Gaza conflict and pain without end
Israel is intensifying its war on Gaza, with the use of new weapons, as its wider objectives become clearer.
This is now the third week of the Israeli war on Gaza and it seems to get even more horrific than the already extreme brutality applied on the helpless Palestinians. Israel is preparing for “Stage 3” of its military exercise, having dropped leaflets on Gaza city warning people to stay away from “Hamas targets”.
Since Hamas and government buildings have already been destroyed, the dropping of leaflets seems more like a device by Israel to avoid blame when it intensifies its rain of terror that will kill and maim more civilians.
Palestinians are reporting “white clouds” appearing in the sky, and human rights groups are warning of Israel’s use of white phosphorous shells dropped from the air, each of which disperses the phosphorous to an area the size of two football fields.
It causes the most painful injury and death, burning skin to the bone. The use of white phosphorous against civilians is banned under international law.
The Times of London first exposed the use of this weapon on Jan 8, reporting that doctors in Gaza hospitals are describing how they are seeing patients with very unusual burns that are very deep and cannot be controlled. The effect of this weapon is just one strand of the terror the people of Gaza are subjected to. As borders are closed, the Palestinians cannot get out of the war zone, unlike in other wars where civilians can move to seek refuge in other areas.
The Gaza civilians are sitting ducks, subjected to land, air and sea bombardments. After the UN Security Council resolution last week calling for an immediate ceasefire, Israel intensified its attacks. The UN Secretary-General could only register his “disappointment” in a phone call to the Israeli Prime Minister.
The United States abstained from the Security Council vote, putting all the blame on Hamas. Don’t expect any change when Barrack Obama assumes the Presidency next week. The US Congress on Saturday already voted overwhelmingly (350 to four) to fully support Israel in its war moves and Obama will no doubt take note of this.
Israel has waged a huge propaganda war. It made use of the six-month ceasefire from June to prepare the bombardment as admitted by an Israeli leader. He said Israel had pinpointed targets to attack and done a comprehensive public relations exercise.
According to The Observer of London on Jan 4, in the Israeli propaganda plan, Hamas is to be portrayed only as terrorists and Isreal’s actions had nothing to do with the continued occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza, or Israel’s continued killing of many Palestinians since they pulled out of Gaza.
The Israeli media war has played out the way The Observer article predicted. Israel has projected the message that Hamas deserves the attacks as it refuses to extend the ceasefire at the end of December, although Israel had in fact broken that ceasefire when it launched air and ground attacks in early November, killing six Hamas personnel.
The big issue for Palestinians is Israel’s tightening blockade of Gaza, supported by the United States and European Union, which has choked off the supply of food, medicines, water supply, electricity – a collective punishment for the citizens for electing Hamas.
Hamas, the elected government, is portrayed as criminal when it attempts to obtain weapons for security against a deadly enemy. But Israel is portrayed as doing the natural thing when it gets the most sophisticated weapons, aircraft and ships, mainly from the United States.
There is no objection from the West when bombs with white phosphorous are used against civilians. Israel has bombed a UN school, killing over 40, and Israeli troops led families to shelter in a building which was later bombed, killing 30 people.
Robert Fisk, the renowned journalist and Middle East expert, says it is amazing so many Western leaders and media editors have bought the old lie that Israel takes great care to avoid civilian casualties.
He lists many Israeli atrocities of the past which he covered as a journalist, in which the massacre of civilians was deliberate. These include the 17,500 dead in Israel’s 1992 invasion of Lebanon, the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre, the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees at a UN base, the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew, the 1,000 dead in the bombardment and invasion of Lebanon in 2006, almost all of them civilians.
Two articles in The Independent on Jan 7 throw even more light on the war on Gaza. Donald Macintyre reported that stopping Hamas rockets from being launched from Gaza into Israel is only the stated objective of Israel’s war.
Some Israeli leaders, like President Shimon Peres, want to teach Hamas a lesson and damage its capability. And more hawkish leaders such as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu want a regime change in Gaza – a toppling of Hamas and its replacement by its Fatah rival.
Seen in this light, the Hamas rockets are only the pretext to win public support while the other two are the wider and real objectives and it explains why Israel is so extensively and indiscriminately bombing Gaza, to take out Hamas and to collectively punish civilians until they stop their support for Hamas.
The other article by Deborah Orr and headlined “There wouldn’t have been Gaza rockets without the blockade” explains that the blockade on Gaza is a core grievance that Hamas and ordinary Palestinians have against Israel and the Western countries that support it.
Calling for the blockade to be dismantled, Orr remarked that under a ceasefire, there is no justification for the continued siege against Gaza, yet Israel continued to do this during the six-month ceasefire that Hamas delivered because it wishes to disrupt the ability of Hamas to govern the Palestinians who voted for it.
Meanwhile, protests against Israel and its Western supporters have sprouted all over the world. Malaysians in their thousands have staged demonstrations, rallies and vigils in many towns.
The protests have also taken place in Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, London, Washington, Indonesia and so on.
Among the most touching of the protests was the attendance of Friday prayers by hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza in the spot where their mosque had been bombed to rubble just a few days earlier.
“The mosque may be bombed out, but our faith is not shaken and our resistance is strengthened,” according to an old man interviewed on the spot by Al Jazeera. One day we will just build a bigger mosque, he said.
This is now the third week of the Israeli war on Gaza and it seems to get even more horrific than the already extreme brutality applied on the helpless Palestinians. Israel is preparing for “Stage 3” of its military exercise, having dropped leaflets on Gaza city warning people to stay away from “Hamas targets”.
Since Hamas and government buildings have already been destroyed, the dropping of leaflets seems more like a device by Israel to avoid blame when it intensifies its rain of terror that will kill and maim more civilians.
Palestinians are reporting “white clouds” appearing in the sky, and human rights groups are warning of Israel’s use of white phosphorous shells dropped from the air, each of which disperses the phosphorous to an area the size of two football fields.
It causes the most painful injury and death, burning skin to the bone. The use of white phosphorous against civilians is banned under international law.
The Times of London first exposed the use of this weapon on Jan 8, reporting that doctors in Gaza hospitals are describing how they are seeing patients with very unusual burns that are very deep and cannot be controlled. The effect of this weapon is just one strand of the terror the people of Gaza are subjected to. As borders are closed, the Palestinians cannot get out of the war zone, unlike in other wars where civilians can move to seek refuge in other areas.
The Gaza civilians are sitting ducks, subjected to land, air and sea bombardments. After the UN Security Council resolution last week calling for an immediate ceasefire, Israel intensified its attacks. The UN Secretary-General could only register his “disappointment” in a phone call to the Israeli Prime Minister.
The United States abstained from the Security Council vote, putting all the blame on Hamas. Don’t expect any change when Barrack Obama assumes the Presidency next week. The US Congress on Saturday already voted overwhelmingly (350 to four) to fully support Israel in its war moves and Obama will no doubt take note of this.
Israel has waged a huge propaganda war. It made use of the six-month ceasefire from June to prepare the bombardment as admitted by an Israeli leader. He said Israel had pinpointed targets to attack and done a comprehensive public relations exercise.
According to The Observer of London on Jan 4, in the Israeli propaganda plan, Hamas is to be portrayed only as terrorists and Isreal’s actions had nothing to do with the continued occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza, or Israel’s continued killing of many Palestinians since they pulled out of Gaza.
The Israeli media war has played out the way The Observer article predicted. Israel has projected the message that Hamas deserves the attacks as it refuses to extend the ceasefire at the end of December, although Israel had in fact broken that ceasefire when it launched air and ground attacks in early November, killing six Hamas personnel.
The big issue for Palestinians is Israel’s tightening blockade of Gaza, supported by the United States and European Union, which has choked off the supply of food, medicines, water supply, electricity – a collective punishment for the citizens for electing Hamas.
Hamas, the elected government, is portrayed as criminal when it attempts to obtain weapons for security against a deadly enemy. But Israel is portrayed as doing the natural thing when it gets the most sophisticated weapons, aircraft and ships, mainly from the United States.
There is no objection from the West when bombs with white phosphorous are used against civilians. Israel has bombed a UN school, killing over 40, and Israeli troops led families to shelter in a building which was later bombed, killing 30 people.
Robert Fisk, the renowned journalist and Middle East expert, says it is amazing so many Western leaders and media editors have bought the old lie that Israel takes great care to avoid civilian casualties.
He lists many Israeli atrocities of the past which he covered as a journalist, in which the massacre of civilians was deliberate. These include the 17,500 dead in Israel’s 1992 invasion of Lebanon, the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre, the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees at a UN base, the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew, the 1,000 dead in the bombardment and invasion of Lebanon in 2006, almost all of them civilians.
Two articles in The Independent on Jan 7 throw even more light on the war on Gaza. Donald Macintyre reported that stopping Hamas rockets from being launched from Gaza into Israel is only the stated objective of Israel’s war.
Some Israeli leaders, like President Shimon Peres, want to teach Hamas a lesson and damage its capability. And more hawkish leaders such as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu want a regime change in Gaza – a toppling of Hamas and its replacement by its Fatah rival.
Seen in this light, the Hamas rockets are only the pretext to win public support while the other two are the wider and real objectives and it explains why Israel is so extensively and indiscriminately bombing Gaza, to take out Hamas and to collectively punish civilians until they stop their support for Hamas.
The other article by Deborah Orr and headlined “There wouldn’t have been Gaza rockets without the blockade” explains that the blockade on Gaza is a core grievance that Hamas and ordinary Palestinians have against Israel and the Western countries that support it.
Calling for the blockade to be dismantled, Orr remarked that under a ceasefire, there is no justification for the continued siege against Gaza, yet Israel continued to do this during the six-month ceasefire that Hamas delivered because it wishes to disrupt the ability of Hamas to govern the Palestinians who voted for it.
Meanwhile, protests against Israel and its Western supporters have sprouted all over the world. Malaysians in their thousands have staged demonstrations, rallies and vigils in many towns.
The protests have also taken place in Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, London, Washington, Indonesia and so on.
Among the most touching of the protests was the attendance of Friday prayers by hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza in the spot where their mosque had been bombed to rubble just a few days earlier.
“The mosque may be bombed out, but our faith is not shaken and our resistance is strengthened,” according to an old man interviewed on the spot by Al Jazeera. One day we will just build a bigger mosque, he said.
MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
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