The attacks against Gaza/Eyewitness testimonials/Humanitarian appeals and statements
Israeli shell injures seven civilians in Gaza, two die of earlier wounds
Palestinian medical sources announced on Thursday that two Palestinians have died in Egyptian hospitals after succumbing to wounds sustained during the Israeli military offensive on Gaza which ended on Sunday.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
First war tally: 1,284 Gazans dead, 4,336 wounded
AP - Squatting in the rubble, his briefcase perched atop his knees, the human rights researcher interviewed residents of a house shelled by Israel as he compiled a list of Gazans killed and wounded during Israel's offensive against Hamas.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
7 civilians injured by Israeli gunboat in Gaza, "We won't accept this any longer"
Mustafa Barghouthi, the Secretary General of the Palestinian National initiative strongly condemns this morning Israeli naval attack on Gaza fishermen. On Tuesday morning, the Israeli navy shelled the Northern shores of the Gaza Strip and opened fire on civilians, injuring 7 Palestinians including 5 fishermen.
http://www.palestinemonitor.
Cast Lead: F16 strike kills 16 family members, 11 children
The latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health indicate that, 1,314 Palestinians have been killed – including 412 children – and at least 5,300 injured – including 1,855 children – in Operation Cast Lead. DCI-Palestine has confirmed the deaths of 98 children, and is in the process of investigating a further 171 reports of child fatalities.
http://www.dci-pal.org/
Up to 200 still missing under Gaza's rubble
GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - A pillow, a belt, a child's school bag and pages of a torn copy of the Quran lie in the wreckage of the al-Daa family home in al-Zeitoun, a neighborhood of Gaza City. Twenty-four members of the family were killed when an F-16 fighter jet dropped a bomb on their house. Nine bodies still lie under what is now just a massive pancake of concrete, metal wires and death.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Shaikh Zayed City damaged by Israeli airstrikes
Sabreen Al Hellouh points to her bed, covered in rubble. The 13-year-old narrowly missed getting hit by flying debris from a missile that came through the ceiling of her flat.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/
Part 1: Palestinian U.S. College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Bar Ambulances
Amer Shurrab is a Palestinian from Khan Younes and a recent graduate of Vermont's Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight year old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year old Ibrahim survived the initial attack. But Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach them until twenty hours later. By then it was too late. Ibrahim had bled to death in front of his father. Amer joins us to tell his story.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Part II: Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Blocked Ambulances
We return to the heart-wrenching tale of Amer Shurrab, who lost two of his brothers on the same day in an Israeli attack in Gaza. Amer is a Palestinian from Khan Yunis living in the United States. He recently graduated from Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach them until twenty hours later.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Gaza doctor buries three daughters, visits 4th in Israeli hospital
Dr. Ezzeldin Abu al-Aish, whose three daughters were killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza last Friday, left the Erez checkpost at about 3 P.M. yesterday for the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, where one of his daughters, who was wounded, is hospitalized.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Gaza mother gives birth under fire
Accounts of civilian suffering emerge following Israel's war on Gaza.
http://english.aljazeera.net//
First views of Attattra, northwestern Gaza
On January 18, the first day that Israel stopped most of the bombing all over Gaza (navy shelling continues to this moment), after
learning that my friend's father was alive in eastern Jabaliya, I went on to Attatra, the northwest region, which had been cut off since Israeli troops invaded. As expected, the destruction was great, the death toll high and still unknown. People streamed in both directions: going to see how their homes had fared or leaving from the wreckage and bringing as many surviving possessions as possible.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/
Reem's Story
Today I met with my friend Reem. She is 21 and works with Mercycorps, and we met when she came to interview me after I arrived on the initial FreeGaza trip. She was so bright and sparkly then, and I know that is still in her somewhere, but right now she is very fragile. She didn't realise I was back in the country until last Wednesday, when her family was one of the many fleeing attack to Al Quds hospital, and we collided amidst the chaos. Today she told me about what happened to them.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/
As Israeli Troops Pull Out, Details of Civilian Suffering Come to Light
GAZA CITY, Jan. 21 -- Khaled Abed Rabbo returned Wednesday to what was left of his five-story home in a village that bears his family's name, and spoke softly of his three young daughters.
http://feeds.washingtonpost.
Gaza 2009
"Where can I bring him a father from? Where can I bring him a mother from? You tell me!" These are the desperate words of Subhi Samouni to Al Jazeera's Gaza correspondent. Subhi lost 17 members of his immediate family, including the parents of his 7-year old grandson. Shockingly, even as I write this article, corpses of the Samouni family are still being retrieved from under the rubble - 15 days after the Israeli Occupation Forces shelled the two houses. The Israeli Occupation Forces locked 120 members of the family in one house for 12 hours before they shelled it... Subhi's words echo the harsh reality of all Palestinians in Gaza: alone, abandoned, hunted down, brutalized, and, like Subhi's grandson, orphaned. 22 days of savage butchery took the lives of 1312 Palestinians, over 85 per cent of them civilians, including 434 children, 104 women, 16 medics, 4 journalists, 5 foreigners, and 105 old people..
http://www.zcommunications.
Lives lost, lives destroyed in Gaza
Amnesty International's fact-finding team in Gaza has continued to collect stories of lives lost and lives destroyed by Israeli bombardments during the three week long conflict which began on 27 December. In its fourth post on Amnesty International's Livewire blog, the team described how they visited refugee camps in the city and spoke to survivors.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/
Al-Jazeera Video: Israeli war conduct and outcome questioned - 21 Jan 09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
With crossings still closed, limited capacity to repair hospitals
Al Quds Hospital is waiting for its wounds to heal after being heavily attacked by Israeli forces in the last days of the Israeli operation.
Hit by shells, the damage is massive. Windows were shattered, the surgical ward gone, the administration and pharmaceutical buildings destroyed. When Israeli forces opened fire on the hospital it caught fire and 500 patients, refugees and staff were evacuated.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Must see video: Embedded With Gaza Medics
WARNING - Video depicts the reality and horror of Israel's attack on the people of Gaza - Viewer Discretion Advised.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi refutes Israeli claims to have Withdrawn from Gaza
Ramallah - Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, has claimed that Israel, with the apparent complicity of the international press, has successfully painted a picture of 'Withdrawal' following their declaration of a unilateral cease fire.
http://www.palestinemonitor.
EU to press Israel to open Gaza to aid, bolster ceasefire
AFP - European Union nations are to press Israel Wednesday to quickly open the war-torn Gaza Strip to humanitarian aid and consolidate a ceasefire that ended the Jewish state's war on Hamas.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Starting Over in Gaza
Yesterday morning I visited Toffah, a small farming area about one mile from the Israeli border. Because it sits atop a hill, it so was prime land for Israeli surveillance during the invasion. Mohammed, a university student, agreed to go out to Toffah and translate for me.
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Profound psychological damage in Gaza
I was able to meet another extended family, take their testimonies that included the shelling of their house, phosphorus-like fires, sadistic drawings left behind by the Israeli soldiers occupying the house, the imprisonment of the elderly parents for four days with no food, no water, no toilets, no medicines, and the killing of their sheep and goats. Eva Bartlett writes from the occupied Gaza Strip.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Feature - Stoic Gaza claws back, to what passes for normal
MUGHRAQA, Gaza Strip, Jan 21 (Reuters) - It is hard to believe that the empty sea washing the shore of the battered Gaza Strip is the same Mediterranean of European pleasure yachts and bathing beaches. For 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, the westward sea is like the fourth wall of a crumbling prison bounded to the north, east and south by an Israeli-led blockade, and now smashed in key places by a three-week Israeli military assault.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Starve Them; Shoot Them; then Give Them Cancer
At the end of 2006, James Brooks from Vermonters for a Just Peace published a three part expose into Israel's suspected use of a previously unseen weapon, DIME Bombs, on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Suspicions have arisen once more as Doctors continue to report the 'strange and incurable wounds' they are encountering following the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
http://www.palestinemonitor.
War crimes
Arrest warrant: Ehud Barak: For violations of the Rome Statute & 4th Geneva Convention
http://www.wanted.org.il/ehud_
Israeli administration moves to sidestep war crimes tribunals
Allegations of war crimes are being readied for international courts, including from a group of lawyers in Brussels and the United Nations that has just named five nominees to head its investigation committee.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Report: Belgian court petitioned to arrest Livni upon arrival in Brussels
European attorneys have reportedly petitioned a Belgian court to arrest Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni upon her arrival in Brussels later Wednesday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Livni nearly cancelled Belgium trip over lawsuit concerns
Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni nearly cancelled a planned trip to Belgium over concerns that the Israeli leader could face legal actions for war crimes.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israel girds for international legal assault
A sign of the times? The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel has created an "incrimination team" to gather material to defend Israeli commanders against anticipated war crimes lawsuits.
http://network.nationalpost.
Experts: Concerns over Gaza op prosecutions justified
Israeli legal officials say international lawsuits may indeed ensue Operation Cast Lead. 'Every Israeli involved in the fighting is subject to prosecution anywhere in the world,' warns top litigator. 'We can sue Hamas for rocket fire,' adds former deputy JAG.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Report: How IDF's legal experts legitimized harming civilians
The idea to bombard the closing ceremony of the Gaza police course was internally criticized in the Israel Defense Forces months before the attack. A military source involved in the planning of the attack, in which dozens of Hamas policemen were killed, says that while military intelligence officers were sure the operation should be carried out and pressed for its approval, the IDF's international law division and the military advocate general were undecided.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
VIDEO: Prima Facie Evidence of War Crimes by Israel
Channel Four News journalist Johnathan Miller travelled to Gaza where he interviewed civilians sheltering in a UN run school attacked by Israel using white phosphorus munitions. The attack - described as "Outrageous" by the UN Secretary General - was filmed by a school worker on his mobile phone. Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty International investigator said "We've seen Prima Facie that there have been war crimes" Stop the War and others have called a protest on Saturday demanding that Israel gets out of Gaza, that the blockade is lifted, that all borders are opened and that there is a complete arms embargo on Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
UN chief seeks urgent Israeli explanation on attacking Gaza schools
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday he expected Israel to provide urgently a full explanation of attacks on UN facilities in Gaza and said those responsible must be held accountable.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Lancet blasts Israeli 'atrocities' in Gaza
Israel is responsible for "large and indiscriminate human atrocities" in Gaza, and the world medical establishment is a silent accomplice in the bloodshed, The Lancet medical journal says. In an editorial released ahead of publication next Saturday, the British health journal said Israel, by hitting civilians and wrecking medical infrastructure, had carried out attacks that were "unjustified and disproportional." "We find it hard to believe that an otherwise internationally respected, democratic nation can sanction such large and indiscriminate human atrocities in a territory already under land and sea blockade," The Lancet said." The collective punishment of Gazans is placing horrific and immediate burdens of injury and trauma on innocent civilians. These actions contravene the fourth Geneva convention."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/
UN releases Gaza attack photos
Pictures show alleged Israeli use of white phosphorus munitions on a UN compound.
http://english.aljazeera.net//
Audio slideshow: 'Phosphorus shells' hit Gaza UN school
John Ging, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), describes the moments and aftermath of an Israeli strike on a UN school, designated as a shelter, in Beit Lahiya.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
The aftermath
Israel 'ready to pay awful price for Shalit'
Haaretz has learned from several cabinet ministers that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other ministers who had refused Hamas' demands for Shalit's release have recently "realized that there is no choice but to pay the price," as one minister put it.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Report: Israeli ministers accept Hamas' demands for prisoner swap
A number of Israeli government ministers have changed their views on a proposed prisoner exchange with Hamas, Israel's Channel Two television reported on Wednesday evening. According to the report the ministers have apparently accepted a list of Palestinians Hamas is demanding released in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held in Gaza since 2006. The report did not name the ministers but said that they are members of Israel's Security Cabinet. The report also indicated that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has also eased his position on the proposed prisoner exchange. [end]
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Mousa Abu Marzook: A decisive loss for Israel
Israel's objectives from the war on Gaza were set long before its launch: to remove the Hamas movement and government, achieve the reinstallation of the Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza, and end the armed resistance. Two other objectives were not announced. First, restore the Israeli public's wavering confidence in its armed forces after its defeat by Hezbollah in 2006. Second, boost the coalition government in the coming elections.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Hamas: IOF withdrew thanks to resistance's strikes, people's steadfastness
Hamas has renewed insistence on resistance as the sole means to fight occupation of Palestine and insisted that the Israeli occupation did not fulfill its targets in Gaza.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Hamas begins to rebuild from the rubble
The justice, interior, foreign, housing and finance ministries were all reduced to ruins in the wake of the conflict. But the wheels of the Gaza government have started turning again.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
IDF: Gaza smuggling resumed during offensive
Israeli officials say hundreds of people in Rafah who are in the thriving smuggling business will quickly begin to dig new tunnels or reconstruct the old ones.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels operating despite IDF offensive
Smuggling into Gaza from Egypt is underway again, only days after the end of the IDF operation against Hamas.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
Gaza's subterranean resistance
After weeks of bombing, reconstruction of what the workers here estimate are 1,000 tunnels has continued unabated.
http://www.thenational.ae/
Under the border with Egypt, Gaza's smugglers return to work
Dozens of Gazan smugglers were back on the border with Egypt today openly repairing and restarting tunnels between the two territories after three weeks of intense Israeli air strikes. There were deep impact craters in the soil just a few hundred yards from the border, but many of the tunnels appeared to be at least partly intact. Several tents covering tunnel entrances were still standing, though most were pockmarked by shrapnel. Bulldozers were clearing away sand as men dug for the wood-reinforced wells that descend around 15 metres from the surface into the tunnels.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Iran summons Czech envoy over Gaza
Iran blasts the EU over its silence on Israeli human rights violation in the Gaza Strip.
Iran's Foreign Ministry has summoned the Czech charge d'affaires in Tehran, Jan Kouril, over EU inaction on human rights violations in Gaza.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.
Public works ministry: Reconstruction of Gaza costs more than $2b
The ministry of public works in the PA government in Gaza has estimated the cost of reconstructing the Gaza Strip following the three weeks of Israeli war at 2.215 billion dollars.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
After Israeli withdrawal, Hamas asserts victory in Gaza
Gaza City, Gaza Strip - Hamas officials emerged from weeks in hiding on Tuesday for a defiant "victory celebration" with their supporters outside the gutted parliament building, the latest sign that Israel's three-week assault neither broke the militant Islamist group nor weakened its control of the Gaza Strip.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/
Blair: Quartet ready to talk to Hamas if it recognizes Israel
Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair said that the international Quartet would be willing to deal with Hamas if it recognizes Israel.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israel, Egypt have no information on Shalit: Cairo
AFP - Neither Egypt nor Israel knows whether an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants in Gaza more than two years ago is alive, Egypt Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on Wednesday.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailyne
Iran lays out plan for Gaza reconstruction
Tehran's Gaza Reconstruction Headquarters said on Wednesday that it is set to start building 1,000 residential homes, 10 schools, 5 mosques, and 500 trade centers in the coastal territory and help reconstruct the city's devastated infrastructure and economy.
http://www.presstv.com/detail.
Gideon Levy / Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel
On the morrow of the return of the last Israeli soldier from Gaza, we can determine with certainty that they had all gone out there in vain. This war ended in utter failure for Israel. This goes beyond the profound moral failure, which is a grave matter in itself, but pertains to its inability to reach its stated goals. In other words, the grief is not complemented by failure. We have gained nothing in this war save hundreds of graves, some of them very small, thousands of maimed people, much destruction and the besmirching of Israel's image.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Hamas dismisses reconciliation talks with Fatah
A senior Hamas official has dismissed any reconciliation talks with the rival Fatah group. His remarks Thursday followed claims by the militants that they emerged victorious after the group survived a relentless three-week offensive by Israel on the Gaza Strip.
http://www.google.com/
The collaborators
Mahmoud Abbas Seen as Big Loser After Fight Between Israel and Hamas
The Gaza Strip has been devastated by Israel's punishing offensive against Hamas, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appears to be the war's most serious political casualty. Sidelined during the fighting and now struggling to play a role in Gaza's reconstruction, Abbas' Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, is battling to stay relevant. " Marginalized is a very good choice of words," Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian government in the West Bank, told journalists on Monday.
http://www.miftah.org/Display.
Nassif: PA security in WB escalating campaign against Hamas
Ra'fat Nassif, one of the Hamas political leaders, has charged the PA security apparatuses loyal to former PA chief Mahmoud Abbas with escalating security campaign against Hamas supporters.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Palestinian interior ministry arrests dozens of spies in Gaza
The Palestinian interior ministry announced that it arrested dozens of collaborators with Israel who tried to give information about the Palestinian resistance during the war.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7XWl3cdgSAauIRqSKDdvdOO%2bOYfkGpxZCbPBaXR9iZfaw3BGJAXw2CNnaxwusnp0zpullDYpwJfcE3wvKprtFedObIUS6aEp2MwRS4CTUgQI%3d
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Egypt keeping Iran aid ship from Gaza
Ahmad Navvab, a provincial Red Crescent director, said Wednesday that although Egyptian authorities issued permits for the aid's dispatch via the Al-Areesh port, they have so far prevented the ship to drop anchor.
http://www.presstv.com/detail.
Cairo Excuses Israeli Attacks on Egyptians
Excerpt: CAIRO -- Tens of thousands of houses inside the Gaza Strip were destroyed by air strikes and artillery during Israel's recently concluded military campaign. Areas along Egypt's border with the hapless enclave, meanwhile, have not been immune from the devastation.
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/
The Gaza Bombshell (must read article from April 2008)
After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.
http://www.vanityfair.com/
American involvement
US and Europe move to amend Arab peace initiative per Israeli requests
American and European diplomats are reportedly pushing for an amended Arab peace initiative. At the request of the Israeli administration, which has never accepted the plan, US and EU leaders are said to be "adjusting the initiative." Today the outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that he finally did accept the initiative as it stands.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Meshal urges West: Stop trying to eliminate Hamas, deal with us
Damascus-based Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal urged the West on Wednesday to lift its boycott of the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Obama Immediately Gets Working On Gaza
Before attending an official prayer service this morning, President Barack Obama put in a bit of work, his communications office let it be known. And It appears that, not withstanding a request to temporarily postpone military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees, the first foreign policy topic the new administration addressed was the crisis in Gaza.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Obama calls leaders of Israel, Palestinians
AP - President Barack Obama has stepped into the Middle East peace effort by placing calls to four leaders from the region. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama called the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan on Wednesday morning.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Ex-Carter Admin Official: Israel Ignored Hamas Offer Days Before Attacking Gaza; Violated Ceasefire With Attacks, Blockade
Robert Pastor is a senior adviser to the Carter Center and a professor at American University who met with exiled Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus on Dec. 14, along with former President Jimmy Carter. Pastor says Meshaal indicated Hamas was willing to go back to the ceasefire if Israel would lift the siege on Gaza. He says he passed along the statement to the Israeli military but he never heard back. Two weeks later, Israel launched its three week assault that left more than 1,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, at least a third children.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Bill Fletcher on an Historic Inauguration in the Shadow of Gaza
Bill Fletcher, author and editor of the Black Commentator, speaks of conflicting emotions in an historic inauguration: the relief of welcoming the nation's first black president elected on a platform for change, yet the grief and anger as Palestinians sift through the rubble of the devastating U.S.-backed attack on the Gaza Strip.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Barack Obama's Middle East policy could take cues from Northern Ireland experience if George Mitchell is appointed as envoy
If the rumours prove founded, and Barack Obama appoints former US senator George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy, he will not only have chosen one of the few international figures with a proven record as a peacemaker: he will also have signaled that he sees the Northern Ireland experience as relevant to, even a model for, the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Seasoned Negotiator to Serve as a Mideast Envoy
A former Senate majority leader, George J. Mitchell is viewed as a diplomatic heavyweight who may bring more balance to Washington's relationships in the region.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
Foxman says we don't want 'fairness' in the Middle East
Beautiful piece of reporting by James Besser for the NY Jewish Week on the growing schism between J Street Jews and the neocons in organizational life, now crystallized by the George Mitchell rumors. Two voices of the lobby: "Sen. Mitchell is fair. He's been meticulously even-handed," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "But the fact is, American policy in the Middle East hasn't been 'even handed' — it has been supportive of Israel when it felt Israel needed critical U.S. support. "So I'm concerned," Foxman continued. "I'm not sure the situation requires that kind of approach in the Middle East."...
http://www.philipweiss.org/
Unanimous Consent/When Israel acts, Congress applauds. No debate required
http://www.amconmag.com/
Robert Fisk: So far, Obama's missed the point on Gaza
It would have helped if Obama had the courage to talk about what everyone in the Middle East was talking about. No, it wasn't the US withdrawal from Iraq. They knew about that. They expected the beginning of the end of Guantanamo and the probable appointment of George Mitchell as a Middle East envoy was the least that was expected. Of course, Obama did refer to "slaughtered innocents", but these were not quite the "slaughtered innocents" the Arabs had in mind.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Pictures
Normal Finklestien: THE GRANDCHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS FROM WORLD WAR II ARE DOING TO THE PALESTINIANS EXACTLY WHAT WAS DONE TO THEM BY NAZI GERMANY...
http://www.normanfinkelstein.
In pictures: Devastation in Gaza
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_
Media
Israel to open Gaza border crossing to journalists on Friday
Israel on Thursday said it is lifting restrictions on allowing the foreign media into the Gaza Strip.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Waging the web wars
Debates on the Gaza war have moved from traditional media to online social networking sites Propaganda has always played an important role in the way war is waged. Using the available traditional media platforms - such as television, radio and print - governments have battled for mindshare in an attempt to convince the public that military engagements are serving their best interests. Over time, new communication technologies have forced governments to realign their propaganda campaigns. In the modern age of warfare, government spokespersons have provided major news networks the opportunity to engage, question and dissect domestic, foreign and military policies.
http://english.aljazeera.net/
Solidarity
Protests over Gaza spread to eight English universities
As student protests over the bombing of Gaza spread to eight universities across England today, the director of the London School of Economics, Sir Howard Davies, issued a joint statement with student protesters saying he understood their concerns and backing a fundraising drive for scholarships for Palestinians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Gaza Protest
If you have not heard by now, you should know that there is going to be a major national demonstration for Gaza this Saturday. Because of the pro-Israel bias of the British media, and the BBC has the worst record on this, the demo will be starting outside BBC Broadcasting House at Portland Place from 2pm, and then heading down to Downing Street. The demands of the protest are simple: end the blockade, stop arms sales to Israel, bring the war criminals to justice, and free Palestine. It should be a shoe-in. Incidentally, I want to mention that the best source for news and images of the recent and ongoing student protests and occupations over Gaza has been Solomon's Mindfield. One day, SOAS are in occupation, then LSE students, then King's College students, then Warwick University students... given the way the NUS leadership is trying to neutralise its internal democracy and expunge radical politics, this is quite an inspiration.
http://leninology.blogspot.
Gaza, Greece and the Meaning of Solidarity
As news came out recently that the United States would be sending a new shipment of bombs to "Israel" from the Greek port of Astakos at some point between the middle and end of January, Palestinians sent out an urgent call to organizers in Greece to stop the shipment. Within a day, several organizations and individuals in Greece responded to the call. Perhaps most significant in the current context was that of the Greek Anti-authoritarian Movement, centrally involved in weeks of rebellion against the repressive forces of their own government...
http://palestinethinktank.com/
Resisting from abroad
Fadi Salfiti is a Palestinian from Gaza who watched on television bombs raining. "I was trying to see where they were exactly but everything just kept being flattened, entire neighborhoods."
http://english.pnn.ps/index.
Letter to the editor: West Bank Settlers
The fallacy of exonerating Israel of any ill intentions vis-Ã -vis the Palestinians becomes clear when looking at the increasingly dire situation in the West Bank, where the population of Jewish settlers has more than doubled since Israel signed the Oslo peace accord, coupled with the growing apartheid-like cantonization of Arab areas manned by some 700 Israeli checkpoints, not to mention alarming signs of growing violence by vigilante Jewish settlers against the Palestinians. The real answer to why Israel can't make peace with Hamas or, for that matter, the whole Palestinian population rests on one simple fact: Israel's neocolonial expansionism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
Student collects 10 truckloads of basic supplies for Gazans
A student at Sapir College near Sderot has over the past week collected 10 truckloads of basic supplies, which she hopes to deliver to the people of Gaza. Hadas Balas, 25, says she felt she had to take action after visiting her college last week, where she heard the sound of bombs exploding in Gaza and the sound of sirens in Sderot.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Message from the Church of God in Gaza
Note: A message has arrived from courageous and widely admired pastor of the Catholic Church in Gaza, Fr Manuel Mussallam, written on 20 January, speaking of the plight of his community in the wake of the Israelis' vicious assault. Here is what this veteran of the long struggle says.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Scout troops go door to door for Gaza in Beit Sahour
Scout troops in a predominantly Christian town in the West Bank have organized a campaign collecting donations for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Scouts from 40 different troops affiliated to Orthodox Christian and Catholic communities went door to door in their scout uniforms collecting money. The scout troops said in a statement that they condemn the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
School erects mourning tent for Gaza
Students of Jaffa high school hold ceremony displaying images of death from Gaza fighting.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
View from Ramallah / Israeli refuseniks confront the IDF, from Ni'lin to Tel Aviv
I had just returned to Tel Aviv from a demonstration in the West Bank village of Ni'lin last July, when I caught word that the Israeli military had shot 11-year old Ahmad Musa in the head during a protest against the separation wall. Twenty minutes later, three Israeli anarchists and I were speeding back to the West Bank to see what had happened.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
BAN Achinoam Nini (Noa) from participating at Gaza Charity Event!
Call to Kill the Parents and Volunteer to Sing for the Children: We, the undersigned, demand that Achinoam Nini be barred from participating in the Gaza charity event scheduled for Friday, January 23, 2009 at "Levontin 7" in Tel Aviv. In an open letter to the Palestinian people, Israeli singer Ahinoam Nini wrote: "I can only wish for you that Israel will do the job we all know needs to be done, and finally RID YOU of this cancer, this virus, this monster called fanaticism, today, called Hamas."
http://palestinethinktank.com/
Other Gaza news
Caught in Web: Diplomat's email comparing Israel actions in Gaza to Holocaust causes controversy
Apparently, email horror stories of the dreaded inadvertent 'Reply All' or unintended 'Forward' haven't circled the ranks of the Norwegian diplomatic corps. Trine Lilleng, a first secretary at the Norwegian embassy in Saudi Arabia has come under fire for using her Foreign Ministry email account to circulate emails likening the Israeli offensive in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust, the Jerusalem Post reports.
http://www.nydailynews.com/
Behind the Myths about Hamas
Most mainstream accounts of the Palestinian Hamas organization present it as a bunch of rabid fanatics, bent on violence and motivated by an irrational hatred of Jews and the state of Israel. This view is reflected both in the mainstream media and in many books published on the topic. When we separate propaganda from reality, however, what we find is a group that has taken on the mantle of national resistance against Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.
West Bank/Israel
Report: Olmert Privately Proposed Division of Jerusalem to Arab Leaders
Were Ehud Olmert running in the upcoming election, his spokesmen would most likely hasten to deny the revelation of the Ir Amim organization, according to which the outgoing prime minister proposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Jerusalem be divided along lines that strongly resemble the Clinton outline of December 2000.
http://www.miftah.org/Display.
12-13 year-olds arrested for throwing stones at the Wall
On Tuesday, 20 January, the Israeli authorities arrested 7 children from Toura al-Garbeiah (Jenin), including 12 and 13-year-olds, for allegedly throwing stones at the Wall.
http://www.dci-pal.org/
DCI concerned by increase in arrests of West Bank children
DCI-Palestine is concerned by the recent increase in the number of children arrested by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank. DCI-Palestine lawyers have observed that the number of children brought to the Israeli Military Courts in pre-trial hearings in the first two weeks of January was twice as high as numbers in 2008.
http://www.dci-pal.org/
Fatah official seized by Israeli troops overnight
Israeli forces seized the local Fatah secretary from his home in West Bank the village of Deir Istiya, near Salfit, early on Thursday morning.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Palestinian parliament deputy speaker barred from leaving West Bank
Israel barred a prominent Fatah official from leaving the West Bank on Thursday. Hassan Khreisheh, the deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) was turned back at the Allenby Bridge on his way to Jordan.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Undercover Israeli forces abduct Islamic Jihad leader near Jenin
Undercover Israeli forces abducted an Islamic Jihad leader from his home in the West Bank town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, on Wednesday afternoon.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Four Palestinians injured in Ni'lin
Hundreds of residents and international peace activists held on Wednesday a protest in Nil'in village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and chanted slogans against the Annexation Wall and the Israeli assaults against the Gaza Strip. The army attacked the protesters and injured four protesters, dozens were treated after inhaling gas fired by the army.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Israeli Supreme Court voids ban on participation of Arab parties in National Elections
Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported on Wednesday that the Israeli Supreme Court issued a ruling voiding a order barring Arab parties in Israel from participating in the parliamentary elections which will be held in Israeli next month.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Court denies residency to Palestinian Child paralyzed by Israeli shell
Nearly two weeks ago, the Israeli High Court of Justice denied a petition to grant residency to a Palestinian child paralyzed from neck down when the army shelled in 2006 her father's vehicle killing her mother, her brother and her grandmother.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Local peacemakers visit city in the West Bank
EDITOR'S NOTE: Three members of Wilmington Friends Meeting — Betty Burge, Melissa Snarr and Neil Snarr — are visiting Palestine and Israel for 14 days in January with a delegation of the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT). CPT was organized in the mid-1980s by the historic peace churches — Mennonites, Quakers and the Church of the Brethren. CPT's membership has expanded to include individuals from other Christian traditions, including, among others, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians and Pentecostals. CPT offers a nonviolent alternative to war by providing a peaceful physical presence on conflict zones. Currently CPT works in Iraq, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Canada, Palestine and elsewhere. CPT seeks to follow the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who commanded Christians to seek peace and love their enemies.
http://www.wnewsj.com/main.
Meretz on Lieberman: Kahanism making comeback
Leftist party launches election campaign, says 'at a time when the whole world is celebrating with Obama, Israel is deteriorating to Lieberman's racism'.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Arab barred from entering club to be compensated
Two youths from Nazareth, Nazareth-Illit document bouncer at popular Haifa club refusing to grant them entry, citing a 'closed party', but allowing their Jewish friend to enter.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Israel's Arab face more racism in Gaza aftermath
In the Middle East's "only democracy" discrimination is a way of life for a sizeable portion of its population. Israel's Arab sector has faced inequity since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 but recently racism has been on the rise, say Arab and Palestinian residents.
http://www.alarabiya.net/
Op-ed/Analysis
Now We've All Seen Through The Israeli Government's Excuses
If the Hamas rockets are so lethal, why doesn't Israel swap an F-16 for some? The worrying part about whether the ceasefire in Gaza can hold together will be whether the international community can stop the flow of arms to the terrorists. Because Israel's getting their planes and tanks and missiles from somewhere and until this supply is cut off there's every chance it could start up again.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Change They Can Believe In: To Make Israel Safe, Give Palestinians Their Due
It may be difficult for outsiders to understand the Palestinians' yearning for the villages and landscapes lost during the birth of Israel in 1948. The sentiment is much more than nostalgia. The Palestinians' national identity took shape in the course of their struggle with Zionism, and the mass displacement of Palestinians resulting from Israel's War of Independence, or the nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic), was the fiery crucible out of which the modern Palestinian consciousness emerged. The dispossessed Palestinians, especially refugees living in camps, are seen as the bearers of the most authentic form of Palestinian identity. The unconditional right of Palestinians to return to the land and homes lost in the nakba is the nation's central demand. For many, although by no means all, Palestinians, to give up the right of return would be to betray their people. Even those who do not see this claim as an indispensable goal of the national movement are uneasy about giving it up.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
Ghosts of 1948 haunt Gaza crisis
You would think, on meeting him, that Sameh Zakout has a contented life - a career in music, occasional trips abroad, the very embodiment of an Israeli Arab who has made the most of his opportunities. But speaking in his home-town of Ramla, near Tel Aviv, Sameh says he is always "depressed" and indeed "oppressed" as well. This is not a matter of material circumstances, but of family history.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
How Israel drowns dissent
We used to hold signs at protests reading 'The occupation will corrupt'," she told me. "Now, we can see that it has [come to pass]. As a society, we have lost our ability to see clearly; we have let fear blind us. Once, calling someone a racist was the harshest accusation you could make. Later, you began to hear people say 'I know I'm a racist, but...'; nowadays [during Cast Lead], we heard 'I know I'm talking like a Nazi, but at least the Nazis knew how to deal with their enemies'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Killing Gays and Feminists in Gaza: America's Boutique Morality; and, History as a Manufactured Event
"No use beating a dead horse," they say, and there's probably no horse deader on the planet today than that strip of God-forsaken land called Gaza. It appears that not only have Yahweh and Jesus Christ forsaken Gaza, but so have the U.N., the E.U., the US, the Arab League and every other institution and congregation of arrogant nation-states that have mis-managed our post Cold War era.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/
Justified Slaughter: The Gaza Story Since June 2008
When the LORD your God delivers them into your power and defeats them, you must put them to death. … for you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the Lord your God chose you out of all nations on earth to be his special possession.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/
Understanding Gaza
How will history describe the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza? Another Holocaust, this time perpetrated by the descendants of the victims? An election ploy by ambitious Israeli politicians to win votes in the February 10 elections? A test range for new American weapons? Or an effort to lock in the new Obama Administration into an anti-Iranian position? An attempt to establish its military "credibility" after its disastrous defeat in the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006? Perhaps all of these…and more.
http://www.counterpunch.com/
In Gaza, love is the strongest weapon
18 January 2009: Late last night, a text message notified us that the Israeli government was very close to declaring that they would stop attacking Gaza for one day. Shortly before midnight, we heard huge explosions, four in a row. Till now, that was the last attack. Israeli drones flew overhead all night long, but residents of Rafah were finally able to get eight hours of sleep uninterrupted by F-16s and Apache helicopters attacking them. Kathy Kelly writes from the occupied Gaza Strip.
http://electronicintifada.net/
'To be a Jewish artist means to avoid depicting the horrors inflicted on Palestine'
The world is changing. Yesterday, when most people were focused on Obama, Michael Ratner (who works at the Center for Constitutional Rights and pressed the lawsuit against Caterpillar springing from the killing of Rachel Corrie in Gaza in 2003)
http://www.philipweiss.org/
Israel Killed the Prospects of Peace
It is very troubling and sad that more than 80% of the Israeli public supports, with no reservation, their government's aggression against the Palestinians that murdered more than 400 children and 300 mothers in Gaza! A vast majority of the Israelis supported their military actions that have been described by the Red Cross, the UN human rights organizations and Amnesty International as war crimes and breaches of the Geneva Convention.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Gaza Rises from Ashes
It was very early in the morning, but Samir was already working hard to remove the rubble from outside his clothes store in Gaza. But for his surprise, minutes after opening the store, he had the first customer of the day show up. "Gaza, reeling under destruction and pain, is still alive," Samir told IslamOnline.net.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Al Nakba Redux
For Palestinians, the Nakba 'Catastrophe' is their 'Holocaust' six-month slaughter and displacement before and after the May 1948 establishment of Israel. In December 1947, Jews in Palestine numbered 600,000 compared to 1.3 million Palestinians. David Ben-Gurion ordered them removed and for "Every attack....to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion."
http://palestinechronicle.com/
The evolution of "satire"
The cartoon above was featured by the Jerusalem post as Satire. It's very funny. It makes fun of the Hamas "air defense system" which consists of the 400 hundred or more Palestinian children murdered by Israel. It is so funny that it reminded me of other satirical pieces about the peculiar habits of certain distinct groups, add the nose and remove the beard.
http://jewssansfrontieres.
Gaza: Indefatigible Resilience
Gaza is slowly fading from the news. Israel's predictable decision to halt its massacre just before President Obama's inauguration was expertly taken. Foreign journalists, who had been striving to enter the Strip for more than two months, were finally allowed in to assess and report on the damage themselves-just as the world's media lost interest in the story. But the story is still unfolding, and it is a story of unimaginable suffering and indefatigable resilience. 15% of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. 50,000 people are homeless. 700,000 people do not have access to running water.
http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/
How to Inflame the Entire Muslim World
How will history describe the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza? Another Holocaust, this time perpetrated by the descendants of the victims? An election ploy by ambitious Israeli politicians to win votes in the February 10 elections? A test range for new American weapons? An effort to lock the new Obama Administration into an anti-Iranian position? An attempt to establish its military "credibility" after its disastrous defeat in the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006? Perhaps all of these…and more.
http://www.antiwar.com/kolko/?
Arab media juggle Obama inauguration coverage with Gaza aftermath, Arab summit
Arab media provided extensive coverage of the Obama inauguration but in some cases the event was preempted by, or given equal time, with the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the Arab economic summit in Kuwait.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
"Ahlan Wa Sahlan" (Welcome) Obama. But...
In the Jordanian capital of Amman, demonstrators took to the streets on Tuesday to celebrate Bush's departure from the White House by tossing shoes at a banner with his picture on it. They did not, however, celebrate Obama's inauguration as president of the United States of America. In Beirut, a Lebanese-American gleefully screamed at television cameras, "good riddance Mr. Bush, "ahlan wa sahlan" (welcome) Barack Hussein (with emphasis on Hussein) Obama." In a West Beirut restaurant, US ex-pats hosted a party to watch the inauguration on television, but the celebrations were subdued with scenes of destruction and devastation left by the Israeli war on Gaza flashing on a flat screen behind the bar.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
President Obama's First Public Diplomacy Move? Deploy a Naval Hospital Ship to Gaza
As President Barack Obama assumes office, his first diplomatic overture to the region should be to immediately address Palestinian suffering in Gaza. Treating Gaza's health care crisis with action would go a long way to address the urgent medical needs of Gazans and re-position the United States, whose image suffered tremendously due to the government's complicity in the recent Israeli offensive, as a force of good in the region.
http://www.thejerusalemfund.
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE VERY TALENTED CARTOONIST, KHALIL BENDIB
It gives me great pleasure to introduce the very talented political cartoonist Khalil Bendib. As you could easily tell, he is one of my favorite cartoonists. A daily visit to his web site is a must for me, and he has been gracious to let me post his cartoons, as soon as they appear, on Palestinian Pundit (PP).
http://palestinianpundit.
Zionism is an Incurable Disease of the Mind
I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it's difficult to ride without them when it's really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman, whom I knew was from Israel, tried to start some small talk by asking me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from.
http://jnoubiyeh.blogspot.com/
Iraq
Wednesday: 32 Iraqis Killed, 17 Wounded
http://www.antiwar.com/
5 Killed as Iraq rocked by bomb blasts
Three civilians were killed and eight others injured after a car bomb targeting a US patrol exploded in the central Baghdad district of Mansour.
http://english.aljazeera.net/
Iraq backs early exit for U.S. troops
Iraq is willing to have the United States withdraw all its troops and assume security for the country before the end of 2011, the departure date agreed to by former President George W. Bush, the spokesman of the Iraqi prime minister said.
http://www.columbiatribune.
Iraq wants to settle issue of joint oil fields with neighbors
The Oil Ministry says it is keen to solve differences with neighboring states with regard to oil fields straddling international borders. The ministry's spokesman Isam Jihad said Iraq wanted to settle these issues as quickly as possible. One reason for the 1991 Gulf war were allegations by the former regime that Kuwait was stealing Iraqi crude oil by digging beneath the part of fields within Iraqi territory.
http://www.azzaman.com/
U.S.
Whistleblower: NSA spied on everyone, targeted journalists
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/
Other
Dutch MP Wilders faces charges over showing of anti-Muslim film
The Dutch legislator who last year released a film linking the Koran to violence will be prosecuted in Holland for allegedly inciting hatred, discrimination and insulting language in the film, an Amsterdam court of appeals ruled on Wednesday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
--
www.TheHeadlines.org
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