Massive Israeli Slaughter In Gaza

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PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES - Vancouver

December 27, 2008

PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES
by vancouver.gazaprotest
Please come out rain, snow or shine to demonstrate your outrage and our collective humanity in response to the latest massacre of Palestinians. At least 200 Palestinians have been killed and over 800 injured in the latest Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, while the threat for further bloodshed still hands heavily as air strikes continue. This is the single largest massacre in Gaza since Israel illegally occupied Gaza in 1967, many among the dead are civilians and the numbers keeps mounting.


Monday December 29th @ Noon
US Consulate (1075 West Pender)
Gather on HASTINGS side (corner Thurlow)

vancouver.gazaprotest@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it





**** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY *****

Israel’s latest massacre in Gaza occurs with official US and Canadian complicity towards Israel’s illegal siege and ongoing sanctions over the civilian population in Gaza. Over the past two years the Gaza Strip has been undergoing the daily violence of a wide-ranging humanitarian catastrophe triggered by severely reduced access to energy, food, and medicines. In effect, Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison.

Demonstrations are planned all over the world in the next few days including in the Canadian cities of Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. Join us in Vancouver as people of conscience to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza and to demand an end to the siege of Gaza and Israeli apartheid.

Endorsed by:

Al-Awda - Vancouver
Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign
Canada Palestine Association - Vancouver
Voice of Palestine - Vancouver
The Canadian Arab Federation - National
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights - University of British Columbia
StopWar Coalition.
Canadians Against War
Adala - Arab Justice Committee
Vancouver Socialist Forum




The suffering that the Gazans have endured in the past two years as a collective punishment with the silence of Arab Regimes and limited solidarity work gave Israel the upper hand in the starvation of people, and today, mass massacre of over 200 people in hours. Israel is currently testing it's status with the U.S. new upcoming administration, as well as, exploiting the holiday times when many parts of the world are busy with holiday celebrations. The victims that fell today are a direct result to our silence.

A report from Gaza last month on the deterioration in Gaza Strip is as follows:

- Bread Crisis: The lack of propane gas (cooking gas), has caused the closure of over 70% of the bread bakeries in Gaza. People stand in lines for over 4 hours per day to receive minimal bread rations, which often are insufficient for the family. Very limited quantities of corn and barley flour are usually mixed with a variety of grains used for animal feed to make bread, which is nearly inedible.

- Fuel Crisis: A new phenomenon of home fires is causing tremendous damage, due to lack of information about alternative fuels such as dirty propane, kerosene and candles, the only source of fuel or lighting available. Propane (cooking) gas is mixed with other types of fuel, causing hazardous and harmful fumes, and causing suffocation without sufficient ventilation. An alternative has been the kerosene-based heat, a method that has not been used since the 1920s that can only be used for making tea and coffee, but not for cooking meals. Candles have also been used quite often as an alternative to electricity.

- Lack of Cash in banks: The banks closed their doors two days before Eid Al-Adha holiday, due to lack of cash in the bank to pay salaries for over 150,000 employees. The banks have promised to open their doors once Israel allows the cash to come in. If the situation continues.

- Pilgrims' Crisis: Since 1948, no one has been prevented from going to the holy pilgrimage in Mecca, however, this year, many pilgrims from the Gaza Strip were stopped and deprived from the right to pilgrimage, and the Egyptian government was clearly pressured to prevent the pilgrims from crossing the borders

- Hospitals Crisis: The electricity generator at Shifa hospital, a major hospital in the heart of Gaza Strip serving over 500 new patients per day, has broken, risking the lives of many of their patients.

- Blockade on Livestock – Qurbani: During the Eid al-Adha holiday, it is a custom to eat meat, and for people to donate 1/3 of their livestock to the poor. The Israeli blockade has prevented the entry of livestock into Gaza Strip which meant that Qurbani meat is not available for families this year.


www.uruknet.info?p=49986

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On the ground in Gaza: Israeli strikes spread chaos, desperation
IMEU

December 27, 2008

A Palestinian living in the Gaza Strip describes the chaos and terror that ensued following a day of widespread Israeli air strikes across the densely-populated territory, which has already been devastated by months of an ongoing Israeli-imposed siege.

Haneen, Gaza City

How do I describe a massacre? What do I tell you first? Do I first tell you about the dead people that I see in the streets? Or do I first tell you about the terror we are living? Where do I begin?

I was at home, without electricity - owing to the fact that the Israeli government has cut off our electricity supply - reading a book and wondering how I would be able cook a meal with the few food supplies we have.

I heard a series of blasts and didn't know where to turn. I was too scared to look out the window of my 9th floor apartment.

When I heard the second and third blasts and the screams of my neighbors, I dared to open the balcony door. The scene that unfolded was horrific - bodies, including women and children, littered the streets below.

The blasts came within seconds of each other. As people fled one missile, they were hit by another. Targeting "military" buildings? That's a joke. Gaza City is one of the most densely populated places on earth - the government buildings Israeli targeted are located in crowded neighborhoods filled with civilian residences, schools, and medical clinics.

Children, who were at school and sitting for exams, were sent home and were terrified that they would be next, after a building located right next to a school crumbled to the ground.

The airplanes continued to linger, seemingly waiting to strike as many people as possible. Children ran in the streets looking up in the sky, waiting for the sky to rain down terror on them.

And the smell - how can I describe that smell? How do you describe the smell of pure terror? It is a mix of blood, flames and debris. The sky is black all around us.

I called my brother to make sure that he was alright. Yes, he's fine but he is terrified too. He tells me that the hospitals are filled and that there is no electricity and inadequate medical supplies to treat the hundreds of wounded because of the Israeli-imposed siege.

Hospitals in Gaza aren't equipped to deal with massacres and with the killing of more than 220 people. Electricity supplies have dwindled in recent weeks, and Israel has prevented even the most basic medical supplies from entering Gaza. Many of Gaza's hospitals also require spare parts to repair aging equipment, but those supplies, too, have been kept out.

We have no bomb shelters and even if we did, they cannot withstand Israel's F-16 fighter jets. We had a meeting with our neighbors and we are spending the night on the middle floors of the building in order to protect ourselves in the event of another strike.

What can we do? Where do we go? It's late now. We have no electricity. I am scared. Is there anything anybody can do to help?

www.imeu.net/news/article0015187.shtml

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IAF strikes mosque, TV station in day 2 of Gaza offensive
Associated Press

December 27, 2008

Israel Air Force warplanes struck targets in Gaza early Sunday, including a mosque and a TV station, after a day of intensive air strikes that killed at least 230 Palestinians and wounded close to 800.

Hundreds of Israeli infantry and armored corps troops headed for the Gaza border early Sunday in preparation for a possible ground invasion, military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Sky News that he would not rule out widening the offensive in the Gaza Strip to include a ground invasion.

Barak on Saturday also said Israel "cannot really accept" a cease-fire with Hamas, rejecting calls by the United Nations and the European Union for a truce after Israel Air Force strikes killed at least 230 people in Gaza.

"For us to be asked to have a cease-fire with Hamas is like asking you to have a cease-fire with Al-Qaida," Barak said in an interview with Fox News. "It's something we cannot really accept."

Asked whether Israel would follow up the air strikes with a ground offensive, Barak said, "If boots on the ground will be needed, they will be there."

"Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game," he said.

In the first attack early Sunday, Palestinians said Israeli aircraft bombed a mosque near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, destroying it. Two bodies were retrieved from the rubble. The blast, just after midnight, blew out windows at the hospital, hospital officials said. The military said the mosque was a base for terrorist activities.

Another target early Sunday was the Al Aqsa TV station used by Hamas. Its studio building was destroyed, but the station remained on the air with a mobile unit. Palestinians counted about 20 airstrikes in the first hours of Sunday.

Israel on Saturday morning launched a massive offensive meant to stop rocket and mortar attacks that have traumatized southern Israel.

Of the 230 Palestinians killed, most were militants. One Israeli was also killed and six Israelis were wounded.

The unprecedented assault sparked protests and condemnations throughout the Arab world, while many of Israel's Western allies urged restraint, though the U.S. blamed Hamas for the fighting.

But there seemed to be no end in sight. Israel obliquely threatened to go after Hamas' leaders, and militants kept pelting Israel with rockets.

In a televised statement Saturday evening, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the goal was to bring about a fundamental improvement in the security situation of the residents of the southern part of the country. He added, "It could take some time."

The Israeli air strikes caused widespread panic and confusion, and black plumes of smoke billowed above the territory, ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as students were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children. At least 15 civilians were killed, officials said.

"My son is gone, my son is gone," wailed Said Masri, a 57-year-old shopkeeper, as he sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, slapping his face and covering his head with dust from a bombed-out security compound nearby.

He said he had sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and could not find him. "May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn," Masri moaned.

Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas, and that has led to steep civilian casualties in the past when Israel has retaliated. Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language voice mails on their cell phones from the Israel Defense Forces, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired some 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and 10 times that number over the past year.

In Gaza City's main security compound, bodies of more than a dozen uniformed Hamas police lay on the ground. Civilians rushed wounded people in cars and vans to hospitals because there weren't enough ambulances to transport all the dead and wounded.

"There are heads without bodies.... There's blood in the corridors. People are weeping, women are crying, doctors are shouting," said nurse Ahmed Abdel Salaam from Shifa Hospital, Gaza's main treatment center.

Military officials said aircraft released more than 100 tons of bombs in the first nine hours of fighting, focusing initially on militant training camps, rocket-manufacturing facilities and weapons warehouses that had been identified in advance.

A second wave was directed at squads who fired about 80 rockets and mortars at Israeli border communities. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas' political leaders could soon be targeted. "Hamas is a terrorist organization and nobody is immune," she declared.

The campaign was launched six weeks before national elections. Livni and
Defense Minister Ehud Barak hope to succeed Olmert as prime minister, and the outgoing government has faced pressure to take tough action.

Gaza's political leaders, who have been targeted in the past, went into hiding earlier this week. In a speech broadcast on local Gaza television, Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, declared his movement would not be cowed. "We are stronger, and more determined, and have more will, and we will hold onto our rights even more than before," Haniyeh said. It was not clear where he spoke.

In Damascus, Syria, Hamas' top leader, Khaled Meshal, called on Palestinians to rekindle their fight against Israel. "This is the time for a third Intifada," he said.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza and some settlements in the West Bank in 2005 after crushing the second Palestinian uprising, but it has maintained control over the territory's border crossings.

The lone fatality in Israel was in the town of Netivot, where a rocket killed an Israeli man. Six other people were wounded, rescue services said.

Netivot only recently become a target, and dozens of stunned residents, some weeping, gathered at the house that took the deadly rocket hit. A hole gaped in one of the walls, which was pocked with shrapnel marks.

"We need to finish this once and for all and strike back hard," said next-door neighbor Avraham Chen-Chatam, 57.

Streets were nearly empty in Sderot, the Israeli border town pummeled hardest by rockets. But dozens of people congregated on a hilltop to watch the Israeli aerial attacks.

The TV images of dead and wounded Gazans inflamed Arab public opinion, and protests erupted in Arab Israeli villages, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Arab world.

The campaign embarrassed moderate Arab regimes that have encouraged
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and weakened Hamas' rival, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since Hamas
violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007.

Abbas condemned the attacks, but fearing violence could spiral out of control, his forces also broke up protests in the West Bank.
The offensive risked opening new fronts, including unrest that could
destabilize the West Bank and ignite possible rocket attacks by Lebanese
Hezbollah guerrillas on northern Israel.

Britain, the EU, the Vatican, the UN secretary-general and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair all called for an immediate restoration of calm.

The UN Security Council scheduled a debate, and the Palestinian observer, Riyad Mansour, said there was no justification for the Israeli offensive. "This collective punishment is inhumane, immoral and should be stopped immediately," he said.

The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the situation. But the U.S., Israel's closest ally, blamed Hamas.

"These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050618.html

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The Bloody Saturday of Israel in Gaza
Kawther Salam

December 27, 2008

Saturday is the holy day for all Jews in world. This is a well known part of the Jewish customs. During Saturday they exchange greetings, saying "Shabbat Shalom" or "Peace Saturday". Under the bloody-day-5Israeli occupation in West Bank and Gaza since over 41 years, the Palestinians never lived one day of peace, even not one Saturday. The Jewish State turned their "Shabbat Shalom", the Peace Saturday, into a BLOODY one.

In Gaza, today one million and a half Palestinians lived a "special day" of the Jewish "Shabbat Shalom", after over 60 airplanes of the war criminal Israeli air forces launched strikes during the holy Shabbat, murdering over 205 and injuring over 740, while targeting the Police headquarter in Gaza. Among the victims at the police headquarters are over 120 dead civilian. The count of victims increases each moment. The Israeli war against humanity has just started, according to the statement of war criminal Ehud Barak during a press conference.
During Bloody Saturday in Gaza, The people had to pick through body parts in order to identify their loved ones. It’s horrible to describe the images of people collecting body parts of human beings.
al-qudsYesterday the Israeli occupation allowed the entrance of food into the Gaza concentration camp. The journalists filmed the human face of the Nazi occupation, all the International media broadcasted the scenes of food entering Gaza. I saw hungry children like butterflies running in front of the food trucks, they all were happy that their starvation would now end.
The Israeli government decided to end the starvation of children in Gaza, but in another way and for ever. The IAF dropped approximately 100 bombs, with an estimated 95 percent of the ordnance reaching its intended target of murdering the hungry children. Most of the casualties of the bombings were innocent civilians.

The people are not able to identify the victims who had been in the streets or bloody-day-61visiting the offices of Hamas for their civilian affairs, I was told by people from Gaza during a phone call which I made. They added that the Israeli air strikes began at 11:30 with almost no warning for the civilians in these offices. Many children, men, women and civilians were killed.

Sameh Habeeb, a Palestinian journalist from Gaza, said that the Palestinian victims were a mix of policemen and civilians who were visiting some police stations to request personal documents (ID cards, passports, …). The police station witnessed the bloodiest Israeli attack in which around 70 were killed, mostly policemen. The victims at the police station were holding a graduation ceremony for a group of young police cadets.

A family of 9 members, 15 young children, and some women were killed but bloody-daycould not be identified. The Ministry of Health is not able to recognize the ID’s of casualties. Tawfiq Jaber, Director of Gaza police, was killed in the air raids along with Ismail El Jabari, head of the security section in the police. The governor of the central Gaza governorates and camps was killed as Israel hit his car.

Palestinian medical sources said that over 205 people had been killed and more than 750 people were also wounded during the Israel Air Force strikes and crimes. Many critically injured were transferred to Egypt, which has opened its bloody-day-1long-sealed border with Gaza, to allow transferring the wounded people for medical treatment in the hospitals. The wounded were being transported in inhuman way in trucks according to witnesses. The capacity of the hospitals in Gaza is severely limited under the Israeli blockade, the heavy air strikes, the lack of the medicine, and the increased number of injuries, said the same sources from Gaza.

The images of the Israeli war crimes, hundreds of the dead bodies and injured people in the streets, the disgusting images of Israelis dancing of joy in the streets, shows the real face of the Shabbat Shalom of the Jewish State of the Israeli occupation, this "holy chosen people" of thieves and murderers.

The Arab Countries adopted the Plan of Gaza Destruction
Israel and USA used the Arab and other foreign countries, among them Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority…and Europe to justify their war crimes against the population of Gaza.
The USA preparation plan for the destruction of Gaza was presented to the Arab countries and Europe as a step to strengthen the President Mahmoud Abass and as a protection measure for their regimes from the growing danger of the radical Islamic of Hamas, according to the deluded American rhetoric.

SharmutinThe Arabs leaders adopted this criminal plan, and finally we saw Tzipi Livni threaten the population of Gaza with destruction from Egypt during an official press conference with the Egyptian foreign minister Abdul Gheit.

The Saudi Arabian King, who invited some Jewish Rabbis to a religion conference in USA, was seen together with George Bush in his farm in Texas. This illiterate king who hardly speaks a word in English and is known to only know street slang in Arabic, received from his ally George Bush the plans to destroy Gaza. It was demanded from him to cut the relationship with Hamas leaders.

As a result of this visit, the Palestinian Muslims from Gaza were being denied their right of pilgrimage to Mecca. Finally, the Israeli President and war criminal Shimon Peres "justified" the plan to destroy Gaza in the newspaper Al-Sharq- Al-Awsat of Saudi Arabia. The corrupt and criminal Prime Minister Ehud Olmert justified his crimes on the Saudian Al-Arabiya TV.

Finally, the American employee Salam Fayyad cabinet of collaborators imprisoned hundreds of Palestinian political activists in the West Bank as a preparation for the Israeli war crime against the people in Gaza. Last week the PA American trained forces jailed the Palestinian Rajab Awni Tawfiq Al-Sharif age of 36, a resistance personality who was declared dead after the Israeli strike in Nablus in 2006.
The PA had been informed by their Israeli partners in crime about the Israeli destruction plan against Gaza. They were demanded to jail all Palestinian political opposition as a preventive step before the destruction. President Mahmoud Abbas was in USA on December 18 2008 to discuss the final steps to implement the USA-Israel plan in the West Bank and Gaza.

Gaza Destruction as an Israeli-American Plan
On June 18, 2007, I wrote my article "Who won Gaza: Dahlan-US-Israel or Hamas?", I wrote about the Fatah-Dahlan-CIA-Israel conspiracy:

"Why did Fatah let Hamas win the small battle in Gaza, and how did bloody-day-2the Israeli intelligence infiltrate the militant Hamas? It was not by accident that the PA and Fatah leaders were not in Gaza during the operation of the Hamas militants. It was not by accident that the PA officials from Gaza fled to Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Ramallah crossing EU- and Israeli-controlled borders at the beginning of battle with Hamas.

It is known from past events that, whenever Dahlan or the Israelis arranged for the murder of somebody, Dahlan and selected people from the PA would run to Egypt for the length of these operations. Also, in "normal" times it takes on average 2 weeks for Palestinians to get an answer when they request a permit to pass the borders of Gaza for medical emergency cases, and it can take up to one month to receive an answer from the Israelis to such urgent requests.

So, how did the Palestinian officers flee out of Gaza and arrive bloody-day-10Ramallah in no time? This could not have happened without full help of the Israelis. During "normal" times the Israel was never helpful to Palestinians. There is no mercy under their occupation. Pregnant women are dying at the Israeli borders all the time, people sick of cancer are dying at their homes because they are not allowed to go to a hospital. But the traitors around Abbas and Dahlan were allowed free and unhindered passage. What will happen after the Fatah officers hand over Gaza to Hamas? What is the real deal between Dahlan-CIA-PA-Israel and the Hamas? Hamas did not win Gaza. In reality, Dahlan won by implementing the first stage of the CIA-Israel-PA conspiracy.

Which will be the second stage of this Dahlan-CIA-PA-Israel bloody-day-8conspiracy? Whatever happens, 1.5 million Palestinians live in Gaza and other further millions in the West Bank. The so-called "International Community", the European countries and the United Nations should be held responsible for any crimes and destructions which Israel will commit or cause to be committed in Gaza and the West Bank against Palestinian civilians. The smell of a conspiracy and disaster spreads out of Gaza"

"The suspicion is that the second stage of this conspiracy will be MIDEAST-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-BARRIER-DEMOthat Hamas shoots some rockets at Israel so as to give them an "excuse" to bomb Gaza flat - "Palestinians" from Lebanon have already done so - while the upper Hamas hierarchy escapes to Egypt leaving poorly armed fighters there to be liquidated together with many other civilians. Israel’s new-old minister of "defense", Barak, has already announced that they are contemplating a full-scale invasion of Gaza with 20.000 troops, air force, hundreds of tanks … At the same time, the Hamas death squads, under protection from the IDF, will kill everybody on the Israeli hit lists in the West Bank. The only peace which Israelis know and understand is the peace of the cemeteries, and this is why Olmert called Abbas’ new "emergency" government "partners for peace". With the help of the USA, Europe, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, possibly millions of Palestinians will now be butchered, as has always been intended."

Today Gaza, tomorrow the West Bank, next week the World
"What started in Gaza today will happen in the West Bank sooner or later. The plans for genocide and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians have been written in the 1880s, and Israel is not about to refrain from those plans by itself. Abbas, Dahlan, the King Saud and other Arab leaders will receive their "thank you" from Israel in the form of a knife in the back, and they know it. The pressure from the USA on all these traitors would not be effective by itself to make them sell out not only the Palestinians, but to accept Israel".

Arab Leaders demean themselves in Israel

Last month and before the Palestinian-Israeli truce ended in Gaza, the Israeli government opened an exhibition to sell the presents which they received from Arab countries. These expensive presents, which the former director of the Israeli Mossad received from Arab countries and showed in the Israeli exhibition shows the shameful face of the Arab leaders and their regimes.

As a Palestinian following the news of the Israeli exhibition, I felt Israeli visitorsshame about the behavior of these Arab leaders, I felt shame to be an Arab.

How I can understand and explain this scandalous, shameless behavior? The conspiracy of these corrupt people who sold not only themselves but all of us while dealing with the enemy of all humanity has blinded us. We always thought that there was a minimum of decency in their dealings, that certain lines would not be crossed. After all, have these countries not suffered enough due to the Israeli crimes? Have they not been subject to decades of terror by Israel and the USA?

What could make these traitors to all Arabs suddenly befriend their Israeli counterparts? In his book "Political Ponerology", the Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski explains the the reasons for the wholesale treason against principles and aspirations held by the societies of the countries on part of these so-called "leaders" in the following way:

israeli visitorsPsychopaths exist everywhere in the world; even a faraway pathocracy evokes a resonating response in them, working on their underlying feeling that "there is a place for people like us there". Uncritical, frustrated, and abused people also exist everywhere and they can be reached by appropriately elaborated propaganda. The future of a nation is greatly dependent on how many such people it contains.[...]

The law furnishes insufficient support for counteracting a phenomenon whose character lies outside the possibilities of the legislators imagination. Pathocracy knows how to take advantage of the weaknesses of such a legalistic manner of thinking.[...]

Whenever a nation experiences a "system crisis" or a hyperactivity of ponerogenic processes within, it becomes the object of a pathocratic penetration whose purpose is to serve up the country as booty. It will then become easy to take advantage of its internal weaknesses and revolutionary movements in order to impose rule on the basis of a limited use of force. … After forcible imposition of such a system, the course of pathologization of life becomes different; and such a pathocracy will be less stable, depending for its very existence upon the factor of never-ending outside force…. [...]

Brute force must first stifle the resistance of an exhausted nation; people possessing military or leadership skills must be disposed of, and anyone appealing to moral values and legal principles must be silenced. The new principles are never explicitly enunciated. People must learn the new unwritten law via painful experience. The stultifying influence of this deviant world of concepts finishes the job, and common sense demands caution and endurance. [...]

This means that Arab leaders see in Israel, ruled by a regime of psychopaths, "a place for people like us", and that the Abbas regime "serves up the country as booty" to the pathological Israeli regime, and that Israel must use "never-ending outside force" in order to assure the existence of the pathologic Abbas regime. Lastly, the silence of the world before the vile crimes of Israel say something about the governments of these nations being made up of pathologic characters who espouse a morality and values which are very different from those of the majority of the inhabitants of these countries.

www.kawther.info/wpr/2008/12/28/the-blo ... el-in-gaza

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Stench of Death Hangs Over Gaza
Ola Attallah, IOL Correspondent, IslamOnline.net


GAZA CITY — With thick clouds of smoke billowing into the sky and dead bodies littering into the streets, a stench of death rose from the ruins of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, December 27.

"Where are my sons?" screamed Um Ibrahim as she ran hysterically looking for her little kids.

She lives near a security compound Israeli planes pounded to the ground on Saturday.

"I don't know what happened to them," cried the bereaved mother.

Her neighbor Um Abed fell unconscious when she saw her son among the dead in the attacks.

At least 206 Palestinians were killed in massive Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

"The number of victims has reached 195 martyrs with more than 300 wounded, 120 of whom are critically hurt," said Moawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.

"The toll has gone up because of new Israeli raids and the discovery of several martyrs under the rubble."

TV footage showed bodies of people scattered on the ground after Israeli attacks destroyed several security compounds.

Some rescue workers beat their heads and shouted "God is greatest" as one badly wounded man lying nearby quietly recited verses from the Qur'an.

The Israeli army confirmed the attacks, saying it was just the beginning of a bigger onslaught in the seaside strip.

"The operation will go on and be intensified as long as necessary," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters.

"The battle will be long and difficult, but the time has come to act and to fight."

Israeli leaders have vowed to launched a massive offensive to end Hamas rule in Gaza, sealed off by Israel since last June.

Stench of Death<7b>

Iyas was sitting in a security compound when he heard Israeli planes flying overhead.

"I left the compound as soon as I heard the planes hovering overhead," he said.

"Moments later, the building was bombed down. My colleagues were torn apart," he said, fighting back his tears.

"It is a tragedy."

Mosques across the besieged strip ran verses of the Noble Qur'an through loudspeakers.

Calls for Gazans to stand up to the Israeli aggression were also repeated through microphones.

In front of one of the bombed-out security compounds, 12-year-old Omar stood crying.

"My father was working there," screamed the Gazan boy.

His classmate Fadi sat on the pavement with tears rolling down his checks.

"I fear returning home," he said. "The (Israeli) planes are still there."

www.uruknet.info?p=49990

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Gaza: the slaughter of a people
Mohammad, KABOBfest

December 27, 2008

In terms of casualties, Saturday, December 27th 2008 was the worst day in Palestine since the 1967 war. Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza Strip all day using Apache helicopters and F-16 fighters. In an area considered to be the most densely populated on earth (1.5 million people in 350 square kilometers, 80% of whom are refugees forced out of their homes and into Gaza by Israel), the death toll was predictably large.

But very few would have guessed just how large. In just over 12 hours, Israel murdered over 220 (two hundred and twenty) Palestinians, and wounded over 700, 12o of whom are in critical condition without the neccessary medical care they need. It is estimated that tens of bodies remain under the rubble.

I'm trying to put into words the horror and shock felt here in Palestine today, but I don't think I can ever be able to convey it. 220 lives extinguished just like that. It was, and as the
airstrikes are ongoing, a massacre of historic proportions.

For weeks, there has been talk of a large-scale Israeli attack on Gaza, but the nature of the attack was both surprising and horrific. At 11:30 AM, as Gaza's schools ended their morning shift and children were walking home or to school for the afternoon shift, 60 Israeli aircraft launched over 100 tons of missiles and explosives at around 40 targets across Gaza. This original wave took no more than three to five minutes. The immediate result was ghastly: 120 murdered in those five minutes.

The targets were mostly police stations, and the most striking image is that of dozens of new cadets lying dead on top of each other at Gaza City's main police station. They had been taking part in their graduation ceremony. I want to make a point here lost on many Western news agencies: the police force in Gaza is not the 'Hamas police'. Like any other police force in the world, it are an institution independent of the ruling party. It was around at the time Gaza was ruled by Fatah, by Hamas and by a unity government. The head of the police force, Tawfiq Jaber was amongst the first killed. He was a lifelong Fatah man.

As Gaza's hospitals quickly filled with the dead and wounded, the strikes continued. 2 hours after the first wave, the death toll had risen to 150. By sunset, it had reached 170. By the end of the day, after police stations, family homes, mosques, apartment blocks and workshops had been attacked, the ever increasing death toll had climbed to 200.

About 30 minutes ago, the second mosque was hit. the Dar al-Shifa Mosque is adjacent to the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the hospital that had recieved hundreds of casualties. The force of the strike completly destroyed the mosque and blew out the windows in the hospital. Earlier, the Sheikh Zayed Mosque had been destroyed with worshippers inside. 15 were killed.

It was tough to get a line into Gaza during the day, but I managed to get hold of my uncle Mohammad in Gaza City. He sounded in shock, unable to say much. I asked him where he was; he replied that he was next to the building used to issue passports, and there were about 50 bodies inside. I couldn't say anything. I hung up.

My uncle Jasim in Khan Younis was also outside. He said he was okay, but there were explosions and dead people everywhere.

I didn't even bother talking to my uncle Mahmoud; my mom had called him and heard crying all around him. His wife was mourning the death of her brother.

I think the most poignant emotion was shock, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank. As its primary victims, we had become used to Israel crossing red lines in its continuous policy of opression and occupation. But this was something else. The sheer scale of the massacre was unfathomable.

In response, there were clashes with Israeli troops across the West Bank. It was an outpouring of anger more than anything else. With nothing but rocks, we knew there was little we could do for those being slaughtered in Gaza. The helplessness was mutiplied, however, by the actions of Mahmoud Abbas' security forces in Ramallah. In a day whens tens of their colleagues were murdered in cold blood in Gaza, the security forces followed us right up to the outskirts of the illegal Israeli settlement of Bet El (home to Israelis military command for the West Bank), the whole time taking note of faces, numbers and checking names and IDs. The operation was by no means covert, and the brashness was not lost on many of the disgusted demonstrators.

The reason for all this overt information gathering readily became apparent. After getting hit with two rubber bullets and inhaling enough teargas for a lifetime, I was astonished to find Palestinian riot police walk calmly towards us at the point of confrontation with the Israeli soldiers, turn their backs to the Israelis and herd us away. I had never, ever heard of Palestinian police breaking up a demonstration against Israeli troops. The scene rubbed salt into a very open wound.

Back home, the TV was never off, and the full scale of the horror still hadn't settled in. The news broadcast continuous images of severed limbs, headless bodies, piles of dead bodies, children, women, men. More than 70 of the bodies arrived at the hospitals torn apart. 15 bodies were so disfigured they still have not been identified. The hospitals, already out of hundreds of neccesary medicines, were running out of blood even as hundreds rushed to donate. I managed to call my uncles again. Mohammad's voice was hollow, scratching, like he was forcing the words out. He told me his kids had finally gone to sleep, but in the late December cold he had opened all the windows in his apartment. With the airstrikes hitting everywhere and anywhere, everybody risked having their windows blown out. As he noted, if they were to get blown out, there is no glass in Gaza as a result of the siege to replace them. He told me everything seemed to be a target; there were no police stations left in the entire Strip. Even the apartment building housing the offices of a civil society institution working for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails had been completely levelled. I asked him if anybody he knew had been wounded or killed. He paused for a bit before telling me he had lost 20 friends. He said he wanted to go down to Khan Younis tomorrow to pay his respects in the funeral processions, because some of them had been buried today without ceremony. There is no space in the hospitals to hold the dead, so they were buried en masse.

It was even tougher talking to Jasim. He was speaking in single word sentences, sometimes repeating the same word over and over: 'Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere'. They had no power, and the streets were empty, but he could still hear the airstrikes all around. This is a man in his mid-forties who has lived in Gaza most of his life and witnessed all its previous horrors. I've never heard him like that.


The scariest thing is that Israel has announced this is merely the beggining, and that it intends to escalate and increase its attacks. Nobody is safe. Israeli army officials say that 90% of those killed were Hamas fighters. That is patently untrue. The majority of those killed were policemen and civillians. In this climate, Ehud Olmert has the audacity to appear on TV and tell the people of Gaza that there is no enimosity between them and Israel. It is nothing but an attempt at playing the reluctant warrior for the cameras, and a ploy that underlines just how little Israel regard Israel has for Palestinian life.

The only thing more insulting, and the object of scorn amongst tens of thousands who took to the streets to demonstrate the slaughter across the world, is the stance of Arab regimes, particularly Egypt. Olmert revealed that the decision to undertake the massacre had been taken on Wednesday, one day before Tzipi Livni met with Hosni Mubarak in Cairo and vowed from there to destroy Gaza and change the reality there. She was not rebuked by Egypt's Foreign Minister for threatening to rain mass murder upon the civillian population in the Strip. According to Hamas officials, Egypt had informed them yesterday that no major Israeli attack was forthcoming on Gaza for the next few days. Whether this is true or not, the Egyptian regime is directly complicit in Gaza's suffering, as it has banned supplies and aid from reaching the Strip for two years.

What is Israel aiming to achieve? Its stated goal is to end the launching of homemade rockets from Gaza, and to topple Hamas. The idea that either of those goals can be achieved militarily is ludicrous. Even as Israel pounded Gaza today in such an unprecedented fashion, Palestinian fighters managed to launch over 50 rockets. Palestinians developed the rockets back when Israeli troops were inside Gaza; they won't stop because of airstrikes, and they won't stop even with a full reinvasion, which Israel seems to have ruled out.
Toppling Hamas is also unrealistic. For all its faults (and it has many) Hamas remains a group of the people. Its leaders, icons and fighters are all average Palestinians, and that is where it derives its popular strength. Toppling Hamas' rule in Gaza will not be as easy as destroying its bases and killing its leaders. Israel has done that before, and each time the movement has returned stronger, its popularity increasing. Throughout the two years of continuous siege imposed on Gaza by Israel, Egypt and the international community, the people have never put the blame on Hamas, but at those denying them food, fuel and freedom. Like todays massacre, the victims are not Hamas, but the entire Palestinian population in Gaza, of which Hamas is but a part.

Israel still believes it can impose its will by force. The only way its goals will be met is through genocide. But there is another angle, and that is the upcoming Israeli election. It is not novel for incumbent Israeli governments to carry out atrocities against Palestinians to garner domestic support, and with the Likud expected to win the next elections, this is definitely a power play by the embattled ruling party, Kadima.

Today, and probably the days to come, will be a clear demonstration os the very worst of Israel, what Will termed a dangerous blend of Zionist fantasy and election posturing. For 60 years, Israel has tried to use its overwhelming military prowess to cow the Palestinians into accepting the fate it dictates for them, and for 60 years no Israeli government has been able to do that.

Remember Gaza.

Israelis laugh as they look on at Gaza burning in the background

www.kabobfest.com/2008/12/gaza-slaughter-of-people.html

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UPDATE: Israeli offensive in Gaza; over 271 Palestinians killed, at least 900 wounded
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC

December 28, 2008

Dr. Moawiya Hasanen, head of the Emergency Department at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reported on Saturday at night that that the number of casualties who were killed in the ongoing Israeli military offensive in Gaza arrived to 271, and that 900 residents were wounded, 120 seriously; most of the casualties are women and children, the Maan News Agency reported.

The agency added that the latest offensive was carried out on Saturday night after midnight when the Israeli army shelled a medical storage facility, and a Fuel Station in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Several surrounding homes were caught on fire and were totally burnt.

Dozens of residents were wounded when the army shelled a police station in Al Shujaeyya neighborhood, east of Gaza City.

The Israeli Air Force shelled a security post in front of AL Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and also shelled a Hospital’s mosque killing two residents and wounding at least seven. The shelling also shattered the windows of the Urgent Care Unit at the hospital.

Dr. Hasanen also said that three Palestinian were killed and four others were wounded in two strikes that targeted neighborhoods in Gaza City and Jabalia.

Furthermore, Dr. Hasanen added that 15 of the slain residents have not been identified yet and that eighty severely mutilated bodies were transferred to different hospitals while dozens of casualties are still buried under the rubble of several shelled constructions.

He stated that Gaza Hospitals are facing sharp shortages in medical supplies, equipment needed for surgeries and medications. Dr. Hassanen voiced an appeal to the Arab countries to immediately send medications to Gaza.

Dozens of bodies are now lying in the hallways of Gaza hospitals as there aren’t enough room morgues. The hospitals also had to early discharge dozens of wounded residents who suffered wounds that were described as less serious than other cases, in order to make space for more serious injuries.

Despite Israeli claims of targeting Hamas fighters and security posts, the army shelled mosques, blacksmith workshops, local media agencies, charitable societies, police stations, detainees’ affairs societies and also shelled the Islamic University in Gaza.

www.imemc.org/article/58173

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Gaza complicates Obama's policy in Mideast

CRAWFORD, Texas – The deaths of hundreds of Palestinians in Israel's deadliest-ever air assault on Hamas further complicate President-elect Barack Obama's challenge to achieve a Middle East peace — something that eluded both the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The Bush administration has blamed the renewed violence on the militant Islamic group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, saying it broke a cease-fire by firing rockets and mortars deep into Israeli territory. The Arab world, however, has reacted with rage to the aggressive Israeli counterattacks, which have left at least 290 Palestinians dead and more than 600 wounded.

It's unclear whether Obama will be as supportive of Israel as President George W. Bush has been.

David Axelrod, senior adviser to Obama, chose his words carefully Sunday, saying the president-elect would honor the "important bond" between the United States and Israel.

"He wants to be a constructive force in helping to bring about the peace and security that both the Israelis and the Palestinians want and deserve," Axelrod said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "Obviously, this situation has become even more complicated in the last couple of days and weeks. As Hamas began its shelling, Israel responded. But it's something that he's committed to."

Pressed about how much support Obama will offer Israel, Axelrod said: "He's going to work closely with the Israelis. They're a great ally of ours, the most important ally in the region. ... But he will do so in a way that will promote the cause of peace, and work closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians on that — toward that objective."

Israel had been carrying out its attack exclusively from the air, but the Israeli Cabinet has authorized the military to call up 6,500 reserve soldiers for a possible ground invasion.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "I mean, Israel certainly has the right to self-defense, of course. Hamas has not recognized Israel's right to exist. ... But I'm hopeful that as this transition comes, as we look to January, that strong presidential leadership can make a difference here."

Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, speculated that Israeli leaders synchronized their retaliatory attacks to political calendars in both Israel and the U.S. More moderate politicians running in the Feb. 10 national election needed to appear strong against Hamas, and it was perhaps better to strike before Bush left office on Jan. 20 because they weren't as sure what Obama's reaction would be.

"I think Obama will be supportive of Israel, but will bring a little more skepticism to it," Alterman said. "I think Obama will start from premise that Israel is an ally, but that we have to look at this fresh."

The White House was mum about the situation in Gaza on Sunday after speaking out strongly on Saturday. The Bush administration condemned the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and said it held Hamas responsible for breaking a cease-fire. The U.S. implored Israel to avoid civilian casualties and asked all concerned to address the urgent humanitarian needs of innocent people in Gaza.

Bush, who is staying at his Texas ranch, spoke on the phone with national security adviser Stephen Hadley to receive an update on the situation and was being kept abreast of developments throughout the day, said Gordon Johndroe, a presidential spokesman. He said Bush would receive an intelligence briefing via a secured video hookup at the ranch early Monday morning and would be briefed then on any overnight developments.

According to an aide on Obama's transition team, the president-elect, who is in Hawaii, continues to closely monitor global events, including the situation in Gaza. He had an intelligence briefing Sunday and plans to talk with his incoming national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his nominee for secretary of state.

The aide said Obama appreciates the information the Bush administration is sharing with him. The aide requested anonymity because the Obama team is refraining from comment, saying the U.S. has only one president at a time.

When Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007, it fractured governance of the Palestinian territory. The other part, the West Bank, is controlled by moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The renewed violence increases the volatility of an already unstable area.

"It undoubtedly will have a very severe impact on wherever the next administration would like to go," Ed Abington, a former American diplomat who advises Abbas, said in an interview. "You can't kill almost 300 Palestinians and wound 600 to 700 and not have repercussions in the region."

"I don't quite know where the Israelis want to end up," he added, saying that trying to bomb Hamas into submission only rekindles radicalization. Abington said Israel's retaliatory attacks weaken, not strengthen, the stature of Abbas, who is backed by the West.

Alterman said, however, that if Hamas is weakened by the bombings in Gaza, Abbas' position could be emboldened. "It's possible to imagine that he could emerge as some sort of broker who saves Gaza from an Israeli onslaught," Alterman said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081229/ap_ ... us_mideast

Love me some propaganda. BTW this piece was originally titled "Hamas complicates Obama's policy in the Mideast"

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Gazans sit atop northern roofs challenging Israeli orders to evacuate or face death
Ma'an news

December 28, 2008

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli forces called to Gazan families through loudspeakers demanding that they evacuate their homes before intense Israeli selling began in the northern Gaza Strip.

As the Abu Sultan family in the Jabalia refugee camp prepared their belongings Israeli fire rained down on their home killing several family members and injuring others.

Witnesses of the massacres on Saturday decided to challenge the Israeli order to evacuate and gathered in areas under attack to sit on roofs with families whose homes face imminent destruction.

Despite cold weather and Israeli warplanes flying overhead small crowds could be seen on rooftops across the northern Gaza Strip area. One home with large numbers of Gazans on its concrete roof was that of the de facto government Minister of Communication Yousif Al-Mansi. Citizens stayed on the roof until early morning.

Israeli forces gave no warning to the injured and homeless who sought refuge in the Al-Burno Mosque in the Ash-Shifa medical compound, which was bombed without notification overnight.

On Sunday the streets and squares of the Gaza Strip are empty as a state of fear and sadness overwhelms people who now preferr to stay at home.

www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=34296

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Mother of 13 killed by Israeli air-strike - Internationals staying in Jabaliya amid fears of Israeli ground invasion
International Solidarity Movement

December 28, 2008

International Human Rights Activists went to visit one of the families who lost their mother as Israel killed at least 225 in Gaza on the 27th December.

They will be staying with the family tonight (27th December) as the family and neighbours have expressed fear over an anticipated ground invasion of the area.


Canadian citizen, Eva Bartlett, reported that;

"Today we visited the home of martyred civilian Sara Aid Hawajereh, a 55 year-old mother of 7 boys and 6 girls.

It was 11am this morning when Sara ventured out of her home in Jabaliya refugee camp to buy bread. On the way to the shop she was hit by shrapnel from an F16-launched missile and was killed."

"Everyone in this house depended on Sara," said one of her sons. "She would wake at 5am each day to ensure our home was clean and tidy, before going out to the market to buy our bread and other groceries. Before she left this morning, my mother hurt her leg, but despite the injury she still insisted on going to get food for all of us children."

Eva added, "Every loss is atrocious, but it is more poignant when you see it or know the dead."

Human Rights Defenders from various countries are present in Gaza and are witnessing and documenting the current Israeli attacks on Gaza. Due to Israel’s policy of denying access to international media, human rights defenders and aid agencies to the Occupied Gaza Strip, many of these Human Rights Defenders arrived in Gaza with the Free Gaza Movement’s boats that have repeatedly broken the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/12/28/m ... ir-strike-
internationals-staying-in-jabaliya-amid-fears-of-israeli-ground-i
nvasion/

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he world's message to Gaza: No one cares
Jenka Soderberg - IMEMC

December 28, 2008

I sit in front of the computer, editing the article, trying, as always, to maintain objectivity, "Israeli airstrikes kill 205 Palestinians in Gaza".....my eyes begin to blur .....images of bodies, of wailing mamas screaming for their sons, of children missing limbs, hospital crews running, rushing....bodies everywhere......I can no longer see the computer screen through the tears. I think of our friends in Gaza - "Are they ok?".

.....I try to think of an appropriate response: a protest at the Israeli consulate? A petition? A boycott campaign? They all seem so trivial, so ineffective. Send ANOTHER letter to my congressman, only to be rebuffed again with a form letter stating that the Congressman is in full support of Israel and their War on Terror?

I'm thinking about an article I read yesterday, about Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush just last week. The article was by Ramzy Baroud, who said that the reality of the world outside the Green Zone had finally broken into the carefully-scripted press conferences of Bush lies and al-Maliki smiles....

"What also confused the script is that al-Zaidi was not al-Qaeda, or an al-Qaeda sympathizer, not a foreign fighter, not a member of the dissolved Ba’ath Party, nor was he affiliated with it in any way, and not even an Iraqi Sunni, for any such affiliation would fit perfectly in the political and media scripts that would demonize the man as an enemy of the Iraqi people, stability, democracy, freedom, and the rest of the redundant clichés. Al-Zaidi is simply an Iraqi man who has, as a journalist, highlighted the suffering of his people as politely, 'objectively’ and 'professionally’ as he could, and when he could no longer tolerate the lies told in the Green Zone’s ever malicious drama, he scrapped the script altogether, chucking his shoes at the main actor: This is a farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." His words, although uttered for the first time in the Green Zone theater, echoed the voices of millions of Iraqis outside, who have chanted these words, for six long, tragic years."
He was fed up! He tried to be objective, kept reporting the daily toll of deaths, the daily violence of the occupation, the neverending river of blood and bodies.....and finally, after nothing he reported changed anything, he risked his career, and his life, to break the script at the press conference and express the rage and fury of the millions of Iraqis suffering and dying in the daily brutality of Bush's war. He has been tortured and beaten senseless for his deed, by Iraqi security, who, Baroud says, "must’ve tried to impress their American security 'counterparts’ by teaching the poor al-Zaidi a lesson in good manners, Abu Ghraib-style".

here's that article:
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_ ... ails.php?i
d=14527

As I look again at the toll of today's Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, my eyes glance across a headline in one of the Israeli papers: "White House blames Hamas" .....and the fury and grief flow through me again. Israel drops 60 bombs on the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of civilians, wounding and maiming many more, and the first thing the White House has to say is that it is Hamas' fault! For what? For having been elected as the Palestinian government in uncontested and fair elections? For taking the unprecedented step of engaging in a unilateral ceasefire against Israel for the last six months, which was never reciprocated or even recognized by the occupying Israeli army? For begging Israel for a ceasefire this last week, but being rebuffed at every turn? The truth is, it doesn't matter what Hamas does, it is their very existence that Israel is trying to eradicate, with full US support. The fact that there is an Islamic movement that stands in resistance to the Israeli occupation is something that Israel cannot stand, and it's clear from their targets in today's airstrikes: Hamas government buildings, police stations, municipal headquarters, offices of the bureaucrats of an elected government. And they struck during rush hour, when the streets were full, in one of the most crowded places on earth, so as to maximize casualties.

And the US blames Hamas.

What eventually becomes clear, to any Palestinian, or any Iraqi for that matter, is that their occupier can do anything they want, with impunity, and no matter what, they, the occupied, will be blamed.

And the other thing that becomes clear, after day after day of this violence, month after month, year after year, is that the world, or at least those with the power to change anything, do not care.

It's like Ward Churchill said in his post-9/11 speech that got him fired from the University of Colorado despite his tenure: if you are a person in the Arab world and you see Madeline Albright up there on 60 Minutes saying, "Yes, we know that 500,000 Iraqi children have died from the sanctions, but we think the price is worth it", well, what are you SUPPOSED to think??? There's no other conclusion that you can reach except that the piles and piles of corpses, the thousands of innocent children, do not matter to Madeline Albright, or to the American people! The American people DO NOT CARE!

And no amount of objective journalism on the subject can make people care.

And what now - Barack Obama is supposed to be some kind of savior and change everything? I don't think so. My email after his election was mainly just surprise that there was not another Supreme Court-decided debacle. But he's not going to change US policy toward Israel. He's never said that he would. I think maybe people just hoped that he would, with no evidence in his record that he would - just because people want someone to save them. But his appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, as his FIRST cabinet appointment, set the tone for what the Palestinians can expect from Barack Obama. Emmanuel's dad told an Israeli paper, "Of course my son will have a big influence on Obama regarding Israel - what, do you think he's going to be sweeping the floors of the White House? He's not an Arab!"


This is the kind of outright racism that Obama's dear friend Rahm Israel Emmanuel was raised with.

There's no chance whatsoever that he'll change US policy toward Israel. He's said so himself, many times.


What can we do?

Every day I edit articles coming out of the occupied Palestinian Territories, on the website http://www.imemc.org

.....will that really change anything? I don't know.

But at least it's a record, documenting the daily Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.

Every week the Palestinian Center for Human Rights publishes a detailed record documenting the Israeli crimes for that week.
http://www.imemc.org/newswire?search_text=pchr&x=0&y=0


The record of Israeli crimes is all there, verifiable and well-documented. But the US government does not, and will not, care.

Right now, I kind of feel like throwing my shoes.

www.imemc.org/article/58176

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Video: Israel targets pharmacy in Rafah
International Solidarity Movement

Sunday 28th December, 2008

Video by ISM Gaza Strip


Shortly before 7:00am local time, yet another Israeli missile strike hit the residential neighbourhood of Hi Alijnina in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

This time a pharmacy was targeted, totally destroying the building and causing severe damage to surrounding homes. Electricity lines were torn down during the blast and the street was littered with medicines. This footage was filmed within minutes of the attack as fire fighters battled to control the blaze. Shocked residents poured into the streets, some still wearing pyjamas.

www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/12/28/i ... -in-rafah/

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Israeli strikes continue on Gaza, 279 now dead and more than 900 injured
Ma'an news

December 28, 2008

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli airstrikes continued on Gaza throughout Saturday night and into Sunday afternoon. The death toll of the attacks rose to 279, with 900 injured 180 seriously so.

Israel began attacks on Gaza at 11:30 Saturday, ostensibly to root out Palestinian military groups launching rockets at Israeli targets. Two massive waves of strikes kicked off the operation, known as Operation Cast Lead, and strikes have continued throughout the night and early morning.

The death toll rises with each strike, and as more bodies are pulled out of Saturday’s rubble. A timeline of the latest is:

12:00 Israeli air forces launched a fresh raid against the governmental compound known as "As-Saraya" killing one child and injuring several others.

11:45 Israeli bombs targeted the government municipal council offices in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip; several injured Gazans were taken to hospital.

11:00 Israel bombs the temporary headquarters of the Rafah governorate injuring several people; the original building was destroyed in Saturday’s attacks.


10:30 Israeli jets targeted a jeep in the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City killing one child. A second strike took place on the Jabalia area, no casualties were reported.

10:00 Three were killed after Israeli forces bombarded a police station in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City, and three homes were destroyed in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood west of the city.

8:00 The last Israeli raid targeted two de facto government police headquarters in the evacuated Israeli settlement Kfar Darum and Al-Matahin (the mills).

7:30 Al-Qarara greenhouses were obliterated in a strike on the southern Strip, killing a civilian, identified as Nabil Abu Tu'eima.


7:15 Bombs hit the Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City and another on a military base called "Sa'd Sayil" in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Dozens were injured.

6:45 Israeli bombs landed on Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood where a police center was destroyed and several injured.

6:30 The attack was preceded by a strike on a medical storehouse in the Al-Junayna neighborhood and a fuel storehouse with diesel and benzene in the Tal As-Sultan area, both in Rafah in the southern Strip. The strikes destroyed the buildings and much needed civilian supplies, and killed three who have not yet been identified.

1:01 am After midnight on Saturday Israeli fighter jets bombarded the security room in front of the Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as well as a mosque in the compound killing two and injuring seven. The blast shattered most of the windows of the emergency ward. The hospital’s morgues were declared full on Saturday and bodies line the hallways waiting to be claimed by family.

12:01am Three Palestinian activists with Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades were killed when an Israeli strike hit the Al-Mansura area east of Gaza City around midnight.

11:50 Israeli forces launched airstrikes on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and several targets in the north.

11:30 Three from Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades were killed when Israeli airstrikes hit the Al-Mansura neighborhood east of Gaza City.

10:15 Two airstrikes killed three and injured four when they hit the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City and on Jabalia in the north.

Director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in the de facto Palestinian Ministry of Health Muawiya Hassanein explained that despite media reports to the contrary, a large number of the casualties are civilians including women and children.

Saturday’s attacks

Two massive waves of airstrikes dropped 100 bombs on Gaza at 11:30 and a second at approximately 2pm. Smaller strikes hit northern Gaza at 5:30 and 8pm.

Israeli strikes targeted de facto government buildings; one Hamas source told Ma’an "every de facto security building was targeted." Confirmed casualties include Commander of the de facto Government Police Tawfiq Jabir, Governor of the Al-Wusta (central) Districts Ahmad Abu Aashur and Commander of Security and Protection Services in the de facto government police Ismail Al-Ja'bari.

Islam Shahwan, a Hamas police spokesman, said that the attacks destroyed most of the police headquarters in the Gaza Strip and that a police graduation ceremony was being held during the assault.

Saturday afternoon Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared the 20 square kilometers of Gaza a "special military zone." The classification is one degree below a declaration of total war against an enemy state.

Palestinian response

In Gaza military wings launched homemade projectiles and shells at Israeli targets, killing one man in the western Negev on Saturday afternoon. The launches continued throughout the evening, though no other Israeli damages or casualties were reported.

In the West Bank and East Jerusalem demonstrations broke out against the Israeli violence, and clashes erupted in the streets of Jerusalem neighborhoods and in Hebron, where Israeli troops are present.

***Updated 12:33 Bethlehem time

www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=34293

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Inside Gaza: 'The Hospital Morgues Were Already Full.

The Dead Were Piled on Top of Each Other Outside'

By Sami Abdel-Shafi in Gaza city

Sunday, 28 December 2008 "The Independent" -- - I am safe, and yet I feel like a walking dead person. Everything around me shows it. It is hard to write something of any coherence while exposed to cold winter air and to the smell that lingers after the detonation of Israeli bombs. They must have been massive. During the bombing I opened all the windows around my apartment to avoid them imploding as a result of the vacuum shocks sweeping through Gaza City after each enormous bang. While the bombing continued, I jumped down two flights of stairs to my father's house, to make sure he was OK. Should I open up all his windows too? That would expose the old man to the risk of illness. We have no medical care or medication. However, the risk from shattering glass was greater, so I opened them all.

Mobile phones did not work, because of electricity outages and the flood of attempted calls. I flipped the electricity generator on so that we could watch the news. We wanted to understand what was going on in our own neighbourhood. However, this was impossible. Israeli surveillance drones flew overhead, scrambling the reception. All I could do was step outside, where I found crowds of frantic people, lines of rising smoke and the smell of charred buildings and bodies that lay around targeted sites nearby. Somebody said the bombs had been launched in parallel raids over the entire Gaza Strip. What was the target here? Perhaps a police station about 200 metres away. Other bombs annihilated blocks less than a kilometre away, where one of the main police training centres stood. When the strikes began, a graduation ceremony for more than 100 recruits in a civil law enforcement programme was under way. These were the young men trained to organise traffic, instil civil safety and maintain law and order. Many of them were killed, it is said, in addition to the Gaza Strip's police chief.

News came by word of mouth. There had been more than 150 deaths and more than 200 people were injured or missing under rubble after the first two hours of bombing. Israel had said it would continue the offensive and deepen it if necessary. Likewise, it was said that Hamas had launched more rockets at southern Israeli towns, causing one death and four injuries. Gaza had never seen anything like the numbers of dead bodies lying on its streets. Hospital morgues were already full. The dead were piled on top of each other outside.

Bombs targeting a Hamas security force building badly damaged an adjacent school, and several children were injured. We heard of many other targets around the Gaza Strip. It reminds me of the "shock and awe" campaign the Allies launched over Baghdad in 2003. But shock and awe did not bring stability or peace.

These bombs were launched by Israel, as we had known they would be. The world watched the situation simmer then boil over, but did nothing. There are some who believe that hell is divided into different classes. The ordinary people of Gaza have long been caught in the tormenting underworld. Now, if the world does not heed what has happened here, our situation will worsen. We will be trapped in the first class of hell.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 13839.html

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http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/2 ... f-the-day/


Haitham Sabbah - Photos of the day


Update 1: 282 killed and counting.

I selected the following photos to sum up all that can be said to describe the Israeli massacre in Gaza today and what we expect to see very soon.

(Click image(s) to enlarge)

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A Palestinian man weeps over the body of his son following Israeli missile attacks.

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'Little Baghdad' in Gaza - bombs, fear and rage
By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent

There are many corpses and wounded, every moment another casualty is added to the list of the dead, and there is no more room in the morgue.

Relatives search among the bodies and the wounded in order to bring the dead quickly to burial. A mother whose three school-age children were killed, and are piled one on top of the other in the morgue, screams and then cries, screams again and then is silent.

Mustapha Ibrahim saw all this on Saturday at one in the afternoon, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza. As a field investigator for a human rights organization, he thought he'd been immunized, but nothing prepared him for what he saw. Wounded people whose situation was less than serious were asked to leave Shifa, in order to free up beds.

Dr. Haidar Eid is a lecturer in Cultural Studies at Al-Aqsa University. He, too, saw the bodies and the wounded on Saturday. Also the children whose limbs had been amputated.

"To pick a time like this, 11:30 [A.M.], to bomb in the hearts of cities, this is terrible. This choice was intended to cause as large a massacre as possible," he summed up.

Abu Muhammad was 200 meters from the hospital, when an awful sound was heard: Three large police centers which were bombed, were located close to the hospital. "Within seconds, this was a little Baghdad, bombs everywhere, smoke, fire, people not knowing where to hide. Fear everywhere, and rage and hatred," he said.

He himself ran to his daughters' school, like tens of thousands of other parents in the Strip. From 11:25 until 11:30, as some 50 warplanes bombed their targets, hundreds of thousands of children were in the streets. Some were coming from the first shift of classes, others were going to the second. "In the schoolyard I saw 500 frightened girls, crying. They did not know me, but clung to me," Abu Muhammad related.

In the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood alone, there were 43 fatalities. One mourning tent was set up for all of them. Most of them were young policemen who had joined the civilian police and were killed during the course commencement ceremony.

Training camps of the Izz-al Din al-Qassam and interrogation and detention centers were deserted when they were bombed. But police centers in the Strip, which give services to people, were teeming. No one believed that they would be bombed.

In the afternoon, they were still looking for bodies in the debris. Khalil Shahin rushed to the police station in the center of the Strip. "A huge building, and all of it on the floor," he said. Some 30 people were killed there. He knew that his nephew, a civilian, was killed when he went to clear up some matter at the station.

At first, teacher Umm Salah thought the explosion was a sonic boom. The whole building shook, all the glass, but the smoke and the clouds of dust, and the wails of ambulances, made clear that something much more horrible had taken place. The glass wounded a number of pupils. There were those who cried, there were those who were silent.

She found her son in the maelstrom in the street. He had been taking a math test when the bombing began. They went back home together, finding his younger brother with their 70-year-old grandmother. The grandmother tried to hide her fear as she took care of her grandchildren.

"There's been no electricity, nor gas, nor flour or bread nearly all of the past week," Umm Salah said. "And suddenly the electricity came back. I turned on the television, I saw the images, I turned it off and sent the kids to do their homework."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050636.html

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"The amount of death and destruction is inconceivable"
Safa Joudeh writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 27 December 2008

It was just before noon when I heard the first explosion. I rushed to my window and barely did I get there and look out when I was pushed back by the force and air pressure of another explosion. For a few moments I didn't understand but then I realized that Israeli promises of a wide-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip had materialized. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzpi Livni's statements following a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the day before yesterday had not been empty threats after all.

What followed seems pretty much surreal at this point. Never had we imagined anything like this. It all happened so fast but the amount of death and destruction is inconceivable, even to me and I'm in the middle of it and a few hours have passed already passed.

Six locations were hit during the air raid on Gaza City. The images are probably not broadcasted on US news channels. There were piles and piles of bodies in the locations that were hit. As you looked at them you could see that a few of the young men were still alive, someone lifts a hand, and another raises his head. They probably died within moments because their bodies were burned, most had lost limbs, some of their guts were hanging out and they were all lying in pools of blood. Outside my home which is close to the two largest universities in Gaza, a missile fell on a large group of young men, university students. They'd been warned not to stand in groups as it makes them an easy target, but they were waiting for buses to take them home. Seven were killed, four students and three of our neighbors' kids, young men who were from the Rayes family and were best friends. As I'm writing this I can hear a funeral procession go by outside; I looked out the window a moment ago and it was the three Rayes boys. They spent all their time together when they were alive, they died together and now they are sharing the same funeral together. Nothing could stop my 14-year-old brother from rushing out to see the bodies of his friends laying in the street after they were killed. He hasn't spoken a word since.

What did Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert mean when he stated that we the people of Gaza weren't the enemy, that it was Hamas and Islamic Jihad which were being targeted? Was that statement made to infuriate us out of out our state of shock, to pacify any feelings of rage and revenge? To mock us? Were the scores of children on their way home from school and who are now among the dead and the injured, Hamas militants? A little further down my street about half an hour after the first strike, three schoolgirls happened to be passing by one of the locations when a missile struck the Preventative Security Headquarters building. The girls' bodies were torn into pieces and covered the street from one side to the other.

In all the locations, people are going through the dead, terrified of recognizing a family member among them. The streets are strewn with their bodies, their arms, legs, feet, some with shoes and some without. The city is in a state of alarm, panic and confusion, cell phones aren't working, hospitals and morgues are backed up and some of the dead are still lying in the streets with their families gathered around them, kissing their faces, holding on to them. Outside the destroyed buildings old men are kneeling on the ground, weeping. Their slim hopes of finding their sons still alive vanish after taking one look at what had become of their office buildings.

And even after the dead are identified, doctors are having a hard time gathering the right body parts in order to hand them over to their families. The hospital hallways look like a slaughterhouse. It's truly worse than any horror movie you could ever imagine. The floor is filled with blood, the injured are propped up against the walls or laid down on the floor, side by side with the dead. Doctors are working frantically and people with injuries that aren't life-threatening are sent home. A relative of mine was injured by a flying piece of glass from her living room window and she had deep cut right down the middle of her face. She was sent home; too many others needed more urgent medical attention. Her husband, a dentist, took her to his clinic and sewed up her face using local anesthesia.

More than 200 people dead in today's air raids. That means more than 200 funeral processions, a few today, most of them tomorrow, probably. To think that yesterday these families were worried about food and heat and electricity. At this point I think they -- actually all of us -- would gladly have had Hamas forever sign off every last basic right we've been calling for the last few months if it could have stopped this from ever having happened.

The bombing was very close to my home. Most of my extended family live in the area. My family is OK, but two of my uncles' homes were damaged,

We can rest easy, Gazans can mourn tonight. Israel is said to have promised not to wage any more air raids for now. People suspect that the next step will be targeted killings, which will inevitably means scores more of innocent bystanders whose fates have already been sealed.

Safa Joudeh is an master's candidate in public policy at Stony Brook University in the US. She returned to Gaza in September 2007 where she currently works as a freelance journalist.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10059.shtml

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Israeli forces target ambulances in West Bank
December 28, 2008

Ramallah / PNN – In the West Bank last night Israeli forces targeted Palestinian ambulances as people demonstrated against the massive killings in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reports that Israeli forces in the southern West Bank city of Hebron fired gas canisters at an ambulance during the transfer of one of a wounded Palestinian. Soldiers injured the man while opening fire on demonstrators.

One of the gas bombs penetrated the rear windshield of the ambulance and detonated inside. Crew members suffered suffocation and were all treated in the hospital.

Further north in the central West Bank’s Ramallah, Israeli forces prevented an ambulance was passing a military checkpoint. The Red Crescent was attempting to transport several people who had been injured in the north, but to no avail. Israeli soldiers forced the ambulance crew at gunpoint to leave.

Officials at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society say they are concerned about the humanitarian tragedy facing the Palestinian people in the occupied territory as a result of Israeli practices of violating the most elementary rules of international humanitarian law. Israeli interference with medical personnel and duties contravenes the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and Protocol I of the addendum of 1977.


www.uruknet.info?p=50000

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more news from gaza
bint battuta in bahrain


December 28, 2008

Text messages from same friend in Rafah:

5 am: "They have resumed again. The sounds of F16 is everywhere now. I don’t know where are they striking. I asked my wife to wake up. We are all sleeping in one bed. Death is everywhere in gaza strip. Many horror stories and rumors are all around. [My two young children] cried a lot when i left the home to go to the funeral of my friend and classmate. He didn’t belong to any faction. He studied in Germany as he was the best student in my school. His leg and hand [were] what remained."

11 am: "The F16 is still roaming from time to time. They targeted medicine store in Al Jonena neighbourhood, near the store was there was a fuel store. You know all the people are storing huge quantities especially the drivers. We run everything on kerosene because there is no gas, yesterday i bought two big gallons about 40 ltrs. Four buildings were badly damaged and a stream of fire was flowing in the area. My friend in that area told me about injuries [not deaths] till now but the number is high. We have no electricity since then and they destroyed Al Aqsa satellite channel COMPLETELY."

"It was huge fuel store plus two tanks of fuel in the street. Lots of the buildings were burnt completely. Also a huge medicine store for traders from tunnels."

http://battutabahrain.blogspot.com/2008 ... -gaza.html