Israel Bombs Gaza - Hundreds Dead

[pkpatriotic]

UN official says Israel responsible for breaking truce with Gaza

By The Associated Press
Last update - 14:55 30/12/2008

Palestinians in Gaza believed Israel had called a 48-hour lull in retaliatory attacks with Hamas when Israel Air Force warplanes launched a massive bombardment of militant installations in the Gaza Strip, a UN official said Monday.

Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the UN Relief and Works Agency which helps Palestinian refugees, raised the possible violation of an informal truce in a video press conference with UN reporters from her base in Gaza.

Israel's UN Mission referred any comment on the reported lull to Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert's office in Jerusalem. Olmert's office did not answer telephone calls for comment early Tuesday morning.

Abu Zayd said Palestinians in Gaza were surprised when Israeli warplanes sent more than 100 tons of bombs crashing down on key security installations in Hamas-ruled Gaza starting Saturday morning because it was in the middle of the lull.

The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. During that time, the Israel Defense Forces said Palestinian militants fired some 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets, and 10 times that number over the past year.

Israel had sent mixed signals on Friday regarding its plans for Gaza. Israeli defense officials said politicians had approved a large-scale incursion into the territory. But at the same time, Israel appeared open to international pressure against an invasion, prying open its border with Gaza to allow deliveries of humanitarian aid.

"What we understood here (was) that there was a 48-hour lull to be called, and this was called by the Israelis," Abu Zayd said. "They said they would wait 48 hours. That was on Friday morning, I believe, until Sunday morning, and that they were going to evaluate."

"There was only one rocket that went out on Friday, so it was obvious that Hamas was trying, again, to observe that truce to get this back under control," she said.
"Then, everything got loose on Saturday morning at 11:30 a.m. We were all at work and very much surprised by this," Abu Zayd said.

When the Israeli offensive began, neither Defense Minister Ehud Barak nor Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made any mention of a lull.

Abu Zayd mentioned the lull when she was asked whether the population of Gaza was aware that this was all commenced by the Hamas government unilaterally ending the cease-fire and firing rockets.

"I don't think they think the truce was violated first by Hamas," she said.

"I think they saw that Hamas had observed the truce quite strictly for almost six months, certainly for four of the six months, and that they got nothing in turn - because there was to be kind of a deal," Abu Zayd said.

"If there were no rockets, the crossings would be opened," she said. "The
crossings were not opened at all."

 

[pkpatriotic]

How Hypocrisy on 'Terrorism' Kills'

By Robert Parry
December 30, 2008

Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism, has launched massive airstrikes against targets in Gaza using high-tech weapons produced by the United States, a country that often has aided and abetted terrorism by its client military forces, such as Chile’s Operation Condor and the Nicaraguan contras, and even today harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner.

Yet, with that moral ambiguity excluded from the debate, the justification for the Israeli attacks, which have killed at least 364 people, is the righteous fight against “terrorism,” since Gaza is ruled by the militant Palestinian group, Hamas.

Hamas rose to power in January 2006 through Palestinian elections, which ironically the Bush administration had demanded. However, after Hamas won a parliamentary majority, Israel and the United States denounced the outcome because they deem Hamas a “terrorist organization.”

Hamas then wrested control of Gaza from Fatah, a rival group that once was considered “terrorist” but is now viewed as a U.S.-Israeli partner, so it has been cleansed of the “terrorist” label.

Unwilling to negotiate seriously with Hamas because of its acts of terrorism – which have included firing indiscriminate short-range missiles into southern Israel – the United States and Israel sat back as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza worsened, with 1.5 million impoverished Palestinians packed into what amounts to a giant open-air prison.

When Hamas ended a temporary cease-fire on Dec. 19 because of a lack of progress in those negotiations and began lobbing its little missiles into Israel once more, the Israeli government reacted on Saturday with its lethal “shock and awe” firepower – even though no Israelis had been killed by the post-cease-fire missiles launched from Gaza. [Since Saturday, four Israelis have died in more intensive Hamas missile attacks.]

Israel claimed that its smart bombs targeted sites related to the Hamas security forces, including a school for police cadets and even regular policemen walking down the street. But it soon became clear that Israel was taking an expansive view of what was part of the Hamas military infrastructure, with Israeli bombs taking out a television station and a university building as well as killing a significant number of civilians.

As the slaughter continued on Monday, Israeli officials confided to Western journalists that the war plan was to destroy the vast support network of social and other programs that undergird Hamas’s political clout.

“There are many aspects of Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel,” a senior Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post.

“Hamas’s civilian infrastructure is a very, very sensitive target,” added Matti Steinberg, a former top adviser to Israel’s domestic security service. “If you want to put pressure on them, this is how.” Israel Presses on With Gaza Strikes - washingtonpost.com[Washington Post, Dec. 30, 2008]

Since the classic definition of “terrorism” is the use of violence against civilians to achieve a political goal, Israel would seem to be inviting an objective analysis that it has chosen its own terrorist path. But it is clearly counting on the U.S. news media to continue wearing the blinders that effectively limit condemnations about terrorism to people and groups that are regarded as Washington’s enemies.

Whose Terrorism?

As a Washington-based reporter for the Associated Press in the 1980s, I once questioned the seeming bias that the U.S.-based wire service applied to its use of the word “terrorist.” A senior AP executive responded to my concerns with a quip. “Terrorist is the word that follows Arab,” he said.

Though meant as a lighthearted riposte, the comment clearly had a great deal of truth to it. It was easy to attach “terrorist” to any Arab attack – even against a military target such the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 after the Reagan administration had joined hostilities against Muslim forces. But it was understood that different rules applied when the terrorism was coming from “our side.”
Then, no American reporter with any sense of career survival would think of injecting the word “terrorist” whatever the justification.

Even historical references to acts of terrorism – such as the brutal practice by American revolutionaries in the 1770s of “tar and feathering” civilians considered sympathetic to the British Crown or the extermination of American Indian tribes – were seen as somehow diluting the moral righteousness against today’s Islamic terrorists and in favor of George W. Bush's "war on terror."

Gone, too, from the historical narrative was the fact that militant Zionists employed terrorism as part of their campaign to establish Israel as a Jewish state. The terrorism included killings of British officials who were administering Palestine under an international mandate as well as Palestinians who were driven violently from their land so it could be claimed by Jewish settlers.

One of the most famous of those terrorist attacks was the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where British officials were staying. The attack, which killed 91 people including local residents, was carried out by the Irgun, a terrorist group run by Menachem Begin who later founded the Likud Party and rose to be Israel’s prime minister.

Another veteran of the campaign of Zionist terrorism was Yitzhak Shamir, who also became a Likud leader and eventually prime minister.

In the early 1990s, as I was waiting to interview Shamir at his Tel Aviv office, I was approached by one of his young female assistants who was dressed in a gray and blue smock with a head covering in the traditional Hebrew style.

As we were chatting, she smiled and said in a lilting voice, “Prime Minister Shamir, he was a terrorist, you know.” I responded with a chuckle, “yes, I’m aware of the prime minister’s biography.”

Blind Spot

To maintain one’s moral purity in denouncing acts of terror by U.S. enemies, one also needs a large blind spot for recent U.S. history, which implicates U.S. leaders repeatedly in tolerance or acts of terrorism.

For instance, in 1973, after a bloody U.S.-backed coup overthrew the leftist Chilean government, the new regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet joined with other South American dictatorships to sponsor an international terrorist organization called Operation Condor which assassinated political dissidents around the world.

Operation Condor mounted one of its most audacious actions on the streets of Washington in 1976, when Pinochet’s regime recruited Cuban-American terrorists to detonate a car bomb that killed Chile’s former foreign minister Orlando Letelier and an American co-worker, Ronni Moffitt. The Chilean government's role immediately was covered up by the CIA, then headed by George H.W. Bush.

Only weeks later, a Venezuela-based team of right-wing Cubans – under the direction of Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles – blew a Cubana Airliner out of the sky, killing 73 people. Bosch and Posada, a former CIA operative, were co-founders of CORU, which was described by the FBI as “an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization.”

Though the U.S. government soon learned of the role of Bosch and Posada in the Cubana airline attack – and the two men spent some time in a Venezuelan jail – both Bosch and Posada since have enjoyed the protection of the U.S. government and particularly the Bush Family.

Rebuffing international demands that Bosch and Posada be held accountable for their crimes, the Bushes – George H.W., George W. and Jeb – have all had a hand in making sure these unrepentant terrorists get to live out their golden years in the safety and comfort of the United States.

In the 1980s, Posada even crossed over into another U.S.-backed terrorist organization, the Nicaraguan contras. After escaping from Venezuela, he was put to work in 1985 by Oliver North’s contra-support operation run out of Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council.

The Nicaraguan contras were, in effect, a narco-terrorist organization that partially funded its operations with proceeds from cocaine trafficking, a secret that the Reagan administration worked hard to conceal along with the contras’ record of murder, torture, rape and other crimes in Nicaragua.

President Reagan joined, too, in fierce PR campaigns to discredit human rights investigators who documented massive atrocities by U.S. allies in Central America in the 1980s – not only the contras, but also the state terrorism of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan security forces, which engaged in wholesale slaughters in villages considered sympathetic to leftist insurgents.

Generally, the major U.S. news outlets treaded very carefully when allegations arose about terrorism by “our side.”

When some brave journalists, like New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner, wrote about politically motivated killings of civilians in Central America, they faced organized retaliation by right-wing advocacy groups which often succeeded in damaging or destroying the reporters’ careers.

Double Standards

Eventually, the American press corps developed an engrained sense of the double standards. Moral outrage could be expressed when acts of terrorism were committed by U.S. enemies, while studied silence – or nuanced concern – would be in order when the crimes were by U.S. allies.

So, while the U.S. news media had no doubt that the 9/11 terrorist attacks justified invading Afghanistan, there was very little U.S. media criticism when President Bush inflicted his “shock and awe” assault on Iraq, a war that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.

Though many Muslims and others around the world have denounced Bush’s Iraq invasion as “state terrorism,” such a charge would be considered far outside the mainstream in the United States. Instead, Iraqi insurgents are often labeled “terrorists” when they attack U.S. troops inside Iraq. The word “terrorist” has become, in effect, a geopolitical curse word.

Despite the long and bloody history of U.S.-Israeli participation in terrorism, the U.S. news media continues its paradigm of pitting the U.S.-Israeli “good guys” against the Islamic “bad guys.” One side has the moral high ground and the other is in the moral gutter. [For more on the U.S. media’s one-sided approach, see the analysis Greg Mitchell: Attack on Gaza: As Usual, U.S. Media (And Most Liberals) Silent -- As Israeli Newspaper Raises Doubtsby Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher.]

Any attempt to cite the larger, more ambiguous and more troubling picture draws accusations from defenders of U.S.-Israeli actions, especially the neoconservatives, of what they call “moral equivalence” or “anti-Semitism.”

Yet it is now clear that acquiescence to a double standard on terrorism is not just a violation of journalistic ethics or an act of political cowardice; it is complicity in mass murder. Without the double standard, it is hard to envision how the bloodbaths – in Iraq (since 2003), in Lebanon (in 2006) and in Gaza (today) – would be possible.

Hypocrisy over the word “terrorism” is not an innocent dispute over semantics; it kills.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'

 

[omairhr]

If you are calling Israel an "illegitimate state" you either aren't much interested in learning or don't know much at all. The modern state of Israel was promised by the British under a League of Nations mandate and the justice of its existence established by a U.N. vote, remember? If you want to know more about "stealing land" specifically, click the link.

Furthermore, if Israel is "illegitimate" what does that make Pakistan?

The boundaries of current Israel extend far beyond mandated by UN. Please read history of creation of Israel again.

 

[Cheeta]

The boundaries of current Israel extend far beyond mandated by UN. Please read history of creation of Israel again.

Tell him also to read then the history of U.N. and its failure as an organisation of peacekeeping.

 

[Al-zakir]

Olmert: No peace in Gaza till Hamas rockets stop - CNN.com

Israel rejects call for humanitarian truce

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed Wednesday that Israel's air assault on Gaza would not end until Hamas militants quit firing rockets into Israeli territory.

"We did not enter this operation in order to end it with the firing still continuing," Olmert said in a security cabinet meeting, according to a senior government official.

"Hamas broke this cease-fire," Olmert said. "If the conditions ripen" and if there is a solution "that promises a better security ... we will consider it, but we are not there yet," he said, according to the official.

Despite a French proposal for a humanitarian truce, Israel earlier Wednesday decided to continue the operation, saying Israelis must have a "real and sustainable solution," Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said.

Israeli airstrikes have pounded the territory since Saturday in an effort to halt the firing of rockets into southern Israel.

More than 390 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian medical sources, and some 1,900 people have been wounded, including 400 women and children.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, whose office in Gaza was struck overnight, said Israel needed to "stop attacking and killing our children, women and men."

"The aggression must stop, the crossings must open and the blockade must be lifted and then we can talk about all other issues," he said in televised comments Wednesday. "Then we can start a national dialogue without any preset conditions."

Israeli sources say four Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire.

More than 30 rockets landed in southern Israel on Wednesday, including at least four in Beer Sheva, Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said. Beer Sheva, about 25 miles away from Gaza, is the farthest that rockets from Gaza have ever landed inside Israel.
Don't Miss

* Video: Reaction around the U.S. and world
* Gaza relief boat damaged
* Timeline: The evolution of Hamas

"Israel will not accept a 'Strip of Terror' alongside us, and accordingly Hamas operatives have tasted the flavor of Israel's response in the last few days," Israeli President Shimon Peres said. Video Watch what may be influencing Israeli decision-making »

The situation in Gaza remains desperate, despite the admission of more than 150 trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the territory on Tuesday, said Karen AbuZayd, the commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. Video Watch aid trucks cross the border from Egypt »

"There's no fuel, there's no power plant, there's no electricity working now," she said.

"Hundreds of families in the Gaza Strip are suffering, not only [from] the fear of airstrikes, but also the lack of electricity, lack of water, lack of food supplies," Saud Abu Ramadan, a freelance journalist who lives in Gaza City, told CNN's "American Morning."

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal is ready to stop the fighting in exchange for an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced.

Mashaal spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday and outlined Hamas' position on the resumption of the Palestinian reconciliation process, the foreign ministry said.

"Mashaal said in response to [Lavrov] that they are ready to end the armed confrontation, but only if these measures are linked to steps intended to remove the Gaza Strip's blockade," the ministry said.

While living in self-imposed exile in Damascus, Syria, Mashaal remains the head of Hamas, which controls Gaza. Learn more about Gaza's political history »

Earlier Wednesday, the Israeli military warned neighbors of Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar to leave because it may bomb the area, the neighbors told CNN.

Al-Zahar was the Palestinian foreign minister under the Hamas-led government before it was dissolved by President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Al-Zahar's son was killed in an Israeli airstrike in January 2008.

Israel has moved tanks to the outskirts of Gaza and called up at least 2,000 army reservists, sparking fears of a ground incursion into the Palestinian territory. Video Watch how Israel is sitting on Gaza's border »
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The Israeli military says it is targeting only Hamas militants. But the U.N.'s AbuZayd said 20 to 25 percent of the casualties arriving in Gaza hospitals appear to be civilians, and she said the bombardment is not turning the people of the territory against Hamas.

"Hamas is not the one being blamed. It's still Israel, America," she said.

 

[A.Rahman]

The Palestinians participated whole heartedly in the battles of Aqaba and Jerusalem besides providing all the guides for all troop movements of the British forces.Without the water sources pointed out to them by the Palestinians to the British Palestine would never have been conquered by the invading forces.See "the Imperial Worrier: the biography of Lord Allenby.

 

[Cheeta]

Palestinians have always been best for troublemaking and unruly being never coming to a bold stand or to keep their word. But this is not the question of Palestinians, it is the protection of the rights of humanity. This land including Palestine, Labenon, Jordon and Israel actually belongs to Syria. Here with the support of United States and Britain Israel is making secure its recognition as a separate nation which is totally unjustifiable. Israel has been keeping up its defence backed by the United States through the age and still hopes to carry on the massacre to confirm its own security. Being the U.N as a Subject to Superpower Organisation this quarrel will certainly get intensified as the upper hand in technology of Israel with the support from United States is getting diluted.

 

[Communist]

South Asian countries which are targets of this fascist-zionist forces must have a lesson from this incident how important it is to remain well-prepared to resist such invasion, because sometimes weak defense can make anyone back-stabbed by masked enemies. Anyway, the death toll has already crossed 400 Palestinians. The site mentioned below is very useful as there are many photos that can make us all alarmed.

Hamas Leader Killed in Israeli Strike

 

[pkpatriotic]

Israeli airstrike kills a top Hamas leader
By IBRAHIM BARZAK and JASON KEYSER,

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – An Israeli warplane dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on the home of one of Hamas' top five decision-makers Thursday, instantly killing him and 18 others, while the Israeli army said troops massed on the Gaza border were ready for any order to invade.

The airstrike on Nizar Rayan was the first that succeeded in killing a member of Hamas' highest echelon since Israel began its offensive Saturday. The 49-year-old professor of Islamic law was known for personally participating in clashes with Israeli forces and for sending one of his sons on a 2001 suicide mission that killed two Israelis.

Even as it pursued its bombing campaign, Israel kept the way open for intense efforts by leaders in the Middle East and Europe to arrange a cease-fire. Israel said it would consider a halt to fighting if international monitors were brought in to track compliance with any truce.

Adding to the urgency of the diplomatic maneuvering, the Israeli military said its preparations for a possible ground assault were complete and that troops stood ready to cross the border if the air operation to stamp out Hamas rocket fire needed to be expanded.

lives of civilians.

Residents said he openly went to a nearby mosque Thursday morning to pray.

In his last interview, recorded with Hamas TV on Wednesday, Rayan was as defiant as ever about confronting the Israeli military.

"Oh fighters, know that you will be victorious," he said. "God promises us either victory or martyrdom. God is greater than they are, God is greater than their planes, God is greater than their rockets."

The military said it had information that there was a tunnel beneath Rayan's home for use as an escape route.

Israel seemed determined to press ahead with airstrikes on Hamas houses. It also has been targeting buildings used by the territory's Hamas government — emptied days ago by evacuations — as well as rocket-launching sites and smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt.

"We are trying to hit everybody who is a leader of the organization, and today we hit one of their leaders," Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said in a television interview.

More than 400 Gazans had been killed and some 1,700 wounded since Israel embarked on its aerial campaign, Gaza health officials said. The United Nations has said the death toll includes more than 60 civilians, 34 of them children.

One of them, 11-year-old Ismail Hamdan, was buried Thursday after dying of wounds suffered from an airstrike Tuesday that killed two of his sisters, Haya, 4, and Lama, 12. His body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag and his battered face was still bandaged as he was carried above a crowd of mourners.

Since Saturday, three Israeli civilians and one soldier have also died in rocket attacks that have reached deeper into Israel than ever before, bringing more than a tenth of Israel's population of 7 million within rocket range.

The bombing campaign has worsened an already hard life for Gaza's mostly poor population of 1.5 million. On Thursday, hundreds of people stood in long, snaking lines across the territory waiting to buy bread.

Israel launched the offensive Saturday after more than a week of intense Palestinian rocket fire that followed the expiration of a six-month truce, which Hamas refused to extend because Israel kept up its blockade of Gaza.

So far, the campaign has been conducted largely from the air. But a military spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich, said preparations for a ground operation were complete.

"The infantry, the artillery and other forces are ready. They're around the Gaza Strip, waiting for any calls to go inside," Leibovich said.

Thousands of soldiers waited along the border, resting among tanks, armored personnel carriers and howitzers. The troops watched warplanes and attack helicopters flying into Gaza, cheering each time they heard the explosion of an airstrike.

One soldier, who can be identified under military rules only as Sgt. Yaniv, said he was eager to go in. "I am going crazy here watching all this. I want to do my part as well," he said.

Hamas promised to put up a fight if Israeli land forces invaded.

"We are waiting for you to enter Gaza to kill you or make you into Schalits," the group said, referring to Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who was captured in a cross-border raid by Hamas-affiliated militants 2 1/2 years ago and remains in captivity in Gaza.

Israel's bruising campaign has not deterred Hamas from assaulting Israel. According to the military, militants fired more than 30 rockets into southern Israel during the day.

No injuries were reported, but an eight-story apartment building in Ashdod, 23 miles from Gaza, was hit. Panicked residents ran through a debris-strewn street.

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rebuffed a French proposal for a two-day suspension of hostilities to allow for the delivery of humanitarian supplies. Israel has been allowing trucked relief supplies to enter Gaza. Ninety aid trucks crossed the border Thursday.

Still, Olmert seemed to be looking for a diplomatic way out, telling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other world leaders that Israel would accept a truce only if international monitors took responsibility for enforcing it, government officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were confidential.

A Turkish truce proposal included a call for such monitors.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking to reporters during a visit to Paris for meetings with French officials, expressed skepticism about the benefits of a cease-fire. She said Hamas used the lull during the six-month truce that expired last month to build up its arsenal of weapons.

"Our experience from the past is that even when we accept something in order to have a peaceful period of time, they abuse it in order to get stronger and to attack Israel later on," Livni said.

Egypt's foreign minister said Hamas must ensure that rocket fire stops in any truce deal, and he criticized the Palestinian militants for giving Israel an "opportunity on a golden platter" to launch the offensive.

Gaza has been under Hamas rule since the group's fighters overran it in June 2007. The West Bank has remained under the control of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been negotiating peace with Israel for more than a year but has no influence over Hamas. Bringing in truce monitors would require cooperation between the fiercely antagonistic Palestinian factions.

An Abbas confidant said the Palestinian president supported the notion of international involvement. "We are asking for a cease-fire and an international presence to monitor Israel's commitment to it," Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

World leaders have not been deterred by the initial rejections by Israel and Hamas of truce efforts, and next week French President Nicolas Sarkozy plans a whirlwind trip around the region.
___
Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak reported this story from Gaza City and Jason Keyser from Jerusalem. AP writer Aron Heller on the Gaza border contributed to this report.

 

[M_Saint]

Eyewitness Report from Vittorio Arrigoni, Volunteer, International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

December 29 6:05 PM, Marna house, Gaza city

An acrid smell of sulphur fills the air while the sky is shaken by earth-shattering rumbles. My ears are now deaf to the explosions, while my eyes are all out of tears from all the corpses. I stand in front of Al Shifa hospital, Gaza’s main hospital, and we’ve just received Israel’s terrible threat that they intend to bomb its wing under construction. This would be nothing new, as Wea’m hospital was bombed just yesterday, along with a medicine warehouse in Rafah, the Islamic university, which was also destroyed, along with various mosques scattered along the Strip. Not to mention many CIVILIAN structures.

Apparently, they can no longer find “sensible” targets, the air force and the navy is targeting places of worship, schools and hospitals. It’s another 9/11 every single hour, every minute around here, and tomorrow is always a new day of mourning, always identical to the previous one. You notice the helicopters and airplanes constantly overhead, you see a flash, but you’re already a goner and it’s too late to take flight.

There are no bunkers against the bombs in the Strip and no place is really safe. I can’t contact my friends in Rafah, not even those who live North of Gaza City, hopefully because the phone lines are overloaded. Hopefully. I haven’t slept in 60 hours, and same goes for every Gazan. Yesterday three other ISM members and I spent the entire night at the al Awda hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp. We were there because we were fearing the much dreaded ground raid that never happened. But the Israeli tanks are posted all along the Strip’s border, and their corpse-hungry creaks will apparently form a funeral march tonight. Around 11:30 PM a bomb fell about 800 metres from the hospital, the shock wave blow several windows apart, injuring the injured.

An ambulance arrived, then they blew up a mosque, thankfully empty at that time. Unfortunately, though it actually has nothing to do with bad luck but with the criminal and a terrorist will to massacre civilians, the Israeli bomb has also struck the building adjacent to the mosque, which was also destroyed. We watched as the tiny bodies of six little sisters were pulled out of the rubble – five are dead, one is in life-threatening conditions.

They laid the little girls out on the blackened asphalt, and they looked like broken dolls, disposed of as they were no longer usable. This wasn’t a mistake, but a voluntary, and cynical horror. We’re at a toll of 320 dead, more than a thousand wounded and, according to a doctor at Shifa, 60% of these are destined to die in the next few hours or days, after prolonged agony. There are many missing, and for the last two days despairing wives have been searching for their husbands or children in hospitals, often to no avail. The morgue is a macabre spectacle. A nurse told me that after hours of searching, a Palestinian woman recognized her husband from his amputated hand. All that’s left of her husband, and the wedding band on her finger from the eternal love they had sworn one another.

Out of a house inhabited by two families, very little has remained of their bodies. They showed their relatives half of one bust and three legs. Right now, one of our Free Gaza Movement boats is leaving the port in Larnaca, Cyprus. I spoke to my friends on board. They’ve heroically amassed medicine and steeped it everywhere in the boat. It should reach the port of Gaza tomorrow around 8:00 AM. [Even that hoped for assistance has been delayed by Israeli boats ramming the DIGNITY three times so that it had to divert. -ed.] Here’s to hoping that the port will still exist after another night of endless bombing. I’ll be in touch with them for the entire night. Please, someone stop this nightmare. Choosing to remain silent means somehow lending support to the genocide unfolding right now. Shout out your indignation, in every capital of the “civilized” world, in every city, in every square, covering our own screams of pain and terror. A slice of humanity is dying in pitiful in a useless listening.

To receive ongoing e-mail reports like the above, join the Free Gaza mailing list
Receive email reports as we go, get our updates and our announcements and watch streaming video once we are on the sea.

That was 3 days ago. Do you think things have gotten better or worse since this report? How many voices in how many places for how long have to echo that cry: “PLEASE, SOMEONE STOP THIS NIGHTMARE!” ??? Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine… No matter how distanced, isolated or powerless we may feel, we have to do SOMETHING. Here are some suggestions for action in regard to Gaza right now. Pick even just one thing, anything, and do it…

Donate to Free Gaza

Donate to Kinder USA Gaza Emergency Appeal

Donate to the Palestine Chioldren’s Relief Fund

From Haitham Sabbah:
Jan 1, 2009

So far hundreds of civilians have been killed in Gaza. Five sisters in one family, four other children in another home, two children on a cart drawn by a donkey. Universities, colleges, police stations, roads, apartment buildings were all targeted. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian areas issued a statement that “The Israeli air-strikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.”

Twenty-five things to do to bring peace with justice:

(1) First get the facts and then disseminate them. Here are some basic background information:
Palestinian Center for Human Rights
Palestinian Center for Human Rights
B'Tselem - The Gaza Strip after disengagement

The true story behind this war:
Mustafa Barghouti - Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood | Sabbah
The True Story Behind This War is Not the One Israel is Telling - mepeace.org

If Gaza Falls:
http://tinyurl.com/a53ujd

Gaza massacres must spur us to action:
ei: Gaza massacres must spur us to action

(2) Contact local media. Write letters to editors (usually 100-150 words) and longer op-eds (usually 600-800 words) for local newspapers. But also write to news departments in both print, audio, and visual media about their coverage. In the US Congress.org - Media Guide You can find media listings in your country using search engines like google.

(3) Contact elected and other political leaders in your country to urge them to apply pressure to end the attacks. In the US, Contact the State Department at 202.647.5291, the White House 202-456-1111 the Egyptian Embassy 202.895.5400, Email (embassy@egyptembassy.net) and the Obama Transition Team 202-540-3000 (then press 2 to speak with a staff member).

(4) Organize and join demonstrations in front of Israeli and Egyptian embassies or when not doable in front of your parliament, office of elected officials, and any other visible place (and do media work for it).

(5) Hold a teach-in, seminar, public dialogue, documentary film viewing etc. this is straightforward: you need to decide venue, nature, if any speakers, and do some publicity (the internet helps). [film ideas and resources - Palestine Online Store - Anna Baltzer, Life in Occupied Palestine]

(6) Pass out fliers with facts and figures about Palestine and Gaza in your community (make sure also to mention its relevance to the audience: e.g, US taxpayers paying for the carnage, increase in world instability and economic uncertainty). [Palestine Solidarity Campaign facts and booklets -ed.]

(7) Put a Palestinian flag at your window. [put banners on your websites, myspace, etc -ed.]

(8) Wear a Palestinian head scarf (Koufiya) [here's where I got mine - Palestine Online Store -ed.]

(9) Wear Black arm bands (this helps start conversations with people).

(10) Send direct aid to Gaza through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA Official Homepage (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East)

(11) Initiate boycotts, divestments and sanctions at all levels and including asking leaders to expel the Israeli ambassadors (an ambassador of an apartheid and rogue state). See Palestinian call ei: Boycott committee: "Stop the massacre in Gaza - boycott Israel now!"

(12) Work towards bringing Israeli leaders before war crime courts (actions along those lines in courts have stopped Israeli leaders from traveling abroad to some countries like Britain where they may face charges).

(13) Calling upon all Israelis to demonstrate in front of their war ministry and to more directly challenge their government

(14) Do outreach: to neighbours and friends directly. Via Internet to a lot of others (you can join and post information to various listservs/groups).

(15) Start your own activist group or join other local groups (simple search in your city with the word Palestine could identify candidate groups that have previously worked on issues of Palestine). Many have also been successful in at bringing coalitions from different constituencies in their local areas to work together (human rights group, social and civil activists, religious activists, etc). [Palestine Solidarity Campaign links -ed.]

(16) Develop a campaign of sit-ins at government offices or other places where decision makers aggregate.

(17) Do a group fast for peace one day and hold it in a public place.

(18) Visit Palestine (e.g. with Siraj Center - Home)

(19) Support human rights and other groups working on the ground in Palestine.

(20) Make large signs and display them at street corners and where ever people congregate.

(21) Contact local churches, mosques, synagogues, and other houses of worship and ask them to take a moral stand and act. Call on your mosque to dedicate this Friday for Gaza actions.

(22) Sign petitions for Gaza, e.g. GAZA: STOP THE BLOODSHED

(23) Write and call people in Gaza, they need to hear from the outside world.

(24) Work with other groups that do not share your political views (factionalism and excessive divisions within activist communities allowed those who advocate war to succeed).

(25) Dedicate a certain time for activism for peace every day (1 hour) and think of more actions than what are listed above.

(26) Urge your local radio talk shows and news editors to call any of us here in Palestine to report live what is happening on the ground.

For support and contacts of people in Gaza or to volunteer, please contact the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People, via gaza@imemc.org, or call +1-989-607-9480 (from the US and Canada) or +972-2-277-2018 (from other places).

 

[Omar1984]

Wasn't there a considerable exchange of populations between Pakistan and India after independence.

Only 7% of Pakistan's population are descendents of those who came from India to Pakistan after independence. Almost all Pakistanis always lived in their land, we didnt come from a different continent like Israelis did and we didnt kick anyone out of their homes. Today, theres still some Hindus and Sikhs living in Pakistan, no one kicked them out of their homes and settled in their area.

Please dont compare Pakistan to Israel, the real terrorist in the world.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

we are witnessing a brutal and barberick acts of israel supported by usa.

right now israilese are doing what happend to jews during the second world war

 

[RedBaron]

Hamas has ZERO support from most of the world's nations. It probably has support only from Iran and Syria. Even within Arab League, Egypt, Jordan and KSA are against Hamas. It was difficult to convince Arab League even to convene its meeting. Hamas is a terrorist organization that actively encourages suicide bombings. Its primitive rockets cannot match the overwhelming military force of Israel. And the world will not move a finger...

The argument that suicide bombings is the only way to force Israel to stop the atrocities is pure BS. The ONLY way to achieve Palestinian aspirations for a free Palestinian state is via non-violent civil disobedience as displayed during the first Intifada. Civil disobedience freed the Indian subcontinent from British colonialism and ended the apartheid regime in South Africa. Arafat knew this, but after his death, his successors have been too weak to keep the momentum going. Non-violent resistance is the only way for Palestinians to regain the world's support against Israeli occupation. Hamas will doom the Palestinians to more bloodshed and misery.

 

[Omar1984]

Hamas has ZERO support from most of the world's nations. It probably has support only from Iran and Syria. Even within Arab League, Egypt, Jordan and KSA are against Hamas. It was difficult to convince Arab League even to convene its meeting. Hamas is a terrorist organization that actively encourages suicide bombings. Its primitive rockets cannot match the overwhelming military force of Israel. And the world will not move a finger...

The argument that suicide bombings is the only way to force Israel to stop the atrocities is pure BS. The ONLY way to achieve Palestinian aspirations for a free Palestinian state is via non-violent civil disobedience as displayed during the first Intifada. Civil disobedience freed the Indian subcontinent from British colonialism and ended the apartheid regime in South Africa. Arafat knew this, but after his death, his successors have been too weak to keep the momentum going. Non-violent resistance is the only way for Palestinians to regain the world's support against Israeli occupation. Hamas will doom the Palestinians to more bloodshed and misery.

hmmm intersting. The last time Kashmiris followed non-violent resistance, they were gunned down by Indian troops for peaceful protests.

What do you say about that?

 

[RedBaron]

hmmm intersting. The last time Kashmiris followed non-violent resistance, they were gunned down by Indian troops for peaceful protests.

What do you say about that?

If the Kashmiris, to a man, came out on the streets to protest against India in a non-violent manner, just like the blacks did in South Africa and Indians did in the days of the Raj, the Indian government would be in big trouble. The rest of the world would not ignore peaceful protestors being slaughtered ALL THE TIME. It would take time, but freedom would be theirs for the taking.

But what has happened in Kashmir is this: The militant groups like LeT, Hizbul-Mujahedeen, etc. have frankly done India a favor by damaging the Kashmiri cause, just like Hamas has damaged the Palestinian cause. These groups have been declared terrorist organizations and has irreparably damaged any Kashmiri "azadi" aspirations for the near future. The world will not give Kashmir a second look and the Kashmiri militants can never win against the overwhelming might of the Indian armed forces. The Kashmiri electorate has realized this and decided they might as well turn up to vote for NC party whom they feel will give them at least "bijli, sadak, paani". The Kashmiri people may not be happy with Indian rule, but they are fed up with militancy...

But coming back to the topic, Hamas is a goner mate...