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Beautiful but wounded Gaza

fathi tobail | 12.07.2014 00:15 | Flotilla to Gaza | Palestine | Terror War | World

Gaza, July 11, Israel launched a new aggression\operation\offensive against Gaza and decided to name “Protective Edge” also known as “Solid Rock”. Israeli warplanes, tanks, drones and warships participated in bombing places across Gaza all day long. This makes it the third Israeli open war against Gaza in 5 years or less. This isn’t a report, this is a personal account of what I lived today through the third day of Israel’s new aggression on Gaza.

The Third day is over; it was yet more intense than the second day. Israel didn’t stop bombing Gaza for a second, consecutive explosions spread across Gaza shaking the ground under us. Israel used Apaches, drones, F16s, warships and tanks against Gaza. Israel expanded its targets in Gaza and bombed houses, school, university, hospitals, cars, media, motorbikes, bus, mosques, A CEMETERY, humans and pretty much anything and everything.

Its getting a little boring to stay homebound and depressing to watch Israel commit repeated massacres like Kaware’ family (bombed a house while people where around it forming a human shield to protect it), Khan Younis beach Café, Ghannam houses and others. Five to eight people were killed, or even more, due to every massacre and many others injured.

What bewilders me is those illogic bombings on ex-Gaza international airport that Israel already flattened to the ground so many years ago, yet this airport, in Rafah, Southern Gaza, got hit so many times between shelling and bombing the past few days. Why? Its already destroyed.

Also, bombing a cemetery? Seriously? Cant the dead have some peace?

And then comes those double and triple bombing of houses that were already bombed. Why use six+ F16 rockets on a house when the first rocket already blew up the hell out of it? Well, my dear Americans, that’s your tax dollars at work.

Israel bombed everywhere across Gaza. The northern and southern parts took all the heat as usual but also the eastern and western parts weren’t left alone.

Israeli warships bombed Gaza’s coastline which set Gaza Ark and other boats on fire.

Diane Sawyer, of ABC news, made a stupid mistake by airing photos of Palestinian war victims claiming they were Israelis, but thanks to alerted Palestinians and pro Palestinians who immediately pressured an apology out of them on air.

Allot of news was spreading about a possible ground invasion. Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbass, said a ground invasion will happen in the matter of hours, while Israeli defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, went out and announced the start of a ground invasion against Gaza, but then Israeli news said it will happen on Friday (Today) without mentioning a certain time.

Israel also threatened to cut water, electricity and internet in Gaza to isolate it from the world, not like they haven’t done it before.

In times of this, you try to hold onto the last once of your humanity because its very easy to lose it and become inhuman. Its an inner conflict that goes on every day.

I am a civilian, yes, but where are my civil rights? Hell, where are my human rights?

Palestinian life matter, even if the world wants to turn its head to the other side and act like nothing is happening.

It hurts more when you see children dying, or elderly people, or mothers. This war is witnessing family love even in death. Many mothers were killed with their children, a pregnant woman and her infant were killed, a mom died shielding her children who died with her too. Siblings were bombed while they are holding each other or sleeping next to each other, twins too. Dr. Anas Abu AlKas, owns a pharmacy, was killed yesterday after his house was bombed. Anas was an only child, his mom and dad were killed by Israel during cast lead, and he was killed yesterday.

Again, when I choose not to sleep and track the news instead since its too noisy to sleep anyway, I start thinking about life and wondering about humanity.

Egypt opened Rafah border to let Egyptian-nationality holders pass before the wounded. And decided to extend Rafah border’s opening till today to let them pass, but not let the wounded pass. Also, some Egyptian media are actually supporting Israel’s aggression on Gaza.

Not that we ever had hope in Arabs, but the lack of reaction or media coverage is shameful. Some Arabic hotshots on twitter choose to tweet about random stuff instead of covering Gaza news.

We are nearly half way through Ramadan, the first few days were actually amazing until Israel began this new aggression in Gaza. We got so busy with tracking the news that Ramadan is down to fasting for us, it makes me sad because I was enjoying Ramadan this year.

Living through this war is like living through multiple dimensions at once. Life here is normal but not normal at the same time, if you get what I mean (you probably wont unless you live in Palestine or somewhere similar). There is a point where you go through a normal life but then it clashes with the point that you are actually living through a full blown war. Yeah war. Such an easy word to say if you lived through old wars before, but nonetheless a war is a war with all the ugliness and darkness it brings.

US consulate in Jerusalem sent emails and text messages to American citizens in Gaza asking them to immediately depart and offered them assistance but didnt comment yet on Twitter regarding Israel's aggression against Gaza.

Day four has started. If you look at how sunny and beautiful Gaza is this morning, with the birds chirping, you wouldn’t think it’s a wounded city that is being bombed viciously and actually bleeding.

Shout outs: To medics (several got injured), to doctors, journalists on the ground, Palestinians inside and out of Palestine and also occupied Lands of 1948, Pro Palestinians everywhere and to the special friends and people who send their daily support, love, compassion and prayers.

Will we witness an Israeli ground invasion in Gaza today or not? I don’t know. Time will tell so stay tuned.

fathi tobail
- e-mail: ftobail@gmail.com

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So stop firing rockets at Israel ...

12.07.2014 06:30

... immediately, unconditionally, totally and permanently. And stop all other terrorist activities, such as building tunnels into Israel in order to kidnap israelis. And I don't mean the smuggling tunnels into Egypt.

Muppetwatch


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As to the why (why target a cemetery, etc.)

12.07.2014 12:06

I am going to guess that perhaps one of the places a rocket launcher had been set up? And that this would represent a saner crew of Palestinian resistance fighters than the ones who set theirs up in a densely inhabited residential area.

MDN


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The result of more sensible Palestinian resistance fighters?

12.07.2014 19:10

"What bewilders me is those illogic bombings on ex-Gaza international airport that Israel already flattened to the ground so many years ago, yet this airport, in Rafah, Southern Gaza, got hit so many times between shelling and bombing the past few days. Why? Its already destroyed.

Also, bombing a cemetery? Seriously? Cant the dead have some peace? "

My guess is that unlike many of their comrades who set up their rocket launchers in densely inhabited parts of Gaza SOME are using the already bombed airport grounds and places like the cemetery so the return fire from the Israelis won't kill so many innocents.

Because the Israelis WILL fire back and they are able to aim.

MDN


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a) smuggling tunnels b) underground missile launch sites

13.07.2014 17:58

Simple really.

Why bomb an empty airfield?


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Useful Idiot Played Like An Instrument

14.07.2014 14:42

Oh dear. Where to start? Easy to Emote on Cue, Harder to Actually Use Your Brain.
So, here are a few relevant points:
1) Hamas fires rockets deliberately aiming at Israeli civilians - a war crime.
2) It fires from places where its own civilians are. It knows Israel will hit those places to prevent rocket firing - another war crime.
3) It fails to provide its own civilians with shelters. It uses the concrete it has obtained to build bunkers for its own terrorist leaders and fighters but not for them - another war crime.
4) Israel takes all reasonable precautions to avoid Gazan civilian casualties while nevertheless preventing the firing of rockets aimed at Israeli civilians - no war crime. Hamas calls on its citizens to ignore these warnings. It hopes to gain cheap PR from the photos of injured and dead Gazan civilians - another war crime. Trouble is, so many gullible people in the West fall for it.
5) Israeli casualties are low because we have shelters, warning systems and anti-missile systems. Hence the relative casualty figures are meaningless.
6) Hamas was firing rockets at us for over a month. Refused to stop. We didn't not take any major defensive action during that time. Now we are trying to destroy the rockets. Hamas still refuses to stop - another war crime.
7) Hamas stores and manufactures rockets in private homes, schools, kindergartens, mosques - another war crime.
8) Hamas has its communication rooms, map centres, command and control units in the same places - another war crime.

Need I go on?





avi15


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Hasbara clowns are out in force again

14.07.2014 22:01

The volunteer Israeli propagandists are always sure to surface in an attempt to cloak the latest shameless Israeli State massacre of Palestinian civilians.

The right of an occupied people to resist is legally and morally unequivocal. That the occupied people do not possess an army, navy or air-force and must exist in what has often been described as the worlds largest prison, limits the options for resistance available to them. To try and rest the blame of your slaughter on the shoulders of those you are slaughtering is convincing less and less people these days despite the pathetic BBC regurgitation of Israeli lies.

I lived and worked in Tel Aviv when Israel's brutality had a proportionately small (in comparison to the Palestinian toll) but nonetheless terrible cost, in the form of indiscriminate suicide bombings on buses and in public spaces. Back then it seemed many in Israel were sick of the Settlers, sick of the Occupation and the fact that -as a nation which insists on universal military service - they were all expected to actively participate in maintaining the occupation and thereby perpetuating the conflict.

Unfortunately Israelis ultimately chose to support instead the savagely cruel -but less costly in terms of ceding illegally occupied territory- policy of colonising with settlers yet more of the remnants of any potential Palestinian State, choosing to Warehouse the Palestinian people in military controlled Bantustans. To wall them in, cut them off, humiliate and impoverish them and to divert from this relentless grinding oppression only to occasionally -as now -pulverise a defenceless people in civilian areas with the most sophisticated of battlefield weaponry.

Israel has repeatedly proven itself to be a grotesquely cruel and vicious State and all the Hasbara losers in Israel currently so busy trying to defend the indefensible will not alter the growing realisation of this worldwide.

martin f


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Agreed (at first, THEN we differ)

15.07.2014 12:30

"The right of an occupied people to resist is legally and morally unequivocal..."

AGREED (are you surprised by that?)

But apparently you feel ........
1) That they have a right to shoot and not to be shot back at.
2) That "proportional response" means equivalent RESULTS as opposed to equivalent effort.
3) That artillery sited adjacent innocent structures become immune to counter fire (because of the proximity of the innocents) and responsibility for collateral damage belongs to those who fire back and not those who sited the artillery there.

We appear not to agree about ANY of those things. And please note that those were stated in GENERAL terms so if you want to explain WHY you believe any of those three things to be true please do so without reference to Palestinians or Israelis.

In particular about #2 ---- you don't even have to think about peoples in conflict, even consider individuals. For example, if you charge at me swinging an ax with the clear intent to kill me with it, defend the proposition that I would be required to reverse my shotgun and use it as a club to defend myself in order to give you a fair go. That it would be WRONG for me to cut you in half with a load of 00 buck. Again, NOT that it wouldn't be brave, noble, (stupid) to give you a fair go but that it would be REQUIRED.

MDN


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Self defense lessons...

15.07.2014 17:53

You agree that an occupied people have a right to fight back. Implicitly you therefore agree that the Occupation itself is unjust. Unfortunately this makes a nonsense of your subsequent analogy.

As an aside: The Palestinians have used unarmed resistance on a daily basis for decades, against land-grabs by settlers, against the destruction of their homes and property by the settlers and the Israeli army (Tom Hurndall’s and Rachel Corrie’s families have suffered the consequences of their children having chosen to stand between the Israeli army and Palestinian civil disobedience)), in short against regular attacks by Settlers and army on their land, property and persons. Read Amira Hass, Gideon Levy and Jeff Halper for the depressing details of these relentless racist attacks against Palestinians. The response to their civil, political and passive resistance has been brutal repression and resulted in no improvement whatsoever in their situation; instead their situation has steadily deteriorated.

The analogy of someone coming at you with an axe is preposterous (surely you can do better?). As Israelis continuously attempt to do in their whitewash attempts, you (having acknowledged the right of an occupied people to resist!) remove the context of the occupation and the settlers from your argument. So here’s the analogy with the context included:

You evict someone from their home, force them to live in a living hell, periodically terrorise them, maim, kill and arrest them and their children when they try to resist without arms, and when some of those who are forced to subsist in the living hell you have created for them, use whatever primitive weapon they can lay their hands on to offer utterly ineffective armed resistance , you then blow their homes and their families, their neighbours, their neighbours’ children and their neighbourhood away and by your twisted logic you claim this was clearly their fault!

Let me be clear : It is an oxymoron to claim to be defending an Occupation. You are by definition the aggressor. A country that is defending itself does not expand its borders, a country that is defending itself does not refuse to define its borders, a country that is defending itself does not continue to flood the shreds of territory left to its alleged assailants (the Palestinians) with settlers.

So you can only be acting in ‘self defence’ when you cease occupying and settling Palestinian land. The proposals for a comprehensive peace with all Arab nations in return for Israel’s return to the 1967 borders have been on the table for many years now. Meanwhile Israel continues to flood Palestine with settlers and slaughter them when they try to resist.

martin f


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