December 2008 - January 2009 Attack on Gaza

 NPR Watch: Linda Gradstein Has Done It Again on Gaza 
Felice Pace, CounterPunch - NPR’s reporter Linda Gradstein has done it again. She has managed to take a "must report" story on Israeli-Palestinian relations - the new report by B’Tselem on the non-combatants, including children, killed by the Israeli military during the Israeli attack on Gaza - and report it in a manner which minimizes the story's potential to create opposition to Israeli treatment of Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza. more

 Palestinian child pays price of Israel's siege 
Casey Kauffman, Al Jazeera - Firas Mazloom was born desperately ill in Gaza just as Israel started its siege on the impoverished Palestinian territory two years ago. Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports on the race against time to save two-year-old Firas. WATCH

 UN probe in Gaza: Especially painful testimonies 
Ali Waked, YNet - Richard Goldstone and UN delegates hear testimonies of Gaza Strip residents as part of UN Human Rights Council's investigation of Operation Cast Lead. According to Goldstone, goal of hearing is to bring story of victims to world. more

 Inside Story - Collateral damage? 
Al Jazeera - Human rights watch group says Israeli spy srones killed Palestinian civilians during Gaza war. WATCH

 Precisely Wrong 
Human Rights Watch - During the recent fighting in Gaza from December 27, 2008, to January 18, 2009, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed dozens of Palestinian civilians with one of the most precise weapons in its arsenal: missiles launched from an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV)-the latter more commonly known as a drone. Alongside weapons that affect large areas, such as high explosive artillery and artillery-fired white phosphorous, Israeli forces in Gaza used drones in precisely targeted attacks that killed and wounded civilians. more

 Why Hamas is Not the Issue – Gaza: History Matters 
Elaine C. Hagopian, CounterPunch - How does one explain the horrific fate that has befallen caged Gaza – a land saturated with rubble and body parts – carpet-bombed by air, invaded by ground, attacked by sea? Put to the test of history, Israeli “explanations” fail the credibility test. more

 Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Bar Ambulances 
Democracy Now! - Amer Shurrab is a Palestinian from Khan Yunis and a recent graduate of Vermont’s Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach them until twenty hours later. By then, it was too late. Ibrahim had bled to death in front of his father. Amer joins us to tell his story. WATCH

 As US arms shipment reaches Israel, President Obama urged to halt further exports 
Amnesty International - The new delivery to Israel of a massive consignment of US munitions, revealed by Amnesty International today, throws into question whether President Obama will act to prevent the US fuelling further Israeli attacks against civilians that may amount to war crimes, as were perpetrated in Gaza. more

 Israel on Trial 
George Bisharat, New York Times - Chilling testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel’s transgressions. While Israel disputes some of the soldiers’ accounts, the evidence suggests that Israel committed the following six offenses: more

 Changing the rules of war 
George Bisharat, San Francisco Chronicle - The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him." more

 Consent and advise 
Yotam Feldman and Uri Blau, Haaretz - On the first day of Operation Cast Lead, the air force bombed the graduation ceremony of a police course, killing dozens of policemen. Months earlier, an operational and legal controversy was already swirling around the planned attack. According to a military source who was involved in the planning, bombing the site of the ceremony was authorized with no difficulty, but questions were raised about the intent to strike at the graduates of the course. Military Intelligence, convinced the attack was justified, pressed for its implementation. Representatives of the international law division (ILD) in the Military Advocate General's Office at first objected, fearing a possible violation of international law. more

 Israeli army rabbis criticized for stance on Gaza assault 
Richard Boudreaux , Los Angeles Times - The winter assault on the Gaza Strip was officially portrayed in Israel as an attempt to quell rocket fire by militants of Hamas. But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel. more

 IDF rabbinate publication during Gaza war: We will show no mercy on the cruel 
Amos Harel, Haaretz - During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the religious media - and on two occasions, the Israel Defense Forces weekly journal Bamahane - were full of praise for the army rabbinate. The substantial role of religious officers and soldiers in the front-line units of the IDF was, for the first time, supported also by the significant presence of rabbis there. more

 'Shooting and crying' 
Amos Harel, Haaretz - Less than a month after the end of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, dozens of graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory program convened at Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tivon. Since 1998 the program has prepared participants for what is considered meaningful military service. Many assume command positions in combat and other elite units of the Israel Defense Forces. The program's founder, Danny Zamir, still heads it today and also serves as deputy battalion commander in a reserve unit. more

 Israelis fashion T-shirts depicting Gaza killings 
Al Jazeera - The Israeli military has condemned as "unacceptable" t-shirts worn by soldiers depicting the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The shirts came into fashion following disclosures that soldiers who took part in Israel's military offensive in Gaza complained about rules of engagement allowing them to kill civilians and destroy property. WATCH

 Confirmed figures reveal the true extent of the destruction inflicted upon the Gaza Strip; Israel’s offensive resulted in 1,417 dead, including 926 civilians, 255 police officers, and 236 fighters 
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - The Israeli offensive launched on the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 resulted in extensive death, injury and destruction throughout the Gaza Strip. Only now is the true extent of the devastation becoming apparent. more

 Sderot Built on Ashes of Ethnically Cleansed and Defaced Najd 
Um Khalil Blog - We often hear about Palestinian rockets hitting the Israeli town of Sderot. What is often left out of these reports is that these rockets almost never kill or injure anyone, and only rarely cause damage. In addition, as this article describes, Sderot was built on the remains of a Palestinian town that had been ethnically cleansed by Israel’s founders in 1948. more

 IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement 
Amos Harel, Haaretz - During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive. more

 Monthly Summary of Israeli Violations: 01 January 2009 - 31 January 2009 
Palestinian Monitoring Group - During the month of January 2009, the Israeli army killed 785 Palestinians, including 5 in the West Bank and 780 in the Gaza Strip. The majority of Palestinians killed were in the Gaza Strip. As a result of attacks and air attacks waged during the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip districts, scores of children, women, and elderly civilians were killed. Corpses were also extricated from under the rubble of destroyed houses and buildings. Of those killed were 283 children; 101 female civilians; 92 elderly civilians; 12 medics; 16 civilians from the same family; and 4 journalists. more

 Hammad’s death barely made the news 
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - On the 14 of February 2009, almost a month after Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, thirteen year old Hammad Silmiya was grazing his sheep and goats in northeast Gaza, about 500 metres from the border with Israel. An Israeli military jeep patrolling the border opened fire on him and his teenage friends. Hammad was shot in the head and he died almost instantly. more

 Statement on Access 
Joe Donnelly, Permanent Delegate to the United Nations - ACCESS ACCESS ACCESS. One word which makes extraordinary difference for everyone's life in Gaza, as well as everyone outside Gaza seeking to provide normal, as well as heightened, emergency assistance to the 1.5 million Palestinian people surviving that extraordinarily densely populated sliver of land on the Mediterranean coast, adjacent to Israel at the Eretz border crossing. more

 A month on from Gaza ceasefire up to 100,000 people remain homeless 
Save The Children - At least 100,000 people, including up to 56,000 children, remain displaced with many continuing to take shelter in tents or crowding into remaining homes with other families, one month since the Gaza ceasefire was declared. more

 Understanding the Crisis in Gaza: Important Facts and Context about the Recent Violence 
If Americans Knew - Read or download this fact sheet containing historical context, specific facts about the recent crisis in Gaza, and important statistics. more

 Killing Palestinians doesn't count: Is a ceasefire breached only when an Israeli is killed? 
Alison Weir, Poynter.org - On January 27th media headlines trumpeted that Palestinians had broken the latest cease-fire: a bomb had killed one Israeli soldier and injured two or three. Virtually every media outlet reported this action as a major breach in the ceasefire that had begun on January 18th: Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, CBS, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the McClatchy Newspapers, etc, all pinned the resumption of violence on Palestinians. There's just one problem. Israeli forces had already violated the ceasefire at least seven times. more

 Israel Violated Cease-fire 7 Times: US Media Misreport Latest Gaza Violence 
If Americans Knew - American media are reporting violence that took place along the Gaza-Israel border on January 27th as, in the words of CNN, "the first incidents of violence since last week's Mideast cease-fire," telling the public that Palestinians broke the ceasefire. The reality, however, is that Israel had already violated the cease-fire at least 7 times, the Israeli military killing 2 Palestinian civilians and injuring at least 5, at least one of them a child. more

 Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S. 
Robert Bryce, Salon.com - Taxpayers are spending over $1 billion to send refined fuel to the Israeli military -- at a time when Israel doesn't need it and America does. more

 UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza 
Sir Gerald Kaufman, Labour Member of UK Parliament - was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine. WATCH

 Family members die in Israeli house demolition 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera - Israeli forces demolished the house of the Sammouni family in Gaza City after ordering them to remain in it for safety. WATCH

 Gaza Is a Concentration Camp 
Ellen Cantarow, AlterNet - One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza; it is impossible to keep pace with the death toll. more

 Bomb a Ghetto, Raise a Cheer 
Max Blumenthal, Alternet - Pro-Israel Rally Attended by Big-Time NY Dems Descends into Obscene Calls for 'Wiping Out' Palestinians. WATCH

 Dennis Kucinish on Israeli use of American Weapons 
C-Span - We cannot truly celebrate a New Year, a new Congress and a new administration if all we see is the same old destruction in the Middle East with U.S. weapons being illegally used to kill children. WATCH

 Aftermath of attacks on Tar El Hawa district 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera - The Tar El Hawa neighbourhood has been the scene of particularly heavy fighting. Red Crescent facilities, a hospital and residential apartment blocks were among the buildings hit by the Israeli bombardment. WATCH

 Outrage as Israel bombs UN 
Kim Sengupta, The Independent - Israeli tanks thrust deep inside Gaza City last night as ferocious fighting raged in dense residential areas with terrified families fleeing along streets echoing with gunfire, although many others were trapped in their homes. more

 How Israel's Propaganda Machine Works 
James Zogby - As in past Mideast conflicts, both the media story line and political commentary here in the U.S. has closely followed Israel's talking points on the war. This has been an essential component in Israel's early success and in its ability to prolong fighting without U.S. pushback. Because it recognizes the importance of the propaganda war, Israel fights on this front as vigorously and disproportionately as it engages on the battlefield. more

 Is "pundit" actually Israeli military officer? 
Alison Weir - CNN, CBS and others use an analyst who appears to be in the foreign military on which he is commenting and yet don't divulge this fact. more

 Reigniting Violence: How Do Ceasefires End? 
Nancy Kanwisher, Johannes Haushofer, & Anat Biletzki, Huffington Post - “As Israel and Palestine suffer a hideous new spasm of terror, misery, and mayhem, it is important to ask how this situation came about. Perhaps an understanding of recent events will afford lessons for the future. more

 Israel: Stop Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza 
Human Rights Watch - “White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin. Israel should not use it in Gaza’s densely populated areas.” more

 Respected Human Rights Group: 85% of Palestinians Killed in Gaza are Civilians 
Jennifer Loewenstein - Here are some newsworthy items out of Gaza that are unlikely to be making it to the Western presses. I received this information directly from one of the staff of the Mezan Center for Human Rights about twenty minutes ago. more

 Rebuttal of Senate Resolution 
Rebuilding Alliance - The following is a point-by-point rebuttal of the US Senate’s resolution supporting Israel passed on January 8th. The House of Representatives passed a virtually identical resolution on January 9th. more

 How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe 
Avi Shlaim, The Guardian of London - Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions. more

 Gaza: ICRC demands urgent access to wounded as Israeli army fails to assist wounded Palestinians 
International Committee of the Red Cross - On the afternoon of 7 January, four Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed to obtain access for the first time to several houses in the Zaytun neighbourhood of Gaza City that had been affected by Israeli shelling. The ICRC had requested safe passage for ambulances to access this neighbourhood since 3 January but it only received permission to do so from the Israeli Defence Forces during the afternoon of 7 January. The ICRC/PRCS team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. more

 Children make up third of Gaza dead 
Agence France Presse - Almost a third of the 689 Palestinians killed in Israel's Gaza offensive are children, with most killed since the start of a ground offensive after a week of aerial bombardment, medics say. more

 Palestinians Will Never Forget 
Susan Abulhawa - How can anyone watching Gaza burn escape the bitter realization that history repeats itself? Many have compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Apartheid South Africa. But not in their cruelest hour did the Apartheid regime wreak such wanton murder and destruction. Let us stop mincing words. What is happening to Palestinians now whispers of Warsaw and Lodz. more

 Videos about the Dec 2008 - Jan 2009 Attack on Gaza 
This section contains a number of videos on the December 2008 - January 2009 attack on Gaza. more

 Statement of the President of the 63rd Session of th UN General Assembly 
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, Ma’an News - The behavior by Israel in bombarding Gaza is simply the commission of wanton aggression by a very powerful state against a territory that it illegally occupies. more

 Israel claims success in the PR war 
Anshel Pfeffer, The Jewish Chronicle - The Gaza attack is the first major demonstration of Israel’s total overhaul of its ‘hasbara’ operation following the Second Lebanon War. While the military aspects of the operation were meticulously planned, a new forum of press advisers was also established which has been working for the past six months on a PR strategy specifically geared to dealing with the media during warfare in Gaza. more

 Gaza and the world: Will anything change? 
Ramzy Baroud, Ma’an News - In times of crisis, most Arabs tune in to Al-Jazeera television. Sometimes it’s comforting for the truth to be stated the way it is, with all of its gory and unsettling details, without blemishes and without censorship. When Israel carried out massive air strikes against Gaza on Saturday, 27 December, terrorizing an already hostage and malnourished population, I too tuned in to Al-Jazeera. more

 Molten Lead 
Uri Avnery, Ma’an News - Just after midnight Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning. more

 Analysis: Operation Cast Lead extends a war doomed to fail 
Editorial, Ma’an News - Israel’s offensive in Gaza has not, and will not, achieve its stated goals. Either the goals are different from what has been stated publically, or the military establishment has backed itself into a corner and has no option other than proceeding with a course doomed to failure. more

 Gazans face ‘humanitarian crisis’ as Israeli raids intensify 
Kim Sengupta, The Independent - After six days of Israeli bombardment, aid agencies say that Gazans are facing a humanitarian crisis with air strikes causing severe problems in getting food, medicine and fuel supplies to the besiegedcivilian population. more

 The Facts about Israel’s War on Gaza 
Adam Sheets - It is crucial that one has her/his facts straight about Israel’s war on Gaza. What events brought about this dreadful situation? What needs to be done to make it stop? These questions will be answered in the content of this article, using concrete facts from a variety of news sources. more

 Israel’s ‘Crime Against Humanity’ 
Chris Hedges, TruthDig - Israel’s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw. more

 Gaza children too scared to step outside 
Mohammed Dawwas, The Independent - You can tell those moving about Gaza City by the mattresses on the car roofs. The streets are mostly deserted but some people are shifting from one house to another, trying to guess where the bombs might land and put distance between themselves and possible targets. Others are heading to the bakeries where there are long queues for bread. There is wreckage everywhere. more

 Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept 
Donald Macintyre and Said Ghazali, The Independent - The five Palestinian sisters were fast asleep when a night-time Israeli airstrike hit the next-door mosque in Gaza. One of the walls collapsed on to their small asbestos-roofed home and they were all killed in their beds. The eldest sister, Tahrir, was 17 years old, the youngest, Jawaher, just four. more

 Statement by Prof. Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories 
United Nations Human Rights Council - The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war. more

 Bloodied in Gaza 
Laila El-Haddad, Guardian - Silently, the world watches. And silently, governments plotted: how shall we make the clouds rain death on to Gaza? more