Ghazanfar Ali Khan; 5/1/09; (10 Items)
In response to a fundraising call from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, Crown Prince Sultan donated SR10 million, while Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, chairman of the Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), donated SR5 million to alleviate suffering in Palestine. Total donations collected so far exceed SR125 million, excluding several truckloads of relief supplies such as blankets, clothes and basic provisions.“The Kingdom has sent seven planeloads of aid to war-torn Palestine so far including two relief planes that took off from Riyadh Air Base yesterday for Areesh airport in Egypt, carrying more than 24 tons of medical supplies,” said Dr. Khaled Al-Mirghalani, spokesman for the Ministry of Health. “A total of 14 severely injured Palestinians have been airlifted and admitted to different hospitals in the Saudi capital as I speak to you,” he added.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=117835&d=5&m=1&y=2009
King demands decisive stand from Security Council
Khetam Malkawi 5/1/09
His Majesty King Abdullah on Sunday called on the Security Council to issue an immediate binding decision to stop the Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip, open the border crossings and end the humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave. At a meeting of the National Policies Council, King Abdullah said Jordan will deploy all possible means to hammer out an international stand to pressure Israel into ending “its aggression on innocent people in the Gaza Strip” and highlight the destructive impact of the offensive on the entire region. The King told the meeting that Jordan will continue to exert all possible efforts to bring about an end to the onslaught, a Royal Court statement said Sunday.
See: http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=13263
No place is a safe place in Gaza
5/1/09
With booms from artillery and airstrikes keeping them awake, the 10 members of Lubna Karam’s family spent the night huddled in the hallway of their Gaza City home. Earlier strikes had shattered the living room windows, letting cold air pour in. The Karams haven’t had electricity for a week and have run out of cooking gas. They’ve been eating cold, canned beans. “It’s war food,” said Karam, 28, a mother of three small children. “What else can we do?” As Israel’s offensive moved from airstrikes to ground fighting and artillery shelling, Gaza’s civilians were increasingly exposed. Some two dozen civilians were killed within hours after the start of Israel’s ground invasion Saturday night.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=117823&d=5&m=1&y=2009
Gaza: Never-ending tragedy
Robert Fisk; 5/1/09
How easy it is to snap off the history of the Palestinians, to delete the narrative of their tragedy, to avoid a grotesque irony about Gaza which — in any other conflict — journalists would be writing about in their first reports: That the original, legal owners of the Israeli land on which Hamas rockets are detonating live in Gaza.That is why Gaza exists: Because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it — Askalaan in Arabic — were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They — or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren — are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 percent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: Most of the people of Gaza don’t come from Gaza.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=117824&d=5&m=1&y=2009
Editorial: Another round of bloodletting
5/1/09
Act two of the Gaza slaughter has begun. Death from above now continues on the ground. Overwhelming firepower from tanks, artillery and aircraft are killing women and children indiscriminately. Reports speak of civilians cowering inside as battles rage, terrified residents in other areas fleeing in fear, the windows of the house being blown out, people living without electricity, surviving without heat and eating cold food. The death toll was already high, and will turn higher still with the ground invasion. Palestinians know from grim experience that the death of one Israeli citizen justifies the indiscriminate murder of hundreds of Palestinians. All this, we are told, is in Israel’s “self-defense”. But this is not going to improve Israel’s security. Indiscriminate killing of women and children will never do. In the coming days it could get worse and in the long-term this massacre could create a new generation of radicals. They do not have to be supporters of Hamas nor do they have to be religious fanatics.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=117833&d=5&m=1&y=2009
Victims with a legitimate grievance
Iman Kurdi; 5/1/09
It sounds like hypocrisy. Why is it when hundreds of Arabs get killed we hear words like “grave concern” whereas if just one Israeli is killed, or an American, or a Brit, politicians and commentators fall over themselves to condemn the killings with their most virulent vocabulary — words like atrocities, murdering the innocent, barbaric, evil, and a whole host of other words that you could use to describe dropping bombs on a densely populated territory where 1.5 million people huddle together in poverty and misery with no way out. Why is it too that dropping bombs on Palestinians is described as a “crisis” or a “conflict”? How many need to die before you can call it a war? But no, maybe it is a good thing that it is not a war, for a war would imply two sides fighting each other, whereas what we have is a country with a mighty army and US backing bombing the hell out of a “territory” that is not recognized as a country, whose leaders are not recognized as leaders and whose weapons are their lives and some long-range rockets.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=117834&d=5&m=1&y=2009
Israel land assault dissects Gaza Strip; civilians suffer
5/1/08
Israeli troops and tanks split the Gaza Strip and ringed its main city on Sunday in an offensive against Hamas that has killed more than 500 Palestinians, including a growing number of civilians. Israeli tanks poured shells and machinegun-fire into suspected positions and warplanes struck as Hamas fighters fought back with mortars and rockets.
Hamas kept up rocket attacks against southern Israel, defying efforts by the Middle East’s most powerful army to achieve Israeli leaders’ declared aim of removing the threat of cross-border salvoes… At least 42 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed on Sunday as Israeli shells slammed into houses and Gaza’s main shopping district, medical sources said. Israel has accused Hamas of using civilians in the Gaza Strip as “human shields”, saying the Islamist group has been firing rockets at Israeli towns from densely populated areas and storing weapons in homes and mosques.Among the Palestinian casualties were five civilians killed and 40 wounded when tank shells slammed into Gaza City’s main shopping area. Two children were dismembered by another blast from a tank, medical workers said.
See: http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=13264
Israel can’t find peace with bombs
Rosa Brooks; 5/1/09
It is a new year in an old and bloody world. In Israel, politicians jockeying for power have launched the most lethal military assault on Palestinian territory in decades. Israel has justified its bombardment and invasion of Gaza on the grounds that Hamas broke a fragile, temporary cease-fire. The Israeli government is right to consider Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israeli civilians inexcusable, but the timing of the Israeli military offensive has more to do with politics than anything else. Ehud Barak, Israel’s Labor Party defense minister, and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister from the centrist Kadima party, are both contenders for prime minister in Israel’s Feb. 6 national elections. A show of “toughness” against Hamas could help Labor and/or Kadima beat back the right-wing Likud Party of Benjamin Netanyahu, which has been leading in the polls.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=117836&d=5&m=1&y=2009
Simple answers
5/1/09
Israeli military aggression against Gaza has entered another stage with the land offensive, and the silence of the international community remains deafening. Both international diplomacy and Arab political efforts to defuse the situation in Gaza Strip are at a standstill. The UN Security Council’s recent attempt to come out at least with a statement calling for an immediate ceasefire was frustrated by the US vote against it. The US deputy ambassador, Alejandro Wolff, said a new statement now “would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council”. Much credit does it do this world body to allow the carnage in Gaza to go on, indeed! Arab diplomatic efforts, through the Arab League, have also come to naught, Arab capitals disagreeing on whether to convene an Arab summit to discuss the situation in Gaza.
See: http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=13249
War of obliteration has to stop
Abdullah Al Shayji; 4/1/09
This was not supposed to take place in the third millennium. How could the civilised world tolerate the killing of innocent children and women in the name of fighting what the Israelis insist on calling “the terrorist Hamas organisation”? Israel is carrying on what amounts to complete annihilation of the most desolate strip of land on Earth. The Jewish state is turning Gaza’s 1.5 million helpless residents into hostages to its killing machine, with no distinction between the resistance fighters and children who are being slaughtered by laser guided missiles while playing football. Even when targeting the Hamas leadership, which seems to enjoy the US approval, is it acceptable to drop one tonne bombs on their homes and obliterate all members of their families and
See: http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10272419.html
Tags: Human Rights, Israel, Terrorism, USA