Category Archives: Gun-violence

Former Israeli ambassador calls for ‘crushing’ Hamas – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

The civilian casualties in Gaza are disproportionate, with much higher fatalities and wounded among Palestinians, and Israel has violated the immunity of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) shelters in Gaza. Netanyahu is impatient to continue the project of crushing Hamas, as described by Oren. Israel’s right-wing government is returning to the impulse that led to the “crushing” of the Palestinian people in Lydda in 1948.

via Former Israeli ambassador calls for ‘crushing’ Hamas – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

empty shoes | Palestine Rose

Oh what will you wear for Eid,

My darling young one,

Oh what will you wear for Eid,

My darling young one?

I’ll wear my burial shroud

In my Grave.

I Miss You

Mother, please don’t be afraid

For me, my journey cut short

By Israeli Demons’ so Loud,—

Their rockets went past clouds

In the sky, a Space

Satellite Saw Gaza Ablaze.

I Miss You

Mother, please don’t be afraid

For me, my journey cut short

By Israeli Demons’ so Loud,—

I’m Praying for Gaza, my head bowed.

In Paradise, with Allah, who Hears

Every Prayer, He wiped away all of my Tears.

via empty shoes | Palestine Rose.

2 Foreign Aid Workers Are Gunned Down in Afghanistan, Officials Say – NYTimes.com

The women worked for the International Assistance Mission, were both from Finland, and were in their 40s or 50s, Mr. Wafa said. “They were inside a taxi and we have no idea as of now what they were doing in downtown Herat city,” he said.

A spate of shootings of foreign citizens occurred earlier this year before Afghanistan held elections, causing many organizations to curtail the movements of foreign staff members.

The International Assistance Mission, known as I.A.M., has been operating in Afghanistan since the 1960s, running an eye hospital and offering orthopedic services, as well as offering assistance programs for the poor. Its expatriate staff are often well assimilated in Afghanistan, learn the local languages, and live quietly with their families in Afghan communities.

In 2010, members of a 10-member I.A.M. team conducting a mobile eye clinic in remote areas of Nuristan Province were ambushed and killed by gunmen.

via 2 Foreign Aid Workers Are Gunned Down in Afghanistan, Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

France criticized for Russian aircraft carrier contract – UPI.com

Leftist gone capitalist patsy and arms sales profiteering

What Me Worry?

! Despite increasing economic sanctions on Russia, France is continuing to build two aircraft carriers for Russia.

The first Mistral-class carrier, named the Vladivostok, will be delivered in October as planned, French President Francois Hollande said this week, despite international pressure.

“I have expressed some concerns, and I do not think I am alone in this, about continuing significant … defense deals with Russia at a time when they have violated basic international law and the territorial integrity and sovereignty of their neighbors. So President Hollande understands my position,” U.S. president Barack Obama said in June.

The carrier is under construction at the STX Le Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France.

The European Union is preparing to tighten sanctions against Russia in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. The $1.6 billion contract to build the carriers has therefore drawn widespread criticism.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said it was “unthinkable” that his country would proceed with an agreement under current circumstances. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt have been similarly critical.

“I think we should have had an arms embargo quite some time ago. I do not think that is necessarily the answer. But of course to deliver arms to Russia in this situation is somewhat difficult to defend, to put it mildly,” Bildt said Tuesday at a European Union meeting in Brussels.

The sale of the aircraft carriers is an example of the difficulties Europe faces in attempting to influence Russia by economic sanction.

What is propelling the resolution of the contract is money, said Pierre Tran, Paris correspondent of U.S. magazine Defense News.

“France has severe budget pressure. Domestic budget pressure. So to keep a strong defense industry, France needs to sell weapons abroad, (to) the world market. On the one hand, there is a contractual obligation to Russia, which is important in terms of keeping a place in the arms market, the world arms market. There is also, of course, a political decision on how to maintain relations with friends, allies and partners, allies like Poland, like Britain, like the U.S.” Tran said.

via France criticized for Russian aircraft carrier contract – UPI.com.

Noa: Open letter to the wind

If we refuse to recognize each other’s rights and embrace our obligations, if we continue to each cling to his own narrative with contempt and disregard for that of the other, if we again and again choose swords over words, if we sanctify land and not the lives of our children, we shall soon be forced to truly seek a colony on the moon, for our land will be so drenched in blood and so cluttered with tomb stones there will be nothing left for the living.

I wrote these words, and sang them together with my friend Mira Awad. They stand truer than ever today:

“when I cry I cry for both of us,

My pain has no name.

When I cry, I cry to the merciless sky and say:

There must be another way”

Noa, july 22, 2014

via Noa: Open letter to the wind.

Dozens more killed in Israel’s Gaza operation – Daily News Egypt

Over a dozen Palestinians were killed overnight and early Tuesday as warplanes and artillery continued targeting homes in Gaza on the fifteenth day of Israel’s offensive, Gaza residents confirmed.

The latest series of Israeli attacks brought the Palestinian death toll to over 600, according to Palestinian health officials, with over 3,500 Palestinians injured.

“Since starting our ground operation in Gaza, we have struck 1,388 terror sites and killed 183 terrorists,” an IDF spokesperson said on his Twitter account.

via Dozens more killed in Israel’s Gaza operation – Daily News Egypt.

Provocative Cleveland gun legislation addresses local firearms violence: editorial | cleveland.com

On Wednesday, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson answered that question with the introduction of a – let’s be frank – provocative but necessary package of legislation.

The proposed ordinances would:

Require felons who committed crimes with firearms to register with the city Department of Public Safety.

Require the safe and secure storage of firearms away from minors and prohibit the acquisition of more than one firearm within a 90-day period.

Prohibit the possession or use of a firearm while intoxicated.

Prohibit carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.

Prohibit possession of a BB gun, pellet gun, knife, brass knuckles or sword in a public place.

Prohibit the sale or transfer of a firearm without reporting it to the police.

Prohibit destroying the serial number and other identifiers on a weapon.

Prohibit the sale of facsimile firearms.

Prohibit the sale or possession of slingshots and pea shooters.

Prohibit the possession or use of stench bombs.

These common-sense recommendations do not violate the Second Amendment yet they have already triggered a backlash from activists.

via Provocative Cleveland gun legislation addresses local firearms violence: editorial | cleveland.com.

Malaysia Airlines passenger jet ‘shot down’ in east Ukraine | euronews, world news

{Looks/sounds like a big Oops by the DPR}

RIP those killed – mercy on their souls

According to the Interfax agency, separatists from the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” claimed on social media to have shot down a Ukrainian military AN-26 transport plane, at around the same time and close to the same area that the Malaysian airliner came down.

via Malaysia Airlines passenger jet ‘shot down’ in east Ukraine | euronews, world news.

Through Lens, 4 Boys Dead by Gaza Shore – NYTimes.com

My day here began at 6 a.m. Photographing something as unpredictable as war still has a routine.

It is important to be out the door at first light to document the destruction of the last night’s bombings. By midmorning, I check in at the hospital’s morgue to see if families have come to pick up the dead for burial.

When the routine is broken, it is because things can go horribly wrong in an instant. That is how it happened in Libya in 2011, when three colleagues and I were taken captive by government soldiers and our driver was killed.

On Wednesday, that sudden change of fortune came to four young Palestinian boys playing on a beach in Gaza City.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife JULY 16, 2014

Israeli Invasion of Gaza Is Likely, Official Says; Brief Cease-Fire Is SetJULY 16, 2014

I had returned to my small seaside hotel around 4 p.m. to file photos to New York when I heard a loud explosion. My driver and I rushed to the window to see what had happened. A small shack atop a sea wall at the fishing port had been struck by an Israeli bomb or missile and was burning. A young boy emerged from the smoke, running toward the adjacent beach.

I grabbed my cameras and was putting on body armor and a helmet when, about 30 seconds after the first blast, there was another. The boy I had seen running was now dead, lying motionless in the sand, along with three other boys who had been playing there.

By the time I reached the beach, I was winded from running with my heavy armor. I paused; it was too risky to go onto the exposed sand. Imagine what my silhouette, captured by an Israeli drone, might look like as a grainy image on a laptop somewhere in Israel: wearing body armor and a helmet, carrying cameras that could be mistaken for weapons. If children are being killed, what is there to protect me, or anyone else?

I watched as a group of people ran to the children’s aid. I joined them, running with the feeling that I would find safety in numbers, though I understood that feeling could be deceptive: Crowds can make things worse. We arrived at the scene to find lifeless, mangled bodies. The boys were beyond help. They had been killed instantly, and the people who had rushed to them were shocked and distraught.

Earlier in the day, I had photographed the funeral for a man and a 12-year-old boy. They had been killed when a bomb hit the car in which they were riding south of Gaza City, severely injuring an older woman with them.

There is no safe place in Gaza right now. Bombs can land at any time, anywhere.

A small metal shack with no electricity or running water on a jetty in the blazing seaside sun does not seem like the kind of place frequented by Hamas militants, the Israel Defense Forces’ intended targets. Children, maybe four feet tall, dressed in summer clothes, running from an explosion, don’t fit the description of Hamas fighters, either.

via Through Lens, 4 Boys Dead by Gaza Shore – NYTimes.com.

192 Palestinians killed in the last week. Complete list with names (updated today 12:30pm)

{And how many Israeli’s were killed or injured by rockets fired from Gaza in the last week?}

Palestine News Network is trying to keep an updated list with the names of all the people killed in Gaza since Tuesday, when Israel started Operation Protective Edge.

The names and ages of those killed are based on the information released by the Ministry of Health in Gaza. The place and circumstances are based on the information published by the local media and our own sources in Gaza.

via 192 Palestinians killed in the last week. Complete list with names (updated today 12:30pm).