Saturday 3 January 2009

Protest Israeli War Crimes Anywhere but not in Palestine!

A sad fact of life under the puppet regime of Abbas and his stooges is that one can protest Israel’s war crimes ANYWHERE in the world, EXCEPT the Palestinian territories under Abbas’s “control”…Palestinian Authority security personnel, who must either run away and hide or stand still with outstretched arms and weapons lowered when the Israelis enter, are now using force against their own people. These cowards who do not dare face the Israelis when they enter Palestinian towns are now showing their “bravery” against their own people, doing Israel’s dirty work for them! They are intent on turning Palestine into just another “puppet state” like the rest of the other so-called “Arab” states …

Shame on these cowards and their leadership who besmirch the very name of the heroes that laid down their lives before them for Palestine!

Mike

Palestinian police ban pro-Hamas protests

PA security officers in West Bank treat green flag as sign of dissidents and disburse all rallies protesting Israel's military operation in Gaza

Associated Press

Israel News

Palestinian police violently cracked down on protests organized by their rivals in Hamas throughout the West Bank on Friday as rallies against the military operation in Gaza turned into demonstrations against the Palestinian Authority.

Police of Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority pounced on demonstrators protesting seven days of heavy Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas.

Security forces particularly focused on anyone carrying Hamas' green flags, a telling indication of Abbas' determination to thwart any challenges to its own rule in the West Bank from Hamas.

Abbas, together with his allies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have blamed Hamas for bringing the attacks on themselves by repeatedly firing rockets into Israel. These remarks have angered many, however.

Abu Mazen is on the side of the Jews!" yelled 66-year-old Umm Maher at a small demonstration in east Jerusalem, referring to Abbas by his nickname.

Israeli police quickly dispersed the few dozen protesters in that demonstration, but elsewhere, it was the security forces of the Palestinian Authority stopping the rallies against Israel's actions.

In Hebron, demonstrators who for decades had being throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, now pelted Palestinian police after they tried to disburse 400 Hamas loyalists brandishing the movement's green flag.

"We will prohibit any signs and slogans that are hostile to the Palestinian Authority, and prohibit incitement," said Riyad Malki, Information Minister. "Security forces have been instructed to deal with these demonstrations."

Police detained five Hamas supporters at a 3,000-strong demonstration in the central West Bank town of Ramallah and ripped up placards with pro-Hamas slogans.

"The more they try suppress us, the more popular we will become," vowed Muna Mansour, a prominent Hamas operative.

In several cases, the Palestinian police stopped protesters from approaching some of the Israeli checkpoints scattered around the West Bank, which youths target with rocks and firebombs.

Demonstrators were shocked to suddenly find themselves clashing with their own police forces.

"When I saw the police coming with their batons, I thought of the Jews. They also don't deal with people except with clubs and live bullets," said Najiyeh Awdeh, a 50-year-old protester, referring to Israeli forces.

Gilad Atzmon - Living on Borrowed Time in a Stolen Land

By Gilad Atzmon • Jan 3rd, 2009 at 17:28 • Category: Analysis, Education, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad's Choice, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Our Authors, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, War, Zionism

Communicating with Israelis may leave one bewildered. Even now when the Israeli Air Force is practicing murder in broad daylight of hundreds of civilians, elderly persons, women and children, the Israeli people manage to convince themselves that they are the real victims in this violent saga.


Those who are familiar intimately with Israeli people realise that they are completely uninformed about the roots of the conflict that dominates their lives. Rather often Israelis manage to come up with some bizarre arguments that may make a lot of sense within the Israeli discourse, yet make no sense whatsoever outside of the Jewish street. Such an argument goes as follows: ‘those Palestinians, why do they insist upon living on our land (Israel), why can’t they just settle in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon or any other Arab country?’ Another Hebraic pearl of wisdom sounds like this: ‘what is wrong with these Palestinians? We gave them water, electricity, education and all they do is try to throw us to the sea’.


Astonishingly enough, the Israelis even within the so-called ‘left’ and even the educated ‘left’ fail to understand who the Palestinians are, where they come from and what they stand for. They fail to grasp that for the Palestinians, Palestine is home. Miraculously, the Israelis manage to fail to grasp that Israel had been erected at the expense of the Palestinian people, on Palestinian land, on Palestinian villages, towns, fields and orchards. The Israelis do not realise that Palestinians in Gaza and in refugee camps in the region are actually dispossessed people from Ber Shive, Yafo, Tel Kabir, Shekh Munis, Lod, Haifa, Jerusalem and many more towns and villages. If you wonder how come the Israelis don’t know their history, the answer is pretty simple, they have never been told. The circumstances that led to the Israeli Palestinian conflict are well hidden within their culture. Traces of pre-1948 Palestinian civilisation on the land had been wiped out. Not only the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians, is not part of the Israeli curriculum, it is not even mentioned or discussed in any Israeli official or academic forum.


In the very centre of almost every Israeli town one can a find a 1948 memorial statue displaying a very bizarre, almost abstract, pipe work. The plumbing feature is called Davidka and it is actually a 1948 Israeli mortar cannon. Interestingly enough, the Davidka was an extremely ineffective weapon. Its shells wouldn’t reach more than 300 meters and would cause very limited damage. Though the Davidika would cause just minimal harm, it produced a lot of noise. According to the Israeli official historical narrative, the Arabs i.e., Palestinians, simply ran away for their lives once they heard the Davidka from afar. According to the Israeli narrative, the Jews i.e., ‘new Israelis’ did a bit of fireworks and the ‘Arab cowards’ just ran off like idiots. In the Israeli official narrative there is no mention of the many orchestrated massacres conducted by the young IDF and the paramilitary units that preceded it. There is no mention also of the racist laws that stop Palestinians[1][1] from returning to their homes and lands.


The meaning of the above is pretty simple. Israelis are totally unfamiliar with the Palestinian cause. Hence, they can only interpret the Palestinian struggle as a murderous irrational lunacy. Within the Israeli Judeo- centric solipsistic universe, the Israeli is an innocent victim and the Palestinian is no less than a savage murderer.


This grave situation that leaves the Israeli in the dark regarding his past demolishes any possibility of future reconciliation. Since the Israeli lacks the minimal comprehension of the conflict, he cannot contemplate any possible resolution except extermination or cleansing of the ‘enemy’. All the Israeli is entitled to know are various phantasmic narratives of Jewish suffering. Palestinian pain is completely foreign to his ears. ‘Palestinian right of return’ sounds to him like an amusing idea. Even the most advanced ‘Israeli humanists’ are not ready to share the land with its indigenous inhabitants. This doesn’t leave the Palestinians with many options but to liberate themselves against all odds. Clearly, there is no partner for peace on the Israel side.


This week we all learned more about the ballistic capability of Hamas. Evidently, Hamas was rather restrained with Israel for more than a long while. It refrained from escalating the conflict to the whole of southern Israel. It occurred to me that the barrages of Qassams that have been landing sporadically on Sderot and Ashkelon were actually nothing but a message from the imprisoned Palestinians. First it was a message to the stolen land, homes fields and orchards: ‘Our beloved soil, we didn’t forget, we are still here fighting for you, sooner rather than later, we will come back, we will start again where we had stopped’. But it was also a clear message to the Israelis. ‘You out there, in Sderot, Beer Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Tel Aviv and Haifa, whether you realise it or not, you are actually living on our stolen land. You better start to pack because your time is running out, you have exhausted our patience. We, the Palestinian people, have nothing to lose anymore’.


Let’s face it, realistically the situation in Israel is rather grave. Two years ago it was Hezbollah rockets that pounded northern Israel. This week the Hamas proved beyond doubt that it is capable of serving the South of Israel with some cocktail of ballistic vengeance. Both in the case of the Hezbollah and the case of the Hamas, Israel was left with no military answer. It can no doubt kill civilians but it fails to stop the rocket barrage. The IDF lacks the means of protecting Israel unless covering Israel with a solid concrete roof is a viable solution. At the end of the day, they might be planning just that (link).


But this is far from the end of the story. In fact it is just the beginning. Every Middle East expert knows that Hamas can seize control of the West Bank within hours. In fact, PA and Fatah control in the West Bank is maintained by the IDF. Once Hamas takes the West Bank, the biggest Israeli population centre will be left to the mercy of Hamas. For those who fail to see, this would be the end of Jewish Israel. It may happen later today, it may happen in three months or in five years, it isn’t matter of ‘if’ but rather matter of ‘when’. By that time, the whole of Israel will be within firing range of Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli society will collapse, its economy will be ruined. The price of a detached villa in Northern Tel Aviv would equal a shed in Kiryat Shmone or Sderot. By the time a single rocket hits Tel Aviv, the Zionist dream will be over.


The IDF generals know it, the Israeli leaders know it. This is why they stepped up the war against the Palestinian into extermination. The Israelis do not plan upon invading Gaza. They have lost nothing there. All they want is to finish the Nakba. They drop bombs on Palestinians in order to wipe them out. They want the Palestinians out of the region. It is obviously not going to work, Palestinians will stay. Not only they will they stay, their day of return to their land is coming closer as Israel has been exploiting its deadliest tactics.


This is exactly where Israeli escapism comes into play. Israel has passed the ‘point of no return’. Its doomed fate is deeply engraved in each bomb it drops on Palestinian civilians. There is nothing Israel can do to save itself. There is no exit strategy. It can’t negotiate its way out because neither the Israelis nor their leadership understand the elementary parameters involved in the conflict. Israel lacks the military power to conclude the battle. It may manage to kill Palestinian grassroots leaders, it has been doing it for years, yet Palestinian resistance and persistence is growing fierce rather than weakening. As an IDF intelligence general predicted already at the first Intifada. ‘In order to win, all Palestinians have to do is to survive’. They survive and they are indeed winning.


Israeli leaders understand it all. Israel has already tried everything, unilateral withdrawal, starvation and now extermination. It thought to evade the demographic danger by shrinking into an intimate cosy Jewish ghetto. Nothing worked. It is Palestinian persistence in the shape of Hamas politics that defines the future of the region.


All that is left to Israelis is to cling to their blindness and escapism to evade their devastating grave fate that has become immanent already. All along their way down, the Israelis will sing their familiar various victim anthems. Being imbued in a self-centred supremacist reality, they will be utterly involved in their own pain yet completely blind to the pain they inflict on others. Uniquely enough, the Israelis are operating as a unified collective when dropping bombs on others, yet, once being slightly hurt, they all manage to become monads of vulnerable innocence. It is this discrepancy between the self-image and the way they are seen by the rest of us which turns the Israeli into a monstrous exterminator. It is this discrepancy that stops Israelis from grasping their own history, it is that discrepancy that stops them from comprehending the repeated numerous attempts to destroy their State. It is that discrepancy that stops Israelis from understanding the meaning of the Shoah so can they prevent the next one. It is this discrepancy that stops Israelis from being part of humanity.


Once again Jews will have to wander into an unknown fate. To a certain extent, I myself have started my journey a while ago.




[1][1] Jews only law of return- http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1950_1959/Law of Return 5710-1950


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Gilad Atzmon is a jazz musician, composer, producer and writer.
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On collaboration and resistance of the oppressed

Ziyaad Lunat, The Electronic Intifada, 3 January 2009



An Egyptian national burns his passport outside the Egyptian embassy in Beirut, 2 January. (Matthew Cassel)


In 1835, Thomas Macaulay, a British colonial officer in India, decreed that "We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect." European colonial powers often used political outsourcing through a network of native collaborators as a convenient way to subjugate the masses. These collaborators would tame the colonized on behalf of their masters who became sheltered in this way from popular uprisings. However, this process was not always predictable. In 1857, the sepoys, Indian soldiers allied to British rule, revolted against their colonial masters. Britain's response was fierce. Over 100,000 sepoys and hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in cold blood. This became known as India's first struggle for independence; which was finally realized in 1947.

A year later, European settler colonialists established the state of Israel through a pre-mediated campaign of ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population. Despite divisions amongst Arab governments and self-interested manipulation of the Palestinian plight, the response was that of opposition and generally in line with the feelings of the Arab masses. As a result, western governments have sought for decades to bully those governments into submission by forcing them to accept the premise of an inherently racist Jewish state in their midst.

As Israel massacres the Palestinians in Gaza once again, one may ask what has happened to this Arab voice. It is no surprise that the world's super powers condone Israel's genocidal acts in Gaza. Colonization, slavery, apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing have been constants in western colonialist adventures. What has now reached new levels is the open, vocal and active support of Arab governments to the massacre of the Palestinian people. As the Indian sepoys once did, new collaborators have joined the chorus of voices condoning the carnage.

The Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt is a case in point, symbolizing this painful new reality. Hosni Mubarak's government in Egypt and the unelected Palestinian Authority in Ramallah have actively colluded with Israel, first to unsuccessfully overthrow Hamas from Gaza through force and then to choke the Palestinians in Gaza by denying them basics such as food, clean water, medical treatment and a decent education. While this "holocaust in the making" was occurring, as the UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk fittingly described it, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies were collaborating with Israel to deploy forces across the West Bank cities to suppress resistance to the occupation. As US general Keith Dayton put it, these forces were taught that they "are not here to learn how to fight against the Israeli occupation," but instead to fight "the lawless elements within Palestinian society."

Not surprisingly, Abbas blamed Hamas for the ongoing bloodshed, claiming that they have refused to renew the truce. The best he could come out with, in the face of growing popular discontent, was a "threat" to discontinue negotiations (read, collaboration) with Israel. Hamas has in fact shown willingness to extend the truce but under the condition of ending the illegal siege. This is tantamount to requesting basic human rights for Palestinians, something Abbas never conditioned in his dealings with Israel.

Israel's other ally, Egypt, has accused Hamas of barring the wounded from escaping Israel's attack, conveniently ignoring their own long-term refusal to allow any Palestinians to cross in and out of Rafah. According to the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi, the Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman deceived Hamas into believing that Israel would not launch an attack on the Gaza Strip while sending their forces to seal the border in preparation for an Israeli attack. Egyptian forces later opened fire against Palestinians wanting to escape the carnage.

This form of hypocrisy found expression all over the Arab world. In the United Arab Emirates for instance, protests in solidarity with the Palestinians were banned or tightly controlled. The Arab League with its usual incompetence has been remarkably slow in reacting, first delaying their meeting for days and then issuing an insignificant declaration for all parties to cease violence offering no solution to the desperate plight of the Palestinians under siege.

But a more important question is how the Arab masses and people of conscience around the world have reacted. What are their real democratic wishes? If the Arab governments surpassed their own low standards in usurping Palestinian rights, the Arab masses have conversely renewed their determination to reject foreign domination, for every time they are stripped off their dignity; their spirit of resistance to oppression is revitalized. Across the Arab world, there has been a renewed sense of revulsion and determination to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians, uniting their causes with the occupied Iraqis and others suffering under oppressive regimes sponsored by the West.

In a very sober address to the Egyptian people, Secretary General of Hizballah Hassan Nasrallah, stated: "Let the Egyptian people take to the streets in their millions. Can the Egyptian police arrest millions of Egyptians? No!" These words sum up why today, Hamas and Hizballah, have gained more respect and legitimacy in the Arab popular opinion than any of the corrupt Arab regimes. The resistance organizations represent the aspirations of the ordinary people, who want their rights and freedom reinstated, not because they support terrorism or are subhuman, as much of the western media portrays them to be. Israel and its allies are sowing the seeds of more radicalism and greater instability in the Middle East. While powerlessly watching the massacres in Gaza, one cannot discern whether this instability is a means or an end in itself. As for the corrupt Arab regimes, they are left with two choices: either they listen to their citizens or they will have to face continuous revolt by the people. The pages of history have taught us that oppression never existed without provoking revolt for liberation and rights.

Abbas and his minions can learn much from the sepoy mutiny in India and the Ghandian nonviolent struggle for liberation that ensued. Since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, the 15 years of collaboration with Israel has yielded more settlements, thousands of house demolitions, kidnappings and massacres -- the truth is that the leaders have nothing to show to the people in return. The time has come for the Palestinian factions to unite behind the popular masses, for active and passive legitimization of Israel's actions to stop and for a return to basics. Resistance to Israel's occupation can most effectively be done through a nonviolent struggle calling for equal rights to that of their Israeli occupiers under one secular state. It is time that we extend the basic premise the West has insisted upon for themselves: that freedom is non-negotiable.

Ziyaad Lunat is an honorary life member of the London School of Economics (LSE) and an activist for Palestine.


Related Links

Photostory: World demonstrates for Gaza

Photostory: World demonstrates for Gaza

Photostory, The Electronic Intifada, 3 January 2009

Around the world people took to the streets outraged by the scenes of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip that began when Israel bombarded the coastal territory on 27 December. The below images were sent to The Electronic Intifada from around the world and document various actions, demonstrations and vigils in solidarity with Gazans under siege. If you have images to which you hold the rights documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, or of solidarity with Palestine, please email images and captions to photos A T electronicintifada D O T net.


Cairo, Egypt, 30 December 2008. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)


Beirut, Lebanon, 28 December 2008. (Matthew Cassel)



Bethlehem, occupied Palestine, 30 December 2008. (Haytham Othman/MaanImages)



Helsinki, Finland, 29 December 2008. (Terhi Hilden)



Amman, Jordan, 31 December 2008. (Anonymous)



Chicago, US, 31 December 2008. (Maureen Clare Murphy)


Cape Town, South Africa, 29 December 2008. (Cape Town Anti-War Coalition)



Caracas, Venezuela, 29 December 2008. (Lainie Cassel)


London, England, 30 December 2008. (Fil Kaler)


Belfast, Northern Ireland, 31 December 2008. (Danny Morrison)



Dublin, Ireland, 1 January 2009.


Mexico City, Mexico, 31 December 2008. (Jesus Villaseca)


Montreal, Canada, 30 December 2008. (Sabrien Amrov)


New York, US, 30 December 2008. (Anonymous)


Paris, France, 28 December 2008. (Azri Smail)


Nashville, US, 31 December 2008. (Anonymous)


Madrid, Spain, 30 December 2008. (Anonymous)

Related Links

"Mickey Mouse Resistance" Capable of Reaching Dimona

The Israeli defense establishment has expressed growing concerns Hamas missiles may pose a threat to its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona, the UK's London Times reported Friday.


Protesters have decried a number of Arab governments, besides Israel and the US [AFP]

Gaza rockets put Israel’s nuclear plant in battle zone

There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona.

Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal.

In Beersheba, until a few days ago a sleepy desert town in southern Israel, there is little sign of the 186,000 inhabitants. Schools are closed and the streets of shuttered shops echo with the howl of sirens warning of incoming rockets.Israel has said that its aim is to smash Hamas’s rocket-firing capability but also to topple the elected by the people government (while the world's observers watched) seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 after bloody street battles with its secular rivals Fatah. Until that goal is achieved, many in Beersheba are packing their bags and heading for Tel Aviv or Eilat.

“Maybe 30 or 40 per cent of people have left the city,” said Ron Shukron, 26, running one of the few grocery shops still open. As he spoke a siren echoed through the empty streets. With only 15 seconds to take cover, he stepped under a reinforced support beam in the ceiling. Seconds later came the dull thud of a rocket exploding on the edge of town.

Barack: We Struck Hamas but It’s Still Striking Back!




01/01/2009 A Grad rocket fired by Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday scored a direct hit on an eight-floor building in the northern Negev city of Ashdod.

The rocket caused a fire to erupt in the building. There were no physical injuries reported.
The strike on Ashdod was the ninth rocket to hit the western Negev on Thursday. Six Qassam rockets exploded in the Eshkol region over the course of the morning, and two Grad rockets hit the city of Beersheba.

Hamas's armed wing said Thursday it had fired a rocket at an Israeli military base. The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement they had fired a developed Grad-type rocket at the Hatzerim air force base west of Beersheba, some 40 kilometers from the Gaza border.
The Israeli military confirmed Thursday that the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip had fired another six rockets into the occupied territories.

Five Qassams landed in the Eshkol settlement. In addition, a Grad-type missile struck the Beersheba city. There were no reports of injury or damage in the attacks.

Three Grad-type rockets were also fired at Beersheba overnight Wednesday, causing no casualties.

According to Israel Radio, the city's alarm system was not functioning and the Home Front Command would fix it by Thursday afternoon. Due to the malfunctions in Beersheba's air raid siren system, residents of the Negev city are asked to monitor broadcasts on Radio South (97 FM) and Army Radio (102.3 FM), where sirens will be heard in case of a rocket attack.

Also overnight Wednesday, two Qassam rockets were fired at Netivot. No casualties or damage were reported. More than two dozens rockets and mortar shells had been fired by mid-day. One rocket landed in a small farming community about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Tel Aviv.

School was cancelled in large swaths of Israel's south because of the rocket threats. The 18,000 students at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, southern occupied territories' only university, were also told to stay home.

Wednesday evening saw Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak order a "special situation in the home front" applied to the greater Beersheba area as well, effectively giving security forces municipal jurisdiction over it.

Barak's order will elapse in 48 hours, unless sanctioned by the cabinet, and in the meantime, the defense minister urges the city's residents to comply with the Home Front Command's emergency instructions.
"We have struck Hamas, but as we all see, it's still striking back," he said during a tour of Beersheba.

Flashback:

Now You See it.............. Now You Don't!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007





What a way to conduct a Mickey Mouse "Resistance"

Palestinians renew truce


"GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian armed factions renewed their commitment to a Gaza Strip truce on Thursday but said rocket salvoes from the territory could resume if Israel did not halt military operations in the occupied West Bank.

The message was delivered to Israel by an Egyptian mediator who has been trying to prevent a major confrontation after Hamas's armed wing fired rockets and declared the Gaza truce dead on Tuesday, Palestinians familiar with the talks said.

The envoy, Major-General Burhan Hammad, "informed the Israelis of the new commitment by the factions and at same time stressed that factions demanded the calm be reciprocal and simultaneous, covering Gaza and the West Bank," a source said......"

***

Well, the "Resistance" with all the bravado, bluster and huffing and puffing by Hamas lasted.......one day! I guess Habila got the message from Israel and he didn't want to be killed or captured. This is what happens when a resistance movement becomes a political movement; just ask Fatah.

Celebrate the new truce NOW!


Tony is a "Brave" Gazan, a Hamas "LOVER" who, 41 years ago, after 1967 war, left Gaza ago and never returned, he run Palestinian Pundit blog spreading disinformation and Zionist propganda, mainly on Hamas and Syria.

The "great" Anal-ysist of PP is calling Hamas, under the TITLE of Storming the Ghetto Wall Now!s, the walls with Egypt, not the walls with Palestine. In other words, indirectly he is calling for TRANSFER, Have a look on his titles



Muzzaini: Resistance preparing "TOYS" for IOF

[ 01/01/2009 - 11:04 AM ]



GAZA, (PIC)-- Dr. Osama Al-Muzzaini, one of the political leaders of the Hamas Movement in Gaza Strip, has underlined that Palestinian resistance was still capable to strike and was preparing "surprises" for the Israeli occupation forces.

He told the media office of Hamas in east Gaza city that Hamas would never acquiesce to the "enemy's humiliating conditions", recalling that his Movement refused better conditions for a ceasefire.

"We will not accept humiliating conditions for our people regardless of losses or sacrifices," he said.

Muzzaini charged that Egypt was colluding with the Zionist enemy and was a partner in the aggression, adding that Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was quoted as saying that Hamas should be taught a lesson and that Hamas was led by a "gang".

He also charged PA chief Mahmoud Abbas with collaboration with Israel in its aggression on Gaza, adding that his request for a meeting with Hamas and all other factions was meant to cover up for his "dirty role" in the ongoing war on Gaza.

For its part, the Islamic Jihad Movement said in a statement on Wednesday that the battle in Gaza was furnishing the way before a better Palestinian future.

It expressed conviction that the "Zionist enemy" was heading to a new retreat and certain defeat.

"The scattered remains and destroyed buildings are clear proof of the enemy's bankruptcy and failure in face of resistance's steadfastness and success," the Jihad opined.

Comments;

fatima said...

remember the Arab armies (with tanks , fighter jets, thousands of guns , missiles etc..) gave up and raised the white flag in 1967 in 6 days but Hamas with its feable capabilities continues to worry the zionists who are now worried their citizens hiding in dungeons .

uprooted Palestinian said...

Yes fatima, they are hiding from ""micky mouce"" resistance, while the RAT at PP, takes every chance to mock Hamas, and prove that he was right,

The rat mocked Hamas for wearing uniforms and bears, and failed/ignored that Hamas has two wings, the political wing running Gaza, above the ground, and the military wing acting underground.

Yes Hamas was cheated and paid a heavy price..., but the military wing stayed intact.
The rat, while using Hezbollah to mock Hamas, failed/ignored, That Hezollah was not a Government,

Did you listened to Nasralla telling us, that a similar attach was planned in 2006,
GOD saved Hezbulla because they captured troops and forced Israel to react earlier...

The Rat criticised Hamas for "lack of secrecy"... and, and...
But Shalit is still Captured in the burrel callled Gaza.. and we have seen the surprise of knocking the wall.

The rat mocked hamas for accepting the Truce, and we have seen what Hamas was doing during the Truce...

The Rat wants Hamas and Palestinians to turn and attack the wall with Egypt...
To know the reality of that RAT, check his BLOG and give just one post from PIC.

Hundreds dead, thousands injured and displaced

Report, Al Mezan, 2 January 2009

4:40pm Gaza Time (+2 GMT):

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has continued its military operation -- code-named "Cast Lead" -- against the Gaza Strip for the seventh consecutive day. Air raids and attacks from ground forces and naval vessels have continued to target civilian objects. There has been an increase in the air raids targeting houses of resistance members. The number of people who have been killed in IOF's attacks has reached 353, including 59 children and 14 women. This figure reflects only the cases which Al Mezan Center has been able to verify, and is expected to rise as many casualties were buried by their families without being registered at hospitals and others remain under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Many attacks targeted open fields, though not far from urban areas. IOF also targeted another rescue team in Deir al-Balah.

At approximately 2:40pm yesterday, Thursday 1 January 2008, Israeli aircrafts fired heavy missiles at the house of Nizar Rayyan, a leader in the Hamas movement, in the Jabaliya refugee camp, causing massive destruction in the camp and killing 16 of its residents, 11 of whom were children. The victims were identified as:
  • 49-year-old Nizar Abdul-Qadir Rayyan;
  • 40-year-old Nawal Ismail Rayyan;
  • 46-year-old Hyiam Abdul-Rahman Rayyan;
  • 45-year-old Iman Khalil Rayyan;
  • 25-year-old Shirin Said Rayyan;
  • 2-year-old Asad Nizar Rayyan;
  • 3-year-old Usama Nizar Rayyan;
  • 3-year-old Aiysha Nizar Rayyan;
  • 4-year-old Reem Nizar Rayyan;
  • 5-year-old Halima Nizar Rayyan;
  • 5-year-old Meryam Nizar Rayyan;
  • 6-year-old Abdul-Rahman Nizar Rayyan;
  • 12-year-old Abdul-Qadir Nizar Rayyan;
  • 12-year-old Ayia Nizar Rayyan;
  • 15-year-old Zainab Nizar Rayyan;
  • 16-year-old Ghassan Nizar Rayyan
The victims are from the same family. The body of Ghassan was still under the rubble of the house at the time this release was drafted. Moreover, 12 people, including five children and one woman, were injured this raid. It also destroyed 10 houses completely and caused damage to another dozens of other houses.

At approximately 11:35pm on the same day, Israeli aircraft raided the al-Khulafa Mosque, which is located near Rayyan's house, destroying the mosque completely and damaging tens of houses in the area, some for the second time on the same day.

Also in northern Gaza, Israeli aircraft raided the al-Hawouz Hill at approximately 3:30pm yesterday. They fired three heavy missiles at the area, killing two children. They were identified as six-year-old girl Oyoun Jihad al-Naslah and her brother al-Muoiz. Forty other people were injured in this raid, including 27 children and five women. Yesterday, Al Mezan Center's press release mentioned this case and included initial information about it, including that a woman was killed in it; however, the number and identity of the casualties have been verified as above.

At approximately 3:10pm, also Thursday, Israeli aircrafts fired a missile into a crowd in the al-Amal neighborhood in Beit Hanoun, north of the Gaza Strip. This raid coincided with the presence of many worshippers who were leaving a nearby mosque. Seventeen people were injured including nine children and a woman. Medical sources reported that three of the victims sustained critical injuries. Today, Friday, medical sources announced the death of 24-year-old Fadi Nasser Shabat, who was injured in this attack. In addition, medical sources reported the death of 19-year-old Bilal Ghabayin, who was injured in an Israeli raid on a truck near Sammor Blacksmith on Monday 29 December 2008.

More Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids since yesterday evening as Israeli air attacks targeted more mosques, houses and open fields near residential areas across the Gaza Strip. At 4:30am today, Israeli aircrafts bombarded open fields in the al-Nazzaz area eastern Beit Hanoun, injuring six people including two children and one woman. An elderly passerby was also killed when an air raid targeted the house of Ibrahim al-Mutawaq in the town of Jabaliya, north of the Gaza Strip. The man was identified as 50-year-old Nafith al-Mutawaq.

In Gaza City, IOF targeted the car of Jamal Ali al-Dardasawi with a missile at approximately 1:30pm yesterday, killing him immediately.

Medical sources announced the death of six-year-old girl Kristin al-Turk, who was injured at 10am yesterday in an Israeli air raid on a poultry farm near Palestine Stadium in the middle of Gaza City. Medical sources also announced the death of a 10-year-old child, Hamada Ibrahim Msabbeh, who was injured in an Israeli air raid on eastern Gaza City's neighborhoods of al-Zeitoun and al-Tuffah at approximately 8:35am on today, Friday 2 January 2009. Twenty other people were injured in Gaza City since yesterday midnight. Of them, three were children and three women.

IOF's attacks continued to threaten and injure the lives of rescue crews and medical crews. Yesterday, Israeli aircraft bombarded a car parked at the entrance of the Sheikh Radwan clinic. At approximately 9:40am today, aircraft bombarded the house of Nazmi Mhanna in the town of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. They fired missiles at the house for a second time after a rescue team from the Palestine Red Crescent Society had arrived at the scene, thus injuring two rescue workers: 26-year-old Mazin Subhi Abu Mesbih and 40-year-old Awni Khattab. Their ambulance was also damaged.

Eighteen people were also injured in central Gaza, including three children, one of whose wounds were described as severe.

While drafting this press release, initial reports indicated that Israeli aircraft bombarded the house of a member of Hamas in al-Nuseirat refugee camp. At the same time, aircrafts raided an open field in the al-Qarara town, north of Khan Younis, killing three children who were playing there. They were identified as:
  • 8-year-old Abdul-Sattar al-Astal;
  • 9-year-old Iyad Abed-Rabu al-Astal;
  • and his brother, 12-year-old Mohammed Abed-Rabu al-Astal.
Some 20 minutes later, Israeli aircrafts bombarded a house in Khan Younis refugee camp, injuring five people, including two women.

According to monitoring by Al Mezan Center's field workers, more civilians have been evacuating their homes all over the Gaza Strip, either because they were destroyed by IOF or out of fear of destruction. In particular, people residing near the borders with Egypt and Israel left their homes following Israeli bombardment and shelling of their areas. Moreover, people whose homes have been destroyed and damaged as a result of Israeli bombardment sought shelter elsewhere, mostly with relatives. Moreover, hundreds of families have left their homes following telephone calls from the Israeli army informing their neighbors that their homes would be bombarded from the air. Al Mezan estimates that at least 2,210 families have been displaced as a result to Israeli attacks or threatened attacks on civilian areas across the Gaza Strip. In Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 200-300 people have sought shelter in an UNRWA [the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees] school where they have receive aid from UNRWA. Another 100 people have taken shelter in another school in the town. Moreover, following an air raid that killed two children in northern Gaza's al-Nada Towers, some 600 people left their homes and took shelter in the Khalil Uwaida School.

In the meantime, the humanitarian conditions have continued to deteriorate in the beleaguered Gaza Strip as food, medical and fuel supplies continue to be disrupted by Israel. There is a serious lack of water in houses and the supply of cooking gas has already depleted. Foodstuffs, especially bread, have been particularly lacking. Gaza has also been experiencing increasing hours of electricity outage, in Gaza City reaching as long as four days now.

Reports also indicate that the health system is close to collapse as hospitals and clinics suffer a very high case load while there are shortages in medical supplies and personnel. The high numbers of casualties resulting from Israeli attacks has added enormous pressure on the health system.

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights expresses its outrage over the continued inaction of the international community in the face of IOF's continued violations of the international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights in the Gaza Strip. The failure to take any action continues despite the enormous amount of information about the consequences of Israel's conduct towards human life and well being in the Strip, which have been heavily reported by the media and human rights organizations in the Strip. Al Mezan Center asserts that according to its continuous monitoring of the situation in Gaza, Israel has been perpetrating grave breaches of IHL, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, by deliberately targeting civilian premises in highly dense areas without observing the principles of proportionality, distinction and military necessity. In doing so, Israel is showing despicable disregard to civilian life.

Therefore, the Center reiterates its calls for an urgent intervention by the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Times of War, of 1949, including by convening their conference, to consider the breaches by Israel of its nonderogable obligations under the Convention, and to take the necessary measures to ensure the respect of its rules with regard to the Israeli military actions in Gaza. Civil society organizations are also called upon to exert pressure on their governments so that they act in conformity with their human rights and humanitarian obligations.


Related Links


437 killed, 320 wounded since the start of the Gaza holocaust
[ 03/01/2009 - 01:18 AM ]




GAZA, (PIC)-- Twelve Palestinians, including six children and a woman, have been killed on Friday, the seventh day of the Gaza holocaust being perpetrated by the Israeli occupation airforce.

Palestinian medical sources stated, before midnight Friday, that two Qassam Brigades fighters were killed in an Israeli occupation airstrike to the east of Jabalya, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses said that Tahani Abu Ayyash (22 years) was killed and five members of her family were wounded in an airstrike on her home in the Johr al-Deek neighbourhood to the south east of Gaza city.

Another Palestinian resident of Gaza was killed and three others were wounded when a car was targeted while passing on the Wadi Gaza bridge to the south of Gaza City. The wounded were taken to the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital which has received ten other case as a result of airstrikes targeting shops in the Nusairat Refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Three children from the same family were killed in an airstrike at the village of Qarara to the east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Twenty-year-old Fadi Shabat was also killed when an airstrike targeted his home in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip.

An airstrike that targeted the home of Nabil Mutawwak in Jabalya, in the northern Gaza Strip, resulted in the death of Fuad Murawwak and the wounding of four others.

While 15-year-old, Hamad Mesbeh was killed as a result of being hit by shrapnel from a rocket fired by an Israeli occupation drone at Shejaeyya neighbourhood to the east of Gaza City. The body of the boy was badly mutilated.

Six-year-old Christine Wadi' al-Turk, died as a result of wounds she sustained Friday morning in the city of Gaza. Another child, Sojood al-Dardasawi also succumbed to wounds she sustained in an Israeli occupation airstrike to the east of Gaza City.

Another resistance fighter affiliated with the Qassam Brigades was killed, Friday night in Beit Lahya, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Tens of people were wounded in the airstrikes that targeted houses in Gaza City, Nusairat and Rafah.

Airstrikes also targeted bridges linking the southern with the northern Gaza Strip.

Since the start of the Gaza holocaust last Saturday more than 437 Palestinians have been killed and around 2200 others wounded, 320 of them in serious condition.

Three children of the same family killed in one Israeli occupation airstrike

[ 02/01/2009 - 09:56 PM ]




GAZA, (PIC)-- Three Palestinian children from the same family died in an Israeli occupation airstrike at the Qarara village east of the northern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, bringing the number of children killed in one week to 70.

Medical sources confirmed the death of Abed Rabbuh al-Astal (15), Muhamad al-Asatal (10 years) and Walikd al-Astal (10 years).

Local sources said that an Israeli occupation drone fired a rocket at the children while they were playing in the street killing them instantly.

During one week of the Gaza holocaust the Israeli occupation airforce killed 430 Palestinians and wounded 2200 others.

Friday 2 January 2009

How Israel is Multiplying Hamas by a Thousand

Molten Lead in Gaza

By URI AVNERY

EJUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, Aljazeera’s Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning.

It was impossible not to think about the tens of thousands of Gazan children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs to fall.

* * *

“ISRAEL MUST defend itself against the rockets that are terrorizing our Southern towns,” the Israeli spokesmen explained. “Palestinians must respond to the killing of their fighters inside the Gaza Strip,” the Hamas spokesmen declared.

As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.

Those who decided to close the crossings – under whatever pretext – knew that there is no real cease-fire under these conditions.

That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip “in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence”. From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.

* * *

WHAT WAS THE AIM? Tzipi Livni announced it openly: to liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza. The Qassams served only as a pretext.

Liquidate Hamas rule? That sounds like a chapter out of “The March of Folly”. After all, it is no secret that it was the Israeli government which set up Hamas to start with. When I once asked a former Shin-Bet chief, Yaakov Peri, about it, he answered enigmatically: “We did not create it, but we did not hinder its creation.”

For years, the occupation authorities favored the Islamic movement in the occupied territories. All other political activities were rigorously suppressed, but their activities in the mosques were permitted. The calculation was simple and naive: at the time, the PLO was considered the main enemy, Yasser Arafat was the current Satan. The Islamic movement was preaching against the PLO and Arafat, and was therefore viewed as an ally.

With the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987, the Islamic movement officially renamed itself Hamas (Arabic initials of “Islamic Resistance Movement”) and joined the fight. Even then, the Shin-Bet took no action against them for almost a year, while Fatah members were executed or imprisoned in large numbers. Only after a year, were Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his colleagues also arrested.

Since then the wheel has turned. Hamas has now become the current Satan, and the PLO is considered by many in Israel almost as a branch of the Zionist organization. The logical conclusion for an Israeli government seeking peace would have been to make wide-ranging concessions to the Fatah leadership: ending of the occupation, signing of a peace treaty, foundation of the State of Palestine, withdrawal to the 1967 borders, a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, release of all Palestinian prisoners. That would have arrested the rise of Hamas for sure.

But logic has little influence on politics. Nothing of this sort happened. On the contrary, after the murder of Arafat, Ariel Sharon declared that Mahmoud Abbas, who took his place, was a “plucked chicken”. Abbas was not allowed the slightest political achievement. The negotiations, under American auspices, became a joke. The most authentic Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, was sent to prison for life. Instead of a massive prisoner release, there were petty and insulting “gestures”.

Abbas was systematically humiliated, Fatah looked like an empty shell and Hamas won a resounding victory in the Palestinian election – the most democratic election ever held in the Arab world. Israel boycotted the elected government. In the ensuing internal struggle, Hamas assumed direct control over the Gaza Strip.

And now, after all this, the government of Israel decided to “liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza” – with blood, fire and columns of smoke.

* * *

THE OFFICIAL NAME of the war is “Cast Lead”, two words from a children’s song about a Hanukkah toy.

It would be more accurate to call it “the the Election War”.

In the past, too, military action has been taken during election campaigns. Menachem Begin bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor during the 1981 campaign. When Shimon Peres claimed that this was an election gimmick, Begin cried out at his next rally: “Jews, do you believe that I would send our brave boys to their death or, worse, to be taken prisoner by human animals, in order to win an election?” Begin won.

Peres is no Begin. When, during the 1996 election campaign, he ordered the invasion of Lebanon (operation “Grapes of Wrath”), everybody was convinced that he had done it for electoral gain. The war was a failure and Peres lost the elections and Binyamin Netanyahu came to power.

Barak and Tzipi Livni are now resorting to the same old trick. According to the polls, Barak’s predicted election result rose within 48 hours by five Knesset seats. About 80 dead Palestinians for each seat. But it is difficult to walk on a pile of dead bodies. The success may evaporate in a minute if the war comes to be considered by the Israeli public as a failure. For example, if the rockets continue to hit Beersheba, or if the ground attack leads to heavy Israeli casualties.

The timing was chosen meticulously from another angle too. The attack started two days after Christmas, when American and European leaders are on holiday until after New Year. The calculation: even if somebody wanted to try and stop the war, no one would give up his holiday. That ensured several days free from outside pressures.

Another reason for the timing: these are George Bush’s last days in the White House. This blood-soaked moron could be expected to support the war enthusiastically, as indeed he did. Barack Obama has not yet entered office and had a ready made pretext for keeping silent: “there is only one President”. The silence does not bode well for the term of president Obama.

* * *

THE MAIN LINE was: not to repeat the mistakes of Lebanon War II. This was endlessly repeated on all the news programs and talk shows.

This does not change the fact: the Gaza War is an almost exact replica of the second Lebanon war.

The strategic concept is the same: to terrorize the civilian population by unremitting attacks from the air, sowing death and destruction. This poses no danger to the pilots, since the Palestinians have no anti-aircraft weapons at all. The calculation: if the entire life-supporting infrastructure in the Strip is utterly destroyed and total anarchy ensues, the population will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. Mahmoud Abbas will then ride back into Gaza on the back of Israeli tanks.

In Lebanon, this calculation did not work out. The bombed population, including the Christians, rallied behind Hizbullah, and Hassan Nasrallah became the hero of the Arab world. Something similar will probably happen this time, too. Generals are experts on using weapons and moving troops, not on mass psychology.

Some time ago I wrote that the Gaza blockade was a scientific experiment designed to find out how much one can starve a population and turn its life into hell before they break. This experiment was conducted with the generous help of Europe and the US. Up to now, it did not succeed. Hamas became stronger and the range of the Qassams became longer. The present war is a continuation of the experiment by other means.

It may be that the army will “have no alternative” but to re-conquer the Gaza Strip because there is no other way to stop the Qassams – except coming to an agreement with Hamas, which is contrary to government policy. When the ground invasion starts, everything will depend on the motivation and capabilities of the Hamas fighters vis-à-vis the Israeli soldiers. Nobody can know what will happen.

* * *

DAY AFTER DAY, night after night, Aljazeera’s Arabic channel broadcasts the atrocious pictures: heaps of mutilated bodies, tearful relatives looking for their dear ones among the dozens of corpses spread out on the ground, a woman pulling her young daughter from under the rubble, doctors without medicines trying to save the lives of the wounded. (The English-language Aljazeera, unlike its Arab-language sister-station, has undergone an amazing about face, broadcasting only a sanitized picture and freely distributing Israeli government propaganda. It would be interesting to know what happened there.)

Millions are seeing these terrible images, picture after picture, day after day. These images are imprinted on their minds forever: horrible Israel, abominable Israel, inhuman Israel. A whole generation of haters. That is a terrible price, which we will be compelled to pay long after the other results of the war itself have been forgotten in Israel.

But there is another thing that is being imprinted on the minds of these millions: the picture of the miserable, corrupt, passive Arab regimes.

As seen by Arabs, one fact stands out above all others: the wall of shame.

For the million and a half Arabs in Gaza, who are suffering so terribly, the only opening to the world that is not dominated by Israel is the border with Egypt. Only from there can food arrive to sustain life and medicaments to save the injured. This border remains closed at the height of the horror. The Egyptian army has blocked the only way for food and medicines to enter, while surgeons operate on the wounded without anesthetics.

Throughout the Arab world, from end to end, there echoed the words of Hassan Nasrallah: The leaders of Egypt are accomplices to the crime, they are collaborating with the “Zionist enemy” in trying to break the Palestinian people. It can be assumed that he did not mean only Mubarak, but also all the other leaders, from the king of Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian President. Seeing the demonstrations throughout the Arab world and listening to the slogans, one gets the impression that their leaders seem to many Arabs pathetic at best, and miserable collaborators at worst.

This will have historic consequences. A whole generation of Arab leaders, a generation imbued with the ideology of secular Arab nationalism, the successors of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat, may be swept from the stage. In the Arab space, the only viable alternative is the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism.

This war is a writing on the wall: Israel is missing the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow, It may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied by a thousand.

MY TAXI DRIVER in Tel-Aviv the other day was thinking aloud: Why not call up the sons of the ministers and members of the Knesset, form them into a combat unit and send them off to head the coming ground attack on Gaza?

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

A Hospital Scene - by: Rana Abdulla

From:nidah@yahoogroups.com
on behalf of abd@istar.ca

Dear all human beings:

As of the writing of this letter, the operation enters into its sixth day and more than 420 Palestinians have been killed and over 2,100 have been injured. Victims of this monstrosity - mothers, fathers and children, besieged in hunger, starved for life, and killed in front of us, live on TV so the world can see.

How many Palestinians are dead in Gaza? Dozens? Hundreds? How many hundreds? Does it matter? At what point does the slaughter become a massacre. At what point does a massacre become genocide?

I am yet to absorb the hardships and the lack of food and electricity in Gaza and all the appalling and collective punishment on the Gazans. Denying them any human rights, no freedom, no food, cut off by land, sea and air, no reliable power, little water, tortured by hunger and diseases... this is what we know as a medieval siege.

No human being should be forced to try to comprehend the killing of hundreds of people, the torture of children, the sight of bodies being found in the rubble of their deliberately destroyed homes, or of corpses rotting in the streets of countless neighbourhoods.

As I sit watching, scenes of wailing families as their mangled bodies of their loved ones are brought to Al-Chifa hospital - scenes of doctors in emergency rooms trying to save the young lives of people. One doctor tried to revive the youth by frantically pushing his hand down hard on the boy?s chest and then releasing it, trying to keep the heart beating. But the doctor?s battle to save the life of the young man was hopeless. A crowd of other doctors and nurses huddled around another body, doing everything they could to bring those youth back to the woes of their world.

The Israeli raids chase the wounded people even into the hospital. Early on Sunday, F16 fighter jets dropped two bombs on a mosque on the other side of the road, sending shrapnel and debris flying toward the hospital. In the intensive care room, smashed glass fell on those hovering between life and death.

Piles of corpses are moved aside and houses lie in smouldering ruins. Children scream for their mothers ?mama, mama?. Even the hardest of hearts cannot be appalled by this. Ambulances and private cars rush those wounded or killed to the hospital, where staff use sheets as makeshift stretchers. In some cases, a single stretcher is used to carry several bodies. Torn limbs fall to the blood-soiled floor.

Overworked doctors and nurses can only deal with the most pressing cases. There is no space left in the morgue and bodies are piled up in the emergency room and in the corridors, while many of the severely wounded scream in pain.

The yard outside the Chifa hospital is chaotic as the families of those injured or killed wait to hear something. The hospital has stopped using the morgue because there is no more room for all these bodies. The mourning families before they can even process their once living loved one is no longer with them, are told in one breath ?he is gone? and in the second breath urged to bury the dead quickly for fear of epidemics because that is part and parcel during such an act of war.

A reminder of Jenin?s massacre drills my memory when a young boy is wearing new trainers, bought by sympathetic Palestinians, because he was stripped to his underpants by Israeli soldiers after he had surrendered to them. He surrendered because he could take no more of the bombardment. Three people were killed by rockets in the house where he had taken refuge. Others who did not ?respond? to the same indignity were badly beaten. The boy?s brother lies on a bloody mattress face down, his back wrapped in bandages. Is this the way a teenager should live?

Somewhere in the world (while some Palestinian children die) other more fortunate children tangle over a soccer ball. Across the carpet of green, yellow and dry brown leaves crumble onto the sea of grass. It is difficult for me to comprehend why there has to be such a cruel contrast between these fortunate children and the Palestinian children who have to fight for their lives and their freedom in an indifferent world against an armed Israeli militia who does its best to kill, mutilate and silence them without conscience. The same Israeli militia who descend from people who survived the one of the worst crimes ever perpetrated by men. The same militia who know that what they are doing is in violation of every human right and convention devised to protect humanity. They say ?We must never forget?... it was they who forgot. They who was once the victim, is now the perpetrator.

What I see is the fact that normal daily life has completely stopped. The State of Israel has the ability to literally bring to a halt to every aspect of daily life and kill in cold blood. Each day is the same with little to distinguish one from the other. The news is always the same and the international community continually fails to intervene and end this madness. How many times will we hear another talking head call for an end to the ?violence? without doing anything about it? I get so angry at the thought of losing these days. I wonder how many days native Palestinians have lost. This is the reality of the Israeli occupation. This is its essence. There is no balance regarding the truth nor is there balance regarding firepower.

The US Administration and their media keep repeating the Israeli lies that it is doing this mass killing, in retaliation to Hamas breaking the cease fire and launching rockets on settlers just outside of the Gaza Strip. Neither have the decency to think for a minute and investigate these fabrications and stretches of the truth. What is happening is something completely different from what is being espoused on western telecasts.

Is it fair that Israel has nuclear weapons and Apache helicopters while Palestinians are forced to fight with rifles and home-made explosives? There is no balance about land originally held by Palestinians over which Israel now controls. There is no balance between the human rights that Israelis enjoy while Palestinians live in an open air detention centers which lack medical supplies and are isolated from the rest of the world. When I see the shanty towns of worn and weary people and in the distance, in the distance that an eye can see, beautifully manicured lawns watered by sprinklers under the desert heat, beside nicely paved roads and lovely homes that are even nicer than many homes here.

But you don?t see that because then you would see a side of Israel that torments and reminds the native people who they not are or entitled to be.

Israel wants to rain a war on Gaza. Then there must be a balance in describing what has happened in Gaza, what IS happening in Gaza.

This humanitarian disaster is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders and the Arabs are cowed into silence. All western media have conveniently chosen to focus coverage on every other scene of tragedy, in a daily game to block the untold murders of Israill... and the world continues watching the barbarity against the rightful inhabitants of the land, a land they have lived for thousands of years. This is their crime?

Why is this crime taking place in the name of Americans, using their tax dollars are allowing Israel to systematically destruct the people by proxy in billions of arms and aid? They aid an army that does not confront another army in a battle field; they aid an army to attack civilians living under occupation.

It is important to speak out against what is happening in Gaza. Israel will reprimand you, brand you an anti-Semite, perhaps expel you. Be forewarned. It reminds me a time when those tried to protect the Jews of Eastern Europe were tortured and killed for taking the same steps. Those people today who are considered heroes for not joining in those massacres and pogroms that killed children and mothers and families the same. I ask every Israeli ? what are you thinking?

Israel, whose existence is based on the expulsion of a nation from the lands of their parents, is reasserting its essential exploitative nature. Israel is the oppressor, the occupier, which parks its tanks on plundered land, killing and destroying in order to inherit. For over 60 years Israel has taught the world that they are clever jailers and torturers.

Why should Jewish children whose parents had their own homes in other countries take away be okay to take and occupy what was and is rightfully Palestinian? Why do world leaders condone the killing of Palestinian children but are outraged when one or two Israelis are killed? Don?t those children deserve to be as happy as children anywhere else on God?s good earth? I see the contrast and it takes me to a place so deep and painful it is overwhelming. My tears are their tears, these Palestinian mothers crying for their dead or wounded children.

What Gaza used to be is not what it is now. Even when Gaza was occupied for all those years there was some semblance of functioning. After the settlers were forced to leave, the Gazans found their wells filled with cement, their power cut and or vandalized, roads torn apart, hundred year old orchards burning or simple bulldozed. If we can`t have it, well neither can you. And this attitude if you can call it, just continues. With world apathy which is approval by proxy, those whom the Israelis don`t kill, will be driven away because the land will be so unfit that this eventual happening will be reported as abandonment other than by any other truth.

Gaza is now a place filled with newly dug graves watered by the tears of mothers who will not know the children or enjoy any future other than mourning, poverty and oppression.

New Years Eve in Gaza…..

one funeral too much.....

Is Ahmedinejad an Anti-Semite ???
Is Livni a Semites ???


I watched yesterday CNN and BBC-World
as usual and what has struck me is that both
so prominent Media outlets have found time

for a 30 or 40 seconds segment
in their prime-time-news
to speak about and to show the funeral of one Israeli
who died yesterday and they even showed us his family weeping
at his funerals.... ....


Of course you all would agree with me, that more Palestinians
have died on that same day and much more were wounded..... .


and yet CNN and BBC ,and probably one hundred others,
have found 30 seconds to show us this Israeli-funeral.

I must admit that each human is equal to the other human
thus each funeral is equal the other funeral
but at least this Israeli has had the chance to get a funeral
while the Palestinians of Gaza get a " whole-sale-funeral"


Wait !! I did not finish yet.....


Nobody !! ,
not CNN , nor BBC did tell us what from
did that Israeli die yesterday... .
they just showed us his wife crying and his family mourning......
no cause of death was mentioned !


As for the Gaza civilians dying ,
we all all know what has killed them .

Never mind my sarcasm ,
soon Israeli buses shall be operating normally
and many civilians shall ride on them....
and then we shall know "what" killed them ....


My brother El Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
asked us to demonstrate all over the world.


And a Friend of mine , an American-Jew in Berlin
went down today in the German-Capital to demonstrate
wearing the Sign:

" STOP THIS HOLOCAUST !! "


Raja Chemayel

On the 7th Day…Resistance in Gaza Increasingly Active

Batoul Wehbe
Readers Number : 118



02/01/2009

As the Israeli aggression against Gaza enters its seventh day, Palestinian resistance rockets continued to pound occupied territories. More than 10 rockets have been fired early Friday on the eastern occupied territories. In the meantime, the city of Tel Aviv started to take precautionary measures against possible rocket attacks.

Three settlers were injured in Friday’s attacks, two of them in a Grad rockets attack on Ashkelon and another in Sderot as two Qassam rockets hit the western Negev settlement. Another Qassam rocket hit the Netivot area.

Palestinian resistance fighters on Thursdays rained Israeli settlements and major cities with a barrage of more than 50 rockets reaching as far as Ashdod and Beersheba, 40 Kilometers away from the Gaza border, including two military bases. The Israeli military confirmed the northern Negev city of Ashkelon and Sdot Hanegev regional council were hit with seven consecutive rockets by Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip within few minutes, three of which exploded in residential areas of Ashkelon.
Rockets continued exploding over the course of Thursday afternoon in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheba, cities previously considered out of the range of Gaza rockets.

Despite air raids, drones and bad weather conditions, the Palestinian resistance has been able to launch an average of 70 rockets at Israeli settlements on daily basis. The retaliatory attacks have so far killed four Israelis including one soldier and injuring three dozen Israelis more, some seriously. The Israeli media is adopting a blackout policy, as it did during the 2006 war in Lebanon, to hide the real impact of Palestinian rockets on settlements.

HAMAS DENIES IT CONDITIONALLY ACCEPTED EU TRUCE PROPOSAL

In the meantime, a top Hamas official denied the resistance movement had conditionally accepted an EU truce proposal, saying a bogus statement had been fabricated.
"It is a false statement devoid of any truth," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said. "It was disseminated by hostile parties in order to raise doubt as to Hamas’ positions. I have not made any statements on this topic."
A statement by the European Union released after a foreign ministers' meeting in Paris on Tuesday began with a demand for an "unconditional" stop to Hamas rocket attacks.



Abbas orders PA forces to prevent possible intifada in W. Bank

[ 01/01/2009 - 09:22 PM ]



RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- PA chief Mahmoud Abbas has ordered his security forces to prevent any attempt by Palestinian citizens in the West Bank to spark a third intifada against the Israeli occupation despite the increasing death toll in Gaza Strip, well-informed PA security sources in Ramallah confirmed.

According to the sources, that did not want to be identified, directives and orders from Abbas's office were conveyed to all PA security departments across the West Bank calling on them not to allow enraged Palestinian citizens confront Israeli occupation soldiers positioned at the outskirts of the Palestinian cities.

In press conference he held last Tuesday, Reyadh Al-Maliki, the foreign minister in the unconstitutional PA government in Ramallah city, explained that the PA security forces would allow Palestinians in the West Bank to hold "peaceful" rallies to "express their sympathy with Gaza", but it will stop them if they confront the Israeli occupation soldiers.

The sources also added that Abbas fears possible eruption of a third Palestinian intifada in the West Bank that could lead to the collapse of Abbas's authority and finish his political ambitions in occupied Palestine in the event of confrontation.

In this regard, the sources added, Abbas ordered the PA security forces to chase and arrest Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists in the West Bank to prevent them from carrying out retaliatory attacks on Israeli targets in the West Bank or in the 1948-occupied Palestinian lands.

The directives were immediately carried out as more than 80 Hamas cadres were arrested at the hands of Abbas's forces since the Israeli aggression on Gaza started Saturday.

Moreover, the sources revealed that Abbas and the PA leadership in the West Bank were worried that Hamas could restore its popular and military strength in the West Bank that was weakened in the aftermath of the frenzied PA arrest campaigns against its cadres and political leaders over the pat 18 months.

Hundreds of Hamas's cadres and political leaders in the West Bank were arrested, and tens of local charities affiliated with it were sealed off at the hands of Abbas's security forces since the unconstitutional government of Salam Fayyadh was installed by Abbas.

Tension had run high in the West Bank with the start of the massive IOF troops' aggression against the densely populated Gaza Strip bordering the biggest Arab country, Egypt.


Hamas calls on West Bank to revolt against occupation
[ 01/01/2009 - 09:30 PM ]



RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Hamas Movement in the West Bank has affirmed Thursday that the battle in Gaza was the battle of Palestine and the battle of the Arab and Muslim Ummah and the free people of the world against the occupation.

In a statement it issued, and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, the Movement called on the Palestinian people in the West Bank to hold massive demonstrations in solidarity with "our brothers in Gaza".

"Let all the days in the West Bank be devoted to the steadfast Gaza, let it be days for the souls of the pure martyrs in Gaza, and days for solidarity with our people in the steadfast Strip", the statement added.

The Movement also urged the "mujahideen" and the rest of the Palestinian people to confront the Israeli occupation army and the Israeli settles in every Palestinian city, village, and refugee camp.

In this concern, the Movement called on the PA security forces to desist from aborting Palestinian enthusiasm and activities against the occupation, underlining that the demonstrations weren’t directed against them.