Massacre! Israeli forces shell UN school in refugee camp

 Israel and Palestine, Militarism  31 Responses »
Jan 072009
 
Massacre! Israeli forces shell UN school in refugee camp

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse. Now they are shelling UN schools. Israeli forces have shelled another UN school in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp. Three artillery shells landed in the perimeter of the school, killing some 30 displaced people who were sheltering there and injuring 55. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, has been using UN schools to shelter some of the 15,000 Gazans who had fled their home following the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The massacre is reminiscent of the Israeli shelling in 1996 of a UN compound in Qana, southern Lebanon, which killed 106 civilians. John Ging, the UNRWA Director of Operations in Gaza, stressed that all UN schools in Gaza are clearly marked, flying the UN flag, and that the organisation has provided the GPS coordinates of all of its installations in the area to Israel. “Those who [Read more]

Funeral tents attacked; emergency calls refused in Gaza

 Health care, Israel and Palestine, Militarism  3 Responses »
Jan 062009
 

Funeral tents have been attacked in Gaza, hospital premises shelled, a high-rise building housing international media fired at by an Apache helicopter, medical teams prevented from responding to 80 per cent of emergency calls… and of course, the rising death toll of civilians, including women and children. And all the while, the Palestinians are being steadily dispossessed from their rapidly shrinking homeland. Will this madness never stop? Sharon, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, reports from Gaza: There have been two separate reports about Israeli attacks on funeral tents. We are trying to confirm deaths and injuries for one. The second of the funerals attacked was medic Arafa’s yesterday afternoon; 5 people were injured. We have also had reports that in the Zaytoun area two days ago, Israeli soliders rounded up a group of people into two houses; women and children into one, men into the other, where they [Read more]

Gaza’s hospitals stretched beyond breaking point

 Health care, Israel and Palestine, Militarism  5 Responses »
Jan 042009
 

Hospitals in Gaza, already facing a crippling shortage of medical supplies and equipment, are struggling to cope with the rising number of casualities, many of them civilians. Television footage shows every inch of space – even the floors – in certain hospitals being used for the treatment emergency cases. In one scene, medics are seen pumping the chest of a man lying on the floor in between two beds. It doesn’t help that the earlier siege had blocked essential medical supplies into Gaza.  National Public Radio asked United Nations Relief  and Works Agency rep Chris Gunness how Gaza’s hospitals were coping: Very, very badly. Because, don’t forget, in the months that preceded this military operation, the hospitals in Gaza and actually at many aid organizations were starved of essential life-saving drugs. So, even without this offensive, they were stretched to breaking point. Now, with the number of people coming into [Read more]

Huge anti-war protest in Tel Aviv as Israel invades Gaza

 Civil society, Israel and Palestine, Militarism  2 Responses »
Jan 042009
 
Huge anti-war protest in Tel Aviv as Israel invades Gaza

An anti-war protester carries the Israeli flag Photo by Rachel Avnery, Gush Shalom Some 10,000 Israelis took part in a huge anti-war march, a one-mile procession from Rabin Square to Cinematheque Square in the heart of Tel Aviv last night at the same time that the Israeli military began a bloody ground offensive in Gaza. Organisers were surprised at the turnout as only a thousand had taken part in a similar rally the last time the Israeli military launched a ground offensive against Lebanon. Last night’s anti-war protest was organised by about 20 Israeli groups including the Women’s Coalition for Peace, Anarchists Against the Wall, Gush Shalom, Hadash, the Alternative Information Centre and New Profile. About a thousand Arab Israelis joined in. Protesters carried a giant banner, which read in Hebrew, Arabic and English: “Stop Killing! Stop the Siege! Stop the occupation!” The peace marchers were later harassed by reactionary [Read more]

Israelis protest against attacks on Gaza

 Israel and Palestine, Militarism  27 Responses »
Jan 022009
 
Israelis protest against attacks on Gaza

“The war belongs to (Israeli PM Ehud) Olmert, the victims belong to us”: Israelis protest against the attacks on Gaza in Tel Aviv Israelis protest: “End the massacre in Gaza!” Photos by the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom It is not just Arabs and many anti-war folks outside Israel who are protesting against the attacks on Gaza, which have now killed over 400 people, many of them civilians and police officers. Jewish Israelis too have protested in the heart of Tel Aviv against the attacks on Gaza. Another demonstration is scheduled this Saturday evening in Tel Aviv. This report from the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom. “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies! Our demand: A full truce and the lifting of the siege on Gaza NOW!” said Gush Shalom, in publicising the protest: No organisation called for the demonstration – but more than a thousand men and women gathered [Read more]

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