little guy, this is the laest from NYT. I was paraphrasing, it means the same thing to me when people are killed in battles and when they die.
Israelis Kill 12 Palestinians as Fighting Rages in Gaza
By GREG MYRE
Published: May 13, 2004
ERUSALEM, May 13 — Israeli forces killed 12 Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip today, mostly in helicopter missile strikes, Palestinians said. Israeli troops, meanwhile, pressed on with a search for the remains of five soldiers killed a day earlier.
In three days of Gaza fighting, 11 Israeli soldiers and more than 25 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, have been killed in some of the most intense battles in recent months. More than 200 Palestinians have been wounded, according to Palestinian hospitals.
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The violence has contributed to an already roaring debate in Israel over whether to withdraw soldiers and settlers from Gaza, which has been the main Israeli-Palestinian battleground in recent months.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to pull out of the coastal territory, and polls show a solid majority of Israelis favor a withdrawal. But Mr. Sharon’s own rightist Likud party voted down the proposal earlier this month, and many Israeli hardliners say retreating now would be a sign of weakness that would embolden Palestinian factions.
Some Israelis compared this week’s fighting, which saw two deadly attacks on Israeli military vehicles, to that in southern Lebanon, where Israel withdrew in 2000 after battling the Hezbollah guerrilla group for nearly two decades.
“We should have left Gaza before the last two tragedies, just like we left Lebanon,” Orna Shimoni, a mother who lost a son in Lebanon, wrote in the daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot.
Another leading newspaper, Maariv, featured a large headline that read: “The curse of Gaza.”
But Israel leaders rejected the Lebanon comparison.
“There is a war against terror, and in that war there are bad days,” Israel’s deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told Israel radio. Mr. Olmert is a leading proponent of the Gaza withdrawal plan.
Meanwhile, Palestinians called for international pressure on Israel to halt the Gaza bloodletting.
“I call on the whole world to condemn these Israeli criminal acts,” Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat said at his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
In Jerusalem, Israel buried several of its fallen soldiers in a solemn ceremony. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians waved flags and chanted anti-Israeli slogans at funerals in Gaza City.
In today’s violence, Israeli helicopters fired missiles in two separate strikes in the refugee camp in the southern town of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, Palestinian witnesses said. The Israeli military said the air strikes targeted militants.
Palestinian hospital workers in Rafah said 11 people were killed by the missiles, and they included a mix of armed fighters and civilians. One more Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire in the town, the hospital workers said.
Several homes in Rafah were demolished, Palestinian residents said. Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen have clashed frequently in Rafah in recent years, and Israel has destroyed large numbers of homes that the militants used for cover, according to the military.
Near the scene of today’s fighting, large numbers of Israeli troops fanned out to search for the remains of five soldiers killed when their armored personnel carrier was hit and exploded on Wednesday evening near the border with Egypt.
That vehicle, like one destroyed a day earlier in Gaza City, was packed with explosives. The initial strike by the Palestinians caused a huge secondary blast that sent the body parts traveling in a wide radius. Some apparently went across the Egyptian border.
The army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, told Israel radio that Egypt had agreed to allow rabbis to search for remains on the Egyptian side of the border.
Jewish law holds that the entire body should be buried if possible, and Israel’s military has long followed a policy of attempting to retrieve all the remains of fallen soldiers.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops and armored vehicles pulled out of Gaza City early today after Palestinian factions agreed to return body parts from a roadside explosion that killed six soldiers on Tuesday.
The deal to return the remains, and end the bloody standoff in Gaza City, was brokered by the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. Israel insisted it would not negotiate with the factions that held the body parts.
The Israeli raid in Gaza City began as a routine mission Tuesday morning to destroy a suspected weapons-making factory. But it turned into an extended battle after an Israeli armored vehicle was destroyed after hitting a roadside explosive in the densely populated Zeitun neighborhood.
In the subsequent fighting, several buildings were destroyed, and many others were heavily damaged by Israeli fire. Roads were churned up by tanks, and piles of debris littered the streets.
In response to the latest violence, Israel has carved Gaza into three separate sections and is prohibiting travel between them. However, some Palestinians bypassed the Israeli roadblocks by walking along the Mediterranean shoreline.
As long as you ar ekeeping tally from lebanon and gaza…just add up the numbers. Shabbash. :k:
Lovely spin, but if the zionist entity wanted to save lives then it would have left the Palestinian territories years ago. It took 22 years of beatings, and hundreds of soldiers killed before they fled Lebanon, and the same is now happening in Gaza. You see the Palestinian’s are not going anywhere…they are there are in ever expanding numbers. Mashallah. 