Tag: israel/palestine

No innocents in Qana, say rabbis

I await the worldwide indignation at this form of religious barbarism with trepidation:

Yesha Rabbinical Council: During time of war, enemy has no innocents

The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that “according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as ‘innocents’ of the enemy.”

All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians,” the statement said.

Maybe they can have a Reformation…

Pictures from Bint Jbeil, Qana

It looks like the war will be lasting for another two weeks from what Israeli officials are saying, and the Bush administration’s line has not fundamentally changed since, since they are unwilling to impose a ceasefire. And this current trend seems to be leading nowhere, with even the Brookings people now critical.

Meanwhile, the pictures of carnage continue to stream in from Lebanon. Here is a set from Bint Jbail, and one from Qana and the south. Editor of as-Safir Hanady Salman, who collected the pictures, writes:

So July is over. Now it’s Beirut, August 2006.

I don’t know if any of you are reporters who covered wars in their homeland. But it’s really weird, somehow “funny”.

Editors crying while reading their reporters’ stories, photographers breaking down, colleagues calling their kids in the middle of the night after seeing pictures from the south, weird sounds during editorial meetings ( you know how men like to hide their tears and emotions) , women wearing black as a “natural reflex”, men growing the beards, even our publisher doesn’t wear suits anymore.

People are sleeping here, somewhere in the basement. Women sleep in the nearby furnished apartment building.

Continue reading Pictures from Bint Jbeil, Qana

Downtown under siege again…

I won’t be posting a report on today’s Kefaya pro-resistance demo, as I couldn’t go. But you can check some demo pix here.
Jano Charbel of dpa who attended the protest told me he was punched and beaten by batton-wielding CSF, who took his bag, and returned it later without his mobile phone nor the money that was in it. Others were also assaulted including blogger Alaa Seif who was beaten so much that his shirt was shredded, and activist Ahmad Droubi was beaten on the head, shoulders, and his eyeglasses were smashed by plainclothes thugs. Droubi told me shortly before the crackdown, he saw and overheard one of the plainclothes thugs eagerly asking a CSF Lt Colonel, “When are we going to get some action ya basha?” I was also told several female protestors were manhandled by the plainclothes thugs.
CSF attacking demonstrators in downtown Cairo
Al-Jazeera reported there were similar pro-resistance protests that took place in Tanta and Bani Suweif.
On another note, I won’t be blogging for the coming ten days at least, as I have some urgent personal errands I have to take care of.

See you soon…

Actors and Artists demonstrate for Lebanon today

The Actor’s Guild and the Artists’ Syndicate have called for a sit-in at the UN office in Cairo, today Monday, to protest the Qana massacre.
The actors and artists will assemble in front of the Guild, located in el-Bahr el-A3zam Street in Giza, at noon, and will move in buses and cars to Garden City, where the UN office is located.

Several actors and artists have joined the ranks of dissent since the launching of Kefaya, in addition to others who’ve known to come into the art scene from activism background. The most outspoken actor/activist has been Khaled el-Sawy, the star from the box office hit The Yaacoubian Building. He together with the novel author, Alaa el-Aswani, had helped launch Artists For Change last year, as one of Kefaya’s offshoots.

Israel to suspend aerial operations for 48 hours, US says

I’m watching Al-Jazeera now. The channel has just announced that the US State Department said Israel agreed to suspend aerial operations for 48 hours, and will investigate what happened in Qana.

UPDATE: Now Al-Jazeera is saying that “Israel’s temporary suspension of aerial bombardments does not cover missile launch batteries.”

HRW holds Israel responsible for Qana war crime

HRW issued a statement denouncing Israel’s massacre in Qana today…

Israel/Lebanon: Israel Responsible for Qana Attack
Indiscriminate Bombing in Lebanon a War Crime

(Beirut, July 30, 2006) – Responsibility for the Israeli airstrikes that killed at least 54 civilians sheltering in a home in the Lebanese village of Qana rests squarely with the Israeli military, Human Rights Watch said today. It is the latest product of an indiscriminate bombing campaign that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have waged in Lebanon over the past 18 days, leaving an estimated 750 people dead, the vast majority of them civilians.

Continue reading HRW holds Israel responsible for Qana war crime

Pictures from Qana

Hanady Salman, an editor at as-Safir newspaper, writes about today’s massacre in Qana:

Qana – Sunday July 30th , 2006

Only to let you know that these are 55 civilians, all killed , 20 of them are kids betwween 7 months and 12 years old.
Only to let you know that a number of these children are handicapped, they were hit in the last Qana massacre in 1996.
Only to let you know CNN and BBC are hosting IDF spokespeople who tell the world that these civilians were warned to leave , but they just didn’t.
Only to let you know the air strikes took place at 1:00 am , all they people were sleeping, in their pyjamas, bare feet, in a shelter. The house was hit twice. Twice. To make sure they will all die.
Only to let you know that despite the fact that we’re animals, but it would have been impossible for animals to sleep had there been any shelling from anywhere close , as the IDF alleges.
Only to let you know you free media won’t show you these pictures.
Only to let you know that this is not the first time this happens , and I can promise you it won’t be the last time.

She also sent pictures, which have been uploaded to the Flickr account. As always, be warned: they are very graphic. There is also a previous set from a few days ago here, and another of the environmental damage done by oil spills from Israeli warships on Lebanon’s beaches.
The 1996 Qana massacre was largely ignored by the international community after the initial outrage that forced Israel to stop its “Grapes of Wrath” operation. But there never was any follow up beyond condemnations by human rights groups, as the Wikipedia entry linked above notes:

Amnesty International conducted an on-site investigation of the incident in collaboration with military experts, using interviews with UNIFIL staff and civilians in the compound, and posing questions to the IDF, who did not reply. Amnesty concluded, “the IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound, although the motives for doing so remain unclear. The IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake. Even if they were to do so they would still bear responsibility for killing so many civilians by taking the risk to launch an attack so close to the UN compound.”

Human Rights Watch concurred, “The decision of those who planned the attack to choose a mix of high-explosive artillery shells that included deadly anti-personnel shells designed to maximize injuries on the ground — and the sustained firing of such shells, without warning, in close proximity to a large concentration of civilians — violated a key principle of international humanitarian law.”

Ten years later and Israel carries out the same attack. It might have not if senior officers who made the decision had been pursued for war crimes, of if the US had put pressure or ended weapon shipments to a state that is a serial war crimes committer, it might not have happened.

Qana 27 Ap

Qana 4 Ap

Israel’s cyber-psy-ops

The following comment came from one of the blog’s readers on the posting I put earlier on the Israeli psy-ops:

To all.
I would like to inform you that your message board has been hijacked by giyus.org. This is a Zionist internet computer system designed by the Israeli government to attack any criticism to Israel and its madness. On this website they have a program which I downloaded and installed that gives to the user any updates on conversations, online polls, newspaper clips or blogs in which Israel is being discuss especially in a critical way. Then they urge you to respond. This creates a perception that more people than in reality agree with Zionism and Israel in general. This is how I got to this blog. Please download the program yourself and let everyone know that Israel has hijacked their legitimate discussion to create “false� public opinion.
GIYUS.ORG = Zionist propoganda

Mosestruth

I found this Electronic Intifada article on this software
Israel’s Foreign Ministry provides Free Internet Tool to online activists