More than 1010 Palestinians dead, over 315 children,
95 women, and more than 5,000 wounded
What would this mean in Britain with its population of 60 million, in comparative terms?
It would mean 40,000 dead, 12500 of them children, and 200,000 wounded.
The carnage continues unhindered!
‘More than 1,000 killed in Gaza’: BBC
Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip have passed 1,000, medical sources in Gaza say, as Egypt continues efforts to broker a ceasefire. Nearly a third of the dead are reported to be children and nearly 5,000 people have been injured. After talks in Cairo, Hamas officials said they were happy with the broad outlines of an Egyptian initiative but that details remained to be worked out.
Stop Arming Israel: Call by PSC
The ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the Israeli assault on Lebanon in July 2006 have been conducted by a strong Israeli army using disproportionate and indiscriminate force against civilian populations in clear breach of humanitarian law. The international community has a duty to prevent this use of force. Yet despite the fact that Israel has flouted more UN resolutions, and for a longer period, than any other country, western governments, including the UK government, continue to supply Israel with weapons and military components. In doing so the UK is providing direct
material support for Israel’s aggression and sending an implicit message of approval for its actions.
Cease fire, cease siege: Kathy Kelly, The Electronic Intifada
Yesterday, en route to the Rafah border crossing that leads into Gaza, our driver pointed to a long line of trucks laden with goods that are desperately needed in every area of the Gaza Strip. “You see,” he said, “all of this is to help people.” Generous people, around the world, want Gazans to have food, shelter, fuel, medicine and water while the Israeli military ruthlessly attacks their homes and neighborhoods. The aid shipments will surely save lives and ease affliction. Nevertheless, this relief will meet only a fraction of the need. What’s more, the Egyptian government’s recent decision to allow humanitarian goods into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, a border over which they have sovereign control, is a departure from the normal state of siege that Gazans have endured for most of the past 18 months.
PRESS RELEASE: Birmingham Councillors call for boycott action on Israel
Politicians from all four parties on Birmingham City Council have called on the Council leadership to pursue a policy of instituting sanctions against Israel.
The call, for a boycott of Israeli goods and services, was initiated by Cllr Salma Yaqoob, Leader of the RESPECT Party, and supported by Tariq Khan (Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group), Cllr Tahir Ali (Labour) and Cllr James Hutchings (Conservative).
The City Council, meeting today (13 January 2009), heard politicians from all sides of the chamber condemn the Israeli attack on Gaza. The cross-party statement recommended that the Council Executive lobby the government to permit local authorities to exercise moral, ethical and human rights considerations when awarding contracts.
UCU refutes claims it has ‘dropped boycott motion’
Responding to claims today that UCU has dropped a proposed boycott of Israeli academics, the union said there was never a boycott motion passed at its Congress and its position on Motion 25 had not changed.
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: ‘UCU has a proud record of solidarity with academics throughout the world, which will continue. Policy set by UCU Congress, the union’s sovereign body, must be respected.
‘At UCU Congress in May I said “because of the constant misreporting of the motions considered by UCU’s Congress, I feel I have to state that we have passed a motion to provide solidarity with the Palestinians, not to boycott Israel or any other country’s academic institutions. I made clear to delegates that the union will defend their right to debate this and other issues. Implementation of the motion within the law will now fall to the national executive committee (NEC).”
‘That position, and the position of the union, has not changed. There was no motion calling for a boycott and the implementation of Motion 25 within the law will continue.”‘
Pro-Israel Supporters Praise Gaza Assault as Justified Despite Mounting Civilian Death Toll: Democracy Now
On Sunday, thousands turned out in New York for a rally to support the attack on Gaza. Speakers included New York Senator Chuck Schumer and Governor David Paterson. The journalist Max Blumenthal, also a Jewish American, spoke to some of the demonstrators. We play highlights. [includes rush transcript]
You can see and hear this sickening event on this site. There are more video clip of this event on:
http://gaza.haimbresheeth.com/gaza-carnage-archive/gaza-video-clips
ICC overlooks Israel’s war crimes allegation: Press TV
The International Criminal Court prosecutor says it lacks jurisdiction to investigate possible Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza. The ICC prosecutor said in a statement Wednesday that the “court’s jurisdiction is limited to war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide committed on the territory of, or by a national of, a state party while Israel is not a member state. Tel Aviv launched Operation Cast Lead on December 27 to put an end to rocket attacks against southern Israeli towns. At least 1,015 Palestinians have died during the offensive, while some 4,700 others are reported wounded.
Witness reports that Israeli soldiers shot woman waving white flag in Gaza Strip: B’Tselem
A Palestinian who is besieged with his family in the Khuza’a area, in the south-eastern Gaza Strip, notified B’Tselem that soldiers had shot a woman waving a white flag and several civilians who were fleeing a bombed house on army orders.
Munir Shafik a-Najar, a resident of Khuza’a village, told B’Tselem’s researcher by telephone that as of 2.30 A.M., the army has been demolishing homes in his area, which lies near the border with Israel. The forces have been using gunfire to signal civilians to evacuate their homes.
Every second there is a bomb: Adham Khalil writing from Jabaliya refugee camp, the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine
It is very horrible here. Today was the worst. There were lots of F-16s above us and white phosphorous falling from the sky.
I didn’t sleep last night. The sound of shelling in the north and east kept us all awake.
Most of the time we don’t have any electricity in my house. So when the power comes for an hour or two the whole family is busy. We charge our mobiles, pump water, bake bread. But I have seen so many horrible things on TV that sometimes I wish we could stay without power.
So far, my own family is okay but I feel shy to speak about my family. I don’t think like that. Everyone in Gaza is my family. We are suffering collectively as we are being punished and forgotten collectively, and we are dying.
It is very dangerous here and everywhere in Gaza. By 5pm the streets are empty. Not even one person goes out of their homes in my area. But even in our homes, we are not safe. I swear sometimes I can smell death around us.
Israel bars Arab parties from election: Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada
The gates of Hell, the window to Heaven: Laila El-Haddad writing from Durham, the United States, Live from Palestine
I have a routine of sorts. I monitor the situation back home in Gaza all day — I keep Al Jazeera English on continuously as long as I am home, despite my son’s Yousuf’s nagging to switch to cartoons. He stopped asking several days ago, when, tearful and angry, I told him Gaza is being bombed, that Seedo and Tete (Grandma and Grandpa) are in danger.
If I leave home, I make sure my cell phone is near me at all times. Last evening, I was at my friend’s house, and my father called me, just before dawn prayers.
“Are you home? Are you there? I don’t know what’s going on but our whole house is shaking, the whole house. The windows have blown open, your mother is terrified, its horrible, I don’t now exactly where it is and the radio hasn’t broadcast anything about it yet either. Just continuous explosions all around, and these clouds of white smoke everywhere,” he went on, his words at once weary and weighed.
Israelis Soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza: Youtube
New Free Gaza ship en route – ambiguous assurances from PM`s office: Kibush Magazine
Original title: `I can assure you that Israel will respect international law`
At 8:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, official Israeli Prime Minister Spokesperson Mark Regev discussed the current voyage of Free Gaza boat `Spirit of Humanity` with Free Gaza co-founder Paul Larudee.
Larudee was seeking assurance that Israel would not harm the boat or prevent it from entering Gaza with medical supplies and personnel, as well journalists and human rights workers. The boat is currently at sea, heading for Gaza. Israel is threatening to use `all available means` to stop the boat. On Dec. 30, an Israel gunboat rammed and almost sank a previous boat. Here is a rough, reconstructed transcript of the conversation:
Read more on the link above.
SOAS Student Union votes to ban Israel lectures, backed by SOAS UCU leaders
The Students’ Union at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), one of the UK’s highest ranked university centres for the study of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, has voted to demand the cancellation of a lecture series organised to mark the centenary of Tel-Aviv.
The series has been organized by SOAS’ Professor Colin Shindler, the UK’s first professor of Israeli Studies, who has also been a friend of mine for over twenty years.
The students of SOAS include a very large number of from Arab and other Middle Eastern countries and others who are passionately supportive of the Palestinian cause. But SOAS during most of the recent history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict has also been a place where those students and those from its Hebrew and Israeli Studies centre attend lectures on the Middle East conflict and the history and culture of zionism and discuss the issues in a spirit of scholarship and free enquiry.
Ironically, the Students’ Union website carries a constitution proclaiming its commitment to free speech and its absolute commitment to opposing discrimination. That was voted in in 2006, after a previous history of attempts by some student groups to intimidate Jewish students in the name of anti-zionism. Throughout that history, the SOAS directorate firmly opposed such action and subsequently adopted a “Freedom of Expression” code which all who are members of the School are expected to sign up to.
She is not that happy with the students’ action, of course. It would have been OK for then to occupy against Hamas, no doubt…
Breaking News! US Cancels Munitions Shipment To Israel Via Greece: Morning Star
WASHINGTON (AFP)–The U.S. military has to had to cancel a planned shipment of munitions from a Greek port to a U.S. warehouse in Israel due to objections from Athens, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday.
“I think the Greek government had some issue with the offloading of some of that shipment in their country and so we are finding alternative means of getting that entire shipment to its proper destination in Israel,” spokesman Geoff Morrell told a news conference. “I don’t think we’ve come to a final resolution on how or when that will take place.”
Thank you Greece! It is possible to stop the carnage and Greece shows the way. Opposing Israel and USA is now the urgent duty of all of us!
Steve Bell in The Guardian
Hamas diplomacy ‘is hard to see’: BBC Today on R4
s the job of Middle East envoy Tony Blair being circumscribed by the fact that he cannot talk to Hamas? Former senior British diplomat Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who has made direct contact with Hamas as part of his work with the charity Forward Thinking, discusses what can be gained from talking to the militant Islamic organisation.
Petition by Radical Philosophy Journal: Israel must lose
The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than sixty years. The goal of this war has never changed. The goal has been to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel’s ongoing appropriation of their land and resources.
Israel’s war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.
It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or for additional humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue, and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides – against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force. We the undersigned believe that Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to
possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a thorough programme of boycott, divestment and
sanctions.
To sign, please send email to: P.Hallward@mdx.ac.uk
SOAS Students occupy the university! Indimedia
We will continue to use the liberated building this week and will hold a number of events including speakers (Tariq Ali tomorrow) and meetings.
The Ministry of Defence exhibition which was in the building has been officially shut down and MoD officials will collect their displays tomorrow.
Thank you SOAS! Let some others learn from this.
SOAS Student activists occupy university building: London Student
SOAS students are occupying the university’s Brunei gallery, calling for the end of an MoD exhibition in the space, more opportunity for union use of the room, and less involvement from private catering company Sodexo.
Naming themselves ‘SOAS students in solidarity with Gaza’, the group are also calling on SOAS Director Paul Webley to issue “a statement of condemnation regarding the recent atrocities in Gaza, as a result of the illegal 60-year occupation by the state of Israel.” A motion entitled ‘No to Racist Exhibition and Wars: Military off our Campus”, passed at yesterday’s Union General Meeting, sparked the protest. It noted that Sodexo, which provides university catering and uses the Brunei suite for outside catering events, “provides catering to the American military in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and also to detention centres in Britain.”
Update: Soas students in occupation declare victory as university concedes demands: Socialist Worker online
by Siân Ruddick at the Soas occupation
Students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) occupying the Brunei Gallery in solidarity with Gaza have declared victory after winning significant demands from the university management.
These include an agreement that there will be no military on campus without prior consultation with the student union. A motion passed yesterday by the student union opposes all military presence on campus. It stands for the next five years. The occupying students will also have exclusive use of the gallery space until end of day Friday. This time will be used to hold meetings on issues related to Israel’s assault on Gaza, such as boycotting Israeli goods and Israeli war crimes. Tariq Ali is already confirmed to speak at the space tomorrow. University authorities have also agreed that students will be able use the lecture theatre and gallery for their own use throughout the year. Previously the rooms cost £1,000 to hire for a day – though the Ministry of Defence got it for free. There will be no repercussions for the students involved in the occupation of the gallery. The mood here remains defiant and ready to ramp up the campaign for solidarity with Palestinians.
Israeli human rights groups speak out as death toll passes 1,000: The Guardian
Copyright © Steve Bell 2009
Gaza conflict: Day 18: BBC
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, reiterates his call for a ceasefire while northern Israel comes under fire from Lebanon and a strike hits a cemetery in Gaza City
So, after attacking kindergartens, schools, clinic, hospitals, offices and police station, Israel is running out of targets! Having killed more than a thousand people, they have now started attacking the dead. Whatever next, I ask.
Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
29 December: A Palestinian boy watches the funeral of three children in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian medics said five young sisters, died in an Israeli air strike in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza and three other young children were killed when a bomb struck a house
phr-jan-9 – Press Release: Physicians for Human Right, Israel
who-gaza-health-sit-rep-12-jan-093:
Gaza WHO Health Situation report: Jan 12, 2009
field-update-on-gaza-from-the-humanitarian-coordinator-12-january-2009:
Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator, Jan 12, 2009
Voices from the frontline: The Guardian
‘I told my wife: For the sake of our kids, please just survive’
I moved from my house because I didn’t have any electricity or any access to the internet and I needed to contact my international partners and the international media. I feel that I have a duty to my people to report on this aggression.
Israeli human rights groups speak out as death toll passes 1,000: The Guardian
The number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza climbed above 1,000 yesterday, despite repeated calls from the UN for a halt to the conflict. With mounting concern about the hundreds of civilians killed, nine Israeli human rights groups wrote to their government warning of their “heavy suspicion … of grave violations of international humanitarian law by military forces”. Among the sites hit yesterday was Sheikh Radwan cemetery. Thirty graves were destroyed, spreading rotting flesh over a wide area. The army said it was targeting a nearby weapons cache.
So far 1,010 Palestinians have died, including 315 children and 95 women, Dr Moawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza’s medical emergency services, told the Guardian. The number of injured after 19 days of fighting stood at 4,700, he said. On the Israeli side, 13 people have died, among them three civilians, and four soldiers accidentally killed by their own troops.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confers with Arab foreign ministers and Amre Moussa, the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, at the UN prior to a Security Council meeting on the situation in Gaza. (Evan Schneider/UN Photo)
Resolution 1860: fig leaf to Arab failure: Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada
srael rejected outright the weak UN Security Council’s “call” for “an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire.” What the Arab foreign ministers hailed as a triumph for their mission to New York was no more than a fig leaf to cover their failure before their increasingly angry and restive peoples who are ever more boldly denouncing Arab leaders’ inaction or complicity as Israel butchers Palestinians in Gaza. Resolution 1860 was a shameless whitewash of the Israeli aggression and war crimes, which the Arab ministers had no choice but to take after having escaped in the direction of New York from the embarrassing alternative of an Arab summit.
Assad warns of extremist backlash: BBC
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has warned that Israel’s campaign against Gaza will fuel extremism and terrorism in the Arab and Muslim world. “The effect of war is more dangerous than war… sowing seeds of extremism and terror around the region,” Mr Assad said in an exclusive BBC interview. He also said a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza could only be achieved if conditions set by both sides were met.
What did he ever do to assist Palestine?
Gaza crisis spills onto the web: BBC
A propaganda war is being waged on the internet between supporters of the Israeli and Palestinian sides in the current conflict in the Gaza Strip. Activists have turned to defacing websites, taking over computers, and shutting down Facebook groups.
US Military sites, Nato, and an Israeli Bank have all been targeted. Experts have warned users to be on the lookout for phishing emails and webmasters to ensure their servers are secure. The hacking of security barriers for political or ideological reasons has been branded by some as hacktivism. And it is thought that as use of the internet grows, so too will the number of attacks.
UN head set for talks on Gaza: BBC
Israel is continuing its military drive into Gaza as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon heads to Cairo in an effort to secure an end to 19 days of fighting. Mr Ban is scheduled to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as part of the most intensive diplomatic effort yet to end Israel’s battle with Hamas. He will then visit Israel and the West Bank as well as other regional powers.
Aid worker diary: Part 15: BBC
Hatem Shurrab is an aid worker in Gaza with the British-based charity Islamic Relief Worldwide.
In the 15th instalment of his diary, 13 January, he says a water shortage is adding to people’s suffering across the Gaza Strip.
Bowen diary: A just war?: BBC
BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen is writing a diary of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Israel seeks airwave supremacy: BBC
Israel has been aiming for total air supremacy in more than one way in Gaza – it wants to dominate the airwaves of the news organisations with its own narrative.To that end it has prevented foreign correspondents from entering Gaza – so too, for its own reasons, has Egypt from its border with Gaza. The Israeli military and the government press office have got round a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court that a pool, or controlled group, of media be allowed in by saying that it is too dangerous.
Israel did give a cameraman brief access with an Israeli patrol and that has been all. Instead, the Israelis have been providing their own video, much of it taken from aircraft.
Lebanon rockets fired on Israel: BBC
Three rockets have been fired from southern Lebanon into northern Israel, Israeli police have said.
There were no injuries or damage reported where they fell, in the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona.
The Israeli army, involved in heavy fighting with Hamas in Gaza, responded with artillery.
It was the second rocket attack from Lebanon in a week. The previous one was described as an “isolated event” by Israel, which blamed Palestinians.
Israel’s free ride ends: The Guardian, Commentisfree
As Israel pulverises Gaza, questions and doubts about Israeli policy are becoming more prominent in the American media.
It’s a common, almost clichéd observation that the American media is less critical of Israeli policy than the Israeli media. In mainstream American depictions of the ceaseless misery of the Middle East, Israeli righteousness and Arab violence are routinely emphasised. The reality of Israeli settlements and Palestinian suffering have been, at best, a footnote.
Conservatives often complain that the news isn’t even more biased toward the Jewish state – or the most hawkish elements within it – but such carping both obscures and reinforces the real distortion in American Middle East coverage, serving as a pre-emptive warning to any outlet that might show too much sympathy for the Palestinians. (The crudeness of Israel’s most vociferous detractors on the far left doesn’t help, since it further marginalises criticism of Israel as the preserve of cranks who can’t see a difference between Dachau and Jenin.)
We believe in resistance, not revenge: The Guardian
Hamas is demonised to justify Palestinian suffering in Gaza. But we have no quarrel with Jewish people, only the actions of Israe.
Sixteen days into its attack, Israel continues to bombard all areas in the Gaza strip from F16s, Apache helicopters, ships and tanks. Weapons used against our people include white phosphorus rockets, made in America, which burn the skin black and destroy human soft tissue completely. Now we can hear shooting around the outskirts of Gaza City. Ninety per cent of the targets attacked are civilian. Of nearly 900 confirmed dead, 32% are children. More than 40% of the 4,000 wounded are children, while medical centres and 13 ambulances have been destroyed.
Children of Gaza: The Guardian
A freelance filmmaker in Gaza shot this material for Save the Children at a UN-supported school for pupils displaced from their homes by the Israeli bombings
Media frustration over Gaza ban grows: The Guardian
UK news organisations are becoming increasingly frustrated by the continuing ban preventing foreign correspondents from crossing into the Gaza Strip, more than two weeks after Israel’s military offensive against Hamas began.
After months of attempting to limit access, the Israel Defence Forces are still refusing to open the Erez crossing they closed on 27 December, when the bombing campaign began, to anything other than humanitarian aid – despite a supreme court ruling ordering the government to allow members of the international press into Gaza.
Gaza invasion: latest news: The Guardian
Israel has ignored a UN ceasefire resolution by continuing to bombard the Gaza Strip as security fears force out the Red Cross
This is an interactive blog, with latest developments reported in real time with comments
Latest Guardian Video clips from Gaza: The Guardian
This is an excellent gateway for recent videos on Gaza
UN climbdown: The Guardian
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has claimed that last-minute intervention by George Bush stopped America voting for a United Nations ceasefire resolution last week, a move that apparently left the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, humiliated.
According to Olmert, Rice planned to vote with the other members of the security council for the resolution.
“When we saw that the secretary of state, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favour of the UN resolution … I looked for President Bush and they told me he was in Philadelphia making a speech,” Olmert said in a speech in Ashkelon, southern Israel, according to reports.
Thank you, USA, for always supporting murder and carnage in Palestine!
UK must act to stop violations in Gaza: The Guardian, letters
The UK has a duty to stop violations of international law in the conflict between Israel and Hamas
As international lawyers, we remind the UK government that it has a duty under international law to exert its influence to stop violations of international humanitarian law in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. A fundamental principle of international humanitarian law is that the parties to a conflict must distinguish between civilians and those who participate directly in hostilities. Attacks deliberately aimed at the civilian population and civilian objects, by any means, are prohibited, as are attacks that do not discriminate between civilians and combatants, or which are likely to cause harm to civilians that is excessive when compared to the military advantage sought by the attack.
Israel and US offer differing reports on UN resolution abstention: The Guardian
Israeli PM Ehud Olmert claimed he had called George Bush to override US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice
The US and Israel offered conflicting accounts today over alleged Israeli intervention to prevent the US voting for a United Nations ceasefire resolution last week, a move that apparently left the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, humiliated.
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, speaking at a meeting in Ashkelon in southern Israel last night, claimed that he had been forced to call George Bush, the US president, to override Rice. According to Olmert, Rice had been planning to vote with the other members of the security council for the resolution.