Major Israeli Invasions into the West Bank and Gaza

 Impressions of Israeli Executions in the West Bank 
Vijay Raghavan - Much planning had gone into our family vacation in Israel-Palestine. We could spare only the last two weeks of 2009, and so had developed an uncompromising itinerary for each day, allowing a mere half-day to recover from jet lag from our trip from California. After devoting most of the first week to visiting holy places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Jericho, we were, in the words of our 17-year-old, quite “churched out.” We are a typical American family in at least one regard: we have two other children (ages five and two), and we are all blessed with limited attention span. Absorbing detailed references to the Old and New Testaments in the places we visited was beyond our capabilities. Our hired tour guide and driver, Issa Habash, had long ago taken notice of our monumental ignorance and had given up on reciting chapter and verse from the Bible. 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

 3 Videos: Guardian investigation uncovers evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza 
Clancy Chassay and Julian Borger, The Guardian of London - The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals. A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target. WATCH and read 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

 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

 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

 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

 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

 Israeli strikes hit UN schools 
Roza Ibragimova, Al Jazeera - The United Nations has called for an independent investigation after a third UN school has been hit by an Israeli strike, killing 40 people and injuring 45. It's the third strike on a UN school in the last 24 hours, as Al Jazeera's Roza Ibragimova reports. WATCH

 CNN Finally Confirms Israel Broke Ceasefire First 
Rick Sanchez, CNN - Rick Sanchez does the research and finds that Israel violated the terms of the ceasefire first by killing 6 Gazans on November 4. Shouldn't media outlets check the facts before running with a story? WATCH

 Gazans flee homes and seek refuge in UN schools 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera English - As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, many families are being displaced. About 13,000 people have fled their homes because of Israel's continuing assault on Gaza. Many lived on the outskirts of the Strip and are now in Gaza City, staying at UN schools that have been turned into makeshift shelters. WATCH

 Gazan father mourns death of baby 
Al Jazeera English - Al Jazeera obtained this account from a Palestinian father whose seven-month-old child has just been killed in the conflict. WATCH

 More children killed as war on Gaza continues 
Mohammed Vall, Al Jazeera English - The assault on Gaza is now into its tenth day. As the death and injury toll continues to rise hospitals are becoming increasingly overwhelmed. Israel however insists there is not a humanitarian crisis. WATCH

 Inside story - What is next for Gaza? - Part 1 
Al Jazeera English - The Israeli army has entered Gaza from five different positions almost all around the Strip. Tanks were reported to be in battles around Gaza City and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. WATCH

 Inside story - What is next for Gaza? - Part 2 
Al Jazeera English - The Israeli army has entered Gaza from five different positions almost all around the Strip. Tanks were reported to be in battles around Gaza City and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. WATCH

 Delicate EU-Gaza Diplomacy 
Jonah Hull, Al Jazeera English - With Israel's ground offensive into Gaza has come accelerated diplomacy to end the conflict. The Czech government is the new head of the European Union - but it did not get off to the best start. Jonah Hull reports. WATCH

 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

 December 2008 Attack on Gaza 
This section contains a number of articles on the December 2008 attack on Gaza. more

 Stripping Palestinians has Become Common Practice: Eyewitness Accounts 
Suzanne Russ, Palestine Chronicle - On Monday, November 25, Israeli soldiers ordered a young resident of the town of Nablus to strip completely naked in the street, according to Palestinian witnesses. more

 Siege of Al Ain Refugee Camp 
Alison Weir - I've been outside the Ain camp in Nablus, where the Israeli military has people under siege. They shot a crippled man early this morning and then would not allow the ambulance in to treat him. He died -- he was a civilian, not part of the resistance. more

 Aid agencies condemn Gaza carnage 
BBC - International aid agencies have reacted with dismay to the violence in Gaza in which at least 18 Palestinian civilians are known to have died. more

 Palestinian human rights NGOs condemn Beit Hanoun Massacre; call for international investigation 
11 Human Rights Organizations - The Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) have committed an appalling act of mass murder in the town of Beit Hanoun today, one day after they redeployed around it. At dawn, the IOF fired eleven artillery shells on six homes in the town killing 18 civilians; seven of whom are children and six of whom are women. 53 others were wounded; of whom 25 are children and 12 are women. With this, the number of Palestinians who have been killed since the commencement of the IOF operation in Beit hanoun on 1 November 2006 has reached 77. more

 Shooting and Hitting 
Shahar Ginossar in Yediot Ahronot, Translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall -
‘Another paediatrician and another baker
Got a bullet in the face from a paratroopers unit
All day we search houses and kill children’
From a song of a paratroopers’ unit that participated in Operation Calm Waters in Nablus, beginning of 2004 more

 New year, old story 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz - During operations last weekend in the Gaza Strip, the army demolished 14 Palestinian homes, injured 30 Palestinians and killed 10, including a mentally disabled youth. Ringing in 2005. more

 Death in a cemetery 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz Daily - How many of us can imagine the night of horror that the Salah family endured? To lie on the floor of the living room for what seemed an eternity, embracing as one being, trembling with fear as the house was blasted with bullets and missiles; to watch the sniper’s laser ray doing its dance of death across the apartment, searching out its victims; to see the missiles slamming into the walls of the house, missile after missile, as though an earthquake had struck... more

 In Jenin, Seven Shattered Dreams 
Molly Moore in the Washington Post - As Mahmoud Kaneri, 25-year-old stonemason, traced the name across the polished tombstone in the Jenin Martyrs Cemetery, he was transported to another time and another place – a theater stage where he and his closest childhood friends once stood in shimmering robes and delivered lines imbued with optimism. more

 An Old Refrain that Stabs at the Heart 
Meron Benvenisti in Ha’aretz - The sights of Rafah are too difficult to bear – trails of refugees alongside carts laden with bedding and the meager contents of their homes; children dragging suitcases larger than themselves; women draped in black kneeling in mourning on piles of rubble. And in the memories of some of us, whose number is dwindling, arise similar scenes that have been a part of our lives, as a sort of refrain that stabs at the heart and gnaws at the conscience, time after time, for over half a century – the procession of refugees from Lod to Ramallah in the heat of July 1948; the convoys of banished residents of Yalu and Beit Nuba, Emmaus and Qalqilyah in June 1967; the refugees of Jericho climbing on the ruins of the Allenby Bridge after the Six-Day War. more

 Activists say Border Police held boy, 13, as human shield  
Reuters and Ha’aretz Service - When older Palestinian boys started throwing stones at Border Police officers in the flashpoint West Bank village of Biddu last week, 13-year-old Muhammed Badwan went along to watch. He ended up on the hood of a Border Police jeep, at least one of his skinny arms tied to a wire mesh screen that blocks the windshield from incoming stones. more

 One year after the shooting of Brian Avery 
Lasse S. (ISM) - Yesterday a year ago an Israeli soldier shot my American friend Brian Avery in the face. Yesterday a year ago I stopped running, turned around, and saw Brian laying on his stomach faced down on a street in Jenin. Yesterday a year ago my white T-shirt turned red. more

 UNRWA Suspends Emergency Food Aid in Gaza 
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) today stopped distributing emergency food aid to some 600,000 refugees in the Gaza Strip, or approximately half of the refugees receiving UNRWA food aid in the occupied Palestinian territory, following restrictions introduced by Israeli authorities at the sole commercial crossing through which the Agency is able to bring in humanitarian assistance. Stocks of rice, flour, cooking oil and other essential foodstuffs that UNRWA provides to refugees reduced to poverty, or otherwise affected by a humanitarian crisis now in its 42nd month, have been fully depleted. more

 Hell walking on earth 
Mustafa Barghouti in the Al-Ahram Weekly - The disastrous cycle of violence gripping Israel and Palestine receives plentiful news coverage. Largely unreported however, are the more insidious aspects of the conflict. Israel has committed a litany of atrocities during its occupation of Palestine, but the crimes visited daily upon the innocent civilians of Rafah are among the most heinous. Even in the wider context of the occupation as a whole, Rafah’s situation is particularly tragic, and the conditions imposed on its citizens increasingly desperate. There can be no doubt that Israeli policy in Rafah amounts to a process of ethnic cleansing, and, as has been so often the case throughout history, a humanitarian catastrophe is being allowed to continue unimpeded. The world sits idly by. more

 Palestinians run ‘popular schools’ to get around Israeli curfew 
Mohammed Daraghmeh - The children of the Al Qasr neighborhood dodge Israeli military patrols on the way to class in a cramped dorm room. They sit on chairs brought from home or crouch on mattresses. Their teachers have no textbooks, only a blackboard. The “popular school” in Al Qasr is one of several that have sprung up in mosques, empty factories and apartments in Nablus, the West Bank’s largest city, since Israel first imposed a round-the-clock curfew June 21 to prevent Palestinian militants from attacking Israeli civilians. more

 Time to clean up the battlefield of a dirty war 
Jonathan Cook in the UK Guardian - After the week-long frenzy of concern in mid-April, the current silence of the international community is truly scandalous. One cannot but suspect that the world has chosen to forget Jenin. more

 Someone even managed to defecate into the photocopier 
Israeli journalist Amira Hass in Ha’aretz - No one deluded himself that the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, which takes up five of the eight floors of a new building in the center of El Bireh, would be spared the fate of other Palestinian Authority offices in Ramallah and other cities — that is, the nearly total destruction of its contents and particularly its high-tech equipment. more

 From the ruins of Jenin, the truth about an atrocity 
Phil Reeves in the London Independent - All the dead in Jenin refugee camp have yet to be collected from the putrid ruins, but a new battle has already begun. It is being fought not with bullets, but words. Israel has launched a huge publicity drive to counter the international community’s anger over the events of the last fortnight. The prize—ultimately—is history itself. Israel’s task has been made easier by Palestinian officials who rushed to declare a “massacre”—an allegation which has not been proved. Israel’s host of government spokesmen and its media have seized on such claims to mount an argument tantamount to saying that, as there is no proof of a massacre, there is no case to answer at all. This is akin to a policeman being called out to investigate a murder, and—finding only a rape—ignoring the crime altogether. But enough is already known about what went on in Jenin to say Israel has committed an appalling atrocity. more

 “I made them a stadium in the middle of the camp” 
Israeli journalist Tsadok Yeheskeli in Yediot Aharonot; translated by Gush Shalom - “I entered Jenin, driven by madness, by desperation, in the worst condition possible. I told my wife: ‘If anything happens to me, at least someone will take care of you’. The funny bit was, I didn’t even know how to operate the D-9. Within two hours, they taught me to drive forwards, and make a flat surface. I tied the ‘Beitar’ football team flag to the back of the bulldozer and told them: ‘Move away, let me work’. For three days, I just erased and erased. I kept drinking whisky to fight off fatigue. I didn't see dead bodies under the blade of the D-9, but I don't care if there were any.” more