War is traumatizing for anybody, but it's especially devastating to children caught in the crossfire. They are the ones who bear absolutely no responsibility for all the violence, yet they are the ones left with some of the worst physical and psychological scars -- scars they'll carry for life.
As the Israeli army continues its attack on Gaza for the 17th consecutive day, the number of Palestinian civilian deaths continues to rise amidst massive destruction of buildings and property. Israel has employed its full-fledged arsenal to bombard Palestinian residential areas. The latest numbers stand at more than 900 dead and 4,000 injured. More than 280 children have died and approximately 1,480 have been injured since Israel began its offensive against Gaza on Dec. 27, 2008. According to U.N. sources, close to a third of the dead and one fourth of the injured are children. Israel has accused Hamas of intentionally attacking from civilian-populated areas, driving up casualties among non-combatants to provoke anger against Israel. Regardless of this claim, do children have to pay the price?
Below is a chronology of just three days of fighting and its effect on Gaza's children:
On Jan. 6, Israeli soldiers fired mortar shells at a school in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Forty-two people were killed, and Palestinian medical officials said many were children. Israel says Hamas militants had been firing mortar shells from the school, something the U.N. denies.
On Jan. 7, emergency personnel were allowed to enter the Zaytoun neighborhood; previously the Israeli military had kept the International Committee of the Red Cross from entering for four days. Among at least 12 bodies found in one house were four weakened but living children lying next to their mothers' bodies.
On January 8, three brothers were killed from the Hamdoun family: Sami 12, Ali 10, and Mohsen 9. Their televised images have caused outrage in Europe and the Arab world.
In the American media, images from Gaza have been sanitized and when partially shown, they are portrayed as incidental casualties of war. This past Sunday, CNN tried to show "balance" between Palestinian children suffering in Gaza and Israeli families bidding farewell to their sons heading to the front. I'm sorry, but I could not see the balance between the maimed children in Gaza and those shooting at them.
Meanwhile, mounting evidence is emerging that Israel is experimenting with new non-conventional weapons on the civilian population in Gaza. "It is happening again, what we saw in Lebanon two years ago", says Paola Manduca, a genetics teacher and researcher at the University of Genoa and member of New Weapons Research Committee (NWRC), "where Israel used white phosphorus, dense inert metal explosive (DIME), thermobaric bombs, cluster bombs and uranium ammunitions, and experimented with novel weapons and delivery modalities." If this is true, more children are destined to die and to suffer under the watchful eye of the entire world.
For those who care, Jamila al Hayash was playing with her friends on her roof when an Israeli missile struck. Her story is in this video:
Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report on Link TV
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Israel Invades Gaza: Info, Updates, Video
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO ***UPDATE*** January 4th, 9:38PM The Times of London reports that Israel's rain of fire on Gaza is thought to be caused...
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Israeli troops and tanks slice deep into Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Thousands of Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships surrounded Gaza's largest city and fought militants at close range...
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Diplomats Converge On Israel In Push For Truce
Scroll down for video GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israel seized control of high-rise buildings and attacked houses, mosques and smuggling tunnels as it pressed...
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Diplomatic Pressure On Israel, Hamas Intensifies
UPDATE 6 pm Heavy fighting broke out in Gaza's populated streets Monday night as Israel dismissed calls for a truce, reports the Telegraph. Explosions were...
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Gaza truce proposed after Israeli shell kills 30
GAZA CITY, Gaza — France and Egypt announced an initiative to stop the fighting in Gaza late Tuesday, hours after Israeli mortar shells exploded near...
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UN Security Council calls for immediate Gaza truce
JERUSALEM — The U.N. Security Council called for an "immediate" and "durable" cease-fire in Gaza in a resolution Thursday night even as fighting between Israel...
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UN Security Council calls for Gaza cease-fire
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Thursday night calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire between Hamas militants and Israeli forces...
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Red Cross Accuses Israel Of 'Unacceptable' Delays In Providing Access To Wounded
GENEVA — The international Red Cross accused Israel on Thursday of "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach three Gaza City homes hit by shelling...
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Israeli forces advance deep into Gaza urban areas
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli ground forces made their deepest foray yet Sunday into Gaza's most populated area, with tanks rolling into residential neighborhoods...
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Israel's Gaza Offensive: Updated Information
The IDF claims that rocket attacks have dropped 50% since their Gaza operation began over two weeks ago, reports Haaretz: Sixteen days into Operation Cast...
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Photos From Israel That You Won't See on the News
Israel is not media savvy -- we have installed warning systems and bomb shelters. No casualties means no photos, which means that many incidents aren't even covered by the media.
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The CNN-NPR-NYT Middle East Conspiracy
When people complain about bias in the media, it's always bias against their own point of view, and never in favor of their side. Nowhere is this more true than in coverage of the Middle East.
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No Exit for Civilians in Gaza in the Midst of War
In similar situations around the world, civilians caught in the midst of conflict would have the option of seeking safety in neighboring countries as refugees. Gazans have no such option.
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Evidence Grows That Israel is Using White Phosphorus in Gaza
Today, at least two UN officials have flatly declared that three or more white phosphorous shells were part of the attack today that set a UN building and compound ablaze in Gaza City.
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Changing the Reality in Gaza
Counting on international pressure to bring a quick end to the Israeli onslaught may prove to be misplaced as Israel is now determined to never allow a return to the status quo ante.
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Hamas and the Death of a Better Future
To me, Gaza is personal. As an Israeli infantry officer, I served in Gaza before, during, and after the 2005 Disengagement.
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Al Jazeera English Beats Israel's Ban on Reporters in Gaza with Exclusive Coverage
Some may call it propaganda but I call it hardcore reporting. If you are not watching Al Jazeera English's coverage of the War on Gaza, you are missing much, if not, most of the story.
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Why Aren't More Americans Dancing To Israel's Tune?
The surprising trend in American opinion on Gaza may be because the same pundits who are cheerleading Israel's assault once sold the occupation of Iraq, and with a nearly identical set of arguments.
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Maybe Hamas is Not so Stupid
Judged as a piece of political theater, Hamas has succeeded in presenting Israel as the golem on the block.
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Israel as Mini-Me
We are both settler states -- the Puritans, who escaped oppression in the Old World only to mete out oppression in the New, unfolded their Zionist project in the 17th century with their "city built upon a hill" as the New Jerusalem.
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What Was Israel Supposed to Do?
Every day now, I hear someone saying, "What was Israel supposed to do? Hamas keeps firing rockets into their country." So, here is a quick list of the things they were supposed to do.
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Israel's Extensive PR Campaign
Last Friday, at the height of the attacks, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced without a hint of irony: "We are peace seekers."
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Accused of Funding Hamas, Controversial Charity Collects Money in Lebanon for Palestinians in Gaza (VIDEO)
On Beirut's waterfront road, young men dressed in green jackets with the Etelaf Al-Khair logo on their backs are handing out fliers with images of bloodied Palestinian children and holding donation boxes.
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Georgetown Newspaper Editor Reports on Sderot-Gaza, and Recording With Rockets
In a recording studio in Sderot, a few miles east of Israel's Gaza strip, Sergio Arditi felt the steady pulse of Rock and Roll give way to the sporadic vibration of bombs.
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Israel: There Has To Be A Better Way
The war between Israel and Hamas is not as two-dimensional as the United States Senate would like to believe. This is a complex and asymmetric war that will not end favorably for either side.
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Defending Condi: Olmert Shames Himself in Kick-in-the-Teeth Attack on Rice
Olmert's statements certainly send a signal to many in the incoming Obama administration that while there are convergent American and Israeli interests -- friendship and trust are eroding.
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The Phony War Crimes Accusation Against Israel
If Israel were ever to be charged with "war crimes," that would mark the end of international human rights law as a neutral arbitrator of conduct.
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Fanaticism and Contempt
Once the master of revolutionary war, Israel cannot seem to grasp the essential nature of asymmetrical warfare.
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Bomb A Ghetto, Raise A Cheer -- The Video
On January 11, an estimated 10,000 people rallied in front of the Israeli consulate in New York in support of Israel's attack on Gaza. The event was a festive affair that began and ended with singing and joyous dancing.
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Gaza on YouTube: Film at 11!
In lieu of actual reporting, all you have to do is log on to the Israel Defense Forces' YouTube Channel and you can see images of Israel pummeling Gaza, and sit in on "the first ever" Twitter press conference.
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NY Times Responds Weakly Today to Israel's 'Incursion' -- As Shells Kill Dozens at U.N. School
It takes until paragraph #8 for the Times, to mention that, by the way, Israel "must" allow foreign journalists access to Gaza, especially since its highest court so ordered.
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Gazans in Peril
The human tragedy that has befallen Gaza's Palestinians -- Hamas supporters or not -- warrants every American to take cognizance because of its consequences for a durable Middle East peace.
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Hold Your Fire: Children and Civilians In Gaza
If the killing of unarmed civilians by terrorist groups is wrong, Israel's killing of unarmed Palestinian civilians and our defense of Israel's conduct cannot be right.
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War Diary from Sderot
Not in my name and not for me did you go into this war. The bloodbath in Gaza is not in my name nor for my security. Behind this accursed leadership of Hamas live human beings.
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Overwhelming Force Is the Only Way to Fight Terrorists
The destruction of Hamas benefits the Palestinians far more than the Israelis. It is they that must live under the cruelty of an organization that terrorizes its citizens even more than its enemies.
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Gaza and the Obama Effect -- Ending the War
It might be pushing the envelope to call Obama the peacemaker here, but it's hard to deny that his impending entrance to the world stage has an effect.
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How Propaganda Hijacked Israeli Strategy in Gaza
While Israel's explicit goal is to cease all attacks on southern Israel, senior IDF and intelligence officials have privately signaled that this is unrealistic, even with a ground invasion.
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Obama's Silence
As January 20 approaches, Obama will have to make a lonely decision - to remember his 2007 words about Palestinian suffering and his campaign pledge to talk unconditionally with adversaries.
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Video Reveals that a Lack of Moral Center Is Central to Hamas's War Strategy
The whole world is quick to condemn Israel for civilian deaths in Gaza, but there is utter silence over Hamas's blatant disregard for the lives of its own citizens.
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Goodnight My Love, See You in Heaven -- Diary From an Aid Worker in Gaza
The situation has now reached such a critical point that doctors frequently confront dilemmas such as these -- to treat the child who is bleeding to death or the baby who has severe head injuries?
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Israel in Gaza: Three Wrong Arguments
The Reid/McConnell resolution is a perfect articulation of one voice in the American debate over Israel's actions in Gaza. Here are a few objections that should be raised.
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Israel, Gaza and Iran: Trapping Obama in Imagined Fault Lines
While there certainly is an underlying rivalry between Israel and Iran that has come to fuel many other otherwise unrelated conflicts in the region, not every war Israel fights is related to Iran.
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Weighing Proportionality in Gaza
The losses on both sides will be all in vain if the final outcome of the war does not substantially improve both the prospects for an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace.
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Reportage from Israel/Gaza
We can't ignore this fact: Gaza is becoming not the embryo of the so-desired Palestinian State, but the advance base of a total war against the Jewish State.
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Proportionality and Disproportionality: A Guide to Arguments about Gaza
Even if the guns fall silent the charges and counter-charges of violations of international law will continue. Already the airwaves are full of talk that Israel's "disproportionate" response is a violation of international law.
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Obama -- Please Say Something!
In just over two weeks Obama will be unable to avoid saying something and the world will be looking to him and demanding to hear his opinion on the crisis in Gaza.
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Israel's Risk
What we're watching in Gaza is not so much low-intensity warfare as the continued fracture of the post-Soviet international order.
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Why Do So Few Speak Up for Gaza?
Why is it that there is such widespread acceptance, beginning with the apologetic arguments of George Bush, that whatever Israel does is always justified as necessary to the survival of the Jewish state?
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Why Israel Was Right to Invade Gaza
How should Israel attempt to protect its people, long-term, if it merely acts defensively in a tit-for-tat manner? That would be a horribly naïve response given its history.
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Gaza, Qaddafi, And Starbucks
Along with the images of bloodied children, scenes of destruction and carnage in Gaza, debates on Arab disunity have increased in the Arab media.
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Israel, Hamas, Gaza: Plenty of Us in America Just Need to Shut Up
Something labeled "Subject: Fwd: Some Differences Between Hamas and the Nazi Party" showed up in my inbox Monday night.
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Obama Camp "Prepared To Talk To Hamas," Says the Guardian
The Obama administration's emphasis on "talk" with Hamas will bring a significant moral shift in U.S. policy -- but it will not do away with some of the core grievances vis-a-vis U.S.-Israel relations.
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Protesters in Beirut Demand Action from Arab Leaders on Gaza, Focusing on Egypt as Demonstrations Rise (VIDEO)
Millions across the Arab world are demonstrating, demanding that Arab governments do more to support Palestinians trapped in Gaza.
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Eyeless in Gaza
I wish I didn't believe that the events now unfolding in the Middle East are too complicated for unalloyed outrage. I wish the arguments of only one side rang wholly true to me.
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AP Reporter Watches Own Home Destroyed, via YouTube, in Gaza
In one of the most moving accounts of the war in Gaza, Ibrahim Barzak, the AP's chief correspondent there for 17 years, today wrote of watching his own home destroyed on YouTube.
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Mitchell Bard is Wrong On Israel
Hamas did not start this conflict. Here's an extensive time line of events, making clear that Israel broke the ceasefire, not Hamas.
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Ceasefire
The first reason for a ceasefire now is to stop the killing. The second is to ensure that a year or two from now we are not all wishing that Hamas was still in charge.
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Livni and Barak's Gaza Calculus
If hundreds of innocent deaths helps secure a real security mandate for the moderate-to-dovish Kadima/Labor and Israeli-Palestinian peace, that's political calculus Livni and Barak were willing to take.
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Was Israel Punked by Hamas? Are Progressives Attacking Israel Being Punked too?
The only way the Israeli and Palestinian people have a shot at peace is for outsiders to put pressure on both sides to make it happen and to stop the violence. It can be done.
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Israel and Hamas: Two to Tango
What is going on in Gaza is that it is not the result of a sudden decision or an immediate and intolerable provocation by one side or the other -- this thing has been in the planning by both sides for months.
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Hamas Is Responsible for the Civilian Casualties in Gaza
By choosing tactical advantages over the safety of its citizens, the terrorist organization chose its military goals over the safety of its fellow Palestinians in Gaza.
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Self-Deception and the Assault on Gaza
From the civilian deaths in Gaza will spring more hatred and terrorism. Yet no people are so prone as Americans and Israelis to think admiringly of our own good intentions.
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How to Defeat Hamas -- Face Up to the Truth
Making Hamas into a unique demon is pure propaganda. But no form of Islamic extremism will end until moderate Muslims stand up for their religion.
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Letter From Beersheva
I am here in Beersheva -- on the "almost" frontlines of the conflict with Hamas -- to tell you the first thing to go when missiles start to fall nearby, is your diet.
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It's Time for a Sustained Focus on a Lasting Middle East Peace
What we continue to lack is the kind of real political solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that could finally make a "ceasefire" endure.
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Gaza: Fight at the End of the Tunnel?
Any ceasefire must include an ironclad commitment by Egypt to cooperate fully with Israel to shut Hamas' tunnel network once and for all whatever Hamas' political or military wings decide tomorrow in Cairo.
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What will it take for the world to wake from its slumber and react?
These children need our help!
"...Israel aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies. Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a former senior CIA official.
The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. ... Israel was certainly funding the group at that time. One U.S. intelligence source said that not only was Hamas being funded as a "counterweight" to the PLO.. "The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place...Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with."
http://web.archive.org/web/20021112131048/http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID=18062002-051845-8272r
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/01/scenes-from-the-new-nakba.html
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.
Be sure to read the comments following the blog post.
Here is a link that includes the attitude of the settlers, that Israel should take all the land. In fact, they almost do have it all. Please watch, you should hear this for yourself, the attitude dripping from her lips, as she stands on her newly stolen land.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6bt1bhhH_8
I'm guessing the Media offensive from Israel to blind Americans is at work here. Well take a look at this video, notice how he keeps saying no pictures?
It's a given that they know what they are doing is horribly wrong but want to suppress this to keep their gravy train (US Taxpayers $8 billion) going.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVhFyIns81Q
RE: Jews as a "people' -- whatever that means -- it's scientific nonsense -- many Eastern European Jews are descendants of the Khazars, a Turkic tribe that converted to Judaism to distinguish themselves from their Christian and Muslim neighbors. They are the core of Israeli leadership. (My Hungarian ancestors were allied with them, they used to kidnap Europeans and sell them to the Arabs as slaves.)
The Zionist cabal that runs Israel constantly subjects the population to the hysterical idea that the Arabs are the new Nazis, and so keeps them in a constant state of fear in which they can rule a mostly unquestioning populace. The whole world to them is an anti-Semitic plot, and every outrage that israel perpetrates reenforces global outrage, making the Israelis ever more paranoid.
The 2002 Arab Peace Initiave:
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/league/peace02.htm
Even Hamas and Iran are on board now -- Israel is the only party who rejects it.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
The Israeli Hamas war is not the only horror story, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and historically the North of Ireland, Russia, Georgia, the list goes on.
Yet it seems the UN is selective in where it intervenes and now it intervenes.
I believe the UN had prior knowledge of Israel's intention to invade, and when Hamas has been softened up enough, step in to diplomatically secure a ceasefire and a permanent end to rocket attacks upon Israeli civillians, but at what a terrible price.
We have the blood of innocents on our hands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVhFyIns81Q
While there is no doubt that there is hatred taught on both sides, it's clear that killing innocent women and children and destroying the infrastructure and schools of Gaza are truly heinous crimes. The rocket attacks must stop too but that requires a population to be given a chance, not penned up and treated like second class citizens in a ghetto reminiscent of Germany in the 30's
Look at the picture at this link, and tell us what you would do if you were the Pals.
http://www.rense.com/general84/0836.jpg
The context: Israeli mass murder against the Palestinians
The venue: AIPAC Convention or Pro-Israel fund raiser
The subject: Cowardly money hungry congressperson
The stimuli: Campaign contributions and warm endorsements
The response: "Israel has a right to defend herself against terrorist attacks on her own people. We have an unshakable moral committment to support Israel as the only democracy in the middle east, and that is a committment that we shall stand by unconditionally. We must stand with Israel in her struggle against those who seek her annihilation."
The reward: Cash register ka-ching, money flowing to campaign,and warm effusive praise as "friend of Israel."
massacre.
Please post links to donate to stop the killing.
Words are useless unless backed up by lobbiests for peace.
US policy is being run by Isr. lobbing and $$$$.