Fares Akram writing in The Independent:
It has been a year since we huddled in our homes in the dark, waiting sleeplessly for the sound of the bombs to stop. It is a year this week since my father, a 48-year-old lawyer with no link to Hamas, the Islamist movement that governs Gaza, was killed by an Israeli air strike, supposedly on Hamas militants. And it will soon be a year since my first child was born, as fleets of ambulances queued up outside the A&E unit of the same Gaza City hospital with the wounded, maimed and dead.
Twelve months after the invasion of Gaza, not a single house has been rebuilt, and we, the 1.4 million people trapped inside this blockaded territory, dream of escape but our heads stay haunted by unbearable memories.
First came the terrifying aerial poundings by F16s and then the second phase, the tanks and ground troops. In between the night bombing and shelling, Gaza City in the first three weeks of January was a ghost town except for an hour or two every afternoon during the temporary ceasefires. That’s when everyone rushed around hunting for food and fresh water to buy, or in the case of my wife, dashed to the maternity clinic for blood pressure checks.
Alaa was nine months pregnant with our first child when the nightmare began and her big fear was how to get to the hospital when she went into labour. Reluctant to leave her fretting in the apartment, I began to relate our experiences for a diary in The Independent, often by phone in the dark because of the power blackouts.
I had little idea, when I started sending my reports, just how directly we would be affected by the Israeli assault. Our lives were to be shattered just hours into the ground invasion, when my father and a 17-year-old cousin were killed at the family farm, struck by a massive bomb dropped by an Israeli warplane directly on the property. They had gone there, to our beloved refuge with its lemon groves and almond trees, to make sure the farm animals didn’t die of starvation during the conflict. The farmhouse was blown to rubble and powder. Mahmoud’s body was found 300 metres away in a neighbour’s field.We could hear the rattle of machine gun fire as we buried Dad and Mahmoud. Israeli tanks were just three kilometres away.
Read the rest here.
Now they are bombing again.
Egyptian authorities are claiming that their iron wall won’t result in Gazan starvation, since 90% of the food comes in through the Israeli side.
Which is a lie, of course — most of it comes through the smuggling tunnels. Only 90% of the documented food imported comes from Israel.
And then of course, there’s the fact that Gaza could probably mostly feed itself… if Israel stopped razing farmland, destroying water infrastructure and firing on fishing boats.
The entire urban population was to be exterminated by starvation…
Well, it’s true that the Egyptian-controlled wall gates are authorized to allow in medicine and medical supplies, at Egyptian discretion, and the Israeli-controlled wall gates are the authorized funnel to allow in food, at Israeli discretion. The Egyptian authorities are simply ignoring the fact that Israel is no where near allowing in enough food so that the tunnels have to be used to bring in desperately needed food.
Egypt is a bad joke, on us, and on its own people.
Quite a lot of killing at the moment from the IDF side. Could this be related to the Shalit deal?
I think it started when Israel murdered three Gazans on their own side of the fence, the same day it assassinating the three men in Nablus. There’s been back-and-forth retaliation ever since, escalating. (of course Gazans aren’t allowed to defend themselves) Israel has dropped leaflets telling the Gazans to stay away from the fence. Doesn’t bode well.
there are some major internal problems in Gaza right now, Hamas is loosing its grip of control, the Popular Committees are bringing in more members of Al Qaeda and firing missiles.
There was an assassination attempt on PRC leader Zakaria Doghmush, Hamas is trying to keep it under wraps to try and regain control of Gaza.
Potsherd, why would the PRC start firing missiles after members of Fatah were killed in the WB? Its such a flawed thesis. And why were they targeted in the first place? Could it be the murder of an Israeli citizen by these gentlemen?
Tuyzentfloot, How many deaths? How many missiles/mortars fired over the last week? How many Egyptian security personal have been killed in the last week?
I don’t think it has anything to do w/ Shalit, things were quite calm until the Gaza march and the assassination attempt on Doghmush.
yonira – many Palestinians in Gaza maintain solidarity with their brothers in the WB. More than the other way around, in fact.
As for the murdered men in Nablus, we will never know if they had any connection to the shooting, given that they are conveniently dead. But I’m sure the murder of the three men in Gaza were more of a motive for the rocket fire. Did you miss that part, or merely excise it? People in Gaza are routinely shot dead if they happen to come too close on their own land to Israel’s fence. This does not make things “quite calm”.
So the initial response of hostility doesn’t count? did you miss that part, or merely excise it?
December 26th there was a bomb in Beirut that killed Hamas people. Same day or the next day there were 3 dead in Gaza and 3 al-aqsa people in the west bank. There’ve been frequent bombings on Gaza since, not killing anyone. I’d leave the Al-Aqsa people out of it for now, but considering that the Shalit deal is contentious(say, because Marwan Barghouti would be released). some people may want to increase tension to make the deal fall through. The other way round, a show of restraint is a sign that you want to make the deal go ahead. This not enough to build an opinion on. It’s more the kind of clue you use to search a bit without knowing if it leads anywhere.
Oh these three, sorry Potsherd I thought you were only talking about the 3 in Nablus. That is definitely more plausible, it was a very foolish thing for the Israelis to do.
link to haaretz.com
Yes, it was unwise.
You don’t think that shooting three civilians dead doesn’t come off as a bit hostile? You don’t think Arabs are allowed to shoot back? You define “calm” as when no Jews are disturbed, no matter how many Arabs are killed?
It isn’t as if this doesn’t happen routinely. In fact, most rocket attacks from Gaza are direct retaliation for such murders.
sorry, yonira, x-posted
That doesn’t bear out.
Its a disaster waiting to happen anyway. Israel attacks, kills 3, then one Hamas cell shoots three rockets, another cell shoots three rockets, and another.
Then Israel retaliates for the rocket firing, multiplying and multiplying.
What stops it?
You’re right. Regular murders of uppity Pals has been a staple of Israeli policy for way before the first Pal rocket was sent over into Israel; the pattern prevalent now is they always follow some Israeli crime carried out at night time on the imprisoned Pals in Gaza. Oddly, we here in the USA only get
news of the errant Pal rockets, usually as the pretext for a new spate of
trying out the latest American gift weapons on the Pal guinea pig collective.
Gotta test those weapons, Gaza’s an outstanding lab!
Lifting the siege on the open-air concentration camp called Gaza could be a start. Would you be in favor of it if Gazans were Jews rather than Muslims and Christians?
I am in favor of lifting the siege regardless of what race they were. Crap, I’d even be in favor of lifting the siege if they were all cats.
From yonira’s post:
A) The siege should be lifted. Israel is causing the siege.
From Witty’s post:
B) The cycle of violence should stop. Israel triggers the cycle of violence, often by killing civilians.
And you guys still don’t understand why we object so vehemently to you guys blaming Hamas, or even Palestinians generally, for the “war?” Who’s really causing the war? Who is profiting off of it?
C) Billions in military aid, billions more in “charitable” donations, billions more in exploitative trade agreements…
Slightly off-topic, but I just visited Jerome Slater’s blog. Very much worth reading. Here’s part 1 of his takedown of someone in the New Republic who attacked the Goldstone Report–
link
Wow, thanks, Donald; that’s a very informative blog by Slater; it sure puts to rest all the hasbara comments made by Witty and friends on this blog regarding the sequence of events surrounding the Gaza turkey shoot, and, the contents of the Goldstone report; Slater shows how the Goldstone Report is actually biased in favor of Israel, rather than the other way around–as most American congress whores decided. I can’t wait for Slater’s impending Part 2 of his analysis.
You’re welcome. Part 2 is up, actually–I just linked to the specific Part 1 article. Just hit on the blog title at the top and you’ll see it.
I think someone mentioned Slater on the front page recently, but I’m not sure. I noticed the link on the sidebar and I’d read Slater in “Tikkun” before and knew he was good.
Yeah, I found it, Part 2. Slater’s equally cogent and informative–his conclusion is that the worst threat to Israel’s (continued) existence is its own criminal policy, a long-standing one even before any rockets were hurled into Israel by Hamas in Gaza–a policy that seems headed for nuclear war:
link to australiansforpalestine.com
Not just worth reading, it’s a must read. Thanks for the link.
Yes, thanks for the link. I wasn’t sure how to post a comment on his blog, but I noticed a very obvious error on a date. He lists Goldstein’s attack on Hebron’s Muslim worshipers as happening in “2004″ when it happened in 1994. Can anyone here post that correction to his blog?
Oops, nevermind, I see that he’s corrected it in an addendum posted on the following day.
If Hamas and Fatah had any brains, they would dissolve their governments and hand over control of all occupied territories to Israel.
The fact that they don’t probably has something to do with the iron law of institutions, a sort of half-serious, half-satirical law proposed by a lefty blogger.
Or as Lucifer put it (speaking through Milton), better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
or better yet hand them over to Jordan and Egypt.
Hamas controls Gaza, why would they want to give it up?
they wouldn’t and Fatah would not want to loose what power they have in the WB either. It was a silly idea, I was just adding the silliness of it.
In reaction to the Goldstone Report’s consistency with the findings of many world-wide
humanitarian and peace NGOs, Israel has now declared war on those groups–it is seeking to dry up funds for the peace groups:
link to finalcall.com
And feeding the anti government groups in Iran via U.S. funding of these groups
Viva Palestina…Convoy Makes it into the Gaza… George Galloway Deported
By: Leen Friday January 8, 2010 4:42 am
Most of us are fully aware that we will not see any coverage of what has and is taking place in the Gaza in our MSM. This is the way it has been in our MSM in regard to the I/P conflict for decades. This off limits standard continues. Rachel Maddow will not be giving George Galloway any air time that is unless he takes up the gay rights issue in Uganda or happens to take a convoy to or through Iran. Rachel’s human rights concerns only go so far and that is not very far. Keith Olbermann, Ed etc have not touched the Goldstone Report, the Gaza Freedom March noting the death and destruction that took place in the Gaza one year ago and the siege on the Gaza that continues. Silence! Complete Silence!
These stories have also been absent from Crooks and Liars, and a few of the other so called progressive blogs. Arianna Huffington, Jane Hamsher etc will not touch this story. How different are the so called progressive big hitting bloggers any different than the MSM on this issue? There are a few who stick their necks out. Glenn Greenwald, Phillip Weiss, and Juan Cole are generally the only bloggers who will tackle this critical issue.
link to seminal.firedoglake.com
It’s a corrupted system of control. Corporate media fascism is the cornerstone of any withering society. And think if the Comcast/NBC Merger goes through. We’ll have to pay for internet access by the same television cable model.
Jeff Chester lays it out in this video.
link to democracynow.org
WINEP is prepping the MSM for the next “false flag” operation. Its latest report says that Hamas wants to join al-Queda’s global network of terror, but al-Queda has asked Hamas to launch a terrorist attack on a Western target to prove its global bona fides.
Next thing you know, some “Hamas” dude will be arrested for “attempting” to create a terror cell in Queens or something. Then the US will be able to declare war on Hamas.
The Clash of Civilizations, live and in living color, bought and paid for by your US tax dollars.
link to latimes.com
Yep. A caveat, since we are at war with terror, and Hamas is on our terrorist shit list, we’ve been at war with Hamas for a long time; we just don’t directly send our drones there or grunts–IDF handles that. Both the USA and Israel always steer clear of
anything so obvious since our betters realize average Americans might have a big
problem with directly fighting and dying for Israel. Not to mention our Arab puppet regimes would face revolt in their streets. Closest we’ve got is those Marines truck-bombed in Lebanon–Reagan ditched that right quick–hell he knows, he spent a lot of years in Hollywood.
But your basic take is right–anything linking Hamas to Al-Quaeda will be a giant bonus for AIPAC and Israel here in the USA. I’m reminded that Al-Quaeda didn’t exist in Iraq before we occupied the country…
link to haaretz.com
Here’s a case where WINEP is only confirming what observers of Hamas have already known, that it has in fact opposed the attempts of al-Qaida to take root in Gaza. But they never seem to be able to take the next step and realize that the seige is doing nothing but strengthening the real extremists, fanning the rage of potential terrorists towards the US and other Western nations who so obviously are their enemies.
But oh no, can’t talk with Hamas, can’t talk with “terrorist groups.”
The people in this world are just too dumb to live.
And the biggest dummy is Uncle Sam, with Obama, elected democratically by the only current superpowr; he’s following in the foot steps of the dim wit Shrub–when will the US get a leader who at least takes into public account in a real
cost/benefit manner, what the terrorists’ proclaimed motives are as something to address, the winning hearts and minds question, not just the psychopathic enemy assumption (a la the wisdom-retarded Ben Stein)? Why do we still use gunboat diplomacy in the 21st Century? So now Obama too is implementing
a notion of peace stuck on the end of a drone bayonet? I guess we won’t stop
until we’ve turned the whole Muslim world against us–eventually even the
Arab tyrant regimes will not be able to handle the Arab man in the street. Just before Xmas Obama signed on for another 30 billion free cash to Israel, such a Santa Claus. More and more courageous pundits are saying
we Americans have to at least discuss and weigh our foreign policy objectives and debate if our last half century of stuck means conflicts with any sane guestimate of our agenda ends.
Take Walt, for example, using the Obama plan announced on tv regarding
securing our selves from terror coming in on planes–clearly a modest tailor’s vision, and not a responsible design for making a better world:
link to walt.foreignpolicy.com
Obama needs to get tough with Israel for the sake of the USA and Israel:
link to thenation.com
He needs to dump the ziocaine idiots, who toss the USA over board in a NY minute for Israel; and yet the irony is Israel’s survival depends on the USA’s
intervention into the home of the drug addict Israel,
Self-pitying Israeli whining has reached truly pitiable depths.
from Israel to White House: Stop anti-Israel Palestinian incitement:
“The Prime Minister’s Office issued a complaint to the White House several days ago lamenting ongoing incitement against Israel by Palestinian leaders.”
I expect Pres. Obama to be falling over himself to comply, not. What exactly do you Zionists want the United States to do about it, and why do you think it our responsibility?
“The complaint was drafted by the prime minister’s political adviser, Ron Dermer, who complained of three specific incidents which he described as severe defiance of Israel. “
Ooh, this ‘severe defiance’ is just so scary it has you wetting your pants, whining to us about your problems with your subject people.
“Dermer stressed that the Palestinian Authority habitually refrains from condemning attacks that occur outside the Green Line and those in which settlers are killed.”
Colonists are a heavily armed militia, and many, and probably most males, are reserve members of the IDF. They are both soldiers AND, by virtue of their presence “outside the Green Line” stealing land and water that doesn’t belong to them, armed robbers.
An occupied people have every right both morally and legally under international conventions to attack members of an occupying army, and everyone has a right to shoot armed robbers stealing their homes and livelihoods when there is no means of peaceful redress through civil judicial institutions. Does anyone think the people of Europe had no moral right to shoot German soldiers occupying their countries during the Second World War? This is a consideration separate from its wisdom, especially in the context of the struggle for hearts and minds in the rest of the world. Attacks that take place INSIDE Israel are a different case altogether, and those are inexcusable for purely civilian targets like the bus bombing to which Dermer refers in the article.
If Israelis want a moral leg to stand on complaining about attacks on colonists inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories (which are NOT in Israel), they should annex the region, end the occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization, and do away with Jewish-only roads and other aspects of their raced-based dual-tiered apartheid military law and apply ISRAELI CIVIL LAW fairly. Until then, Zionists take your damn whining to someone who won’t laugh at your impudence. Whatever their response, I would be shocked if the Obama Administration has a shred of sympathy after enduring inveterate Zionist attacks on its policy and personnel.
“The complaint was drafted by the prime minister’s political advisor, Ron Dermer, who complained of three specific incidents which he described as severe defiance of Israel.”
Sounds like those IMPUDENT Palestinians are at it again!
CNN some pretty good footage about just how elaborate the tunnels are:
link to cnn.com
Not exactly what I imagine when I think tunnel…
it reinforces the concept of an open air prison.
Imagine all that enterprise allowed to be turned to productive activities instead of bare survival.
Anybody read about Obama’s approval just before last Xmas of 30 billion dollars to Israel over the next decade, usual deal, cash, no strings attached? And did you read how Israel is now whining about Obama’s following the usual USA role of selling to our Arab proxy ally despotic regimes some out-dated military weapons (not giving them as we do to Israel, who pays us back with our money and charges us interest), and making a profit on them? The USA is doing this to curb Iran, which is in Israel’s self-confessed interest! Every time I think of Israel that state is personified by that entitled pimply teen-ager making himself a nuisance on the bus that Phil pointed out in his recent article here
entitled “an innocent in Israel.”
Jeez. I’d love to drop our enmeshed foreign entanglement with Israel. It’s just sickening. Israel needs some tough love for its own good (not to mention the good of the USA and the global world).