Category Archives: Gun-violence

JBTC – Israel seizes 500 acres south of Hebron for military use

JBTC – Just because they can –

Israeli authorities notified residents of Wad Eben Zaid, north of Yatta and to the south of Hebron this morning that a military order will seize 2000 dunums of their land for army use.

The coordinator of the Popular Resistance Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Yatta, Rateb Al-Jbour, declared  that  the Israeli authorities gave residents from the Wad Eben Zaid region a military order  dated from 1997 to colonize around 500 acres of their land.

Al-Jbour added that the residents did not know about this declaration and that part of these colonized lands had been used to build homes. The land belongs to the Al-Nameen, Al-Jbareen, Abu- Aram, Al-Doudra and Al- Hmamdeh families.

via Israel seizes 500 acres south of Hebron for military use.

Bibi and Hamas – working together to preserve each other? Did Bibi choose to preserve Hamas to avoid talks with Abbas? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

Hasson:  The starting point in this claim is that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are like connected vessels, and it is impossible to separate them as part of the solution. Facing this, there are three approaches in Israeli politics on the conflict with the Palestinians: the faith-based approach of [Economy and Trade Minister Naftali] Bennett and his friends; the second approach, of the defense minister and maybe also the prime minister, is that the conflict with the Palestinians must be managed [instead of striving to resolve it]; and the third approach is that we must devise a solution to the conflict.

When I take a closer look at what is happening now, I can only conclude that the diplomatic approach that determined the manner and pace of our operational activity during Operation Protective Edge was the one that says that this conflict has no solution and must be managed instead, so we cannot push anything to the edge. In other words, we mustn’t push Hamas too far into a corner and improve Mahmoud Abbas’ standing, because if he gets stronger, we will eventually have to pay him back in diplomatic currency, a currency that we are not willing to lay out.

via Did Bibi choose to preserve Hamas to avoid talks with Abbas? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

‘My wife thinks I will come home in a box’ – and three days later Gaza bomb disposal expert was dead | World | The Guardian

Rahed Taysir al’Hom was buried in the sandy soil of the cemetery of Jabaliya, the rough Gaza neighbourhood where he had grown up, at 1pm on the third day of the ceasefire.

His funeral was quick, attended by a hundred or so mourners, and accompanied by a quick sermon from a white-turbaned cleric, a sobbing father and some shots fired from a Kalashnikov by a skinny teenager.

Two breezeblocks and a ripped piece of cardboard with his name scrawled on it now mark the grave of a personable man with an easy smile, hollow eyes and a quiet intensity that was entirely understandable given his job.

The 43-year-old father of seven lies next to his brother – a Hamas fighter killed in an Israeli air strike two weeks ago. But the al’Hom who died on Wednesday was not a warrior. He was head of the sole bomb disposal unit of Gaza’s northern governorate and his job was to protect several hundred thousand people from the unexploded ordnance that now litters the streets, fields and the rubble of many homes.

Al’Hom, who died when a 500kg bomb he was trying to defuse exploded at 10.30am on Wednesday, was an incidental casualty of a month-long war that no one seems able to stop.

via ‘My wife thinks I will come home in a box’ – and three days later Gaza bomb disposal expert was dead | World | The Guardian.

Israel accused of using illegal weapons in Gaza war – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

“DIME weapons consist of a carbon-fiber casing filled with a homogenous mixture of an explosive material and small particles, basically a powder, of a heavy metal, for instance, a tungsten alloy. … The tungsten powder tears apart anything it hits. The impact of such weapons in general causes very severe wounds.”

The general director of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Medhat Abbas, concurred with Dr. Fosse’s statements, saying, “There is ample evidence of Israel’s use of internationally banned DIME weapons.”

via Israel accused of using illegal weapons in Gaza war – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

After taking Sinjar, IS draws Iraqi Kurds into full-scale war – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

The very essence of the terror strategy – unconditional and irrational killing to scare their target for control into running away or joining in.”

“[IS’] most successful tactic has been their propaganda,” Harsin said as he headed toward Makhmour Thursday morning. “They scare people that way; otherwise, they don’t have a large fighting force.”

via After taking Sinjar, IS draws Iraqi Kurds into full-scale war – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

Israel Suspends Attack in Parts of Gaza, but Strike Kills Girl – NYTimes.com

Minutes after Israel began a unilateral and partial cease-fire in Gaza on Monday, the air force struck a house in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing a girl, 8, and wounding at least 29 others.

More than six hours later, there was still no official comment about the strike from the Israeli military, which continued to withdraw many of its ground forces from populated areas in Gaza, about why it struck the house.

After sharp criticism from the United States and the United Nations of its strike outside a United Nations school on Sunday, which killed seven people in addition to its intended targets, three Islamic Jihad fighters on a motorcycle, Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire to last from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Israel said the cease-fire was intended to assist humanitarian relief efforts.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

Questions of Weapons and Warnings in Past Barrage on a Gaza ShelterAUG. 3, 2014

Airstrike Near U.N. School Kills 10 as Israel Shifts Troops in GazaAUG. 3, 2014

But the cease-fire was to take place only in areas where Israel was not engaged in military activity. Israeli Army officials said that east Rafah, in southern Gaza, far from Gaza City itself, was the only urban area where troops and tanks were engaged in fighting on Monday, with most of the rest of the Israeli troops pulled back closer to the border with Israel and some redeployed in staging areas inside Israel itself.

via Israel Suspends Attack in Parts of Gaza, but Strike Kills Girl – NYTimes.com.

70 bodies found in Rafah as death toll hits 1,830 | Maan News Agency

The death toll on the 27th day of Israel’s offensive on Gaza hit at least 120 on Sunday as health officials reported that over 70 bodies had been recovered in Rafah, a day after the city came under fierce, prolonged bombardment by Israeli forces.

Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra told Ma’an that the bodies of 70 Palestinians had been recovered from the city in southern Gaza, while 55 other Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks across the Strip Sunday.

The continuing attacks brought the total death toll in the assault to 1,830 with nearly 10,000 injured.

via 70 bodies found in Rafah as death toll hits 1,830 | Maan News Agency.

UN: ‘world stands disgraced’ as shelter for Gaza children is shelled by Israel | World | The Guardian

United Nations officials described the killing of sleeping children as a disgrace to the world and accused Israel of a serious violation of international law after a school in Gaza being used to shelter Palestinian families was shelled on Wednesday.

At least 15 people, mostly children and women, died when the school in Jabaliya refugee camp was hit by five shells during a night of relentless bombardment across Gaza. More than 100 people were injured.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said the attack was “outrageous and unjustifiable” and demanded “accountability and justice”. The UN said its officials had repeatedly given details of the school and its refugee population to Israel.

via UN: ‘world stands disgraced’ as shelter for Gaza children is shelled by Israel | World | The Guardian.

Analysis: “Mercy” of Israeli occupation at work in Gaza | Maan News Agency

In the midst of the ongoing onslaught against Gaza — which has resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 Palestinians and the wiping out of entire families — Israel has at times been accused of targeting civilians.

The Israeli armed forces, however, have made much of their “humanitarian” credentials and concern for civilian life, claims which have been most notably exemplified in the argument that they warn civilians of an impending attack through a “knock” — whether through the firing of a non-explosive projectile at the roof, or through a phone call or text message.

The notion that these warnings are somehow “humanitarian gestures” says much about the extent to which Palestinians have been subject to extensive dehumanization. On the basis of the military’s own proud proclamation of this policy you could be forgiven for forming the impression that the residents of Gaza should be grateful to Israel for giving them advance warning of the obliteration of their own homes.

But are these “warned” families even able to escape unharmed?

In order to grasp the extent to which the open celebration of this policy represents a fundamental perversion, we must engage with the most basic precondition of humanitarianism and imagine the position of Gazans.

For a minute, put

yourself in the shoes of the Gazans who receive these warnings.

You have just received notice that your home is to be obliterated in a matter of moments. Look around you — how would you react?

All around you there are things that you need and things which are essential to your life: Where can you go without a passport? What if your employer asks you for your birth certificate? And then there are things which are personal to you: your wedding photograph, a photograph from a now distant childhood, a gift from a friend, your child’s graduation pictures. How could you possibly choose? On what basis would you decide what is worth more to you?

You would want to be sure that you left nothing valuable behind, so you would run through the house, aware that you only have a few moments to find what is most valuable to you. You would perhaps tell yourself to focus on the task before you as you empty bags and hurl your clothes and personal belongings across the room; surely you will stop only to take the bare essentials?

It can all be replaced, you tell yourself.

But there is something that cannot be replaced — the personal significance of the objects which you leave behind: the small things you hoped to hand onto your own children, the heirlooms which your own parents had passed onto you. Perhaps your hands will pass over these objects in a fleeting moment, a final farewell to a past you must now leave behind. Only afterwards will you realize just how much of yourself has been left behind.

Even the closeness of the moment fails to fully concentrate your mind: who can be entirely practical at times like this? Your hands knock jars off the shelves, and stupidly clutch at useless cooking utensils. You enter the bathroom and grasp at a towel and toothbrush.

Momentarily your mind snaps back to reality: a holiday? Is that where you think you are going? Chiding yourself, you run back into the living room, stopping by a chair — again your senses snap you back, reprimanding your utter absurdity: do you really think you can take a chair with you?

Suddenly you awake, as if from a dream. Was it three minutes or 56 seconds? Who can be sure? It’s not as if you can ask the person with their finger on the trigger when you will die. You grab what is most valuable to you, what you could never imagine leaving behind.

In a split second you take your children’s hands and run from the house, leaving everything else behind you, knowing that you will never return and facing the unknown.

No wonder we hear the Gazans who survive talk about the slow death they experience.

via Analysis: Mercy of Israeli occupation at work in Gaza | Maan News Agency.