US cancels Israel arms shipment over Greek objections
The US military has to had to cancel a planned shipment of munitions from a Greek port to a US warehouse in Israel due to objections from Athens, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday. "I think the Greek government had some issue with the offloading of some of that shipment in their country and so we are finding alternative means of getting that entire shipment to its proper destination in Israel," spokesman Geoff Morrell told a news conference."
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Attacks against Palestinians
Gaza death tolls passes 1,000
Death toll climbs beyond 1,000 as Israel continues bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
http://english.aljazeera.net/
At least three killed on Tuesday at dawn, death toll arrives to 975
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that the Israeli army shelled several Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday at dawn, killed at least three Palestinians, and injured twenty other residents.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
47 killed on Tuesday. 971 killed and 4418 injured since the offensive started
The Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip is still ongoing and on Tuesday, the eighteenth day of the offensive, the Israeli army killed 47 Palestinians, and wounded dozens of residents in several parts of the Gaza Strip. Medical sources in Gaza reported that the army killed 971 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, and wounded at least 4418 in the ongoing offensive.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
OPT: Rafah eyewitness - CARE aid worker bombed with his family
A CARE aid worker in Gaza survived a heavy Israeli bombardment that hit his neighbourhood in Rafah an hour ago, in the fiercest attack in his area since the conflict began. Jawad Harb fled his home, along with his wife, six children and 86-year-old paralyzed grandfather. They and hundreds of their neighbours stood in the open, unprotected street as the bombs fell around them. The bombs started at approximately 17.15h local time and ended at approximately 18.00h.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Palestinian doctor killed by IDF while treating Gaza wounded
Amira Hass - Haaretz - "His death raises the death toll of medical personnel killed by the IDF to seven since December 27, human rights groups said. In addition, three hospitals and four health clinics were damaged by gunfire in the last few days, Palestinian sources said."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Palestinian killed, five injured as Israel shells family home
The Palestinian death toll for Wednesday reached 10 as Israeli forces shelled a man's home, killing him and injuring five members of his immediate family. The house, which belonged to the Ashoor family, was destroyed in the Ash-Shayma neighborhood of northern Gaza City, witnesses said. Residents on the scene reported that five artillery shells consecutively slammed into the house, killing one of the at least six people inside.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli shelling kills two women, three men in Jabaliya
Two women were killed in intensified Israeli shelling in Jabaliya, medical sources told Ma'an late on Wednesday morning. Three artillery shells struck a house near Sultan Tower in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, leading to the deaths of two women and injuring a number of others.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Five Palestinian civilians killed in IOF attacks on Khuza'a
Five Palestinians civilians including an 80-year-old man were killed in Khuza'a town east of Khan Younis to the south of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in the ongoing IOF bloody attacks.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Medical staff recovers bodies of 22 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza city
Palestinian medical staff was able this morning to recover bodies of 22 Palestinian citizens killed during the IOF troops' attempts to advance into the Tel Al-Islam neighborhood, southeast Gaza city.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
92-year-old man among corpses recovered in Gaza
Rescue workers on Tuesday recovered the body of a 92-year-old Palestinian man in the northern Gaza Strip who had apparently been killed in the first days of the Israeli offensive on Gaza.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
UNRWA emergency shelters and bombed schools
Across the Gaza Strip, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is setting up emergency shelters in its schools. Despite two such shelters being cynically targeted by Israeli shelling in northern Gaza last week, many families still seek refuge in UNRWA schools simply because they have nowhere else to go. The massacre on 6th January at the Al Fakhoura School and a second school in the Jabaliya refugee camp north-east of Gaza City killed nearly 50 and injured dozens more.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/
Gaza op: Most detainees not Hamas men
Defense officials disappointed by low number of terrorists apprehended in wake of Gaza incursion.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3655587,00.html
Is Israel using shells that cause severe burns?
"I was breastfeeding my baby girl when suddenly something exploded and I heard my son calling 'Mom, fire!' I tried to stand up but the blast seemed to hit my head, which felt like it was on fire. I think I must have fainted," she said. "When I woke up and looked across the room, I saw the blackened bodies of my husband and my teenage son like pieces of charcoal. Both their heads were severed completely from their bodies. Even their blood wasn't red, it was black. And my baby daughter was dead."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/13/MNTF159H9T.DTL&feed=rss.news
Israel intensifies Gaza City push
Israeli troops are pushing deeper into Gaza City and the surrounding areas of Jabaliya and Beit Hanoun as their offensive enters its 19th day. Sameh Akram Habeeb, a journalist and blogger, told Al Jazeera by phone from inside Gaza City in the early hours of Wednesday that periodic gunfire between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces could be heard throughout the night.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200911415231255942.html
Israel may face UN court ruling on legality of Gaza conflict
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/14/israel-gaza-un-court-palestine
Rockets from Lebanon hit Israel
At least three rockets fired from Lebanon have hit northern Israel, Israeli officials say. "Three rockets fired into Israel landed outside the city of Kiryat Shmona," Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said on Wednesday. Witnesses said Israel responded immediately with artillery fire into southern Israel.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/20091147119763211.html
IDF soldier seriously hurt in anti-tank missile attack in Gaza
Seven Israel Defense Forces soldiers were wounded on Wednesday, one of them seriously, as Palestinian militants fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli paratroopers just outside Gaza City.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Is Israel using shells that cause severe burns?
"I was breastfeeding my baby girl when suddenly something exploded and I heard my son calling 'Mom, fire!' I tried to stand up but the blast seemed to hit my head, which felt like it was on fire. I think I must have fainted," she said. "When I woke up and looked across the room, I saw the blackened bodies of my husband and my teenage son like pieces of charcoal. Both their heads were severed completely from their bodies. Even their blood wasn't red, it was black. And my baby daughter was dead."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
Israel intensifies Gaza City push
Israeli troops are pushing deeper into Gaza City and the surrounding areas of Jabaliya and Beit Hanoun as their offensive enters its 19th day. Sameh Akram Habeeb, a journalist and blogger, told Al Jazeera by phone from inside Gaza City in the early hours of Wednesday that periodic gunfire between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces could be heard throughout the night.
http://english.aljazeera.net/
Israel may face UN court ruling on legality of Gaza conflict
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Rockets from Lebanon hit Israel
At least three rockets fired from Lebanon have hit northern Israel, Israeli officials say. "Three rockets fired into Israel landed outside the city of Kiryat Shmona," Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said on Wednesday. Witnesses said Israel responded immediately with artillery fire into southern Israel.
http://english.aljazeera.net/
IDF soldier seriously hurt in anti-tank missile attack in Gaza
Seven Israel Defense Forces soldiers were wounded on Wednesday, one of them seriously, as Palestinian militants fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli paratroopers just outside Gaza City.
Eyewitnesses/Testimonials
B'Tselem: Testimony: Father and two sons killed in bombing of their home, al-Bureij
http://www.btselem.org/
B'Tselem: Army bombs house in Gaza City, killing 21 members of the family, Jan. '09
http://www.btselem.org/
Soldiers reportedly shot woman waving white flag
A Palestinian besieged in the Khuza'a area, in south-eastern Gaza, reported today that Israeli soldiers shot a woman waving a white flag and civilians who were fleeing a bombed house on army orders, killing at least three and wounding others. (B'Tselem)
http://gazaeng.blogspot.com/
Medics: elderly man dies with white flag in his hand
The central route through the heart of Gaza City is under attack with Israeli warplanes firing into Omar Al Mukhtar Street, a boulevard divided by green and lined with shops. A building of media offices towers next to the ice cream shop known as "Gaza City's best."
White clouds of phosphorus smoke are rising from the wreckage as Israeli tanks move towards the center of the city.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Al-Jazeera Video: Gazans speak of life under Israeli fire - 13 Jan 09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Video: Children of Gaza
A freelance filmmaker in Gaza shot this material for Save the Children at a UN-supported school for pupils displaced from their homes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Testimony from Gaza: Will take decades to rebuild
Speaking from host's house in Khan Younis, Farahin resident Muhammad Abu-Dakka tells Ynet of devastation in Gaza Strip, including trading goods for food, thousands abandoning homes, phosphorus bombs.
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/
At the bedside of a badly wounded girl in Gaza
Alaa Khalid, 14, recalled a boom, then nothing. Doctors bandaged her face, but her injuries were more severe than they realized.
She was a girl with cuts on her face, lying in a hospital bed near her mother.
http://www.latimes.com/news/
Fear pervades lives of Gazans caught up in fighting
Blocked from all sides with no means of escape, Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians are trapped in the battlefield between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops. "Where should we go? No place is safe in this merciless war Israel is waging against us," said Umm Mohammad of Tal al-Hawa, a neighbourhood in the city of Gaza where Israeli troops battled militants overnight.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Every second there is a bomb
So far, my own family is okay but I feel shy to speak about my family. I don't think like that. Everyone in Gaza is my family. We are suffering collectively as we are being punished and forgotten collectively, and we are dying. It is very dangerous here and everywhere in Gaza. By 5pm the streets are empty. Not even one person goes out of their homes in my area. But even in our homes, we are not safe. I swear sometimes I can smell death around us. Adham Khalil writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Gaza: We don't know if we'll see the morning
I fell asleep last night after I had finished writing just after 3AM. I was exhausted, and had about four hours to go before work the next morning and the start of another day in the brutal war on Gaza. Instead I was woken up at around 3:30 by a cold call from Libya. The man on the other end wanted to express his solidarity with Palestinians and the people of Gaza especially. I was groggy and probably didn't say anything meaningful in return. When he hung up, I noticed that someone has sent me a text message while I was sleeping. It was my uncle Mohammad's wife, Areej. "The tanks have entered our neighborhood, the shelling is very violent. There's smoke in the house. Pray for us."
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/
Gaza's child victims
Four-year-old Samer Abed Rabbo lay half-covered by a blanket yesterday in her hospital bed as she tried to explain the bullets that crippled her and killed her two sisters. Samer was hit by a bullet in the back that damaged her spinal cord and left her arms and legs paralysed, probably permanently. Her sisters Amal, two, and Suad, eight, who was nicknamed Soso, were killed outright when their house in northern Gaza came under attack from an Israeli tank last week.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Gazans open old graves to bury their new dead
Medical officials in Strip say more than 970 Palestinians killed in Israeli offensive. Deep ground incursion made it impossible for residents to reach Martyrs Cemetery in Gaza City; gravedigger: Gaza is all a graveyard.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Gazans seek new places to bury the dead
AP - One family buried a slain son over his grandfather. Another bundled up the tiny bodies of three young cousins and lowered them into the grave of a long-dead aunt. A man was laid to rest with his brother.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Gaza family stranded for a week by nearby fighting
AP - After Israeli troops shelled their homes in a battle zone on Gaza's border, 30 members of a Bedouin clan hid for a week in an abandoned house.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Humanitarian appeals/statements/rights abuses
Red Cross chief: Gazans' wounds "shocking"
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Wednesday that he had witnessed "shocking" scenes of women and children wounded in Gaza a day earlier, and that Israeli forces are denying medical teams access to portions of the territory. At a news conference in East Jerusalem ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger stressed that both the Israeli military and Palestinian fighters must comply with international law by differentiating between combatants and civilians.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
White Phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives: Is Israel Using Banned and Experimental Munitions in Gaza?
Israel is coming under increasing criticism for its possible use of banned and experimental munitions. Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of illegally firing white phosphorous–that causes horrific burns if it comes in contact with the skin–over crowded refugee camps in Gaza. Medics and human rights groups are also reporting that they are seeing injuries distinctive of another controversial weapon, Dense Inert Metal Explosive–known as DIME–that was designed by the US Air Force in 2006. Those struck by the weapon who survive suffer severe mutilations and internal injuries. We go to the Gaza border to speak with Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch and to Norway to speak with Dr. Mads Gilbert who just returned from the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He says Gaza is "truly a scene from Dante's 'Inferno.'"
http://www.democracynow.org/
Israel accused of Gaza 'genocide'
UN General Assembly president tells Al Jazeera the violence in Gaza is "untenable".
UN body rips Israeli forces for trampling rights of children
Criticism of Israel's actions in its bloody 18-day offensive of the Gaza Strip rained down from various international bodies on Tuesday, with a UN group saying violations of human rights have been "blatant." In Geneva, the UN children's rights watchdog expressed deep concern at the "devastating impact" of the conflict in the Gaza Strip on children.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
UN human rights body: Effect of Gaza violence on children 'devastating'
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a statement on Tuesday in which it said the effect of the 18-day Israel Defense Forces operation in Gaza has been 'devastating' to children living in the coastal territory.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
UN: "Growing pockets" of Gaza population trapped in homes; 35,000 taking shelter in schools
"Growing pockets" of the population in Gaza are trapped in their homes, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Tuesday evening. In its daily update on humanitarian conditions in Gaza, OCHA said that affected areas "include Siyafa, Al Atatra, Al Isra, As Salateen, east and north of Beit Hanoun, east of Jabalia (North Gaza); southeast Az Zaitoun (southeast of Gaza Governorate); and At Tuffah (east of Gaza Governorate)."
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israel-OPT: Gaza sewage lagoons could collapse - water authority
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
International court to discuss Gaza op?
UN General Assembly to consider requesting advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on Israel's actions in Strip, The Guardian reported. 'There could be an ad-hoc tribunal established to hear allegations of war crimes,' says UN's special human rights investigator.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Suit filed in the Hague for crimes against humanity
Lawyers and jurists from several countries filed on Wednesday a lawsuit before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This is the first in an expected string of suits against the Israeli government and senior political and military officials for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide stemming from the current military operation against the Gaza Strip.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Two weeks for medical aid to reach Gaza
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/
Ging denies Hamas leaders hiding in Shifa hospital
GAZA, (PIC)-- John Ging, the director of UNRWA operations in the Gaza Strip, has denied Israeli allegations that the Hamas Movement was using the Shifa hospital as a temporary headquarters for its leaders. Ging told reporters on Tuesday that he visited the hospital on Monday and denied that Hamas was using it. He pointed out that around 40 foreign doctors had joined the medical staff in Shifa on Monday. Ging warned of a human calamity as water stopped reaching around half a million Palestinians in the Strip, adding that repairing water pipelines was not possible with the battles still raging.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Pictures
Palestinian children eating UN food rations
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
More pictures (graphic)
http://
The Collaborators
Doha to host summit on Gaza despite Saudi, Egyptian refusal
Sources close to the Arab League's urgent summit scheduled for Friday said on Wednesday that the participants had finally reached the necessary quorum following the announcement that the United Arab Emirates plans to attend.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Egypt, Saudi Arabia Reject Qatari Call for Arab Summit
Qatar has called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League to discuss steps to halt the Israeli offensive in Gaza, and Secretary-General Amr Moussa has said he will try to organize a session – in Kuwait, which is hosting an Arab economic summit next week, media reported Jan. 12. If the summit takes place, it would be the second meeting of Arab League foreign ministers since the Israeli offensive was launched Dec. 27.
http://almanar.com.lb/
U.S. sees Gaza rebuilding as opportunity for Abbas
U.S. and Western officials said details have yet to be worked out and depended on the extent to which Israel's military offensive, which has killed more than 900 Palestinians, weakens Hamas's hold on power. The aim would be to ensure that credit for reconstruction accrues to President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, and not to the Iranian-backed Islamists who won a 2006 Palestinian election and seized control of Gaza 18 months later.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/
Egypt tells Hamas it must commit to one year cease-fire in Gaza
Egypt continued on Tuesday to urge Hamas to accept its cease-fire proposal for the Gaza Strip. Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman told Hamas representatives to the talks in Cairo that the organization would have to commit to a one-year cease-fire. Hamas officials told the Egyptians that it would be willing to accept the proposal if the changes demanded by the organization are made.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Arabs fiddle and squabble, again, as Palestine bleeds and burns, again
The continuing intra-Arab row over whether and/or where to hold an emergency summit to discuss Israel's offensive against the Gaza Strip is an indictment of regional "leadership." Plainly, the circumstances are more than sufficient to justify the convening of such a meeting. But the bitter acrimony over the subject makes it just as clear.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Israel informer rests easy on the edge of Gaza onslaught
AFP - Abu Yusef has heard the roar of Israeli warplanes bombing his hometown in Gaza, but he supports the Jewish state as much as he did when he first became an informer on his fellow Palestinians.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Other reactions from the Arab world and Middle Eastern/Muslim countries
Al-Jazeera Video: Israeli assaults bring Gazan factions together - 14 Jan 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
At Cairo Hospital, Injured Palestinians Increasingly Voice Support for Hamas
"May God make you be victorious," she said. "I cannot stand what is happening to your people." Neither, apparently, can Hussein, a Palestinian policeman whose right arm was broken when Israeli missiles hit his police academy Dec. 27. Hussein voted for Hamas in the last election but said he never joined their militia. That's about to change. "I want to go back and fight with Hamas," he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
VP says Obama's silence toward Gaza harms U.S. interests
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said on Tuesday that the silence of new U.S. President Barack Obama regarding the tragedy in the Gaza Strip harms U.S. interests, urging the new administration to intervene to force Israel to stop aggressions on Gaza, a statement from al-Hashemi's office said.
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=
Erdogan calls on security council to impose sanctions on Israel
Turkish premier Recep Erdogan strongly criticized the UN security council for its passivity towards the Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip, demanding it to impose sanctions on Israel.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Turkish PM denies being anti-Semitic, says 'Jewish-backed media' spread false info on Gaza
Turkey's prime minister defended his outspoken criticism of Israel's Gaza offensive on Tuesday and said it did not mean he was anti-Semitic, though he also remarked that the "Jewish-backed media" was falsely suggesting that Hamas uses civilians as human shields in the Gaza Strip.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Iraq Palestinians see hypocrisy in Maliki denouncing Gaza attack
Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's public denunciation of the "major crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza " evoked a bitter laugh from Saleh as she riffled through pictures of Palestinians thought to have been killed by Iraqi Shiite Muslim militias and National Police commandoes during the height of sectarian violence. "When Maliki talks about Gaza , I ask, 'What are you doing to us?' " she said. "When Iran talks about Gaza , I think, 'Who killed us? Wasn't it your people?' " she asked, referring to Iraqi Shiite militias supported by Iran who targeted them for their supposed allegiance to Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/
Iranian lawmaker slams Saudi, Egyptian positions on Gaza issue
"The positions of Saudi Arabia and Egypt concerning the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza is very bad and not acceptable," Boroujerdi was quoted as saying.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Israel's Gaza offensive stokes anger among Jordan elite
Public protests against Israel have grown larger, and officials of the staunch U.S. ally have strongly criticized the Jewish state and begun to hedge their bets diplomatically. The boutique sells designer outfits, but the agitated talk among the women in fur coats and leather go-go boots is about politics, specifically Israel's war in the Gaza Strip.
http://www.latimes.com/news/
Anger over Egypt's Gaza policy still playing out on streets of Beirut
Critics of Egypt's stance on Israel's offensive in Gaza rallied near the Egyptian Embassy in Beirut on Tuesday to burn a huge Israeli flag. Egypt has been heavily criticized over its refusal to open its Rafah crossing with Gaza and resistance to holding an Arab League summit on the crisis.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Jordanians burn Mubarak's pictures in anti-Israel demo
AFP - Hundreds of Jordanians demanded Tuesday that Egypt open its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip in a protest against Israel's war in the Palestinian territory.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
A retired Algerian colonel stated that the Palestinian resistance is victorious because it never happened that a resistance movement was able to stand this long under such siege and aggression.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7Hzt6zscDwgcx8v2SVB3vKhuuT%2fpHpvHXcgPpefby2BkAoZKSq7nkaQ2HyDApQYlQ%2f9hNbF6FcDmZ1kM1i0VxPHrNtaDskq5mTev9sc5YCfQ%3d
Anger Begins to Knock at Israel's Borders
Excerpt: RAMALLAH -- A number of armed attacks have taken place on Israel's borders with Palestinian territories in the last six days as Arab public anger over the death and destruction wrought on Gaza spills over from massive street demonstrations.
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/frykberg.php?articleid=14062
Anger Begins to Knock at Israel's Borders
Excerpt: RAMALLAH -- A number of armed attacks have taken place on Israel's borders with Palestinian territories in the last six days as Arab public anger over the death and destruction wrought on Gaza spills over from massive street demonstrations.
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/
Media and media bias
Daoud Kuttab: The Challenge of Arab Journalists and Gaza
This was a hard week for me being asked on more than one occasion to choose between being a professional journalist and being a patriotic Palestinian. As a bilingual observer one is completely frustrated when following what is happening in our region on Arab and international television channels. Using sleep-deprived reports, Arab satellite stations have been continuously filling the airwaves with heart wrenching stories of Palestinians being violently assaulted with a seemingly endless and indiscriminate Israeli attacks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Al-Jazeera becomes the face of the frontline
Ayman Mohyeldin was in a coffee shop joking with colleagues in Gaza City when the first Israeli bomb struck, smashing into a police station just a short distance from where they were sitting. The tremors from the explosion shook the caf̩, but it took a few minutes for the reality to sink in РGaza was under attack.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
Journalists challenge Gaza reporting restrictions
AFP - Seventeen journalists and media activists took a bus loaded with notebooks and paper to Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Tuesday, demanding journalists be let into the enclave.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailyne
How American News Media Works In Favor Of Israel
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
The Shameless Media Blackout Continues
The Israelis are once again proving to be masters of propaganda... at least in the gullible eyes of the US public. They have embarked on a concerted media campaign that has had marked success in the West. While US news anchors often mention that Israel is keeping the media from the scenes of devastation in Gaza, they rarely ever appear critical of such flagrant violations of press freedoms. To make matters worse, the story is slowly fading from their headlines...
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/
Despite Gaza toll, Israeli media focus on Israel
AP - Israel's TV screens, radio broadcasts and newspapers have been filled with images of terrified Israelis fleeing to shelters, damage from Hamas rocket barrages and casualty reports.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Israel gains in media blitz, but for how long?
The advertisements in the international press couldn't be clearer: a map of London with an outline of the Gaza Strip alongside, missiles raining down onto Britain's capital. "Imagine if Hamas terrorists were targeting you and your family," reads the text under the map, overlayed with concentric rings showing the range of the rockets Hamas militants fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
http://www.alertnet.org/
Khaled Abou Toameh
I don't know if I spelled his name right, but this guy is quite something. He was featured in the Obsession "film" and is willing (for a modest fee) to tell you how backward and uncivilized Arabs/Muslims are. He is the token Arab in the Jerusalem Post: what do you expect. You should see his recent articles. It is always some outrageous opinion (like Palestinians adore Revisionist Zionism) and he unfailingly attribute his quotations to "a very senior Palestinian official" or a "high ranking Fatah official" or "you will not believe told me this" or "the most knowledgeable person in Palestine" or "an Israeli who posed as a Palestinian in an Israeli intelligence office".
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Ethan Bronner: the Servitor of Israeli propaganda
"Because Hamas booby-traps schools, apartment buildings and the zoo, and its fighters hide among civilians, it is Hamas that is viewed here as responsible for the civilian toll." Look at that sentence. He continues to justify Israeli killing of civilians. Notice that he did not even say who told him that Hamas was doing that. It becomes a fact. Imagine if a New York Times reporter were to state without sources that Israel targets civlians. If his sources are the Israeli military--which it is--he needs to state that. If a Palestinian group were to attack a civilian Israeli target in the futre, would Bronner state: ...and Israeli soliders mingle among citivilans in Israel?
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
What passes as a debate in the New York Times
The New York Times has a front page article about debate on the Middle East among "Middle East experts." Basically, it is a debate among fanatical supporters of Israel, and nobody else was invited to the party. And notice that Kissinger is the role model for Aaron David Miller, who once told me that US supports Israel because the latter has a philharmonic orchestra.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Zionist disinformation
"Friendly Fire"
I have to say as an Arab who watched at age 7 the lies of Arab governments during the 1967 war (and I still remember the outrage of my father at those lies of Arab radio stations), I feel a certain consolation at the high level of Israeli lies in the 2006 war on Lebanon and the current war on Gaza. If you think about it: the Israeli military was telling us back in 2006 that its war was going great, and the New York Times and other Zionist publications in the US merely repeated their claims, and we remember when they announced the discovery of "dead Iranian bodies" in South Lebanon, and yet an Israeli investigation unwittingly exposed the lies of the Israeli government. And now, it is so clear that the Israeli military is lying, and those announcements of friendly fire are happening daily now. And why don't US newspapers refer to targets of Palestinian missiles as "Israeli military strongholds" and many are, just as they describe hospitals and mosques and schools as "Hamas strongholds".
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Solidarity
Free Gaza Ship to sail to Gaza on Wednesday morning
This is a press release issued for circulation by the Free Gaza Movement. The movement is sending a new ship to Gaza carrying physicians, journalists, human rights workers and members of parliament. The ship sailing to Gaza carried the name "Spirit of Humanity."
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Israeli forces threaten to use "any means" to stop solidarity ship
The international nonviolent resistance is again making a move to bring aid to the Gaza Strip. After turning around three hours out from Cyprus on Monday, the Free Gaza Movement's ship "Spirit of Humanity" has again set sail.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Lebanese town names street after 'real man' Chavez for expelling Israeli envoy
The north Lebanese town of Bireh has named a street after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for expelling Israel's ambassador because of its onslaught on the Gaza Strip, the mayor says. "It's the least we can do for this great man who revived hope in our hearts and took revenge for us on the Zionist entity," Mohammad Wehbe told AFP.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Palestinian Government Open Letter to Chavez
[Editor's Note: The following is the full text of an open letter sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Gaza to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, on January 12, 2009. The Gaza government was deposed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007. However, the elected Hamas government in Gaza considered Abbas' decision unlawful, and continues to operate, despite the siege and the intense Israeli military onslaught, which killed, to date, nearly 1,000 Palestinians and wounded over 4,500 more. Chavez condemned the Israeli attacks and threw the Israeli Ambassador out of Caracas.]
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Kuwaiti MP calls to move Arab League to Venezuela
AFP - A Kuwaiti Islamist MP called on Wednesday for moving Arab League headquarters from Cairo to Caracas after expelled the Israel's ambassador because of its onslaught on the Gaza Strip.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
American Indian Movement on Palestine
American Indian activist Russell Means said President-elect Obama was selected by the colonial powers as president to improve the US image globally in the aftermath of George Bush. Further, Means said Obama's appointments show that he is a Zionist controlled by Israel. Speaking on Red Town Radio today, Means said what is happening now to Palestinians is what happened to American Indians. "Every policy the Palestinians are now enduring was practiced on the American Indian," Means said on the Blog Talk Radio show, hosted by Brenda Golden, Muskoke Creek. "What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of the Middle East," Means said. Further, he points out that the Zionists who control Israel now control the United States. "The power of the US in world politics diminishes every day."
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/
Demonstrators close Starbucks branch in Lebanon
About a hundred demonstrators have converged on west Beirut's branch of the Starbucks coffee shop and closed it down in protest over the Israeli attack on Gaza. Protesters are justifying their actions by claiming that the Starbucks corporation' owner donates money to the Israeli military.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
Holland supermarkets boycotted on rumors of Israel donations
In reporting on the issue, one influential site promoting a boycott of Israel wrote: "Lidl and Aldi may not be sending their revenue to Israel ... but they stock fruit and vegetables stolen from the Palestinian occupied territories."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Campaigns Urge Boycott of US Firms over Gaza Massacre
An extensive campaign was launched several days ago, calling for a boycott of American companies over the Bush administration's support for the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of people from all across the world have already joined the boycott efforts. The companies mentioned in the campaign are McDonald's, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Coca Cola and the Marlboro cigarette brand. The people behind the campaign urge that if all people worldwide were to stop purchasing American products, the United States economy would lose $8.6 billion a month. Additional measures against American companies have been taken in the Arab world in the past two weeks, and not just on the Web.
http://almanar.com.lb/
In Lebanon 'we are all Gaza'
http://english.aljazeera.net/
"Soldiers Refuse to Serve in Gaza, Tel-Aviv Protest, 8-1-2009," Social TV, 11 January 2009
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.
Social TV, "Thousands of Israelis Protest against the War in Gaza" (Video)
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.
NYC Gaza protests
http://leninology.blogspot.
Florida Statewide March "Let Gaza Live"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Iranian protesters back Gaza and burn Obama picture
http://uk.reuters.com/article/
Anti-solidarity
Max Blumenthal interviews Israel supporters at a rally
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Meanwhile in the West Bank and Israel
Soldiers beat a Palestinian man to death in Hebron
The Maan News Agency reported on Tuesday that Israeli soldiers attacked a Palestinian man while he was sitting with his son in their land in the southern West Bank City of Hebron. The soldiers hit the man with batons and kicked him until he lost consciousness. He died of his wounds later on.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Israeli settler kills Palestinian teenager near Qalqiliya
An Israeli settler shot a Palestinian teenager dead near the West Bank city of Qalqiliya on Tuesday evening. According to Israeli media the settler opened fire on a group of young Palestinians who were throwing stones at settlers' cars on a main road near the town of Azzun.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Troops kidnap seven civilians from villages near Hebron
The Israeli military invaded several villages located near the southern West Bank city of Hebron and kidnapped seven Palestinian civilians on Wednesday.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Israel's army closes Beita market for sixth time in 18 days
The Israeli army closed the market in Beita village south of Nablus and imposed a curfew on the area of Bier Kusa just outside of the village. Israeli military officials cited stone throwers harassing setters near the 60 Highway junction.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli Arabs: Banning of parties 'racist'
Residents of Nazareth incensed by Elections Committee's decision to disqualify Arab parties from Knesset vote.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Israeli troops raid houses in Salfit
Salfit – Ma'an –Israeli troops invaded two houses in the town of Haris west of Salfit on Monday night and turned their roofs into military posts. Witnesses confirmed that the troops imposed a curfew on the town and searched the home of 21-year-old Ibrahim Shamlawi, shot by Israeli forces when he attempted to set fire to a fuel station near a West Bank settlement Thursday. Witnesses added that the troops have frequently put checkpoints around the town, accusing residents of throwing stones at soldiers. [end]
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Other News/Analysis/Op-ed
Talks on EU-Israel ties frozen amid Gaza war: envoy
AFP - The European Union and Israel are to freeze talks on upgrading relations in the light of the war in Gaza, a senior EU official told reporters on Wednesday.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Olmert hits back in spat with U.S. over remarks on UN Gaza truce vote
Ehud Olmert's bureau maintained on Wednesday that the outgoing prime minister had correctly described moves that led to a United Nations resolution on a truce in Gaza, despite a United States rejection of his account, Israel Radio reported.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Leading Israeli Scholar Avi Shlaim: Israel Committing "State Terror" in Gaza Attack, Preventing Peace
The assault on Gaza is entering its 19th day with no end in sight. Israel continues its intense bombardment of the territory as Israeli troops edge closer to the heart of Gaza City. Nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 4,400 injured, many of them women and children. Thirteen Israelis have died over the same period, 10 of them soldiers. We speak with Oxford professor Avi Shlaim. He served in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and is widely regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on the Israeli-Arab conflict.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Who and what is Hamas?
Eric Margolis: Hamas is more of a threat to corrupt Arab regimes than to Israel.
http://therealnews.com/t/
On Heightened "Full Red Alert" Hezbollah Continues to Ponder its Islamic Duty to the Palestinians in Gaza
The Resistance is one project and the resistance movement is one movement and has one course, one destiny, one goal, despite its different parties, factions, believes, sects and intellectual and political trends…Resistance movements in this region, especially in Lebanon and Palestine, complement one another and (Hezbollah and Hamas) are contiguous groups.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/
How does one prepare for a war crime?
Since the start of the Israeli offensive on Gaza, Israeli warplanes have been bombing and shelling several locations in the area near our house, very near our house. With each bombardment, we feel our house shake like an earthquake and windows break, not to mention our utter fear and horror. Maha Mehanna writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Arab Parties Banned in Israel
For decades, the Israeli government has boasted of being an oasis of democracy and pluralism in a region noted for authoritarian regimes. On the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs website you will find this description: In several Arab countries and Iran, minorities are suppressed. In stark contrast, minorities in Israel are entitled to equal rights under the law and have judicial recourse to addressing their grievances when problems arise. These same minorities are represented in the Israeli Knesset.
http://swampland.blogs.time.
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza, By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I'm quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Why It's Useless to Lobby Congress on Gaza
The U.S.A. is reportedly a democracy. It just had an election so Congress candidates made some effort to take the public pulse. And there are the polls. The Rasmussen poll on Dec. 31 reported that only a bare plurality of Americans supported Israel's all out war on Gaza. Less than 1/3 of the triumphant Democratic voters support the attack and Rasmussen reports only 55% of them consider Israel to be a U.S. ally at all.
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Study: International law seldom newsworthy in war on Gaza
US corporate media coverage of the Israeli military attacks that have reportedly killed more than 900 -- many of them civilians -- since 27 December has overwhelmingly failed to mention that indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets are illegal under international humanitarian law. Israel's recent aerial attacks on Gazan infrastructure, including a TV station, police stations, a mosque, a university and even a United Nations school, have been widely reported. Yet despite the fact that attacks on civilian infrastructure, including police stations, are illegal (Human Rights Watch, 31 December 2008), questions of legality are almost entirely off the table in the US media.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Beyond Grief and Rage
We need to analyze and strategize about political realities, but let's begin with an emotional reality: For the past few weeks the scenes from Gaza have been driving many of us mad.
http://www.counterpunch.org/
500 Citizens of Sderot Contradict the Israeli Government
Much has been made of Hamas' reported failure to honour last year's truce. But, an extraordinary correspondence between Jewish residents of the much-rocketed town of Sderot, nearby kibbutz, and the Palestinians living within sight in the Gaza strip paints a very different picture of that truce from that repeatedly given by the Israeli government.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Israeli PM Ehud Olmert Claims to be Able to Order Bush Around
So outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was speaking in Ashkelon on Monday, and he said the most amazing thing. The USG Open Source Center translated the relevant passage from his speech, in which he claimed he had the ability to control US foreign policy and summarily over-rule the Secretary of State...
http://www.juancole.com/2009/
The Limits of Free Speech
Let me say it loud and clear. I do not believe in Israel's right to exist. It is a militarised, evil entity founded on a racist premise and a lot of religious hokum. It shuld be replaced by a single, secular state in which the Palestinians are free to live, and in which they receive either their stolen lands or genuine equivalent financial compensation, in either case plus damages.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
The gates of Hell, the window to Heaven
I have a routine of sorts. I monitor the situation back home in Gaza all day -- I keep Al Jazeera English on continuously as long as I am home, despite my son's Yousuf's nagging to switch to cartoons. He stopped asking several days ago, when, tearful and angry, I told him Gaza is being bombed, that Seedo and Tete (Grandma and Grandpa) are in danger. Laila El-Haddad writes from the US.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Gaza's widows face patriarchal world alone
AFP - Khaled Kahlut just popped out with his sons to buy some bread. Hit by an Israeli missile, they never came home. Now his widow Manal must learn to navigate through life in patriarchal Gaza with no men by her side.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Israeli bombs silence Gaza music school
There was a music school in Gaza. It was just six months old. The 31 children aged 7 to 11 could choose one of five instruments, including the guitar, oud (lute), and piano. Most of the 19 girls gravitated to the guitar and piano, while many of the 12 boys showed a preference for the oud.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Phil Shiner: If Britain had fulfilled its obligations in 2004, it could have prevented the escalation of the Gaza crisis
As reported this week, there are repeated calls for the UK and the international community to condemn Israel's disproportionate and, therefore, illegal attacks on the civilian population of Gaza. At the same time, David Miliband urges an effective immediate ceasefire while repeatedly emphasising that the "attacks" from Hamas – which he talks about first – and the "military action" by Israel must stop. So far, this diplomatic language has been completely ineffective: the Israeli assault on Gaza continues unabated. However, if the UK and other EU states in particular, had complied with their international obligations, as clearly set out in the advisory opinion of the international court of justice in July 2004, this crisis could have been nipped in the bud at the outset (as could Israel's bombardment of Lebanon and Gaza in August 2006).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Canada Complicit with Israeli War Crimes
Canada lives in the unfortunate position of being under the thrall of U.S. media for most its information and cultural relevance. At the same time, its own media, apart from the national broadcast company CBC, is highly centralized under the influence of two media empires (Canwest Global and CTV GlobeMedia) who support the same kind of biased coverage that is provided by the U.S. In sum, Canadians who wish to receive a balanced view of events in the Middle East, Gaza in particular, have to rely on alternate or external media. Canwest Global (Israel Aspers' media empire) provides nightly updates with little context and "balanced" reporting of showing deaths in Israel from the Qassam rockets as being equally as devastating as the IDF attacks in Gaza.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Sir Gerald Kaufman: "What the International Reaction Would Be If Hamas Had Slaughtered Nearly 900 Israelis and Subjected Nearly 1.5 million Israelis to Degradation and Deprivation?"
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab): In congratulating my right hon. Friend [David Miliband] on steering resolution 1860 through the United Nations Security Council, may I ask him what the international reaction would be if Hamas had slaughtered nearly 900 Israelis and subjected nearly 1.5 million Israelis to degradation and deprivation? Is it not an incontrovertible fact that Olmert, Livni and Barak are mass-murderers and war criminals -- [ Interruption. ] Yes. And they bring shame on the Jewish people whose star of David they use as a flag in Gaza, but whose ethos and morals go completely against what this Israeli Government are doing.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.
Lieberman: 'Do to Hamas what US did to Japan''Who is the extremist?', Barghouthi wonders
Avidgor Lieberman, the Chairman of Israel Beitenu (Israel Our Home), the 5th largest political party in Israel stated today, regarding the massacre in Gaza, that Israel should "do to Hamas what the US did to Japan. ""We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II," Lieberman added. "Then, too, the occupation of the country was unnecessary. " To Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, The Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, "the Israeli politicians statements disproportionate, such as their bloody actions on our people in Gaza. ""In 1945, US launched two atomic bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, resulting in one of the biggest tragedy in human history that has been condemned many times", added the deputy. "Avidgor Lieberman is an extreme orator from whom we are used to hear extreme speeches.
http://www.palestinemonitor.
Stubbornness in Gaza
No doubt Hamas is stubborn, even unreasonable, but Peres well remembers that in the long history of his own people there have been times, from Masada to Warsaw, when stubborn men deemed it better to resist against hopeless odds rather than accept subjugation.
http://www.boston.com/
Israeli "peace camp": Peace now?
"The Peace Now organization has received many messages from supporters telling it to stay out of the streets on this one." You see. I never EVER trusted this organization and I never EVER believed there is such a thing as peace camp in Israel. Don't get me wrong: sometimes Israeli leftists may oppose a particular massacre or a particular festival of Israeli butchery but only if it causes "anguish" to the Israeli terrorists themselves.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Mohamed Khodr - Bush's Farewell to Israel: The Genocide of Gaza with American Arms
http://palestinethinktank.com/
Not all Jews agree with Israel's Gaza action
WHEN one of the most powerful militaries in the world unleashes on the most densely populated area in the world, collateral carnage is inevitable.
http://www.news.com.au/
Iraq
Tuesday: 2 Iraqis Killed, 3 Wounded
http://www.antiwar.com/
World Briefing | The Americas: Iraq: Court-Martial for U.S. Sergeant
A United States Army sergeant will face a court-martial on murder charges in connection with the killing of four Iraqi prisoners, the American military said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
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www.TheHeadlines.org
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