Israel's ceasefire is war by other means!
Adam Johannes | 18.01.2009 16:58 | Palestine
The ceasefire is a sham, the continuation of war by other means. No talk of those who have committed war crimes being held to account. No talk of ending the blockade & siege of Gaza. Israeli troops that have just massacred hundreds to stay put in Gaza. Brown has actually offered to send the British Navy to 'stop the flow of weapons in Gaza' while the UK government floods weapons to Israel.
From Stop the War Coalition website: www.stopwar.org.uk
1200 dead, 6000 injured: Enough for now says Israel.
This is no ceasefire. Israel has momentarily stopped bombing schools, mosques, hospitals, universities and residential buildings.
"We have achieved our objectives, and more," says Israeli prime minister Olmert. So 1200 dead, 350 of them children, is slaughter enough for now.
Injuring 6000 people, bombing hospitals and ambulances, killing medical staff -- that will do for now, says Israel. But, says Israel, it may start again any time it wishes.
As for lifting the blockade, which has starved 1.5 million Gazans of essentials such as food, fuel and medical supplies for the past three years - not a word. As for opening Gaza's borders, which have locked the population into one giant concentration camp -- not a word.
The cost to Israel in the past three weeks: three civilians killed and ten soldiers killed, four of them by their own troops, tells its own story against the mass murder suffered by Palestinians in Gaza.
Only one Israeli was killed by Hamas in the year before Israel unleashed the last three weeks of carnage. Hamas's rockets were always a pretext for a long planned war to erase the memory of Israel's defeat in Lebanon in 2006 and to bolster the electoral prospects of Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak in Israel's general election next month.
Instead of offering Israel the use of the British navy against Hamas, the legitimate government in Gaza, Gordon Brown should be announcing a complete ban on all arms trade with Israel, as he would if any other country had carried out war crimes on such a scale and violated so many international laws and the articles of the United Nations Charter.
Israel has "achieved its objectives, and more"...
The morgues of Gaza's hospitals are over-flowing. The bodies in their blood-soaked white shrouds cover the entire floor space of the Shifa hospital morgue. Some are intact, most horribly deformed, limbs twisted into unnatural positions, chest cavities exposed, heads blown off, skulls crushed in.
Family members wait outside to identify and claim a brother, husband, father, mother, wife, child. Many of those who wait their turn have lost numerous family members and loved ones. Blood is everywhere.
Hospital orderlies hose down the floors of operating rooms, bloodied bandages lie discarded in corners, and the injured continue to pour in: bodies lacerated by shrapnel, burns, bullet wounds. Medical workers, exhausted and under siege, work day and night and each life saved is seen as a victory over the predominance of death.
Read more:
http://www.counterpunch.org/butterly01162009.html
1200 dead, 6000 injured: Enough for now says Israel.
This is no ceasefire. Israel has momentarily stopped bombing schools, mosques, hospitals, universities and residential buildings.
"We have achieved our objectives, and more," says Israeli prime minister Olmert. So 1200 dead, 350 of them children, is slaughter enough for now.
Injuring 6000 people, bombing hospitals and ambulances, killing medical staff -- that will do for now, says Israel. But, says Israel, it may start again any time it wishes.
As for lifting the blockade, which has starved 1.5 million Gazans of essentials such as food, fuel and medical supplies for the past three years - not a word. As for opening Gaza's borders, which have locked the population into one giant concentration camp -- not a word.
The cost to Israel in the past three weeks: three civilians killed and ten soldiers killed, four of them by their own troops, tells its own story against the mass murder suffered by Palestinians in Gaza.
Only one Israeli was killed by Hamas in the year before Israel unleashed the last three weeks of carnage. Hamas's rockets were always a pretext for a long planned war to erase the memory of Israel's defeat in Lebanon in 2006 and to bolster the electoral prospects of Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak in Israel's general election next month.
Instead of offering Israel the use of the British navy against Hamas, the legitimate government in Gaza, Gordon Brown should be announcing a complete ban on all arms trade with Israel, as he would if any other country had carried out war crimes on such a scale and violated so many international laws and the articles of the United Nations Charter.
Israel has "achieved its objectives, and more"...
The morgues of Gaza's hospitals are over-flowing. The bodies in their blood-soaked white shrouds cover the entire floor space of the Shifa hospital morgue. Some are intact, most horribly deformed, limbs twisted into unnatural positions, chest cavities exposed, heads blown off, skulls crushed in.
Family members wait outside to identify and claim a brother, husband, father, mother, wife, child. Many of those who wait their turn have lost numerous family members and loved ones. Blood is everywhere.
Hospital orderlies hose down the floors of operating rooms, bloodied bandages lie discarded in corners, and the injured continue to pour in: bodies lacerated by shrapnel, burns, bullet wounds. Medical workers, exhausted and under siege, work day and night and each life saved is seen as a victory over the predominance of death.
Read more:
http://www.counterpunch.org/butterly01162009.html
Adam Johannes
Homepage:
http://www.stopwar.org.uk
