"U.N. secretary general visits devastated Gaza" by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Louis Charbonneau | January 20, 2009
Palestinian boys climb the ruins of a destroyed mosque in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip January 20, 2009. (REUTERS/Jerry Lampen)
GAZA (Reuters) - Voicing shock at stark scenes of destruction, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, and Israel was poised to withdraw its troops before the U.S. presidential inauguration later in the day.
Ban, on a Middle East tour, was the highest-ranking international figure to visit the territory since separately declared ceasefires by Israel and Hamas ended a 22-day Israeli offensive and Palestinian cross-border rocket attacks.
"I have seen only a fraction of the destruction. This is shocking and alarming," Ban said, condemning the "excessive use" of force by Israel and militants' rocket salvoes.
"These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today," he told a news conference held against a backdrop of still smoldering food aid in a U.N. warehouse set ablaze by Israeli gunfire last Thursday.
Need more? Go HERE
Also see: Gaza's Overcrowded Graves
Echoing his comments at the time, Ban called the Israeli attack on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency compound outrageous and demanded an investigation. Israel apologized after the incident but said its forces were responding to shooting from gunmen at the United Nations Relief and Works (UNRWA) facility.
Once again, Israel is LYING!!!
Hamas held a rally outside the compound during Ban's visit, calling for international recognition of its Gaza-based government.... Many Palestinians returned to the rubble of what used to be their homes in Gaza city suburbs that were hard hit during the fighting. They picked through debris, trying to salvage belongings.
Two children playing with unexploded ordnance were killed when it detonated, Hamas officials said....
That sounds like CLUSTER BOMBS to me!
"Hamas reclaims Gaza as fragile cease-fire holds; Israelis seek full pullout by inauguration" by Ashraf Khalil, Los Angeles Times | January 20, 2009
A Palestinian family made their way home yesterday as Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip after a 22-day assault. (Abid Katib/ Getty Images)
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip - Uniformed police officers returned to the streets of Gaza yesterday, machine guns in tow, as Hamas declared that Israel's 22-day air and land assault had done nothing to weaken the militant group's authority here.
"Hamas emerged from this battle with its head held high," said Hamad al-Ruqb, a Hamas official in the southern city of Khan Yunis. "Every Israeli attack only increases our support."
As the cease-fire held, Israeli tanks and soldiers continued their withdrawal from the coastal enclave yesterday. Israeli officials said they hoped to pull all troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama was inaugurated as president today, the Associated Press reported. That would avoid subjecting Obama to a Mideast problem on his first day in office.
But Israeli government officials stressed that today's deadline would not be met if militants resumed rocket attacks. Gaza residents emerged from weeks of hiding to assess the damage. In addition to a death toll estimated at more than 1,300, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimated infrastructure and economic losses at almost $2 billion.
The agency's director said 21,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed, including 4,100 homes, about 1,500 factories and workshops, 20 mosques, and 10 water or sewage lines.... As the tanks continued to withdraw, the full scope of the destruction came into focus.
In the village of Al Fukhari, outside Khan Yunis, it looked like a magnitude-7 earthquake had struck, leaving a collection of 15 homes belonging to a single extended family a swath of churned destruction the size of a city block. Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled through this agricultural patch last week, destroying every building in sight.
More WAR CRIMES from Iz-ray-HELL!
Residents picked through the wreckage among muddy, thigh-high tread marks, salvaging clothing, blankets, and undamaged cinder blocks, hauling anything usable away on tractors and donkey carts.
"They even killed the chickens and the turkeys," shouted Faour Atteya, 50, a high school teacher. "They killed the cats!"
NO RESPECT for ANY LIFE WHATSOEVER, NaZionist scum!!!!!
At Atteya's feet, his son, Yasser, 2, sat wailing atop a small pile of muddied clothes. Colorful bits of debris jutted out of a nearby pile of rubble: a small plastic chair, bits of construction paper, and an Arabic coloring book. "This was the neighborhood nursery school run by a charitable organization," Atteya said.
A short drive away in the village of Al Khozaa, residents pointed cautiously at the lone Israeli tank still visible in the distance. A fierce tank thrust destroyed some dozen homes here, killing at least 13 people....
The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, warned Hamas against firing rockets. "If Hamas fires one Kassam to the south or anywhere else in Israel, it will be struck again, and Hamas knows it," she said on Israeli radio.
Gotcha, Zip: The Gaza Rocket Squads
--more-""Hamas declares victory in rallies across Gaza" by Karin Laub and Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press Writers | January 20, 2009
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip --Waving green Islamic flags atop the ruins of Gaza, Hamas proclaimed victory in rallies attended by thousands of supporters Tuesday, saying it survived Israel's military onslaught despite the destruction and massive death toll suffered by Gazans.
Yeah, here they are:
Palestinians stand on the rubble of the destroyed house of senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan, killed by an Israeli air strike earlier this month, during a pro-Hamas demonstration in Jabalya in the Northern Gaza Strip, January 20, 2009.
Beyond its fiery words, however, Hamas offered no plans for rebuilding Gaza, which suffered some $2 billion in damage during three weeks of fighting. Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt, largely sealed since the Islamic militants seized power 19 months ago, remain closed and are unlikely to open unless the militants relinquish some control.
Why should HAMAS HAVE TO REBUILD GAZA?
That is ISRAEL'S OBLIGATION under INTERNATIONAL LAW!
Israel has also claimed victory, but neither side was the clear winner.
Yes there is because HAMAS is STILL STANDING and Israel had to STOP!
The fighting killed some 1,300 Gazans, the vast majority civilians, and thousands of Palestinian homes were destroyed.
WAR CRIMES ALL!
Israel emerged from the war with relatively few casualties -- 13 dead, including 10 soldiers -- but halted fire before reaching its objectives....
Then THEY LOST!
No internationally backed truce deal is yet in place to prevent Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel or arms smuggling into Gaza.
How about ISRAEL'S IMPORTATION of ARMAMENTS? There a ban on them?
Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Gaza by Tuesday evening, coinciding with the inauguration in Washington of Barack Obama as president. However, the temporary cease-fire remained shaky. Israel's air force struck a Gaza mortar squad after it shelled Israel, the military said.
First, I question who shot it, and second, HOW can they call it a UNILATERAL CEASE-FIRE if ISRAEL is STILL SHOOTING?
Hamas held more than a dozen victory rallies across Gaza, choosing bombed-out buildings as backdrops to underscore its message of defiance and its claim to have survived battle against a vastly more powerful enemy.
Addressing a crowd near Gaza City's demolished parliament building, Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader, declared: "Hamas today is more powerful." Nearby, militants held up a huge banner proclaiming in Hebrew: "Hamas is victorious. Israel has been defeated."
A few hundred yards away, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon toured the local U.N. headquarters, inspecting damage from an Israeli shelling attack last week. It hit three warehouses where flour, oil and other food rations for Gaza's needy were stored.
Piles of rice, beans and medicine still smoldered Tuesday, sending white smoke into the air. Ban said he felt "utter frustration, utter anger" over the shelling of the compound and two U.N. schools, and demanded a full investigation. As he spoke, the buzz of Israeli unmanned aircraft could be heard overhead....
Then DO SOMETHING, Ban, other than wring your hands like you did two years ago in Lebanon.
During a tour, Ban was told that hundreds of tons of food and medicine were destroyed. "It's totally outrageous and unacceptable," he said, shaking his head. He later visited the Israeli border town of Sderot, a frequent target of Hamas rockets and expressed sympathy with residents.
"You live every day with a threat of a rocket falling from the sky. No human being can live in a state like this," Ban said. "I expect basic humanitarian law to protect civilian life to be respected and restored and not violated as Hamas has done."
Translation: He went right back to jerking off his NaZionist masters.
It's why I no longer have faith in the U.N.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has reported that 156 militants were killed in the fighting, including 48 from Hamas, 34 from Islamic Jihad and the rest from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement and smaller factions.
However, a Gaza Health Ministry official who also keeps track of casualties, Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, said he believes Hamas and other militant groups have not reported all their dead fighters.
I accuse Israel of the same.
Hamas leaders have not spoken publicly about the number of fighters killed so as not to hurt militants' morale. Two of the top five Hamas leaders were killed in the Israeli bombings.
Either way, they are ALL INNOCENT!!
They have EVERY RIGHT to RESIST OCCUPATION and COLONIZATION!
