Tuesday, December 30, 2008
End the Brutal Siege of 1.5m Palestinians!
Israel Continues Its Sixty Year Plus Genocide Against Palestinians
Palestinians carry the body of 4-year-old Lama Hamdan during her funeral in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip December 30, 2008. Israel on Tuesday rejected any truce with Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip before cross-border rocket fire ceased and said its air strikes, the fiercest in decades, heralded "long weeks of military action". In Beit Hanoun, two sisters, one of them Lama Hamdan, were killed in a air raid as they were taking out the trash near their home, medical workers said. Reuters/Mohammed Salem
Five Girls From One Family Murdered by Israel
All my pretty ones? Did you say all?Ross in Macbeth upon learning that Macbeth murdered his wife and child.
The five Ba'lousha children murdered by Israel:
4-year-old Jawahir Anwar
8-year-old Dina Anwar
12-year-old Sahar Anwar
14-year-old Ikram Anwar
17-year-old Tahrir Anwar
Monday, December 29, 2008
Israeli Massacres in Gaza Continue: 284 Killed; Including 32 Children
Reference: 114/2008
Date: 29 December 2008
Press Release
Israeli Massacres in Gaza Continue: 284 Killed; Including 32 Children, and 755 Injured
Gaza's Service Systems Paralyzed under Severe Lack of Medicine, Food and Power
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has continued its airstrikes on Gaza. For the third day in a raw, Israeli aircrafts, helicopter gunships and surveillance drones have continued to roam Gaza's skies, spreading death around the impoverished coastal strip. Attacks targeted dozens of houses and other civilian premises, such as mosques and education facilities that are located in urban areas causing dozens of civilian casualties. These attacks continue as the international community failure to uphold applicable international law seems to encourage more Israeli attacks, despite their clear disregard of civilian life and international law.
Al Mezan Center's monitoring indicates that at least 30 Palestinians (12 children and one woman) have been killed since yesterday, whereas the number of people who have been injured reached 158 (25 children and 14 women). 38 houses were targeted directly by the IOF and approximately 3,000 homes have sustained varied degrees of damage. Additionally, the IOF airstrikes targeted and destroyed 4 mosques, 34 workshops, 16 security installations, 3 CBO offices, 3 fishing boats and 6 vehicles. This is besides the bombardment of a building in the Islamic University. The UNSCO office and a building hosting international UN staff and a number of their cars were also damaged.
As IOF's attacks continue, more casualties and damages are expected to occur in Gaza.
Two of the most tragic events took place in Jabalia refugee camp, north of the Gaza Strip, and Rafah refugee camp in the south of the Strip. In Jabalia refugee camp an Israeli airstrike targeted the Emad Aqel Mosque in Block 4 of the camp. The Mosque was destroyed. But so were tens of the refugee camp's humble homes, which asbestos roofs and weak walls fell down. Two homes adjacent to the Mosque were completely destroyed, one of which on their inhabitants, killing five girl children and injuring six, including an infant, a toddler and two girl children as well as their parents. Al Mezan's field worker reported that the victims were identified as:
- 4-year-old Jawahir Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 8-year-old Dina Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 12-year-old Sahar Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 14-year-old Ikram Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 17-year-old Tahrir Anwar Ba'lousha.
Those who were injured are:
- Two-week-old Bara' Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 2-year-old Mohammed Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 11-year-old Samah Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 16-year-old Iman Anwar Ba'lousha,
The parents of the children were also injured in this attack, which destroyed tens of homes and caused various injuries to another 24 civilians.
In the southern Gaza camp of Rafah, Israeli aircraft destroyed tens of homes in a series of airstrikes. The bombardment of the Al-Attar family and the Al-Absi family were particularly severe. According to Al Mezan's field investigations, at approximately 1am today, 29 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts launched two airstrikes which simultaneously hit the houses of Al-Attar family and the Al-Absi family in the camp. The latter house was completely destroyed and many of its inhabitants were buried under its rubble. Three of the family's children were killed and five other persons were injured. Medical sources in Rafah reported to Al Mezan that the children's mother sustained serious wounds. Those who were killed in this house were identified as:
- 3-year-old Sedki Ziad Al-Absi,
- 12-year-old Ahmad Ziad Al-Absi,
- 14-year-old Mohammed Ziad Al-Absi.
Three other people from Al-Kurd family, who reside a neighboring house, were also injured in this attack, which caused damage to another four houses.
Aircrafts also bombarded and destroyed the Al-Attars house in Rafah. Four other neighboring homes were severely damaged and four people residing an adjacent home were injured, including 12-year-old Mahmoud Abu Hashim. The Al-Attar family had evacuated their house shortly before the shelling.
IOF's airstrikes also targeted civilian premises in Rafah, including the buildings of Rafah Municipality and Governorate, and metal workshops, a medicine stores, and police stations.
The IOF also intensified its attacks on the borderline between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, forcing thousands of civilians to evacuate their homes starting approximately 40 minutes after midnight today. Families sheltered in UNRWA schools, which are not equipped to receive refugees, especially in the cold winters.
In Gaza City, IOF's attacks have continued to target civilian premises. One attack targeted a two-story house owned by the Kishku family in Az-Zeytoun neighborhood in the city, at approximately 7pm yesterday. Israeli aircrafts hit the house with missiles while its 13 inhabitants were inside it, killing one woman and a girl child and injuring another six. Those who were killed were:
- 8-year-old Ibtihal Abdullah Kishku,
- 22-year-old Maisa Muneer Kishku.
At approximately 1:20pm yesterday, 28 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts fired missiles into two uninhabited apartments in the Al Azhar and the Education apartment compounds in Tel Al Hawa area in Gaza City. Numerous apartments were damaged. Later at night, Israeli aircrafts fired five heavy missiles at a building hosting classrooms and the labs of the Science and Engineering colleges at the Islamic University in Gaza City. The building was completely destroyed and other buildings at the university were damaged.
Al Mezan's field workers reported that the IOF launched numerous attacks on police and security buildings in Gaza City, including the presidential guesthouse in Ansar security compound. Israeli aircrafts and naval vessels took part in these attacks, which also struck the fishermen's haven and destroyed three fishing boats.
Also in Gaza City, at approximately 2:30am today 29 December 2008, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at the house of Ala' I'kilan in the Beach refugee camp, destroying it and causing damages to tens of houses in the camp.
In Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, Israeli aircrafts bombarded various targets. At approximately 9:15pm on 28 December 2008 fired a missile into a crowd of people in Al Qarara town, east to Khan Younis, killing 22-year-old Ahmad Fayyad and moderately injuring another man.
At 10:20pm on the same day IOF bombarded the Ezadin Al Qassam Mosque in the town of Abassan, east to Khan Younis, destroying the mosque and causing severe damage to many houses around it. About an hour later, Israeli aircrafts bombarded the Abu T''emeh family's house in Bani Suheial town, also east to Khan Younis. The house was destroyed and many other houses damaged.
In the Middle Gaza district, IOF fired missiles at an empty car in the An-Nuseirat refugee camp. Three bystanders were killed, including a child. They were identified as:
- 15-year-old Diya Abu Khubizeh,
- 20-year-old Mohammed Abu Khubizeh,
- 21-year-old Younis Abu Khubizeh.
At approximately 11:30pm on Sunday 28 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts bombarded the house of Talal Hassan Issa in the Al-Bureij refugee camp. The house was completely destroyed and tens of other houses were damaged. However, no casualties were reported. Eyewitnesses reported to Al Mezan that the inhabitants had evacuated following a telephone call informing them that their house would be attacked.
This Israeli bloody escalation comes while the tight siege of Gaza which has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis for Gaza's 1.5 million people, who have had to live under severe shortages of food, water, medicine and power. These conditions impact seriously on the services sectors, especially as some of their facilities are being bombarded.
According to the monitoring of Al Mezan Center for Human Rights there is evidence that the IOF has perpetrated grave breaches of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Gaza during the past few days. Many of the IOF's conducts qualify as war crimes and/or crimes against humanity. The Israeli aggression also represents a multiple violation of human rights standards.
It has been observed that the IOF target civilian premises directly and wantonly, while showing blatant disregard to civilian life and property. Israel's attempts to prescribe its recent actions as self-defence against Hamas and rocket launchers is distorted and misleading. When a state chooses to resort to the use of force, it is bound by rules that prevent it from the abuse of this force, for its actions must observe the basic principles of IHL and human rights, both of which absolutely prohibit the disproportionate use of force and place an obligation on it to distinguish between military and civilian targets. In pursuing political gains in Gaza, Israel must show respect for human rights.
Therefore, and as the international community continuous failure to uphold its own legal and moral obligations, by turning a blind eye to the recent developments in Gaza and refraining from taking any effective actions to restrain Israel's violations or providing aid and protection for innocent civilians, Al Mezan calls for an urgent convention of the conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Times of war, of 1949, to consider the continuous, and scandalous, disregard of its obligations under the Convention and taking the necessary measures to ensure respect of its rules with regard to the Israeli action in Gaza.
Al Mezan Center, while welcomes the worldwide popular reactions in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, calls for more pressure by civil societies on their governments to ensure that they take actions in compliance with their international obligations, which require them to act to stop and punish war crimes.
END
Date: 29 December 2008
Press Release
Israeli Massacres in Gaza Continue: 284 Killed; Including 32 Children, and 755 Injured
Gaza's Service Systems Paralyzed under Severe Lack of Medicine, Food and Power
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has continued its airstrikes on Gaza. For the third day in a raw, Israeli aircrafts, helicopter gunships and surveillance drones have continued to roam Gaza's skies, spreading death around the impoverished coastal strip. Attacks targeted dozens of houses and other civilian premises, such as mosques and education facilities that are located in urban areas causing dozens of civilian casualties. These attacks continue as the international community failure to uphold applicable international law seems to encourage more Israeli attacks, despite their clear disregard of civilian life and international law.
Al Mezan Center's monitoring indicates that at least 30 Palestinians (12 children and one woman) have been killed since yesterday, whereas the number of people who have been injured reached 158 (25 children and 14 women). 38 houses were targeted directly by the IOF and approximately 3,000 homes have sustained varied degrees of damage. Additionally, the IOF airstrikes targeted and destroyed 4 mosques, 34 workshops, 16 security installations, 3 CBO offices, 3 fishing boats and 6 vehicles. This is besides the bombardment of a building in the Islamic University. The UNSCO office and a building hosting international UN staff and a number of their cars were also damaged.
As IOF's attacks continue, more casualties and damages are expected to occur in Gaza.
Two of the most tragic events took place in Jabalia refugee camp, north of the Gaza Strip, and Rafah refugee camp in the south of the Strip. In Jabalia refugee camp an Israeli airstrike targeted the Emad Aqel Mosque in Block 4 of the camp. The Mosque was destroyed. But so were tens of the refugee camp's humble homes, which asbestos roofs and weak walls fell down. Two homes adjacent to the Mosque were completely destroyed, one of which on their inhabitants, killing five girl children and injuring six, including an infant, a toddler and two girl children as well as their parents. Al Mezan's field worker reported that the victims were identified as:
- 4-year-old Jawahir Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 8-year-old Dina Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 12-year-old Sahar Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 14-year-old Ikram Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 17-year-old Tahrir Anwar Ba'lousha.
Those who were injured are:
- Two-week-old Bara' Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 2-year-old Mohammed Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 11-year-old Samah Anwar Ba'lousha,
- 16-year-old Iman Anwar Ba'lousha,
The parents of the children were also injured in this attack, which destroyed tens of homes and caused various injuries to another 24 civilians.
In the southern Gaza camp of Rafah, Israeli aircraft destroyed tens of homes in a series of airstrikes. The bombardment of the Al-Attar family and the Al-Absi family were particularly severe. According to Al Mezan's field investigations, at approximately 1am today, 29 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts launched two airstrikes which simultaneously hit the houses of Al-Attar family and the Al-Absi family in the camp. The latter house was completely destroyed and many of its inhabitants were buried under its rubble. Three of the family's children were killed and five other persons were injured. Medical sources in Rafah reported to Al Mezan that the children's mother sustained serious wounds. Those who were killed in this house were identified as:
- 3-year-old Sedki Ziad Al-Absi,
- 12-year-old Ahmad Ziad Al-Absi,
- 14-year-old Mohammed Ziad Al-Absi.
Three other people from Al-Kurd family, who reside a neighboring house, were also injured in this attack, which caused damage to another four houses.
Aircrafts also bombarded and destroyed the Al-Attars house in Rafah. Four other neighboring homes were severely damaged and four people residing an adjacent home were injured, including 12-year-old Mahmoud Abu Hashim. The Al-Attar family had evacuated their house shortly before the shelling.
IOF's airstrikes also targeted civilian premises in Rafah, including the buildings of Rafah Municipality and Governorate, and metal workshops, a medicine stores, and police stations.
The IOF also intensified its attacks on the borderline between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, forcing thousands of civilians to evacuate their homes starting approximately 40 minutes after midnight today. Families sheltered in UNRWA schools, which are not equipped to receive refugees, especially in the cold winters.
In Gaza City, IOF's attacks have continued to target civilian premises. One attack targeted a two-story house owned by the Kishku family in Az-Zeytoun neighborhood in the city, at approximately 7pm yesterday. Israeli aircrafts hit the house with missiles while its 13 inhabitants were inside it, killing one woman and a girl child and injuring another six. Those who were killed were:
- 8-year-old Ibtihal Abdullah Kishku,
- 22-year-old Maisa Muneer Kishku.
At approximately 1:20pm yesterday, 28 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts fired missiles into two uninhabited apartments in the Al Azhar and the Education apartment compounds in Tel Al Hawa area in Gaza City. Numerous apartments were damaged. Later at night, Israeli aircrafts fired five heavy missiles at a building hosting classrooms and the labs of the Science and Engineering colleges at the Islamic University in Gaza City. The building was completely destroyed and other buildings at the university were damaged.
Al Mezan's field workers reported that the IOF launched numerous attacks on police and security buildings in Gaza City, including the presidential guesthouse in Ansar security compound. Israeli aircrafts and naval vessels took part in these attacks, which also struck the fishermen's haven and destroyed three fishing boats.
Also in Gaza City, at approximately 2:30am today 29 December 2008, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at the house of Ala' I'kilan in the Beach refugee camp, destroying it and causing damages to tens of houses in the camp.
In Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, Israeli aircrafts bombarded various targets. At approximately 9:15pm on 28 December 2008 fired a missile into a crowd of people in Al Qarara town, east to Khan Younis, killing 22-year-old Ahmad Fayyad and moderately injuring another man.
At 10:20pm on the same day IOF bombarded the Ezadin Al Qassam Mosque in the town of Abassan, east to Khan Younis, destroying the mosque and causing severe damage to many houses around it. About an hour later, Israeli aircrafts bombarded the Abu T''emeh family's house in Bani Suheial town, also east to Khan Younis. The house was destroyed and many other houses damaged.
In the Middle Gaza district, IOF fired missiles at an empty car in the An-Nuseirat refugee camp. Three bystanders were killed, including a child. They were identified as:
- 15-year-old Diya Abu Khubizeh,
- 20-year-old Mohammed Abu Khubizeh,
- 21-year-old Younis Abu Khubizeh.
At approximately 11:30pm on Sunday 28 December 2008, Israeli aircrafts bombarded the house of Talal Hassan Issa in the Al-Bureij refugee camp. The house was completely destroyed and tens of other houses were damaged. However, no casualties were reported. Eyewitnesses reported to Al Mezan that the inhabitants had evacuated following a telephone call informing them that their house would be attacked.
This Israeli bloody escalation comes while the tight siege of Gaza which has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis for Gaza's 1.5 million people, who have had to live under severe shortages of food, water, medicine and power. These conditions impact seriously on the services sectors, especially as some of their facilities are being bombarded.
According to the monitoring of Al Mezan Center for Human Rights there is evidence that the IOF has perpetrated grave breaches of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Gaza during the past few days. Many of the IOF's conducts qualify as war crimes and/or crimes against humanity. The Israeli aggression also represents a multiple violation of human rights standards.
It has been observed that the IOF target civilian premises directly and wantonly, while showing blatant disregard to civilian life and property. Israel's attempts to prescribe its recent actions as self-defence against Hamas and rocket launchers is distorted and misleading. When a state chooses to resort to the use of force, it is bound by rules that prevent it from the abuse of this force, for its actions must observe the basic principles of IHL and human rights, both of which absolutely prohibit the disproportionate use of force and place an obligation on it to distinguish between military and civilian targets. In pursuing political gains in Gaza, Israel must show respect for human rights.
Therefore, and as the international community continuous failure to uphold its own legal and moral obligations, by turning a blind eye to the recent developments in Gaza and refraining from taking any effective actions to restrain Israel's violations or providing aid and protection for innocent civilians, Al Mezan calls for an urgent convention of the conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Times of war, of 1949, to consider the continuous, and scandalous, disregard of its obligations under the Convention and taking the necessary measures to ensure respect of its rules with regard to the Israeli action in Gaza.
Al Mezan Center, while welcomes the worldwide popular reactions in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, calls for more pressure by civil societies on their governments to ensure that they take actions in compliance with their international obligations, which require them to act to stop and punish war crimes.
END
For Palestine
A Palestinian boy watches the funeral of three children in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008 (Ibraheem Abu Mustapha, Reuters)
A Palestinian man carries the body of his 4-year-old daughter Dena Balosha during the funeral for her and her four sisters in Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008 (Mohammed Salem, Reuters). Five of this man's daughters were murdered by Zionists.
How hard it is to look at the TV. I'm a school teacher, but when I watched CNN's "Putting Gaza in Context" yesterday I hurled expletives that wouldn't be tolerated in a bar. While the fresh-faced engaging young man put Gaza "in context" for us, he failed to mention that 44.7% of Gaza's population is fourteen years of age or under (thanks, Annie, for that fact from the CIA factbook). Instead he told us that Israel was engaged in a war with Hamas militants. Tell that to the father who carried his dead seven year old son in a cardboard box. And tell us why this monstous faux country bombed a defenseless refugee population at high noon, when school was getting out. (And for comprehensive coverage of Israel's latest in a long line of massacres against the Palestinian people check out Annie's blog).
He did tell us that Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005, leaving the ignorant viewer to wonder just why the Palestinians there are so unhappy with Israel, the plucky nation of immigrants, self-described as the "light unto the nations." Well, at least no one buys that bull any more. He also didn't put in context that most of the residents were ethnically cleansed from their villages, which were bombed to oblivion in 1948 by the immigrants from Poland, Russian, and the US, nor did he mention that the people in Sderot live in ethnically cleansed and courtesy of Israel defaced Najd. We hear a lot about Hamas this, Hamas that, Hamas hospital, Hamas University, Hamas school, Hamas day care, Hamas house, Hamas mosque, Hamas civil defense building, Hamas neighborhood, ad nauseum.
There are a lot of nasty and not so nasty commentators on the Guardian's Comment is Free, but no one really gets to the heart of the matter. Except for Ali Abunimah who wrote "We Have No Words Left." Well, we have words, but no words in the English language to describe the despicable way that Zionists have vilified their victims for over sixty years and turned this story on its head unless our words are reduced to the basic Anglo-Saxon expletives hurled at the TV for the disgust we feel for how our suffering is portrayed and for the indifference to our plight from the Zionists and much of the world. Actually, the indifference is better than the insidious Zionist lie after lie after lie that saturate the comments boards and the media. The Israeli Zionists want a state "for the Jews, of the Jews, and by the Jews," and damn everyone else.
The Zionists spit on international law and human rights. Zionists, no matter from where they come in the world, don't give a damn that they deny the right of return to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. They happily immigrate to their faux country, indifferent to the natives they ethnically cleansed and to the villages they eradicated. They have no concern that by immigrating to Israel they are collusive in an ongoing genocide of a people and their culture. They bombed and eradicated over five hundred villages to ensure that the refugees wouldn't return home, and those who tried back in the fifties were gunned down by the vicious predecessors of today's Zionists.
Any other people would have the world's sympathy, but sympathy or not, at least I'm not going away, and I will resist the evil manifested by the despicably racist Zionist movement consisting of a host of invaders from all over the world, who for sixty long years have denied the Palestinians' their inalienable right to live peaceably in their homeland.
Stop your killing, stop your lies, your insidious, despicable lies about the people for whom Palestine is home, the true heirs of the land. Go back from where you came, Zionist Jews from Poland, from Russia, from France, from South America, from the US, from Canada, from Germany, from Ethiopia, from wherever you decided to leave, or else resolve to live in peace with the indigenous people of Palestine.
