Attacks on Palestinians
Video: Gazan doctor's children killed while he is speaking to Israeli TV
http://palestinethinktank.com/
Israeli TV news broadcasts a father's heartbreak
Los Angeles Times [THIS story will be seen even in the US; so much for control of information] It was a voice of anguish that pierced a nation. Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members. Aboul Aish was a single father. His wife had died of cancer. He made his daughters sleep close to the walls of their home in hopes that would keep them safe if airstrikes or artillery collapsed the ceiling ... across Israel the doctor's anguished voice kept playing over and over. (includes video, photo of the doctor)
http://www.latimes.com/news/
Israel-trained Gaza doctor loses three daughters and niece to IDF tank shell
Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, a Palestinian doctor who trained in Israel, has been a regular fixture on Israeli television during the 21-day-old war against Hamas militants, bringing witness accounts of the medical crisis facing Gazans to Israeli living rooms. His report Friday was drenched in grief as he sobbed through a cell phone that three of his daughters and a niece were killed by an Israel Defense Forces shel ... Abu al-Aish, a 55-year-old gynecologist, also is a known peace activist who was involved in promoting joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, and an academic who studied the affects of war on Gazan and Israeli children. He works at Gaza's main Shifa Hospital.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Gaza doctor loses three daughters
And then there's the Israeli take on this: Another tragedy in Gaza: Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, a gynecologist from Gaza who works in Israel, lost three of his eight children in an Israel Defense Forces shelling, Channel 10 reported Friday. His wife died of leukemia several months ago. An initial IDF inquiry revealed that a tank fired back at the Jabalya refugee camp after being fired on by gunmen. Prof. Ze'ev Rothstein, director-general of the Sheba Medical Center, told Ynet, "Since the operation began, Dr. Abu al-Aish returned to Gaza to be with his daughters. There are not enough words to describe the tragedy which has hit this man of all people, who does everything for the treatment of children and studied the health of children in Gaza and Israel. "From what I understand, his daughters were killed by an Israeli tank shell. I wish I could wake up and realize this is a bad dream. Hamas may have taken advantage of his home. This is one of the worst tragedies of this war, which illustrates the absurd in the use made of the population exposed to the fire. All of Sheba's staff bow their head in the face of this loss." [Couldn't possibly have been Israeli error or carelessness...]
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Soldiers' mother: Stop Gaza doctor's propaganda
And a worse one: The Sheba medical center was the site of a confrontation Saturday, as Israeli visitors to the hospital slammed the "propaganda" of a Gaza doctor who lost three of his daughters
http://www.ynetnews.com/
UN official calls for 'war crimes' investigation into IDF shelling of Gaza school
A United Nations official has called for an investigation into possible war crimes after the Israel Defense Forces killed two people at a UN-run school in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday. Spokesman Chris Gunness says the school was crowded with 1,600 people who had sought shelter from Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza. This was the latest incident in which Israeli fire aimed at militants has struck a UN facility during the offensive. Gunness says Israel had the coordinates of the school and knew it was being used as a shelter.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
22nd day under attack: Israel shells UN school, death toll in Gaza 1200
The Palestinian Ministry of Health added that the number of those injured have exceeded 5,300 including 400 in critical condition. Since Israel embarked on its military campaign on December 27th, 2008, its troops have attacked the UN centers and schools at least four times. On Thursday, Jan.15th, Israeli military shelled a UN compound in Gaza city. The building belongs to the United Nation's Relief and Work Agency of the Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). UN officials in Gaza believe the building was shelled with a phosphorus bomb as it caused a huge fire in the building which burned almost all the food and medical supplies. On Tuesday two weeks ago, a UN-run school was attacked. At least 43 civilians were killed and 100 others wounded, when the Israeli troops launched an attack on the school in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya. Last Thursday, the military attacked an aid convoy for UNRWA, killing a driver and injuring another. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is providing 700, 000 Palestinian refugees living in Gaza with their daily food requirements.
http://imemc.org/article/58504
Medics recover two bodies near Khan Younis
(17 Jan) Palestinian medical crews recovered the bodies of two brothers who were killed by Israeli fire in the Al-Fakhari area east of Khan Younis on Saturday. The dead were identified as Ibrahim Muhammad Sharab and Kassab Muhammad Sharab.Their father was wounded and was taken to a hospital. The head of Ambulances and Emergency Services in the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr Mu'awiya Hassanain said that 13 people have been killed in Gaza so far on Saturday, most of them as a result of phosphorus munitions. He said that a number of the bodies have been so badly burned that they cannot be identified. The death toll in Gaza is now 1,205. Among them are 410 children, 108 women, 113 elderly people, and five foreign nationals. Hassanain said that Israeli attacks have destroyed 15 clinics and damaged several ambulances.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli forces shell UN school, killing mother and son; Gaza official toll reaches 1205
Israeli forces shelled a United Nations-run school in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing a mother and her young son. According to witnesses several others were injured when Israeli rockets struck the school in Beit Lahiya. Tens of thousands of Gazans are sheltering in schools across the Strip run by the UN's relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness said several rounds hit the school at about 6:45am. After a short pause, the third floor of the school took a direct hit, killing the two and injuring another 14 people. Witnesses said four more people were killed when other shells struck nearby as people tried to escape.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
48 dead as strikes hit homes sheltering dozens of displaced Gazans; mother and five children dead; 1169 dead total
8:15pm Friday Israeli strikes in the Ash-Shujaieyah of eastern Gaza City killed ten in one home, and another four north of the city in Jabaliyah. A third airstrike in the As-Saftawi area north of Gaza City killed an as yet unknown number of Palestinians, since medical crews have been unable to reach the area. 7:00pm A mother and her five children from the Al-Batran family were killed Friday afternoon in an Israeli airstrike on their home in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip ... 11:30am An Israeli artillery shell killed a six-year-old girl according to officials at Kamal Udwan Hospital in northern Gaza. Medics said the shell landed on a group of children in the town of Jabaliya....
http://www.maannews.net/en/
14 Palestinians killed on Friday at night, 1167 killed, 5200 wounded in ongoing offensive
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported on Friday at night that 14 Palestinians were killed, 10 of them after the army shelled a mourning house east of Gaza City, as the Israeli air strikes and shelling in the continued in the Gaza Strip. A mother and her five children were also killed in the central Gaza Strip.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
700 Palestinian Refugees Forced To Flee
Israeli tanks thrust deep inside Gaza City last night [Thursday] as ferocious fighting raged in dense residential areas with terrified families fleeing along streets echoing with gunfire, although many others were trapped in their homes.The Al-Quds hospital was also hit by shellfire. A tower housing the Reuters agency and other media outlets was also hit. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the damage caused to the Al Quds hospital is "completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international humanitarian law".
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Patients forced from beds as Israel attacks Al-Quds Hospital
In scenes of utter panic, patients who had been wounded in the ongoing war in the territory could be seen trying to struggle from their beds, an AFP photographer at the scene said. Desperate patients tried to flee a hospital in Gaza City this [Friday] morning as it became engulfed in flames after being earlier set on fire by an Israeli tank shell, medics and witnesses said. In scenes of utter panic, patients who had been wounded in the ongoing war in the territory could be seen trying to struggle from their beds, an AFP photographer at the scene said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/
More than 1,150 killed as Israeli tank shelling claims 11 more lives in Gaza City
Hassanein said that altogether there were 22 Palestinians killed on Friday night, adding that the death toll since the beginning of Israeli massive attack in Gaza has exceeded 1,150.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Palestinian legislator assassinated, families murdered in Gaza
Yesterday [Thursday], the IOF assassinated Said Siam, a PLC member and Minister of Interior in the Government in Gaza ....After the invasion ended at 7am today, Al Mezan Center's field workers entered the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood. Initial reports indicate that about 70 buildings have been destroyed or damaged by the IOF. Bulldozers razed paved streets and destroyed water, sewage and electricity networks in the neighborhood. The IOF has targeted many homes in the invasion areas, people who are reportedly uninvolved in any armed, or even political activities. The IOF also targeted medical teams and prevented their access to people whose could have been saved. [list of attacks follows, with the names of those murdered]
http://electronicintifada.net/
Obituary: Said Siam
The Hamas interior minister Said Siam, who was assassinated, aged 51, when Israeli warplanes attacked his brother's home in Gaza
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
(AP) Hamas Interior Minister Said Sayyam, killed in an Israeli airstrike
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Israeli assault injured 1.5 million Gazans
This week the death toll in Gaza passed the 1,000 mark, after three weeks of Israeli air and ground attacks. But surprisingly, no one has reported an even more appalling statistic: that there are some 1.5 million injured Palestinians in Gaza. How is is possible that such an astounding figure could have passed the world's media by? ... there is another, far more reasonable standard for assessing those injured, one that provides the far higher total of 1.5 million Gazans -- or every surviving Palestinian in Gaza. The measure I am referring to is the one employed by Israel.Here is an example of its use. In September 2007, the international media reported that 69 Israeli soldiers had been wounded when Palestinian militants fired a rocket into the Zikim army base near the Gaza Strip. It is worth noting the details of the attack. Israeli officials related that, of the 69 wounded, 11 had moderate or severe injuries and one was critically injured. A few more had light wounds. The rest, probably 50 or more, were injured in the sense that they were suffering from shock.
http://electronicintifada.net/
The Palestinians say: 'This is a war of extermination'
By Ahdaf Soueif in Egypt. The Palestinians say: "This is a war of extermination." They describe bombs which break into 16 parts, each part splintering into 116 fragments, the white phosphorus which water cannot put out; which seems to die and then flares up again. No one I spoke to has any doubt that the Israelis are committing war crimes. According to the medics here, to reports from doctors inside the Gaza Strip and to Palestinian eye-witnesses, more than 95% of the dead and injured are civilians. Many more will probably be found when the siege is lifted and the rubble is cleared. The doctors speak of a disproportionate number of head injuries - specifically of shrapnel lodged in the brain. One of the nurses said to me that the nurses and paramedics were horrified by what they were seeing. "We deal with cases all the time," she said. "But what we're seeing these days we've never seen before or imagined."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Pictures of the carnage in Gaza: Very graphic. Not safe to look at near children
http://www.slide.com/r/
VIDEO: Gaza conflict: Day 21
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Human rights groups report from the field
B'Tselem: Throughout these horrific weeks, the most carefully documented reports inside Israel of what is and what isn't actually happening have been those of the human right organizations.This is a combined blog of these organizations
http://gazaeng.blogspot.com/
Physicians for Human Rights aid convoy and protest halted
Over 300 members and supporters of Physicians for Human Rights set out to accompany an emergency delivery of medical supplies to the Gaza Strip this [Friday] morning. Most of the buses were turned back by the Israeli authorities at roadblocks set up well before the crossing. The truck that was due to depart to Gaza with much-needed supplies was unable to do so, as the pick-up truck from the Gaza side, was damaged in last night's Israeli bombardment in the region.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Why prevent humanitarian aid from entering Gaza?
By Steve Sosebee of the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund. As an American working for 20 years in the Gaza Strip, I feel overwhelming pain and sadness at the destruction being wrought on friends who have suffered so much there for so long ... What has been underreported here is the fact that before the start of the Hamas' rockets and the Israeli assault late last month, many international humanitarian organizations were prevented from providing aid in Gaza. For months, we've faced insurmountable obstacles in reaching civilians in Gaza. In my own experience, injured and sick children who had medical care arranged abroad were prevented from traveling by both the Israelis and the Egyptians, while volunteer doctors were denied access into Gaza to treat injured children.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Resistance/Retaliation
Brigades sustain losses, continue firing rockets at Israeli targets
The Salah Ad-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees said that three of its members, Abed Ar-Rahman As-Suri, Mohmmad Issa Ash-Sharafi, and Amir Abu Riyala were killed. The National Resistance Brigades, the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), announced the death of a field commander, Hamuda Thabet. The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed to have shot an Israeli soldier and shelling Israeli forces in the Ar-Rayes area of Gaza, and for firing homemade projectiles at an Israeli artillery position east of Al-Bureij, in central Gaza....
http://www.maannews.net/en/
15 Gaza rockets hit Negev, one striking empty synagogue
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Saturday fired at least fifteen rockets and fourt mortar shells at southern Israel, with one rocket hitting an empty synagogue on a moshav in the Merhavim regional council area. The rest of the rockets all landed in open territory. No casualties were reported. More than 15 rockets were fired at southern Israel Friday, leaving five Israelis wounded.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
9 soldiers hurt in Gaza
Cleared for publication: An IDF soldier sustained serious wounds, another was moderately hurt, and three more troops sustained light injuries in Gaza after an anti-tank rocket was fired at them. The five Givati Brigade soldiers were treated at the scene and later taken to hospitals in Israel. Earlier Saturday, two soldiers and two officers from the Paratroopers Brigade were seriously injured in exchanges of fire with Palestinian gunmen on the outskirts of Gaza City. The four were hurt by mortar shells fired at them during a patrol of the area.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Four Israeli soldiers wounded as Palestinian fighters engage invading forces
Two Israeli soldiers and two officers were wounded after mortars launched by Palestinian fighters hit them on the outskirts of Gaza City. While the Israeli military confirmed that the four were wounded in an exchange of fire, the officials said that the incident is still being investigated, and that they could not rule out a "friendly fire" incident. The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas said that they bombed an Israeli tank in Al-Mughraqa, on the southern outskirts of Gaza City, and exchanged fire with Israeli troops in the same location.The Al-Qassam Brigades also said they fired eight homemade rockets at Israeli troops to the west of Ash-Shati Refugee Camp, and two more at Israeli jeeps east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip....
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Four IDF paratroopers seriously wounded in Gaza fighting
The wounded, all of whom were from the Paratroopers' Brigade, received medical treatment at the scene, before they were evacuated by helicopter to hospitals in the South of Israel. The IDF is currently checking the circumstances the incident, and weighing the possibility that it was another case of friendly fire. If the four wounded troops were in fact hit by friendly fire, it would represent the fourth such incident since Operation Cast Lead began on December 27.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Exclusive interview: PFLP in Gaza on peace, resistance, and unity
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and its armed wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, is currently embroiled in battles against Israeli ground troops in the Gaza Strip, while continuing to launch projectiles across the Green Line toward Israel. Ma'an spoke with an official spokesperson of the leftist, secular movement in Gaza to shed some light on the current fight with Israel and the state of Palestinian politics vis-Ã -vis both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Truce
Israel votes on cease-fire; Hamas vows to fight on
JERUSALEM – Israel's top leadership met Saturday to approve a unilateral cease-fire that would halt the devastating 22-day offensive in Gaza but Hamas vowed to keep fighting until all Israeli forces pull out. In the hours leading up to the meeting and after it started, Israel kept bombarding Gaza. The 12-member Security Cabinet was expected to back an Egyptian-brokered proposal for a 10-day cease-fire during which Israeli troops would remain on the ground while longer term arrangements are hammered out with international backing. But Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said a unilateral cease-fire was not enough. "The occupier must halt his fire immediately and withdraw from our land and lift his blockade and open all crossings and we will not accept any one Zionist soldier on our land, regardless of the price that it costs," Barhoum said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
Israel expected to halt offensive on Gaza while ceasefire negotiated
JERUSALEM -- Israel's security cabinet convened a meeting tonight, and officials said they expected a decision to halt its 3-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip but to keep the army there while Egypt mediates a long-term cease-fire deal with Hamas. "We believe that our military campaign has achieved its goals and that we are now in a situation where we can cease our military operations against Hamas," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was to give a televised address at 10 p.m. [noon Pacific time] on the decision by his 12-member security cabinet.
http://www.latimes.com/news/
US backs deal to reopen Gaza-Egypt border
By Chris McGreal in Jerusalem. The US agreed to provide technical and intelligence assistance on Egypt's border with Gaza
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Text of US-Israel agreement to end Gaza arms smuggling
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Egypt urges Israel to implement unconditional Gaza truce
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called on Israel on Saturday to end its military operations in the Gaza Strip immediately and said his country would call for a meeting on post-war reconstruction in the enclave ... Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Saturday his country was not commited to the U.S.-Israeli pact
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
British PM Brown offers to use Royal Navy to battle Hamas arms smugglers
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday that Britain had offered naval resources that could be used to help prevent arms smuggling into Gaza as part of an arrangement to end the fighting there. Brown told reporters that France and Germany had made similiar offers in a bid to curtail the bloodshed ... The Vatican says it sent monetary aid to Gaza in the name of Pope Benedict XVI to help relief efforts being carried out by the tiny Catholic presence in Gaza.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Aftermath
Palestinians say damage to Gaza totals $476 million
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israel's devastating military assault in the Gaza Strip has caused damage to the Palestinian infrastructure totalling some 476 million dollars, the Palestinian central bureau of statistics said on Saturday. Official figures show that since the start of Israel's offensive on December 27, around 4,000 dwelling places have been destroyed as well as 48 government offices and buildings, 30 police stations and 20 mosques. The extensive list also catalogues damage to roads, schools, the electricity grid and the water network. In total, some 14 percent of all the buildings in the battered territory had been either damaged or destroyed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Gaza war recovery plans face huge obstacles
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - International aid plans for post-war Gaza call for rushing in food and medicine and restoring water and power, but a wholesale reconstruction of the enclave is a long way off, Western diplomats said on Saturday. Preliminary estimates of the cost of rebuilding from Israel's devastating military offensive top $1.6 billion, according to the diplomats. But they said a full accounting of the damage had yet to begin and would take weeks to complete. Representatives of the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank held an emergency meeting in Jerusalem on Saturday to prepare an initial response to what a top U.N. official in Gaza has described as "hell on earth."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/
Testimonials/Eyewitness accounts
Wederman: Defiance amid destruction in Gaza
RAFAH, Gaza (CNN) -- Bloodshed, fear, privation and anger were all clearly visible in Gaza as we finally managed to enter the territory. Unsurprisingly, there were also displays of fist-shaking defiance, but what I had not expected was the high morale...At one point I saw a young boy on a donkey cart, unaware I was observing him. As an Israeli jet passed overhead, he shook a fist at the sky.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/
Trauma and terror in Gaza
We who live in the shadow of death under the Israeli onslaught veer hour by hour from defiance to despair By Sami Abdul-Shafi. It has been incredibly traumatising for ordinary people here to be subjected repeatedly to massive and simultaneous attacks from air, sea and land, in assaults that seem to target large areas at once. For the people of Gaza, it is a process of psychological torture – like being in prison and hearing a guard beating an inmate in the cell next door. It is only the Gaza Strip's community spirit that has come to the rescue ... What Israel's government seems not to understand is how the entire Gaza Strip is now united in resistance to protect its dignity and right to a peaceful and prosperous life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
7 minutes
By Eva Bartlett. When I'd met the extended Abed Rabbo family, before the ground invasion began, they had just had their house bombed by an F-16. That day, Abu Mahmoud Abed Rabbo had related the events of his house demolition. "A person called me saying he was a spokesperson for the Israeli army and that we had 7 minutes to leave the house before it was bombed. I begged for 10, told him 7 wasn't enough to collect possessions and get our children out safely. He said 7," Abed Rabbo explained. His family made it out in time, avoiding the death sentence that has been given so many here, without warning. He said he'd just stood away from the house and watched as it was bombed, watched 20 years of his life be erased, with everything inside it.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/
Video - Gaza: Lives in ruins
On January 14, Gazans from Khoza'a near Khan Younis were fired upon and forced to flee their homes. Thirteen were killed and 50 injured, and the whole areas was then destroyed by Israeli forces. Picking through the rubble of their ruined homes, former residents allege a series of human rights abuses in these personal testimonies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Dr. Ehab isn't there anymore
Dr. Ehab Jasir al-Shaer, a physician specializing in dermatology, a graduate of a university in Ukraine, has not been at his clinic since 27 December 2008. On that day, Ehab, his brother Raja, Ehab's uncle Yasir and Ehab's cousins Haitham and Tamer, all went to the Rafah governorate local administration building in Rafah City. Suddenly at almost 11:30am, we heard loud explosions everywhere," said Jasir al-Shaer, Dr. Ehab's 60-year-old father, while sitting on a sofa at Ehab's clinic. "Neighbors told us that the governorate building was just hit by Israeli warplanes. My heart began beating very quickly. I left my home and rushed over. Among the dead bodies I found my son Ehab, my brother Yasir and his son Haitham lying lifeless in the hospital's morgue," Jasir said with a clear voice ... The family of Jasir al-Shaer became refugees in 1948 when they were forced out of their village of Karatiya, one of 450 towns in what is now called Israel whose inhabitants were displaced. The family lost two other sons in May 2004 when the Israeli army attacked their neighborhood of Tal al-Sultan to the west of Rafah City.
http://imemc.org/article/58464
War crimes
Fresh evidence of Israeli phosphorus use in Gaza emerges
(includes video) By Richard Norton-Taylor. Fresh evidence of the firing of white phosphorus weapons by Israeli forces in Gaza
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Time for Israel to be put on trial
By Elna Sondergaard. The crucial question is however: To which courts of justice can Palestinian victims bring their claims? There are Palestinian courts in Gaza but they have no jurisdiction over criminal cases involving Israelis. As stateless people, Palestinians have no state which could sign the Rome Statute with a view to seeking the adjudication of the ICC, or which would be entitled to bring a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague as Bosnia and Herzegovina did concerning the massacre at Srebrenica. Without a state, Palestinians are also denied the legal protection offered by classic interstate diplomacy.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Journalists call Livni 'terrorist' during press conference on Gaza operation
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had a testy press conference Friday in Washington, D.C., moments after she signed an agreement with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meant to combat arms smuggling to Gaza. One of the more tense moments came when one journalist began to quote at length a Human Rights report on the situation in Gaza, before asking Livni to comment on "the murder of innocent civilians in the Strip." When the man was asked to finish his question, he yelled out that Livni had been speaking for an hour and that the journalists weren't being allowed to ask questions. He then asked since when the U.S. has been hosting "terrorists".
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
The collaborators/enablers
When Pharoah embraces Goliath
while protesters in various Arab countries have denounced all the regimes that fail to take any meaningful action against Israel or its American sponsor, demonstrators have concentrated their wrath on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for his shameful role in enforcing the Israeli blockade on Gaza for the past year and a half.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/
Egypt police beat Islamists in Gaza rally: witnesses
CAIRO, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Egyptian police used batons to beat protesters who rallied against the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip in central Cairo on Saturday, witnesses said. The protest was called by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's strongest opposition group which has historical and ideological ties with Hamas Islamists in Gaza ... Reuters photographer Asmaa Waguih said men who appeared to be plainclothes agents also confiscated her camera, along with the cameras of at least two other photographers.
http://www.alertnet.org/
Fatah leader denounces his movement's 'silence' on Gaza
A Fatah senior leader, Hatem Abdul Qader, criticized on Saturday what he described as the silence of the Fatah leadership on the Israeli attack on Gaza and the Palestinian national project as a whole. "The leadership of the was supposed movement to play a greater and influential role in dealing with the massacres and conspiracies against the Palestinians," he said, decrying attacks "aiming at ending Palestinians' material and moral existence."
http://www.maannews.net/en/
PLO says Qatar using Gaza war for personal gain
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – A senior Palestinian official on Friday slammed Qatar's emir for hosting an emergency Arab summit on the Gaza war, accusing him of using Palestinian "blood" for political gain. "Neither the emir of Qatar (Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani) nor anyone else will decide the fate of the Palestinian people," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior official in Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is not attending the summit, to which Qatar invited Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of the Hamas movement, which drove Abbas's forces from Gaza in June 2007.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Canada votes alone for Israel
Canada stood alone before a United Nations human rights council yesterday, the only one among 47 nations to oppose a motion condemning the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.
http://www.thestar.com/article
Media/media bias/Zionist disinformation
How to sell 'ethical' warfare
Israel's media management is not just impressive, it's terrifying. By Neve Gordon. One of my students was arrested yesterday and spent the night in a prison cell. R's offence was protesting the Israeli assault on Gaza. He joins over 700 other Israelis who have been detained since the beginning of Israel's ruthless war on Gaza: an estimated 230 of whom are still behind bars. Within the Israeli context, this strategy of quelling protest and stifling resistance is unprecedented, and it is quite disturbing that the international media has failed to comment on it. Simultaneously, the Israeli media has been toeing the government line to such a degree that no criticism of the war has been voiced on any of the three local television stations
http://www.counterpunch.org/
A long history of killing children
Israel has never been afraid of fighting dirty. But thanks to the internet, this time the world is watching like never before, writes Antoun Issa. In the face of new media technology, the internet, and citizen journalism, it has been impossible for Israel's powerful PR machine to compete with the gory images
http://newmatilda.com/2009/01/
Italian journalist comes under Israeli fire despite seeking permission to travel to Strip
Khan Younis- Ma'an -An Italian journalist came under direct Israeli fire Friday, despite identifying himself and his driver as members of the press. Lorenzo works for the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera said that "the Israeli army fired directly on the car he was riding in causing material damage to it."
http://www.maannews.net/en/
NY Times stringer El Khodary's searing reports from Gaza appear on Al Jazeera, not in the Times
Taghreed El-Khodary is a stringer in Gaza for the New York Times, i.e., she is a journalist under contract to the Times. El-Khodary is not a member of the Times staff, which consists of two reporters in the Times' bureau in Jerusalem, who have barely set foot in Gaza. El-Khodary has contributed reporting to the Times, but her best, most vivid accounts of the most important international story of the day are not appearing in the Times. Here's El-Khodary speaking to Al-Jazeera
http://www.philipweiss.org/
Killing for ... a cease-fire
There is something called "war propaganda" and the New York Times has proven that it is more than ever an arm of the Israeli terrorist propaganda. Isabel Kershner is one of many propagandists for Israeli terrorism in the New York Times. Just look at this passage: "But Israel tightened the military pressure on Hamas on Thursday, perhaps to push it closer to a cease-fire that would meet the Israeli aim of stopping Hamas rocket fire into Israel."
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Solidarity
Jewish British Lawmaker Likens Israel to Nazis
SIR Gerald Kaufman, yesterday (Thu 15 Jan 2009) compared the actions of Israeli troops in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland. Kaufman, a member of the Jewish Labour movement linked to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's ruling party, also called for an arms embargo against Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Shiite cleric calls for severing relations with Israel
NAJAF / Aswat al-Iraq: Senior Shiite cleric Kadhem al-Ha'eri urged Muslim countries to sever relations with Israel, terming incidents in Gaza as "war crimes and aggression by Zionists against the persecuted Palestinian people". "All Muslims are required to refrain from any form of relations with the Israeli enemy, including the economic ties in which Israeli goods are sold and bought," read a statement by Ha'eri as received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=
Concert by pro-Israel singer scrapped in Mauritius
PORT-LOUIS, Mauritius (AFP) – A concert in Mauritius featuring French Jewish singer Enrico Macias has been cancelled because he took part in a pro-Israel rally, the organiser announced Friday. Organiser Lab Entertainment "finds itself in a situation where holding the concert is seriously compromised if not impossible ...for security reasons but also to avoid a situation which could tarnish the image of our island," it said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
10 arrested at Senator Durbin's office in Chicago
10 social justice advocates were arrested today in the Chicago office of Senator Dick Durbin in response to the Gaza crisis.They sought a public statement from Senator Durbin that would call upon Israel to: 1) end its military offensive against Gaza;....[last week Durbin cosponsored a Senate resolution that effectively gave Israel the green light to continue its military onslaught]
http://vcnv.org/gaza-10-
Hertz withdraws from Israeli airline deal
The world's largest car hire firm last night called on the Israeli airline El Al to withdraw an internet advert which offered free Hertz rental to British passengers who flew to to Israel to show their "solidarity" with the country, The Independent has learnt. A Hertz Corporation spokeswoman said it had not been aware of the promotion being run by El Al and their Israeli franchise operator who trades under the Hertz brand.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Thousands rally in Lebanon against Gaza offensive
BEIRUT (AFP) — Thousands of people demonstrated across Lebanon on Friday denouncing Israel's offensive in Gaza, leaving coffins outside Arab embassies in the capital and slamming Arab states for failing to unite and act decisively to stop the war.
http://www.google.com/
Minority Israeli opinion
Plea to stop war from victims of rocket salvoes
Uri Dan, a security co-ordinator for Nir Oz, a kibbutz which lies just 5km from Gaza, is among a small but brave number of Israeli residents who say they would like to see Israel's war in Gaza halted. "In Sderot and in the area around Gaza, the suffering from rockets is great but it has no proportion at all to what is happening to the Palestinians," he said. "We live next to the Palestinians and we will have to continue living with them. You should live with your fellow human being as a neighbour, not as a wolf."
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Refuseniks: We are creating suicide bombers from the sons of the dead
BY Chris McGreal in Tel Aviv. The call came at 11pm on a Saturday. Yitzchak Ben Mocha's mobile flashed up "unidentified number" but he knew who it was. A recorded voice ordered him to report for duty at eight the next morning. As he packed his uniform he wondered if he was heading to prison. The 25-year-old paratrooper was about to tell his commanders that not only would he refuse to join Israel's war in Gaza
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
For the sake of the children
(12 Jan) Israeli parents urge PM to avoid any military option that may kill Gaza children en masse -- By Etgar Keret, Shira Geffen. There are 22 children in our son's kindergarten, yet these days, when everyone has the flu, barely 17 kids make it on a good day – this is exactly the number of children killed in Gaza on one day last week; we can say that a whole Gaza kindergarten had been wiped out that day.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
ACRI 'mourns' Gaza fatalities: children are everybody's soft spot
Association for Civil Rights in Israel takes out full-page, obituary-style ad in weekend newspaper 'grieving' Palestinian children killed in Gaza offensive. Ad meant to 'convey basic message of operation's impact on civilians,' says group's spokeswoman
http://www.ynetnews.com/
West Bank and Israel
Israeli troops beat woman at Huwwara checkpoint, detain men attempting to intervene
Israeli troops closed the Huwwara checkpoint south of Nablus on Saturday after beating a young woman who they accused of saying "bad words" to Israeli soldiers manning the post. Witnesses said she condemned the Israelis for their war crimes in Gaza, and was slapped and shoved brutally by soldiers. The checkpoint was then closed for 40 minutes while the woman was taken to a closed room. Several men waiting to cross the checkpoint ran after the soldiers as they dragged the woman away. A brief scuffle broke out between the men and the soldiers.
The men, including a Palestinian policeman, were detained.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli soldiers seize, beat Palestinian man near Bethlehem
Witnesses said that Israeli soldiers seized 28-year-old Majed Ash-Sha'er from in front of his house in the village of Tuqu, south of Bethlehem and took him away in a military jeep. After beating him, the soldiers then dumped Ash-Sha'er on the street near the village. Medical sources said Ash-Sha'er's condition is moderate, although his head was wounded, and he suffered bruises on several parts of his body. At the time of writing he was still being treated in a hospital in Bethlehem. [photo seems to show broken arm]
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli forces impose curfew on villages near Nablus
Israeli forces invaded the West Bank village of Huwwara, south of Nablus, on Saturday morning, erecting checkpoints on the main street and imposing a strict curfew. Huwwara's mayor, Samer Mur'eb, told Ma'an that Israeli troops have closed the entrances to the village and those of two nearby villages, Beita and Einabus. As a result of the curfew, Huwwara residents are forbidden from walking in the main streets of the town.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli court extends imprisonment of Hamas PLC member
An Israeli court at Ramle prison extended on Tuesday the detention of Muhammad An-Natsha, a Hamas-affiliated member of the Palestinian parliament. The court ruled that An-Natsha is a "danger to the security of the state of Israel." Jailed by Israel since 2002, An-Natsha was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) after campaigning from his prison cell. Israel is holding some 40 members of the PLC in Israeli jails, many of them seized in the summer of 2006 in response to the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian fighters from Gaza.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Hundreds rally in Tulkarem, condemning ongoing Gaza attacks
...demonstrators took to the streets after Friday prayers carrying Palestinian flags, banners denouncing the attacks and pictures of women and children killed during the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. In the nearby village of Nazlat Isa north of Tulkarem, confrontations erupted near the 30 foot high separation wall to the west of the area. Palestinian youth threw stones on the Israeli soldiers who responded by firing teargas and rubber coated bullets.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
MK: Gaza worse than Sabra and Shatila
Thousands of people staged a protest against the IDF operation in Gaza in the Negev town of Arara on Friday. MK Talab El-Sana (United Arab List-Ta'al) said during the protests that "the slaughter in Gaza is worse than the massacre in Sabra and Shatila, and a committee must be established to investigate the war crimes."
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Najat Abu Bakker: Israel still seeks to bury the PLO
As Israel's attacks in Gaza continue to draw the world's attention their policy of Judaizing Palestinian East Jerusalem continues, said member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Najat Abu Bakker in Ramallah on Saturday. Bakkar reminded the world that as Gaza attacks continue the Israeli policy of confiscating lands, constructing the separation wall and forcing 40,000 Jerusalemites to live behind the wall and be denied access to municipal services also continues. She accused Israel of planning for the Gaza attack for years, and of using Palestinian blood to achieve their political aims. What they most want to achieve, she said, is the destruction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
PA minister denounces Israeli attack on peaceful protest in Hebron
Ramallah's caretaker interior minister denounced an Israeli attack on a peaceful protest in Hebron Friday, which killed 15-year-old Mustafa Da'na and injured fifteen others. The minister released a statement denouncing the repeated Israeli attacks against Palestinians all over the West Bank, who are expressing their condemnation of the Israeli government in a peaceful manner.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Opinion/Analysis
Why Mexicans don't fire rockets at the US
By Randall Kuhn. As Israel's air force began bombing Gaza in late December, its defense minister asked us to "think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours, scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Ehud Barak's comparisons almost verbatim ... But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy: Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African-American, Asian-American and Native-American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? And what if the United States built a network of highways, connecting American citizens who voluntarily (and illegally) moved to Tijuana, to the United States?....
Self-deception and the war on Gaza
By David Bromwich. What prompts the fantasy that you can "kill all the terrorists" without sowing the seeds of new terrorism? Partly, the fantasy comes from the idea that any civilian deaths you cause will be forgiven; but, much more, it derives from the secondary fantasy that civilian deaths will go mainly unwitnessed. They will be recorded as numbers, perhaps, but they will pass out of the awareness of the world. That is not the way things work, of course. There are people in the world -- not hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds of millions -- who feel more closely allied to the killed than they do to the killers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
The boss has gone mad - by Uri Avnery
In this war, this has become political and military dogma: only if we kill "them" disproportionately, killing a thousand of "them" for ten of "ours", will they understand that it's not worth it to mess with us. It will be "seared into their consciousness" (a favorite Israeli phrase these days). After this, they will think twice before launching another Qassam rocket against us, even in response to what we do, whatever that may be. It is impossible to understand the viciousness of this war without taking into account the historical background: the feeling of victimhood after all that has been done to the Jews throughout the ages, and the conviction that after the Holocaust, we have the right to do anything, absolutely anything, to defend ourselves, without any inhibitions due to law or morality.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/
Someone Must Stop Israel's Rampant Madness in Gaza - by Gideon Levy
The streets of Gaza Thursday looked like killing fields in the midst of the "third stage" and worse. Israel is arrogantly ignoring the Security Council's resolution calling for a cease-fire and is shelling the UN compound in Gaza, as if to show its real feeling toward that institution.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Vijay Prashad: The United Nations equals zero
UN-Shmum ([Israeli slang] United Nations =Zero). Israeli contempt for the United Nations begins in the 1940s and continues to this day. On March 29, 1955, the Israeli cabinet sat for six hours, debating whether to invade the Gaza Strip (then under Egyptian control) to curtail cross-border attacks. Prime Minister Moshe Sharett pointed out that the United Nations resolution 181 (1947) created Israel. David Ben-Gurion, who had recently returned to the Cabinet as Defense Minister, interrupted him, "No, no, no. Only the daring of the Jews created the state, and not any oom-shmoom resolution."
http://www.counterpunch.org/
The jailer state
Israel has turned Gaza into a massive prison, and is choosing to prolong the cycle of state terror and prisoner resistance that goes with that, writes Israeli academic Oren Yiftachel -- "We have a great opportunity now in Gaza to smash and flatten them...[We] should destroy thousand of houses, tunnels and industries, and kill as many terrorists as possible..." So declared Eli Yishai, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, a few days ago.
http://newmatilda.com/2009/01/
World conscience on trial
By Dr. Ahmed Yousef, senior advisor to de facto Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a leading figure in the Hamas movement's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hamas governs in Gaza because our people have elected us. We may not be beloved by Israel for the moral and religious values we hold. We have been elected by the majority of Palestinians, but we were denied the chance to govern. And this denial has been underscored through imprisonment of our political leadership under the guise of a war on terror ... We are grateful to those who have understood our just cause and have shared our suffering. To them we shall be eternally grateful. In strong contrast we have been shocked and dismayed by the lack of either empathy or understanding from the international community in general.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Our Palestinian future in Israel - how long can we be dehumanised in a racist state?
By Khalil Nakhleh. I begin by posing two interrelated questions: What does it mean to be a Palestinian Arab living in Israel? And what does it mean to be part of an indigenous minority that is a remaining fragment of the Palestinian people, living in a country that is directly responsible for this historical evil?
http://palestinethinktank.com/
They are not white. They are not white.
An Israeli official explains why they are killing UN staff members who are not white: "Yigal Palmor, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, went further, saying that most of the United Nations agency's staff in Gaza were local Palestinians.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Israel, Palestine, and a personal conflict
By Rowan Wolf. Throughout my life in a variety of social justice and civil rights movements and actions I have worked side-by-side with Jews. To a person, the hundreds of Jews I worked with were dedicated to the depths of their souls to a world of justice and peace. ... The atrocity of ongoing political and military actions between Palestinians and Israel flies in the face (and soul) of everything I connect to in relationship to Judaism. The leadership of Israel has apparently become what they hate, and embrace it with religious vigor and (self) righteous victimhood.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Gaza: the tip of an iceberg
By Francis Clark-Lowes. What is happening in Gaza today is the tip of an iceberg. That iceberg is the genocide of the Palestinian people. It is a slow genocide, just slow enough for the world to look the other way most of the time. Occasionally, as at present, it speeds up and we see its tip. Such genocides are a common accompaniment of exclusive colonial projects.
http://palestinethinktank.com/
Gaza 2009: Betrayal brought us to this
By Stuart Littlewood - London. "What we have done is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend." Twice running we have stood back and watched. Twice in two years - 2006 Lebanon and 2008/9 Gaza - the British government has done nothing to intervene and indicate to Israel in unmistaken terms that they go too far - well beyond what human decency allows and what we as a nation will stand for – and that there are consequences.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Israeli aggressions: worse is yet to come
No matter from whom it comes, the injunction to be a light unto the nations, to be a good example, is praiseworthy but Israel is not a light. It is a blight. It is not a Jewish state but a Zionist state and has to be recognized as such. Growing into a remorseless engine of death and destruction, it has fulfilled almost all the worst fears of its Jewish and non-Jewish critics ('almost' because of the possibility that one day Israel will start a war it cannot win and use nuclear weapons against its enemies). The attempted obliteration of Palestine is one side of the coin. The other is the permanent, irreparable damage done to Jewish life across the Middle East and the damage done to Judaism.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
VIDEO: Chomsky on Gaza
http://palestinianpundit.
Chomsky: Undermining Gaza
In your opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli action? CHOMSKY: There's a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it's a very rational theme: "Let's delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we'll 'build facts on the ground.'" So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what's left of the indigenous population. I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the United States is that it resonates very well with American history. How did the United States get established? The themes are similar.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/
The massacres at Wounded Knee and Gaza - December 29, 1890, December 27, 2008
Significant parallels between two massacres of indigenous peoples, by socially engaged photographer Skip Schiel
http://skipschiel.wordpress.
A free Palestine has never been closer
(13 Jan) By Yousef Abuddayeh. Although the past 18 days of pure fascistic Zionist murder spree have to date killed more than 971 Palestinians and have injured over 4,400, the resulting local, national, regional, and international conditions are all pointing towards a political crisis of monumental scale for the tripartite axis. Composed of the US, the Zionist Israeli polity, and various Arab regimes, this tripartite axis of colonial and neo-colonial conquest is now facing a dead-end spanning geopolitics, demographics, and economy.
http://palestinethinktank.com/
The weird smuggling MoU
The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is in Washington allegedly to sign a memorandum of understanding on weapon smuggling into Gaza. I find this a bit weird. What is the reason the U.S. should be involved in any anti-smuggling effort between Egypt and the occupied territory in Gaza? If the U.S. asks France to stop smuggling between Syria and Iraq would that not be seen as a joke?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/
Israel's sins will come back to haunt the West
By Aijaz Zaka Syed – Dubai. It took Arab and European states more than two weeks to get a worthless resolution passed by the UN that finally asked Israel to please call back its valiant forces from Gaza. This past week the US Congress passed a resolution backing Israel's war on Gaza and its right to 'defend itself against Hamas terror'. The resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority, and followed a similar, unanimous Senate motion, passed on Thursday. ... America has to open its eyes to the Palestinian Holocaust before it's too late. Israel's dance of death in Gaza is sowing seeds of all-consuming hatred and strife around the world. If the US and the West do not act now, they will all reap this harvest of hatred.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Everything you wanted to know about how Zionists control US policy
I was recently asked to answer the following question: In the original post there is mention of Israel controlling US policy. How exactly does that work? The short answer is this: A highly influential and extremely well bankrolled collection of groups directs energy simultaneously in a number of directions: Political, media, academic, inter-faith, and other areas, in order to create consent for Israel's policies and to sway politicians to support those policies. The rest of this article examines this process in greater detail, primarily through the words of academics who have studied it for years. To my mind, Israel's actions, and the extent to which they are enabled by the power of the Zionist lobby is -- or at least should be -- the central moral question confronting Jewish people worldwide, and especially in the US.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/
Who runs America? The power of AIPAC
By Brian Cloughley. If US television channels carried pictures like the ones we see, there would be such outbursts of horror and indignation that even the US Congress might be forced to condemn the Israeli fascists for their barbarity. But the all-powerful Israel lobby makes sure that little of the sort will appear.
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Obama team faces trial by fire in Israel-Hamas conflict
Reporting from Washington -- For years, Democratic leaders excoriated the Bush administration for what they saw as its long neglect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, vowing that should they win the presidency, they would play a far more active role in brokering Middle East peace. Now, as President-elect Barack Obama and his secretary of State-designate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, prepare to take office, they confront a Middle East in deepening distress. The latest Middle East crisis will swiftly test Obama's national security team, which is still struggling to fill key positions and has yet to work out many of the basics of its diplomatic approach.
http://www.latimes.com/news/
Judge refuses to halt case against ex-professor
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A judge ruled Friday that prosecutors can go forward with their criminal contempt case against a former Florida professor once accused by the U.S. government of being a top Palestinian terrorist. Sami Al-Arian was charged with contempt after refusing to testify to a federal grand jury about a cluster of Muslim organizations in northern Virginia, even though he'd been given immunity for his testimony.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
--
www.TheHeadlines.org
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