7/1/09; (7 Items)
Israeli strikes have killed at least 40 people who took refuge inside a UN school in the Gaza Strip, medics have said. The strike on Tuesday hit a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, in the northern town of Jabaliya. Medical sources at two Gaza hospitals said two tank shells exploded outside the school, where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from the Israeli attacks. The toll quickly rose as rescuers struggled through the rubble. In addition to the dead, several dozen people were wounded, the officials said. Doctors said all the dead were either people sheltering in the school or residents of Jabalya refugee camp, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/ 2009169564177230.html
Obama ‘deeply concerned’ over Gaza
7/1/09
Barack Obama, the US president-elect, has expressed “deep concern” over the number of civilian casualties in Gaza and Israel during the conflict there. Speaking after 40 Palestinians were killed at a UN school where civilians had sheltered, Obama said “the loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me”. Obama repeated his view that he did not want to speak fully in the issue until he became president on January 20 and that only George Bush could speak on US foreign policy until then. “After January 20 I’m going to have plenty to say about the issue, and I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign, that starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to be engaged effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East,” he said.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/01/ 200916165623588622.html
UN: Humanitarian crisis worsening
7/1/09
The UN has said that there is an “a worsening and an increasingly alarming” humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, told reporters on Monday that officials believed as many as 25 per cent of the 548 people killed in the fighting were civilians and that Gaza’s health system, overwhelmed by the more than 2,500 injured, was “increasingly precarious”. “This is, in our view, a humanitarian crisis,” Holmes said. “It’s very hard for me to see any other way you could describe it, given the conditions in which the population are living.”Holmes added that “cluster munitions are being used”, and that it was “a fair presumption” that most of the civilians killed were women and children.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/ 20091604547963392.html
West Bank quiet over war on Gaza
7/1/09
“It is so much more than disappointment,” explains Abir, a Gazan now living in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “In my worst nightmares I never imagined that Gaza would literally be slaughtered and the West Bank would be quiet.” While protests against the Israeli assaults on Gaza have surged across the world in the past week, Ramallah – the demonstration capital of the West Bank – has been relatively quiet. At one point, a protest in Tel Aviv drew 10,000 people while a demonstration in Ramallah the day before drew a fraction of that number.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/200916123826263533.html
Price of stubborness over Gaza exit is dead soldiers
Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, 7/1/09
Those who want to treat the delay in creating a diplomatic exit strategy for the war in Gaza as if it were a divine decree must take into account that at the end of this determination are casualties. The repeated delays in moving ahead with Operation Cast Lead, first before the ground operation and now the slow way Israel is seeking ‘exit points’ have a price. We are now beginning to pay it. Since the beginning of Cast Lead, most of the cabinet and the army have praised themselves for their thorough application of the Winograd recommendations from the Second Lebanon War. But the Winograd Committee’s criticism of the poor coordination between military action and diplomatic achievements seems relevant in this round as well. Most of the military at the operational level is pushing for continuing the operation deep within Hamas territory. That is exactly what is expected of them. In contrast, Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi was very cautious in presenting the risks and opportunities in Friday afternoon’s cabinet meeting
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053121.html
Israel is on its way to reoccupying all of the Gaza Strip
Aluf Benn, 7/1/09
The way events played out yesterday did not stir the political leadership into thinking of stopping the ground offensive and moving toward a cease-fire. On the contrary, Israel is moving toward a decision to occupy the whole Gaza Strip. The message yesterday from Jerusalem was that it is impossible to end Operation Cast Lead without an achievement, and if in the next two days there is no satisfactory diplomatic solution, Israel will have to broaden the operation. “Broadening the operation” could mean moving from house to house as in Operating Defensive Shield in 2002 in the West Bank, aiming to kill or capture as many Hamas fighters as possible. Or it could mean surrounding Gaza City, similar to the way the Egyptian Third Army was cut off in 1973, or like the siege of Beirut in 1982, until Hamas’ leaders emerge from their hideouts with their hands up. This could take several weeks. Political sources are denying reports of a disagreement at the top over the future of the operation, and insist that Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni are united in their understanding that under the current circumstances Israel should continue until there are diplomatic gains.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053122.html
The right to express protest
Editorial; 7/1/09
In the last few days, the Shin Bet security service questioned dozens of Arab Israelis, while others were subjected to warnings aimed at deterring them from participating in demonstrations against the Israel Defense Forces operation in the Gaza Strip. Those taking part in demonstrations in Jaffa, Sakhnin and Shfaram were brought in for “clarification talks” even in cases when the demonstrations had been authorized. The Shin Bet approved the questioning and explained that, “In recent days a number of violent incidents, with nationalist character, have taken place in Israel. These incidents included arson, stone-throwing and firebombs. As a result of these incidents, arrests were made.” In parallel, charges were brought in the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court against left-wing activists who blocked the entrance to the Sde Dov airbase on Friday, in protest of Operation Cast Lead. The activists were charged with unlawful entry into a military area, participation in a forbidden gathering and interfering with a police officer as he tried to carry out his duty.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052995.html