israel 's aim to destroy Hamas. If there is a kernel of truth in her between-the-lines message then the entire Arab nation is being dishonored. Since when did "moderate" translate to "cowardly?"
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Bush ordered ceasefire retreat at UN
(10 Jan) Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, was forced to step back from voting in favour of the Gaza ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council after orders from Washington , diplomatic sources said yesterday … It was only in the last minutes before the vote was due that word began suddenly to circulate. America was not going to vote in favour after all … As Mr Miliband left later for the airport and the flight home, he could take heart, perhaps, from what Ms Rice said in the chamber. America supported the text and its goals, she insisted. And yet, the US could not vote for it because of that other special relationship it has; with Israel .
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Meanwhile in theWest Bank andIsrael
Left-wing activists: IDF uses live ammo to break up West Bank protests
(10 Jan) Palestinians and Israeli left-wing activists claim that in the wake of Operation Cast Lead, the Israel Defense Forces has reintroduced the use of a semiautomatic rifle that uses live ammunition to disperse crowds. The Ruger .22 rifle was banned following the Al-Aqsa Intifada, in which it was used to break up protests and caused the deaths of a number of Palestinians, including youths and children. In 2001, the IDF's then-Military Advocate General Menahem Finkelstein ruled that the rifle, used against protesters and stone-throwers, be viewed as a lethal weapon in all senses. The rifle has been used by snipers to shoot at protesters from the waist down, and last Friday it was used to fire on activists, eight of whom sustained light wounds to the leg.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Israeli soldiers fire tear gas on village children protesting Gaza violence
(11 Jan) Children in Bil'in demonstrated Sunday in yet another act protest against the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip Sunday. The children rallied in solidarity with all the young in Gaza who have come under Israeli fire. The children walked towards the wall, which cuts through village land and expressed their anger over the situation in Gaza . As the children moved towards the wall, Israeli soldiers fired tear gas on them.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Palestinians rally outside Olmert's home calling for an end to Gaza massacre
(11 Jan) The Higher Committee representing Palestinians living in Israel organized a demonstration in front of the Israeli President's office in Jerusalem Sunday. The protest was set to begin as Olmet returned from the weekly Sunday Cabinet Ministers' meeting, and included a handful of Knesset Members lobbying for a ceasefire.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Two Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli army in Hebron area
(11 Jan) Two Palestinians were injured when clashed erupted between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces in and around the southern West Bank city of Hebron . One demonstrator was shot by a live bullet in the Ras-A'rud neighborhood in the town of Su'ir . In the town of Beit Awwa , medical sources said 14-year-old Ahmad Abed Al-Qader Masalmah was shot in the neck by a live round after clashes erupted near the Israeli separation wall.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
“The soldiers occupy our house every day there is a demonstration at the checkpoint of the village”
(6 Jan) The Ameera family suffers the occupation of their house every time there are demonstrations at the main road of Ni‘lin . Soldiers usually come in the morning and do not allow the family to go out from their house until they leave. There are normally four or five soldiers that stay constantly at the back of the house in the Ameera's garden. Another group is at the main entrance and the rest, normally around ten soldiers, stay on the roof. The soldiers use the Ameera's roof to shoot tear gas, sound bombs and rubber coated-steel bullets against the villagers that are protesting in the street. The location is strategic because they can easily aim the people in the street. “When they leave we have to clean all the empty boxes and the rubbish from the food and also army stuff that they leave on our roof”.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/
Israeli comedy show satirises Gaza violence
(10 Jan) By Ben Lynfield in Jerusalem . Writers highlight lopsided body count, scored as a macabre sports match – With nearly 800 Palestinians and 13 Israelis killed, four of the latter by so-called friendly fire, the Gaza war is no laughing matter, putting Israel 's most popular comedy show in a delicate position. Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country) – the Israeli equivalent of the Daily Show – has nonetheless been highlighting the lopsided fatality count of the war raging in the Gaza Strip … That may be in poor taste, but at least it constitutes a mention of the civilian casualties, something getting little coverage in the largely mobilised Israeli media … Such skits may make Israelis laugh but they are unlikely to really make them think, says Noa Yeblin , deputy culture editor at Maariv daily newspaper. If anything, she says, the show's wartime performance underscores the absence of hard-hitting satire at a time when it is badly needed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Solidarity
Global protests call for end to Gaza op
(10 Jan) Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in cities across Europe , Canada , and the Middle East on Saturday to protest against Israel 's military operation in Gaza , with sporadic clashes with police as some rallies turned violent.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
London: Three arrested as Gaza marchers clash with police
(11 Jan) The Israeli embassy in central London turned into a battleground yesterday evening as police and demonstrators clashed following a pro-Palestinian rally.organisers estimated that at the peak of the protest up to 100,000 people had braved snow and sub-zero temperatures to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza , but police believe the figure was closer to 20,000. They were among tens of thousands in cities across Europe who protested against Israel 's actions. Some 30,000 people turned out in Paris , 10,000 in Lyon , and 8,500 marched through Berlin . A further 10,000 demonstrated in the German city of Duisberg . In Oslo , police fired tear gas into the crowd when protesters bombarded them with bottles, stones and fireworks.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
1299670.html
UAE: Marches show solidarity
(10 Jan) They marched in support of the people of Gaza , with UAE flags waving and voices raised in unison, in a show of solidarity that far exceeded expectations. More than 10,000 men, woman and children turned out in four emirates to make sure the people of Palestine were not forgotten.
http://www.thenational.ae/
Funeral procession in Boston joins national protests against Israel's incursion in Gaza
(11 Jan, with photos) Around 400 people with home-made coffins marched in downtown Boston in a silent funeral procession to join protests around the world against Israel 's military aggression in Gaza . Dressed all in black, a diverse community of Palestinians, Arab-Americans, Jews, Christians, and people from different heritage backgrounds gathered in Boston in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. VIDEOhere
http://boston.indymedia.org/
Peaceful San Francisco protest of Israel's Gaza bombing
(11 Jan) People of all ages and on both sides of the controversy rallied in San Francisco 's Civic Center Saturday to either protest or support Israel 's bombing of the Gaza Strip. More than 1,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators and a few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators waved flags and pumped their fists at each other before the pro-Palestinians marched downtown and back to the Civic Center .
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
Protesters gather for pro-Palestinian rally at Federal Building
(10 Jan) Westwood--An estimated 1,500 boisterous protesters opposed to Israel 's incursion into Gaza gathered today for a pro-Palestinian rally outside the Federal Building in Westwood, police said. Two people were arrested during the National Day of Protest demonstration and march , which began at noon , said Officer April Harding of the Los Angeles Police Department.
http://www.myfoxla.com/myfox/
Code=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
Italian politician slams Muslim protesters
(11 Jan) Italy 's Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa called on Muslims to stop further "provocations" after thousands held prayers in public squares in Milan during pro-Palestinian demonstrations over the past week … Protests against the Israeli offensive continued in Italy on Sunday, with 3,000 people marching through the center of Naples . Another 1,000 held hands to form a human chain and march through Rome 's historic center to demand an end to violence in Gaza .
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Coca-Cola says Malaysia boycott will hurt economy
(9 Jan) Kuala Lumpur (AFP) – Coca-Cola spoke out Friday against a boycott of its drinks and other US goods called by Malaysian Muslim groups over the Gaza offensive, saying it would only hurt the local economy and citizens. As everybody else, we are deeply touched by the human side of the situation in the Middle East," Kadri Taib , Coca-Cola Malaysia public affairs and communications director, said in a statement.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Analysis and Commentary
Gideon Levy /My hero of the Gaza war
(11 Jan) My war hero is Ayman Mohyeldin , the young correspondent for Al Jazeera English and the only foreign correspondent broadcasting during these awful days in a Gaza Strip closed off to the media. Al Jazeera English is not what you might think. It offers balanced, professional reporting from correspondents both in Sderot and Gaza . And Mohyeldin is the cherry on top of this journalistic cream. I wouldn't have needed him or his broadcasts if not for the Israeli stations' blackout of the fighting. Whoever recoils from our heroic tales, bias, whitewashed words, Rorschach images of bombing, IDF Spokesman-distributed photographs, propagandists' excuses, self-satisfied generals and half-truths is invited to tune in.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
How many divisions?
(10 Jan) By Uri Avnery . …Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England . The Churchill gang hid among the population of London , misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz. This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war. Absurd?No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured … THE TRUTH is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called “moral insanity”, a sociopathic disorder.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/
Israel escalates its attacks because it can't find the exit
(11 Jan) In a strange arc of necessity, the war Israel claimed it was forced to launch now appears destined to further escalate because the war's ill-defined aims preclude any clear navigation of a way out. In an interview with The Washington Post , Israel 's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, when asked whether Israel has achieved its objectives said: "I think this is the point in which they [Hamas] understand the equation has changed and we have gained deterrence." Yet when asked whether Hamas needs to be removed, she simply said: "I would say that the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas is a burden not only to Israel but to the Palestinians themselves."
http://www.thenational.ae/
Hitting the wall
(10 Jan) Laurie King writing from Washington , DC , the United States . Like other Americans who call attention to the illegality, immorality, and illogic of unconditional US support for Israel 's treatment of the people displaced by its national project, I am familiar with "hitting the wall." Perhaps it's more accurate to say walls--concentric walls. Most salient is the wall of apathy…An even more imposing wall is an edifice of fear that halts many from voicing criticism of Israel lest they be labeled anti-Semitic… The wall of ignorance exists, too, of course. But it is less solid…Now we reach the most implacable wall of all, which is constructed of very resilient stuff: unacknowledged but formidable boundaries of cognition, emotion, and axiomatic suppositions that "go without saying because they came without saying," in the words of the late sociologist Pierre Bourdieu …. I hear another sound, though--not the thud of falling bodies, but a subtle cracking. I hear it in the comments of friends, relatives, neighbors, and even a few journalists who are alarmed that something stunningly disproportionate and unfair is happening.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Israeli invasion and Gaza's offshore gas fields
(9 Jan, with map) By Michel Chossudovsky . The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline. British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon 's Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority … The issue of sovereignty over Gaza 's gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine .
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Revise your terror list
(9 Jan) By Stuart Littlewood /London . Inappropriate use of the term ‘terrorism' by people with despicable motives is probably the most serious obstacle to peace. Can somebody please explain-Mr Brown?Mr Miliband ?-why Britain (or any other nation for that matter) blindly accepts America 's decree that Hamas must be regarded as a terrorist organization?It is, in the words of John Pilger's illuminating piece, ( Holocaust Denied: The Lying Silence of Those Who Know), the Arab world's only democratically elected government and draws its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians' oppressor and tormentor of 60 years.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Aiding and abetting a holocaust
(10 Jan) By Tariq A. Al-Maeena /Jeddah. A reader last week objected to my references of a 'holocaust' in this latest atrocity being carried out by the Israelis against civilians in Gaza , and specifically targeting children. May I remind the reader and other skeptics that this word is no longer exclusive to crimes of the past?Cambridge Dictionary defines holocaust as “a very large amount of destruction, especially by fire or heat, or the killing of very large numbers of people” a situation that is currently in full force against Palestinians in Gaza . Palestinians are being killed like insects not because of Hamas or because of Qaseem rockets or hand-thrown rocks. Palestinians burn and bleed because they are the non-Jewish natives of that land. There is no other reason.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Bombing the fundamentalists
(10 Jan) By Dr. Ahmed Yousef /Gaza . Perhaps it is indeed time to bomb religious groups given their belief that heaven is their destination. Regardless of whether their aim is peaceful coexistence or aggressive accession, spiritually-motivated activists such as Irish Republicans, Muslim Brethren, and Christian Democrats attract controversy at best, and often violent suppression. The most extreme groups, those that justify the unprovoked killing of others, understandably incur the wrath of the international community and are sanctioned, arrested or obliterated. Except, of course, when it comes to Jewish fundamentalists, who have rarely been ostracized. Faith-based Israeli groups are as astounding in number as they are in opinion.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
If we were Palestinians, how would we react?
(10 Jan) By Jenka Soderberg . US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, in introducing a bill supporting the Israeli attack on Gaza , which passed unanimously by voice vote in the US Senate Thursday, "I ask any of my colleagues to imagine that happening here in the United States . Rockets and mortars coming from Toronto in Canada , into Buffalo New York . How would we as a country react?" I have heard similar statements by other US supporters of the Israeli occupation, and I have to address it from the other perspective--what if we, in the US , were the Palestinians? In order to experience the reality of the daily life of Palestinians, the following scenario would have to occur: our land would have to be invaded by an army, the fourth-largest army in the world, and militarily occupied….
http://palestinechronicle.com/
The tribe that lost its head
(9 Jan) By Jeremy Salt /Ankara . The Nakba – the catastrophe – is the Arabic word used to describe the Zionist expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland in 1948/49, the destruction of some 500 of their villages, the plunder of their remaining property, the theft of their land and the seizure of their cities.
Most of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza came from somewhere else. Sderot, Ashkelon and Ashdod , the targets of Hamas' backyard rockets, were all built over the ruins of Arab villages. The city of Beersheba was almost wholly Arab until purged of its Arab population by Zionist forces and the story is the same the length and breadth of Palestine . Those asking why Hamas is firing its Qassam rockets into Israel cannot answer their own question without grasping the enormity of the crime committed against the Palestinians six decades ago. Yet the Nakba did not end six decades ago. 1948 was only the beginning.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Israel's wars of forced regime change
(10 Jan) By Helena Cobban . The war that Israel launched on Gaza Dec. 27 is the seventh war of choice Israel has launched against its neighbors since 1973, the last year in which it fought a war that was forced upon it. Of the seven wars one – in Lebanon , 1978 – had the goal of establishing an Israeli-controlled "security zone" running inside Lebanon 's border with Israel . The other six, including the present war on Gaza, all aimed at imposing a "forced regime change" on Arab communities neighboring Israel through the violent physical dismantlement of politico-military structures then present in, or on occasion dominating, those societies. The five earlier attempts at forced regime change all had interesting – and quite unintended – consequences that might have given Israel 's leaders serious pause before they launched the present war.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/
Propaganda does nothing for peace, indeed
(10 Jan) By Kim Bullimore . In the midst of Israel 's massacre of more than 800 people in Gaza , including more than 200 children and 100 women, as well as 3000 injured, apologists for Israel 's war crimes have sought to defend the Zionist state. Not only have many of them sort to blame the Palestinian people for Israel's massacre in Gaza, ignoring the fact that Palestinians have suffered 60 years of non-stop aggression at the hands of the Israeli Zionist state, many of them have they have also sought to paint Israel as the beacon of democracy and pluralism in order to silence Israel's critics. A recent example of this can be found in the article which appeared on January 9 in Australia 's only national newspaper, The Australian….
http://palestinechronicle.com/
In Washington, all roads lead to Tehran
(10 Jan) By Daniel Luban . WASHINGTON (IPS)-As the war in Gaza approaches its third week, a chorus of influential voices in the United States media has cast the conflict as a proxy war in which the real enemy is not Hamas but Iran . The result has been a growing tendency in the US to view Gaza as simply one battleground in a larger war between Iran and the West, and to dismiss the stated concerns of the Palestinians as a mere smokescreen for Iranian influence.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Abettors of war crimes will be held responsible
(10 Jan) By Adri Nieuwhof and Daniel Machover . Two weeks into the Israeli offensive, many international lawyers are raising their voices to condemn Israeli actions from every perspective, challenging Israeli claims to be acting in lawful self-defense. That is, even before examining the unlawful way Israel has deployed its military might, lawyers assessing the self-defense arguments of Israel have found as many holes as in the Gazan ground: Israeli actions were not taken as a last resort, as a necessary response to attacks. Before using force in self-defense a state must need to do so in response to an armed attack, having found no other realistic method of redress or resistance … Israel consistently labels civilian buildings as "legitimate military targets" that no other government on earth would successfully describe as such. Police stations, mosques, university buildings, medical storage buildings, government institutions, chicken farms and schools cannot become military targets simply by being called Hamas infrastructure.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Military Intelligence: Never expected Hamas victory in 2006
(9 Jan) By Akiva Eldar . There is no way of knowing what would have happened if intelligence had warned the government and the Knesset about the implications of throwing Gaza's key to Hamas. Would Livni, Ehud Olmert and Haim Ramon, who pushed hard for disengagement, have taken to heart a warning that the Gaza Strip would become a Muslim Brotherhood state?And if so, would they have been able to dissuade Ariel Sharon, who was determined to leave Gaza without an agreement?Be that as it may, the hard question remains: Why did MI not tell the government and the Knesset loudly and clearly that the disengagement might well pave Hamas' road to power and to control over Gaza ?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Casualties of war: Palestinian moderates
(10 Jan) By Andrew Lee Butters /Ramallah. The biggest political loser in the battle of wills between Israel and Hamas that continues to rage in Gaza is the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. Even as Western and Arab diplomats take care to assign the increasingly marginalized Abbas a role in negotiations over a truce to end the fighting that has claimed more than 700 lives, he is facing mounting fury from Palestinians, not only in Gaza but also in his West Bank stronghold … The problem facing Abbas is that despite years of being photographed shaking hands with Israeli leaders and huddling with U.S. Secretaries of State, he has proven powerless to ease the Israeli security constraints on daily life in the West Bank, or to stop the growth of Israeli settlements and reverse the pauperization of the Palestinian people. Now, it's also become clear that he is unwilling or unable to get his American and Israeli partners to stop the assault on Gaza .
http://www.time.com/time/
How Israel gets away with murder
(11 Jan) By Geoffrey Wheatcroft . Indifference to criticism of the bombing and invasion of Gaza is the result of indulgence by the West – It might be said that the underlying purpose of the Zionist project – which Namier passionately supported – was to reject Jewish martyrology , and to turn the Jews from passive victims to active makers of their destiny. That has been accomplished to a fault, many would say as they watch the news from Gaza , where one image after another has caused deep revulsion. But then that rejection of martyrdom and victimhood may also explain what has puzzled as well as dismayed onlookers – the fact that Israel seems to be quite oblivious to international opinion.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
-1299401.html
The war isn't over, but Israel has lost
(9 Jan) By Tony Karon . Repeating behaviors that have produced catastrophic failures and expecting a different result is insane; and when a person's psychotic behavior puts himself and those around him in immediate physical danger, the responsibility of those who claim to be his friends is to restrain him. But even as Waltz With Bashir shows in multiplexes across the world as a grim reminder of the precedent for Israel's brutal march of folly in Gaza, the U.S. (and the editors of the New York Times and Washington Post ) insist that there is a sanity and rationality to sending one of the world's most powerful armies into a giant refugee camp to rend the flesh and crush the bones of those who stand in its way … Well, actually, as Jimmy Carter explains from first-hand experience, Israel had plenty of alternatives and chose to ignore them, because it remains locked into the failed U.S.-backed policy of trying to overturn the democratic verdict of the 2006 Palestinian election that made Hamas the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority.
http://tonykaron.com/2009/01/
“Justice and support for poor working families in Gaza”: a message from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
(9 Jan) …We urgently ask you and your sister labor organizations to help us spread the message that "WE ARE ALL GAZA"--that this war is against all poor workers and families of the world. These are not just crimes against the people of Palestine . They are crimes against humanity. Help us create a strong voice for the working families of Gaza by building coalitions with unions, faith groups, antiwar movements, and all social justice organizations … We ask you to be an active player in raising funds to meet the bare necessities of food, medicine, and medical supplies for the people of Gaza. (See below for information on how to send financial contributions to the PGFTU for Gaza Aid.)
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.
Neo-Nazis for Israel?
(9 Jan) By Max Blumenthal. While much of the neo-Nazi fringe remains opposed to the existence of Israel , the whites-only British National Party recently declared its full-throated support for Israel 's attack on Gaza . The shelling of Gaza City by Israeli forces has brought joy to the heart of BNP head of legal affairs Lee Barnes
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Will Hizballah intervene in the Gaza conflict?
(11 Jan) By Amal Saad-Ghorayeb . While Israel fervently attempts to terrorize the Palestinians into submission in Gaza , many observers have started to wonder why Hizballah has refrained from stepping in militarily to assist its brothers-in-arms, Hamas. Such musings fail to take account of the constraints on Hizballah's room for action, as well as the circumstances under which Hizballah would ignore such constraints. The question that should be posed is not so much if Hizballah will act, but when. As things currently stand, Hizballah is not in a position to directly help Hamas militarily by opening a new front with Israel .
http://electronicintifada.net/
US denied Israeli bid for bunker-buster bombs
(11 Jan) WASHINGTON-President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran 's main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran 's suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.
http://www.boston.com/news/
buster_bombs/
Source:
www.TheHeadlines.org
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