Israel launched a new offensive on the people of Gaza last week which claimed the lives of 162 Palestinians. Four Israeli civilians and one soldier have also died as a result of retaliatory rocket attacks.
As of 20th November 23% of Palestinian casualties were children. The youngest victim of the recent Israeli aggression is 11-month-old Omar Al Mashharrawi.
Hundreds of solidarity demonstrations have been held globally and a national demonstration is planned in London on Saturday 24th November. On Friday 16th November a demonstration was held in Birmingham and another is planned for Thursday 22nd outside the BBC offices to protest biased reporting. In Brighton on Saturday 17th November activists locked on to the Ecostream store, a shop owned by an Israeli company that has its main manufacturing facility in the West Bank settlement of Mishor Adumim. Later on a hundred strong crowd marched to the store and held a noisy demonstration outside the shop. On Monday 19th a phone and twitter blockade of the company was held.
The same day in Wrexham activists picketed Barclays Bank in protest at Barclays investments in companies supplying weapons to Israel.
On Tuesday 20th a group of solidarity activists occupied G4S headquarters over the company's contracts with the Israeli prison service as well as providing equipment and services to Israeli military checkpoints and maintaining contracts with businesses working in Israel's settlements.
The 'Don't Dance with Israeli Apartheid' campaign held demonstrations against London performances of the Israeli state sponsored Batsheva dance troupe at Sadlers Wells on the 19th-21st November as part of a coordinated international campaign. There were also protests both inside and outside of the Birmingham performances at the Hippodrome on the 14-15th November coinciding with the start of the latest Gaza massacre.
Palestinians in the West Bank have also been demonstrating in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Gaza, only to be met with typical Israeli oppression. On Saturday, 31-year-old Rushdi Tamimi was shot by an IDF soldier at a protest in the village of Nabi Saleh. He died of his wounds in hospital on Monday around the time news surfaced that Hamdi Mohammad Jawwad Al-Falah, 22, was killed after being shot four times during a demonstration in the Bir al-Mahjar neighborhood in western Hebron. A baby also died in hospital on Monday after an Israeli tear gas canister landed in his bedroom in Qalandia refugee camp.
A ceasefire was reached on Wednesday 21st of November. However, the conflict is likely to continue if Israel does not end its siege of Gaza and attempts to control the Gazan economy. The need for solidarity with the people of Palestine struggling against Israeli militarism, apartheid and occupation has never been greater.
Upcoming events: Thursday 22nd November - Gaza solidarity demo in Brighton at the Old Steine at 5pm and Die In on the BBC Steps at the Mailbox in Birmingham 6pm-7pm| 23rd/24th November - Don't Dance with Israeli apartheid demos in Plymouth| Hebden Bridge Gaza solidarity demo - meet at the Central Intersection at 5pm| 24th November - Mass Gaza Solidarity demo in London| Sunday 25th - Demo at Ecostream, Western Rd, Brighton, 1-3pm
Back in Gaza, one single strike on Sunday evening left 10 members of the Dalu family and two of their neighbours dead as their homes were reduced to rubble. The media has also been targeted as Israel seeks to halt the spread of information highlighting the injustice brought upon the Palestinians.
Gaza has been under siege by the Israeli military since 2006 and is subjected to regular bombardment from the Israeli Air Force. The Israeli army also make regular ground incursions into the strip - the latest incursion resulted in the killing of a teenage boy as he played football with friends on November 8th. In January 2009 the last full scale attack resulted in the deaths of over 1400 people including more than 350 children. Schools, hospitals and aid depots were all targeted.
Since Hamas came to power in democratic elections in 2006, the Israeli state has punished the people of Gaza with an unimaginable level of barbarity. Medical supplies and food aid are restricted by Israeli border guards, alongside much needed building materials and parts needed to repair machinery. As a result, children are malnourished, hospitals buckle under the strain of patients, there are no sewage treatment plants, poverty is endemic and the economy is being stifled.
As Israeli bombs rained from the sky there was nowhere for Palestinians to escape. Gaza contains some of the most densely populated areas in the world - approximately 1.6 million people live n a stretch of land 24 miles long and between 6 and 12 miles wide - making it impossible to avoid civilian casualties. As usual, the targets that were hit rendered improbable the Israeli assertion that they are merely trying to take out weapon caches and launch sites.
Not that the Israeli state had any real desire to prevent Palestinian suffering. Shortly after Hamas swept to power back in 2006 Israeli health officials calculated the minimum amount of calories (deemed to be 2,279) needed by each Gazan. This was then translated into the truckloads of food Israeli border control were to allow through daily. According to Dov Weisglass, adviser to then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "(t)he idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."
Comments
Hide the following 6 comments
Israeli terrorists boast about exterminating family
28.11.2012 05:50
Anyone who knows anything about the history of Israel knows that the zionists rejoice in the torture and murder of those they call 'sub-Human'. In Israel itself, TV, radio and newspapers constantly call for the death and ethnic cleansing of the 'sub-Humans', but the zionist controlled mainstream media of the West is usually a little more careful about the truth.
Anyway, today, Israeli terrorist Avital Leibovich boasted to the zionist news organisation, AFP, that her terrorist group had specifically chosen the Dallu family of Gaza for mass extermination, and had struck their family home with weapon systems designed to butcher all that lived there. Leibovich and her terrorist team murdered 12 people that she considered 'sub-Human', including 5 children and 5 women.
Terror supporting zionist groups in the UK and USA will proudly invite this mass-murdering depravity to future fund-raising events. In Britain, the Liberal and Labour party recently changed the law to ensure no-one can call for her arrest, or interfere with her entry into this country. A mass-murdering terrorist has a permanent 'get out of jail' card when that terrorist is Israeli.
It is now accepted by the BBC, ITN, Guardian, Independent etc., that Israeli terrorist forces can murder anyone in the vicinity of members of the Palestinian government, security forces, police, civil service or just plain members of Palestinian political parties. All Israel has to do is paint a yellow, six-pointed target on the chest of members of any Palestinian group they wish, and the press of the UK will state that any Israeli bomb that explodes in the vicinity of the Human target is justified.
Yes, the armed forces of the UK and USA murder far more people across the globe, but Israel is the only state in the world today that boasts about its slaughter of ordinary people, and promises to carry out even worse atrocities in the near future. It is also true that the UK and USA only slaughter people that Israel has already designated as 'enemy'.
The people of Iran are suffering increasingly from sanctions imposed upon them by the will of the depraved depraved racists of Israel, but why? Because Iran might gain nuclear technologies good enough to defend itself when Israel already has hundreds of illegal nuclear weapons targeted at every major Muslim civilian population centre.
How is it NOT the height of racism to punish Iran and not Israel for something Iran might be doing, when no-one doubts Israel's guilt? If an Iranian punched a person on a British street, and an Israeli murdered a person on a British street, would you expect the British courts to send the Iranian to prison for murder and give a free gun to the Israeli. In international terms, this is exactly what is happening. Worse, many so-called 'activists' are going along with this racist agenda, finding every way to attack Iran, while at the same time minimising the racist crimes of Israel.
Do you think if an Iranian missile had struck inside Israel, hitting the family home of a high-ranking Israeli policeman, murdering every member of his family, including multiple women and children, the response of the British press and politicians would be the same? Do you think that any Iranian spokesperson that boasted they murdered the family on purpose would ever be safe from arrest outside of Iran?
Why do so-called enlightened activist groups tolerate any activism on behalf of zionism or Israel. It is not the evil of zionism and Israel that matters so much, but the power zionists wield across the planet. Why does any activist in Britain have anything to do with the Labour or Liberal parties, when these racist political organisations boast about how they are in the pockets of Israel, and zionist pressure groups (I don't even both mentioning the Conservatives for obvious reasons).
Again, Israel is a mad-dog, equally racist and evil. This mad-dog is armed to the teeth with nuclear and biological weapons, and practices using these weapons every week in war-games designed to simulate wiping the 'sub-Humans' of the face of the planet. Most of the high-ranking members of the Israeli elite were educated in extremist, racist, religious schools that emphasised that they are members of the 'master race', which they have a duty to protect and empower at all costs.
Do you really think these mad religious racists would hesitate in unleashing a nuclear holocaust across our planet? Do you really think the Israelis would allow the British, American or other NATO bases situated in Israel (covert or overt) to have ultimate control over their nuclear and biological warheads? Israel has only ever chosen leaders with long histories of mass rape, child torture, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, and by this I mean leaders that not only ordered these atrocities, but actually participated in them personally.
These are the monsters the zionists tell you will never push the 'red button'. I guess what the zionists mean is if we allow the monsters of Israel to carry out enough atrocities against the Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, etc, they will be sated for the moment, and move their finger back from the nuclear trigger. A person would have to be mad to trust to such insane and profoundly evil logic.
luke
Pack up your bags 'n hang yur head low.
30.11.2012 22:23
But why do "zionists wield power across the planet" Luke? Is it because they spent inordinate amounts of treasure posting rubbish on the internet about how "Jews rule the world"? Maybe its because they spent huge amounts convincing everybody in the world that the MSM is a degenerate piss pot of the corrupt and villainous (thereby paving the way for its takeover by the ZioNazi). Maybe its because they managed to convince us that the U.N and other agencies are too useless as an organisation to do anything and therefore nobody should support them. Its an odd thing that so much of the flavour of todays conspiracy-type activism around the world all adds up to the same thing...encouraging people to voluntarily walk away from the tools of the state.
"Again, Israel is a mad-dog, equally racist and evil. This mad-dog is armed to the teeth with nuclear and biological weapons, and practices using these weapons every week in war-games designed to simulate wiping the 'sub-Humans' of the face of the planet. Most of the high-ranking members of the Israeli elite were educated in extremist, racist, religious schools that emphasised that they are members of the 'master race', which they have a duty to protect and empower at all costs."
Now Luke, there you go again. Israel does not possess nuclear weapons. Never has done, never will do.
"Do you really think these mad religious racists would hesitate in unleashing a nuclear holocaust across our planet? Do you really think the Israelis would allow the British, American or other NATO bases situated in Israel (covert or overt) to have ultimate control over their nuclear and biological warheads? Israel has only ever chosen leaders with long histories of mass rape, child torture, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, and by this I mean leaders that not only ordered these atrocities, but actually participated in them personally."
Israel is none of those things Luke. It is just a military totalitarian state with no control over its generals. Not the first time this has happened but there you go. The Israeli people, it turns out, are weak, feeble minded and deeply ineffectual. They have been brought up to believe that a military status-quo is normal. They don't know any better so they don't have the tools available to them to prevent things from happening. The Israeli people just sit around all day waiting for somebody wearing a uniform to tell them waht to do...support the troops and all that!
"These are the monsters the zionists tell you will never push the 'red button'. I guess what the zionists mean is if we allow the monsters of Israel to carry out enough atrocities against the Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, etc, they will be sated for the moment, and move their finger back from the nuclear trigger. A person would have to be mad to trust to such insane and profoundly evil logic."
Israel has no future. What it chooses to do in its defence and who it chooses to demand loyalty from have no bearing on the outcome. You cannot massacre your way out of this problem. Threatening other nations will just get you very dead, very soon!
Israel could have so many options available to it if only it could find a way to speak to the world with a civil tongue...but no, that is too much to ask it seems. Instead, we have to listen to the Luke's of this world.
Anonymous Rex
You can go.
01.12.2012 14:48
Considering you posted this:
"Now Luke, there you go again. Israel does not possess nuclear weapons. Never has done, never will do."
... do you think you possess any moral authority (let alone any sense)?
Spinning Top
Isreali Nuclear weapons
08.12.2012 13:51
1.^ "Background Information, 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons". United Nations. Retrieved 2006-07-02.
2.^ a b c d e (PDF) Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risks. U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment. August 1993. OTA-ISC-559. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
Zedman
Snip snip!
11.12.2012 00:28
What does "widely believed" actually mean? Whenever this issue comes up, you can bet your last shekkel that some joker will pop-up like a bad penny and will argue the point using the phrase "widely believed". "Widely believed" means what?..that a group of people believe it?..that governments and technicians believe it?..that the international community believe it?
Or does it mean that the Israeli's want the world to believe it and have conned the yanks into supporting them officially? When you use the phrase "widely believed", what you actually mean is that yanky and Israeli media corps have a narrative and "they" believe that its true.
But still there is a problem...Does Israel possess active nuclear weapons?
We here at Indy are concerned only with the truth. We are not concerned with propaganda.
And so we say, no...Israel is not a nuclear armed state.
The only evidence that Israel is a nuclear armed state, is the "chatter" amongst its supporters demanding the world believe that it is.
Delilah.
why why why oh ...
11.12.2012 15:41
Well, that and the list of goods shipped out to the zionist entity from compliant - and sometimes unlawful - nuclear powers.
The confessions of more than a few nuclear technicians around the world - including within the zionist entity.
The analysis of background and tell tale signals as observed from both Russian and American satellites.
The abundance of personnel trained in various countries that returned 'home' to ply their trade.
The abundance of nuclear related material, technology and research present in the zionist entity.
The patterns - unmistakable to those trained to spot them - of military and state institutions that oversee the weapons program.
The existence of ancillary projects, fail-safe and detection procedures, launch capabilities and tracking technologies.
Etc etc.
[your] statement should read more like this:
' The only evidence that Israel isn't a nuclear armed state, is the "chatter" amongst its supporters demanding the world just ignore it'.
samson