Alex Jones’ Prison Planet.com » Israeli airstrikes kill 363 in four-day campaign in Gaza

Israeli airstrikes kill 363 in four-day campaign in Gaza

RIA Novosti
Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008

At least 13 Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded overnight as Israel continued to carry out airstrikes on Gaza overnight bringing the death toll to 363, a Palestinian emergencies official said on Tuesday.

Some 1,750 Palestinians have also been injured in the four-day offensive, which Israel launched on Saturday in what it called “an all-out war” against Hamas in response to militant rocket attacks on southern border towns from Gaza.

Eyewitnesses said Israel launched at least 50 airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip targeting government buildings, including the prime minister’s office, the interior, defense and finance ministries, as well as schools and the Islamic University, which is viewed as an “ideological cradle” for Islamists.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

In response to Israeli airstrikes, Palestinian militants launched over 80 rockets and mortar shells on southern Israel killing three people with over 35 others injured, some of them seriously.

Defense minister Ehud Barak announced “a special situation” for settlements located within a 30-km zone from Gaza, including Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Netivot and Sderot, which have a combined population of over 400,000.

Regions which directly border Gaza have been declared a “closed military zone.”

Tel Aviv has mobilized up to 6,500 reservists and deployed tanks on Gaza’s border in preparation for a possible ground offensive on the coastal enclave of 1.5 million Palestinians.

Foreign ministers of EU countries will gather in Paris later Tuesday for emergency talks on Gaza. The meeting, to be chaired by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, will focus on combining efforts with the rest of the international community to find a way to overcome the crisis.

Comment Terms Of Use

4 Responses to “Israeli airstrikes kill 363 in four-day campaign in Gaza”

whiteknight Says:
December 30th, 2008 at 11:49 pm

impeachbush.org

seneca264 Says:
December 31st, 2008 at 9:24 pm

Israel needs to pick up the pace and bump the body count up a few thousand.

Dork Says:
January 10th, 2009 at 3:27 am

Hamas has been launching their souped up fire works into Israhell for years, killing a few. Most of these homemade rockets are complete junk, lacking in accuracy and lethal force. palestinians need some of those Russian sunburns to even up the game.

WILD MAN Says:
January 18th, 2009 at 8:19 am

Assassinating individual members of Hamas, even toppling the
organisation, destroying its infrastructure and buildings, will not
destroy the legitimate opposition to the arrogant and self-righteous
Zionist entity. No army, however well equipped and trained, can win a
combat against increasing number of people who no longer have any reason
to care about dying. If there was hatred against Israelis before the
Gaza massacre, the hatred after it will be of a different order of
magnitude.

Given the sure failure of attempts to bring about stability through
violence, intimidation, starvation and humiliation, what, on earth, is
the desire that moves the Israeli state? What, do Israelis imagine,
will be achieved by this massacre? There must be something which is
suppressed here. There must be, for Israelis, some being and thinking
which is preserved, indeed defended, by the pathology of provoking a
permanent state of violence against them. What kind of
self-righteousness conditions this self-destructive desire to be hated?…

Israel needs a continuing cycle of violence. As long as this cycle is
provoked through daily oppression, Israelis can sustain that haven in
which they can unite behind their inability to examine their apartheid
mentality. Violence maintains a zone in which that existential threat
of old stifles any possibility for genuine empathy and egalitarian
self-reflection. At the same time, violence is a necessary means for
entrenching the purported legitimacy of what is claimed to be the only
alternative to this violence. That alternative is no other than the
“surprisingly” failing, “sane,” “reasonable” and “moderate peace
process” towards two states, a process which aims to legitimise the
apartheid state once and for all. The discourse has been hijacked in
such a way that the urgent calls for the immediate cessation of violence
resuscitate that non-starter, the essentially unjust two states project
that will ensure the continuation of violence.

Alas, the pathology of generating violence against oneself, violence
that suspends reflection on the core apartheid, succeeds only at the
price of generating enormous hatred. The Israeli pathology will bring
about, stealthily and fatefully, that which the Israelis fear most.
There is indeed “no choice” for the nationalistic project of the eternal
victims but to commit suicide with those whom they oppress.

The sublimated Zionist desire to be hated is the fuel of Israel’s unity
and self-righteousness. This self-destructive nature, concealed as a
desire for self defense, comes from deep and ancient forces of which
Zionism is merely a symptom and a hint. That which preserves these
self-destructive forces ensures that the eternal victims’ apartheid
nationalistic project will be a fleeting phenomenon. When arrested in
mere nationalism, the primordial victim mentality self-preserves by
generating collective suicide of that nationalistic project. The
self-defense of suicide points out the uniqueness of the Israeli
apartheid. Both the no-choice and the self-defense rhetoric contain a
chilling chronicle of suicide foretold. Despite its military might,
Israel is a weak and dying state that desires to destroy itself. The
most powerful nations in the world assist this suicidal process and this
fact calls for urgent contemplation.

Oren Ben-Dor grew up in Israel and teaches Legal and Political
Philosophy at the School of Law, University of Southampton, UK.