Falk likens Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto

Press TV

"There is more than enough evidence that Israel committed war crimes in its three week-long offensive into Gaza, says a UN investigator.

UN special rapporteur Richard Falk called for an independent inquiry into Israel's violation of international humanitarian law. Falk said Israel's actions against the besieged Gazans are reminiscent of "the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto" which included the starvation and murder of Polish Jews by Nazi Germany in World War Two.

"There could have been temporary provision at least made for children, disabled, sick civilians to leave, even if where they left to was southern Israel," said the Jewish American academic on Thursday.

Falk, who was denied entry to Israel in December, said Gazans may have been mentally scarred for life because Israel made no effort to allow civilians to escape.

Israeli officials moved closer to being prosecuted for war crimes after Norwegian medics in Gaza found traces of depleted uranium on Gaza victims, suggesting that Israel used the illegal weapons in its war on the impoverished territory, which houses some 1.5 million Palestinians.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there is a "high risk of developing cancer from exposure to radiation emitted by ... depleted uranium weapons. This risk is assumed to be proportional to the dose received." The Geneva Convention has classified depleted uranium ammunitions as 'illegal weapons of mass destruction' due to their high radioactivity and toxicity.

Israel faces potential war crimes charges over its excessive use of other controversial weapons on the densely-populated coastal strip.......

Falk, dismissed Israel's argument that the assault was for self-defense, saying that "the UN charter, and international law, does not give Israel the legal foundation for claiming self-defense." "

Breaking Gaza's Will: Israel's Enduring Fantasy

By Ramzy Baroud
Palestine Chronicle

".....Olmert wants to "break the will" of Hamas, i.e. the Palestinians, since the Hamas government was elected and backed by the majority of the Palestinian people.

Isn't 60 years of suffering and survival enough to convince Olmert that the will of the Palestinians cannot be broken? How many heaps of wreckage and mutilated bodies will be enough to convince the prime minister that those who fight for their freedom will either be free or will die trying?

Far-right politician Avigdor Lieberman, a rising star in Israel, is not yet convinced. He thinks that more can be done to "secure" his country, which was established in 1948 on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian towns and villages. He has a plan. "We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II," said the head of ultra-nationalist opposition party Yisrael Beitenu.

A selective reader of history, Lieberman could only think of the 1945 atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But something else happened during those years that Lieberman carefully omitted. It's called the Holocaust, a term that many are increasingly using to describe the Israeli massacres in the Gaza Strip.

It is strange that conventional Israeli wisdom still dictates that "the Arabs understand only the language of force." If that were true, then they would have conceded their rights after the first massacre in 1948. But, following more than 60 years filled with massacres new and old, they continue to resist. "Freedom or death," is the popular Palestinian mantra. These are not simply words, but a rule by which Palestinians live and die. Gaza is the proof and Israeli leaders are yet to understand........"

Israel’s Lies

Henry Siegman
London Review of Books

".....Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division.....

In other words, when Jews target and kill innocent civilians to advance their national struggle, they are patriots. When their adversaries do so, they are terrorists.....

Why then are Israel’s leaders so determined to destroy Hamas? Because they believe that its leadership, unlike that of Fatah, cannot be intimidated into accepting a peace accord that establishes a Palestinian ‘state’ made up of territorially disconnected entities over which Israel would be able to retain permanent control. Control of the West Bank has been the unwavering objective of Israel’s military, intelligence and political elites since the end of the Six-Day War.[*] They believe that Hamas would not permit such a cantonisation of Palestinian territory, no matter how long the occupation continues. They may be wrong about Abbas and his superannuated cohorts, but they are entirely right about Hamas.

Middle East observers wonder whether Israel’s assault on Hamas will succeed in destroying the organisation or expelling it from Gaza. This is an irrelevant question. If Israel plans to keep control over any future Palestinian entity, it will never find a Palestinian partner, and even if it succeeds in dismantling Hamas, the movement will in time be replaced by a far more radical Palestinian opposition......"

Al-Jazeera Video: Traders rebuild their tunnels in Gaza - 22 Jan 09

"Tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, which Israel say are used for weapons smuggling, was one of the main targets for Israel's air strikes.

Al Jazeera's Todd Baer reports from Rafah in Egypt, where many of the destroyed tunnels are now being rebuilt.

The Palestinians say the underground trading network is a necessary lifeline to get food, gas and medicine into the Strip since the border crossings remain closed."

Al-Jazeera Video: Assessing the aftermath in Gaza - 22 Jan 09

"Gaza has been shattered by Israel's devastating three week long war.

Amid the chaos and confusion, the people are showing their resilience yet again and are trying to repair their bombed out homes, schools and businessess in an effort to rebuild their lives.

Gaza remains beseiged and bereft of widespread international support.

Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna spoke to Gazans who feel let down by the international community. "

Video: Gaza villages Wiped off the map

You Have to See This Incredible Video
Contributed by asdf



"Another excellent report by Jonathan Miller. Telling the story of destruction and killing in Gaza."

Part II: Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Blocked Ambulances

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"We return to the heart-wrenching tale of Amer Shurrab, who lost two of his brothers on the same day in an Israeli attack in Gaza. Amer is a Palestinian from Khan Yunis living in the United States. He recently graduated from Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach them until twenty hours....."

Al-Jazeera Video: Israeli war conduct and outcome questioned - 21 Jan 09

"Israel's war on the Gaza Strip lasted three weeks and killed more than 1,300 people. Now there are more accusations about Israel's use of illegal weapons in the fighting. Just hours after Israeli forces withdrew from the Strip footage has also surfaced showing the tunnels that lead from Egypt into Gaza are still being used to smuggle in supplies. Destroying the tunnels was one of the principal justifications Israel gave for its offensive. Al Jazeera's Tarek Bazely reports."

Profound psychological damage in Gaza

Eva Bartlett writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 21 January 2009

(Left) Graffiti left by Israeli soldiers in a house they occupied in Ezbet Abed Rabu, eastern Jabaliya.


"The streets leading from the seriously-damaged Wafa rehabilitation center in Shejaiyeh were filled with black filth smelling of sewage. The hospital -- attacked on 12 January with a chemical bomb that may well have been white phosphorus and which set fire to the roof, and whose four different buildings were shelled intensely on 15 January -- is trying to rebuild and reopen, as is the shelled, burned, seriously-damaged al-Quds hospital in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City.

Even today, after mentioning to the Canadian TV crew accompanying me that fire blobs had burned up 'til yesterday, we found still more blobs spread out, smoldering and willingly breaking into white smoking fires anew. I have seen this often enough now. They were impressed by it, by the fact that it's now eight days after the fire and the blobs are still simmering, smoldering, ready to flame up....."

Alarm Spreads Over Use of Lethal New Weapons

By Erin Cunningham

"GAZA CITY, Jan 22 (IPS) - Eighteen-year-old Mona Al-Ashkar says she did not immediately know the first explosion at the United Nations (UN) school in Beit Lahiya had blown her left leg off. There was smoke, then chaos, then the pain and disbelief set in once she realised it was gone - completely severed by the weapon that hit her.

Mona is one of the many patients among the 5,500 injured that have international and Palestinian doctors baffled by the type of weaponry used in the Israeli operation. High-profile human rights organisations like Amnesty International are accusing Israel of war crimes.

Mona's doctors at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital found no shrapnel in her leg, and it looked as though it had been "sliced right off with a knife."

"We are not sure exactly what type of weapon can manage to do that immediately and so cleanly," said Dr. Sobhi Skaik, consultant surgeon general at Al-Shifa hospital. "What is happening is frightening. It's possible the Israeli army was using Gaza to experiment militarily."

Both international organisations and human rights groups, including the UN, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have condemned Israel's use of unconventional weapons in civilian areas of the Gaza Strip.

Amnesty International's chief researcher for Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Donatella Rovera, told IPS in Beit Lahiya that Israel's use of white phosphorus and other "area weapons" on civilian populations amounted to war crimes. "The kind of weapons used and the manner in which they were used indicates prima facie evidence of war crimes," she said......."

Captive Nation

How Gaza became a Palestinian prison

By Avi Shlaim

"....The brutality of Israel’s soldiers is matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. Its core messages are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel’s objective is the defense of its population; and that Israel’s forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt civilians. But it was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire, with a raid into Gaza on Nov. 4 that killed six Hamas men. Israel’s objective is not just the defense of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government by turning the people against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance. This is a movement that glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. The only way for Israel to achieve security is not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders. Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab League peace plan of 2002: it involves concessions and compromises.

Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders.” A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses WMD, and practices terrorism—the use of violence against civilians for political purposes......"

Real News Video With Pepe Escobar: One nation under a groove

Pepe Escobar: What was Obama exactly saying in his acceptance speech?



"President Barack Obama's highly anticipated inauguration speech has been widely praised as serious and/or somber. Pepe Escobar argues that for all its soaring rhetoric, it was very short on specifics. It did not even mention China and Russia. It made a cursory acknowledgement of the Muslim world. It ignored the Americas - and native Americans. It did not renounce the war on terror framework. It certainly encouraged honesty, hard work and determination. But while claiming to set a new era of responsibility, Obama seemed to place most of this new responsibility over God's shoulders. Dr. Martin Luther King in his own time had been much more incisive."

In Israel, detachment from reality is now the norm

All these years on from Sabra and Chatila, has anything changed?

By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent

".....Soon after seeing Waltz with Bashir I saw TV pictures of the broken bodies of the Palestinians killed by Israeli bombs and shells in Gaza during the 22-day bombardment. At first I thought that little had changed since Sabra and Chatila. Once again there were the same tired and offensive excuses that Israel was somehow not to blame. Hamas was using civilians as human shields, and in any case – this argument produced more furtively – two-thirds of people in Gaza had voted for Hamas so they deserved whatever happened to them.

But on returning to Jerusalem 10 years after I was stationed here as The Independent's correspondent between 1995 and 1999 I find that Israel has changed significantly for the worse. There is far less dissent than there used to be and such dissent is more often treated as disloyalty.

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......."

So far, Obama's missed the point on Gaza...

By Robert Fisk

"It would have helped if Obama had the courage to talk about what everyone in the Middle East was talking about. No, it wasn't the US withdrawal from Iraq. They knew about that. They expected the beginning of the end of Guantanamo and the probable appointment of George Mitchell as a Middle East envoy was the least that was expected. Of course, Obama did refer to "slaughtered innocents", but these were not quite the "slaughtered innocents" the Arabs had in mind.

There was the phone call yesterday to Mahmoud Abbas. Maybe Obama thinks he's the leader of the Palestinians, but as every Arab knows, except perhaps Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the "full partnership" Obama has apparently offered him, whatever "full" means. And it was no surprise to anyone that Obama also made the obligatory call to the Israelis.

But for the people of the Middle East, the absence of the word "Gaza" – indeed, the word "Israel" as well – was the dark shadow over Obama's inaugural address. Didn't he care? Was he frightened? Did Obama's young speech-writer not realise that talking about black rights – why a black man's father might not have been served in a restaurant 60 years ago – would concentrate Arab minds on the fate of a people who gained the vote only three years ago but were then punished because they voted for the wrong people? It wasn't a question of the elephant in the china shop. It was the sheer amount of corpses heaped up on the floor of the china shop......."

المصري: عباس سقط دستورياً ووطنياً وأخلاقياً والدعم الخارجي لن يمنحه الشرعية

أكد أنه "لا أحد يستطيع أن يسرق انتصار غزة من أهله"

"غزة - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام
قللت حركة المقاومة الإسلامية "حماس" من أهمية ما أسماه محاولة ضخ الروح في جثة المفاوضات الفلسطينية ـ الصهيونية الهامدة، وأشار إلى أنها ليست إلا جزءا من محاولات دولية لصبغ الشرعية على محمود عباس الذي انتهت ولايته دستوريا.

ووصف عضو المجلس التشريعي الفلسطيني عن حركة المقاومة الإسلامية "حماس" مشير المصري في تصريحات صحفية المواقف الدولية المؤيدة لمحمود عباس بأنها "محاولة لسرقة انتصار غزة من أهله".

وقال: "لا أحد يستطيع أن يسرق انتصار غزة من أهله، ولا أحد يستطيع أن يحرف البوصلة بعد أن عجزت إسرائيل إحدى أكبر قوى العالم أمام الصمود الأسطوري للمقاومة، والسيد محمود عباس ليس مؤهلا لأن يضاهي "حماس" التي تقود خيار الشعب الفلسطيني، لأن خياراته الاستسلامية العبثية لم تنتج شيئا، ومحاولة ضخ الروح في جثة المفاوضات الهامدة لن يكتب لها النجاح".

ورفض المصري اعتبار اتصال الرئيس الأمريكي باراك أوباما بمحمود عباس خطوة ذات مدلول سياسي كبير، وقال: "على صعيد الرئيس الأمريكي باراك أوباما فنحن سنحكم عليه من خلال سلوكه، وإن كنا نتمنى أن يخرج أمريكا بثوب جديد بعيدا عن السياسة التي خلفت الحروب وأن تقف الإدارة الأمريكية على الحياد في الصراع العربي ـ الإسرائيلي".

ونفى أن يكون لهذا الاتصال أي انعكاس سياسي لجهة منح عباس المنتهية ولايته الشرعية، وقال: "الشرعية السياسية لا تستمد من الخارج، فمحمود عباس سقط شرعياً ودستورياً فضلاً عن سقوطه الوطني والأخلاقي، وبالتالي هو لا يمثل الشعب الفلسطيني، وكل محاولات وضع أرجل خشب له كلها محاولات لا يمكن أن تمنحه أي شرعية وستوصله انحدار أكثر لدى الشعب الفلسطيني، والشرعية الوحيدة يمنحها الشعب، والحديث عن الثقة به في التسوية واشتراط الاعتراف بإسرائيل لحوار "حماس" اسطوانة مشروخة اعتدنا عليها من الغرب، وهي سياسة عرجاء لا يمكنها أن تحقق شيئا"، كما قال. "

Audio (3 minutes) and Photos: 'Phosphorus shells' hit Gaza UN school

John Ging, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), describes the moments and aftermath of an Israeli strike on a UN school, designated as a shelter, in Beit Lahiya

The Guardian

Photographs by Mohammed Abed/AFP and agencies

A decisive loss for Israel

Hamas has emerged from the war stronger. Now we look to Obama to repair the errors of silence

Mousa Abu Marzook
(Deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau)
The Guardian, Thursday 22 January 2009

"Israel's objectives from the war on Gaza were set long before its launch: to remove the Hamas movement and government, achieve the reinstallation of the Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza, and end the armed resistance. Two other objectives were not announced. First, restore the Israeli public's wavering confidence in its armed forces after its defeat by Hezbollah in 2006. Second, boost the coalition government in the coming elections.

Accordingly, we declare that Israel lost, and lost decisively. What did it achieve? The killing of large numbers of civilians, children and women, and the destruction of homes, ministry buildings and other infrastructure with the most advanced US weapons and other internationally banned chemical and phosphorous elements. Almost 2,000 children were killed and injured in desperate pursuit of political goals. Many international organisations called these attacks war crimes, yet barely a word of denunciation was uttered by any western leader. What message does the EU mean to send Palestinians by its shameful silence on these crimes, when it speaks incessantly on human rights?

If anything, the last three weeks, and previous 18 months, have proved that the Palestinians can never be broken by either starvation, economic strangulation or brutal attack. European leaders have only one option: to recognise the outcome of a democratic process they had called for and supported.

The aggression failed to undermine or weaken the Hamas-led government, or turn Palestinians against Hamas. If anything, public support is stronger than ever in Palestine and worldwide. Hamas's military capabilities have not been hurt, either. This explains Israel scurrying to sign such a strange agreement with the US to stop arms reaching Hamas. It is doomed to fail. As the former Israeli chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon and Binyamin Netanyahu agreed, Israeli forces failed to achieve their objectives.

Why is Israel allowed a continuous flow of the most lethal arms, including banned weapons, while national resistance movements are denied the means of defence? International laws permit occupied nations to resist their occupiers, and that is a right we aim to utilise to the full.

Israel must accept the reality that it is incapable of breaking the Palestinian resistance. Similarly, Europe must accept that bringing back Abbas on an Israeli tank is not an option. Nor are attempts to win by "diplomacy" what the might of the Israeli military failed to secure by force. To state that all aid for Gaza reconstruction must go through the illegal government of Salam Fayyad suggests there is no end to some parties' exploitation of Palestinians. We will never cease to pursue national unity, but we will never allow it to be attained by compromising Palestinian rights.

And to President Obama we say: the wave of hope that met your election was heavily dampened by your silence on the Gaza massacre. This was compounded by your pre-election statement siding with the Israeli settlers of Sderot. You would do well to know the history of the places of which you speak. Sderot, which may be known to some as an Israeli town, lies on the ruins of Najd, a Palestinian village ransacked in May 1948 by Zionist terrorist gangs. Villagers were forced from their beds and homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, rendering them refugees for the next 61 years. That is the story of Sderot. It is never a good start to get your tyrant and victims mixed up, but there is still room for a revival of passionate optimism. Only if you decide to fairly address the issue of the 6 million Palestinian refugees and the ending of occupation of Palestinian lands, including Jerusalem, will you be able to start a new relationship with the Muslim world."

Israel Failed in Gaza Op; Arms Smuggling Never Stopped

Al-Manar

"22/01/2009 Although the Israeli air force bombed the Phildelphi corridor along the border thousands of times during the course of its aggression against the Gaza Strip, Israeli daily Haaretz quoted sources as saying that some tunnels running under the border between Egypt and the Strip have remained in use, and were in operation even during the fighting.

Contrary to Israeli official reports saying that Israeli army has achieved its war objectives in Gaza, Hamas was still able to smuggle arms, according to Haaretz report.

Israeli occupation government has announced that its goals in the 22-day offensive, to stop arms smuggling and enhance the “invincible army’s image” in the region after it was lost during the Second Lebanon War in 206, were achieved. However tunnels lined with wood reinforcement have been especially resistant to air force bombing raids.

According to residents of Rafah, the reinforced tunnels were even used during the Israeli military offensive to smuggle in a group of German doctors who wanted to provide medical care to Gaza residents. In addition to Palestinian smugglers, Bedouin from Sinai are also involved in the trade through the tunnels.

Since the implementation of the cease-fire, the Egyptians have opened their border with the Gaza Strip to shipments of medical personnel and supplies as well as a limited number of foreign journalists, but they then hindered the entry of additional representatives of the foreign press who have been waiting at the border.

The Israeli security establishment was not surprised by Wednesday's reports saying some smuggling tunnels under the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt have begun to operate again despite heavy bombing during the Israeli offensive. Israeli security officials said Hamas had tried to resume the smuggling while “Operation Cast Lead” was still ongoing, adding that they estimate the bombed tunnels will soon be reconstructed...... "

Casualties of the Bombing of Gaza.....
Too Bad They Are Not Under the Rubble.

Khaled Amayrah Arrested by P.A.

BY Professor Abdul Sattar Kasem Jan. 20/2009

"Palestinian Authority security arrested the Palestinian well known journalist and thinker, Khaled Al-Amayrah, for unknown reasons, but what is known is that Amayrah is an able journalist, he usually writes in English in many international information media, it is known that he is an observing Islamist, and professional journalist of high caliber, with high morals and deals with people with respect.

Amayrah is a strong defendant of Palestinian resistance in particular and Arab resistance as a whole, he opposes the recognition of Israel, condemns dealing with it and opposes the Arab security coordination with the Zionist entity as practiced by the Palestinian Authority. His writings had a great effect in explaining the Palestinian cause, and exposes the Zionist atrocities practiced against Palestinians in particular and the Arabs people in general.

It is a sign of the decaying of the Palestinian Authority in arresting Mr. Amayrah especially when the Palestinian Arab people are celebrating the steadfastness of Palestinian resistance in the face of the deadly Zionist military machine. This is as if the Palestinian authority rejects this great great military achievement on Palestinian soil for the first time on Palestinian Arab land against the savage occupier.

The Arab Palestinian people is at a historic stage after the war the Zionist enemy waged on the Gaza Strip, and we don’t believe that it wise to continue with the practices of the past."