22 November, 2009

Older Posts...

This is not my first blog to involve social justice and politics. I had forgotten that my freshman year of college I began a blog on my angelfire site. I'm posting it here. Obviously, I was a little rash back then (particularly in the post about the pope, I think! hahaha!) and certainly very passionate! haha... My opinions have changed a bit. I have definitely learned to curb my words and make sure I dig deeper for my research these days, but thought it might be interesting for you to be able to read my posts from 5 years ago... :)

11 September, 2009

The Case of Caster


There is no hiding my complete outrage and heart brokenness over what has been done to South African athlete Caster Semenya. The 18 year old runner won a world championship 800m race in Berlin last month, but her gender was called into question by the International Association of Athletics Federations due to the fact that she has a low voice and appears to have some masculine features. The IAAF insisted on gender testing. Though the official results of the test have not been released by the IAAF and will not be until November, Sydney, Australia's Daily Telegraph reported this Friday that the testing showed Semenya (though she has external female genitalia) has no womb or ovaries, but rather has undescended testes. The Daily Telegraph has called her a hermaphrodite and has smeared her and the South African government for wanting her privacy. Caster came from a small, impoverish village. There is no way she could have known about her inter-sexuality. With the unwanted attention from the media, Semenya has withdrawn from a race she was to participate in in South Africa this weekend. Can you imagine the impact this is having on this 18 year old girl? She has lived her whole life as a female. People are calling her "it" and "not a 'real' woman!" Does the media have no compassion? Running is a part of who Semenya is and now athletic associations are considering banning her from competitions. Where is she supposed to run now? There are no world championships for "hermaphrodites." What if she ever wanted to get married? Now that her personal business has been spread world-wide, there won't be a normal life for her. I understand that the IAAF specifically states that they reserve the right to confirm gender, however, I feel this was taken too far. Is the IAAF going to start gender testing everyone? There have certainly been other athletes who haven't looked the feminine part.
See above photos of Valerie Vili of New Zealand and Franka Dietzsch of Germany. Are these two women not women because they don't look as feminine as some might want them to? Should they be made to submit to gender testing? Since when does a lack of femininity give sports associations the right to do gender testing, especially in such a public manner?!
To me, Caster Semenya is still a beautiful, talented woman just as she is... as she wants to be.

Read more about Caster Semenya in this article by Associated Press.

17 June, 2009

Iraq's Persecuted Christians

Finally I have semi-perfected my senior thesis on the dire current situation for Iraqi Christians. I have uploaded it to a file-share site and it can be downloaded as a docx file by clicking HERE. Click the free download version.
It is double spaced, so it's really only about 12 pages in length... still a little long, I know, but I believe it a worth reading (though I'm sure my writing could be better) in order to be informed of the plight of these people.

23 April, 2009

Finally, Attention from U.S. Media!

Barely more than a week after I write my blog venting my frustration on how the U.S. media has ignored the body count, an article comes out about it! Thank God!
As you will see below, the IBC numbers I posted last week are considered conservative and it is possible that tens of thousands more non-combatants have died since spring 2003. Associate Press has figured over 110,600 have died since the invasion (emphasis in bold in article below is mine), and some consider that to be a conservative number!
I will just say that I do find Gilbert Burnham's statement at the end of the article rather understated... these numbers are not simply "tragic", but rather are horrifying to say the least. Still, it is good to see the situation at least being reported to the U.S. public. -Dani
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AP IMPACT: Secret tally has 87,215 Iraqis dead
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer Kim Gamel, Associated Press Writer 3 mins ago

BAGHDAD – Iraq's government has recorded 87,215 of its citizens killed since 2005 in violence ranging from catastrophic bombings to execution-style slayings, according to government statistics obtained by The Associated Press that break open one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war.

Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and an in-depth review of available evidence by The Associated Press, the figures show that more than 110,600 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The number is a minimum count of violent deaths. The official who provided the data to the AP, on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity, estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 to 20 percent higher because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.

The Health Ministry has tallied death certificates since 2005, and late that year the United Nations began using them — along with hospital and morgue figures — to publicly release casualty counts. But by early 2007, when sectarian violence was putting political pressure on the U.S. and Iraqi governments, the Iraqi numbers disappeared. The United Nations "repeatedly asked for that cooperation" to resume but never received a response, U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said Thursday.

The data obtained by the AP measure only violent deaths — people killed in attacks such as the shootings, bombings, mortar attacks and beheadings that have ravaged Iraq. It excluded indirect factors such as damage to infrastructure, health care and stress that caused thousands more to die.

Authoritative statistics for 2003 and 2004 do not exist. But Iraq Body Count, a private, British-based group, has tallied civilian deaths from media reports and other sources since the war's start. The AP reviewed the Iraq Body Count analysis and confirmed its conclusions by sifting the data and consulting experts. The AP also interviewed experts involved with previous studies, prominent Iraq analysts and provincial and medical officials to determine that the new tally was credible.

The AP also added its own tabulation of deaths since Feb. 28, the last date in the Health Ministry count.

The three figures add up to more than 110,600 Iraqis who have died in the war.

That total generally coincides with the trends reported by reputable surveys, which have been compiled either by tallying deaths reported by international journalists, or by surveying samplings of Iraqi households and extrapolating the numbers.

Iraq Body Count's estimate of deaths since the start of the war, excluding police and soldiers, is a range — between 91,466 and 99,861.

The numbers show just how traumatic the war has been for Iraq. In a nation of 29 million people, the deaths represent 0.38 percent of the population. Proportionally, that would be like the United States losing 1.2 million people to violence in the four-year period; about 17,000 people are murdered every year in the U.S.

Security has improved since the worst years, but almost every person in Iraq has been touched by the violence.

"We have lost everything," said Badriya Abbas Jabbar, 54. A 2007 truck bombing targeting a market near her Baghdad home killed three granddaughters, a son and a niece.

North of the capital in the city of Baqouba, a mother shrouded in black calls to her three sons from her doorstep. She calls out as if they were alive, but they were killed in April 2007, when Shiite Muslim militiamen barged into their auto parts store and gunned them down because they were Sunni.

The Health Ministry figures indicate such violence was tremendously deadly. Of the 87,215 deaths, 59,957 came in 2006 and 2007, when sectarian attacks soared and death squads roamed the streets. The period was marked by catastrophic bombings and execution-style killings.

Quantifying the loss has always been difficult. Records were not always compiled centrally, and the brutal insurgency sharply limited on-the-scene reporting. The U.S. military never shared its data.

The Health Ministry was always at the forefront of counting deaths. Under Saddam Hussein, it compiled casualty figures even as U.S. troops closed in on Baghdad, though it later abandoned that effort. It has started up again in fits, and finally began reliable record-keeping at the start of 2005.

Those data were provided to the AP in the form of a two-page computer printout listing yearly totals for death certificates issued for violent deaths by hospitals and morgues between Jan. 1, 2005, and Feb. 28, 2009.

The ministry does not have figures for the first two years of the war because it was devastated in the aftermath of the invasion, the official said.

Experts said the count constitutes an important baseline, albeit an incomplete one. Richard Brennan, who has done mortality research in Congo and Kosovo, said it is likely a "gross underestimate" because many deaths go unrecorded in war zones.

The Iraqi Body Count numbers are likely even more incomplete, given that many killings occurred in incidents journalists were unaware of or in inaccessible areas.

Mass graves have been turning up as improved security allows patrols in formerly off-limits areas, but how many remain will never be known.

The death toll in Iraq has been a hotly disputed subject because of the high political stakes in a war opposed by many countries and by a large portion of the American public. Critics on each side accuse the other of manipulating the death numbers to sway opinion.

While the Pentagon maintains meticulous records of the number of American troops killed — at least 4,275 as of Thursday — it does not publicly release comprehensive Iraqi casualty figures. American units around the country do compile figures, drawing them mostly from the Iraqi military. They are not released publicly but are used to determine trends, according to Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a U.S. spokesman in Baghdad.

The AP has filed Freedom of Information Act requests since 2005 seeking that data, but has not received it.

The U.S. policy to not fully address civilian deaths has drawn heavy criticism from human rights groups.

"We believe that all warring parties have a duty to keep information on casualties," said Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch in New York. "It's one of many factors one needs to analyze compliance with international humanitarian law."

The AP has tried since the first days of the war to understand how many Iraqis were being killed.

In 2003, AP journalists traveled across Iraq to search hospital records for civilian deaths during the first chaotic month of the invasion. They found that at least 3,240 civilians died that month, including 1,896 in Baghdad, but acknowledged that number was a fraction of the total because record-keeping often fell victim to the bloodshed.

Beginning in May 2005, the AP has tracked war-related casualties as reported by police, hospital and government officials, mosque workers and verifiable witness accounts, breaking down the victims into civilians, soldiers and police. That tally has reached 46,065, including 37,205 civilians, but also underrepresents the true casualty number because many killings go unreported, especially in more remote areas.

Those numbers rose significantly on Thursday with two suicide attacks that killed dozens of people.

There are other clues to the death toll, such as the number of people buried at the main Shiite cemetery in the holy city of Najaf. But even there, the deaths are limited mostly to Shiites and include natural as well as violent causes, so they cannot be considered definitive.

The director of the cemetery's statistics office, Ammar al-Ithari, said the number of burials jumped from just over 32,000 in 2004 and 2005 to nearly 50,000 in 2006 and 54,000 in 2007. It fell to nearly 40,000 last year, as violence declined. There are no statistics from before the war because records were destroyed in the fighting.

The Iraqi official who provided the Health Ministry figures expressed confidence in its count. He said local authorities consistently reported on violence throughout the war, and that the ministry accurately compiled their reports.

He also defended death certificates as an instrument, because relatives need them to bury a body in most cemeteries, as well as for inheritance and compensation purposes.

He acknowledged some slain insurgents could be included in the count but said he believed that number was low because few insurgents went to hospitals for treatment out of fear of detection, and many insurgent groups buried their own fighters without getting death certificates.

Some experts say casualty tallies based on media reports are inaccurate, because too many deaths go unreported. Some favor cluster surveys, in which conclusions are drawn from a select sampling of households.

The largest cluster survey in Iraq was conducted in 2007 by the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government. It concluded that about 151,000 Iraqis had died from violence in the 2003-05 period, but that included insurgents.

A more controversial cluster study conducted between May and July 2006 by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, published in the Lancet medical journal, estimated that 601,027 Iraqis had died due to violence. The authors said roughly 50,000 more died from nonviolent causes such as heart disease and cancer because of deteriorating health conditions caused by the war.

Critics argue that such surveys are flawed in Iraq because the security situation prevents a proper sampling. They also have margins of error that could skew the numbers by the tens of thousands.

And whatever the number, the ultimate goal is to find ways to reduce it in future conflicts.

"The loss of life among those caught up in conflict is tragic whatever the numbers reported," said Gilbert Burnham, one of authors of the Lancet survey. "And finding approaches which will reduce these deaths is of great importance."

___

Associated Press writer John Heilprin at the United Nations contributed to this report.

19 April, 2009

Israel's Wall

The wall the Israeli government is finishing up to come between what is deemed to be Palestinian areas and that which are deemed Israeli areas is an issue of international concern. President Obama has expressed his disapproval and the international court has demanded that Israel cease construction. The wall is controversial for several reasons:
1) the wall cuts off many Israeli settlers off from the main territory of Israel so that they are in the Palestinian region.
2) the wall has pushed out many Palestinians from their traditional towns, claimed many of their their water sources and also their fields and orchards, taking away their livelihood an depriving them of their ancestral homes.
3) the wall is seen as an enforcer of racial segregation and social injustice.
4) the wall has led to more anger from Palestinians, becoming fuel for aggressive behavior rather than stopping it.

A professor of mine posted an unbiased article written by David Hare on this subject. I would greatly encourage you to take a look at it. The Wall: A Monologue looks at the subject of the wall from both an Israeli and a Palestinian view point.

14 April, 2009

Death Toll in Iraq and American Apathy

Apparently, the United States has reached the point where the it has lost over 4,270 soldiers in the Iraq War. This is quite saddening to me. As I have friends in the military, this hits home hard. Yet what is even more heartbreaking is the apathy to the larger death toll of Iraqis. Every month or so the American press publishes the updated number of deaths of U.S. citizens, but the shocking number of Iraqi deaths is rarely mentioned. Aside from these death tolls, millions of Iraqis have had to immigrate to near by countries, move to safer areas of Iraq, or leave the region entirely. However, the subject of the Iraqi refugee crisis will be posted later.
According to Iraq Body Count, a database that has been keeping track of Iraqi civilian deaths since the invasion in 2003, the current death toll is between 91, 385 to over 99,700. And IBC believes there may be many more unreported incidents. That comes out to nearly one hundred thousand non-combatants (innocent men, women, and children) that have died due to bombs, shootings, torture, suicide attacks, etc. since the spring of 2003. The fact that these numbers are rarely spoken of by U.S. media and are virtually unknown to the U.S. public is horrendous to say the least. I do not wish to toss aside the sacrifices of our men and women in arms, but rather to educate as many as I can on the truth of the matter holistically. These numbers include those who have been killed by U.S. military, Iraqi police, and those caused by terrorist groups (who started coming into Iraq once the U.S. disbanded the Iraqi military in 2003 and neglected to replace it with any other border control).
2006 and 2007 were by far the bloodiest years for Iraqis. According to IBC's data, which draws on numerous sources for their information, in 2006 the deaths per day from gunfire and executions were approximately 56, and deaths per day from suicide bombers and vehicle attacks were approximately 16. The numbers from gunfire/execution deaths lowered in 2007 to about 40 per day while the amount of deaths by suicide bombers and vehicle attacks rose to about 21 per day. Thankfully, the numbers have decreased significantly over the past two years, but the total death toll continues to rise.

05 April, 2009

Quick Update on Somalia

More information on the conflict in Somalia and the terrorism that has been going on there the past few years.
Click here for Human Rights Watch audio report on the situation.

21 March, 2009

Israel: The World's Most Moral Army? Even Israeli Soldiers Dispute That Claim

Israeli Soldiers Allege Indiscriminate Killing in Gaza
By TIM MCGIRK / JERUSALEM Tim Mcgirk / Jerusalem – Sat Mar 21, 3:35 am ET- Time.com

Whenever concerns are expressed over civilian casualties inflicted in Israeli military operations, the country's generals and political leaders are quick to insist that theirs is the "world's most moral army." That claim was challenged by human rights observers over Israel's recent offensive in Gaza, although such criticism is reflexively dismissed by Israel as driven by pro-Palestinian bias. But when the allegations of abuses come from Israeli soldiers involved in the fighting, they can't be as easily dismissed.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak was forced to repeat the "world's most moral army" mantra on Thursday, this time to reassure his own countrymen shocked by allegations published in the Israeli media from six veterans of the Gaza operation. The six soldiers, whose identity is being kept confidential, made their claims in an address last month to cadets of the Yitzhak Rabin military academy, of which they are graduates. Among other claims, the soldiers alleged that an Israeli sniper had shot a woman and her two children who walked in the wrong direction after being ordered out of their home by Israeli troops. In a second incident, a sniper supposedly killed an unarmed elderly woman who posed no apparent threat to Israeli troops. And the soldiers ascribed these incidents to overly permissive rules of engagement. See pictures of Israel's Gaza offensive)

"I simply felt it was murder in cold blood, said the soldier who witnessed the scene, quoted in the daily Haaretz. He went on to explain sarcastically, "That's what is so nice, supposedly about Gaza. You see a person waking on a road... He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman on whom I didn't see any weapon. The order was to take that woman out, the moment you see her."

After the anonymous soldiers' testimony was splashed across the media in Israel and abroad, the military police on Thursday said it would investigate the alleged killings. Their allegations renewed an ongoing debate between Israelis who defend the Gaza assault and those who say it failed to accomplish its goal of crippling Hamas, but stained Israel's reputation. On Friday, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman dismissed claims of the gunning down of the mother and her two children as "heresay", but said that the account of the elderly woman's death was still being probed. But those were just two of the incidents alleged by the six soldiers.

Human rights investigators suggest that what the soldiers' allegations and eyewitness accounts from Gaza residents suggest is that, in an effort to maximize the safety of their own soldiers entering Gaza, Israeli commanders may have let their ethical standards slide. Retired general and former security chief Ami Ayalon concurs. The Gaza operation, says Ayalon, "compromised the I.D.F.'s ethos, which was once built on ethics, sacrifice. And today, after the Gaza offensive, it is based on force alone."

A soldier identified as Aviv from the Givati Brigade, one of Israel's elite combat units, reportedly described to the military cadets his inner conflict over obeying orders to use indiscriminate firepower while clearing out an eight-story apartment building. "We were supposed to ... burst through the lower door, start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified, we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?"

Aviv explained that his commanders had blurred the boundaries between combatants and civilians: "From [the officers] above, they said it was permissible, because anyone who remained ...inside Gaza City was, in effect, incriminated, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled," Aviv alleged. "On one hand, they really don't have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand [the officers] are telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault." Faced with having to slay the 40 families cowering in the building, he was able to persuade his superiors to let him warn the tenants, giving them five minutes to leave or "get killed."

In the Israeli military offensive, 1,434 Palestinians, including 960 civilians, were killed, according to the Palestinian Human Rights Center in Gaza. Three Israeli civilians were killed in the course of the same operation, and 10 soldiers, four of them by friendly fire. The lopsided death toll, and the fact that so many civilians were killed, has drawn fierce criticism of Israel's by human rights agencies in Israel and abroad. And the consequences could extend from the political to the legal realm.

U.N. human rights envoy Falk said that Israel's apparent failure to distinguish between military targets and civilians could constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law." He also said that rocket fire by Palestinian militants that indiscriminately targeted Israeli towns could also constitute a war crime, and urged the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the actions of both sides during the recent conflict. With mounting pressure at home and abroad to account for the high Palestinian civilian death toll in Gaza, Israel's claim to have "the world's most moral army" is likely to be subjected to the test of evidence in the months ahead.

- With reporting by Aaron J. Klein/Tel Aviv
See a news reel regarding the matter by clicking HERE!

01 February, 2009

"Business" at It's Worst: War Crimes in Somalia

Human Rights Watch has recently published "So Much to Fear", a report on war crimes and abuses of power in Somalia by Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Ethiopian invasion on Somalia. Some of the things I've read in a summary of this report are just horrific--slaughter, gang rape, torture. The United States and the European Union (as well as the European Commission) have been indicated as well for supporting the Ethiopian military. The report summary said the following about the United States' and EU's involvement specifically.

United States policy towards Somalia largely revolves around fears of international terrorist networks using the country as a base. The United States directly backed Ethiopia's intervention in Somalia and has provided strong political backing to the TFG. But US officials have refused to meaningfully confront or even publicly acknowledge the extent of Ethiopian military and TFG abuses in the country. The US approach is not only failing to address the rights and suffering of millions of Somalis but is counterproductive in its own terms, breeding the very extremism that it is supposed to defeat.

The European Union and key European governments have also failed to address the human rights dimensions of the crisis, with many officials hoping that somehow unfettered support to abusive TFG forces will improve stability.

The HRW report is available on-line (just click the link above). Somalian refugee stories that have been shared with the Human Rights Watch can be read here. I have also posted an article below found on Yahoo! News on the subject. I'll be looking more into this matter, so more to come later.

US turned blind eye to Somalia abuses: rights group

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The United States has turned a blind eye to abuses by its allies in Somalia and worsened the situation there by reducing a complex conflict to a front in its "war on terror," a leading human rights group said.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in a letter to African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping that the policies of many governments had been destructive in Somalia.

"U.S. policy on Somalia has been particularly unhelpful, treating Somalia's complex realities as a theater in the 'war on terror' while turning a blind eye to rampant abuses by the Ethiopian and transitional government forces," HRW said in the letter that was handed to reporters at an AU summit on Sunday.

The letter was sent to Ping late last month.

U.S. ally Ethiopia sent its army into Somalia to topple an Islamist administration in Mogadishu and rescue the Western-backed transitional government at the end of 2006.

At least 10,000 civilians were killed in an ensuing Iraq-style insurgency that also created more than a million refugees and fomented piracy in shipping lanes off the coast.

The Ethiopians withdrew last month and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist who led the sharia courts government overthrown by them, was elected on Saturday as Somali president, raising hopes that a way can be found out of the conflict that has torn Somalia for 18 years.

Ahmed has made positive noises toward the new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, saying Washington's policy toward Somalia was positive and honest.

"America has become a force which supports peace," he told an Egyptian newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Human Rights Watch said all sides in the conflict over the last two years had committed war crimes and human rights abuses.

It accused Europe of sending aid to Somali police without insisting on accountability for serious crimes and said Eritrea had provided arms to fighters in Somalia as part of a proxy war against Ethiopia.

HRW called on the AU, whose leaders are meeting until Tuesday in the Ethiopian capital, to ask the U.N. Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry into rights abuses in Somalia.

(editing by Elizabeth Piper)

What Can Be Said to Fools?

The cease-fire is over. The Israeli military has begun air strikes against Gaza again due to militant rocket fire near the border into southern Israel. What fools! Apparently the 100:1 Palestinian to Israeli dead ratio is not enough for these small militant groups. According to the article posted below, Hamas has not taken responsibility for the rocket fire. Instead, it is attributed to other minority militant groups inside Gaza. If Hamas is wise, it will do all it can to quiet these small groups so the Gazan residents have time to heal and recover from the horrific invasion they endured less than a month ago. Any action towards Israel that would bring on more bloodshed or destruction at this point would be suicide for Gaza altogether.

Israel strikes Gaza after militant rocket fire

JERUSALEM – Israel threatened "harsh and disproportionate" retaliation after Gaza militants fired at least 10 rockets and mortar shells across the border Sunday and warplanes later bombed the area where Hamas smuggles in weapons from Egypt through tunnels.

The flare-up raised the risk of growing violence in the days leading up to Israel's parliamentary elections on Feb. 10.

Since an unwritten truce ended Israel's offensive in Gaza two weeks ago, rocket and mortar fire from the Palestinian territory ruled by Hamas has increased steadily. Israeli retaliation, including brief ground incursions and bombings of rocket launchers and smuggling tunnels, is also intensifying.

"If there is shooting at residents of the south, there will be an Israeli response that will be harsh and disproportionate by its nature," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet.

Israel launched its three-week offensive with the aim of ending years of Hamas rocket fire at southern Israel. It left nearly 1,300 Palestinians dead, more than half of them civilians, according to Gaza officials. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians.

A late afternoon mortar barrage on the southern Israeli village of Nahal Oz, next to the Gaza border fence, wounded two soldiers and a civilian, the military and rescue services said. Earlier, a rocket landed near a kindergarten, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Late Sunday, Palestinians reported huge explosions as Israeli warplanes dropped bombs on the Egypt-Gaza border area, where Hamas operates tunnels to smuggle in weapons, food and other goods, Palestinians said.

Israeli aircraft first flew over the area in southern Gaza setting off sonic booms. Residents said hundreds of people who work in the tunnels fled, then waited in the streets of the border city, Rafah, for the attacks to end so they could return.

The Israeli military said warplanes attacked six tunnels and also an unspecified Hamas post in northern Gaza. No casualties were reported from any of the bombings.

Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu said Olmert's threat was an attempt by Israel to "find false pretexts to increase its aggression against the people" of Gaza.

Hamas has not taken responsibility for the new attacks, which have been claimed by smaller militant groups. But Israel says it holds Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since seizing power in June 2007, responsible for all attacks coming from there.

Israeli defense officials said they had not yet formulated a response to the strikes, but said a return to the offensive — in which Israeli tanks and infantry units penetrated deep into Gaza — was unlikely. Instead, they said Israel would consider airstrikes, including attempts to kill Hamas leaders. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified security matters.

Olmert is in the last weeks of his term. He resigned in September over a string of corruption investigations. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, his Kadima Party's chosen successor, failed to put together an alternative government, forcing the upcoming election.

Two candidates for premier — Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Livni — are in the government, competing for credit for last month's bruising Gaza offensive. The third, front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu of the hawkish Likud Party, is sniping from the side.

All three candidates to replace Olmert leveled their own threats against Hamas.

Livni told the Cabinet meeting that Israel hammered Gaza for three weeks to persuade Palestinian militants to stop their daily rocket barrages.

"At a certain point, we stopped to see if they had got the very clear message that Israel will not accept fire at its civilians," she said, according to participants who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.

With the resumption of the rocket attacks, she said, "the response must be harsh and immediate."

Barak told the Cabinet that Israel would respond, but called for an end to "running off at the mouth" about the options, "even in an election season," his office said in a statement.

Netanyahu told reporters that Israel must be tough in its response, and then work for "removal of the Hamas regime in Gaza, and removal of the threat of rockets (falling) on the suburbs of Tel Aviv."

Pre-election polls show Netanyahu with a lead over Livni, and Barak trailing far behind.

Both Israel and Hamas have been talking to Egyptian mediators about a long-term truce. Israel wants an end to arms smuggling into Gaza from Egypt. Hamas wants Israel and Egypt to reopen Gaza's borders, which have been virtually sealed since Hamas seized power.

Responding to Israel's concerns, U.S. Army engineers arrived at the Gaza-Egypt frontier on Sunday to set up ground-penetrating radar to detect smuggling tunnels, an Egyptian security official said.

Inside the Rafah terminal — the gateway between Egypt and Gaza — four army trucks loaded with wooden crates and drills could be seen accompanied by four U.S. Army engineers. The Egyptian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.

In Cairo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters he will not hold reconciliation talks with Hamas unless it accepts his authority. The two sides have been divided ever since Hamas seized Gaza from Abbas' Fatah forces, which now rule the West Bank.

Reconciliation between the factions could make it easier to reach a more lasting solution to the Gaza-Israel conflict.

___

From Yahoo! News

22 January, 2009

Interesting Cartoon by Khalil Bendib

From a Gazan Journalist's Perspect...

This evening I read a powerful story reported on by Sameh Habeeb, a journalist from Gaza. It is shocking and heartbreaking to see how such innocents have suffered in this ill-matched war between Israel and Hamas in which over 1200 Palestinians were killed (over half of which were innocents) and nearly 5000 wounded.
I have posted Habeeb's article below, but you can also go to his blog, Gaza Today, if you want to read more of his posts and get more of his insider view of the war and "clean up" process in Gaza. -Dani

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A child full of light will never see again


As a Gazan journalist who is devastated by the holocaust the Israel army is perpetrating against us, I find myself at loss. The list of horrendous crimes committed by the Israeli army against Palestinians is endless and the crimes are countless.

Should I write about the 45 evacuees who were massacred in their refuge at the United Nations-administered al-Fakhoura school? Should I write about the most horrifying crime when Red Cross personnel found four starving children who had spent four days with the dead bodies of their mothers and other relatives in the ruins of a house in the al-Zeitoun neighborhood?

Should I talk about the mass killing of the al-Dayaa family when 15 family members were killed when a "smart" bomb gently hit their five-story building?

What about the sadistic crime when the father of the al-Samuni family was executed before his wife and children? Or the carnage committed against the extended al-Samuni family when 29 members of the clan were concentrated in one house which was bombed and collapsed on top of them, killing them all?

These and so many other crimes have already been documented by Amnesty International and other human rights institutions. Many more are still untold stories. I can tell one story with my own words and my own camera -- that of eight-year-old Louay Sobeh. Little Louay could not know what this war had in store for him or his family.

About a week ago Louay and his family fled their house in Beit Lahiya town in northern Gaza. They were under heavy Israeli artillery fire as the Israeli army invaded the area at the outset of Israeli ground military operation. Sorrowfully, Louay started to narrate what he witnessed:

"Israeli shells started to rain down beside my house in northern Gaza. Rockets started to get closer to my house and many people were killed. My house got some shrapnel and part of rockets. Then, my grandmother and my family fled to Jabaliya where we sheltered in one of the [Untied Nations] schools. We stayed for three days where it was very very cold. When we fled our house in the night we didn't bring any luggage or clothes or food. My father, brother and other family members decided to go back to our house in the north to bring some clothes and food. We went early in the morning by car then all of a sudden people beside our car started to run left and right. I heard explosions and I felt as if I were flying in the sky. And I found myself in the hospital."

The Israeli bombing of Louay's father's car killed one of his brothers and injured others. The shocking fact is that Louay still doesn't know is that he lost his eyesight completely. He will never be able to see the light again! His grandmother was beside him trying to make him feel better. He still doesn't know that his brother was killed.

Before I left his room Louay told me, "I hope you visit me again and you will go with me to take footage and photos of the place where the car was hit. I will also make a scene for you about how I flew. But I need you to help me recover quickly so I can go to school again and play with some of my friends. I don't know if they are alive or not."

I was shocked by his talent and affected by his words. It's very brutal when a child like Louay becomes a victim for no reason. There must be a way for Louay and all the children of Palestine to have peace and rest, instead of the fire and hell they have witnessed.

Louay is one of the lucky ones: he is expected to be taken to Saudi Arabia to receive medical treatment sponsored by the Saudi king. For too many children such aid is too late and it still won't bring the light back to Louay's eyes.

Sameh A. Habeeb is a photojournalist, humanitarian and peace
activist based in Gaza, Palestine. He writes for several news websites on a freelance basis.

18 January, 2009

The Flimsy Beginnings of a Cease Fire...

Gazans dig bodies from rubble as cease-fire begins

JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip – For Palestinians searching the rubble of this devastated refugee camp, the mounds of concrete and metal hid all they desperately wanted and needed: the bodies of dead relatives, belongings and — bitterly — scraps of bombs now valuable enough to sell as recycled aluminum.

Destruction was everywhere on Sunday, in churned up farmland, dangling electricity poles, charred bodies of cars abandoned on pulverized roads, and broken pipes overflowing with sewage. The stench of rotting corpses, both human and animal, hung in the air.

For three weeks, Israeli airstrikes targeted Hamas militants who have been firing missiles at Israel for the last eight years, smashing much of Gaza's already shabby infrastructure and turning neighborhoods into battle zones.

The fragile cease-fire and first troops withdrawals on Sunday allowed families and medics to intensify the search for bodies — with more than 100 dead recovered Sunday, according to Palestinian health officials. The number of Palestinian dead now stood at more than 1,250, half of those civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed in the fighting.

For two weeks, ground combat kept residents of Jebaliya like Zayed Hadar from their homes. On Sunday, Hadar searched through his family home with most of his 10 children. The three-story building had been flattened.

"We've pulled out my nephew, but I don't know how many are still under there," Hadar said, as several Israeli tanks rolled in the distance.

A mosque nearby lay entirely flattened save for a lone minaret that loomed over the dusty concrete.

In the same area, Palestinian boys, both cynically and desperately, mined for shards of aluminum from the missiles that had killed so many. "This big bit can bring back 1 shekel" or 25 cents, said Youssouf Dardoum, holding out a large chunk of twisted missile case.

Meanwhile, neighbors frantically dug through mounds of dirt to free a bleating sheep, trapped among duck carcasses.

Hamas policemen also emerged for the first time since fighting began in their dark blue uniforms, directing traffic. Others prevented looting, at one point firing volleys into their air as Jebaliya residents tried to lynch a youth accused of stealing belongings in a ruined house that wasn't his.

In the northwest Gaza Strip farming community of Atatra, where ground fighting raged between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants, medics wearing white face masks to block the stench pulled five bodies from a smashed house, including a woman in a long blue robe, then the leg of a child.

"We don't know if they are human or animal, it's a shame! By God, we are human!" said a medic who gave his name only as Ahmad, pushing down the cloth covering his face. "We need specialized emergency teams, we are digging with our hands."

Khadija Radi, 83, watched as her great-grandchildren to picked through the remains of her damaged home. She sat on a pile of concrete, holding prayer beads, her walking stick beside her.

"These are the only things left from my belongings," she said, pointing to a pillow and a slipper. Her daughter Sadia salvaged dusty mattresses and loaded them onto a donkey cart.

Like many other residents from damaged zones, Sadia Radi said her extended family of 27 would sleep at a relative's home until they could find money to repair their own. Britain on Sunday announced it was tripling its aid to Gaza, with an additional 20 million pounds, or about $29 million, going toward rebuilding damaged homes and helping the injured.

The cease-fire remained shaky as drones buzzed overhead Sunday. Hamas militants fired 16 rockets before their Gaza leaders announced their own cease-fire. Plumes of smoke from an Israeli missile also rose over Gaza City's outskirts in the afternoon, and Israeli snipers blocked access through the Strip's main north-south road.

Around 50,000 Gazans sought refuge in U.N. compounds and schools converted into shelters throughout Israel's military operation. It is not clear how many of them remain homeless.

In an initial indication of damage, Gaza municipal officials said a first count showed some 20,000 residential and government buildings were severely damaged and another 4,000 destroyed. Some 50 of the U.N.'s 220 schools, clinics and warehouses were battered in shelling and crossfire.

_____

Omar Sinan reported from Rafah, Egypt, Ben Hubbard reported from Sderot, Israel, and Diaa Hadid and Ian Deitch from Jerusalem.

17 January, 2009

For Those Who Say All Palestinian Muslims Are the Same...

It broke my heart when I read the story of Dr. Ezzeeldeen Abu al-Aish, a Palestinian physician who is also a speaker of Hebrew and was trained in Israel. His practice includes both Palestinian and Israeli patients. Friday, his home was hit with an Israeli tank shell while he and nearly 20 members of his family were gathered there. Al-Aish lost 3 daughters and a niece. Two more of his daughters were wounded. Associated Press wrote that al-Aish is "a known peace activist who was involved in promoting joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, and an academic who studied the affects of war on Gazan and Israeli children."
Al-Aish has been Israeli Channel 10's source for keeping updated on the Palestinian suffering in Gaza. He has been keeping the station up to date with the latest news and numbers of casualties and dead.
Al-Aish expressed his grief and bewilderment to the media, saying, "Everyone knew we were home. Suddenly we were bombed. How can we talk to Olmert (Israeli Ehud Prime Minister)and Tzipi Livni (Israeli Foreign Minister) after this?" [...] "Suddenly, today when there was hope for a cease-fire, on the last day ... I was speaking with my children, suddenly they bombed us. The doctor who treats Israeli patients."
The two wounded daughters were taken across the border to an Israeli hospital, thanks to some strings pulled by the Israeli reporters at the station al-Aish has worked with. An Al-Jazeera news clip is posted below.

08 January, 2009

The Smallest Victims

ABC News Video Clip on the Situation for Gazan and Southern Israeli Children


ABC News: As Seen On TV: Donate to Children in Gaza


06 January, 2009

Blood in the Streets and Possible Peace

Gaza truce proposed after Israel shelling kills 30

GAZA CITY, Gaza – France and Egypt announced an initiative to stop the fighting in Gaza late Tuesday, hours after Israeli mortar shells exploded near a U.N. school sheltering hundreds of people displaced by the onslaught on Hamas militants. At least 30 Palestinians died, staining streets with blood.

The Egyptian and French presidents didn't release details of their proposal, saying only that it involved an immediate cease-fire to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza and talks to settle the differences between Israel and the Islamic militants of Hamas who rule the small coastal territory.

They said they were awaiting a response from Israel. Israeli officials in Jerusalem declined immediate comment on the announcement, which came amid diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and other nations to resolve a conflict that has seen 600 people killed in 11 days.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice weclomed the initiative, but cautioned that no agreement would succeed unless it halted Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and arms smuggling into Gaza.

Earlier in the day, President-elect Barack Obama broke his silence on the crisis, saying that "the loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me." He declined to go further, reiterating his stance that the U.S. has only one president at a time.

Israel's military said its shelling at the school — the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday after a week of air bombardment — was a response to mortar fire from within the school and said Hamas militants were using civilians as cover.

Two residents of the area who spoke with The Associated Press by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Majed Hamdan, an AP photographer, rushed to the scene shortly after the attacks. At the hospital, he said, many children were among the dead.

"I saw women and men — parents — slapping their faces in grief, screaming, some of them collapsed to the floor. They knew their children were dead," he said. "In the morgue, most of the killed appeared to be children. In the hospital, there wasn't enough space for the wounded."

He said there appeared to be marks on the pavement of five separate explosions in area of the school.

An Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to make the information public, said it appeared the military used 120-mm shells, among the largest mortar rounds.

U.N. officials demanded an investigation of the shelling. The carnage, which included 55 wounded, added to a surging civilian toll and drew mounting international pressure for Israel to end the offensive against Hamas.

At a news conference in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the truce proposal offered by him and French President Sarkozy envisioned an immediate end to combat, so humanitarian supplies can safely enter Gaza.

Mubarak said the plan also calls for an urgent meeting between Israel and the Palestinians to discuss ways to resolve the conflict and provide necessary guarantees to ensure fighting doesn't erupt again.

There was no indication of the plan's chances. Sarkozy said at the news conference that he saw it as a "small hope" for ending the Gaza violence.

Sarkozy said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to inform him of the initiaitve and was awaiting a response.

In Jerusalem, Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, told AP: "We are holding off comments on that for the time being."

At U.N. headquarters, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the proposal. "I express my support for the plan set in motion today by President Mubarak and President Sarkozy," said Abbas, who was in New York for a Security Council meeting on the Gaza crisis.

Israeli officials have said any cease-fire agreement must prevent further rocket attacks by Gaza militants and put in place measures to prevent the smuggling of missile and other weapons into the small Palestinian territory.

Rice told the Security Council meeting that the U.S. understood the growing desire for a cease-fire. "In this regard, we are pleased by, and wish to commend, the statement of the president of Egypt and to follow up on that initiative," she said.

But Rice added that any solution must address Israel's security.

"There must be a solution this time that does not allow Hamas to use Gaza as a launching pad against Israeli cities. It has to be a solution that does not allow the rearmament of Hamas, and it must be a solution that finds a way to open (border) crossings so that Palestinians in Gaza can have a normal life," she said.

In the wake of the criticism over civilian casualties, Israel agreed to set up a "humanitarian corridor" to ship vital supplies into the Gaza Strip, an idea that had been raised by the U.N. Security Council. Under the plan, Israel would suspend attacks in certain areas to allow people to get supplies.

At U.N. headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Israeli bombardment of U.N. facilities in Gaza "totally unacceptable." Israel's shells have fallen around three schools, including the girls school hit Tuesday, and a health center for Palestinian refugees.

Ban added that it was "equally unacceptable" for militants to take actions that endanger Palestinian civilians, referring to the practice of militants making attacks from residential areas.

Some 15,000 Palestinians have packed the U.N.'s 23 Gaza schools because their homes were destroyed or to flee the violence. The U.N. provided the Israeli military with GPS coordinates for all of them.

The three mortar shells that crashed down on the perimeter of the U.N. school struck at midafternoon, when many people in the densely populated camp were outside getting some fresh air, thinking an area around a school was safe.

Images recorded by a cameraman from AP Television News showed crowds fleeing the scene, pavements smeared with blood and battered bodies being carried off by medics and bystanders. A youth who limped away was helped along by several others. Sandals lay scattered on the pavement by a pock-marked wall.

"There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized," said John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

An Israeli military statement said it received intelligence that the dead at the girls school included Hamas operatives, among them members of a rocket-launching squad. It identified two of them as Imad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar.

Two residents who spoke to an AP reporter by phone said the two brothers were known to be low-level Hamas militants. They said a group of militants — one of them said four — were firing mortar shells from near the school.

An Israeli shell targeted the men, but missed and they fled, the witnesses said. Then another three shells landed nearby, exploding among civilians, they said, refusing to allow their names to be published because they feared for their safety.

A total of 71 Palestinians were killed Tuesday — with just two confirmed as militants, Gaza health officials said.

An Israeli infant was wounded by one of about two dozen rockets fired into southern Israel by Gaza militants.

Eleven Israelis have been killed since the offensive began: three civilians and a soldier by rocket fire and seven soldiers in the ground offensive, according to Isaeli officials.
___

Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak reported this story from Gaza City and Jason Keyser from Jerusalem.

____________________________________

Video reports and footage from Yahoo! News as well. (click links below)

Strike On Gaza School Kills Many - Reuters
Israel Forces Edge Near Gaza Cities, Ignoring Pleas - Associated Press

04 January, 2009

Pain in Gaza: A Glimpse Via Photography

Here is a slide show I found of what has been happening in Gaza since the Israeli troops invaded yesterday. Just a warning: It can be graphic! I can barely watch parts of it myself. I would, however, urge you to watch as much as you can so you can realize the severity of the situation.
The slideshow is from a Gazan point of view, but shows both those who desire peace and the militants as well. Please continue to keep the situation in your prayers.




03 January, 2009

"Terrorism" in Israel-Palestine

Today, Israeli forces marched into Gaza in a military action against the Hamas government and the Palestinian people after having already bombarded the small region with an eight-day air strike. According to AP reporters Barzak and Keyser yesterday, "more than 400 Gazans had been killed and some 1,700 wounded since Israel embarked on its aerial campaign, Gaza health officials said. The United Nations has said the death toll includes more than 60 civilians, 34 of them children." The exact numbers of dead and wounded may be greater and surely will grow due to the inaccuracy of artillery fire. The amount of Israeli casualties from Hamas' 50 plus rockets at this point is 4, only one being a civilian. Israeli planes bombed the home of a Hamas leader, Rayan, late this week, killing him and the majority of his family. "Eighteen other people, including all four of Rayan's wives and nine of his 12 children, also were killed, Palestinian health officials said. A man cradled the burned, limp body of a child he pulled from the rubble." The bomb dropped weighed 2,000 pounds (one ton) and obliterated the apartment building the family lived in completely as well as damaged buildings nearby. There have also been bombings of several mosques packed with worshipers. Israeli military personnel claim that weapons were being stored there, but there is no excuse for attacking these places of worship, especially while occupied!
Nations world-wide have begged Israel this past week to cease fire and begin negotiating peace, but Israel has disregarded these requests and continued with it's heavy-handed campaign. The Israeli military has also issued a ban on foreign reporters coming in to Gaza, so true conditions may be unknown. Countries have also been having problems gaining access into Gaza to provide humanitarian aid as Israel is restricting the amount of aid allowed in (see above photo of nurses from Jordan protesting earlier this week because due the fact they were not allowed in to provide aid).
President Bush on Friday called Hamas' act of launching rockets at civilians an act of terrorism. Perhaps he is correct. However, Israel's actions against the innocent Palestinians in Gaza most certainly can be called terrorism as well. Israel gets its weapons and military equipment mainly from the United States and their military have been trained by U.S. military personnel meaning they have much more state-of-the-art technology and training than the Hamas leaders and "militants". Israel could certainly go about taking care of this problem with Hamas in a much cleaner fashion than it has been exercising in the past few days. Dozens of innocent men, women, and children dead due to the messy way in which the Israeli military is handling this situation. It is unnecessary, heartbreaking, and unforgivable. However, I do not in the least agree with the way Hamas is handling the situation either and do believe that the Hamas government has brought this upon itself and upon it's people.
I chastise both parties for their insolence and obstinacy. In the name of God, think of your children! What good is it for them if they have no future? What good is it for them if there is only endless war ahead or if they all lie dead in the street due to your folly?
The last three out of the five photos I have included in this blog are of Palestinian children (Muslim and Christian) who are protesting for PEACE. The little Christian girls in the photos have painted one cheek with the Palestinian flag and the other with the Israeli flag, while the Muslim children hold up peace signs. I ask all people to join these children and their parents in praying for peace between Israel and Palestine, that these atrocities may cease quickly.