***Israel initiates genocidal ground war into Gaza: 1,300 killed > 6,000 wounded

[David Rothscum]

Just in case you thought something was going to change:
'"If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that," Obama said. "And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."' http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/27/AR2008122700962.html

[Dig]

Just in case you thought something was going to change:
'"If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that," Obama said. "And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."' http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/27/AR2008122700962.html

awesome!

what about israelis sending rockets into palestinian homes?

[Amd304912]

awesome!

what about israelis sending rockets into palestinian homes?

yeah obama is a in bed with the saudi abdulla so as long as they get paid and have 70 hookers its ok.

even tho it is real sick for them to turn a blind eye like that.

[Revolt426]

Obama is not really in bed with anyone except George Soros who funded his whole campaign. The Saudi's are the ones funding Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, (Any other extremist group), funneled through British banks directly to Mosques and Madrassas all over Europe, the Middle East and S.E. Asia.

In the pocket of Soros and Felix Rohatyn is also the dynamic duo, Pelosi and Reid. Barney Frank is just doing whatever he is told so he doesn't end up in jail for pediphilia. Then there's the Schumer/Clinton crowds who just crave power but do not answer to Soros. The whole thing is a mess.

[larsonstdoc]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,474824,00.html

Hamas Missiles Put Israel Nuclear Plant in Battle Zone

Hamas missiles have put Israel's top-secret nuclear plant in a battle zone hours after Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on the home of a Hamas strongman Thursday, killing him along with two wives and four children in the first attack on the top leadership of Gaza's rulers, the London Times reported.

As the aerial bombardment escalated, the army said it was also poised to launch a ground invasion. Israel also appeared to be sounding out a possible diplomatic exit from the 6-day-old military offensive against Hamas by demanding international monitors as a key term of any future truce.

The bombing targeted 49-year-old Nizar Rayan, ranked among Hamas' top five decision-makers in Gaza. His four-story apartment building crashed to the ground, sending a thick plume of smoke into the air and heavily damaging neighboring buildings. It killed Rayan and 11 others, including two of his four wives and four of his 12 children, Palestinian health officials said. The Muslim faith allows men to have up to four wives.

Israel has made clear that no one in Hamas is immune in this offensive, and the strike that flattened Rayan's apartment building in the northern town of Jebaliya drove that message home.


"We are trying to hit everybody who is a leader of the organization, and today we hit one of their leaders," Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said in a television interview.

Hamas leaders went into hiding before Israel launched the offensive on Saturday, but Rayan was known for openly defying Israel, and the military said he had an tunnel under his house that could serve as an escape route for Hamas terrorists.

Israeli military officials reportedly warned members of Rayan's family not to stay in the home Thursday but they refused, saying they were human shields.

A professor of Islamic law, Rayan was closely tied to Hamas' military wing and was respected in Gaza for donning combat fatigues and personally participating in clashes against Israeli forces. He sent one of his sons on an October 2001 suicide mission that killed two Israeli settlers in Gaza.

Defense officials said a one-ton bomb was used to attack Rayan's home, and that weapons stored inside set off secondary explosions. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media.

Israel launched the offensive to crush militants who have been terrorizing southern Israel with rocket fire from Gaza. It began after more than a week of intense Palestinian rocket fire that followed the expiration of a six-month truce.

Israeli warplanes have carried out some 500 sorties against Hamas targets, and helicopters have flown hundreds more combat missions, a senior Israeli military officer said Wednesday.

More than 400 Gazans have been killed and some 1,700 have been wounded, Gaza health officials said. The U.N. says the death toll includes more than 60 civilians, 34 of them children.

Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have also died in rocket attacks that have reached deeper into Israel than ever before, bringing one-eighth of the population within rocket range.

Throughout the day, huge blasts had rocked cities and towns across Gaza as Israeli warplanes went after Gaza's parliament building, militant field operatives, police and cars. The military said aircraft also bombed smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, part of an ongoing attempt to cut off Hamas' last lifeline to the world outside the embattled Palestinian territory.

So far, the campaign to crush rocket fire on southern Israel has been conducted largely from the air. But military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich said preparations for a ground operation were complete.

"The infantry, the artillery and other forces are ready. They're around the Gaza Strip, waiting for any calls to go inside," Leibovich said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a meeting of mayors of southern communities Thursday that Israel would not shy from using its vaunted military power.

"We have no interest in a long war. We do not desire a broad campaign. We want quiet," Olmert said. "We don't want to display our might, but we will employ it if necessary."

Thousands of soldiers were massed along the border with Gaza, backed by tanks and artillery. Along the border, the ground troops watched warplanes and attack helicopters flying into Gaza, cheering each time they heard the explosion of an airstrike.

One of the troops, identified under military rules only as Sgt. Yaniv, said he was eager to go in.

"I am going crazy here watching all this. I want to do my part as well," he said.

Hamas threatened to take revenge against the Israeli soldiers massed along the border with Gaza.

"We are waiting for you to enter Gaza to kill you or make you into Schalits," the group said in a statement, referring to Sgt. Gilad Schalit who was seized by Hamas-affiliated militants 2- 1/2 years ago and remains in captivity.

Israeli Cabinet ministers have been unswayed by international calls to end the violence, which is to include a whirlwind trip around the region next week by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Instead, they authorized the military to push ahead with its campaign against militants, who fired more than 30 rockets into Israel by late Thursday afternoon, according to the military. No injuries were reported, but an eight-story house in Ashdod, 23 miles from Gaza, was hit by a rocket that pierced through two floors.

Ordinary Israelis are not eager to see the operation expand beyond the air-based campaign, a poll Thursday showed.

Earlier this week, Olmert rebuffed a French proposal for a two-day suspension of hostilities. But at the same time, he seemed to be looking for a diplomatic way out, telling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other world leaders that Israel wouldn't agree to a truce unless international monitors took responsibility for enforcing it, government officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were confidential.

International intervention helped Israel to accept a truce that ended its 2006 war with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, when the U.N. agreed to station peacekeepers to enforce the terms. This time, Israel isn't seeking a peacekeeping force, but a monitoring body that would judge compliance on both sides.

The idea was floated before the offensive but did not gain traction because of the complications created by the existence of rival Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza, defense officials said.

Israel and Egypt blockaded Gaza after Hamas violently seized control of the territory in June 2007, and have cracked open their borders only to let in limited amounts of humanitarian aid.

Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and many other Western nations. From 2000 to 2004, Hamas was responsible for killing nearly 400 Israelis and wounding more than 2,000 in 425 attacks, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From 2001 through May 2008, Hamas launched more than 3,000 Qassam rockets and 2,500 mortar attacks against Israeli targets.

The West Bank has remained under the control of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been negotiating peace with Israel for more than a year but has no influence over Hamas. Bringing in monitors would require cooperation between the fierce rivals.

An Abbas confidant said the Palestinian president supports international involvement.

"We are asking for a cease-fire and an international presence to monitor Israel's commitment to it," Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

[David Rothscum]

awesome!

what about israelis sending rockets into palestinian homes?

Yup, you can easily turn it around.
I'd like to ask this criminal whether doing everything in his power to stop that would include killing dozens of civilians, supposedly in retaliation for a bunch of stoneage rockets (this was actually planned months in advance), or as in Lebanon include spreading cluster bombs and using illegal weaponry like white phosphorus on children (Photographic evidence for those who can stand seeing such a thing here: http://www.videos.informationclearinghouse.info/lebpic/leb54.jpg)
We need everyone to speak out against this criminal traitor.

[Rak HaEmet]

I am not denying you or anyone else your right to do as you feel is best, merely pointing out the flaws in your dislike of pacifists

I believe its more a value difference than any flaw on your part or mine. We just have a different value of the life of someone trying to do us harm.

second, I am a lot more interested in Israel stopping bombing the crap out of, and beseiging, the people of Gaza,  than I am interested in Hamas disarming, they have a right to arm themselves for self defence, but do not have a reasonable right to suicide bomb civilian targets (although military ones is fine I guess)

And I am a lot more interested in ceasation of NWO funding, threats and exploitation at the expense of any people- be they Gazans, Israelis, or the Brown Family. We again have an accord- it is a different value system, where your interests seem to focus on certain aspects of the paradym, and I'm into the ideological consistancy of your same values to all peoples and bodies.

(although, I do find it odd that someone professing pacifism would support suicide bombings of military targets)

however, it is a case of proportion, the IAF/IDF and the scum who run Israel are the greater criminals and the more prolific murderers.

...and I see these actors as much patsies as are the 9/11 bombers, Osama Bin Ladin, Saddam, Tim McVeigh... I can't myself say that the Israelis are more in the pocket than any of the other actors, nor do I think it matters which puppet is dancing on the stage- rather, i believe the scum that are the most prolific murderers are the elite pulling the strings of all the various puppets.... Nor do I think the Gazans are more important than the dead in Iraq, Afganistan, El Salvador, S. Vietnam, Waco Texas... As evidence of a problem- I'm already on board. When some would consider diverting their attention from the Matrix, and focus on what some Agent within it is doing- then I'm going to try to ring the bell that there is currently a more important endeavor here than the freedom of one people: the freedom for all.

Again, I suggest the energies you're putting into this particular issue, would be of greater affect when targeted on the "more prolific murderers": the NWO.... 

[Dig]

Rak, start a new thread about how you hate pacifists rather than continuing to steer this discussion.

thanks

[voodo0]

At Least 425 Killed in Gaza as Israel Running Out of Things to Bomb

Mosques, Minor Ministries Become Targets As Airstrikes Displace Thousand

An Israeli air strike today killed Nizar Ghayan, an influential Hamas figure, as well as nine women and 11 children. Though the overall toll in the strip is difficult to ascertain amid the chaotic situation on the ground, reports are that the toll is now at least 425 dead and over 2,000 wounded.

And as Israel defends its decision to reject the international call for a ceasefire, the air strikes continue apace, though they are running into one obstacle: after six days of salvos into the densely populated strip the Israeli military is really running out of interesting things to bomb.

Sure, they blew up Ghayan’s home, but past that a campaign that began with blowing up police stations and universities is rapidly giving way to strikes on mosques and attacking the long abandoned education ministry and transportation ministry.

Near Rafah, Israel has destroyed most of the tunnels used to smuggle goods in from Egypt, and displaced thousands of residents who live near the border. Admittedly, in a 130 square mile strip with no escape on any side one can only be displaced a relatively short distance, but the hundreds of families are now taking refuge in a UN-managed school.

Increasingly, hospitals are the only place truly safe from the strikes, and even then Israel has been sending out accusations that the hospitals are being used to hide terrorists, so whether they’ll remain exempt from attack remains to be seen.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/01/at-least-425-killed-in-gaza-as-israel-running-out-of-things-to-bomb/

[national732]

   I abhor suicide bombers, but is this really justified?
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f9_1230850386

[voodo0]

   I abhor suicide bombers, but is this really justified?
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f9_1230850386

[voodo0]

Latest rockets manufactured in China

From israel post...

The Grad-model Katyusha rockets that were fired into Beersheba on Wednesday were manufactured in China and smuggled into Gaza after the Sinai border wall was blown up by Hamas in January, defense officials said.


Damage to a Beersheba classroom hit by a Grad rocket on Wednesday morning.
Photo: AP
SLIDESHOW: Gaza op, Day 6
The Chinese rockets have a range of 40 kilometers. They are very similar to the 122 mm Soviet-made Katyusha that was used extensively by Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War and are slightly more sophisticated than an Iranian-made Grad-model Katyusha that is also in Hamas's arsenal.

The four rockets that hit Beersheba this week were filled with metal balls that can scatter up to 100 meters from the impact site, officials said. These rockets have also been fired into Ashkelon and Ashdod.

The three countries that manufacture Grad-model Katyushas are China, Russia and Bulgaria.

RELATED
Analysis: IAF alone won't do it
Analysis: The Gaza operation's unstated goal: Anarchy
Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post the rockets were smuggled into Gaza in the 12 days after Hamas blew a hole in the border wall between Gaza and Egypt on January 23.

"Huge quantities of weaponry were smuggled into Gaza then from above ground, including the Grad rockets," an official said, adding that even after the border wall was sealed, Hamas continued to smuggle the long-range rockets into Gaza via tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor.



From China, the rockets make several stops before reaching Gaza. In many cases, officials said, they are bought by Iran or Hizbullah and then transferred to Sinai.

In some instances, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has learned of weapons that came from Yemen and Eritrea, were moved to Sudan, then north to Egypt, and finally smuggled into Gaza.

"This is a complicated smuggling system that involves many different people around the world," one official said.

The Grad-model Katyushas, officials said, were packed with large quantities of ammonia and less-than-maximum explosives to increase their durability and lethality.

Last Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that Cairo was not responsible for Hamas's military buildup and that the long-range rockets in the group's arsenal were not smuggled through the tunnels from Sinai.

Defense officials said Wednesday that Aboul Gheit was partially correct, in that some of the rockets did not come into Gaza through tunnels, but that they did enter the Strip from Sinai.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733119975&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[bigron]

WAR  ON GAZA



Visit foll page which has many current links to happenings in GAZA

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/

[Biggs]

Three Palestinian children have been killed in an Israel airstrike.

CLICK HERE FOR LINK

Blast as missiles fired from an Israeli aircraft strike in northern Gaza Strip


Brothers Iyad, Mohammed and Abdelsattar al-Astal, aged seven to 10, were killed while they played on a street in southern Gaza, according to witnesses.

The missile strike may have been targeting a rocket launching pad near their home in al-Qarara.

With tanks and troops massed for a threatened ground offensive and with no ceasefire in sight, Israeli planes and naval guns staged more than 50 bomb attacks.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the overnight bombing targeted rocket launchers and weapons storage facilities.

Witnesses in Gaza said several people had been wounded in the attacks, but no deaths were reported.

Hamas has continued to fire rockets deep into Israel.

Israel has allowed 200 foreigners to leave Gaza as the death toll from the seven-day blitz reached at least 420, including the killing of a top Hamas commander.

Residents with dual citizenship have been passing through the Erez crossing at the request of their own governments, an Israeli defence ministry spokesman told Sky News.

"They're people married to Palestinians, when they were abroad and they came here and they've been here for years and at this time they've asked to leave due to the tension," spokesman Peter Lerner said.

He denied reports Israel had ordered the foreigners to go.

Many of those leaving are from the United States, Russia and Ukraine.

Palestinian-American Joanne Haji spoke to Sky's Dominic Waghorn at the crossing.


You know how it feels waiting for death? Yes it's very strong, it's very bad.
Palestinian-American Joanna Haji describes Gaza


"We don't know how to sleep, there's no food, there's nothing. And Arabs are not moving and they're supposed to move. If you go see Gaza it's like an unliving country," she said.

Israeli and Egyptian borders remain closed, with no one else able to pass through.

On Thursday, Israeli jets fired missiles on the home of hardline Hamas figure Nizar Rayan in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

 

Killed: Hamas' Nizar Rayan


The attack killed him, his four wives, 10 of his children and two neighbours, witnesses and medical sources said.

Rayan's headless body was hurled into the street by the force of the blast, which also destroyed or damaged 12 nearby houses.

Considered to be among the most hawkish of Hamas leaders, Rayan was the most senior figure to be killed by Israel since Abdel Aziz al Rantissi in 2004.

Hamas leader Ismail Radwan said: "This cowardly enemy must realise that he will regret these crimes against our people."

He called for a 'day of wrath' to avenge his death.

In addition to the 420 dead, Israel's Operation Cast Lead has also left more than 2,100 people wounded, according to Palestinian emergency services.

[Irobot]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/israel-accused-of-massive-war-crime-atrocities.html

[Aerioch]

"Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel" -- A Barrel Zionist created with walls, checkpoints, and naval blockades.  Then Israel claims to begin surgical strikes on leaders via 1-ton bombs ...intentionally dropped on family homes.

Israel kills Hamas leader and his family with one-tonne bomb

Israel killed a Hamas strongman yesterday by dropping a one-tonne bomb on his house, also killing two of his wives and four of his children.

This first assault on the top leadership of Gaza's ruling group escalated a crushing aerial offensive as Israel declared itself ready to launch a ground invasion.

"We are trying to hit everybody who is a leader of the organisation, and today we hit one of their leaders," said Israeli vice-prime minister Haim Ramon.

Medics say a total of 13 members of Rayyan's family were killed by the airstrike on the residential neighbourhood.

A Hamas official said: "The blood of Sheikh Nizar Rayyan and the blood of other martyrs will never be wasted and the enemy will pay a heavy price for the crimes it has committed."

Thousands of soldiers were massed along the border with Gaza yesterday, backed by tanks and artillery.

While turning up the heat on the battlefield, Israel appeared to be sounding out a possible diplomatic exit from its campaign, demanding international monitors as a key term of any future truce.

In mounting the campaign last Saturday, Israel made it clear no one in Hamas was immune, and the air attack that flattened the four-storey apartment building in the northern town of Jebaliya where Nizar Rayan lived drove that message home.

Hamas leaders went into hiding before Israel launched its operation, but Rayan was known for openly defying Israel, and the army said he had a tunnel under his house that could serve as an escape route. Rayan (49) ranked among Hamas' top five decision-makers.

A professor of Islamic law, he was known for his close ties to the group's military wing and was respected in Gaza for personally participating in clashes against Israeli forces.

At least 420 people have been killed and 2,100 injured since Israel's aerial bombardment of the Gaza strip began six days ago.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/israel-kills-hamas-leader-and-his-family-with-onetonne-bomb-14126609.html?a=3232

I wonder if the man's wife, and children were also firing rockets?

Let's see what "theangryarab" has to say about it..

All US media today carried stories of an Israeli "assassination" of a senior Hamas official. Those two children were also killed in that assassination. (And don't feel sorry for them: tomorrow Ethan Bronner and Taghreed El-Khodary will refer to their beds as "Hamas strongholds"). Reuters)

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-york-times-will-not-show-you-i-will.html

Do you think those children were comparable to Saddam's vicious sons, and needed to die?

[Aerioch]

Livini: "There is no Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza"? ? ?

Hundreds of thousands of innocents starved, denied medical care, and now considered as acceptable collateral damage while they are caged in during multiples days of airstrikes?

Livini actually has the balls to state:

Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip has damaged Hamas and will not end until Israel no longer deems the Palestinian Islamist faction a threat, Livni told reporters in Paris.

"I think that even now, after a few days of operation we have achieved changes," she said.

"We affected most of the infrastructure of terror within the Gaza Strip and the question whether it's enough will be according to an assessment on a daily basis."

Livni, who met French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said Israel intended to "change the reality" in and around Gaza. Israeli officials say this would entail ending Palestinian rocket salvoes that have sown panic in neighboring southern Israel.

"We want to weaken Hamas in the Gaza Strip. At the end of the day, Hamas is a problem not only to Israel but to the entire Palestinian people," Livni said.

"They are a problem to all the Arab states who understand that they have their own radical elements back home, including Muslim brotherhoods in different places."

Hamas has remained defiant despite an Israeli barrage that has killed more than 400 Palestinians. Four Israelis have been killed by retaliatory rocket strikes.

Reiterating Israel's rejection of the 48-hour humanitarian cease-fire proposal, Livni said "there is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce."

In her remarks to reporters, Livni said Israel had been careful to protect the civilian population and had kept the humanitarian situation in Gaza "completely as it should be".

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051909.html

No humanitarian crisis? Then why block U.N. Inspectors and Journalists from simply following up on that statement?

[ellas95]

Lies of Israel
http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20081231_Army_bombs_metal_workshop_in_Gaza.asp    

31 Dec. '08: Suspicion: bombed truck carried oxygen tanks and not grad rockets

On 29 December '08 the Israeli army bombed a truck in Gaza City, claiming it carried Grad rockets, designated for attacks on Israel. Drone footage of the bombing was shown by the Israeli army.

B’Tselem received the testimony of Ahmad Sanur, the owner of the truck bombed. Sanur claims the truck was carrying oxygen canisters used for welding, not Grad rockets. B'Tselem field worker took photos of oxygen canisters left on the site of the bombing.

According to Sanur’s testimony, he and members of his family were trying to salvage material from a metal workshop he owns, which was next door to a bombed house, in order to prevent looting. He denies any connection to militants, or military activity, and is willing to talk to any journalist, or investigator.


Photo from Army footage of the loading of the truck and photo of the oxygen canisters left next to the truck taken by B'Tselem fieldworker.


8 people were killed in the bombing, including his son. Two were severely wounded (names may have different spelling):



Muhammad bassel Madi, 17
Wisam Akram ‘Eid, 14
‘Imad Ahmad Sanur, 32
Rami Sa’adi Ghabayan, 24
Mahmoud Nabil Ghabayan, 14
Ashraf a-Dabagh, 26
Muhammad Majed Ka’abar, 20
Ahmad Ibrahim Khila, 15

Two were severely injured:

Bilal Suheil Ghabayan, 19
Baha Suheil Ghabayan, 16

[ellas95]

Israel launches massive missile attack on Gaza, 430 killed over 2,280 wounded

[Dok]

Photo from Army footage of the loading of the truck and photo of the oxygen canisters left next to the truck taken by B'Tselem fieldworker.

I have a problem with this picture. O2 tanks especially for welding is universally green or black or a mix of the two. Yellow cylinders are always a toxic gas world wide. Just on the picture alone i would have to say that those cylinders weren't carrying O2.

[eddy64]

well the paints been burnt off i think, thats why its a rusty brown colour.

[Dok]

well the paints been burnt off i think, thats why its a rusty brown colour.

No, its yellow. The grey is probably the primer.

[Aerioch]

Pay very close attention to the metal in the picture that the tanks are sitting on... it is covered with the exact same yellow "paint"



This is most likely oxidation, or some chemical reaction related to the fire, or materials used to extinguish the fire..

[Dok]

Pay very close attention to the metal in the picture that the tanks are sitting on... it is covered with the exact same yellow "paint"



This is most likely oxidation, or some chemical reaction related to the fire, or materials used to extinguish the fire..

What? Fire dosent cause oxidation. And there is no scorching any where in that picture. You can clearly see at the bottom of the first tank, the Yellow paint, the Grey primer and then the nice silver metal. Now its possible the owner is painting his tanks a different color.

[eddy64]

a bigger more hi-res picture would be nice, im not convinced its yellow paint but its hard to tell what it is from that photo.

[Dok]

In regard to this picture


Amira Hass / Did the IAF bomb a Gazan welding truck or a Hamas Grad transport? 
 
By Amir Hass, Haaretz Correspondent 
 
Tags: Israel, Israel News, Hamas   

Just before midnight, on December 29, the Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's Office posted an urgent headline on its Web site: Truck packed with weapons attacked near Jabalya.
 
The subheadline went on to read: "At around 6 P.M., the Israel Air Force attacked a Hamas truck carrying dozens of Grad rockets."

According to the article, the rockets in the truck caused a secondary explosion, shooting pieces of weaponry in all directions. The rockets were being transferred, said the article, due to militants' fear that their present storehouse would be attacked by the IAF, as well as to be put to use for launching at Israel.

The article was accompanied by a video just over 2 minutes showing the IAF's perspective from the sky, until just a moment before the explosion. The video shows 15 white figures casually milling between two vehicles. Three long black objects appear between their hands and the white figures lay these objects down on what seems to be a truck. The second vehicle takes off at a certain point and suddenly an explosion sounds and flames cover the screen. An eyewitness said the explosion was caused by an overhead drone.

Human rights groups' investigations, however, present a different testimony altogether.

According to B'tselem and the Mezan center for human rights, the truck belongs to Ahmed Samur, 55, and is still standing, burnt, beside his workshop in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Next to it hang scorched oxygen balloons, a blade and cables. Nobody dares move the truck or the accompanying accoutrements for fear that the UAVs filming every detail from above will bomb whoever approaches.

"Everything is still there on the ground," said Samur on Thursday. "We only moved the dead."

Just three hours before the attack, Samur's daughter told him that she had heard on the local radio that a house next to his workship had been bombed.

He immediately got into his Mercedes truck, along with his son and a few neighbors and relatives, and went to the workshop to see the damage.

They were shocked to discover that the neighboring house had collapsed onto his workshop and decided to pack up the expensive tools and take them home before they could be looted.

On the first round, they brought home a drill, a welding torch, a scale, other tools and a gas balloon for cooking. Then they went back to the workshop to pack up the rest: three of six oxygen balloons used for welding, two jerrycans filled with benzene and two filled with diesel.

As Samir's son Imad organized the tools in the truck, his brother-in-law packed his own smaller car with 50 packages of welding electrodes, 4 kilograms each, and drove off.

Samur himself stood on the other side of the street to keep the dust particles from the burning nearby house from flying into his lungs. He looked at the youths packing the truck and was reminded of working bees in a honeycomb - this was just before 5 P.M., he estimates.

"Suddenly I saw a flash of light next to my truck and then it caught fire and I heard the sound of an explosion. I started to run toward the blast, and when I got close and the smoke cleared, I saw bodies, one of them belonging to my son Imad. I fainted. When I woke up they told me that Imad and the seven other young people who were helping him had been killed," he recounted.

Speaking to Haaretz by phone, Samur said: "These were not Hamas, they were our children, and I will tell you their names. Imad Samur, 32; Ashraf al-Dabar, 30; Mahmoud Rabayan, 15; Rami Rabayan, 23; Ahmed Hila, 19; Mohammed Mahdi, 17; Wissam Eid, 14; Mohammed Haber, 20. Four others were hurt, two of them seriously: Bilal Rabayan, 19 and his brother Baha, 16.

"You have experts and smart people in Israel," he said. "They should come and check my truck and the oxygen balloons. They should see that they were not Grad missiles and they were not anything else. You people are saying they burnt a big truck filled with Grads. Well come and see for yourself."

Haaretz asked the IDF spokesperson if the video depicts the truck in question, and was told "the truck's contents were taken from a building that was housing ammunition and rockets."

No one in Gaza has denied that Qassams are being manufactured and launched from the Strip, but there are many targets hit by the IAF whose military importance is unclear at best. For instance, a small, empty building in the middle of a playground in the Shabura refugee camp in Rafah which was blown up by the IAF two days ago, in an attack that left two dead.

Mezan said the unending IAF attacks have made it very difficult to determine how many of the targets hit were military and which were civilian.

The video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0CzM_Frvc&eurl=http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052258.html

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052258.html

[Dok]

Another thing about this is the lack of pictures. Normally when something like this happens over there every photographer in the world is there snapping away. And all we get is one small little picture? That in itself is a little fishy.

[ellas95]

In regard to this picture

Video: Gaza bombing questioned
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/20091117737115874.html

[eddy64]

Another thing about this is the lack of pictures. Normally when something like this happens over there every photographer in the world is there snapping away. And all we get is one small little picture? That in itself is a little fishy.

well no foreign journalists are getting into gazza even tho the israeli court ruled they could be let in.

good ploy to muddy the water on stories like that, since theres no independant journalists there to document it.

[Dok]

Video: Gaza bombing questioned
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/20091117737115874.html

Thats a good find. But they still dont show a good picture of the canisters in the wreckage. They do show a nice o2 canister in the begining and it is clearly the green associated with these types of canisters. Yet that was in a shop not on the ground or in the wreckage.

[Dok]

well no foreign journalists are getting into gazza even tho the israeli court ruled they could be let in.

good ploy to muddy the water on stories like that, since theres no independant journalists there to document it.

Im quite sure hamas and the Gazans have more than enough cameras. Thats part of the problem of that region, there is no way to tell whats real and whats staged. Their is a history over there of that.

[sociostudent]

they're getting good at this "media blackout" thing 

Most people don't even notice them anymore.

[Doctor No NWO]

Australia

Sydney prayer for Gaza victims
Friday, January 02, 2009 » 05:50pm
Live News:  

A large crowd has gathered for a prayer session in western Sydney to honour the victims of Israeli air strikes in Gaza.

About 1,000 people have gathered for a public prayer session in western Sydney to honour the victims of Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

Some mosques and prayer halls around Sydney closed their doors on Friday so worshippers could gather together at Parry Park in Lakemba about 1pm (AEDT) on Friday.

More than 400 people have died in the Hamas-controlled territory in six days of air strikes, which Israel began on Saturday in response to rocket fire from Hamas.

Prayers and hymns rang out at the western Sydney park and could be heard in neighbouring streets, with the smell of incense filling the air.

Some people brought along colourful prayer mats, while others knelt and prayed on tarpaulins.

Around the borders of the park, placards protesting the conflict sit against the fence.

One sign reads: 'Palestine is Muslim land, Muslims will never surrender one handspan.'

Funeral prayers will be read for the victims of Gaza later in the hour-long service.

Israel killed a top Hamas commander on Thursday in the biggest blow yet to the Islamist's leadership as dozens more air strikes on Gaza took the death toll to at least 420.

[Godfather77]

Israel set to begin ground war against Hamas in Gaza
January 2, 2009
Full article:- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5434559.ece

Israel is poised to launch a major ground offensive into Gaza tonight after allowing hundreds of foreigners living in the devastated territory to evacuate.

After a week of air strikes that have killed at least 420 Palestinians and left scores of buildings in rubble, the Israeli army was set to fling hundreds of troops and tanks into a blitz to stamp out Hamas’s military wing, The Times understands.

Despite the looming onslaught, more Hamas rockets – which have so far killed four Israelis – were fired into southern Israel today.

The Islamist group vowed that its attacks, which have lasted for years and which finally provoked the massive Israeli campaign, would not stop.

All along the border, Israeli tanks and troops have turned fields into makeshift camps from which to launch their offensive into Gaza. The Government has already mobilised more than 6,000 reserve troops and has given the green light to call up almost 3,000 more.

Artillery barrages were also being fired into the strip while aircraft dropped bombs on open ground that the army will need to cross, and where Hamas has placed mines and dug tunnels to allow its guerrillas to outflank the invaders.

Support for Operation Cast Lead is sky high in Israel, with polls showing that almost 85 per cent of the public backing the campaign.

There is also majority support for expanding it into a ground campaign, despite the dangers of high casualties in an urban battlefield against highly trained and motivated guerrillas waging war on their own turf. Almost 42 per cent of Israelis wanted the army to move in, while 39 percent favoured a continued air campaign.

Hamas has an estimated 15,000 fighters who have used the 18 months that they have controlled the strip to hone their skills and transform a militia into a small army. Hamas’s military wing has been waiting for a ground offensive to face the Israeli army in open combat, despite Israel’s vast military superiority.

[Devotional Soul]

What is wrong with these people!  A ground attack would annihilate Gaza.  There is no justification for these atrocities. 

Please, everyone, pray and send thoughts of safety and protection for these poor Palestinians. 

[Godfather77]

Gaza health risk as sewage floods streets as Israeli attacks continue
02 Jan 2009
Full article:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4076787/Gaza-health-risk-as-sewage-floods-streets-as-Israeli-attacks-continue.html

Fears of a public health crisis in Gaza grew today as sewage started flooding into the streets because of a shortage of fuel to run pumps. The waste leak added to controversy over the humanitarian situation with growing international anger at Israel's refusal to accept there is a crisis.

Sewage has long been a major concern in Gaza where the antiquated pumping system is held together with a fragile network of temporary pumps and generators.

Oxfam reported the north Gazan town of Beit Hanoun was experiencing serious sewage flooding after generators that run the local pumping station ran out of diesel.

Israel is not allowing diesel into the Gaza Strip although it does allow in some industrial diesel for Gaza's sole power station to run for a few hours each day.

The amount of industrial diesel allowed in by Israel is considerably less than the delivery ordered by the Israeli supreme court after an action brought by human rights campaigners.

Sadi Ali, project manager for the Palestinian Water Authority, said the health risk from sewage on the streets was clear.

"There is a risk of the spread of all sorts of water borne diseases such as dysentery and cholera,'' he said.

He revealed a sewage project supported by Tony Blair, the envoy for Palestinian development, remained unfinished.

Mr Blair announced in 2007 Israel's agreement to allow the construction of a pipe and pumping station to drain a massive lake of human waste that could drown up to 8,000 Gazans if it burst its banks. But the project remains out of commission after Israel repeatedly delayed delivery of key components.

[sociostudent]

So, on top of everything else, now there's crap running down the street?! 

What kind of alternate universe IS THIS?

[OldSchool]

So, on top of everything else, now there's crap running down the street?! 

What kind of alternate universe IS THIS?

It's a crazy alternative indeed. Let's just hope they don't insure the shortage of water supply also, as there will be no water to drink, or to put out fires with.

[Biggs]

Gaza facing 'critical emergency'
 
The UN an estimates that at least 2,000 Palestinians have been wounded

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7808825.stm



The UN has warned that Palestinians in Gaza are facing a serious health and food crisis, as Israeli air strikes continued for a seventh day.

The "critical emergency" comes despite an increase in humanitarian shipments, said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN's chief aid co-ordinator for the territory.

The UN believes that at least 100 of some 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli action so far were civilians.

Israel said Gazans were continuing to receive sufficient food and medicines.

In a statement, the Israeli foreign ministry said that since the beginning of the campaign, 335 truckloads of humanitarian aid (7,800 tonnes) had been delivered into Gaza.

It said it was working with international organisations in Gaza as well as various governments "in order to assess the humanitarian needs... and make the necessary response".
   
All reports indicate that there are sufficient medicine and food in Gaza, the statement read.

The UN's Maxwell Gaylard said: "It is true supplies have been going into the Strip, in fact possibly more than in previous weeks, but at the same time there are critical gaps."

A leading international charity, Oxfam, which has a programme in Gaza, warned the situation "is getting worse by the day", with clean water, fuel and food in short supply.

It said hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties, and reported that raw sewage was pouring into the streets in some areas.

Israel tightened its control of what gets in and out of the crowded coastal Strip after Hamas, the elected power, seized control of the area from rival Fatah forces 18 months ago.

Since then, the UN says there has been a significant deterioration in infrastructure and basic services, with 80% of the 1.4m population unable to support themselves.

'Black destiny'

Israeli planes attacked the homes of more than 20 leading Hamas figures on Friday, UN officials said.

There was also an air strike on a mosque, which the Israelis said served as a command post.
   
Earlier in the day, five Palestinians, including three children, were killed in an Israeli strike. The Israel Defense Forces have attacked more than 500 Hamas targets in Gaza since the campaign began.

To date, some 2,000 Palestinians have been wounded, according to the UN.

Palestinian militants continued to fire on Israel, launching more than 60 missiles in 24 hours. Four people were injured in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Four Israelis have died in the rocket attacks Israel is trying to prevent.

Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal said Israel faced a "black destiny" if it launched a ground offensive.

In a pre-recorded statement broadcast on al-Jazeera television, he said Israelis would be making a "stupid mistake", adding that Hamas resistance and infrastructure were intact.

"We will not break, we will not surrender or give in to your conditions," Mr Meshaal said in Syria.

'Sustainable' ceasefire

The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, called for a "durable and sustainable" ceasefire - one which should "not allow a re-establishment of the status quo ante, where Hamas can continue to launch rockets out of Gaza".

The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington says it is unclear what Ms Rice means by "sustainable ceasefire" or how it can be attained.

But it is a position that is widely interpreted as tacit backing by Washington for Israel to continue its military operation and try to weaken Hamas as much as possible, our correspondent says.

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank joined demonstrations on Friday after a call from Hamas for a "day of wrath" against the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

[sociostudent]

In about 10 days or less, mark my words, they'll have even MORE outbreaks of parasitic and bacterial disease, and this is going to go from a "conflict" to a flat-out "health crisis".

The MSM )that still supports Israel's attacks on these people) needs to get their heads out of their asses and realize that when the truth comes out about all this, they're gonna look like warmongering monsters.

They're creating a cesspool/target range in Palestine, and half of the MSM is almost "praising" what they're doing. It's just really, really sick.