Another Attack on Gaza, 17 Palestinians Killed
Zionists Don't Negotiate | 16.01.2008 13:37 | Anti-racism | World
This was predicted long before Annapolis, as Israel announced it would not negotiate, and had already made plans for increased aggression and a possible reoccupation of Gaza.
Where are the angry demonstrations in the streets? This won't end until Israel is forced to stop what it's doing. Appeasement does nothing.
Where are the angry demonstrations in the streets? This won't end until Israel is forced to stop what it's doing. Appeasement does nothing.
Israeli raid on Gaza kills 17; Hamas sniper kills farm volunteer
Last Updated: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 9:23 AM ET
CBC News
Israeli tanks and helicopters raided the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing at least 17 Palestinians in one of the highest death tolls from clashes since Hamas took over the territory in June.
A Palestinian militant takes a position in the Zeiton neighbourhood in Gaza City on Tuesday. A raid by Israeli tanks, bulldozers and helicopters killed the militant son of the territory's most powerful Hamas leader and 10 other Palestinians.
(Khalil Hamra/Associated Press)
Hours later, Palestinian sniper fire across the border killed a 19-year-old volunteer from Ecuador at an Israeli communal farm, Israeli rescue officials said. Hamas's military wing claimed responsibility.
That death, and the killing of Hussam Zahar, 24, the son of hardline Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, threatened a renewed peace initiative in the region just a day after Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams started talks on final status issues in Jerusalem.
At the morgue at Shifa Hospital, Mahmoud Zahar held his lifeless son's head in his hands and closed his eyes, then kissed him three times on the forehead and recited a verse from the Qu'ran.
Zahar vowed the militant movement "will respond in the appropriate way. We will defend ourselves by all means."
Another of Zahar's sons was killed in a botched Israeli assassination attempt against the Hamas leader in his home three years ago.
Abbas condemns incursion as 'massacre'
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Tuesday's incursion as "a slap in the face" against the peace initiative spurred by U.S. President George W. Bush that cannot be ignored by Palestinians.
"There was a massacre today against our people, and we say to the world that our people will not remain silent against such crimes," Abbas said.
The operation Tuesday began when undercover Israeli troops moved several hundred metres into the territory to strike an abandoned house east of Gaza City that rocket launchers had used, Hamas said.
When Palestinian militants discovered the force, an exchange of fire erupted, the militants said. In the ensuing clashes, Israeli tanks fired at least three shells and aircraft struck twice in the area, Hamas said.
Israel said at least 14 mortars had been fired since midnight and a rocket hit the town of Ashkelon, causing no injuries or damage.
The dead included 14 Palestinian fighters and three civilians, including a 65-year-old man, by the time the operation wound up in early afternoon, militants and doctors said. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry said many of the dead and wounded lost limbs.
The Israeli army confirmed an operation in the area, saying troops fired at militants who had approached the border fence. After an exchange of fire broke out, aircraft also fired at the gunmen, the military said.
Israel has been cracking down on Gaza militants who bombard southern Israel with rockets and mortars and attack troops along the border almost daily, even as it seeks peace with Abbas's moderate Palestinian government in the West Bank.
In June, Abbas kicked Hamas out of the Palestinian coalition government after its fighters took control of the Gaza Strip by routing Fatah forces loyal to Abbas in the territory.
Hamas won a majority in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, but has been shunned by the international community for its refusal to cease attacks on Israel or halt its calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/01/15/israel-palestinians.html
Nine Palestinians, one worker in Israel killed in fighting along Gaza border
Published: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 4:07 AM ET
Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops raided the northern Gaza Strip Tuesday, killing at least nine Palestinians.
Militants and doctors say the victims include the son of a senior Hamas leader and three civilians killed in an operation against rocket squads. Israeli Rescue says Palestinian fire from the fighting also killed an Ecuadoran volunteer at an Israeli communal farm.
Hamas security says an undercover army unit moved first into the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City, striking a house used by Palestinian militants to launch projectiles.
Hamas says Palestinian gunmen discovered the soldiers, fired at them and an exchange of fire broke out.
Israeli tanks, bulldozers and helicopters then entered the area, firing at the militants.
Nine Palestinians, including the son of a senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, and three civilians, were killed, doctors said.
Later in the fighting, a Palestinian sniper fired from the border area into Israel, killing a volunteer from Ecuador who was working in a field at the communal farm of Ein Hashlosha, Israeli rescue said.
The Israeli army confirmed an operation in the area, saying troops fired at militants who had approached the border fence. After an exchange of fire broke out, aircraft also fired at the gunmen, the military said.
As Predicted: Gaza Reoccupation Planned
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/388658.html
Gaza Food Supplies 'Getting Worse by the Day'
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10015S
Israeli Attacks on Palestinians, Killings, Doubled Since Annapolis
Nobody covering Bush's visit, which was about Iran, and seeking regional support for the planned Israeli/US war against the state, mentioned any of these facts.
Barghouthi: Rate of killing doubled since Annapolis
Maan News
Jan 10, 2008
The rate of Israeli attacks on, and killings of, Palestinians has doubled since the US-sponsored Annapolis peace summit, former Palestinian information minister and head of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Barghouthi, announced on Wednesday.
As US President George W. Bush's visited the Palestinian Territories, Dr Barghouthi exposed the extent of Israel's aggression against the Palestinian people in 2007, a year characterised by the highest ever ratio of Palestinian to Israeli killings, and unabated settlement expansion.
Dr Barghouthi presented data showing that Israeli military killings of, and attacks against, Palestinians have soared by 100% since Annapolis, confirming an intensification of Israeli military violence against the Palestinian people even after the meeting on 27 November 2007.
He highlighted that the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed in 2007 had risen to 40:1, up from 30:1 in 2006 and 4:1 from 2000-2005.
"We do not want anyone to die, Israeli or Palestinian, but this ratio is alarming. It is unacceptable to justify such large-scale killings under the pretext of security," Barghouthi said, adding that five of the Israelis killed in 2007 were soldiers who died whilst carrying out attacks inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"Israel uses security as a pretext to step up its aggression against Palestinians and to evade any commitments to peace," he went on.
"The question here is about security for everyone, not only Israelis, and about equality and the equal rights of all peoples to life. The facts on the ground show very clearly that the Israeli government and its military do not believe in this most basic and universal right when it comes to Palestinians," he added.
Barghouthi also focused on Israeli settlement expansion and their refusal to dismantle any existing settlements, saying that this was a further indication of Israel's sense of absolute impunity with regard to international law and United Nations resolutions. He described the lack of international censure at such Israeli practices as "alarming."
He warned that while there is much talk about Israel's 105 illegal outposts, with a combined population of 3,000 settlers, it also maintains 133 settlements in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) which have population of 447,500, and which are equally illegal under international law. Moreover, Israel continues to build in 88 of these
settlements.
Barghouthi stressed that settlement expansion is being facilitated by Israel's 'Roads and Tunnels' Plan. Israel is also constructing a separate highway network to link settlements on both sides of the Apartheid Wall with
Israel and to each other.
"Tell me of any other case in the world where roads are segregated on the basis of ethnicity? This is a practical manifestation of Apartheid to an extent never before witnessed, not even at the height of the Apartheid regime in South Africa" he said.
He concluded that only a peace process based on adherence to
international law, and which respected Palestinian national rights, the rights of refugees and the right to freedom from Apartheid could yield a just and lasting peace.
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m40008&hd=&size=1&l=e
******************************************************************************************
As Predicted: Israeli Tanks, Bulldozers Roll Into SE Gaza
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?9719S
ALERT: Annapolis a Charade: Israel Plots Massive Aggression
It's interesting to note that, while the Plant Spammed the site again, pretending to be someone else reposting old articles, he glaringly eliminates certain stories.
The timing is interesting, given the upcoming "Annapolis Conference", which serves to be about PR alone, as Olmert has already ruled out any Negotiations or Compromise in the name of peace.
If you follow the events surrounding Israel's "Disengagement" from Gaza, you will quickly understand that this was the plan all along. While Israel was making a public spectacle of "forcing Jews to leave their homes", it was quietly surrounding the Strip with artillery emplacements, in an operation ominously named "First Rain".
Under this operation, Gaza basically became a "Free-Fire Zone", and several artillery and gunship strikes killed a high number of civilians. Finally, when one of these batteries fired upon and murdered a Palestinian family - picnicking on a beach that had been Segregated "Jews Only" only weeks before, Hamas finally decided to call an end to its unilateral, two-year cease-fire.
(In essence, they took Israel's bait. After all, you can't excuse your Aggression and label it "defense" if you're not being intermittently attacked. Never mind the hypocrisy underlying the entire media's framing of that whole debate ...)
When the Palestinians responded by electing Hamas to power (yes, elected), Israeli Extremists and their Ideological, bought foreign co-conspirators imposed unilateral sanctions on Gaza, a bit of Collective Punishment which increased the hardship of those stuck in the world's largest Concentration Camp.
When they felt Gaza had been substantially weakened, the US and Israel undertook a Coup attempt, using corrupt elements within the Fatah Party, provoking a violent response by Hamas, which expelled the group. Most of the world's media ignored the events leading to this "crisis", and instead only repeated the Propaganda emanating from the US and Israel, which used this to further increase sanctions against Gaza.
Most recently, Israel stepped up its Collective Punishment, except that human rights groups and legal advisors to the Government halted some of its approved measures, because they run contrary to International Humanitarian Law.
This was sold as another "response to rocket attacks" (again highlighting the hypocrisy of the debate's Framing - are the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves from strikes which actually KILL people ... ?), even though high-ranking officials said that this was NOT, in fact, a response to these attacks, but a way to "distance Israel from Gaza's infrastructure".
The real reason for this whole episode, of course, has been to "soften up" the Gaza Strip for a long-planned military attack, a way to undermine the resolve, and hopefully rid this territory of Palestinians altogether.
http://www.winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?8076S
________________________________________________________________
Israeli Aggression to Follow Annapolis Photo-Op
http://www.winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?7841S
As Predicted: Gaza Attacked
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8124/index.php
Censoring 'Neo-Con' Role in Gaza 'Civil War'
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/index.php
Olmert: Seige on Gaza Will Continue
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8196/index.php
Physicians for Human Rights Gaza Update - Another Seasonal Shame
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8172/index.php
Israel's Ongoing Human Rights Violations
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8177/index.php
Red Cross Condemns Gaza Collective Punishment, World Inaction
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/rate/8181/index.php#Article-8181
Meanwhile, In The West Bank
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8211/index.php
Olmert Rejects Truce With Hamas
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8212/index.php
Last Updated: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 9:23 AM ET
CBC News
Israeli tanks and helicopters raided the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing at least 17 Palestinians in one of the highest death tolls from clashes since Hamas took over the territory in June.
A Palestinian militant takes a position in the Zeiton neighbourhood in Gaza City on Tuesday. A raid by Israeli tanks, bulldozers and helicopters killed the militant son of the territory's most powerful Hamas leader and 10 other Palestinians.
(Khalil Hamra/Associated Press)
Hours later, Palestinian sniper fire across the border killed a 19-year-old volunteer from Ecuador at an Israeli communal farm, Israeli rescue officials said. Hamas's military wing claimed responsibility.
That death, and the killing of Hussam Zahar, 24, the son of hardline Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, threatened a renewed peace initiative in the region just a day after Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams started talks on final status issues in Jerusalem.
At the morgue at Shifa Hospital, Mahmoud Zahar held his lifeless son's head in his hands and closed his eyes, then kissed him three times on the forehead and recited a verse from the Qu'ran.
Zahar vowed the militant movement "will respond in the appropriate way. We will defend ourselves by all means."
Another of Zahar's sons was killed in a botched Israeli assassination attempt against the Hamas leader in his home three years ago.
Abbas condemns incursion as 'massacre'
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Tuesday's incursion as "a slap in the face" against the peace initiative spurred by U.S. President George W. Bush that cannot be ignored by Palestinians.
"There was a massacre today against our people, and we say to the world that our people will not remain silent against such crimes," Abbas said.
The operation Tuesday began when undercover Israeli troops moved several hundred metres into the territory to strike an abandoned house east of Gaza City that rocket launchers had used, Hamas said.
When Palestinian militants discovered the force, an exchange of fire erupted, the militants said. In the ensuing clashes, Israeli tanks fired at least three shells and aircraft struck twice in the area, Hamas said.
Israel said at least 14 mortars had been fired since midnight and a rocket hit the town of Ashkelon, causing no injuries or damage.
The dead included 14 Palestinian fighters and three civilians, including a 65-year-old man, by the time the operation wound up in early afternoon, militants and doctors said. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry said many of the dead and wounded lost limbs.
The Israeli army confirmed an operation in the area, saying troops fired at militants who had approached the border fence. After an exchange of fire broke out, aircraft also fired at the gunmen, the military said.
Israel has been cracking down on Gaza militants who bombard southern Israel with rockets and mortars and attack troops along the border almost daily, even as it seeks peace with Abbas's moderate Palestinian government in the West Bank.
In June, Abbas kicked Hamas out of the Palestinian coalition government after its fighters took control of the Gaza Strip by routing Fatah forces loyal to Abbas in the territory.
Hamas won a majority in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, but has been shunned by the international community for its refusal to cease attacks on Israel or halt its calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/01/15/israel-palestinians.html Nine Palestinians, one worker in Israel killed in fighting along Gaza border
Published: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 4:07 AM ET
Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops raided the northern Gaza Strip Tuesday, killing at least nine Palestinians.
Militants and doctors say the victims include the son of a senior Hamas leader and three civilians killed in an operation against rocket squads. Israeli Rescue says Palestinian fire from the fighting also killed an Ecuadoran volunteer at an Israeli communal farm.
Hamas security says an undercover army unit moved first into the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City, striking a house used by Palestinian militants to launch projectiles.
Hamas says Palestinian gunmen discovered the soldiers, fired at them and an exchange of fire broke out.
Israeli tanks, bulldozers and helicopters then entered the area, firing at the militants.
Nine Palestinians, including the son of a senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, and three civilians, were killed, doctors said.
Later in the fighting, a Palestinian sniper fired from the border area into Israel, killing a volunteer from Ecuador who was working in a field at the communal farm of Ein Hashlosha, Israeli rescue said.
The Israeli army confirmed an operation in the area, saying troops fired at militants who had approached the border fence. After an exchange of fire broke out, aircraft also fired at the gunmen, the military said.
As Predicted: Gaza Reoccupation Planned
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/388658.html Gaza Food Supplies 'Getting Worse by the Day'
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10015S Israeli Attacks on Palestinians, Killings, Doubled Since Annapolis
Nobody covering Bush's visit, which was about Iran, and seeking regional support for the planned Israeli/US war against the state, mentioned any of these facts.
Barghouthi: Rate of killing doubled since Annapolis
Maan News
Jan 10, 2008
The rate of Israeli attacks on, and killings of, Palestinians has doubled since the US-sponsored Annapolis peace summit, former Palestinian information minister and head of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Barghouthi, announced on Wednesday.
As US President George W. Bush's visited the Palestinian Territories, Dr Barghouthi exposed the extent of Israel's aggression against the Palestinian people in 2007, a year characterised by the highest ever ratio of Palestinian to Israeli killings, and unabated settlement expansion.
Dr Barghouthi presented data showing that Israeli military killings of, and attacks against, Palestinians have soared by 100% since Annapolis, confirming an intensification of Israeli military violence against the Palestinian people even after the meeting on 27 November 2007.
He highlighted that the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed in 2007 had risen to 40:1, up from 30:1 in 2006 and 4:1 from 2000-2005.
"We do not want anyone to die, Israeli or Palestinian, but this ratio is alarming. It is unacceptable to justify such large-scale killings under the pretext of security," Barghouthi said, adding that five of the Israelis killed in 2007 were soldiers who died whilst carrying out attacks inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"Israel uses security as a pretext to step up its aggression against Palestinians and to evade any commitments to peace," he went on.
"The question here is about security for everyone, not only Israelis, and about equality and the equal rights of all peoples to life. The facts on the ground show very clearly that the Israeli government and its military do not believe in this most basic and universal right when it comes to Palestinians," he added.
Barghouthi also focused on Israeli settlement expansion and their refusal to dismantle any existing settlements, saying that this was a further indication of Israel's sense of absolute impunity with regard to international law and United Nations resolutions. He described the lack of international censure at such Israeli practices as "alarming."
He warned that while there is much talk about Israel's 105 illegal outposts, with a combined population of 3,000 settlers, it also maintains 133 settlements in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) which have population of 447,500, and which are equally illegal under international law. Moreover, Israel continues to build in 88 of these
settlements.
Barghouthi stressed that settlement expansion is being facilitated by Israel's 'Roads and Tunnels' Plan. Israel is also constructing a separate highway network to link settlements on both sides of the Apartheid Wall with
Israel and to each other.
"Tell me of any other case in the world where roads are segregated on the basis of ethnicity? This is a practical manifestation of Apartheid to an extent never before witnessed, not even at the height of the Apartheid regime in South Africa" he said.
He concluded that only a peace process based on adherence to
international law, and which respected Palestinian national rights, the rights of refugees and the right to freedom from Apartheid could yield a just and lasting peace.
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m40008&hd=&size=1&l=e ******************************************************************************************
As Predicted: Israeli Tanks, Bulldozers Roll Into SE Gaza
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?9719S ALERT: Annapolis a Charade: Israel Plots Massive Aggression
It's interesting to note that, while the Plant Spammed the site again, pretending to be someone else reposting old articles, he glaringly eliminates certain stories.
The timing is interesting, given the upcoming "Annapolis Conference", which serves to be about PR alone, as Olmert has already ruled out any Negotiations or Compromise in the name of peace.
If you follow the events surrounding Israel's "Disengagement" from Gaza, you will quickly understand that this was the plan all along. While Israel was making a public spectacle of "forcing Jews to leave their homes", it was quietly surrounding the Strip with artillery emplacements, in an operation ominously named "First Rain".
Under this operation, Gaza basically became a "Free-Fire Zone", and several artillery and gunship strikes killed a high number of civilians. Finally, when one of these batteries fired upon and murdered a Palestinian family - picnicking on a beach that had been Segregated "Jews Only" only weeks before, Hamas finally decided to call an end to its unilateral, two-year cease-fire.
(In essence, they took Israel's bait. After all, you can't excuse your Aggression and label it "defense" if you're not being intermittently attacked. Never mind the hypocrisy underlying the entire media's framing of that whole debate ...)
When the Palestinians responded by electing Hamas to power (yes, elected), Israeli Extremists and their Ideological, bought foreign co-conspirators imposed unilateral sanctions on Gaza, a bit of Collective Punishment which increased the hardship of those stuck in the world's largest Concentration Camp.
When they felt Gaza had been substantially weakened, the US and Israel undertook a Coup attempt, using corrupt elements within the Fatah Party, provoking a violent response by Hamas, which expelled the group. Most of the world's media ignored the events leading to this "crisis", and instead only repeated the Propaganda emanating from the US and Israel, which used this to further increase sanctions against Gaza.
Most recently, Israel stepped up its Collective Punishment, except that human rights groups and legal advisors to the Government halted some of its approved measures, because they run contrary to International Humanitarian Law.
This was sold as another "response to rocket attacks" (again highlighting the hypocrisy of the debate's Framing - are the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves from strikes which actually KILL people ... ?), even though high-ranking officials said that this was NOT, in fact, a response to these attacks, but a way to "distance Israel from Gaza's infrastructure".
The real reason for this whole episode, of course, has been to "soften up" the Gaza Strip for a long-planned military attack, a way to undermine the resolve, and hopefully rid this territory of Palestinians altogether.
http://www.winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?8076S ________________________________________________________________
Israeli Aggression to Follow Annapolis Photo-Op
http://www.winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?7841S As Predicted: Gaza Attacked
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8124/index.php Censoring 'Neo-Con' Role in Gaza 'Civil War'
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/index.php Olmert: Seige on Gaza Will Continue
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8196/index.php Physicians for Human Rights Gaza Update - Another Seasonal Shame
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8172/index.php Israel's Ongoing Human Rights Violations
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8177/index.php Red Cross Condemns Gaza Collective Punishment, World Inaction
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/rate/8181/index.php#Article-8181 Meanwhile, In The West Bank
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8211/index.php Olmert Rejects Truce With Hamas
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8212/index.php
Zionists Don't Negotiate