Israel battles Hamas as toll passes 900

AFP
Monday, Jan 12, 2008

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15 Responses to “Israel battles Hamas as toll passes 900”

1. tom Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 12:57 pm

   I bet it’s far more, maybe 1000s already, if not 10,000s. It’s obvious this is just an excuse to slaughter Palestinian dogs for a “racially pure Jewish Master” (they call themselves that, not me).

   The Jewish controlled media is hiding the reality of the casualties in Gaza as it hid the false gflag 9 /11 operation behind a screen of propaganda lies.

   But the media has no more credibility. Everyone I talk to is revolted and when so many people are revolted, the end is near. The self styled Jewish Master Race will soon see how many people share that view.

   

   Something's Happening Reply:
   January 12th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

   The media has been against Israel, just like the NWO from hundreds of years, from
   THOUSANDS of years. That means I support Israel, what the NWO is against I support!
   http://www.dailymotion.com/sea.....lines_news
   The Beauty Of Hamas and the Ugliness of Israel 1/2
   End the ILLEGAL Arab OCCUPATION of the Holy Land!
   Arabs out of Israel! Go home to Egypt and Syria!
   Israel has a right to defend itself!
   “palestinian” propaganda machine lies!

2. Rob in CT Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

   Ah yes, now here is what the NWO is all about — killing, stealing, and destroying — isn’t that what Satan is all about?

   BTW, using depleted uranium in Gaza is a war crime. It will cause cancer until someone cleans that insoluble stuff up.

3. Malachi4 Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 1:27 pm

   The reporting leaves a lot to be desired.

4. Karema Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 2:15 pm

   Tom, Palestinians don’t call themselves dogs have you lost your mind! I get your message about the media, but get your facts straight. Have you spoken with any Muslim or Palestinians – ever? I guarantee you if you called a Palestinian or a Muslim a “dog” you would be in a dog fight. Muslims can’t even have dogs near their prayer areas or in Mosque. You will not find a practicing Muslim with a dog in their homes. Don’t discredit a good point by making an ignorant statement.

5. anony Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 3:00 pm

   IDF: More than 650 Hamas Terrorists Killed in Gaza
   by Maayana Miskin

   (IsraelNN.com) Over 650 armed Hamas terrorists have been killed since the Cast Lead operation in Gaza began more than two weeks ago, senior IDF officials said Monday. Four hundred are known to have been working with Hamas, while at least another 250 of those killed are believed to have been fighting for the terrorist group, they explained.

   Many of the dead were killed in clashes with IDF ground troops. Fifty were killed on Monday, officers estimated.

   Approximately 900 residents of Gaza have been killed in the operation. Of the roughly 250 killed who were not members of Hamas, some were members of other terror groups, while others were killed by stray fire, many after leaving their homes despite the fighting.

   The IDF continued to hit Gaza targets on Monday. Israel Air Force planes hit more than 25 targets, including 10 groups of Hamas terrorists, two of them in moving vehicles. Also hit were mortar shell launchers and launch pads.

   Soldiers fighting in Gaza have continued to discover tunnels and weapons caches. On Monday, soldiers discovered anti-aircraft missiles and mortar shells, along with guns and smaller bombs. A tunnel was found underneath a house in northern Gaza.

   Despite the heavy casualties suffered by Gaza terrorists, groups continued to fire rockets at Israeli cities on Monday, hitting Ashkelon and Be’er Sheva along with several smaller towns. The frequency of rocket fire has decreased, however, with terrorists firing just over 20 rockets a day compared to over 70 a day in the first week of the operation.

   

   CW Hale Reply:
   January 12th, 2009 at 7:15 pm

   GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – In 17 days of war, Hisham Abu Ramadan has fallen into a new routine.

   He gets up before dawn and goes to his mosque, not just to pray, but to charge his cellphone, since it’s the only place in the neighbourhood with a generator. After prayers, he gets in line at a nearby bakery, where as many as 150 people are already waiting to buy bread. “We’ve gotten accustomed to this life,” said Abu Ramadan, 37.

   Others face a tougher time.

   In Khaled al-Dali’s two-room shack in the Shati refugee camp, 21 people – half of them relatives who fled the fighting – take turns sleeping because there aren’t enough mattresses to go around. Without fuel, the family cooks on fires made from trash. He has sold most of his furniture to buy food.

   Gazans have become adept at coping with conflict, including curfews, street clashes and, most recently, severe shortages created by an 18-month border blockade by Israel and Egypt.

   But Israel’s unprecedented assault on Gaza’s Hamas rulers – with nearly 900 people killed, some 3,400 wounded and tens of thousands displaced – has strained even their survival skills.

   The massive bombardment has badly disrupted the flow of electricity and water, already stop-and-go before the start of the war. Israel has cut Gaza in half, cutting north and south off from each other.

   During the short daylight hours, shoppers crowd the few open stores and outdoor markets in a hunt for scarce goods, from diapers to dairy. At dusk, streets quickly become deserted as civilians retreat indoors, for fear of being mistaken for militants by Israel’s military.

   “Everything is difficult now – eating, drinking, moving,” said Mohammed Saleimeh, 26. When electricity comes on in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the women in his 20-member family rush to bake bread. When water comes on, they wash the cloth diapers they now use instead of disposable ones.

   In southern Israel, Hamas rocket barrages have also severely disrupted life, sending people rushing into shelters when air raid sirens go off. Many businesses have closed and classes have been suspended, but residents have adequate supplies of food, electricity and fuel.

   In Gaza, the ability to cope largely depends on how much of a buffer, in food and cash, families had going into the war, and in part on their ties to Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

   Mohammed Awad, a senior Hamas official, told the movement’s Al Aqsa TV on Sunday that 25,000 people on the Hamas payroll, from police to civil servants, have received their December salaries.

   Hamas members said the money is being paid in cash, with Hamas activists making the rounds to distribute it. A man with a trimmed beard was seen handing out money from a suitcase in the hallway of a building in one Gaza City neighbourhood, then asking employees to sign a receipt.

   Abu Ramadan is a former member of the security forces ousted during Hamas’ violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007, and still draws his salary from Hamas’ rival, the West Bank government of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He can still afford to buy drinking water and fill up the tank on the roof of his high-rise in the Sheik Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City.

   His family of five eats lentils, beans and canned foods. Tomatoes are available, but have tripled in price, to about $2 per kilogram. Only 20 of 47 bakeries are operating, according to the bakers’ union, explaining the long lines for bread.

   In the Shati camp, al-Dali, 33, was already broke at the start of the fighting, struggling to feed his wife and seven children, ages five through 14. A few days ago, he took in his sister, her husband and 10 children, who fled shelling outside their home close to the border with Israel.

   They escaped with just the clothes on their backs. On Monday, al-Dali’s sister Salwa, 42, was stirring a pot of lentils and rice on a fire of paper, cardboard cartons and other debris. The refrigerator was empty, except for a few onions and tomatoes.

   Salwa said she added extra salt to the cooking water in the belief that it would help rid it of germs. Many Gazans have taken to boiling drinking water too, since local water authorities warned of deteriorating quality last week. She said she tries to feed the kids as late in the day as possible so they don’t go to bed hungry.

   Al-Dali said the food will last until Tuesday, and he doesn’t know where the next meal will come from. “I have no other business but to secure something to eat, water to drink and some wood and paper to warm them during the night,” he said. “I feel ashamed of myself. I can do nothing for them.”

   In Zahra City, a complex of high-rises south of Gaza City, school teacher Jihan Sarsawi said she now washes in a bucket because running water is scarce, but only if there’s no shelling.

   “I’m afraid they’ll shell the building and I’ll be undressed, which would be really embarrassing, so last night I slept in my clothes, without bathing,” she said.

   Sarsawi also abstains from food and drink from sunrise to sunset every Monday and Thursday. “It lengthens out the food rations,” she said.

   Israel has allowed some humanitarian aid convoys to enter, but the shipments and distribution are often disrupted by fighting. The United Nations resumed aid distribution Monday after suspending it for several days after a truck driver on UN assignment was killed by Israeli fire.

   Gaza economist Omar Shaban, who lives in the town of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, said his house gets six hours of electricity a day and running water twice a week, for about eight hours.

   He has a small garden where he occasionally plays football with his sons, ages 10 and 16. Central Gaza has suffered less destruction than Gaza City, and Shaban said his family manages to get out of the house almost every day, for trips to the market or relatives in town. Most shops are closed, he said.

   Supermarket owner Zaher Abdel Hadi in Gaza City said he’s selling mostly on credit now because people are broke or can’t get their money out of the bank because of a long-standing cash shortage.

   “No one is leaving empty-handed,” he said of his customers. “We have to be brothers in this war.”

   -

   Laub reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah and Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem also contributed to this report.

6. Mark Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

   I hope the Palestinians adopt the slogan that Iraqi press officer Mohammed Al Sahaf (What a legend)
   said when the invasion into their country happened.
   I wish Palestinians say the same about the Isreali invasion of Gaza.
   “We will defeat them, we will fight them till we clean our country from their dirts….they dropped their forces there and now they are in a trap…… I think we will finnish most of them soon(Invading Isreali forces) My feelings as usual we will stutter them all those invaders (Isrealis) their tombs will be here in Gaza…. we are going to tackle them and destroy them….its baseless the Isrealis are liars….their allegations I think is some kind of a cover to their failure…they are not in hold of any palestinian town they are on the move…as I have mentioned they are decieving their soldiers and officers that aggressing against Gaza and invading Gaza will be like a picnic while this is a very stupid lie they are telling their soldiers what they are facing is a definite death….they are trapped everywhere in the country…they hold no place in Palestine this is an illusion…the Isrealis are a superpower of Villains really they are a superpower of Al Capone…this is the level this is the real reputation of this gang….The crook Barak said they are hunting Hamas and yesterday I replied to that cheap lie….Those stooges those villains think by widening their warcrimes they are weakening us they are not only wrong they are criminal criminals and stupid…this gang of warcriminals, yesterday we heard this villain called Netanyahu he is of course a war criminal and he is one of the worst of the Isreali rulers… this stooge Bush this bloody failure fantastic this man really I think the American nation has never been faced with a tragedy like this fellow….let them in their illusions…It is a firm belief that we are winning this war and we will win the war. The final will be a palestinian victory”

   Now I would rather listen to Mr Sahaf than listen to lies from the Murdoch zionist controlled FOX News.
   God I miss Mohammed Al Sahaf he should be press officer for the Palestinians.
   FREE PALESTINE!

7. transPhat Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 5:48 pm

   let’s try this…. using the google image search function, type palestinian… leave the window open and open a new browser window and do an image search such as Noam Chomsky, Albert Einstein, Steven Spielberg, Bernie Madoff, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Allan Dershowitz, Sigmund Freud, or Karl Marx- all well known jews….

   now this is the tough part… let’s grant that the palestinians are semites…. do you see a difference between the palestinians and the jews? no? do the jews look like caucasians?maybe the google image search function is anti-semitic… and don’t forget the nazi bloggers using photoshop…. god help us in the future!

8. CW Hale Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 7:30 pm

   By Ben Wedeman
   CNN

   JERUSALEM (CNN) — The international group Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of firing weapons containing white phosphorus into Gaza. The group demands that the alleged practice cease.

   Israel is declining to say whether bursts like this over Gaza involve white phosphorus.

   1 of 2 more photos » The group’s researchers in Israel “observed multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over what appeared to be the Gaza City/Jabaliya area” on Friday and Saturday, the organization said on its Web site.

   “Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus as an ‘obscurant’ [a chemical used to hide military operations], a permissible use in principle” under the laws of war, the HRW posting said.

   “However, white phosphorus has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire,” the posting said. “The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza’s high population density, among the highest in the world.”

   HRW said the use of white phosphorus in Gaza would violate “the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life.”

   Last week, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman told CNN: “I can tell you with certainty that white phosphorus is absolutely not being used.”

   Now, however, Israeli officials have a different response to questions about the possible use of phosphorus: “Any munitions that Israel is using are in accordance with international law. Israel does not specify the types of munitions or the types of operations it is conducting.”

   Still, a doctor familiar with the material said it is not possible to tell, based on pictures of burns, whether white phosphorus was responsible.

   “Dead tissue pretty much looks the same,” said Dr. Peter Grossman, president of the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks, California.

   The chemical “can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch.

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   Since January 3, when Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza, news reports have circulated about the possible use of white phosphorus by the IDF.

   HRW’s assertion was supported by munitions experts and some Palestinian doctors, including Nafiz Abu Sha’aban, who said the burns it caused were unlike anything he has seen in 27 years of practice. Watch footage of burn patients in Gaza

   Though most severely burned patients have been sent to Egypt, the ongoing fighting has made it impossible to evacuate all of them, including one man with deep burns over 47 percent of his body, the doctor said.

   White phosphorus is known to burn flesh down to the bone.

   It’s intended to provide illumination or to create a smokescreen in battle. Under an international protocol ratified by Israel in 1995, the use of such incendiary weapons is allowed when “not specifically designed to cause burn injury to persons.”

   There is no prohibition per se against white phosphorus in conflict. But the timing and location of its use are restricted.

   For example, it is illegal under the protocol to use white phosphorus against any personnel, civilian or military. It can be directed only against military targets. International law says incendiary weapons cannot be used where civilians are concentrated.

   A house north of Gaza City was hit Sunday by something that observers contend may have been white phosphorus.

   “It’s been burning since one o’clock in the morning,” Munir Hammada told CNN 11 hours later. “If you move it with your feet, it reignites. You can’t put it out with water, only sand.”

   Those characteristics match the properties of white phosphorus, which ignites

9. seneca264 Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 8:40 pm

   The IDF needs to bump up this body count. I guess they are just getting warmed up. We should see better numbers in a few days. Urban warfare is dangerous and tedious. They can only clear one building at a time before advancing. Each block that is cleared then has to be held by at least on platoon. This operaton takes many troops.

   

   CW Hale Reply:
   January 12th, 2009 at 8:42 pm

   CW Hale Reply:

   January 12th, 2009 at 7:15 pm

   GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – In 17 days of war, Hisham Abu Ramadan has fallen into a new routine.

   He gets up before dawn and goes to his mosque, not just to pray, but to charge his cellphone, since it’s the only place in the neighbourhood with a generator. After prayers, he gets in line at a nearby bakery, where as many as 150 people are already waiting to buy bread. “We’ve gotten accustomed to this life,” said Abu Ramadan, 37.

   Others face a tougher time.

   In Khaled al-Dali’s two-room shack in the Shati refugee camp, 21 people – half of them relatives who fled the fighting – take turns sleeping because there aren’t enough mattresses to go around. Without fuel, the family cooks on fires made from trash. He has sold most of his furniture to buy food.

   Gazans have become adept at coping with conflict, including curfews, street clashes and, most recently, severe shortages created by an 18-month border blockade by Israel and Egypt.

   But Israel’s unprecedented assault on Gaza’s Hamas rulers – with nearly 900 people killed, some 3,400 wounded and tens of thousands displaced – has strained even their survival skills.

   The massive bombardment has badly disrupted the flow of electricity and water, already stop-and-go before the start of the war. Israel has cut Gaza in half, cutting north and south off from each other.

   During the short daylight hours, shoppers crowd the few open stores and outdoor markets in a hunt for scarce goods, from diapers to dairy. At dusk, streets quickly become deserted as civilians retreat indoors, for fear of being mistaken for militants by Israel’s military.

   “Everything is difficult now – eating, drinking, moving,” said Mohammed Saleimeh, 26. When electricity comes on in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the women in his 20-member family rush to bake bread. When water comes on, they wash the cloth diapers they now use instead of disposable ones.

   In southern Israel, Hamas rocket barrages have also severely disrupted life, sending people rushing into shelters when air raid sirens go off. Many businesses have closed and classes have been suspended, but residents have adequate supplies of food, electricity and fuel.

   In Gaza, the ability to cope largely depends on how much of a buffer, in food and cash, families had going into the war, and in part on their ties to Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

   Mohammed Awad, a senior Hamas official, told the movement’s Al Aqsa TV on Sunday that 25,000 people on the Hamas payroll, from police to civil servants, have received their December salaries.

   Hamas members said the money is being paid in cash, with Hamas activists making the rounds to distribute it. A man with a trimmed beard was seen handing out money from a suitcase in the hallway of a building in one Gaza City neighbourhood, then asking employees to sign a receipt.

   Abu Ramadan is a former member of the security forces ousted during Hamas’ violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007, and still draws his salary from Hamas’ rival, the West Bank government of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He can still afford to buy drinking water and fill up the tank on the roof of his high-rise in the Sheik Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City.

   His family of five eats lentils, beans and canned foods. Tomatoes are available, but have tripled in price, to about $2 per kilogram. Only 20 of 47 bakeries are operating, according to the bakers’ union, explaining the long lines for bread.

   In the Shati camp, al-Dali, 33, was already broke at the start of the fighting, struggling to feed his wife and seven children, ages five through 14. A few days ago, he took in his sister, her husband and 10 children, who fled shelling outside their home close to the border with Israel.

   They escaped with just the clothes on their backs. On Monday, al-Dali’s sister Salwa, 42, was stirring a pot of lentils and rice on a fire of paper, cardboard cartons and other debris. The refrigerator was empty, except for a few onions and tomatoes.

   Salwa said she added extra salt to the cooking water in the belief that it would help rid it of germs. Many Gazans have taken to boiling drinking water too, since local water authorities warned of deteriorating quality last week. She said she tries to feed the kids as late in the day as possible so they don’t go to bed hungry.

   Al-Dali said the food will last until Tuesday, and he doesn’t know where the next meal will come from. “I have no other business but to secure something to eat, water to drink and some wood and paper to warm them during the night,” he said. “I feel ashamed of myself. I can do nothing for them.”

   In Zahra City, a complex of high-rises south of Gaza City, school teacher Jihan Sarsawi said she now washes in a bucket because running water is scarce, but only if there’s no shelling.

   “I’m afraid they’ll shell the building and I’ll be undressed, which would be really embarrassing, so last night I slept in my clothes, without bathing,” she said.

   Sarsawi also abstains from food and drink from sunrise to sunset every Monday and Thursday. “It lengthens out the food rations,” she said.

   Israel has allowed some humanitarian aid convoys to enter, but the shipments and distribution are often disrupted by fighting. The United Nations resumed aid distribution Monday after suspending it for several days after a truck driver on UN assignment was killed by Israeli fire.

   Gaza economist Omar Shaban, who lives in the town of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, said his house gets six hours of electricity a day and running water twice a week, for about eight hours.

   He has a small garden where he occasionally plays football with his sons, ages 10 and 16. Central Gaza has suffered less destruction than Gaza City, and Shaban said his family manages to get out of the house almost every day, for trips to the market or relatives in town. Most shops are closed, he said.

   Supermarket owner Zaher Abdel Hadi in Gaza City said he’s selling mostly on credit now because people are broke or can’t get their money out of the bank because of a long-standing cash shortage.

   “No one is leaving empty-handed,” he said of his customers. “We have to be brothers in this war.”

   -

   Laub reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah and Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem also contributed to this report

10. Antifraud Says:
    January 12th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

    God help the innocent Palestinians just trying to survive, and the US dissenters for being forced into subsidizing this abomination by our “fearless” leaders.

11. G. Lauren Says:
    January 12th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    Whoa folks !! THE REAL STORY HERE IS THAT THE ENTIRE WEIGHT OF THE ISRAELI MILITARY IS UNABLE TO SUBDUE A REFUGEE CAMP !!!!! This is the story that is not being reported.

12. BOYCOTT ISRAEL Says:
    January 13th, 2009 at 6:43 am

    http://www.inminds.com/boycott-us-companies.html