VOICES IN GAZA SCREAM OUT FOR HELP
January 19, 2008 at 9:09 am (Genocide, Palestine)
(These figures were quoted several times on Al Jazeera Arabic TV. And not the 1 dead and 35 injured. I don’t understand why this sudden discrepancy. Is someone trying to hide the real figures?)
Hamas resumed firing Qassam rockets toward the Israeli border town of Sderot, along with other militant groups like Islamic Jihad and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which is affiliated with Fatah. On Thursday, at least 40 rockets were launched, half of them landing in Israel, hitting two houses in Sderot and lightly wounding four Israelis, with a dozen more treated for shock.
On Friday, at least 31 more rockets were fired toward Israel and 16 landed, but no one was wounded, the Israeli Army said.
One rocket landed within 40 yards of a nursery school, which was open, said David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman. Since Tuesday, the army said, 130 Qassams have been launched; about half have landed in Israel and the remainder in Gaza.
The cycle of retaliation and response was described by Yair Lapid, a well-known Israeli journalist, in the daily Yediot Aharonot.
“The objective of the operation in Gaza is to prevent the Qassam fire,” he wrote. “But the operation in Gaza is causing Qassams to be fired. The Qassam fire will, in turn, bring about the next operation in Gaza, which will lead to the next round of Qassam fire.”
Mr. Lapid continued: “Everyone is playing his role; each side pretends to be the initiator, while well aware in its heart of hearts that it is just as trapped as the other side is.”
On Friday, in the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, Israeli rocket fire killed a member of the Hamas military wing and another man who Israel said were part of a rocket squad. Israel also bombed a Hamas police facility in central Gaza.
In the Balata refugee camp, in the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli commandos killed Ahmed Muhamad Ibrahim Sanakra, 21, a wanted gunman who was carrying a rifle, Israel said, and arrested four of his associates.
The Israeli decision to close border crossings was another attempt to put pressure on Hamas in Gaza, and at least one United Nations aid shipment was not allowed through on Friday.
The Defense Ministry said that all imports would have to be approved by the defense minister, Ehud Barak, and that they would be limited to “humanitarian supplies” that are judged to be running low, like milk or cooking oil. Israel has already sharply restricted imports to Gaza since the Hamas takeover in June. The closures will probably be reviewed on Sunday in the weekly cabinet meeting.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, said, “This situation in Gaza is dire and the continued closures, in the context of closures since June, only makes the situation of people of Gaza more perilous.”
His agency had been getting in 15 trucks of aid a day until Wednesday, he said, and while it has two months of stocks in Gaza, aid recipients still need fresh food to supplement the aid. He said Israel should broaden its definition of “humanitarian imports” to include schoolbooks, cement for needed health projects and chlorine for water purification.
Separately, a study of the psychological impact of the rockets has found a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder in Sderot, said Dr. Rony Berger of the Natal Trauma Center.
In a survey of more than 500 adults in Sderot and an Israeli town of similar size, Ofakim, the study found that 28.4 percent of those in Sderot had the disorder, compared with 5.2 percent in Ofakim. The disorder means “functional impairment” and not just symptoms, Dr. Berger said in a telephone interview.
Some 44.9 percent of Sderot residents reported persistent symptoms of post-traumatic stress, including an inability to sleep or concentrate, depression and anxiety, but without functional impairment, compared with 16.3 percent in Ofakim. New immigrants to Sderot have twice the frequency of symptoms compared with those born in Israel, who have become “more habituated to this kind of security pressure,” he said.
In Sderot, 91.9 percent said that a rocket had fallen on their street or an adjacent one, 55.8 percent have had their homes hit by a Qassam or by shrapnel, and 48.4 percent said they knew someone killed by a Qassam. Thirteen Israelis, including eight from Sderot, have been killed by the rockets since 2001.
Dr. Berger and his colleagues treat families as a whole, he said. “It’s better to work with families, because those who learn ‘active coping’ are more resilient,” he said. “If they know what to do between alerts, whether it’s effective protection or not, they are better off than those who panic. It’s the helplessness that damages as much as the fear.”
Ben Heine said,
January 19, 2008 at 2:46 pm
So terrible
M. McCormick said,
January 19, 2008 at 5:10 pm
And meanwhile the entire western world bows down and worships THE holocaust of 50+ years ago (not referring to the holocaust in which millions of Christian peasants were slaughtered during the bolshevik revolution).
ndeed, he who has the gold makes the rules.
tisa Tasher said,
January 19, 2008 at 5:29 pm
The jews of Sderot are suffering from stress? so they cut off food water & medicine to over a million people of whom are being invaded & occuppied for over 60 years. and Amerika supports this?
You fools. your own bible tells you that God answers the call of the distressed. Even the gentiles come under His mercy. And sixty years of hell inflicted on these people will for summon one hell of a response.
Can’t you amerikan idiots see He has already seized you by the forelock??
benevolent said,
January 19, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I wonder what would happen if you would do the same to Israel …
Oh I know, THAT is terrorism ..
bonethug iranian said,
January 19, 2008 at 6:51 pm
It really doesn’t matter what happens in Auschwitz the West Bank or the Gulag Gaza. You see, it’s just Palestinians and Palestinians must die so that Israel can remain on the U.S. payroll. Why if Israel wasn’t bombing and murdering Palestinians, then Israel would have to bomb and murder Lebanese. It doesn’t do ANY good to say or scream or rant about any of this. No one is listening. Especially in the U.S. where Israel finds it’s greatest source of military hardware and funding. Die Palestinians so that Israel might live and get money.
Ray said,
January 19, 2008 at 7:00 pm
US on Israel’s payroll? I think you have that backwards. The US is acting like Israel these days not the other way around.
They took control of everything from our money supply to blackmailing our elected officials, medical system, markets, everything by taking control of our money system.
Rampaging Manatee said,
January 19, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I’m sick of this “Amerikan idiots” thing. A lot of us know what’s happening and we are very sad. As is implied, there IS a major disconnect between We The People of America and our government.
We’re no longer in a representative form of government, and we’re no longer a country of the free and the brave. We no longer have a free press (I’m not sure we ever did). We no longer have free speech. We no longer have Habeus Corpus. We’re not even citizens anymore, by definition, we’re subjects.
Don’t blame us. Blame the corporations and the media and the foreign influences which have turned our once great nation into a socialist dictatorship filled with the uneducated and/or brainwashed. I’d be willing to bet, a wide majority believe Israelis have suffered more than Palestinians in the past 7 years! Our media is completely owned and controlled by the zionist war machinery. Completely! As I type this from the knowledge I’ve gained from myriad different websites from all over the globe, MY service provider is lobbying MY “representatives” to have the power to filter out web content! Do you see how absurd this has all become! None of which is by our choice. My vendor is lobbying my employee to censor what I - the boss - am allowed to hear and see!!! It’s lunacy. A lot of us are aware of this and have no power to stop it as our right to petition for redress of grievances has also been stripped. They don’t need our votes. They simply don’t care anymore, they dictate.
We’re truly sorry, but we are also the oppressed victims. We are in no way the beneficiaries of the misery inflicted upon the Arab world in our name. FALSELY in our name. In fact, our government is breaking our own laws (its own laws) by aiding Israel in any way due to their covert nuclear weapons. This is a fact! We’re not the problem and our laws are not the problem, it’s those who break the laws who are the problem.
Peace.
-RM
Randi said,
January 19, 2008 at 8:08 pm
RM,
I, for one, agree with what you’re saying. Unfortunately, the Germans during WWII were also in the same boat as us now, but were still held accountable for Hitler. According to the Nuremburg standard, we’re all responsible for what our government does, whether we’re able to do anything about it or not.
mamama said,
January 19, 2008 at 8:08 pm
the real protection of the jews are the set Muslim states surrounding them. It is these sell out, curropt, vile and disgusting leaders which have not united and waged an attack against them in palestine. The day that Muslims wake up, and unite, it will not even take one night to get rid of these jewish cowards who have for decades proved their cowardice by killing babies. The revenge of all the dead babies of Palestine will engulf the jews in palestine, as well as america their bitch, in an unextuingishble fire of rage that will permanently erradicate their existence from the face of this earth. Before the typical white american starts gasping at what i’m saying, look at the pictures painted by the description above, the real terrorist is the one that controls your mortgage, and the one to whom you pay homage (payments) every month. You are his slave, and he is the SAME terrorist who aims the tank at women in palestine. Wake up and connect the dots.
Nik said,
January 19, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Are we allowing the few to rule billions?
n.z. said,
January 19, 2008 at 10:28 pm
What I see happening in Gaza is a smokescreen of what happened to the Jewish people under the Nazi party. Ironically the victims of yesteryears are the victimizers of today.
In a democracy you can do everything. Sleep and help is the solution.
michael said,
January 20, 2008 at 9:56 am
There are three astonishing references in the article to only half of the Qassams falling on Israel ! It’s the proverbial `couldn’t hit the side of a barn at 10 paces` statement.
That means that any damage to Gaza and Gazans from these things falling short doesn’t matter to whomever is setting these things off. Are the Palestinians so completely unmindful of harm to their own people so intent they are to `shoot in the dark` on the remote chance some really, really unlucky Israeli gets it ?
The risk benefit ratio is just too high on this count alone to be even worth considering. In addition to which the Israelis are just slavering at the apparent complete idiocy of Palestinians to be even doing this, giving them the pretext they want to apply tanks, APCs and Apache helicopters in a 1,000 fold response against Palestinian civilians and infrastructure.
By having said all this i can come to the conclusion that these Qassams are being sent by Israelis dressed as Palestinians within a protected enclave within Gaza who don’t care if any fall on Gaza and know that on the very remote chance that one kills an Israeli in Sderot it can be put down to `friendly fire` or blamed on Palestinians, depending on who is speaking to whom.
A third possibility is that the Qassams even existing now is total fiction, a PR stunt by the IDF who repeatedly tell us this story and no one asks for verification. Palestinians probably did make and use them long ago and sensibly stopped, but the IDF thought it too good an idea to let die.
Of the three possibilities, i like the last one best, Israeli media keeping the lie alive so that there is a daily pretext to murder more Palestinians for fun.
**
The distance b/n Gaza and Sderot is variously described as being 1K or even as many as 5K, so which is it ? It’s worth asking whether a bullet from a Kalashnikov 7.62×39 angled at 45degrees will traverse 3,000metres from Gaza to Sderot. It should, since a .22cal rimfire will extreme range out to 1,200meters and the .303 British will extreme range out to 4,400metres.
So, i suspect the Palestinians have no reason to even do that as, again, why bring on a 1,000 fold Israeli response ?
Karl Weiss said,
January 21, 2008 at 9:22 am
Shame Shame Shame on all those that kill in the name of the Lord.