This thread has mainly two purposes;
Log and document (with source) the war crimes recently comitted in Gaza, ever since the ceasefire began.
To dispell the sickening lies of the Israeli spin media whilst justifying thier crimes against humanity.
This is merely a fact based thread for reference purpose and not really intended for discussion.
You claim this is to be fact base thread meant to be for reference only yet write; To dispell the sickening lies of the Israeli spin media whilst justifying thier crimes against humanity.
Yea, no bias here. Tip; don't start a "fact base thread" with a bias and opinionated statement.
Yea, no bias here.
Yep, first statement of truth from you in a long time.
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
Lies are sickening utd, and that is a blatant fact.
Back to the topic:
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WAR CRIME:**** 4th November 2008 ****Israel Broke Gaza Cease-Fire - CNN
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…by killing 6 palestininans on the november the 4th. Hamas then retaliated.
YouTube](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/09/gaza-palestinians-israel-evacuees-zeitoun)
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
WAR CRIME:** 4th November 2008 ****Israel Broke Gaza Cease-Fire - CNN
**
…by killing 6 palestininans on the november the 4th. Hamas then retaliated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jan/08/rafah)
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
Images of the Children of Gaza.
The youngest casualties of the conflict in Gaza | World news | guardian.co.uk
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
Something for you to chew on utd.
**Hasbara spam alert
Jan 9th 2008
**
With Israel’s foreign ministry organising volunteers to flood news websites with pro-Israeli comments, Propaganda 2.0 is here.
The hasbara brigade strikes again! You always hear about Israeli attempts at media manipulation. Everyone knows it’s going on but usually the process happens through cyber insurgents like those involved with Giyus (and its media monitoring software, Megaphone). Now, we know that the Israeli foreign ministry itself is orchestrating propaganda efforts designed to flood news websites with pro-Israel arguments and information.
read on;
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
Awesome article by Preston.**
Israel barks, the US media wags its tail
7th Jan 2009
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America’s commentators should break their silence on the conflict in Gaza: Tel Aviv cares what they think.
Forget, alas, all the usual stuff about fairness, balance and freedom of independent thought. Merely follow Editor and Publisher magazine’s own accounting for the first eight media days of Gaza warfare.
Coverage: “Largely one-sided, with little editorialising or commentary arguing against broader Israeli actions.” And: “Most notably, the New York Times produced exactly one editorial, not a single commentary by any of its columnists and only two op-eds (one already published elsewhere).”
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
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7th Jan 2009**
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions.
30 Gaza rockets strike Ne****gev
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a barrage of at least 30 rockets at southern Israel on Friday, just hours after the United Nations passed a resolution calling for an immediate truce between Israel and Hamas.
At least seven rockets hit the western Negev by 8 A.M., all of them striking cities previously considered out of the range of rocket fire.
Four Grad rockets exploded in open fields near Be’er Sheva at around 7 A.M., two more rockets struck the Ashkelon area just after and minutes later, a seventh hit Ashdod. There were no casualties reported in any of those incidents
Another two rockets exploded in fields near Ashkelon just before 8 A.M. Three more Grads struck near Be’er Sheva at around 10 A.M. and another hit the area before noon.
Two rockets exploded in the Eshkol Regional Council just before 9 A.M., lightly wounding one person. About half an hour later, three more rockets struck the Negev city of Sderot. Another two exploded in fields outside of the city at aroun 11 A.M. There were no reports of casualties in that incident.
Another barrage struck Ashdod, Ashkelon and Yavneh toward early afternoon.
At least 30 rockets struck the Negev on Thursday, leaving four people wounded and a number more suffering from shock. Two people were seriously wounded from rockets which exploded in the Eshkol Regional Council.
For the first time since fighting began in the Gaza Strip 13 days ago, rockets also hit northern Israel. Lebanon on Friday announced that it had arrested a cell of Palestinian militants responsible for firing the rockets.
30 Gaza rockets strike Negev, one person lightly wounded - Haaretz - Israel News
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
**WAR CRIME: Children found next to dead mothers.
Friday 9th Jan 2009
**
Four small starving children too weak to stand were found next to the bodies of their dead mothers by ambulancemen who had been trying to reach their Gaza neighbourhood for four days after it came under Israeli attack, the Red Cross said yesterday.
In what the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called a "shocking incident", another man, also too weak to stand, was found in the same bombed house, along with at least 12 corpses on mattresses.
Accusing Israel of violating international law by imposing “unacceptable” delays on rescuers trying to reach the scene, the ICRC said that when ambulance crews were finally allowed to access the area in Gaza City’s Zeitoun district during a bombardment pause on Wednesday, they found 15 other survivors, including several wounded in another house. In a third house, they found three more corpses.
The ICRC said that because the military had erected large earth walls around the site, the crews were forced to use donkey carts to convey the children and the wounded to ambulances. Pierre Wettach, the ICRC’s head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said: “The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded.”
read on…
Gaza under fire: Children found next to dead mothers - Middle East, World - The Independent
Palestinian rocket kills 2 Gaza girls: medics
GAZA (Reuters) – A rocket apparently fired by Palestinians on Friday struck a house in the Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinian sisters aged five and 13, Palestinian medics said.
Hamas police said they were investigating the cause of the blast in Beit Lahiya village in northern Gaza, which medics said seemed to be due to a rocket aimed at Israel that had misfired.
Gaza militants frequently fire rockets at Israel from the same area.
The incident came amid rising tensions with Israel, with officials threatening stepped-up military action against Gaza militants to stop rocket shootings from the coastal territory.
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
WAR CRIME: Aid halted after driver killed by tank shell
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Friday, 9 January 2009
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepened yesterday when the main United Nations aid agency suspended its work in the Strip after one of its drivers was killed by an Israeli tank shell.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also said it would restrict its operations after one of its lorry drivers was hurt when a convoy carrying drugs for Gaza hospitals and transferring intensive care patients to Egypt came under fire from Israeli troops south of Gaza City. Both organisations said their convoys had been co-ordinated with the Israeli military.
John Ging, operations director of the UN Relief and Works Agency, said: "We have lost confidence in the mechanism that is there. We are … prepared to take reasonable risks in this conflict but something has to change with regard to our being able to rely on the liaison that we do with the Israeli military.
“If [the Israeli military] give us clearances to move, then it is fully unacceptable that their soldiers on the ground are going to fire on our workers. Believe me, the verbal assurances [from the Israelis] have run out in terms of credibility.”
The UN decision to halt aid came on the 13th day of Israel’s offensive. A second three-hour ceasefire allowed rescue workers and doctors into some of the most heavily-targeted zones and to retrieve about 50 bodies, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 758. The UN, which claims civilians have borne the brunt of the bloodshed, said 257 of the dead were children under 18.
The UN driver was the third to be killed during Israel’s offensive. The UNRWA said a second convoy seeking to recover the body of another UN casualty during yesterday’s ceasefire was also fired at but no one was hurt.
Aid halted after driver killed by tank shell - Middle East, World - The Independent
Hamas: Israel has legitimised the killing of its children
Fighting intensified on the northern outskirts of Gaza City yesterday as a Hamas leader warned that the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for Israel’s devastating assault.
“They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine,” Mahmoud Zahar said in a televised broadcast recorded at a secret location. “They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people.”
Mr Zahar made his first appearance since Israel launched its offensive. Dressed in a dark suit, he declared: “Victory is coming, God willing.”
As night fell on the territory, most of which is without electricity, the sky above Gaza was illuminated by explosions and flares from the pitched battle on Gaza City’s northern fringes, where Israeli tanks, helicopters and artillery fought to dislodge Hamas guerrillas. Witnesses said that the battle had, for the first time, spilled into Gaza City itself, where the head of Hamas’s armed wing warned that thousands of his fighters were waiting.
Hamas: Israel has legitimised the killing of its children - Times Online
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
UN demands immediate ceasefire in Gaza Strip
By David Usborne in New York
*Friday, 9 January 2009*
The United Nations last night backed a milestone resolution calling for an end to military action by all sides in the Gaza Strip.
The British-led United Nations resolution calling for an "immediate and durable" ceasefire was backed by 14 out of 15 members of the security council. The United States abstained.
The UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the UN had “served its purpose” after the vote, and urged the international community to “turns the words into changes on the ground”.
The US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said America supported the “objectives” of the resolution, but the US abstained from the security council vote because it “thought it important to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation” with Israel and Hamas.
As the vote was taking place, dozens more attacks occurred in Gaza with unconfirmed reports of a bomb flattening a five-storey apartment block in the northern part of the territory.
UN officials earlier confirmed that an agreement had been reached on the wording of a ceasefire text after hours of marathon negotiations on the sidelines of the Security Council meeting between the foreign ministers of Britain, France and the US on the one hand and their counterparts from several Arab nations on the other.
The resolution “stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.”
Mr Miliband said: “It is not every day that the United Nations speaks loudly and clearly and across all the nations in the UN about the Middle East.”
Only one day before, the council had seemed to be on a path to humiliating failure, when the US publicly threatened to veto a ceasefire text that had been presented by Libya, which currently holds one of the non-permanent seats. It declared itself ready only to back a far less muscled “presidential statement” that expressed dismay with the fighting.
Even Britain was reportedly taken by surprise when late in the evening on Wednesday, the US delegation, headed by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, changed tack and said it would support a ceasefire resolution, if not the Libyan one.
It was then Britain’s task to craft a new version that eventually attracted consensus support last night.
How quickly the resolution will impact events on the ground is a different matter, of course. The Israeli offensive against Gaza militants continued unabated yesterday despite intensive discussions in Cairo on an outline peace plan.
The Israeli military said it had attacked 25 targets, including Hamas weapons stores, rocket-launching sites and a junction that had been rigged with explosives to blow up advancing troops. Earlier, it had also hit three Islamic Jihad militants involved in launching rockets on Israel. The army said another Israeli soldier had been killed yesterday in Gaza, bringing the total military casualties to eight in the current offensive.
Meanwhile, at least three Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israel from southern Lebanon, injuring six Israelis. It appeared to be an isolated attack, for which both Hizbollah and Hamas disclaimed any responsibility. Israeli troops responded with artillery fire. Israeli security forces heightened their alert and ordered Israelis into bomb shelters along the northern border area.
Mr Miliband expressed the hope that the resolution would be heeded and would help speed the negotiation of its practicalities in Cairo. Sending a clear message to Israel and to Hamas, he said: “The UN can pass resolutions, but it is the decisions of the people on the ground that can make the difference between peace and war”.
There had been deep concern in London and in other European capitals that a different outcome in New York and specifically a result that involved the US vetoing a ceasefire resolution would have inflamed passions across the Middle East, where Arabs continue to resent American support for Israel.
Sources in New York reported that as Ms Rice shuttled in and out of negotiating sessions yesterday, she phoned the Israeli Prime Minster, Ehud Olmert, at least five times to keep him up to date.
It was thought that she and Washington were simultaneously coming under intense pressure from Arab allies to support a ceasefire text.
UN demands immediate ceasefire in Gaza Strip - World Politics, World - The Independent
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
Red Cross accuses Israel of ‘unacceptable’ conduct in Gaza
9th Jan 2009
Martin Fletcher and Azmi Keshawi
For four days Red Cross officials pressed the Israeli military for access to bomb-shattered homes in the Zaytun neighbourhood of Gaza City. Finally Israel promised safe passage with the help of a Red Cross rescue team and four ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent Society. What they found exceeded their worst fears.
In one house they discovered four small children - alive but terrified, emaciated and too weak to stand – lying on mattresses next to 12 corpses including those of their mothers. In a second house they found three dead bodies. In a third they found 15 survivors of the Israeli bombardment, several of them wounded.
“I never expected to see such a horrifying scene. I never saw anything like it in my life,” Abed el-Aziz Abu Aisha, 22, told The Times. “It was like a very ugly scene from a horror movie.”
They had to drag the injured to the ambulances in a cart because barriers erected by the Israeli army made it impossible to bring the vehicles close enough. The rescuers evacuated 18 of the wounded and 12 others who were suffering from exhaustion. They took away two corpses and planned to return later to fetch 13 others.
Red Cross accuses Israel of ‘unacceptable’ conduct in Gaza - Times Online
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
WAR CRIME:** Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept
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Israel’s target was the mosque next door. But the rocket attack claimed the lives of innocent children.
By Donald Macintyre and Said Ghazali
*Tuesday, 30 December 2008*
The five Palestinian sisters were fast asleep when a night-time Israeli airstrike hit the next-door mosque in Gaza. One of the walls collapsed on to their small asbestos-roofed home and they were all killed in their beds. The eldest sister, Tahrir, was 17 years old, the youngest, Jawaher, just four.
"They grow up day after day and night after night. Within a second, I have lost them," the girls' father, Anwar Balousha, said yesterday. The 37-year-old, along with another three of his children, was himself injured in the attack on the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp.
The funerals of the sisters – Tahrir, 17; Ikram, 15; Samar, 12; Dina eight; and Jawaher, four – were attended by family members and thousands of mourners. But with space running out in the cemetery, the five girls had to be buried in just three graves, one for the eldest and the others forced to share.
Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept - Middle East, World - The Independent
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
Gaza children too scared to step outside
By Mohammed Dawwas in Gaza City
*Tuesday, 30 December 2008*
You can tell those moving about Gaza City by the mattresses on the car roofs. The streets are mostly deserted but some people are shifting from one house to another, trying to guess where the bombs might land and put distance between themselves and possible targets. Others are heading to the bakeries where there are long queues for bread. There is wreckage everywhere.
On Sunday night, we were told that the Red Cross had issued a warning that the Al Kinz mosque next to our building was likely to be destroyed. My wife and four of the kids went in the lift but many others went down the stairs because they were frightened about getting stuck, given that there was no power and the elevator was operating off a generator. There were about 100 of us gathered outside in the yard and we could hear continual explosions.
I drove in convoy with my brother-in-law to his father’s place. It was eerie, completely dark except for the headlights of our two cars. We drove the wrong way down one way streets to avoid going near a the Palestinian Legislative Council Building, in case the Israeli planes had it on their radar.
This is daily life in Gaza now. It was tough before but, believe me, it’s a lot worse now.
Gaza children too scared to step outside - Middle East, World - The Independent
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
Robert Fisk: Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony
*Tuesday, 30 December 2008*
How easy it is to snap off the history of the Palestinians, to delete the narrative of their tragedy, to avoid a grotesque irony about Gaza which – in any other conflict – journalists would be writing about in their first reports: that the original, legal owners of the Israeli land on which Hamas rockets are detonating live in Gaza.
That is why Gaza exists: because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza.
But watching the news shows, you’d think that history began yesterday, that a bunch of bearded anti-Semitic Islamist lunatics suddenly popped up in the slums of Gaza – a rubbish dump of destitute people of no origin – and began firing missiles into peace-loving, democratic Israel, only to meet with the righteous vengeance of the Israeli air force. The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear in the story.
Both Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres said back in the 1990s that they wished Gaza would just go away, drop into the sea, and you can see why. The existence of Gaza is a permanent reminder of those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who lost their homes to Israel, who fled or were driven out through fear or Israeli ethnic cleansing 60 years ago, when tidal waves of refugees had washed over Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War and when a bunch of Arabs kicked out of their property didn’t worry the world.
Well, the world should worry now. Crammed into the most overpopulated few square miles in the whole world are a dispossessed people who have been living in refuse and sewage and, for the past six months, in hunger and darkness, and who have been sanctioned by us, the West. Gaza was always an insurrectionary place. It took two years for Ariel Sharon’s bloody “pacification”, starting in 1971, to be completed, and Gaza is not going to be tamed now.
Alas for the Palestinians, their most powerful political voice – I’m talking about the late Edward Said, not the corrupt Yassir Arafat (and how the Israelis must miss him now) – is silent and their predicament largely unexplained by their deplorable, foolish spokesmen.
“It’s the most terrifying place I’ve ever been in,” Said once said of Gaza. “It’s a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa.”
Re: War Crimes In Gaza
We must not let despair dash hopes of peace in Gaza
*Tuesday, 30 December 2008*
The relatively muted response from the capitals of the Western world over the conflict in Gaza is a sad testament to a kind of collective failure of the will and imagination on all our parts. There are now more than 300 dead in the territory while thousands of others have been rendered homeless. But where are the signs of urgent diplomatic activity aimed at bringing an end to the killing?