Wednesday, December 31, 2008

photo report of gaza demonstration....

by David Broder

On 29th December, as Israeli bombs rained down on the people of Gaza, over 1500 - mostly young - people demonstrated outside the Israeli Embassy in London in the second of a series of daily protests. After the Embassy protest there was a march down Kensington High Street and a number of police attacks on the crowd: seven people were arrested. Below are a series of photos and comments on the day. We distributed leaflets reporting on the state of Israeli opposition movements and the plight of young people jailed for refusing to serve in the army, as well as expressing our condemnation of the attacks.

The demo began at 4pm with a standing picket outside the Israeli Embassy, which is protected by police and gates and is several dozen yards away from the road.

The British Muslim Initiative’s placards were particularly prominent on the demo: the British far left did not make as much of an impression as is usual on anti-war events.

The mass of people blocked all traffic for several hours. There was a mix of specifically pro-Palestinian slogans (mostly “Free, Free Palestine”, “Occupation, no more” and “Israel, Terrorist”) and Islamic chants such as “God is great”. A few sticks, bottles and cans were thrown at the police, as well as two traffic cones filled with burning paper. A policeman’s hat was set on fire too (after it was removed from his head…)

The only speech was by the Respect MP George Galloway. On Sunday’s demo Tony Benn had also spoken.


There were only a handful of people selling Socialist Worker, and perhaps surprisingly, the only SWP grandees present were the (currently marginalised) John Rees and Lindsey German.

After the demo at the Embassy started dissipating and dozens of police as well as police on horseback drove the rest of us away, a couple of hundred of us marched down Kensington High Street.

However, the police then succeeded in penning around sixty of us in at a road junction. One person threw a firework at the cops.

We stood on the pavement for around an hour, surrounded by dozens of police. Around 200 police had been mobilised in total. We were stop and searched one-by-one and most of us were then released.

Gaza demonstration in San Francisco...

By Clarity Staff Reporter on December 29th, 2008
The sign reads ‘Why won’t those darned Arabs starve quietly, so Israel can enjoy its enlightened liberal democracy in peace?”

The Palestian flag being waved.

I am in San Francisco today, and ran into a Gaza demonstration. I am now in the hotel hearing the sounds of protest, sirens and the horns of angry motorists caught in the traffic jams that are blocking the city. There is a large demonstration on Post and Market Streets, the frequent location of street level protest in the city. The demonstration is a large crowd, vocal and angry. There are young and old, Arab and Jew, tourist and local - all protesting the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza. There are signs that read ‘Jews against Zionism’, ‘Stop the Carnage’ and more. In this city, where the left wing heartbeat is strong, there is no doubt at the level of anger that the populace feel against Israel actions. We have added a few photographs (cell phone quality only - apologies) to give you a feel for the event.

DFC: 30 Palestinian children killed since start of IOF raids on Gaza


Ramallah, (PIC)-- The Defense for Children / Palestine Section has said that 30 Palestinian children were killed in the ongoing Israeli occupation forces' air raids on the Gaza Strip since Saturday.

The DFC said in a statement on Monday that its researchers were currently investigating all incidents in which children were the victims. It predicted that the number of causalities among children would increase as the children constitute 56% of the Gaza population.

The statement attributed the increased number of casualties in lines of children to the fact that the first major Israeli air strikes coincided with the return of school children to their homes, a thing that has been surely known by those who planned the strikes.

Israel's indifference towards the lives of civilians reflects its disrespect to its commitment as an occupation power and to rules and laws of war, the DFC said, adding that the raids killed seven students of an UNRWA professional training center in central Gaza while waiting for the bus to take them home.

Human rights organizations and media reports estimated that more than 360 Palestinians were killed in the air raids while around 1700 others were injured many of them in critical conditions.

World must say “No” to Jewish Nazism before it is too late


The genocidal Israeli onslaught against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is strikingly similar to the German blitz in the initial stage of the Second World War. The pretexts are nearly the same and the behaviors of both Nazi and Israeli political and military leadership are nearly identical.

And as the German Nazis sought to justify their blitz against their neighbors to the east, using a plethora of carefully concocted lies and pretexts, Israel is doing virtually the same thing.

However, unlike the Nazis whose naked aggression was widely condemned around the world, the ongoing Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip is being condoned, even celebrated, by a huge media network throughout the western world from Sydney to Los Angeles.

Today, Israel is decapitating Gaza while claiming that it is only fighting Hamas. The Israeli air force is targeting and destroying schools, mosques, private homes, charities, public buildings, drug stores, colleges and universities, all under the false pretext of fighting Hamas.

This is not a war against Hamas. It is a war against the Palestinian people as is obvious from the fact that the bulk of the victims are innocent civilians.

And like all criminals, Israel is resorting to the fabrication of lies and half-truths to justify its genocidal blitz against an essentially unprotected people.

Many, probably most Jews in Israel and around the world, are bragging about the “heroic” Israeli army and its “achievements” against Hamas. Some Jews have described the slaughter as the “best Hanukah present ever.”

Well, I don’t really see any heroism in using state-of-the-art machines of death, such as the F-16 warplanes, apache helicopters and laser-guided bunker buster bombs against a people who don’t posses an army or an air force or anti-aircraft defenses.
There is no heroism, but sheer cowardice, in launching these deadly bombs at unprotected civilian buildings just as there was no heroism in the targeting of unarmed civilians by the Nazi war machines.

For sure, even the weakest air-force in the world could bomb and destroy unprotected buildings and kill as many civilians as seen fit by morbid minds of Ehud Barak’s ilk.

In short, the Israeli onslaught against a people who don’t possess the means to defend themselves and can’t protect their children from Israeli brutality is an act of sheer cowardice. It can be compared with the Nazi SS strafing Jewish protesters with machine gunfire.

Israel and her mouthpieces in the West claim that Israeli army, a Jewish Wehrmacht by any standard of objective analysis, is merely reacting to Palestinian projectiles fired from Gaza onto Israeli settlements outside Gaza.

Well, this is only a pretext for two many reasons:

The so-called Qassam projectiles are symbolic and nearly innocuous weapons that make more noise than damage. During the past eight years, less than two dozen Israelis were killed by these projectiles. In the meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians, mainly children and other innocent civilians, were annihilated by the indiscriminate Israeli death machine. These are war crimes because even in war, there is proportionality and using excessive force, mainly against civilians, in reaction to minor provocation puts Israel on equal footing with Nazi barbarianism.

There are those who would argue that Israel has the right and duty to defend its citizens. Well, this is not the real issue, because one could argue that even the worst state in the world has the right to defend its citizens.

But Israel has been savaging an entire people by imposing a Nazi-like siege upon them on no other account than to punish them for electing a government that both Israel and her guardian-ally, the United States, didn’t like.

In short, Israel has been effectively telling the Palestinians, in word as well as in deed, that they face two choices: Either to starve to death, or be exterminated by the Israeli war machine. In other words, the Palestinians must die if they resist and die if they don’t. This is while the Israeli hasbara (propaganda) machine keeps telling the world that Israel is only fighting Hamas and defending its citizens.

Well, Hamas may not be completely blameless in a certain sense. However, it is imperative to remind the world that the Islamic movement repeatedly voiced its willingness to stop the firing of “all” projectiles from the Gaza Strip if only Israel would reciprocate and lift the Nazi-like siege.

And as we all know, Israel consistently refused, insisting rather arrogantly that it had the right to kill the Palestinians and invade their territories whenever it deemed fit.

Needless to say, this is exactly the same sort of arrogance, insolence and bellicosity that characterized Nazi behavior.

A few days ago, Israelis analysts described the genocidal onslaught against Gaza as the Israeli version of the American “shock- and –awe bombing” at the beginning of the American invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Shock and awe against a thoroughly tormented and completely savaged people who have been through a hateful blockade, unprecedented in its cruelty and wickedness.

I can’t understand why Jews are behaving the way they are. Do the scenes of havoc and destruction and death in the streets and refugee camps of Gaza give them self-confidence? Do they enjoy watching Palestinian kids mutilated to smithereens by these hellish missiles launched at apartment buildings and homes from high altitude.?

Does it make them feel that they are finally defeating Hitler?

I am asking these questions because I have seen Jews dancing and celebrating rather joyfully the carnage in Gaza. Indeed, a fleeting glance at the Israeli media these days reveals a sick and cannibalistic society that is as bestial as Nazi Germany was during the holocaust.

Perhaps I am doing some injustice to the Germans. After all, the Germans were living under a hateful and tyrannical dictatorship that would have brutally crushed any protests by conscientious citizens.

But, unlike Nazi Germany, Israel claims to be “a light upon the nations,” “the only democracy in the Middle East” and a civilized western nation.

Well, if such is the behavior of “democratic” Israel, just imagine how the Jewish state would behave once the terrorist entity fell in the hands of manifestly fascist forces and parties.

I have repeatedly warned in my writings that Israel is capable of committing a genocide or a holocaust against the Palestinian people and other peoples of the Middle East.

My warnings are not empty propaganda aimed at besmirching Israel’s image. Likewise, they are not motivated by anti-Semitism or hatred for the Jewish people, many of whom I respect and admire.

But the shocking pornographic slaughter in Gaza should be viewed as a clarion vindication of my warnings. Israel simply represents the Nazis of our time.

I know that many people around the world, especially in the West, realize the veracity of the analogy deep in their hearts. But they are afraid to call the spade a spade lest they be tarnished and hounded and harassed by the powerful Jewish media which more or less controls the public discourse in many western nations.

But the timidity of these cowards will not help them. Today, the Palestinians are the victims. But, surely, tomorrow will bring with it more victims, and Europeans and Americans in particular will not be immune.

Their lives may not be under an immediate threat now. But their freedoms certainly are.

Let us remember on this somber occasion the words of Martin Niemoller who lamented the bankruptcy of German intellectuals in the few years preceding the Second World War.

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

For God’s sake, let us learn from history, because today’s Israel is strikingly similar to 1936’s Germany.

Please, say No to Jewish Nazism before it is too late.

Gaza's main hospital struggling to cope


A Palestinian patient receives dialysis treatment at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - Gaza's main hospital, al-Shifa, is struggling to cope with the influx of people injured in the Israeli air strikes which started on 27 December, according to medical sources.

Staff and patients are also fearful Israel might target it, as the leaders of Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the enclave, have held press conferences there.

The hospital has already moved some medical facilities below ground.

The head of the international cooperation department of Gaza's health ministry, Medhat Abbas, told IRIN: "Al-Shifa has never received hundreds of patients all at once. Hospital staff are using sheets to staunch bleeding, and many patients have died because of the lack of supplies and equipment."

A statement issued by the Israeli branch of Physicians For Human Rights, a non-governmental organization, on 30 December said: "The Israeli attack finds the current health system in the Gaza Strip in a state of total collapse due to the harsh siege imposed on the Gaza Strip for a year and a half, and the closure preceding it."

Abbas reported a shortage of staff, including nurses and surgeons, at al-Shifa, which is in desperate need of antibiotics, tubes, urine bags, dressings and gloves for emergency operations. The hospital was already facing shortages of medicines and medical supplies due to the Israeli blockade.

Generators at al-Shifa, designed to operate two or three hours daily, are operating 12-16 hours a day due to the rolling blackouts, said Abbas. He feared they could overheat and malfunction.



Medical aid via Egypt

Egypt briefly opened the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday (28 December) to allow nine trucks of medical aid from the Egyptian Red Crescent and Health Ministry to enter Gaza. It also opened the border on 29 December to allow in truckloads of Qatari aid. Such aid, though helpful, cannot fill the gap, according to medical sources.

"The Rafah border must be opened," said Abbas. "Israel is trying to destroy us."

"Our capabilities are limited. Since August we have not received basic medications. The ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] ... has been unable to deliver a shipment [of medicines] for one month," said health ministry spokesperson Hamam Nasman. "One hundred and five drugs and 230 basic supplies, such as alcohol, cotton and needles ... are out of stock."

Bodies piling up

Over 1,330 people had been injured, and 180 were in a critical condition, according to the health ministry.

Although the hospital's morgue was said by hospital officials to be adequate, bodies were piling up outside the hospital as additional make-shift intensive care units were created to treat the flow of emergency cases, said an IRIN journalist at the scene.

There are usually six functional operating rooms at al-Shifa hospital. "Six additional operating rooms were opened and we began sending victims to other lesser endowed hospitals for treatment after all the beds were full," hospital director Hussein Ashur told IRIN. He said there was a shortage of blood for transfusions.

Fatimah Salem, 53, lies in a coma in al-Shifa hospital, torn apart by debris while at work for a local charity near the targeted prison in Gaza City. "My mother was not firing rockets at Israel," said her son, Majed.

Deserted streets and fear as Israel demolishes Gaza


Palestinains queue up to buy bread in Gaza, 30 December 2008.


Deserted streets and fear as Israel demolishes Gaza
Rami Almeghari writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 30 December 2008

Palestinains queue up to buy bread in Gaza, 30 December 2008. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)

As Israel's relentless bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip has entered its fourth day, the number of dead and injured has exceeded 2,000. Speaking via Skype, The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari described the situation near his home in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip:

I am in al-Maghazi refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip. This afternoon Israeli drones targeted a house in al-Maghazi with three missiles. Fortunately there were no casualties. But unfortunately there have been many casualties elsewhere in Gaza where they have targeted houses and mosques.

I went out of the house to deal with some urgent matters today. But movement is really risky right now. Anyone who moves could be a potential target for the Israeli warplanes that are buzzing overhead all the time. You don't know what the next target is. It is terrible, horrible for the population here.

Most of the shops and businesses are closed. Only a few food stores are open. There is very little movement in the streets. There are very few cars, for example, the on the Salah al-Din road, a main thoroughfare running through the Gaza Strip. People are staying in their houses, their neighborhoods. What is going on is unprecedented since Israel occupied Gaza in 1967. There is a great deal of fear, worry, anxiety.

Fortunately we do have access to the Internet, but the power outages are very prolonged. Right now I am talking to you using a gasoline-powered generator. But gasoline is in very short supply all over, so shortly I could be cut off from the world.

Some food shops and bakeries are open, but just for a few hours a day. They take whatever opportunity they can to make bread for the people. This morning I went to a bakery in the nearby Nusseirat refugee camp to try to by bread for my children and family. They said, "There is no bread right now, maybe after 8pm." They are waiting for the electricity to come back so they can bake.

Over the past two days there have been some food shipments into the Gaza Strip, but in very limited quantities -- much much less than can meet the needs of 1.5 million people. The average household here has seven or eight persons, so the need is very great.

You cannot find any presence of the government here now. Most of the government buildings have been destroyed by Israeli warplanes. For example the whole compound of ministerial buildings in Gaza City -- including the ministries of finance, interior, education and others -- has been completely destroyed.

These are not "terrorist" or military sites. These were civilian buildings that served the population in civil matters. They had nothing to do with any military purposes as Israel always claims. Even the police stations they have been targeting over the past few days, were just civil police stations, guarding security of the people, dealing with traffic and so on. The people working in those police stations were just previously unemployed youths who took the opportunity to make a living and feed their families.

Israel bombed the Hamas-run al-Aqsa TV station, but just one hour ago on al-Aqsa TV a masked spokesman from the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, spoke live from a hidden location. And despite the repeated attacks by the Israelis, the firing of rockets is still going on into Israel. So Israel has not hit Hamas. It has hit the civilian population.

Rami Almeghari is contributor to The Electronic Intifada, IMEMC.org and Free Speech Radio News and is a part-time lecturer on media and political translation at the Islamic University of Gaza. Rami is also a former senior English translator at and editor-in-chief of the international press center of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service. He can be contacted at rami_almeghari A T hotmail D O T com.

Massacre In Gaza - Black Saturday

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke

You are probably aware that the Israeli Cabinet has in the last few days approved the launch of a military operation against Gaza by all the forces of the Israeli demolishing forces (IDF). The assault was launched at around 11:30 am and carried out in two separate waves of attacks, during which over 100 bombs were dropped on dozens of targets. Some 80 warplanes and helicopters took part in the assault destroying several civil police compound and civilian homes.

Television footage showed dead bodies scattered on a road and wounded and dead being carried away by distraught rescuers. There was widespread damage to buildings. Till now, (17: pm) more than 205 people were killed and at least 750 were wounded, 125 people out of them with critical injuries, in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip on this black Saturday, according to Ministry of health and human rights organizations.

The military operation makes the Palestinian blood fall like rain. As a consequence, the civilian population in the cities of Rafah, Khan-Younis, middle camps, Gaza City, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and in the refugee camp of Jabaliya is suffering from the most horrible onslaught of Israeli military power.

According to statistics received Al-Awda hospital (UHWC), in Jabalia and Beit-lahia, in just 3 hours 18 people were killed . Another 85 people were injured and 16 remain in a critical condition. The number of deaths and injured and the extent of the damage are increasing by the minute.

Infrastructure is being destroyed, leaving many areas without power and water. Military forces curtail all movement, preventing medical and health workers from reaching the injured, as well as the chronic and routine cases needing medical services. Al-Awda Hospital in Jabaliya is very close to the military operation area and medical teams and health workers attempting to evacuate the injured risk are being killed themselves. Medical supplies in the hospital are largely exhausted and already food supplies for in-patients and staff are dwindling.

Beit Hanoun has been hit the hardest and the people there are facing a real health crisis. The men and women of UHWC are working around the clock and at risk to themselves to deal with this humanitarian disaster. All indications are that this latest assault on Palestinian civil society is a repeat of the grave and massive violations of Palestinian human rights by Israel, and, there is no sign of the military easing their offensive.

Unless the international community puts pressure on Israel to stop the mass killing of civilians and the willful destruction of property and infrastructure, the people of Gaza will again be forced to suffer the humiliating and crippling dictates of Israel's military rule. It could also lead to the full re-occupation of the entire Gaza Strip.

UHWC asks you, to issue a strong Last Appeal Statement condemning Israel's human rights violations against the Palestinian people and to demand a cessation of this military offensive. Israel's persistent unilateral attempts to change by force the situation of some 1.5 million Palestinians blatantly contravene international humanitarian law and all human rights conventions. Furthermore, they are morally reprehensible. There are no political considerations which can justify the silence of the international community any longer.

Dr. Yousef Mousa, Executive Director
Union of Health Work Committees, Gaza, Palestine