Amira Hass reports in Ha'aretz:
As of Sunday, the streets of Gaza are full of people fleeing - both
from Sheikh Ajleen, an area with open fields and houses, where battles
between Hamas gunmen and Israel Defense Forces soldiers are taking
place, but also from nearby neighborhoods. Everyone is carrying his
possessions.
Thus, Mustafa and his family have joined the statistics of the newly displaced, whose numbers increase by the day. A relatively small number - some 20,000 - have found refuge in UNRWA schools. Many more have moved in with relatives and friends: in Gaza City, Rafah, Khan Yunis, Beit Hanun and the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The military is steadily forcing the areas known as "population concentrations" to move inward, "clearing" areas on the periphery - first the agricultural land, and now the neighborhoods bordering them - and pushing people into an increasingly smaller territory.
Thus, Mustafa and his family have joined the statistics of the newly displaced, whose numbers increase by the day. A relatively small number - some 20,000 - have found refuge in UNRWA schools. Many more have moved in with relatives and friends: in Gaza City, Rafah, Khan Yunis, Beit Hanun and the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The military is steadily forcing the areas known as "population concentrations" to move inward, "clearing" areas on the periphery - first the agricultural land, and now the neighborhoods bordering them - and pushing people into an increasingly smaller territory.
It was utterly predictable.
They can now sit, eat, defecate and die.
In a smaller ghetto.
Or kennel.
Jonathan Cook discusses Isreal's new level of ethnic cleansing which is forcing Palestinian people into even smaller concentration camps:
'[T]he military strategy was to declare areas of Gaza “combat zones” in which the army would have free rein and from which residents would be expected to flee. If they did not, they would lose their civilian status and become legitimate targets.
That policy already appears to have been implemented in the form of aerial leafleting campaigns warning residents to leave such areas as Rafah and northern Gaza. In the past few days Israeli commanders have been boasting about the extreme violence they are using in these locations.
The goal in both Rafah and northern Gaza may be to ensure that they remain largely unpopulated: in the case of Rafah, to make tunnelling to Egypt harder; and in the northern Strip, from which rockets have been fired at longer ranges, to ensure they do not reach Tel Aviv.
In a third phase such tactics would probably be significantly extended as the army pushed onwards. Swathes of Gaza might be declared closed military zones, with their residents effectively herded into the main population centres.
As Mr Barak was unveiling his strategy a year ago, the interior minister, Meir Sheetrit, suggested that the army “decide on a neighbourhood in Gaza and level it”.'
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook01122009.html
From Mike Whitney:
Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written a letter to Prime Minsiter Ehud Olmert informing him that "all civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot….Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians."
"No moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians"
Isn't this the definition of terrorism?
One Israeli settler leader recently argued during a conversation with a visiting American peace activist that 'if it was right to commit genocide during Biblical time, why can’t it be right to commit genocide now. Has God changed his mind,' the settler wondered sarcastically."
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney01122009.html
Ewa Jasiewicz reorts the possibility that the IDF is carrying away Palestinian bodies by bulldozer for mass burial–among many other horrors.
Of the three paramedics I asked, all of their replies were the same. ‘We saw none’. ‘It was like a ghost town’. Despite being finding bodies over the past week, including one baby which had been half eaten by dogs – photos, film and witnesses at Kamal Odwan confirm it – and bodies which had been run over by tanks, when they went yesterday, they found nobody, and came back to base empty handed. ‘I think the Israelis must have taken the bodies away, I think they must have taken them away by bulldozer and buried them’. The terrifying this is that there are still people trapped in their homes if their homes are still standing, without food, water, or electricity. Refugees at the Al Fakhoura school report not being able to recognise their areas, their streets after the heavy fighting and destruction of so many houses. When these areas are finally accessible to people, the full extent of the killing and destruction will at last be known.
http://www.counterpunch.org/ewa01122009.html
Ehud Olmert brags that he and Bush humiliated Condoleezza Rice: Olmert ORDERED Bush to ORDER Rice NOT to vote for the Resolution that she herself negotiated.
"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.
"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090112/pl_afp/mideastconflictgazaolmertusrice_newsmlmmd
Flavor of the Jakarta street, as reported by a globe-trotting American –
————
"George,
To follow up the report last week about local effects of the Mid-East BS:
Weekend protests here took a decidedly darker turn with large crowds on the verge of violent action, burning Israeli and American flags (usually together). There are several thousand people marching at any given moment in several major cities across Indonesia. Despite my ability to look and sound Australian, I have taken to avoiding the central political district of Jakarta during daylight hours (when and where the protests primarily occur). Originally, the protests were primarily Muslim participants, however I have begun to notice Christian marches growing in number and frequency.
The video is horrific, and Indonesian TV has no qualms with showing graphic material. Sensationalism aside, the repeated shots of burned and mutilated children is enough to make even me want to march in solidarity. There are also multiple shots of missiles exploding in mid-air and spreading tentacles of white phosphorous over wide areas of Gaza. I believe that if Americans were more honestly shown the brutality of the Israeli attacks, there would be greater pressure to back off unconditional support.
So I wait and hope that the protests do not turn violent and that ex-pats here do not become targets for release of rage. In the meantime, Americans would do well to pressure their "leaders" to turn down the unmitigated support for an aggressor nation. Of course, America itself is guilty of its own terror campaigns. Hard to point fingers when they turn back on oneself."
http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm
————
Says it all. Prepare for blowback. America isn't just a failed state — it's a failed brand.
Gosh this site is a breath of fresh air. Bravo.
Now I'm waiting for some politician in Israel, or perhaps a cynical proxy commentator to observe that Olmert and Livni are 'sacrificing' themselves on the altar of global public opinion, so as to prevent Netanyahu getting elected. And thus doing the Palestinians some kind of big favour (because he would be worse). For which they deserve sincere Gazan thanks. All of which would require a word more obscene than chutzpah.
What most folks here in America do not know is this is a continuing pattern of violent ethnic cleasning, removal of Palestinians from homes they have lived in for generations, from their shops and farms, from the land they love, breaking up neighborhoods, social networks, and buldozing down not only a house, or apartment building, but whole townes, so none can return.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6bt1bhhH_8
What a catastrophy. (Nakba)
I must admit to having lost not only my apitite for dinner, but for the pomp of the upcoming inaguration as well.
take care, Kathy
But, when asked if they would accept a cease-fire that included suspension of shelling Israeli civilians, Hamas answered "NO".
Hamas apparently wants this to be war.
Please click on view all images:
Richard, Hamas wants Israel to keep doing exactly what it's doing. Once again Israel has won the war for its enemies. Welcome back to 2006.
***
As for previous comments on ethnic cleansing, there's a witness piece from Gaza on Time.com which reports evacuated homes are being burned and bulldozed.
Very dangerous game for Israel. Somehow pulling out to status quo ante (like after Lebanon '06) would allow Americans to keep their blinders on, and probably claim an Israeli "victory". If Israel actually reclaims and occupies swathes of Gaza, it will be impossible for Obama to let that pass without comment.
Hamas asked for lifting of siege for Gazans, they did not turn down the truce, they simply asked for the terms of truce to be no worse than the terms of the last truce.
What Israel offered them was unconditional surrender, and slow death by malnutrition.
Of course its a dangerous game.
ALL parties have exposed hypocrisies and embarrassments.
Richard, I don't ever seem to hear you elaborating on Israel's "exposed hypocrisies and embarrassments."
(You have to respond when your comments are shown to be lies, Richard. Otherwise people will start to think you're a hasbara computer program.)
He is a product of his training and not capable of independent non-Zionist thought on this issue, D.
Hence the blindspot, the repetition, the language resembling but not quite English, the obsession with Hamas and denial that Zionism is a colonial movement.
Talking to Witty is not about dialog, it is about bearing witness against grotesque amorality and falsehood.
Hass is just another ziolite parrot: "hamas gunmen" bla bla bla