Israel

Gaza hospital crowded with civilians, doctors say | CNN.com

Far more civilians than Hamas fighters are arriving for treatment of war wounds at Gaza's main hospital as Israel's military incursion into the territory continues, two doctors say.

When the Israeli airstrikes began more than a week ago, the first casualties Shifa Hospital saw were fighters in military uniform, a Palestinian doctor said Monday.

"But after that day and until this day, we didn't receive any men from the resistance or anyone in the military," he said. "All of them were civilians."

The Tragedy of Gaza
By Diana Mukkaled | Asharq Al Awsat.com

I, like many others, watched helplessly as the bodies of "Jawaher" and "Dina" and "Samar" and "Ikram" and "Tahrir" were carried out of their destroyed house in "Block 5" of the Jabalya Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. The five sisters were killed in their sleep after an Israeli missile struck a mosque adjacent to their house. Their small bodies covered in dust and stone, the cries of their bereaved parents, the shock of their surviving siblings; all of this continues to reverberate painfully in the imagination. But does pain still have the same meaning or significance during this time of great despair and useless anger?

WARNING: GRAPHIC PIC INSIDE

Obama and Gaza: Exiting the Vortex of Violence
By Bernard Weiner | The Crisis Papers

One definition of mental disease is when someone repeats the same
counter-productive behavior again and again and again and expects different results.
Which brings us to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

This time it's centered in Gaza, but the ramifications threaten to engulf
much of the Arab Middle East, and Iran, and possibly beyond the region.

Each side believes that with just a bit more violent pressure, one more
attack, one more mass bombing, one more unleashing of the dogs of war, the other
side will bend to its will.

In effect, each side is acting out of a belief that it can make The Other
simply disappear. The Palestinians, many Israelis want to believe, will migrate

Phyllis Bennis' Letter to the Editor of the NYTimes:

To the Editor:

I believe the Israeli airstrikes are clear violations of international humanitarian law. While the Palestinian rocket fire against civilian targets in Israel may be illegal, that does not give Israel the right to violate the Geneva Conventions. The airstrikes represent:

If you're a Member of Congress, and your name doesn't happen to be Dennis J. Kucinich, can you still speak out in opposition to the carnage that President Bush and Secretary of State Rice are actively promoting in Gaza?

Yes, you can!

There are two key issues. Should the U.S. support an immediate ceasefire (international opinion) or should the U.S. insist that the violence continue (Bush Administration position.) Should the blockade on Gaza end (international opinion) or should it continue (Bush Administration position.) Of course, the blockade is also an act of war.

J Street reports (emphasis mine):

Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards (Jan. 2): "the United States must work actively for an immediate ceasefire that ends the violence, stops the rockets, and removes the blockade of Gaza."

Congressman Joe Sestak (Jan. 2):

Global Human Rights Groups Protest Slaughter in Gaza
by Stephen Lendman

On June 16, 2008, noted Israeli historian Ilan Pappe explained "The Israeli Recipe for 2008: Genocide in Gaza, Ethnic Cleaning in the West Bank." He wrote:

"Not long ago, I claimed that Israel is employing genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip." After re-thinking this highly-charged term, he "concluded with even stronger conviction: it is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in Gaza" because of its repeated atrocities now greater than ever.

"It's Hell in Here" "They are Bombing 1.5 million People in a Cage" by Juan Cole | Informed Consent.com | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com

CBS News broadcasts an interview with a Norwegian physician on the scene in Gaza. More

Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe
by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories | HuffingtonPost.com | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com

Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe
For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.

By Gareth Porter, IPS

WASHINGTON, Jan 5 (IPS) - Until mid-2007, there was a serious political obstacle to a massive conventional war by Israel against Hamas in Gaza: the fact that Hamas had won free and fair elections for the Palestinian parliament and was still the leading faction in a fully legitimate government.

But the George W. Bush administration helped Israel eliminate that obstacle by deliberately provoking Hamas to seize power in Gaza. That plan was aimed at getting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the democratically elected Hamas government -- something Bush had tried unsuccessfully to do for many months.

Blaming the Victims - The Dominant Media Vilify Hamas
by Stephen Lendman

The blame game - no one plays it better than the dominant media, and they're at it again over Gaza. Expect no comments below in their spaces, yet honest journalism would headline them.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt addressed Congress - with an appropriating updating for Gaza:

December 27 "will live in infamy." The people of Gaza were "suddenly and deliberately attacked by....air forces of the" State of Israel. The "attack was deliberately planned many (months) ago. During the intervening time (Israel) deliberately sought to deceive (Palestinians) by false statements and expressions of hope for" the peace process.

"The (weekend and continued) attack(s) caused severe damage to" property throughout Gaza. In addition, "many (Palestinian) lives have been lost. The facts (on the ground) speak for themselves....this "unprovoked and dastardly attack" must not go unanswered.

GENEVA (AFP) — Israel deliberately targeted Hamas-run media installations in its bombing campaign on Gaza and is practising media censorship, a journalist rights group said Monday.

The installations in question include Al-Aqsa television, Al-Resalah newspaper and Sawt Al-Aqsa radio, which the Israeli army bombed on December 28 and over the weekend respectively, the Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign said in a statement, citing a Palestinian media non-governmental group.

The press group, which fights for better protection of journalists in conflict zones, also condemned the recent deaths of two journalists as a result of Israeli attacks.

"Two Palestinian journalists were killed one in previous attacks by Israel, photographer Hamza Shahin,who died on 26 December 2008, and another during the current military round on 3 January, Omar Silawi.

Iranian TV newsman arrested for reporting on IDF's entry into Gaza
By Jonathan Lis and Gili Izikovich | Haaretz

An Iranian television reporter was arrested by Israeli authorities on Monday for a dispatch which broadcast news of the Israel Defense Forces' entry into the Gaza Strip.

The journalist is alleged to have violated military censorship laws which forbade the news media from releasing information during the initial stages of the ground incursion.

By Times of London

Photos here.

Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.

Molten Lead in Gaza
By URI AVNERY, CounterPunch

JUST 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.

By Press TV

Medics tell Press TV they have found traces of depleted uranium in some Gaza residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive on the strip.

Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.

The report comes after Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground operation after eight days of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on the impoverished region.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Sunday that the wide-ranging ground offensive in the Gaza Strip would be "full of surprises."

A ground offensive in the densely-populated Gaza is expected to drastically increase the death toll of the civilian population.

By Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Huffington Post

Envoy Insists 'No Point' in Security Council Calling for End to Gaza Violence
By AntiWar.com

For the second time in four days, the United States has quashed an attempted United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate end to the war in the Gaza Strip. After the latest rejection, US envoy Alejandro Wolff declared that there was “no point” in the statement, because Hamas (who has previously suggested openness to a ceasefire) would never abide by it. Wolff added that it was unacceptable for the council to equate the killing of civilians by the Israeli government with the killing of civilians by Hamas, and that “Israel’s self-defense is not negotiable.”

1. Summary

With the Gaza death toll exceeding 400, the Islamic Human Rights
Commission calls on campaigners to send letters to the President of the United Nations General Assembly, to urge the U.N. General Assembly to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI).

2. Background

After five days of consecutive bombardment of Gaza, and an
ever-increasing death toll, demonstrators all over the world are calling for an end to the massacre. Campaigners are urged to continue attending demonstrations and boycotting Israel, and are now asked to send letters to the President of the U.N. General Assembly, urging for the long-overdue establishment of an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI), under U.N. Charter Article 22.

On the topic of Israel's current attack on Gaza, Archibishop Desmond
Tutu said on Sunday:

"In the context of total aerial supremacy, in which one side in a
conflict deploys lethal aircraft against opponents with no means of

by Linda Milazzo

I don't believe in god. I never have. I don't believe in religions. I study them, but I don't practice them. I try to understand them to be sensitive to the beliefs and traditions of others, and to attempt to appreciate the motivations behind religious thought and deed. But they are irrelevant to living my life.

Long ago as a freshman at CUNY's Queens College I was introduced to Taoism. Taoism began in ancient China as a religion, then morphed into a dogma free/deity free philosophy. Since my late teens I've tried hard to apply MY understanding of my Tao to my life. I have the freedom to choose my own path and not judge the paths of others. But since I have freedom of opinion, I fall prey to judge. I try not to. But I do.

Through the Tao, I'm both a peacemaker and a warrior since Taoism couples with the art of self-defense. I understand my right to protect myself when needed, and to protect the defenseless when they need me. Since I'm by nature protective, it suits my sensibilities to aid the weak, where I fancy myself absurdly as inordinately strong.