In Tel Al-Hawa, Al-Quds Hospital went up in flames after it came under Israeli shelling. Workers at the Palestine Red Crescent facility said they fear the fire could cause an explosion due to the fuel stored in the hospital's warehouse.
Dr Bashar Murad, the head of emergency services at Al-Quds Hospital, told Ma’an that three Israeli missiles hit the hospital, two of them containing white phosphorus. Shrapnel from the bombs was scattered in the hospital but no one was injured. Fire has engulfed the hospital’s administration building, a storehouse, and a pharmacy.
Murad said that up to 600 people had fled Tel Al-Hawa and areas around the hospital.
Meanwhile, UN's relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says Israeli shells struck their headquarters in Gaza City, injuring three workers. The compound includes the UNRWA offices, warehouses and a school. As many as 700 Palestinians had taken refuge in the compound, which is still on fire.
The United Nations is claiming that shells were laced with the controversial chemical weapon, white phosphorus.
Separately, Israeli forces attacked a media compound home to the Reuters news agency, NBC, and a number of Arab networks in Gaza City late on Thursday morning. Two journalists working for Abu Dhabi television were injured when at least one Israeli shell struck the building.
All three of these scenarios has been reported on by the mainstream media so it can't be said this is inaccurate reporting by Maan.
The death toll from the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip reached 1,033 on Wednesday evening, said Dr Mu’awiyah Hassanain, the director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in the Health Ministry in Gaza. Nearly a third of the dead are children. Over three hundred children...
Then there is this:
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been forced to abstain from a United Nations resolution on Gaza that she helped draft, after Mr. Olmert placed a phone call to President Bush.
I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone,’ ‘ Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, according to The Associated Press. ‘They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care: ‘I need to talk to him now,’ ‘ Mr. Olmert continued. ‘He got off the podium and spoke to me.’
From what the News Writer shares, Mr. Olmert may be exaggerating his own power and importance, at our expense...
5 comments:
Lisa Renee,
FYI, I am copying and pasting word-for-word a message from the United Jewish Council of Greater Toledo that was sent to my e-mail:
A TOLEDOAN’S PERSPECTIVE FROM ISRAEL
Dateline January 13, 2009. by Aaron Leeper. The United Nations has ordered a cease fire. Does the United Nations assume that a resolution they voted on will stop Hamas from carrying out its declared war of annihilation against us? How do they propose to discipline Hamas if Hamas doesn't stop attacking us? We know that we as a sovereign state and United Nations member could face United Nations sanctions of one sort or another that could hurt our interests, but what pressure can the United Nations bring to bear against our adversary, a non-sovereign non-member terrorist entity? The day the United Nations is effectively able to reign in Hamas, or any other terrorist organization for that matter, is the day we can stop fighting them. Our very existence is at stake. We know we can't make Hamas go away. We just want Hamas to know, whatever it takes to get this through to them, that they can't make us go away either.
The most worrisome thing about this war is the wrath we see all over the planet directed against Israel. We appreciate those who support us, but we find it alarming how many in places where they should know better are condemning our attacks on an organization they themselves have declared a terrorist organization. If they don't give us time to deal with Hamas as we must, in time they will find themselves overwhelmed by terror organizations with far greater reach on a much grander scale in more painful ways. No fight against any terrorist organization is going to look good on TV. Hard as it may seem to believe, we are doing our best to minimize casualties on both sides. Can the same be said of our adversaries?
Letter to the editor of the Toledo Blade: An Israeli perspective on the hostilities in Gaza, from Aaron Leeper - a former Toledoan, now residing in Beer Sheva Israel. Aaron moved to Israel from Toledo in 1978 and has lived in Beer Sheva all this time. Aaron’s sister Miriam Leeper-Kende is a member of our community.
Yes, I've heard that rhetoric before, I think two additional pieces also in the Blade would create responses to that.
One example, also written by someone who is currently in Egypt:
There are some startling flaws in Israel's logic. The first is the belief that they can turn Palestinians against Hamas by killing hundreds of Palestinians and trashing Gaza. It would be as if the Japanese had expected to provoke a revolt of Hawaiians against American rule in 1941 by attacking Pearl Harbor, or the Germans had expected Londoners to overthrow King George VI as a result of the Blitz. People respond to bombing and shelling by hating those who rain death and destruction on them, not their own leaders.
Then there is this article:
Israel is the most powerful country in the Middle East. Its survival is not threatened by rag-tag bands of so-called terrorists. At the heart of Israeli actions is the determination to hang on to the occupied lands. All peace initiatives on a two-state solutions are bound to fail because of the dominant role the Israeli right and the militant settlers play in Israeli politics. They are loath to give any land back to the Palestinians.
In the end Israel would rather see a fragmentation of Palestinian society reminiscent of apartheid South Africa, and allow them a measure of watered down and wholly dependent self-rule.
Neither of the two I shared and the one you shared answer the basic question, how do you justify bombing a hosptial, a UN relief headquarters and a media compound? How you do justify murdering over 300 children?
The second article I linked written by Dr. S. Amjad Hussain also shares this:
And finally, where are the moderate voices of American Jewry? While there is a vigorous debate inside Israel about occupied lands, there is hardly any dissent in this country. Given the history of last 60 years, there must have been a few occasions when the people of conscience could have spoken out against the policies of Israel. Instead, they always found reasons to blame the victims or remain silent.
One of my Jewish readers put it succinctly when he said, in private of course, that if he ever raises a voice against Israel policies he will be crucified.
Thank you, Lisa Renee, for providing the additional information.
Wouldn't the world be so much better if hatred, prejudice, and discrimination were no more and everyone loved one another, with no more killings and no more wars?
I am reminded of MLK, Jr. "I have a dream."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?_r=2&hp
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