Israeli troops murder 9 protesters at Naqba border demonstrations
Mayday-ista | 15.05.2011 15:50 | Palestine | Repression | Social Struggles | Birmingham | Sheffield
Today, within 2 weeks of the Gaza Flotilla massacre where 9 activists were murdered, Israeli troops have shot dead 9 protesters and wounded more than 100 across 3 different protests at the border.
Witnesses and Lebanese sources say Israeli troops killed at least five people and wounded more than 50 when they fired on protesters to prevent them from crossing into Israel from Lebanon.
Palestinian demonstrators in Syria also tried to break through a border fence at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. A Syrian official and witnesses say Israeli troops opened fire, killing four and wounding at least 45.
Clashes have erupted at protests along the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, with Palestinian officials saying there are at least 60 wounded there.
Outside Jerusalem, medical sources say clashes wounded more than 100 when soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up a group of demonstrators throwing stones.
The Palestinian protests are marking the Naqba, or the "catastrophe." It describes the uprooting of Palestinian families at the time of Israel's creation in 1948.
More than 700,000 Palestinians are estimated to have fled or been forced to leave their homes during the war that followed Israel's declaration of statehood in 1948.
Palestinian demonstrators in Syria also tried to break through a border fence at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. A Syrian official and witnesses say Israeli troops opened fire, killing four and wounding at least 45.
Clashes have erupted at protests along the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, with Palestinian officials saying there are at least 60 wounded there.
Outside Jerusalem, medical sources say clashes wounded more than 100 when soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up a group of demonstrators throwing stones.
The Palestinian protests are marking the Naqba, or the "catastrophe." It describes the uprooting of Palestinian families at the time of Israel's creation in 1948.
More than 700,000 Palestinians are estimated to have fled or been forced to leave their homes during the war that followed Israel's declaration of statehood in 1948.
Mayday-ista
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language used
15.05.2011 19:10
"Hamas run Gaza strip", why is there a need to mention that Hamas is the government in Gaza? Come on is this indymedia or the BBC?
BDSer
Only nine?
15.05.2011 19:25
Well I'm writing from the US. So I can't see this as a particularly violent response by the Israelis.
Can you imagine what the casualty count would look like if several thousand Mexicans had attempted to force the border places California to Texas to re-enter the lands that had been taken* from them? Guaranteed, wouldn't be nine "non-violent invaders" shot down but every one of them that didn't lie down, heads on head when ordered to by the border patrol (and then the military as the border patrol was overwhelmed; probably helicopter gun ships using their heavy machine guns).
* If you don't know the history, look it up, but the US took parts of Mexico from the 2nd quarter of the 19th Century through the first quarter of the Twentieth (that last a forced "sale", the previous ones by force). All of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and parts of Colorado, Nevada, Utah, etc.)
Mike Novack
write it yourself
15.05.2011 21:15
"uprooted", you mean ethnically cleansed.
No... that would be inaccurate.
"Hamas run Gaza strip", why is there a need to mention that Hamas is the government in Gaza?
Yes. Because it is a fact that the reader might be interested in.
Mayday-ista
good sunshine
15.05.2011 21:44
To the victor go the spoils of war.
huhuhuhuhuhu
racist language
15.05.2011 22:28
If you don't like how it is written, may i suggest you get your lazy backside out of the armchair and write it yourself? I'm sick of people telling us how to write things if they can't be bothered doing it themselves
"uprooted", you mean ethnically cleansed.
No... that would be inaccurate.
"Hamas run Gaza strip", why is there a need to mention that Hamas is the government in Gaza?
Yes. Because it is a fact that the reader might be interested in.
i don't know who you are 'mayday-ista', but i do know for sure that you have got some deep seated racism to deal within yourself. seems growing up listening to the empire's bbc thoroughly poisoned your outlook on things. something the rest of the british left need to deal with too.
fuck white supremacy
The terrible and evil Zionism fanaticism.
15.05.2011 23:02
Their attitude seems to be to nit-pik at the work of others especially others who have more energy and passion than they do.
Just ignore them.
Yes, the events today once again clearly show the ease with which the Zionist's in Israel are able to default to violence to butcher and savage the Palestinian people. It is truly shocking that these mad fanatics are not subject to international force to bring them under control.
Where is Nato in this? Where is the humanitarian outrage and action to support the Palestinians against this brutal ethnic dictatorship. Why are we not seeing calls to denounce the so-called Israel government and to depose it be force if necessary?
It falls on all activists the world over to rid Palestine of this imposter and to seek out the circumstances under which the state of Palestine can flourish free of the thuggery and thieving, malevolent and invidious savagery of the so-called "Israeli" Zionist Apartheid state.
Solidarity
anon
Gaza - run by Hamas or a prison?
16.05.2011 06:28
"Hamas run Gaza strip", why is there a need to mention that Hamas is the government in Gaza?
Yes. Because it is a fact that the reader might be interested in.
Does Hamas run Gaza? Gaza is also known as the world's largest open air prison, with its borders, air space and territorial waters controlled by Israel, its definitely debatable.
One would hope that readers here are a bit more clued up than Voice of America who used exactly the same text.
hurriyah
return to focus please
16.05.2011 10:11
I saw (via many live and video pictures - search around it ain't on the bbc) the israeli forces using small arms and snatch squads to counter.
The Palestinians were armed with their bodies and the rocks of their native soil.
The zionists had better realise and realise soon that one day the people will come with more.
This is the start of the end of zionist occupation.
Irritant
my comment that was removed
16.05.2011 11:16
You had a problem with my pointing out that the Israeli response was NOT particularly harsh in comparison to how other countries would respond to thousands of people crashing their border.
That was NOT saying the Israeli response was good. It was expressing how COUNTRIES respond.
OK, you're an island, not easily subject to this. But how do you think any of the mainland European countries would have responded to a mass border crashing? Even those we ordinarily think of as peaceful and easygoing as the Swiss or Sweedes.
Sorry, but would have broken as many heads and when that didn't work shot as many down as it took to halt the "invasion. COUNTRIES are like that. Not a specific Israel evil. By all means join the folks working for "open borders" if you don't like this and work at home till YOUR COUNTRY has an open border before blaming some other country.
MDN
same as before
16.05.2011 19:12
... Illegally
I saw (via many live and video pictures - search around it ain't on the bbc) the israeli forces using small arms and snatch squads to counter.
... Self defence. The "protestors" were advancing on the Israelis
"The Palestinians were armed with their bodies and the rocks of their native soil."
... Don't bring a rock to a gun fight - you will lose.
"The zionists had better realise and realise soon that one day the people will come with more."
... Or what? I don't think they are having too much trouble repelling the hordes.
"This is the start of the end of zionist occupation."
... In your opinion.
fexx
Get lost Israel haters!
17.05.2011 12:20
Get Real
reply
17.05.2011 13:03
actually ive done a lot, have spent 8 months working in Palestine with the ISM, quite active back here in the Palestinian struggle amongst others.
I think its fair to pull people up when they report on Palestine using the terminology that Israel prefers; always putting Hamas run before Gaza but never Likud run before Israel, in order to subtely put the idea that whatever happens to Gaza is Hamas's fault not Israels, and engaging in Nakba denial. Mayday-ista has read too much BBC for his/her own good.
BDSer
my tuppence worth
17.05.2011 15:11
Ethnic Cleansing is not an inaccurate description of the actions of the '47-48 Zionist militias which forcibly displaced Palestinians because of their ethnicity and refused (and continue to refuse) them the right to return because of their ethnicity, therefore changing the ethnic makeup of the area. This is ethnic cleansing.
@ Get Real
I do hate Israel as well as my own state Britain for many reasons but you are a classic brainwashed Zionist and do not have a clue about the history of Israel. The Nakba was not a 'war' it was ethnic cleansing which Arab nations intervened in very late in the day. Nevertheless whatever semantics you want to use, there are still 7 million displaced Palestinians, 4.5 million of which are UN registered Palestinian refugees, who have been living in limbo for 63 years, waiting to return to their homes and one day they will.
Israel Hater
cuts both ways
17.05.2011 15:41
1940s
The 1948 Palestinian exodus of approximately 700,000 Palestinian Arabs who either voluntarily fled or were expelled during the 1947-1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that accompanied the establishment of the State of Israel has been described as an "ethnic cleansing."
During the civil war in Palestine, Palestinian Arabs carried out massacres against the Jewish population of Safad, killings of Jewish workers at the Port of Haifa, and of Jewish doctors and nurses near Hadassah Hospital. During the 1948 war, two Jewish communities that were occupied by Jordan (Gush Etzion and the Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter) and one occupied by Egypt (Kfar Darom), were depopulated. While most residents were forced to flee, the inhabitants of Kfar Etzion, part of Gush Etzion, were massacred.
Between the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Six Day War in 1967, there was a Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim lands. Many Jews living in Arab and Muslim nations were forcibly expelled by authorities, while others fled due to antisemitic pogroms which broke out during the conflict.[79][80][81][82][83] Between 800,000-1,000,000 Jews fled or were expelled from the Arab World, and another 200,000 Jews from non-Arab Muslim nations fled due to increasing insecurity and growing hostility. A number were also killed in antisemitic violence. Most migrated to Israel, where today, they and their descendants constitute about 40% of Israel's population.
anon
rather than just talk about it - do it
17.05.2011 15:53
Whatever is written about Israel - someone will moan about it
Can i suggest - if you don't like it then:
a) don't read it
b) write your own
You are free to do both these options if you have the will to do so. The great thing about this country is that no one can stop you. I personally have no interest in being someones bitch, following their orders on what i can and cannot write. If you want something written in a particular way, then do it.
Mayday-ista
you gotta laugh
18.05.2011 09:51
But you would do well to understand why:
... israel is a racist colonial state, built on ethnic cleansing and practising a racist supremacist mode of social relations ... vats not to hate?
Meanwhile, I have just about stopped laughing enough to allow you to explain where you get the idea that we the beneficiaries of israeli state largess - 7 billion you say?
Palestine is occupied illegally, those Palestinian refugees seeking return do so as a natural and incontrovertible right.
"Don't bring a rock to a gun fight - you will lose"
OK, self defence cuts both ways and comes in many forms, I am sure that many in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Gaza and the west Bank will take heed of your words.
Irritant
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