Sunday, November 18, 2012

Mahatma Ghandi Peace the Only Alternative to Annihilation of Israel, Gaza, Palestine ?





Family Of 12 Murdered In Gaza: 


Rescue workers worked frantically to pick up the debris from "the massive crater where the residential building stood".

Five children were among the 12 members of the extended family that died in the attack.

With darkness quickly falling, a frantic search ... at top speed" has been conducted to see if anyone else is still alive under the rubble.



The deaths in the well-known extended family have left many in Gaza wondering if "anybody is safe ... people really are very worried about their own safety" as a result.

 The death toll since Wednesday to 66.
Update - Israel - 9:37 P.M. The death toll in the IDF attack on a house in the northern Gaza Strip rises to 12, including four children and five women, all of the same family.

- WARNING -
Report contains Graphic Images

In photos: Relentless bombing of Gaza, 




The mother of 10-month-old Hanen Tafesh, killed the day before in an Israeli air strike, mourns over her daughter’s body before her funeral in Gaza City, 16 November.(Majdi Fathi / APA images)
World Health Organization warned on Saturday that Gaza’s hospitals “are overwhelmed with casualties from Israel’s bombings and face critical shortages of drugs and medical supplies,” according to the Reuters news agency (“Gaza hospitals stretched, need supplies to treat wounded: WHO”).
Reuters adds: “the WHO, quoting Health Ministry officials in Gaza, said 382 people have been injured - 245 adults and 137 children.” Gaza’s health facilities were already “severely over stretched mainly as a result of the siege of Gaza,” the UN organization said.
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance groups fired more long-rage rockets towards Tel Aviv, and sirens were heard in Jerusalem for the first time. Gaza groups also fired short-range rockets, many of them intercepted by the Iron Dome system, according to Israeli media. Rockets were also reported to have been fired from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket fired from Gaza on Thursday.
Protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza erupted across the West Bank, where protesters clashed with Israeli soldiers. According to the Ma’an News Agency, five Palestinian citizens of Israel were detained at a protest in Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighborhood and ten persons were detained by Israel at protests in Gaza across the West Bank yesterday. Israeli forces also arrested protesters outside Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday.

Solidarity demonstrations continue to be held in dozens of cities worldwide (a continuously updated list can be found here).


Palestinian mourners carry the bodies of Tahrir Salman and Mohammed Salman in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, 16 November. The two civilians were killed when an Israeli warplane attacked a number of civilians who were in the garden of a house belonging to Ghazi Abed Salman, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.(Ashraf Amra / APA images)


Palestinian women mourn four-year-old Mahmoud Raed Sadallah, who was killed following an explosion in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, 16 November.(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)


Emergency workers dig out a wounded man buried under sand after an Israeli air strike took place near his car in the northern Gaza Strip, 15 November.(Mohammed Salem / Reuters)


A damaged UN-run school next to the Civil Department of the Ministry of Interior building, bombed earlier in the day in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, 17 November. The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) announced that one of its teachers, Marwan Abu El Qumsan, was killed Wednesday by a nearby airstrike.(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)


A damaged home near the Council of Ministers building in Gaza City, which was completely destroyed during an Israeli airstrike earlier in the day, 17 November.(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)


Palestinians inspect a destroyed mosque after an Israeli air strike in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip, 17 November.(Ashraf Amra / APA images)


A Palestinian man carries bones from a grave after an Israeli airstrike on a cemetery in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, 16 November.(Eyad Al Baba / APA images)


A policeman looks at an unexploded missile fired by an Israeli aircraft in Gaza City, 17 November.(Majdi Fathi / APA images)


Palestinian Prime Minister in the Gaza Strip Ismail Haniyeh and Egypt’s Prime Minister Hisham Kandil observe the treatment of a patient who was wounded during an Israeli strike, Gaza City, 16 November.(Mohammed Ostaz / APA images)







A tank on a flat-bed truck sits at an Israeli gas station on its way to the boundary with Gaza, 17 November.(ActiveStills)


An explosion and smoke are seen after Israeli air strikes in Gaza City, 17 November.(Yasser Gdeeh / Reuters)


Two rockets are launched from Gaza City towards Israel, 16 November.(Naaman Omar / APA images)


Israelis take cover as the Israeli military launches a missile from the Iron Dome defense missile system designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, south Tel Aviv, 17 November.(Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)


Palestinians react to the sound of an Israeli F-16 warplane flying at low attitude above the ruins of the Civil Department of the Ministry of Interior building, which was completely destroyed in the morning in the Gaza City neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa, 17 November.(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)


Palestinians shop at a central Gaza City market while Israeli aircraft continue to bomb the Gaza Strip, 17 November.(Majdi Fathi / APA images)



Israelis protesting in Tel Aviv carrying signs reading “In Gaza and Sderot the children want to Live,” 15 November.(Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)


Hundreds gather in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip, 16 November.(Rob Stothard / Polaris)


Demonstrators protest the attacks on Gaza outside Israel’s embassy in central London, 15 November.(Stefan Wermuth / Reuters)


Hundreds march in solidarity with Gaza in Edinburgh, Scotland, 17 November.(Jalal Abukhater)


Demonstrators marched through downtown Boston and rallied outside the Israeli consulate to protest Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, 15 November.

" Israeli Society Reminds me of the Unionists in Northern Ireland "




“May your children die, you dogs”: As Gaza burns, Israelis bay for blood in streets of Tel Aviv
By Ali Abunimah


 

“They don’t deserve to live, they need to die”
“May your children die, you dogs”
“Now we want to go back there [to Gaza] and kick out all the Arabs.”
“The people demand more shooting”
“Muhammad is dead”
November 17, 2012 "Electronic Intifada"  - November 16, 2012 - These were some of the calls from a group of Israelis demonstrating in favor of Israel’s attack on Gaza in the streets of Tel Aviv last night.
Peaceful protests by Palestinian students at Israeli universities were met with similar incitement.
In Tel Aviv, across the road, another group of Israelis protested against the assault. “We came here to say that we must end this war immediately,” Knesset member Dov Khenin of the communist Hadash party told the anti-war crowd, “every additional drop of blood is needless.”
The duelling demonstrations were filmed by David Sheen. While anti-war voices exist, there’s little doubt that much of the Israeli Jewish population stands behind Israel’s attack on Gaza, believing the government propaganda that Palestinians are firing rockets at Israel unprovoked while Israel seeks peace and quiet.
Among the pro-violence demonstrators was Baruch Marzel a notorious settler fanatic who frequently incites violence. “The enemy must be expelled and destroyed,” Marzel said, specifiying that Palestinians should be kicked out of Gaza so Israelis could re-settle there.
“You’re cross-dressers! You’re the Gay Pride March, that’s what you are,” shouted another war supporter at the peace demo, a call that was echoed by others.
One man warned fellow protestors, “They’re filming us, don’t curse” but that did not stop the violent calls. “Go to Gaza with the Muslims, you sons of bitches,” said one. “The people demand more shooting,” responding to calls for a ceasefire from the pro-violence demonstration across the road.
The calls for blood and violence in the streets echo incitement by Israeli government leaders. In recent days Israel’s “minister of home front defense” Avi Dichter called for Israel to “reformat” Gaza – wipe it clean – like a computer hard drive, except using bombs.
Israeli transport minister Israel Katz called for Israel to bomb Gaza so hard that the population would flee into Egypt, and for Israel to cut off water and electricity supplies.

“Death to the Arabs”: Incitement at Israeli universities

Hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel, students at several universities, turned out to protest the Israeli attack on Gaza, despite a heavy police presence on and around campus, reported Arabs 48, a website providing news on Palestinians in Israel.
At Tel Aviv University, some 150 Palestinian students gathered despite a heavy security presence, Arabs 48 reported, and there right-wing students from the Zionist group Im Tirzu confronted them shouting racist slogans including “Death to the Arabs.”
Similar scenes took place at Hebrew University, where right-wing students were held back by security forces from attacking Palestinians calling for an end to the violence.

“the most terrible thing I’ve seen in my life”

At Haifa University, Palestinian students held a moment of silence for victims of the Israeli attacks in Gaza, and were quickly confronted by Israeli Jewish students, according to Arabs 48.
“What happened today at the Haifa University was the most terrible thing I’ve seen in my life,” tweeted Israeli Twitter user @kesterica who witnessed what happened at Haifa, “Arab students were silently protesting against the war. They invited the Jews to join them.”
“In response,” @kesterica tweeted, “dozens of Jewish students attacked the Arabs, called them traitors, spread rumors that they were mourning [Jabari], sang [the anthem religious songs encouraging war].”
On Wednesday morning, Israel carried out the extrajudicial execution of Ahmad al-Jabari, the top Hamas military leader in Gaza, breaking a truce, and reigniting violence that left 19 Palestinians, including at least 6 children and a pregnant woman, and three Israelis dead since Wednesday, by Friday morning.
“The Jews sang: ‘he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead.’ I don’t tend to cry fascism, fascism, but that’s what it was,” @kestericatweeted.
“An Arab girl who stood there told me that she was asked why she was standing there, and she said she was against war and against casualties [deaths] and invited people to join her. It didn’t happen,” added @kesterica.
“I cannot say what each of the protesters thought, but she and quite a few of the folks standing there said they were just against war. To tell you the truth, me too,” she tweeted.
Palestinian students sang the Palestinian anthem “Mawtini” in response to the taunts, as the video above shows.
Violent and racist sentiments have also been widespread among Israelis on Facebook and other social media.
During Israel’s 2008-2009 attack on Gaza, journalist Patrick Cockburn observed:
Israeli society was always introverted but these days it reminds me more than ever of the Unionists in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s or the Lebanese Christians in the 1970s. Like Israel, both were communities with a highly developed siege mentality which led them always to see themselves as victims even when they were killing other people. There were no regrets or even knowledge of what they inflicted on others and therefore any retaliation by the other side appeared as unprovoked aggression inspired by unreasoning hate.
Much the same appears to be true today.