Rocket blast in the heart of Gaza city
JERUSALEM — As the Gaza war entered its 14th day unchecked on Friday, the Israeli military said its forces attacked more than 50 targets in Gaza overnight despite a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for “an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire.”Israeli warplanes attacked rocket-launching sites and missile-manufacturing facilities, the military said. One Israeli airstrike destroyed a five-story building, killing at least seven people, Hamas security officials told The Associated Press. Officials from Hamas also dismissed the cease-fire call, although one official said the U.N. resolution was being studied.
In Beirut, a Hamas spokesman, Raafat Morra, said the resolution “does not suit us because it is not in the best interest of the Palestinian people,” Agence France-Presse reported.The International Committee of the Red Cross, based in Geneva, reported finding what it called shocking scenes, including four emaciated children next to the corpses of their mothers, on Wednesday. In a rare and sharply critical statement, it said it believed that “the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.”
The Gaza authorities said that the death toll passed 750, with women and children making up about 40 percent of the dead.Israel held its fire for three hours Thursday afternoon, the second day in a row, to allow in aid. It was during that pause that local ambulance crews and the Red Crescent found dozens of bodies under a collapsed building. Three Israeli soldiers were killed in combat; seven other soldiers have died during the military campaign, which is aimed at stopping Hamas rocket fire, and three civilians have been killed by rockets.
“Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp,” Cardinal Renato Martino, the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said in an interview published Wednesday in Il Sussidiaro.
Israel condemned a high-ranking Vatican official for comparing Gaza to “a concentration camp.”
Source: New York Times
Friday, 09 January, 2009
Hillblogger 3: Shades of Auschwitz?
Outspoken former British Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan Craig Murray recommends How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of human catastrophe How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of human catastrophe, an article in The Guardian on Gaza by Avi Shlaim, Oxford Professor of International Relations. Murray reminds readers "Shaim is not only an academic of world standing, he is an Israeli who served loyally in the Israeli armed forces."
[...]Israel's spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.
A wide gap separates the reality of Israel's actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men. Israel's objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.
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This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. [...]
More here.
Saturday, 10 January, 2009
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Thanks for visiting and commenting in my Blog,
Mysterious as you are, your writing is full of messages and meaning in its’ own right. I wish I had more time to write a better responses . I understood though.
However, as you see from the scenario implied in my blog' I guess you more or less anticipated how I feel about this war on Gaza. It’s beyond normal comprehension.
Like you said it is rhetoric and full of lies, hypocrisy, human suffering, etc…
At last but not least, thanks again and you are always welcome to comments.
Good Luck
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