News articles, events, announcements |
|
|
|
|
|
Turkish students hold a minute of silence for Palestinian childeren
|
| 160. |
18 Jan 2009 Sun 09:11 pm |
|
The United Nations´ most senior human rights official said last night that the Israeli military may have committed war crimes in Gaza. The warning came as Israeli troops pressed on with the deadly offensive in defiance of a UN security council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, has called for "credible, independent and transparent" investigations into possible violations of humanitarian law, and singled out an incident this week in Zeitoun, south-east of Gaza City, where up to 30 Palestinians in one house were killed by Israeli shelling.
Pillay, a former international criminal court judge from South Africa, told the BBC the incident "appears to have all the elements of war crimes".
The accusation came as Israel kept up its two-week-old air and ground offensive in Gaza and dismissed as "unworkable" the UN security council resolution which had called for "an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire".
Protests against the offensive were held across the world yesterday just as diplomacy to halt the conflict appeared to falter.
With the Palestinian casualty toll rising to around 800 dead, including 265 children, and more than 3,000 injured, fresh evidence emerged yesterday of the killings in Zeitoun. It was "one of the gravest incidents" since Israel´s offensive began two weeks ago, the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs said yesterday.
"There is an international obligation on the part of soldiers in their position to protect civilians, not to kill civilians indiscriminately in the first place, and when they do, to make sure that they help the wounded," Pillay told Reuters. "In this particular case these children were helpless and the soldiers were close by," she added.
An Israeli military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, said the incident was still being examined. "We don´t warn people to go to other buildings, this is not something we do," she said. "We don´t know this case, we don´t know that we attacked it."
Despite the intense bombardment, militants in Gaza fired at least 30 rockets into southern Israel yesterday. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, told al-Jazeera TV: "This resolution doesn´t mean that the war is over. We call on Palestinian fighters to mobilise and be ready to face the offensive, and we urge the Arab masses to carry on with their angry protests."
Israeli officials said they could not be expected to halt their military operation while the rockets continued and said they first wanted an end to the rocket fire and a "mechanism" to prevent Hamas rearming in future.
"The whole idea that Israel will unilaterally stop protecting our people when Hamas is sending rockets into our cities to kill our people is not a reasonable request of Israel," said Mark Regev, spokesman for prime minister Ehud Olmert. Israel wanted security for its people in southern Israel, he said, and dismissed suggestions his military might seek to topple Hamas, saying they were "not in the regime-change business".
Israeli public opinion still strongly favours the war. One poll of Jewish Israelis yesterday, by the War and Peace Index, said 90% of the population supported continuing the operation until Israel achieved all its goals.
Olmert held a meeting of his security cabinet, and on the agenda was discussion about whether to intensify the offensive by launching a fresh stage of attacks in which Israeli troops would invade the major urban areas of Gaza as more reservists were called up. There was no word on the outcome.
So far 13 Israelis have been killed in this conflict, of whom three were civilians.
Another 23 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military yesterday. Seven from one family, including an infant, died when Israeli jets bombed a five-storey building in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza. There was heavy aerial bombing and artillery fire across the territory.
More than 20,000 Gazans have fled their homes in the north of the strip and thousands more in the south. In some cases Israeli troops have told them to leave, or dropped leaflets warning them to evacuate their homes. Some are even dividing their families between different addresses for fear of losing them all in a single air strike.
"Many people are leaving their homes and moving to the centre of the cities," said Abdel Karim Ashour, 53, who works with a local aid agency, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee. He, his wife and their four children fled their house on the coastal road in northern Gaza on the third day of the conflict. He sent the four children to stay with his brother while he and his wife are staying at a friend´s house. "We were in an area of heavy shelling, so we left and I divided the family to try to reduce the victims if we face any trouble. We try and keep in touch by telephone but there are problems with the network," he said. "We´re just hoping for a ceasefire. If the fighting goes on there will be more victims."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/10/gaza-schools
|
|
| 161. |
18 Jan 2009 Sun 11:57 pm |
|
cool, as I proved you were lieing, you keep telling other lies and expect us to believe. go ahead femme, I`m not gonna deal with your sick posts full of propagandist lies.
tami, you havent proven me nothing so far. those pics are the same pics circulated around and around for years. i have seen these pics in 2006 (sent to me by various muslims). if you write in search engine "israeli children missiles" you will easily find them.
http://images.google.co.uk/images?gbv=2&ndsp=18&hl=en&q=israeli+children+on+missiles&start=0&sa=N
as for the muslims do produce a lot of anti-jewish or any anti-nonmuslim cartoons, entertainment, shows, movies you cant deny it to me. because i will give you hundreds of links as a proof.
|
|
| 162. |
19 Jan 2009 Mon 12:21 am |
|
´Tungsten bombs´ leave Israel´s victims with mystery wounds
As it declares a unilateral ceasefire, Jerusalem faces a UN call for a war crimes investigation
Two children were killed yesterday when Israeli tanks shelled a UN school in which families were sheltering, leading a UN spokesman, Chris Gunness, to say: "There has to be an investigation to determine whether a war crime has been committed." The call was dismissed by an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, who said: "These claims of war crimes are not supported by the slightest piece of evidence." But among numerous allegations of disproportionate use of force, questions are also multiplying about the use of unconventional weapons by Israel, including a new type of bomb that causes injuries that doctors have not seen before, and which they find impossible to treat.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, claimed in a televised address last night that the military operation had "fully attained" its goals, "and beyond". Israel had declared the ceasefire in response to an appeal from the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, but troops would remain for now in Gaza, and Hamas would be "surprised again" if it attacked.
But even though Mr Olmert said Hamas had been "beaten badly", rockets landed in Israel a few minutes before he spoke. Despite the desperate state of Gaza´s population, Hamas leaders said they would continue to fight for an end to Israel´s closure of crossing points into the territory and a withdrawal of the Israeli forces.
Mr Mubarak invited the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to discuss Gaza in Sharm el-Sheikh today. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said he might attend, and Gordon Brown is among other leaders due to take part.
Although Mr Olmert´s announcement was only a first step towards halting the conflict in Gaza, the UN is not the only international body insisting that inquiries must be held as soon as possible into the tactics and weapons used by Israel. Erik Fosse, a Norwegian doctor who worked in Gaza´s hospitals during the conflict, said that Israel was using so-called Dime (dense inert metal explosive) bombs designed to produce an intense explosion in a small space. The bombs are packed with tungsten powder, which has the effect of shrapnel but often dissolves in human tissue, making it difficult to discover the cause of injuries.
Dr Fosse said he had seen a number of patients with extensive injuries to their lower bodies. "It was as if they had stepped on a mine, but there was no shrapnel in the wounds," he said. "Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before." However, the injuries matched photographs and de[script]ions in medical literature of the effects of Dime bombs.
"All the patients I saw had been hit by bombs fired from unmanned drones," said Dr Fosse, head of the Norwegian Aid Committee. "The bomb hit the ground near them and exploded." His colleague, Mads Gilbert, accused Israel of using the territory as a testing ground for a new, "extremely nasty" type of explosive. "This is a new generation of small explosive that detonates with extreme power and dissipates its power within a range of five to 10 metres," he said.
According to military databases, Dime bombs are intended for use where conventional weapons might kill or injure bystanders – to kill combatants in a house, for example, without harming people next door. Instead of being made from metal, which sprays shrapnel across a wide area, the casing is carbon fibre. Part of the motive for developing the bombs was to replace the use of depleted uranium, but Dr Fosse said the cancer risk from tungsten powde was well known. "These patients should be followed up to see if there are any carcinogenic effects," he said.
While the loudest controversy has been over accusations that white phosphorus was illegally used, other foreign doctors working in Gaza have reported injuries they cannot explain. Professor Mohammed Sayed Khalifa, a cardiac consultant from Sudan, said that two of his patients had had uncontrollable bleeding. "One had a chest operation, and continued bleeding even after having been given large quantities of plasma," he said. "The other had what seemed to be a minor leg injury, but collapsed with profuse bleeding. Something was interfering with the clotting process. I have never seen such a thing before."
Dr Ahmed Almi, an Egyptian cardio-thoracic consultant at al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said he had seen a number of patients with inexplicable injuries. A boy of 14 had a small puncture wound in his head, but extensive damage to his brain, making it impossible to save his life. "I don´t know the nature or type of these weapons that make a very small [entry wound] and go on and make massive destruction in the tissues," he said.
Israeli military representatives have refused to confirm or deny using specific weapons, but insist that all Israel´s weapons comply with international law. Neither white phosphorus nor Dime bombs are illegal, but campaigners say the way they have been used, especially in Gaza´s densely packed urban areas, could constitute a war crime.
A Palestinian woman with severe facial injuries from a Dime bomb
|
|
| 165. |
22 Jan 2009 Thu 07:44 am |
|
Ãts not same
Jewish is ones religion where israeli is the nationality
à dont condemn jewish by israel´s action,but i sure condemn israel!
No one would like for the children to know or see those kind of events or actions,no one would like for the kids to dream of fire and bombing instead of garden and roses
But that is luxry we dont actually have here in our area..where you can have it there .
Ãn israel they teach their children sending rockets to the palestinians is nice presents can be sent on new years or something ´Tam posted the pictures before´
Our children watch what those presents did to their relatives in Palestine,we dont force them to watch anything,we try not to let them watch it too so they can sleep the night peacefully.
But that is something you actually cant hide.
CANLI, is there anyone you don´t condemn besides Turkey?
How do you know what is being taught in Israel? Been there? Worked there? Taught there? I´m guessing no.
I went to Israel and Palestine. I spoke with 18 year old Israeli soldiers, women, who wanted to be in college studying foreign languages and advertising. They said they were never taught to hate anyone and that they didn´t hate anyone. They just wanted Hamas to stop lobbing rockets into Israel, but they were more afraid of having to kill someone than of being killed. I may not agree with what Israel did, but did it ever occur to you that if Hamas and the Palestinian people could be trusted to live amongst the Jews in peace, do business together, and help each other, then it might be possible for peace in that area. During cease fires, Israel keeps their word. Hamas does not.
You don´t know CANLI. None of us do. We aren´t there. We are in our nice homes and cafes typing on our laptops while drinking our coffee and eating our scones. None of us really know what is happening, and if you think Palestinian, Arab, or Israeli media paint an honest picture, you are naive and sadly mistaken.
You sound like you think it is okay to show pictures of dead, decapitated, mangled people to small children in order to make them understand. Some of your comments lead me to believe that perhaps you want them to see the pictures in order to make them hate. Even when you protest, you seem insincere.
|
|
| 166. |
22 Jan 2009 Thu 12:25 pm |
|
CANLI, is there anyone you don´t condemn besides Turkey?
How do you know what is being taught in Israel? Been there? Worked there? Taught there? I´m guessing no.
I went to Israel and Palestine. I spoke with 18 year old Israeli soldiers, women, who wanted to be in college studying foreign languages and advertising. They said they were never taught to hate anyone and that they didn´t hate anyone. They just wanted Hamas to stop lobbing rockets into Israel, but they were more afraid of having to kill someone than of being killed. I may not agree with what Israel did, but did it ever occur to you that if Hamas and the Palestinian people could be trusted to live amongst the Jews in peace, do business together, and help each other, then it might be possible for peace in that area. During cease fires, Israel keeps their word. Hamas does not.
You don´t know CANLI. None of us do. We aren´t there. We are in our nice homes and cafes typing on our laptops while drinking our coffee and eating our scones. None of us really know what is happening, and if you think Palestinian, Arab, or Israeli media paint an honest picture, you are naive and sadly mistaken.
You sound like you think it is okay to show pictures of dead, decapitated, mangled people to small children in order to make them understand. Some of your comments lead me to believe that perhaps you want them to see the pictures in order to make them hate. Even when you protest, you seem insincere.
Same as it wasnt the US to blame in the Vietnam war,its not israel to blame,eh ?!
That was also your opinion
Yes,i agree,Palestinians and Hamas should be good boys and gals in order to be trusted and give THE REST of THEÃR lands to israel !
No comment really !
à just wonder,
Ãf that was your land,your country,your home,Would this still be your opinion ?!
No need to answer !
|
|
| 167. |
22 Jan 2009 Thu 12:43 pm |
|
heres the talk of apples 
we talk about hamas, but apples are in vietnam.
Same as it wasnt the US to blame in the Vietnam war,its not israel to blame,eh ?!
That was also your opinion
Yes,i agree,Palestinians and Hamas should be good boys and gals in order to be trusted and give THE REST of THEÃR lands to israel !
No comment really !
à just wonder,
Ãf that was your land,your country,your home,Would this still be your opinion ?!
No need to answer !
|
|
|
enlarge