Gaza的人道主義情況在它的最壞，因為1967年以色列佔領了疆土，言基於英國的人權和發展小組。 他們包括國際特赦組織，除孩子， Cafod之外，關心國際和基督徒援助。 他們在Gaza批評以色列的封鎖作為不提供安全的非法集體處罰。

以色列認為它的軍事行動和其他措施是合法和需要的從Gaza停止火箭攻擊。 2005年以色列從加沙地帶裡面拉它的隊伍和移居者，但保留對Gaza的領空和海岸線的控制和它自己的邊界與疆土。

它由巴勒斯坦交戰在火箭攻擊在Gaza拉緊了它的封鎖於1月在浪湧之中。

以色列的國防部在報告拒绝了批評，責備控制Gaza的哈姆斯好戰的小組。

「對事件的主要責任在Gaza是哈姆斯組織，應該論及所有怨言」，讀的聲明。

`災害』

小組』報告，加沙地帶： 人道主義爆聚，認為封鎖在教育和衛生業務顯著惡化了貧窮和失業的水平和導致了惡化。

超過1.1百萬Gazans依靠食品援助在私人部門早先雇用的，并且110,000名工作者， 75,000現在失去了他們的工作，報告認為。

「除非封鎖現在結束，拉扯Gaza後面從這個災害邊緣將是不可能的，并且對和平的所有希望在這個區域將是該死的」，丹尼斯說Geoffrey，關心國際英國。

以色列軍隊在北Gaza上星期展開了一次血淋淋和破壞性的襲擊，超過120巴勒斯坦人-包括許多平民-被殺害。

以色列認為措施是由巴勒斯坦交戰設計的滅绝頻繁火箭發射。

最近火箭攻擊擊中了更深進入南以色列，到達Ashkelon，最接近的大以色列城市對加沙地帶。

佔領力量

基於英國的小組同意以色列有權利和義務保護它的公民，敦促雙方停止對平民的不合法的攻擊。

以色列軍隊削減了對Gaza的通入為幾乎所有交通

But they call upon Israel to comply with its obligations, as the occupying power in Gaza, to ensure its inhabitants have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care, which have been in short supply in the strip.

“Punishing the entire Gazan population by denying them these basic human rights is utterly indefensible,” said Amnesty UK Director Kate Allen.

“The current situation is man-made and must be reversed.”

Other recommendations from the groups include international engagement with the Hamas movement, which rejects Israel’s legitimacy and has been shunned by Israel’s allies, and the Fatah party of Palestinian West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas.

“Gaza cannot become a partner for peace unless Israel, Fatah and the Quartet [the US and UN, Europe and Russia] engage with Hamas and give the people of Gaza a future,” said Daleep Mukarji of Christian Aid.

Last Updated: Thursday, 6 March 2008, 09:15 GMT E-mail this to a friend Printable version Gaza conditions ‘at 40-year low’ The groups say a battered, starved Gaza cannot be a peace partner Conditions in Gaza Gaza’s humanitarian situation is at its worst since Israel occupied the territory in 1967, say UK-based human rights and development groups. They include Amnesty International, Save the Children, Cafod, Care International and Christian Aid. They criticise Israel’s blockade on Gaza as illegal collective punishment which fails to deliver security. Israel says its military action and other measures are lawful and needed to stop rocket attacks from Gaza. Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, but retains control over Gaza’s airspace and coastline, and over its own border with the territory. Click here to for an enlarged map of the Gaza Strip It tightened its blockade in January amid a surge in rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in Gaza. Israel’s Defence Ministry rejected the criticism in the report, blaming the Hamas militant group which controls Gaza. “The main responsibility for events in Gaza is the Hamas organisation, to which all complaints should be addressed,” a statement read. ‘Disaster’ The groups’ report, Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion, says the blockade has dramatically worsened levels of poverty and unemployment, and has led to deterioration in education and health services. Gaza cannot become a partner for peace unless Israel, Fatah and the Quartet engage with Hamas and give the people of Gaza a future Daleep Mukarji, Christian Aid Gaza’s humanitarian crisis Profile: Gaza Strip More than 1.1 million Gazans are dependent on food aid and of 110,000 workers previously employed in the private sector, 75,000 have now lost their jobs, the report says. “Unless the blockade ends now, it will be impossible to pull Gaza back from the brink of this disaster and any hopes for peace in the region will be dashed,” said Geoffrey Dennis, of Care International UK. Last week Israeli forces launched a bloody and destructive raid in northern Gaza, in which more than 120 Palestinians - including many civilians - were killed. Israel says the measures are designed to stamp out frequent rocket fire by Palestinian militants. Recent rocket attacks have hit deeper into southern Israel, reaching Ashkelon, the closest large Israeli city to the Gaza Strip. Occupying power The UK-based groups agree that Israel has the right and obligation to protect its citizens, urging both sides to cease unlawful attacks on civilians. The Israeli army has cut access to Gaza for almost all traffic But they call upon Israel to comply with its obligations, as the occupying power in Gaza, to ensure its inhabitants have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care, which have been in short supply in the strip. “Punishing the entire Gazan population by denying them these basic human rights is utterly indefensible,” said Amnesty UK Director Kate Allen. “The current situation is man-made and must be reversed.” Other recommendations from the groups include international engagement with the Hamas movement, which rejects Israel’s legitimacy and has been shunned by Israel’s allies, and the Fatah party of Palestinian West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas. “Gaza cannot become a partner for peace unless Israel, Fatah and the Quartet [the US and UN, Europe and Russia] engage with Hamas and give the people of Gaza a future,” said Daleep Mukarji of Christian Aid.

BBC

Israel has pulled back its troops from the Gaza Strip with an army spokesman saying that military operations in the territory were “winding down”.

The move came after an intense Israeli assault that killed eight more Palestinians overnight on Monday, adding to the more than 100 people killed in the past six days.

The Israeli army spokesman said: “Almost all our forces have already returned to Israel.”

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, said that it is probable that actions against Palestinian forces firing rockets into Israel will continue.

An Israeli official quoted Olmert as telling a parliamentary panel: “We are in the midst of a combat action. What happened in recent days was not a one-time event.

“The objective is reducing the rocket fire and weakening Hamas.”

Hamas ‘victory’

Hamas has welcomed the Israeli withdrawal and said it signalled a “victory” for the Palestinians.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, had suspended all contact with Israel over its assault that left at least 116 Palestinians dead, including 22 children and 12 women.

Overnight, Israel attacked Gaza from both land and sea with naval ships shelling the territory.

The EU, UN and the Catholic pope joined Abbas on Sunday in demanding an immediate halt to the violence.

Israel says the raids are in self-defence, aimed at curbing homemade rockets being fired over the border from the Hamas-controlled territory.

It has threatened to intensify its ground and air campaign, despite allegations it is using excessive force.

Nine rockets slammed into southern Israel, wounding four people on Sunday, Israeli ambulance workers said.

International outcry

Slovenia, the current EU president, issued a statement on Sunday condemning Israel’s attacks as Javier Solana, the European body’s foreign policy chief, was dispatched to meet leaders in Israel and the West Bank.

“The presidency rejects collective punishment of the people of Gaza. Such activities are contrary to international law,” the statement said.

“The presidency at the same time reiterates its condemnation of continued firing of rockets into Israeli territory and calls for its immediate end.”

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, joined his voice to growing global denunciations of the attacks that left more than 60 Palestinians dead on Saturday alone.

Addressing an emergency session of the security council in New York, Ban also called on Palestinian fighters to stop firing rockets into Israel.

He said: “While recognising Israel’s right to defend itself, I condemn the disproportionate and excessive use of force that has killed and injured so many civilians, including children … I call on Israel to cease such attacks.”

“I [also] condemn Palestinian rocket attacks and call for the immediate cessation of such acts of terrorism.”

Suspended relations

Abbas designated Sunday as a day of mourning.

He ordered “the suspension of negotiations … until [Israeli] aggression is stopped”, a senior aide to Abbas said in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday.

Nabil Abu Rudeina, an Abbas spokesman, said in a statement: “The negotiations are suspended, as are all contacts on all levels, because in light of the Israeli aggression such communication has no meaning.”

Arye Mekel, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said Abbas’s decision was a mistake and expressed hope that the talks would resume “in the very near future”. The director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza however, told Al Jazeera the attacks on the strip were in nobody’s interest. Speaking about the situation in territory, John Ging said: “The crossing points have been closed for days. [We are] struggling to keep our food aid going - remember a million people are food aid dependent - and we’re at our wits end to understand how this will lead to the peace and stability that we all so desperately need.” West Bank clashes   As Gazans mourned the dead, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops erupted on Sunday in the Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem, Hebron, and Belin as well as other areas across the West Bank. More than 40 Palestinians were injured, three of them seriously, as the demonstrators clashed with Israeli troops. Two Israeli soldiers were killed during clashes on Saturday in the Gaza Strip [Reuters] Hundreds of West Bank residents holding Hamas and Fatah flags staged rallies and appealed for national unity in an atmosphere that is being compared to the situation at the start of the second intifada in 2000. In Lebanon, up to 1,000 people waving Lebanese and Palestinian flags rallied near the Israeli border against the continuing attacks on Gaza. The demonstrators, at the Fatima Gate border point near the southern village of Kfar Kila, shouted “Death to Israel” and “The blood of our sons in Palestine will not be in vain”. Egypt, meanwhile, has agreed to open the Rafah border crossing to let injured Palestinians receive medical treatment. Responding to a request by the Palestinian Authority, Egyptian authorities permitted 250 injured Gazans to enter Egypt through the controversial crossing.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

APP

The top UN human rights official, reacting to the recent violence between Israel and the Palestinians,has called for an investigation into the reported killing of dozens of civilians, including children, in Gaza by Israeli military.

While recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour condemned the Israeli Defence Force’s “disproportionate use of force,” in a statement issued today in Geneva, which was also distributed at UN Headquarters in New York.

“Israel, as the occupying power, bears a particular responsibility under international human rights and humanitarian law to protect the civilian population and civilian installations in Gaza,” the statement added.

She called on the Israeli Government “to conduct impartial investigations into the killings of civilians, make the findings public and hold any perpetrators accountable.”

Ms. Arbour also strongly condemned the rocket attacks by Palestinian militants against Israeli civilian targets, stressing that they are in clear violation of international humanitarian law and “those responsible must be held to account.”

The UN estimates that at least 59 Palestinians ­ including 39 civilians ­ were killed last Saturday in Gaza and hundreds more injured. In addition, two Israeli soldiers are reported to have been killed in the fighting and an Israeli civilian was killed in Sderot following a rocket attack and at least five other civilians were injured in Ashkelon.

Both Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council  which met in emergency session over the weekend have condemned the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.

Daily Mail 

US ally Saudi Arabia compared Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip to Nazi war crimes on Sunday and called on the international community to stop what it called the “mass killings” of Palestinians.

Israeli forces killed 61 people in Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday, the bloodiest day for Palestinians since an uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000.

Almost half the dead were civilians, including children.

“Saudi Arabia, which condemns the Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people and the threats of Israeli officials to transform Gaza into an inferno, sees that Israel is simulating through these actions the Nazi war crimes,” the Saudi official news agency SPA reported.

“Therefore, Saudi Arabia urges the international community, peace-sponsoring countries and the international Quartet to work to curb the Israeli military machine and stop it from carrying out mass killings and destruction against the Palestinian people and their properties.”

The Saudi statement appeared to refer to a warning by Israel’s deputy defence minister that Gazans risked a “shoah” - a Hebrew word for holocaust - if rocket fire into Israel did not stop.

Aides later said he meant disaster and not holocaust.

Hamas, an Islamist group which seized Gaza after routing forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, held the comment up as proof their Israeli enemies were the “new Nazis.”

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Sunday Israel needed to prepare for a possible escalation in Gaza.

The Jewish state, which lost two soldiers in Saturday’s fighting, has pushed deep into Gaza in an effort to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into southern Israel.

The offensive was launched after a rocket killed an Israeli on Wednesday.

“Saudi Arabia watches with utmost concern what is happening in Gaza; the killing of children, women and elderly, the destruction of houses over their owners’ heads, the intimidation at the hands of Israel’s military machine,” SPA said.

“The kingdom strongly condemns these actions that go against international law and humanitarian norms … and contradict what Israel says about its desire for peace.”

The UN Security Council on Sunday urged Israel and the Palestinians to cease all violence in Gaza after the secretary-general condemned Israel’s “excessive” use of force.

Saudi Arabia, a major Arab power broker which attended a US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis in November, renewed calls for a comprehensive Middle East peace deal.

The death toll of the Israeli assault on Gaza rises to 60 people on Saturday, marking it the deadliest day of fighting in the coastal region.

Palestinian IMEMC news website quoted head of Gaza’s emergency services, Dr Muawiya Hassanein as saying that there were at least 26 civilians among those killed.

The dead included 5 children, the youngest of whom was just 2 days old, he added.

More than 150 people have also been injured the majority whom are civilians.

At least 16 of those killed were resistance fighters, including 13 from the Islamic Hamas movement and three from the Islamic Jihad.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 92 Palestinians, including 19 children, have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli attacks on Sunday.

Despite high civilian casualty, Israel says the incursion is aimed at destroying the Hamas infrastructure.

Two Israeli soldiers were also killed and another seven wounded during clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters, the Israeli army said.

Meanwhile, Hamas political leader Khalid Mashaal on Saturday condemned Israel’s air and overland raids describing it ‘a real holocaust’.

He said that Israel is ‘using the Holocaust’ to justify its atrocities against the Palestinians.

“Israel is using the Holocaust as a cover to do what it wants,” Mashaal said.

DT/DT/MMA/MMN

Paul Joseph Watson |  Propaganda Matrix

Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai has provoked outrage after threatening Palestinians with a “holocaust,” but the same media who obsessed about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “wipe Israel off the map” misquote are scurrying to defend Vilnai’s disgraceful comments.

“The more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” Vilnai told the Army Radio on Friday.

However, in a Reuters report, despite the fact that the rest of the statement was translated into English, the incendiary word “holocaust” remained in its original Hebrew version - “shoah”.

Why Reuters would choose to print the rest of the statement in English yet cherry-pick one word to remain in Hebrew is obvious - they don’t want to draw any attention to the fact that Vilnai is threatening the Palestinians with a holocaust.

Vilnai’s spokesman has attempted to diffuse the controversy by claiming Vilnai was speaking in terms of a “disaster” and not a holocaust.

Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai

But you can’t have your cake and eat it.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allegedly called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” the media blindly repeated the quote ad infinitum, and it became second nature for them to carelessly drop it into any propaganda piece intended to hype Iran’s supposed threat to Israel and the world.

Barely a day goes by that Israeli, American and British warhawks don’t spew the phrase like a broken record in an attempt to create a catchy cliché and brand market the next jaunt of imperial blood-letting.

No matter that, according to numerous different translations, Ahmadinejad never used the word “map,” instead his statement was in the context of time and applied to the Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem. Ahmadinejad was expressing his future hope that the Zionist regime in Israel would fall, not that Iran was going to physically annex the country and its population.

To claim Ahmadinejad has issued a rallying cry to ethnically cleanse Israel is akin to saying that Churchill wanted to murder all Germans when he stated his desire to crush the Nazis. This is about the demise of a corrupt occupying power, not the deaths of millions of innocent people.

On the other hand, even as Reuters is forced to admit, Vilnai’s use of the word “shoah” is intrinsically allied to the context of “Discussions of the Nazi Holocaust of Jews,” adding, “Many Israelis are loath to countenance its use to describe other contemporary events.”

So will the media make reference to one of Israel’s top minister’s expressing his wish to inflict a Palestinian “holocaust” in all future reports about Israel’s geopolitical motives, just as they do with Ahmadinejad’s supposed call to wipe Israel off the map?

There’s more chance of Yasser Arafat and Menachem Begin coming back from the dead to broker a peace settlement.

Ed O’Loughlin

THE Israeli army has decided not to order a disciplinary probe into the killing of 21 Palestinian civilians in November 2006.

The dead men, women and children included at least 13 members of the Athamneh family, among them a one-year-old girl. Another 35 people were injured as 12 155-millimetre heavy artillery shells struck the north Gaza town of Beit Hanoun for several minutes. Israeli rights groups yesterday claimed there was a “culture of impunity” in the Israeli security forces, after the decision was announced.

This week the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) adjutant-general announced that an extremely rare computer malfunction had caused the shells to strike 500 metres from their intended target, a field that had been used by militants to fire missiles at Israel. There was therefore no reason to charge any soldier with negligence or any other offence, Brigadier-General Avihai Mandelblit decided. The announcement did not consider the gunners’ supposed failure to notice their shells going astray.

The Beit Hanoun bombardment followed an incident in June 2006 in which seven members of the picnicking Ghalya family were killed by an explosion on a north Gaza beach. The Israeli human rights group B’tselem yesterday said the Beit Hanoun decision reflected a “culture of impunity” in the forces.

“We have to ask ourselves whether the IDF’s internal investigations meet the basic standards of international law,” said spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli.

By Amira Hass

Not long ago the greengrocer in Ramallah recalled - between weighing locally grown zucchini and stripped hyssop leaves - that his family owns the land on which the gas station at the old entrance to the Jewish settlement of Beit El in the West Bank is located. He would not be surprised by the figure that the Peace Now movement has succeeded in officially extracting from the defense establishment, after more than a year of fighting for the freedom of information: About one-third of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank (44 out of 120) were built on privately owned Palestinian land that was seized, by means of confiscation orders, for “security needs.”

From the data it emerges that at least 19 of the 44 settlements were built on private land, even after prime minister Menachem Begin decided in 1979 that the construction and expansion of settlements would take place only on state-owned land.

Peace Now has revealed here another act of hypocrisy, even though the Supreme Court is no longer impressed even by this: It did, after all, legitimize the construction of the settlement of Matityahu on land owned by inhabitants of Bil’in.

The known fact that settlements are built on private Palestinian lands combines all too well with the general civic and institutional Israeli perception to the effect that Palestinian lands that are not privately owned, or that lack proof of private ownership, belong to the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora.

Under the Israeli approach, which has expanded further since the Oslo Accords, any land that is not private was and remains suitable for Israeli development - for the benefit of the Jewish citizens of the state and for those who have the right to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return. These are exactly the lands that constitute a considerable part of Area C (which is under Israeli military and administrative responsibility, and holds 60 percent of the area of the West Bank) and prohibited for any Palestinian development. It is on these lands, which are denominated “state lands,” that two-thirds of the settlements are built. No less illegally.

The discussion of whether West Bank lands are privately owned or not reverberates far more loudly than the discussion of Israel’s takeover of the Palestinian expanse by means of the closure policy. For example, since February 5, the army has once again severed the towns of the northern West Bank from the rest of the territory by means of roadblocks, and has forbidden males between the ages of 16 and 35 from leaving their towns. The media don’t report on this.

The discussion of private land reverberates well in the Israeli (and American) media because of the exaggerated sanctification of private property. And now, Peace Now must correct its initial report of October 2006, in which it was stated that 86 percent of the area of Ma’aleh Adumim is private Palestinian land. It emerges that only .05 percent of Ma’aleh Adumim is private land.

Nonetheless, this non-ideological Jewish settlement is among the most damaging to the Palestinians, and it reinforces the regime of apartheid roads: It cuts the northern part of the West Bank off from the southern part, and prevents Palestinian territorial contiguity. The road that leads to Ma’aleh Adumim will soon be closed to Palestinians, who will be diverted to a separate, narrow and winding road. This Jewish settlement has caused the banishment of many Bedouin from their lands and their ways of life. Together with the adjacent Jewish settlements and the separation barrier, it has taken over lands that had served the Palestinian towns and villages in the area, their natural reserve for development and expansion.

And so what if this is land that was not registered as private? Because of this robbery, these villages and towns have become crowded, choking neighborhoods that are cut off from the larger expanse.

The extensive work that Peace Now has invested in exposing the private ownership of lands is a mirror image of the extensive and systematic effort of Civil Administration experts to prevent inhabitants of the villages from cultivating their lands beyond the separation barrier. They measure out for each individual his part in an inheritance and in accordance with this, they allot him the hours during which he may pass through the gate to harvest olives or to plow the land. They prevent shared cultivation of the land and calculate which of the siblings in a family is abroad so that, heaven forfend, his share of the land will not be cultivated by others.

All of this is a preliminary step to expropriate land that remains “without owners” and its transformation in the future into state land - that is, Jews’ land.

The exaggerated concentration on private ownership feeds into the Israeli denial of the fact that the Palestinians’ right is to all of the territory that has been occupied. Not as private individuals, but rather because they constitute an indigenous national group in this land.

A searing interview with Avichai Sharon and Noam Chayut, both veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces and members of Breaking the Silence. Sharon and Chayut served during the second intifada, an on-going bloodbath that has claimed the lives of over three thousand Palestinians and nine-hundred-fifty Israelis. After thorough introspection, these young men have chosen to speak out about their experiences as self-described “brutal occupiers of a disputed land.” Producer: Sat Gwin

Alternate Focus is available on the Dish Network, Free Speech TV, Channel 9415, Saturdays at 8:00pm EST and on cable stations near you. Check www.alternatefocus.org for details.

Palestine Red Crescent Society

Some examples of Palestinian civilians killed by illegal settlers:

Salman Yusef Salman a-Safdi
17 year-old resident of ‘Urif, Nablus district, killed on 26.10.2004 next to Yizhar, Nablus district, by gunfire. Additional information: Killed by a settler after he penetrated his house. He was not armed.

Sa’il Mustafa Ahmad Jabarah
46 year-old resident of Salem, Nablus district, killed on 27.09.2004 next to Salem, Nablus district, by gunfire. Additional information: Killed while driving his taxi, by a settler who wanted him to stop.

Hani Bani Maniya
22 year-old resident of ‘Aqraba, Nablus district, killed on 06.10.2002 in ‘Aqraba, Nablus district, by gunfire. Additional information: Shot and killed by settlers while harvesting his olives

Farid Mussa ‘Issa Nesasreh
28 year-old resident of Beit Furik, Nablus district, killed on 17.10.2000 in Beit Furik, Nablus district, by gunfire. Additional information: Killed by a settler from Itamar while harvesting olives near the settlement.

B’tselem

Some examples of Palestinians killed while waiting to cross checkpoints for medical reasons:

Amir Shaher ‘Abdallah al-Yazji
8 year-old resident of Gaza city, died on 19.11.2007 in Gaza city, following a delay in receiving medical care. Additional information: suffered from meningitis, and died after being refused, for more than a week, entry into Israel.

Mahmoud Kamal Kamel Abu Taha
23 year-old resident of Rafah, died on 28.10.2007 in Erez (Industrial Zone), North Gaza district, following a delay in receiving medical care. Additional information: Cancer patient dies after being delayed entry into Israel for 10 days even though he had a permit to pass.

Nimer Muhammad Salim Shuheibar
75 year-old resident of Gaza city, died on 23.10.2007 , North Gaza district, following a delay in receiving medical care. Additional information: He arrrived at the Erez checkpoint after having received a permit to enter Israel, but soldiers fired at the ambulance and ordered it to return to the hospital in Gaza. The following day, he returned to the checkpoint and was allowed to pass after waiting for more than two hours, but died when he got to the Israeli side.

Na’el ‘Abd a-Rahman Khamis al-Kurdi
21 year-old resident of Gaza city, died on 16.10.2007 in Gaza city, following a delay in receiving medical care. Additional information: a cancer patient, Israel refused to let him leave the Gaza Strip to obtain medical treatment

‘Aiseh ‘Ali Hassan ‘Absi
21 year-old resident of Qibya, Ramallah and al-Bira district, died on 22.05.2002 , Ramallah and al-Bira district, following a delay in receiving medical care. Additional information: A kidney patient, she was on her way to dialysis treatment. Soldiers at the checkpoint twice refused to let her cross; the second time, they fired a tear-gas canister at the car she was in. She died in the car.

B’tselem

Causes of Deaths of Israeli Soldiers
2005

http://philistine.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/a-genocide-in-numbers/

Israel has successfully launched a spy satellite which will be used to gather intelligence on Iran’s activities, a new report says.

The TECSAR satellite is particularly important for Israel since it can be used to ‘keep tabs on Iran’s nuclear program’, the report said citing unnamed Israeli officials.

The officials revealed that the TECSAR satellite operates with an enhanced footage technology, allowing it to transmit images regardless of daytime and weather conditions.

TESCAR is considered the Zionist regime’s most advanced satellite in orbit to date.

Israel has been backing the US efforts to isolate Iran and persuade the international community to intensify sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear standoff with the West.

Despite a report by US spy agencies last fall which conceded that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, Washington and Tel Aviv accuse Tehran of pursuing a nuclear arms program.

Iran says its nuclear activities are within the framework of the regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

MD/HGH/RE

By Carolynne Wheeler in Jerusalem

Six-year-old Maria Amin races ahead of her father on the way to school. “Hurry up, papa. The bus will leave without us,” she calls, steering her electric wheelchair with a mouth-stick towards the specially-equipped van.

	Symbol of hope: Maria Amin’s case has captured the hearts of the Israeli public

It’s a journey that, 19 months ago, it was impossible to imagine her making. In May last year, the little Palestinian girl and other family members were in her uncle’s car in Gaza when it was torn apart by shrapnel from an Israeli missile.

Travelling just ahead of them had been Mohammad Dahdouh, a senior Islamic Jihad commander responsible for directing rocket attacks against Israeli towns.

The missile hit its target, but destroyed her uncle’s car as well, killing her mother, grandmother and older brother. She was thrown out of the window - alive, but paralysed from the neck down.

The fact that today she is able to pilot herself around, using her chin to steer, is a testament to the skill of Palestinian and Israeli doctors, to the care of the Jerusalem hospital where she now lives, and to her own indomitable spirit.

It also reflects the media attention her case has drawn in Israel, which added to pressure on the Israeli government to help her.

Transferred first to a Tel Aviv hospital and then to Jerusalem’s private Alyn rehabilitation centre, after Gaza’s hospitals were unable to care for her, Maria captured the hearts of the Israeli public.

Last week she was given the good news that she will be allowed to remain where she is for at least another year - providing a flicker of hope for reconciliation in a part of the world that sorely needs it.

Her endless rounds of medical care, tests and physiotherapy are broken up by lessons at Jerusalem’s only bilingual school, where Jewish and Arab students study together in classes taught jointly by Hebrew and Arabic-speaking teachers.

It is a fitting place for a little girl who began learning Hebrew almost from the moment she arrived at the Alyn centre, and who has drawn people from both sides of this conflict to her cause.

“She is very active and has the character of a leader,” said Dalia Peretz, the Jewish Israeli who heads the Max Rayne Hand-in-Hand School with an Arab colleague. “The children like to be around Maria and to play with her, and I know many of the parents care a lot about her.”

It is one of the many ironies that permeate this conflict that Ms Pertetz’s brother is Amir Peretz, who was the Israeli defence minister when the missile struck.

Teachers say they are astonished by Maria’s ability to compensate for her limitations. Her artwork adorns the classroom’s walls, painted with the help of a paintbrush or crayon attached to a wand which she grasps with her teeth. In music lessons, she sings as loudly as her softly whooshing respirator will allow her.

“She’s marvellous,” said her music teacher, Helen Sabella. “She’s really dominant - she proves herself.”

Maria’s father, Hamdi, who survived the air strike along with her younger brother, is now devoted to looking after the two children in a family suite next to the hospital.

Each morning, he combs Maria’s hair into a neat ponytail and polishes her fingernails before accompanying her to school.

“When I saw first Jews, Christians and Muslims together without any discrimination, I was fascinated. Look at the kids playing together,” marvelled the 30-year-old former driver as he watched in the school’s courtyard.

While Maria studies, a network of Israeli volunteers is fighting to keep her here.

In the summer, the Israeli defence ministry issued an order to move her from the Alyn centre, which has a specialist unit for patients with spinal injuries, to a Palestinian hospital in Ramallah, but her doctors opposed the move, saying it was tantamount to a death sentence.

They argued that no Ramallah hospital could provide the same care, and that the Israeli checkpoints through which travellers must pass on the way to Jerusalem would prevent her from getting prompt medical help in an ­emergency.

Last week, the ministry backed down, agreeing to a one-year freeze on the deportation order while another solution was sought. Meanwhile, it is paying Maria’s tuition fees and other expenses.

However, despite the freeze, it also seems unlikely that she will stay where she is.

“She has finished the treatment in Alyn hospital, so every day that she is staying there is a waste of time and money,” said Shlomo Dror, a defence ministry spokesman.

Maria’s Israeli legal team is preparing to pursue her case in the Supreme Court. A hearing is scheduled for February.

“I’m optimistic,” said Adi Lustigman, a Jerusalem lawyer who is leading the team.

“I don’t see how the court can send Maria to Gaza or the West Bank where it’s clear she could not survive. In order to salvage what’s left, Maria needs stability.”

A former senior US intelligence official says Israel will ultimately attack Iran in order ‘to defend its nuclear monopoly’ in the region.

“I came back from a trip to Israel in November convinced that Israel would attack Iran,” said Bruce Riedel, the former CIA official and senior adviser to three US presidents, including George W. Bush, on Thursday.

Riedel said his conversations with Israeli officials and Mossad proved to him that Tel Aviv is planning to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.

“And that was before the NIE [US National Intelligence Estimate]. This makes it even more likely,” Newsweek quoted Riedel as saying.

Political pundits believe the Israelis consider the recent US intelligence assessment as a signal of Washington’s reluctance to follow the Zionist regime’s hawkish policies towards Iran.

Riedel added that the Bush administration’s failure to discuss the NIE report with Israeli intelligence agencies before its release on Dec. 3 only complicated the problem for Israel.

The prevailing view among Israeli intelligence officials is that the NIE has isolated the Zionist regime in its attempts to portray Tehran’s nuclear program as a threat.

MD/HGH/RE

A former senior CIA analyst says the United States and Israel are planning war against Iran before the next presidential election.

Ray McGovern said Monday despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate conceding that Iran is not conducting a nuclear weapons program, a joint US and Israeli war on the Islamic Republic is likely to happen.

The former analyst expounded that the close American relationship with Israel, which alleges Iran is a threat to its existence and to the international community, is the driving force behind a potential strike.

McGovern called on those wishing to prevent a military conflict with Iran to voice their opposition to President Bush’s headstrong approach towards Tehran and its nuclear program.

Although the report by US intelligence services has meant another embarrassment for the White House over its accusation against Tehran, the US president seems to be indifferent to the assessment.

President Bush, who is scheduled to visit Jerusalem in January, bald-facedly continues his rhetoric against the Islamic Republic, claiming Tehran poses a threat to the international community.

MD/MG

Scott Wilson

GAZA CITY — The batteries are the size of a button on a man’s shirt, small silvery dots that power hearing aids for several hundred Palestinian students taught by the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza City.

In the meantime, Gazans improvise. “We’ve bought 20 tons of coffee from every store here we could find,” said Riyadh Haigar, owner of the popular Delice Coffee Shop. “Maybe it’ll last a month. Then we close the doors.”