Knesset Member Yuval Steinitz, head of the Knesset Defense Readiness and Fighting Terrorism Committee, is visibly nervous in his interview with Aljazeera’s Imran Garda. When expertly cornered, he revealed the Israelis had planned the Gaza invasion for 8-9 months.
Events move quickly in carnages of this appalling magnitude. The interview above held on Jan 4 09 is damning as it reveals in full living colour that the Israeli massacre of Gaza was hatched well before the Israelis proferred their hands in truce with Hamas in June 08
Again from Al Jazeera, which is scooping the pool in both content and quality of its coverage of this iniquitous event:
A United Nations agency says nearly fifty percent of those killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip are women and children.
Gaza Physician, Mona El-Farra relates the mind-churning statistics:
8th of January -13th day of the Israeli Attack against Gaza720 are killed
including :-
215 children
89 women
12 1st aid health workersmore than 3000 are injured many with serious injuries
11 ambulances were attacked and destroyed while on duty
health workers are not allowed to evacute many of the injured ,in many occasions
the medical teams face new sort of burns , thier is a possibility that israel uses white phosphorus against civilians ,INVESTIGATION IS NEEDED AT ONCE .
health teams in Gaza need to be assisted , as they are overwhelmed with the increasing numbe rof the casualities and lack of supplies and electricity ,
new born babies inside the hospitals are under great threat , due to power flactuation in the special care baby units SCBU43 were killed inside one of the UN schools , were those fleed to the school ,as thier homes were under heavy shelling or destroyed ,the Un asked for immediate investigation and denied Israeli claim of the presenc eof armed men inside the school
no electricity in Gaza
80% of areas have no water , due to the destroyment of the infra structure , due to the heavy shelling
70% of tleecommuniucations are destroyed tooyestreday Israeli army allowed 3 hours of ceasfire , so the civilians can go to get thier supplies
,but there were no enough bread , vegetables , meat , grosseries and no cash with the population , and thousands are homeless!thousands of Rafah citizens at the moment are homelss, have been evacuated , and thie rhomes were demolished at the southern part of rafah on the borders ,.
iam indirect contact with my fellow doctors in gaz a, but may be i will lose this contact soon ,as the communications is getting less , and this will lead to real catastrophy on the level of evacauting of the injured
PRAY FOR US this is usual messege i recive from friends , neibghors and relatives in Gaza
thank you all for your solidarity , friendship , and humanatarian concern
The specious attempts by Israel to exonerate itself from blame for the massacre of 43 civilians at the UN School have failed.
UN Relief and Works Agency spokesman Chris Gunness reported this evening that the Israeli army is privately briefing diplomats on the fact that its previous claims about their attack on a UN-run girls’ school in the Gaza Strip, which caused over 100 civilian casualties, were baseless.
The attack occurred yesterday, when Israeli mortars deliberately fired three shells at the school, which was filled with hundreds of displaced civilians at the time, killing at least 46 and wounding 55 others. As international outrage began to well over the enormous civilian toll of the attack, Israel declared the killings “according to procedures” and claimed Hamas had fired rockets from the school’s courtyard, making the attack on hundreds of innocent civilians self-defense.
Much was made of the claim, including reports that Israel was mulling filing a formal complaint to the United Nations about Hamas’ use of the facility. But as the United Nations poked holes in the official story, Israel is now backing off those claims.
And while Israel had previously claimed to have had proof to back up its story, Gunness says the military is now conceding that the mortar fire they previously claimed came from the school came from elsewhere in the refugee camp. Though Israel is trying to keep its admission of guilt relatively quiet (far more quiet than its allegations that the killings were justified) it will doubtless pay a further price in the court of international public opinion for having once again deliberately targeted a building full of innocent civilians.
Nicolas Kristof opines late, far too late as he unwinds the story of Hamas’s creation, venturing to add some useless speculation after the event.
So what could Israel have reasonably done? Bombing the tunnels through which Gazans smuggle weapons would have been a proportionate response, if Israel had stopped there, and the same is true of airstrikes on certain Hamas targets. An even better approach would have been to ease the siege in Gaza, perhaps creating an environment in which Hamas would have extended the cease-fire. It was certainly worth trying — and almost anything would be better than lashing out in a way that would create more boomerangs.
“This policy is not strengthening Israel,” notes Sari Bashi, the executive director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights group that works on Gaza issues. “The trauma that 1.5 million people have been undergoing in Gaza is going to have long-term effects for our ability to live together.
Rafahkid relates the crushing of his home town, Rafah. This time, not content with implacable bulldozers, Israel pulverises whole neighbourhoods from the skies.
Residents reported mass leaflet drops in these neighbourhoods by Israeli ‘planes this afternoon. The papers ordered them to leave their homes in the areas stretching from the borderline all the way back to Sea Street, the main street running through the heart of Rafah, parallel to the border. This area is hundreds of metres deep and the site of thousands of homes. Most of these areas are refugee camps, where residents are being made refugees yet again, some for the third or fourth time following the mass home demolitions of 2003 and 2004 by Israeli military D-9 bulldozers.
Rafahkid’s entire blog is well worth a close read for a chilling view of what it is like to live in under the boot of an occupier.
Michel Chossudovsky reveals for us why Gaza’s people are annoying obstruction to Israeli interests in their region.
Yes, folks – we’ve struck natural gas.
Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.
British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.
The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).
The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).
However
The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.
What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?
What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine’s Natural Gas reserves?
A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or “peacekeeping” troops?
The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?
The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza’s maritime areas?