Under cover of announcing humanitarian relief for injured Palestinians, it is now emerging that Israel is planning the transfer of tens of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt.
Evidence of the Israeli transfer plan has been sent to London based Islington Friends of Yibna** [IFY]. Earlier today, Sat 17 Jan 09, IFY received a photo of tents [see attached] outside the main hospital in Egyptian Rafah, near the border with Gaza.
The white tents with no markings are being erected by the Egyptian Army, starting last night, Fri 16 Jan 09. The photo was taken this morning [Sat 17 January 09]. The soldiers stated that 5,000 tents were planned for refugees from Gaza.
Further information is available from our contacts in the Egyptian side of Rafah [Rafah was divided by Israel after it occupied Gaza and Sinai in 1967; Israel divided Rafah when Sinai was returned to Egypt].
From our contacts in Yibna Refugee Camp in Gaza we have learnt that, in the north east of Rafah, near the Egyptian border, Israeli tanks have surrounded and sealed off the Al Sarayh neighbourhood, for more than the last 48 hours. There are many injured people trapped there, the Israelis are not allowing access for the Red Cross and many people are dying of their wounds, isolated and with no medical treatment.
We have grave concerns that Israel will target the Al Sarayh neighbourhood to be the first to be transferred and that this might be within the next 24h.
While Al Sarayh is completely isolated, with no access even to the Red Cross, Israel can prepare and carry out its plans without any witnesses from the aid agencies to alert the international community. While preventing Al Sarayh from accessing any medical treatment, Israel would portray a transfer as an Israeli humanitarian gesture to allow them access to medical treatment in Egypt. Given that Israel has been bombing Al Sarayh non-stop Israel would portray a transfer as a humanitarian gesture to allow them to escape the killing fields of the constant Israeli bombardment [thus claiming they will be safer in Egypt and giving them the “choice”].
Israel is NOT on a mercy mission. While presenting this transfer as a humanitarian gesture, allowing injured Palestinians and their families out across the Rafah border crossing for hospital treatment, the Israeli plan to ethnic cleanse Gaza and transfer Palestinians to Egypt is not new. This is an advanced stage in the Israeli plan to ethnic cleanse the 1.5 million Palestinians out of Gaza [e.g. see the video interview in English of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, a year ago, on 18 Jan 08, calling for the Palestinians in Gaza to be transferred to the Sinai desert as a humanitarian gesture]. Those forced now to leave, under the pretext of a humanitarian gesture, will never again be allowed back [just like they have never been allowed back to the homes from which they were ethnic cleansed in 1948]. The Palestinian refugees, ethnic cleansed from Gaza, would continue to be hunted down by Israel, even if they would be later transferred further into the Sinai desert.
It appears that the ceasefire agreement with Egypt [part of the Israeli “unilateral” ceasefire due to start on 17 Jan, 2400 GMT] paved the way to the erection of the tents by Egyptian forces and that Egypt agreed to allow Israel to ethnic cleansed dozens of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, under the pretext of a humanitarian gesture.
Earlier this afternoon, PM Gordon Brown announced that injured children would be taken out of Gaza for medical treatment and food aid would be stepped up. IFY spoke with medics in the Egyptian Rafah, and they said that today the Egyptian soldiers rejected ALL the food they provided for Gaza, while on other days they allowed some food in [though in no way proportionate to the needs of 1.5 millions]. As for the medical treatment, that could be the cover story for the ethnic cleansing of dozens of thousands, especially as the tents are near the hospital.
By last week, more than 40,000 people in Rafah have already been forced out of their homes by the day and night Israeli bombardment, making transfer easier as there is now no need to get them out of their houses, many of which are now bombed ruins. There’s nothing left for the Palestinians in Gaza [even the cemetery in Rafah was bombed] and they have been terrorised for so long, that it is hard to estimate how much more violence Israel would need to exercise to force them to leave Gaza It is not anticipated that Israel would immediately ethnic 1.5million Palestinians in Gaza, but that it would pursue its completion when it feels there are international circumstances that would allow it.
For further information and updates please contact Yael Kahn on +44 (0)7880 731 865 or Rob Langlands on +44 (0)7977 490415
The master’s fury at its slaves is spent, the angry fire of rebellion rekindled with blood of innocents. Self-rightous rage ebbs from the land to reveal foetid detritus strewn throughout the enclave of the Nazgul’s chastised slaves.
Al Jazeera tours through villages pillaged and destroyed by troops in their blooding initiation rites, homes from which occupants fled before the Occupier’s flail. 22,000 homes were raised in all in 22 days of intense target practice and thrilling collective punishment. 50,000 displaced people are crowded into 50 emergency shelters – mostly in unused schools. Some 400,000 Gazans have no access to running water according to the UN, the impotent international body still oedipally maligned by the rogue state. The Nazgul has no pity, it ignores the world’s opprobrium, discards and distorts the offers of the slaves, punishing ritualistically en masse in wrath, all civilised principles abandoned in deference to the memes of might – the Nazgul’s ‘right to exist’ and ‘right to defend itself’, while under Occupation, its slaves are denied both. The Nazgul has a ‘right to the land’, and the indigenous slaves are permitted to remain till their exit by death or till desired territory can be acquired from them in some new treacherous act.
And why not? against this unjust colonial enterprise there exists no unified voice of restraint. The Nazgul long ago learned to rule the greatest nations from within and afar. Although the slaves were granted democracy by the largest ally, next time they may be more careful to vote for whom the Nazgul favours to avoid delegitimisation and demonisation for daring to choose representatives who refused to recognise the validity of the master’s land claim before the extent of the claim is known.
How dare the Occupied slaves exercise their democratic vote and elect a party which confronted the overlord with the audacity to seek freedom and land rights?
The master had no intention of defining its borders when thee was still a chance to expropriate more land. It didn’t matter whom the slaves chose as leaders, for the Nazgul had many accumulated tacts to stymy their slaves’ prospects for true self-government, land and peace when any prospect for reconciliation approached. How ieasy ir was to cast the slaves as expendable miscreants, undeserving even of the small residue of land onto which the Nazgul had driven them years before. The repeated Nazgul lie of superior entitlement combined with validation of the use of force to take land expedited the transfer, gradually, of most of the land belonging to the slaves when the Nazgul settlers first arrived. To appropriate the remaining portions and so it could feel completely invincible, the Nazgul knew it would have to make its slaves accept defeat, utterly submit to foreign rule in their own land, Then the slaves’ bond to the land might be weakened, easing the way for eventual total ownership. The process of marginalisation of the slaves became a virulent form of apartheid on a grand, mythological stage.
Now the Nazgul’s assault has eased – in preparatory celebrations for the new President’s inauguration, everyone is holding their breath, waiting to exhale in freedom. Is there any cause for hope, when Obama’s pantheon already sports powerful representatives of the Nazgul, ready to take up their scourges in concert with their sovereign.
Yet today is Martin Luther King Day – so we will celebrate a man of wise, kind words which cannot be drowned in baleful lies and slaughter.
There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.
Still the mighty bed down together and the concerns of the weak are of little interest in great matters of state.
The Nazgul will notch up some lovely arms sales from its lethal, impressive pyrotechnic display – featuring savage new products –Small Diameter Bombs, Spike missiles, Bunker Buster bombs and sleek new Drones . The cleanup of Gaza is the best payoff of all – rebuilding contracts worth $1.9b, the cost covered by the usual sucker donor nations – payment for their ticket to the fireworks, in truth paid for with Palestinian slave blood.
Who says oppression isn’t a profitable business!
This time Israel has gone too far – it faces the global force which healed apartheid South Africa. Whether governments wish it or not, there is no will stronger than the combined voice of the world crying out for justice and love.
JATO activist Jacob Kurtzberg said, “Martin Luther King taught that we could not wait for civil rights and equality to be handed to us. In New York and in Palestine, we’ve learned that can’t wait for our governments to object to these wrongs—it’s up to us to raise the alarm.”
The propaganda war has been going very badly for Israel. Now the hasbara behemoth is on a new groove with an army of multilingual bloggerniks preparing to invade selected blog targets with phony justifications, lies, whinings and bleatings in an attempt to ameliorate their global public relations catastrophe and humiliation in Gaza. We shall take this new plan as a covert admission that the Giyus Megaphony machine has done its bearings.
Be warned, hasbaraniks – naturally, no quarter will be given here to those who attempt to justify land theft or mass murder in the name of a secular militaristic expansionist ideology. Those with senses of humour will be excused – though we’ve yet to come across a hasbaranik possessing one.
Enjoy Gaza photojournalist Sameh Habeeb‘s photos of Gaza during the conflict. As Christopher Walker said, the main reason foreign journalists were kept out of Gaza by the Israelis wasn’t because of their verbiage, but because of the shocking photos they would send out to the world of illegal weapon usage, child fatalities, absence of Hamas action around UN targets – the sort of evidence the Israelis would rather do without in any forthcoming war crimes trial. Sameh’s photos provide excellent coverage of the terrible events of the past 23 days.
Over the course of four days, the Israelis then left the sick and dying – all civilians, the majority small children—with no medical assistance, food or water, even though Israelis enjoyed total control over the area. At the same time, they refused repeated requests for access to the neighborhood by aid workers.
Day 23 of Israeli War On Gaza
Informative Report on Gaza War: Death toll 1310, wounded 5600
By: Sameh A. Habeeb:
A Photojournalist, Humanitarian & Peace Activist in Gaza Strip.
Dear Editors, Journalists and Friends,
Thousands of people appeared on the Gaza streets. Everybody is trying to explore what has happened to his relatives, houses and areas. I have documented a massive devastation throughout east, north and west of Gaza Strip. The devastating storms everything needed for normal life. Houses, schools, hospitals, clinics, police stations, charities, universities and streets totally and partially destroyed.
More than 100 dead corps were found today by paramedics mostly civilians and a family of 8 members. Samouni family which was massacred before found 17 more dead bodies under the rubbles. Many families still seek rest of members and relatives who were lost during the war time.
Here you have the photos of today: http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/PostIsraeliWarOnGaza#
This is a new report for the 23nd day of Gaza War and the outcomes of Israeli invasion. For more reporting, breaking news, interviews and accounts in Gaza, you could reach me on my contact info below. Please try both numbers below because there is a big problem in communication resulted in Israeli power cuts.
I’m available 24 hours for media coverage in occupied Gaza. You could reach me any time in my house through this: Landline: 0097282802825 or Landline: 0097082802825 or Mob: 00972599306096
PLEASE: FORWARD THIS EMAIL IN SIPPORT OF THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY!
Skype: Gazatoday, Facebook: Sameh A. habeeb
Web: www.gazatoday.blogspot.com
Daily Photos:http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb
Please, make sure you forward this email to those who you feel are interested in this matter.
Day 23 of Israeli War On Gaza
Daily Feed About Gaza War:
1-Ceasfire started 2 Am Palestine time but the fire didn’t stop.
2-Exchange of fire in the eastern part of Gaza City.
2-A phosphorous bomb hit the eastern part of Gaza City.
3-Israeli F16s launched 3 air strikes in the north and east part of Gaza City.
4-Israeli F16s broke into the Gaza Strip space causing a case of fear and panic for civilians.
5-Samouni family found another 17 members dead under the rubbles of their house. Some of them were killed by shells and some others executed by live bullets.
6-Palestinian paramedics and medical staff found around 100 corps of dead people in various locations in Gaza.
7-Palestinian factions fired 6 rockets into Israeli territories.
8-Phosperous bombs still burning in many areas.
Source: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Date: 18 Jan 2009
As fighting in Gaza has dropped off, people have been venturing out to look for missing relatives and see what is left of their lives. For many, the rubble reveals only further pain and despair.
Sunday morning, ICRC teams and ambulances of the Palestine Red Crescent Society rushed to areas that had previously been difficult or even impossible to get to because of the fighting. By midday, approximately 100 badly decayed bodies had been retrieved from under the rubble. Sadly, no survivors were found, raising fears that the actual death toll could climb in coming days.
Many people who had fled went to extract their own dead loved ones from what had once been their home. Some were transporting bodies by whatever means they could find for immediate burial in the cemeteries. “We saw the bodies of two old women being taken away by family members on a donkey cart. Both had head wounds,” said Iyad Nasr, the ICRC’s spokesman in Gaza. “It is almost impossible to describe the grief and devastation in that particular place.”
A number of areas, including parts of Beit Lahiya, looked like the aftermath of a strong earthquake – entire neighbourhoods were beyond recognition. Some houses had been completely levelled; others were still standing but were so badly damaged by shelling that it would be too dangerous to move back in. Roads were completely destroyed, making it almost impossible for vehicles to move through them. Friends and neighbours who had not seen one another for weeks hugged as they returned to their homes. Others sifted through the rubble, looking for pieces of furniture or kitchen utensils that could still be used.
As the fighting largely came to a halt and civilians no longer had to concentrate on simple survival, they now tried to come to terms with their loss.
“An old man approached me as I was assessing destruction in a neighbourhood,” said Nasr. “He told me that everything he had worked for all his life, everything he had achieved, had been destroyed: his house, his orchards of olive, citrus and palm trees. Everything. Then he wept. He just stood there with me and wept.”
ICRC activities
– ICRC staff have begun assessing the immediate needs of the population in Tel Al-Hawa, Al-Atatra and Jabaliya, which were among the areas of Gaza City worst affected by the three weeks of hostilities.
– The ICRC coordinated the trucking of fuel to Shifa Hospital and to the Specialized Paediatric Hospital in Gaza City to ensure that generators can meet the electricity needs.
– The ICRC surgical team at Shifa Hospital continued to work in support of Palestinian doctors treating the injured. Sunday has been a relatively quiet day, ICRC surgeons reported with relief. Shifa Hospital, overwhelmed by the sheer number of patients in recent days, received 50 mattresses and 100 blankets to improve accommodation for the injured and sick.
– ICRC staff escorted Palestinian engineers to assess damage to the Sheikh Ajleen wastewater-treatment plant south of Gaza City, hit by shelling several days ago. Repair work is planned for Monday.
Activities of the Palestine Red Crescent Society
Red Crescent ambulance teams have been searching all day for survivors and injured people, focusing on areas worst affected by the weeks of fighting. Together with other local ambulance services, including those of the Ministry of Health, Red Crescent staff have helped evacuate bodies found in the rubble.
Meanwhile, repair work continued at the Red Crescent’s Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, which was hit by shelling on 15 January. Some services may resume in the next few days, enabling dozens of patients to be treated.
Between the start of the hostilities until Sunday’s cease-fire, the ICRC and the Palestine Red Crescent were able to evacuate almost 1,100 people caught in the crossfire.
The OCHA Situation Report for the 18th detailing casualties is available here.
Since Israel began its slaughter on the 27th December, of 1300 Palestinian people dead, 410 (32%) are children, 104 (8%) are women.
There are 5,300 injured people, with 1855 (35%) children, and 795 (15%) women.
13 Israelis are dead, with 84 injured.
UNRA was also savaged, with 5 staff skilled, 5 injured, 3 contractors killed and 4 injured and 1 WFP contractors dead and 2 injured.
50 UN Buildings, 1 Compound, 1 NGO Installation and 4 Convoys were targetted, with an unknown number of NGO compounds hit.
1. A unilateral ceasefire in Gaza was declared by Israel at 0200 hrs (0000 hrs GMT) on 18 January. Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) troops remain inside Gaza, but have withdrawn from some of the most populated areas, including Al Zaitoun, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun. Israel stated that it will not fully withdraw forces until there is a cessation of rocket fire into Israel from Palestine.
2. Limited violence, including Israeli bombardment and rocket fire from Palestine into Israel continued until the afternoon (local time) on 18 January. As at 1600 hrs (1400 hrs GMT), seventeen rockets were fired into Israel from Palestine on 18 January. At 1600 hrs (1400 hrs GMT) on 18 January, Hamas announced a week-long ceasefire, during which they said the IDF is to leave Gaza
3. The UN Secretary General stated that he was, “relieved that the Israeli Government has decided to cease hostilities…and that Hamas must stop firing rockets”. He urged that the ceasefire be the first step toward establishing a durable and sustainable ceasefire leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, as called for by Security Council resolution 1860. He also stressed that urgent access for the people of Gaza is the immediate priority, and that the UN is ready to support these efforts.
4. On 17 January a UN Relief and World Agency (UNRWA) school was shelled. Two children were killed in the attack and fourteen were injured. The school was functioning as an emergency shelter at the time it was hit, and was hosting 1,600 people. The UN Secretary General condemned the incident as “outrageous” and, “strongly demanded a thorough investigation into these incidents, and the punishment of those who are responsible for these appalling acts.”
5. To better establish the immediate humanitarian and early recovery needs, planning is underway to conduct an inter-agency assessment in Gaza, followed by sector-specific assessments, as the security situation permits.
ADDITIONAL READING ON THE UNILATERAL ‘CEASEFIRE’
@rafahkid “Declaring Israel had attained its goals, he said it would continue to occupy Gaza.” chances for ceasefire?
At least 29 members of the Samuni family died over the next two weeks — including Almaz’s mother and two brothers. Sixteen or more were killed Jan. 5 when at least two Israeli shells smashed Wael al-Samuni’s crowded house. At least six others wounded in that attack died more slowly, over more than three days when the Israeli army kept emergency vehicles from entering the neighborhood, according to another teenager who had been stranded and later rescued from the house.
From November 11th 08
So who was really there first, and who was in charge of the religious hocus pocus mumbo jumbo? Surprise – women of the Natufian nomadic tribe were priestesses/shamans – 12,000-Year-Old Shaman Unearthed in Israel
Christopher Walker analyses mainstream media coverage as a result of Israel’s ban of foreign journalists during its attack on the people of Gaza, and refers to the insidious hasbara used by Israeli spokespersons. Israel calculates that it wins the war of words against Palestinians but can’t win the war of images – thus the decision to keep foreign journalists out of Gaza during the butchery is calculated to prevent imagery adverse to Israel escaping
The white tents with no markings are being erected by the Egyptian Army, starting last night, Fri 16 Jan 09. The photo was taken this morning [Sat 17 January 09]. The soldiers stated that 5,000 tents were planned for refugees from Gaza.
