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Israeli Tank Fire Kills 40 at UN School: Medics
GAZA - Israeli tank shells killed at least 40 Palestinians on Tuesday at a U.N. school where civilians had taken shelter, medical officials said, in carnage likely to boost international pressure on Israel to halt a Gaza offensive.
A Palestinian boy, who fled his house with his family during Israel's offensive, stands at a United Nations school in Gaza January 6, 2009. (Suhaib Salem/Reuters) An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was looking into information on the incident at al-Fakhora school in Jabalya refugee camp, on the fourth day of a ground assault launched after a week of air strikes failed to end Hamas rocket salvoes.
People cut down by shrapnel lay in pools of blood on the street. Witnesses said two Israeli tanks shells exploded outside the school, killing at least 40 civilians -- Palestinians who had taken refuge there and residents of nearby buildings.
"I am not familiar with the news," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said, asked by reporters about incident.
"Unfortunately, (Hamas fighters) are hiding amongst civilians," she said, adding that Israel was trying to avoid civilian casualties.
In a separate incident earlier in the day, three Palestinians were killed in an air strike on another school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
The deaths in Gaza, home to 1.5 million people, raised to 75 the number of Palestinian civilians killed on Tuesday alone, according to medical officials.
The spike in civilian casualties could prove to be a turning point in Israel's "Operation Cast Lead," launched on December 19 with the declared aim of removing the Hamas rocket threat.
The killing of dozens of unarmed Lebanese in Israel's bombing in the village of Qana in the 2006 Lebanon war drained foreign support for its campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel said it had not known civilians were in the area.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would like to seen "an immediate ceasefire that is durable, sustainable and not time-limited."
International efforts already under way to end the fighting have focused on securing a truce deal that would meet Israel's demand that Hamas, an Islamist group in charge of the Gaza Strip, could not rearm once hostilities end.
"If there is an end to terror, an end to the smuggling of ammunition from Sinai to Gaza, the Israeli fighting will stop," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, referring to rockets and other weaponry Hamas obtains through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.
In fighting on Tuesday, Israeli forces pushed into the southern town of Khan Younis and battled Hamas militants on the outskirts of the city of Gaza. Palestinian medical officials said four militants were killed.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, at least 629 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,700 wounded since Israel began its offensive.
Ten Israelis, including three civilians hit by rocket fire, have been killed in the conflict. At least five rockets landed in Israel on Tuesday, including one that hit the town of Gadera, 28 km (17 miles) from Tel Aviv. A three-year-old girl was wounded.
TRUCE EFFORTS
A senior Israeli official said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a Middle East visit and in partnership with Egypt, was pursuing "a serious initiative" for a ceasefire.
Commenting on the deaths at Jabalya school, Sarkozy said during a visit to French U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon: "It reinforces my determination for all this to stop as quickly as possible. Time is working against us. We must find a solution."
Talks were focusing, the Israeli official said, on the size of an "international presence" along the blockaded Gaza-Egypt border, where rockets and other weapons have reached Hamas through a network of tunnels.
Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy of major powers sponsoring Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said Sarkozy, the European Union and the United States were all in agreement that new anti-smuggling measures would be needed to clinch a ceasefire.
"What is being talked about is a credible plan to stop the smuggling," Blair, a former British prime minister, told reporters in Jerusalem.
He said he hoped the plan could be completed quickly and that enhanced Israeli security would lead to "a significant advance in opening up Gaza to the outside world."
Hamas, which has rebuffed Western demands to recognize Israel, end violence and accept existing interim peace deals, has demanded a lifting of the blockade of the Gaza Strip in any future ceasefire. It seized the territory in 2007.
Most of the deaths reported by Gaza hospitals in recent days have been civilians.
The Israeli military said it killed 130 militants since it began a ground assault on Saturday, a figure that suggested the total Palestinian death toll might be close to 700 and that bodies could still be on the battlefield.
Many of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million people lack food, water or power. In southern Israel, schools remained closed and hundreds of thousands of people have been rushing to shelter at the sound of alarms heralding incoming rockets.
(Additional reporting by Adam Entous in Jerusalem, Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Alastair Macdonald, Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
122 Comments so far
Show AllUnfortunately it's going to take a lot more than anti-smuggling measures to end the violence and bring some form of peace to the region.
Correct. The Destruction of the Apartheid Zionist Government is the FIRST prerequisite to Peace in Palestine.
Amen!
What a horrible criminal nation Israel has become casting itself in its own lead.
More on the Arab view http://english.aljazeera.net/
The Isrealis hit that school to show that the United Nations ain't shit.
"The Israelis hit that school to show that the United Nations ain't shit."
Oh, yes, they are!
Nothing will change.
Although-yes they like to taunt the UN. Incredible how they take it without caring.
Useless.
No mention of Israel taking palestinian land, routinely killing palestinians even when there hasnt been a suicide bombing.
Lebanon was a western style country with many more friends than Palestine has, and did anyone care that Israel bombed the hell out of it?
Israel only cares about Israeli jews, it has never said: we care about all countries.
It doesnt.
All it cares about is recreating an ancient religous mythological kingdom, while using 20th century persecution in Europe for propaganda points.
You watch. Israel will have killed at least a 1000 before it stops, and it will do something even more monstrous like dumping cluster bombs or testing out a new weapon supplied by the US before leaving.
And if a suicide bombing happens tomorrow they will say: see? we had to kill a 1000 people because they are killing 5 of us.
People really need to get the blinders off and see this as a classic case of manifest destiny/racial supremacy beliefs.
But then what's the point? Burma is massacring its own people and what is done about that.
Nothing.
China and Tibet?
Nothing.
Its the constant harping of Israel as a victim that makes its action so galling.
It blows up a school and has absolutely ZERO remorse.
I know not all Israelis think like that, but not enough of them do.
They did rate Bush a great president simply because he kills arabs.
With every major Israeli operation UN facilities are hit. The US invaded Iraq in defiance of the UN. Clearly the US and Israel have no regard for the very international institutions such as the UN where they hide behind the veto in the Security Council. This once more emphasises the need to reform the Security Council and remove the veto powers of the big five.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said, asked by reporters about incident.
"Unfortunately, (Hamas fighters) are hiding amongst civilians," she said that Israel was trying to avoid civilian casualties.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So far, four out of five Israeli soldiers have been killed by Israeli soldiers.
As far as the genocidal slaughter of terrified civilians...Bush and Olmert set that up years ago. This Harkens back to Vietnam where all the dead were V.C. - no matter how young the women and children were.
After Powell's boy, Michael, Murdochized our media all we ever hear is Zionist lies.
Tzipi Livni is smug and arrogant and makes me mad.
Hamas consists of civilians who have banded together to protect themselves from the IDF. Israel uses Hamas' use of evil tactics like suicide bombing as a justification for its even greater evil; I guess this proves that even THEY know they are the real terrorists.
Tzipi the Pinhead wouldn't know justice if it bit her in the ass.
It does hurt to laugh eh? Like HAMAS is "hiding amongst civilians".
Here is one that really cracks me up, "Israel is a normal country".
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
Years ago I was a bartender in a small sawmill town in Northern Montana. We had a town bully named (actually!) Leroy Brown, who was an enormous oaf with one eyebrow and a bad reputation. Like many bullies he came with a sidekick who was a cowardly twerp who picked fights as long as Leroy was standing behind him. People were afraid of Leroy, but they especially detested that twerp. Then one day Leroy trashed one bar too many and went off to prison, leaving his old sidekick on his own. That poor guy would have been better off in jail with Leroy.
Sarkozy and Blair should rather keep out of the Middle East. You cannot find two more discredited mediators than these two! Britain has a long history of deception when it comes to Palestine dating back to the start of the century and the record of France is no better. Blair was little more than George Bush's lapdog during the period in which he was Prime Minister of Britain. Gaza is locked in, a giant concentration camp, the only access to Gaze by land or sea being control;led by Israel. Blocking the tunnels in the South of Gaza means effectively starving Gaza and closing the fence of the concentration camp.
Historically the problem of Israel is the anti semitic racism of Europe (and Britain). The solution to the Jewish Question lay in dealing with European racism in Europe rather than exporting the object of that racism to Palestine.
Actually, since Nazi-Germany killed 6 million Jews in the holocaust, they should have been given part of Germany for their nation. The Ashkanazy Jews are descended from European tribes that converted to Judeism and have no hitsorical ties to Israel.
In the turn of the century, 90% of the population of what is today called Israel was Arab. How would you like it if a judge told you that you had to give half of your home to a stranger and let him move in. This is what the UN did to the Palestinians. We have a "Blame the victim" outlook like we did with the Native-Americans.
That is a great idea! Half of Germany! Let's see how long those settlements last on German territory. Let's see how many dead schoolchildren the Germans will tolerate. I've always thought God should have put them on the moon, but Germany is even better. And an opportunity to regain their lost manhood by avenging themselves on the actual people who made them crazy.
"avenging themselves on the actual people who made them crazy." that friend would be the zionists. Do a little googling on the zionist's willingness to work with the nazis.
the only groups that have ever regarded "the Jews" as a race are the nazis and the zionists.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
"the only groups that have ever regarded "the Jews" as a race are the nazis and the zionists."
Interesting connection.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Exactly! At the second wars end it should have been no problem to resettle the persecuted Jews of Europe to their ancestral lands bounded by the Sea of Azov, the Don and the lower Volga, the Caspian Sea, and the northern Caucasus.
Notice the use of the term "settlers" sort of makes them sound down right cuddly eh? The land stealers were landless good-for-nothings back where they came from, now they got a modern western heavily subsidised life-style and free land, courtesy of the Palestinians and USA taxpayers.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
Perhaps if Jews were allowed to own land in europe over the last several hundred years and there werent pogroms and holocausts by Russia and Germany, then things would be different... Perhaps they wouldnt have been so hell-bent to get the hell back to Dodge and circle the wagons...
thats the thing about conjecture... we will never know so why suppose?
I notice still the biased reporting in this article. The author describes Hamas as "seizing power". It was a democratic election. And no Western leader is demanding that Gaza be given full opportunities for adequate living conditions such as rights to water, land, housing etc. Instead they focus on stopping the re arming of Palestinians. Why would anyone in Gaza believe they should join negotiations with these "mediators"? Bring in Jimmy Carter. He had the guts to call it Aparthied--and look how he was villified in the U.S. He's a courageous and trustworthy western diplomat willing to stand up to the evil empire of Isreal and all the wealthy Zionist who back it.
Operation Cast Lead, like Bush's Slam Dunk, will only stick the lable of Genocidal Monster on all Israelis and their supporters.
Some of CD people are stuck on their "hate" button. If we want peace, we have to make peace. Ali Abunimah said that and many others. Bicker, then do something. Time to get "off the dime" folks, as people in/of this country and the world. Howard Zinn, "You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train", Boston:Beacon Press, 2003 edition has a fab intro. It's his autobio, which some call a memoir. It's like a "how to" for social change. His speech, transcript of, on DemocracyNow played on show, Jan. 2, 2009 is brilliant. www.democracynow.org Read the speech to understand where you,me,we are in history and the difference between government's interests and our interests, and then do something. (Yes, I'm a big Zinn fan.) PS I can't see much difference between the child in the photo with this article and my own child when that age:look similar. I'm a Jewish woman.
I'm aware that there are many "jewish" (sic) people in and outside of Israel who are against these atrocities. But ultimately I am for the expulsion of all "Israelis" and have a one state solution: Palestine. I agree with others: they ought to have been given homes in Germany after world war II. "Israel" is a terrorist nation; the U.S. is also.
I think it was Vine DeLoria, the Native-American writer, who once said that European Jews should have been given the Rhineland after WW2.
Of course that is rational, but we aren't dealing with rationality here, we are dealing with religious zealots who want a "greater Israel" and their Christian Zionist enablers in the U.S. Religion and it's pernicious effects in the 800 lbs guerilla in the room we are told not to discuss because it isn't p.c. or some such crap.
'...we are dealing with religious zealots who want a "greater Israel"...'
I'm not sure that's entirely true.
Here's a passage from Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid:
Carter met with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and asked her about the secular nature of her Labor government. She replied that "orthodox Jews still existed and could assume that portion (religious) of the nation's responsibility."
This tells me that Israel is run mostly by secular people, who happen to be Jewish.
While I'm no fan of any orthodoxy, I see that it doesn't take a religious piety to be a fundamentalist - just a belief that one is truly right and just. In fact, I believe the true teaching of the Jews, and Moslems, would decry what is happening. These people cannot be true Jews or Moslems and do this.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
The secular land grabbers use the extremist settler religious zealots as human shields to deflect criticism IMO because just about everyone is afraid to discuss the 800 lbs guerilla in the room religion. And I am not just talking about bad aspects of Judaism but the Mormons and prop 8, and Muslims and terrorism.
ENOUGH! Enough of delusionary hateful religious hallucinations already, there are no "chosen people" just frenzied monkeys cranked up on hate, some with MUCH bigger sticks than others like Israel and the U.S.
Thank you for that post.
Many people seem to forget that Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism, was an atheist.
There is no evidence to suggest that the Israeli government is populated by devout Jews. Actually, the evidence points to quite the opposite. As you said, "Israel is run mostly by secular people, who happen to be Jewish."
Very true.
nomoreexceptionalism:I must admit that I have only just learned what "US exceptionalism" means, as a phrase standing for a concept that I am aware of, but not the term. I have asked several times, why has there been no discussion about why the survivors of the Nazis couldn't go back to their old residences? And it was not only German Jews, but a long list:Jews who were Polish,Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Dutch, Italian, and other countries where there were not so many left after 6million were killed. It took money to leave,before the extermination, and it was very difficult to come to the US or anyplace in Europe or England.
I agree with Phyllis Bennis, who was on WBAI, Jan.5,2008, on "Talk Back" with Hugh Hamilton, archived, free for 90 days, www.wbai.org, that it's not up to us, as Americans (she and I are Jews), but the people who are living in Palestine and Israel about what they want. She was also on DemocracyNow,that morning, www.democracynow.org (the show began as a show on WBAI before going independent.)
Thankyou for the link here is another www.alternativenews.org/ be patient there seems to be concerted effort to shut them down going on.
Jews, Israelis and Zionists can all be citizens of the same state, and without breaking any laws of that state, some of them will be deemed by that state to have lesser rights than others' because of ethnicity and religion.
Should something be done about this? I think so, speak out and boycott and write letters to your representative in government.
Yes the child is a child from planet earth same as mine, when frightened, he cries, if he is cut he bleeds the same. What is happening is a war crime, we can only hope for Justice and the criminals brought to book.
Justice by all means!
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
yes, I know of www.alternativenews.org/. Thank you for your comment. What I meant is that in coloring, features my Jewish child, American, looks much the same as the Palestinian child, at that age. Also, www.endtheoccupation.org (I think Phyllis Bennis is on the steering committee.) I heard Phyllis Bennis on WBAI with Hugh Hamilton,"Talk Back" on Monday, Jan.5, archived for 90 days, www.wbai.org, free. And she said she'd been on DemocracyNow that morning. I was typing at that time and read it later, www.democracynow.org
I have an idea. And it is just as viable as those who scream that the Palestininas must unilaterally disarm and allow Israel to kill them as it wills.
A new Diaspora. That is, the forcible relocation of every Jew living in the UN created fiction called Israel to those countries that blindly support it's government and it's genocidal policies.
Tear down that damned wall. And I don't mean that blasphemous concrete 'security barrier'. The Wailing Wall is the last remnant of Solomons Temple. And as such, as long as there is even the remote possibility that it could be rebuilt to further the murderous fantasies of extremist Jews and Christians alike, we will have violence because of it.
I know, I know, it's a great archaeological treasure.
Bullshit.
If archaeologiocal treasures were so important, the world would have stepped in and stopped the US occupation of Iraq after it was revealed that the City of Ur, the first known city, had been destroyed by the US air base that had been built right through the middle of it. A World Heritage site is now little more than dust being blown around by US military transport planes.
"Israeli President Shimon Peres says Tel Aviv has no qualms about its public image despite world condemnation of its assault on Gaza."
Israel is a nation without a conscience. I may not be able to do anything about that other than boycott Israel and it's supporters. It's a small step and I'll never vote for another AIPAC candidate (Republican or Democratic) again - not in this lifetime.
Not voting for war mongers in general is an excellent idea. I am very much regretting voting for Obama. :(
I fear that you are just part of the first small wave of what will turn into multiple tsunamis of disappointment. At my age and with my experience I like to think I know better than to trust charismatic politicians whose writers craft nice sounding speeches for them (and my distrust of Obama began when I heard his "aewesome god" speech at the 2004 Dem convention). I feel a deep sadness, however, for all those young people whose idealism Obama exploited in his lust for power. Having served their function, they will now be brushed aside as Obama establishes a Bush-Lite style of govenance. They were used and it will be a dark day when they finally come to realize it.
I am 42 and have voted 3rd party Green since 1992 and I SHOUD have known better, Palin just sacred the crap out of me and an electable alternative to Bush/McCain seemed so nice. Now I can see it's all the same old neo-con war mongers and banksters with a new coat of paint :(
If you can get to DC, be in Lafayette Park (N. side of WH) this Saturday, January 10.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=8905
A mass protest at Obama's hotel will also hopefully materialize.
---USAn---
Keep half an eye out for the Hummers with the six foot microwave dishes. And there are these cute little M-16 gripped laser blinders that have been feild tested in Afghanistan now.
Also, bear in mind Bush did sign PD51, which gives him dictatorial powers in the event of something like, oh, mass civic unrest for instance.
And I would be willing to bet that you will funneled into a harmless 'designated free speech area' far away from Obama's hotel. And the MSM TV cameras. Can't have the masses getting uppity over some dead kids half a world away now, can we?
Walk in peace.
Actually, Obama's hotel - the Hay-Adams - is located directly across H Street from Lafayette Park (really a square) right near from the White House.
But, apparently the entire block of streets around the hotel have been closed to vehicles, and at times, pedestrians. On Sunday, a small group of protestors were detained and their signs seized when attempting to have a vigil in front of the hotel.
So it looks like they Obama will also be living in a moving bubble of zero dissent...
---USAn---
Just like Bushie, how nice. :(
Why am I not surprised?
The more things Change(we can belive in), the more they stay the same.
Anyone want to bet that the circle of ex-Clintonites will insulate Obama from reality just as efficiently as Bush was?
I know it's still very early in the game, and it was wonderful that America almost overcame centuries of ingrained racism to elect a black man as president, but it looks like the US got scammed.
Obama is just as much a tool of the corporations as Bush was/is.
Walk in peace.
Galen,
Yes, I agree that it is very early in the game.
For Obama, it is before "the game" has started.
He becomes president in two weeks.
Until then, this Third War in the Middle East is Bush's.
In two weeks we'll revisit this and other issues, and then they will be
President Obama's responsibility.
befrgl
The hapless Gazans are merely disposable pawns in the Israeli chess game. The intent is to draw military action from their other neigbours, mainly Iran. Then the u.s will allow them to bomb at will under the "self-defence" clauses in the weapons contracts. This has been planned for months, as the israeli press admits. The rush is on, Bush is gone in 14 days, and the Feb.10 elections in israel will select the meanest, toughest criminals to lead them on....to what?
Shame on all who are complicit in this genocide!
Jon Stewart explains the situation in Gaza:
http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/#clip125995
Isn't it sad we get better information from a comedian than the supposed 'real' news networks?
Walk in peace.
Sad an unfortunately not surprising, the last gasp of objectivity and investigative reporting wheezed out of the U.S. MSM early in the Reagan era when I was but a teenager. :( it appalled me even then when I was a teenager how shallow "mainstream" American "culture" was getting.
Dude, yogurt has more 'culture' than the average American.
Someone once observed that America does not have a culture. They have an ad campaign.
Walk in peace.
"America does not have a culture. They have an ad campaign."
Great one liner. :)
Actually there is at least a music culture underground but you really have to search for it as none of it's participants are on major labels.
Amerikan Culture?
I tend to think of it more as "dullture".
· Yr Obd't Servant
Cross posting from the CD article about incediary weapons:
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4418&Itemid=1
As well, it is now being aknowledged that 1 million Palestinians are without electricity and water.
It would seem that Israel is using US premptive war 'shock and awe' tactics on a populace that can't even escape to become refugees.
This, combined with emerging evidence of the use of Depleted Uranium and DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) technologies against civilians are all the evidence we need to condemn Israel as an agressor nation and therefore guilty in the commision of crimes against humanity.
Walk in peace.