As Tony Blair prepares to deliver a speech marking the 20th anniversary of his becoming Labour leader, Channel 4 News Political Correspondent Michael Crick asks him why he is in London and not in the Middle East.
Category Archives: Gaza
Jewish businesses in Paris are being looted and destroyed by protesters over Israel Gaza offensive
AFP reports: France’s interior minister Monday slammed “intolerable” acts of anti-Semitism after a rally against Israel’s Gaza offensive descended into violence pitting an angry pro-Palestinian crowd against local Jewish businesses.
Sunday’s demonstration in the north Paris suburb of Sarcelles was the third to deteriorate in a week, as shops were looted and riot police lobbed tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd.
The rally had been banned amid concern the Jewish community would be targeted after protesters last weekend tried to storm two synagogues in Paris.
“When you head for the synagogue, when you burn a corner shop because it is Jewish-owned, you are committing an anti-Semitic act,” Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters outside the Sarcelles synagogue.
In the Paris suburb sometimes nicknamed “little Jerusalem” for its large community of Sephardic Jews, the rally descended into chaos when dozens of youth — some masked — set fire to bins and lit firecrackers and smoke bombs.
Eighteen people were arrested after looters wrecked shops, including a kosher foodstore and a funeral home as protesters shouted: “Fuck Israel!”. [Continue reading…]
Why Israel is losing the American media war
Benjamin Wallace-Wells writes: Earlier this month, the IDF’s twitter feed had been full of images of besieged Israelis. But by this weekend Israel was so clearly losing the public relations war that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained to reporters, tersely, that Hamas uses “telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause.”
If Netanyahu is so bothered by how dead Palestinians look on television then he should stop killing so many of them. But his complaint is in itself a concession. The story of the conflict between Israel and Palestine looks a little bit different this time around. Social media have helped allow us to see more deeply inside war zones — in this case, inside Gaza, and allowed viewers much fuller access to the terror that grips a population under military attack.
How to apportion the blame? Count the casualties
Lawrence Weschler writes: The news out of Israel and Palestine: relentless, remorseless, repetitively compulsive, rabid.
And I am put in mind of a passage from Norman Mailer, in 1972, in which he attempted to plumb the psychopathology behind America’s relentless bombing of Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam during the Nixon years:
… bombing [which] had become an activity as rational as the act of a man who walks across his own home town to defecate each night on the lawn of a stranger — it is the same stranger each night — such a man would not last long even if he had the most powerful body in town. “Stop,” he would scream as they dragged him away. “I need to shit on that lawn. It’s the only way to keep my body in shape, you fools. I’ve been bitten by a bat!”
A species of human rabies, as Mailer had explained earlier in the same book (“St. George and the Godfather,” his account of the McGovern campaign), “and the word was just, for rabies was the disease of every virulence which was excessive to the need for self-protection.”
I know, I know, and I am bone tired of being told it, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is plenty of blame to go around, but by this point after coming on almost 50 years of Israeli stemwinding and procrastinatory obfuscation, I’d put the proportionate distribution of blame at about the same level as the mortality figures — which is, where are we today (what with Wednesday morning’s four children killed while out playing on a Gaza beach)? What, 280 to 2?
For the single overriding fact defining the Israeli-Palestinian impasse at this point is that if the Palestinians are quiescent and not engaged in any overt rebellion, the Israelis (and here I am speaking of the vast majority of the population who somehow go along with the antics of their leaders, year after year) manage to tell themselves that things are fine and there’s no urgent need to address the situation; and if, as a result, the endlessly put-upon Palestinians do finally rise up in any sort of armed resistance (rocks to rockets), the same Israelis exasperate, “How are we supposed to negotiate with monsters like this?” A wonderfully convenient formula, since it allows the Israelis to go blithely on, systematically stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank, and continuing to confine 1.8 million Gazans within what might well be described as a concentration camp. [Continue reading…] [H/t Philip Weiss]
Israel’s war against children
A note on Graphic Images: This is the reality. Folks in Gaza do not have the luxury of choosing not to see it.
— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) July 20, 2014
The New York Times reports: As the Israeli offensive spread through Gaza, generating gruesome photos of dead and fleeing Palestinians, even Secretary of State John F. Kerry appeared to express frustration.
Although Mr. Kerry, on several Sunday talk shows, vociferously defended Israel’s right to take action, he also made critical comments privately that were captured by Fox News on a live microphone. Chris Wallace, the Fox interviewer, confronted Mr. Kerry with a tape of those remarks during his appearance on that channel. In it, Mr. Kerry is heard to say: “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” adding, “We got to get over there.”
The comments were without context, but Mr. Wallace’s questioning and Mr. Kerry’s reply seemed to make clear that the secretary had been speaking ironically to express frustration at the deaths of Palestinian civilians, including many children, in an operation aimed at militants.
Asked if he was “upset that the Israelis are going too far,” Mr. Kerry replied: “It’s very difficult in these situations. I reacted, obviously, in a way that anybody does in respect to young children and civilians.”
The Associated Press reports: Sobbing and shaking, Ismail Abu Musallam leaned against the wall of a hospital Friday, waiting for three of his children to be prepared for burial. They were killed as they slept when an Israeli tank shell hit their home, burying 11-year-old Ahmed, 14-year-old Walaa and 16-year-old Mohammed under debris in their beds.
His personal tragedy is not unique: the U.N. says minors make up one-fifth of the 299 Palestinians killed in 11 days of intense Israeli bombardment of the densely populated Gaza Strip, where half the 1.7 million people are under age 18.
The Israeli military says it’s doing its utmost to spare civilians by urging residents to leave areas that are about to be shelled or bombed as Hamas targets. It accuses the Islamic militants of using civilians as human shields by firing rockets from civilian areas.
But even if urged to evacuate, most Gazans have no safe place to go, rights activists say.
Harrowing images of Gaza neighborhood hit hardest by Israel — Washington Post
Egyptian media applauds Israel’s Gaza offensive
AFP reports: Israel’s escalating attack on the Gaza Strip has triggered worldwide debate. Egypt is no exception.
But there is little of the traditional Arab solidarity towards Palestinians to be found in the Egyptian media.
Adel Nehaman, a columnist for the Egyptian daily El-Watan, said bluntly: “Sorry Gazans, I cannot support you until you rid yourselves of Hamas.”
Azza Sami, a writer for government daily Al-Ahram, went so far as to congratulate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter: “Thank you Netanyahu, and God give us more men like you to destroy Hamas!”
Star presenter of the Al-Faraeen TV channel, Tawfik Okasha, an ardent supporter of Egypt’s military regime and known for his firm stance against the ousted Muslim Brotherhood, attacked the entire Palestinian population live on air.
“Gazans are not men,” he declared. “If they were men they would revolt against Hamas.”
His broadcast was even picked up by Israeli TV to demonstrate Egyptian support for Israel. [Continue reading…]
Gaza ceasefire hopes switch to Qatar as Arabs divided over Israeli offensive
The Guardian reports: International efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip are focusing on the Gulf state of Qatar, whose close links to Hamas make it uniquely placed to try to mediate in a conflict that has highlighted Arab divisions in the face of Israeli attacks.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, was flying to Doha at the start of a round of emergency talks to try to halt the escalating carnage. Ban was due to meet the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and head of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. It was unclear whether Ban would also see the Hamas leader, Khaled Mishal, who lives in Doha.
Mishal and Abbas were due to meet separately.
Ban is also due in Cairo on Monday to see President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, author of a rival ceasefire plan that has already been rejected by Hamas. Hamas said Mishal had also been invited to the Egyptian capital.
Khaled al-Attiyeh, Qatar’s foreign minister, has emerged as a key figure in the ceasefire effort, not least because he is close to John Kerry, the US secretary of state. The Qataris say they are simply providing a “channel of communication” to discuss an agreement that contains the key Hamas demands: an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, an opening of the border with Egypt and a release of scores of recently re-arrested prisoners by Israel.
Qatar’s role as mediator is being enhanced because of the deep hostility of the Egyptian government to Hamas, which has close links to the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, a key element of the Egyptian initiative – rejected by Hamas – is the return of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority to Gaza, for the first time since the 2007 takeover of the territory by the Palestinian Islamist movement. [Continue reading…]
Death comes often in Gaza these days, and it comes early
The New York Times reports: They fled by night, using their cellphones as flashlights on pitch-black roads as Israeli shells whistled around them. They carried a white flag and dragged crying children at a trot, a family of 25 headed for a relative’s house farther into the Gaza Strip.
When dawn broke, they split the family among several more relatives. The grandmother, Naama Abu Hamad, 62, insisted on this. That way, she said, they could not all be killed by a single strike, and lose “an entire generation.”
As the Israeli military pressed into the Gaza Strip, taking over areas near the boundary with Israel, the hardships facing civilians deepened. Israel cut off the electricity it supplies to the strip, which is almost all the electricity that comes to Gaza, local and international officials said. For days a blasted sewage pipe has leaked into drinking water, but workers have been unable to fix it because of the danger from airstrikes.
The number of Gazans displaced by the war to official shelters more than doubled in 24 hours, to 47,000 from 22,000, according to the United Nations, but the true figure is probably much higher, since most people, like Ms. Abu Hamad, take refuge with friends and family. [Continue reading…]
London: Massive protest against Israel’s assault on Gaza; protesters in Paris defy ban
PHOTOS: 1000's Gather In #London For Protest Against Israeli Military Action: http://t.co/y1qcCVt1LX #Gaza #SaveGaza pic.twitter.com/qcBhhDonQY
— Saulo Corona (@SauloCorona) July 19, 2014
Reuters reports: Pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with police in Paris on Saturday as they defied a ban on a planned rally against violence in the Gaza strip.
A Reuters photographer said demonstrators in northern Paris launched projectiles at riot police, who responded by firing teargas canisters and stun grenades. Demonstrators also climbed on top of a building and burned an Israeli flag.
President Francois Hollande earlier said he had asked his interior minister to ban protests that could turn violent after demonstrators marched on two synagogues in Paris last weekend and clashed with riot police.
“That’s why I asked the interior minister, after an investigation, to ensure that such protests would not take place,” he told journalists during a visit to Chad.
In defiance of the ban, large crowds gathered in northern Paris chanting “Israel, assassin” until they were dispersed by tear gas.
Peaceful rallies were also held in more than a dozen other cities, from Lille in the north to Marseille in the South.
“This ban on demonstrations, which was decided at the last minute, actually increases the risk of public disorder,” the Greens Party said in a statement. “It’s a first in Europe.” [Continue reading…]
The people in #Paris #France defying the ban on solidarity protests for #Gaza #Palestine! #Justice! #GazaUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/n7b7BnYkuh
— Abbas Hamideh (@Resistance48) July 19, 2014
The creation of Hamas
A commenter wrote this:
Perverse that the organization called a “Terrorist Organization” by the world media and political community was founded in part by Israel as a means of keeping violent militancy under close surveillance and control in Palestine/Gaza/West Bank.
This comment reiterates an oft-repeated view that Hamas was created with Israel’s approval. This is a misrepresentation of history.
In Hamas Unwritten Chapters, Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian scholar with close ties to Hamas, describes how the organization came into existence.
Although formally announced in 1987 at the beginning of the First Intifada, Hamas began as a branch of Ikhwan, the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in 1928. The ability for Ikhwan to thrive in Gaza was provided by the Israeli occupation which began in 1967. Prior to that, Ikhwan had been suppressed by the Egyptian authorities.
Tamimi writes:
Israel opted to revive certain aspects of archaic Ottoman law in its administration of the affairs of the Arab populations in the West Bank and Gaza. This permitted the creation of voluntary or non-governmental organizations such as charitable, educational and other forms of privately funded service institutions. This was a fortunate development for the Palestinians under occupation. For the first ten years of occupation, from 1967-1977, the Israeli occupation authorities pursued a policy of ‘non-intervention’ drawn up and supervised by Moshe Dayan, then Minister of Defence in the Labour government. The intention was to be responsive to Palestinian wishes, allowing them the freedom to enjoy their non-political institutions as far as these institutions remained consistent with Israel rule and posed no threat to it… [It was under these conditions that] the Ikhwan succeeded in more than doubling the number of mosques under their authority.
In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, following seven years of intermittent civil conflict in that country. Israeli forces advanced all the way to the Lebanese capital Beirut, with the eventual eviction of the PLO from Lebanon. While Beirut was under siege by the Israeli forces, commanded by Israel’s then Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, between two and three thousand unprotected and unarmed Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila camps were massacred by Israel’s ally, the Christian Lebanese Forces. Palestinian populations across the world felt a suffocating sense of anger, impotence and frustration.
Amid all these dramatic events, pressure was mounting on the Ikhwan in Palestine to take action on behalf of their cause. Their social reform program had seemed to absorb all their efforts at a time when developments in and around Palestine called for a more dramatic response. Having successfully outflanked the nationalist and leftist forces within Palestinian society the Islamists now faced the criticism that while others had been making sacrifices resisting occupation they had restricted themselves to social and educational services. Their detractors went so far as to accuse them of brokering a deal with the Occupation Authorities, as a result of which their activities were tolerated and their projects were licensed. The Islamists’ enemies embarked on old-fashioned Nasir-style propaganda, labeling the Ikhwan as the invention of Britain or the United States, or as lackeys of the Zionists.
From 1979 to 1981, throughout the network of the Ikhwan organization inside Gaza and the West Bank, the younger members, who were electrified by Saraya Al-Jihad’s resistance operations, voiced one persistent question: “Why are we not involved in the military resistance to occupation?” [Saraya Al-Jihad was a group of Islamic-oriented members of Fatah that had launched a campaign of armed resistance in the West Bank.] Little was known at the time about a plan to engage in military action which had already been drawn up, during the same period of soul-searching, by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, as the leader of the Ikhwan in Gaza. Clearly, the Ikhwan, or at least some of its leaders, could no longer withstand the pressure from within their own ranks and the mounting scepticism of Palestinian society as a whole. They had also begun to suffer, perhaps, from a growing sense of guilt on their own part over their inaction.
No one took the decision to ignite the Intifada on 8 December 1987; it was triggered by an accident, which in turn set off the spontaneous explosion of anger by the masses. However, it was an explosion anticipated by the Palestinian Ikhwan, for which they had been preparing since at least 1983. The day the Intifada began, the institutions created by the Ikhwan inside and outside Palestine came into action, with each performing the tasks assigned to it. The Ikhwan had no option except to seize the occasion. They needed to exploit it the the limit of their ability, in order to reinstate themselves as the leaders of the jihad to liberate Palestine. Had they not done so, it would have meant the demise of their movement. In addition, only the Ikhwan had the intention, the will, the infrastructure and the global logistical support to keep the flame of the Intifada alight for as long as it could be maintained.
For the Ikhwan, now acting under the name of Hamas, the Intifada was a gift from heaven. They were determined to end the occupation, and to ensure that this would be only the beginning of a long-term jihad. They mobilized their members, employing the network of mosques and other institutions under their control, foremost amongst which was the Islamic University [in Gaza]. They called for civil disobedience and organized rallies, which almost inevitably culminated in stone-throwing at Israeli troops, burning the Israeli flag and setting up improvised road blocks with burning tyres. The Intifada was an explosion of anger in the face of the occupation, sparked off by the dreadful and inhumane conditions endured by the Palestinians for many years and the humiliation and degradation to which they had been subjected. However, the Ikhwan’s slogans were not confined to demands for the end of the occupation. They went further, also demanding the abolition of the state of Israel. Most of the demonstrators had been refugees, and their real homes were not the squalid and wretched UN camps of Gaza or the West Bank but the hundreds of towns and villages that once stood where Israel exists today.
How Israel — as humane as the IRA — uses warnings to terrorize civilians
I grew up in Britain during the era when the Provisional IRA was conducting a bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and on the mainland. I don’t remember the Provos ever being praised for the fact that they would typically phone the police to issue a warning before their bombs detonated. No one ever dubbed them the most humane terrorist organization in the world.
Danny Morrison, a former IRA prisoner interviewed on the BBC shortly after 9/11 wanted to emphasize, however, that the IRA should not be compared to Al Qaeda:
“Certainly there were civilians killed in the course of this last 30 years, but by and large the IRA made attempts to issue warnings before bomb attacks. That’s the distinction between the people who carried out the attacks in America.”
By the same standard, those who accuse Israel of engaging in state terrorism, should be absolutely clear: Israel’s acts of terror are more like those of the IRA (except on a vastly larger scale), than Al Qaeda’s attacks.
During its 30-year campaign, the IRA killed about 650 civilians. In the last 11 days, Israel has killed about 230 civilians.
Sharif Abdel Kouddous writes: Gamal Magdi Mushtaha had been up all night, unable to sleep, when his cell phone rang at 7:30 a.m. on Friday. The man on the other end of the line identified himself as an Israeli military officer. “Gamal,” he said, addressing the father of three by his first name, “you have to leave your house.”
To anyone other than a resident of Gaza, the call would be baffling. But Mushtaha, a 39-year-old contractor from Shejaiya, a town east of Gaza City, knew what this was about. The Israeli military was going to bomb his home.
He argued with the officer, explaining to him that five families live in the three-story house, including 15 children. “I told him I’m not wanted, that I’m a civilian,” Mushtaha says. “He just said my house was a target and I had five minutes to get out.”
Mushtaha woke up his family and rushed them out the door and down the street. A few minutes later he watched as his home was reduced to rubble in a double airstrike — one missile falling after the other. “I don’t know where to go or what to do. I have no home now,” he says.
Israel has lauded its warnings to Palestinians ahead of bombing their homes as a humanitarian act, a magnanimous gesture towards its enemy and a tactic designed to minimize civilian casualties. But in Gaza, it is a cruel reminder of how powerless residents are in the face of Israel’s military machine and their inability to prevent the wanton destruction of their lives. From Gaza City in the north to Khan Younis in the south, Palestinians in Gaza are being told to leave their homes, businesses, even hospitals to make way for Israeli bombs. Too often, they have nowhere to go. [Continue reading…]
The cease-fire is dead. Long live the cease-fire!
Yousef Munayyer writes: The exchange of fire in the besieged Gaza strip between Israel’s powerful, first world military, which launched a ground invasion on July 17, and the rudimentary rockets of Palestinian militants has once again yielded an all too predictable outcome. As of July 18, more than 275 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed, and countless more have been injured. So far, there have been two Israeli fatalities.
We are familiar with how this is going to wind up. There will eventually be another shortsighted truce brokered by third parties. Toward that end, on July 17 representatives from Israel and Hamas along with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Mideast peace envoy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair met in Cairo to negotiate a comprehensive cease-fire.
However, it is important to understand that even the most durable cease-fire is but a Band-Aid on a situation whose underlying problems continue to go unaddressed. A truce is not a truce only when one side — the Palestinian militants — stops the violence, while Tel Aviv continues to perpetuate an entire system of violence against millions of people. The reality is, when the rockets stop, Israel’s military occupation, colonization and siege continues undeterred. As such, a cease-fire agreement alone is not enough. Third-party mediations may bring about a cease-fire agreement, but monitoring and enforcing its terms are far more important.
The failures of previous cease-fires provide instructive lessons to avoid a return of these horrific scenes months or years down the line. [Continue reading…]
NBC sending Ayman Mohyeldin back to Gaza
Thanks for all the support. Im returning to #Gaza to report. Proud of NBC's continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story
— Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) July 18, 2014
Arab Twitter after hearing @AymanM is returning to Gaza. pic.twitter.com/40BjMSZb4K
— Hend (@LibyaLiberty) July 19, 2014
U.S. media execs prefer biased reporting on Gaza
Michael Calderone reports: CNN has removed correspondent Diana Magnay from covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after she tweeted that Israelis who were cheering the bombing of Gaza, and who had allegedly threatened her, were “scum.”
“After being threatened and harassed before and during a liveshot, Diana reacted angrily on Twitter,” a CNN spokeswoman said in a statement to The Huffington Post.
“She deeply regrets the language used, which was aimed directly at those who had been targeting our crew,” the spokeswoman continued. “She certainly meant no offense to anyone beyond that group, and she and CNN apologize for any offense that may have been taken.”
The spokeswoman said Magnay has been assigned to Moscow.
Magnay appeared on CNN Thursday from a hill overlooking the Israel-Gaza border. While she reported, Israelis could be heard near her cheering as missiles were fired at Gaza.
After the liveshot, Magnay tweeted: “Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong’. Scum.” The tweet was quickly removed, but not before it had been retweeted more than 200 times.
If Magnay’s use of the word “scum” was so regrettable, what would have been a more appropriate way of describing this group of Israelis?
Bloodthirsty. Savage. Callous. Inhumane. Hateful. Vengeful. Sadistic.
Any of those terms could have been accurately used by Magnay and yet there’s no doubt that CNN would have been just as apologetic.
The only way she could have reported what she was witnessing right next to her and avoided criticism, would have been to say nothing at all.
This is what American media too often now demands from its reporters who cover Israel: silence or unabashed bias in favor of the Jewish state.
Might Magnay’s removal — preceded by NBC removing Ayman Mohyeldin from Gaza — prompt a rebellion among mainstream American journalists?
If only… Unfortunately, having been duly warned, it’s much more likely that nearly everyone will decide it’s not worth taking the risk of stepping out of line.
The exceptions will remain a few curmudgeons like AP’s Matt Lee who is afforded some latitude precisely because he is an exception. (Unfortunately, Lee’s acts of rebellion are confined to briefing rooms in Washington where they get less attention than they deserve.)
But having said that, what are we to make of the vile behavior of Israelis who celebrate carnage?
Do they reveal something about the nature of Israel and the meaning of Zionism?
To some extent, yes.
Palestinians, the enemy, the other, have been reduced to a sub-human status. Their lives are viewed as worthless.
Is this not an inevitable consequence of founding a state on the idea that the rights of one group of people, of one religious identity, have the exclusive authority to run that state?
And yet, should we not also acknowledge that there are base instincts that make people everywhere capable of acting with the same callousness displayed by the “scum” in Sderot?
If you think it couldn’t happen here — wherever that might be — you’re probably wrong.
The architects of the latest war on Gaza
Israel strongly opposed American recognition of the new government… and sought to isolate it internationally, seeing any small step toward Palestinian unity as a threat. Israel’s security establishment objects to the strengthening of West Bank-Gaza ties, lest Hamas raise its head in the West Bank. And Israelis who oppose a two-state solution understand that a unified Palestinian leadership is a prerequisite for any lasting peace.
Still, despite its opposition to the reconciliation agreement, Israel continued to transfer the tax revenues it collects on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf, and to work closely with the new government, especially on security cooperation.
But the key issues of paying Gaza’s civil servants and opening the border with Egypt were left to fester. The new government’s ostensible supporters, especially the United States and Europe, could have pushed Egypt to ease border restrictions, thereby demonstrating to Gazans that Hamas rule had been the cause of their isolation and impoverishment. But they did not.
Instead, after Hamas transferred authority to a government of pro-Western technocrats, life in Gaza became worse.
Qatar had offered to pay Gaza’s 43,000 civil servants, and America and Europe could have helped facilitate that. But Washington warned that American law prohibited any entity delivering payment to even one of those employees — many thousands of whom are not members of Hamas but all of whom are considered by American law to have received material support from a terrorist organization.
When a United Nations envoy offered to resolve this crisis by delivering the salaries through the United Nations, so as to exclude all parties from legal liability, the Obama administration did not assist. Instead, it stood by as Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, called for the envoy’s expulsion on the grounds that he was “trying to funnel money” to Hamas.
Hamas is now seeking through violence what it couldn’t obtain through a peaceful handover of responsibilities. Israel is pursuing a return to the status quo ante, when Gaza had electricity for barely eight hours a day, water was undrinkable, sewage was dumped in the sea, fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to shut down and waste sometimes floated in the streets. Patients needing medical care couldn’t reach Egyptian hospitals, and Gazans paid $3,000 bribes for a chance to exit when Egypt chose to open the border crossing.
For many Gazans, and not just Hamas supporters, it’s worth risking more bombardment and now the ground incursion, for a chance to change that unacceptable status quo. [Continue reading…]
Israelis cheer as rockets rain down on Gaza
Israelis cheer as rockets start to rain down along the #Gaza strip. @CNNVideo: http://t.co/q6AeqEMmGG pic.twitter.com/j6PjbzZbLI
— CNN (@CNN) July 17, 2014
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that there are an estimated 57,900 children in Gaza who have experienced death, injury or loss of home over the past ten days and require direct and specialized psychosocial support.
The Palestinian fatality toll since the start of the latest Israeli assault is now 230. According to preliminary information, at least 74 percent (171 people) are civilians, 48 of whom are children and 31 women.
1,764 Palestinians have been injured, of whom 521 are children and 372 women.
22,900 displaced people hosted at UNRWA shelters are in need of emergency food assistance.
This evening, the Gaza health ministry has updated the death toll to 247, with 1910 people injured.
And meanwhile Israelis in Sderot are cheering.
Mondoweiss reports: The Israeli military has destroyed el-Wafa rehabilitation hospital in the Gaza Strip, after first targeting the facility with five missiles on July 11, 2014. The Israeli military began striking the building around 8:oo pm this evening and within two hours all hospital staff and patients had evacuated the only rehabilitation center in the Gaza Strip. As they departed what remained intact from the medical center burned to the ground.
“It’s already destroyed,” said Basman Alashi, director of el-Wafa, continuing, “I don’t know how much is left of it, but we have evacuated all of our patients. We lost power, there was a fire in the building.”
Alashi spoke to me via telephone from his house in Gaza, unable to cross the Israeli shelling to reach the hospital. “I left the hospital at seven and within two hours they had bombed the hospital.” Shells hit every floor of the building, and a fire spread throughout.
Hamas leader says Israel must ‘lift siege’ of Gaza before any ceasefire
The Telegraph reports: Hamas has ruled out a ceasefire deal unless Israel “lifts the siege” on Gaza, the organisation’s political chief has told The Telegraph.
In his first interview since the recent conflict in Gaza, Khaled Meshaal has said his organisation will not accept a simple cessation of fire by both sides, and that the deal must include long term commitments to improve the “rights of the Palestinian people”.
With mediators gathered in Cairo in an effort find a solution to a conflict that has already seen more than two hundred Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes, Mr Meshaal, for the first time, laid out the demands of his organisation.
He said that Israel must “stop the aggression” of air strikes against targets in Gaza, release the dozens of Palestinians detained in response to last month’s kidnapping of three Israeli students in the West Bank, and “end the siege on Gaza permanently”.
“These are our clear demands,” said Mr Meshaal. “We won’t accept an agreement that prolongs the suffering of our people anymore. In Gaza, for the past seven years of siege, its 1.8 million people have been living in a prison.”
The demands go much further than a return to the truce brokered in Cairo in 2012, to put an end to eight days of fighting in the Gaza strip.
That truce included a pledge to open a border crossing, intending to ease the blockade of the coastal enclave.
On Thursday, Mr Meshaal said that an easing of the restrictions was no longer acceptable and that Hamas would stop at nothing short of a “full and permanent” lifting of the blockade that, as well as regulating the traffic of people and goods at the border crossing, forbids trade from Gaza’s port.
Since General Abdul Fatah Sisi, who considers Hamas a terrorist organisation, became president of Egypt earlier this year, Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt has also remained mostly closed. [Continue reading…]
Israel launches Gaza ground invasion
Al Jazeera reports: Israeli tanks entered Gaza on Thursday night after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a ground invasion, a major escalation in a ten-day offensive that has already killed more than 230 Palestinians.
Witnesses in Gaza reported heavy bombing from jets, warships and artillery stationed along the border, with much of the firing was directed at northern Gaza. The electricity was cut off across a large swathe of the strip, though it was unclear why.
A statement from Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon described the invasion as focused on destroying tunnels connecting Gaza to Israel.
A group of gunmen tried to enter southern Israel through a tunnel from Gaza on Thursday morning; the army said eight of the 13 attackers were killed, and Hamas claimed responsibility for the operation. It was the second such incident in the past ten days. [Continue reading…]