Also yesterday, Israel allowed - while under attack - 60 trucks, with 1360 tons of aid. These came from Jordan and many Western countries, as well as from NGOs.
Sounds like the Arabs don't care as much about Gazans as the West does!
Elder of Ziyon
Elder of Ziyon
Elder of Ziyon...a 49-year-old cleric regarded as one of Hamas's most hardline political leaders.RTT News:
Nizar Rayyan, considered a political leader by Hamas, had close ties to the military wing of Hamas.The National (UAE):
He often served as a spiritual adviser to both the Hamas political and military wings and would often co-ordinate the group’s political and military operations, according to people close to Hamas.Bloomberg:
Rayyan was a go-between for Hamas’s political and military wings.Arab News:
The 49-year-old Rayan ranked among Hamas’ top five decision-makers. A professor of Islamic law, he was known for his close ties to the group’s military wing and was respected in Gaza for donning combat fatigues and personally participating in clashes against Israeli forces.The now-exploded spiritual leader is proof positive that there is no real distinction in Hamas between the "political" and "military" wings.
Elder of Ziyon
While the Hamas alqassam.ps website is down, its message board site called www.almoltaqa.ps (hosted somewhere in France, apparently) is still up and running.What is the justification behind the martyrdom operations against the " Israeli" civilians?The unarmed residents of Beersheba, Sderot, Netivot, Ashdod, Kiryat Gat and Ashkelon can now rest easy - Hamas isn't targeting them!
There is no justification for targeting civilians. It is against Islam to deliberately kill unarmed civilians during jihad. In addition, our doctrine is to target the enemies army, security services, and support apparatus. But it is known that Zionist society is a militarized society. Service in the army is mandatory; and reserve duty continues past the age of 40. Our determined stance is that unarmed persons on both sides of the conflict should be left out of the fighting. However, we will not accept giving the enemy a free hand against our civilians.
Elder of Ziyon
Elder of Ziyon
Elder of ZiyonSheikh Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas leader and cleric was killed along with several others on Thursday when an IAF aircraft dropped a bomb on his Jabalya home, the IDF said.Palestine Today says that Sheikh Rayyan knew very well that his house was a target:
Channel 10 reported that Rayyan was the "mufti" of Hamas's military wing and had replaced Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as the organization's top clerical authority after Yassin's assassination in 2004.
In addition, the IAF bombed the homes of three senior Gaza terrorists.
One of the homes belonged to Mohammad Baroud, a top Popular Resistance Committees operative. The army said that there were anti-tank missiles, rockets and bombs in the home.
Another of the homes destroyed belonged to Hasim Drili, a northern Gaza Hamas operative. The army said that he had a manufacturing plant in his home for rockets, mortar shells and missiles.
The third home belonged to Tafik Abu Raf, a Hamas terror operative in the central Gaza Strip. The IDF said that he had a weapons laboratory in his house.
Over the past two days, Israeli aircraft bombed a number of the homes of Hamas leadersin the Gaza Strip, but most of the houses were emptyMa'an adds:
While aware of that, our Sheikh Rayyan refused to come out of his house and remained firm there with a number of his children.
Palestinians have long advocated that the homes threatened by Israeli bombardment should be protected by human shields, and it appears he chose for himself this fate.
Local witnesses told Ma’an that Rayyan had not evacuated his house despite a warning from the Israeli military.
Elder of ZiyonThe power plant shut down on Tuesday because Israel has blocked fuel delivery through the main pipeline since Dec. 26, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said Wednesday. This has forced hospitals to use generators, which have limited fuel supplies, and left many of the 650,000 people in central and northern Gaza with power cuts of 16 hours a day or more, he said.Israel has, every day for the past few days, scheduled to open the Nahal Oz crossing for transferring fuel. And every day the Palestinian terrorists that the UNRWA refuses to mention have shot mortars at that very crossing - on Sunday, with fatal results. The despicable UNRWA is blaming Israel for "blocking" fuel shipments and cannot say a single word to their hosts in Gaza about stopping mortar attacks."The situation remains alarming," Holmes said. "Hospitals are obviously still struggling very much to cope with the number of casualties. We have continued to get some medical supplies in and to help them cope, but this remains difficult and fragile."
The daily Nahal Oz attacks are no longr even mentioned in the media, because mortars are so much more plentiful than Qassams and not as newsworthy as Grads. The Popular Resistance Committees have been the main terrorists to fire at Nahal Oz.
The UNRWA continues its one-sided blame game:
Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which helps Palestinian refugees, told reporters by video link from Gaza that the agency has not distributed any food for two weeks because of the shortage of supplies and the Israeli bombardment.Aby Zayd is using anecdotes to do everything she can to blame Israel, but cannot really explain why there is "no widespread hunger" in Gaza."I think that means that 20,000 people a day have been without food that they expect — and probably is the bulk of what they get," she said. "So people are doing pretty badly. Everyone we know is sharing whatever they have, not just with their families but with their neighbors."
"We haven't seen widespread hunger. We do see for the very first time ... people going through the rubbish dumps looking for things, people begging, which is quite a new phenomenon as well," she said.
And the UNRWA had food before the war - but refused to distribute food to Gazans because they didn't have enough flour. They did have rice, cooking oil and other goods. Now they are blaming Israel for their own pride.
Holmes said the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel was open, with 55 trucks of food and medical supplies and five ambulances getting into Gaza on Tuesday, and about 60 trucks on Wednesday. That compares to 125 truckloads a day in October 2008 and 475 truckloads a day in May 2007, just before Hamas took control of Gaza, he said.The real numbers were 93 trucks each day. He may be referring only to trucks meant for UNRWA.
Obviously, his comparison with October (when there were almost no rockets) and May 2007 (when all the crossings were still under control of the PA and Israel could easily coordinate the logistics) ignore the danger to Israelis put themselves in to send over humanitarian aid.
Some medical supplies, ambulances and generators also got into Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, he said.Yet he pointedly does not ask Egypt to increase its trickle of aid - only Israel. Isn't that interesting.
Abu Zayd stressed that her U.N. agency needs 100 trucks of flour a day to meet the needs of refugees.And yet, after months of much lower numbers of trucks on the average, there is still "no widespread hunger" in Gaza in her own words. Still no one has starved to death. It is a miracle!
But she said Israel has closed down the Karni crossing, the main gateway for cargo into Gaza where it is normally delivered, for security reasons.She wonders? While Israel coordinates with multiple aid agencies and countries, arranges to open crossings as much as possible at the same time as it is being attacked every few minutes with rockets, while her hosts brag about the effectiveness of their "resistance" and the number of fancifully named missiles they shoot towards these very crossings - she "wonders" if Israel is really trying hard enough? She "wonders" if perhaps Israeli lives are worthless and whether Israel should sacrifice a dozen or so people so she can get her aid to people who are not dying for lack of aid? Let's parse her colleague's next sentence:She said UNRWA was told by the Israeli humanitarian coordinator that all other crossings aren't open because "there is intelligence about serious preparations for security operations."
"We wonder if it's serious enough to really keep things completely closed and to keep people on their edge of subsistence," she said.
Holmes said "the major needs, apart from medical supplies, remain ... grain and wheat flour and fuel — also cash would be very helpful to enable people to buy supplies."Way down in their statements, after most people stop reading or listening, Holmes just happens to mention that, oh yes, they have plenty of medical supplies! [UPDATE: The English is ambiguous; a commenter mentioned that they probably mean that they need medical supplies. - EoZ] And guess what - there is access to other goods in Gaza - another miracle - but they just need money to buy it! I guess that the families that are sharing what they have, as Abu Zayd said, are not being as generous as the UNRWA says? Or perhaps Hamas is hoarding flour and then selling it at inflated prices - something that the UNRWA is silent about?
Elder of Ziyon
Elder of Ziyona/b = c/d
Even in everyday language we do not speak of proportionality until after two ratios are compared. When we say, for example, that the weight of a person is (or is not) proportional to its height, it means that the quotient of dividing weight by height is (or is not) equal to that which is regarded as the standard for the people of his or her age. Without this standard it would be impossible to talk about proportionality.
It is obvious that such a standard does not exist when it pertains to the means to put an end to the deadly and systematic attacks. Humanity has not yet come to establish such a standard, despite its long history of conflict and war, international organizations are powerless to stop terrorist attacks. It is necessary to stop their agents, at all costs. The opposite would be to continue to kill until total annihilation. Nobody can demand such a sacrifice of an entire people in the name of preserving an imaginary indefinable proportionality.
But let's see what the Israeli reaction would have to be, in order for it to be proportional to the terrorist attack, as the world demands.
Consider the relationship between the measurements of the intensity of this reaction, we will call it “y”, and the intensity of the terrorist attack, we represent here by “x”. Without a standard to be used as reference to make the comparison, we will compare the ratio to that between the same “x” and “z” defined as the value of the intensity of the Israeli action which, by definition, would have given rise to the terrorist attack. Proportionality would be expressed by the equality between these two ratios:
But as the assault was arbitrary and does not correspond to any action that could be the cause, we have z = 0, from whence we then conclude that .
Or in common language: If we want to maintain proportionality, the intensity of the reaction to an unprovoked assault has no limitations.
Long live “Proportionality”!
Paulo dos Santos Ferreira
Elder of ZiyonDespite ongoing rocket fire, Israel continues with the extensive humanitarian effort in coordination with the international organizations, Palestinian Authority and various donors. Ninety three trucks, with approximately 2500 tons of humanitarian aid, medical supplies and medication were conveyed through Kerem Shalom cargo terminal. The World Food Programme has informed Israel that they will not be resuming shipment of food commodities in to Gaza due to the fact that their warehouses are at full capacity and will last for approximately two weeks.From starvation to overstuffed in only four days?
Elder of ZiyonOur finest young men...set out to bomb the graduation ceremony for young police officers who had found that rare Gaza commodity, a job, massacring them by the dozen. They bombed a police station, hitting a doctor nearby...They bombed a university that we in Israel call the Palestinian Rafael, the equivalent of Israel's weapons developer, and destroyed student dormitories.The point is that, according to Levy, there are no legitimate military targets in Gaza; every one is fraught with the possibility of hurting someone innocent nearby. Israel must tell its Sderot residents to go to hell, and that will solve the problem. By not doing that, this is all Israel's fault.
According to reports, about half of the people killed were innocent civilians.Even the UN - hardly unbiased itself - puts the number at half that amount. So what is Levy's source for this bogus number? Here's my guess:
Hamas says some 200 uniformed members of Hamas security forces have been killed.So Levy, uncritically believing Hamas' own statistics, goes beyond what Hamas is saying in trying to demonize his country. He doesn't even consider that perhaps Israel managed to kill some members of Islamic Jihad, the PRC or the DFLP, and according to Levy any non-uniformed member of Hamas don't count either - presumably because Hamas is so careful about adhering to international law concerning havng soldiers wearing uniforms.
The irreverence of the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz is visible from the first moment a visitor enters the paper's editorial headquarters.<Putting aside the fact that the symbolism is exactly the opposite of the stated interpretation (the carcass is ugly on the outside and sweet on the inside), this is the best encapsulation of Ha'aretz' guiding editorial philosophy: Israel is an inherently rotten country, not dissimilar to Ahmadinejad's characterization of it as a "rotting corpse." The elites at Ha'aretz know best, and the 95% of the nation that is to its right are ignorant rubes - too religious or too nationalistic or too Jewish to be taken seriously.
There in the foyer hangs an open pig's carcass, looking just as it would in a slaughterhouse. This one, however, is reproduced in pieces of candy -- red ones for the muscles, and yellow for the innards. The building's doorman is on hand to help interpret this installation. The sculpture, he says, is like the land of Israel itself: "Beautiful on the outside, rotten on the inside."