Day 9 of Israeli War On Gaza; disastrous humanitarian situation

by Sameh Habeeb | January 4, 2009 at 11:38 am

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Gaza Strip,4, January, 2oo9- Israeli army started the ground military operation vowed of launching it years ago. Many Palestinian civilians killed and their number is dramatically rising. Meanwhile, a small number of Palestinian militants killed in the ongoing clashes through the Gaza Strip.
The operation started Saturday 8pm accompanied by heavy coverage from Artillery machine, naval gunboats and Air force. Five key access witnessed the advancement of Israeli army. In the north a group of tanks and soldiers advanced from Ertiz crossing and another group from Bait lahia town near the old settlement of Doghit.

In east of Gaza City, several tanks advanced from the crossings of Al Muntar and Nahal Oz. Part of these troops advanced south east of Gaza and cut the main street of Slah Al edin. On the south, Israeli troops occupied the airport and set military outposts. In Bait lahi town, a strike killed 17 people most of them civilians and amongst them children and medical staff of an ambulance vehicle. A number of injured were reported to be on the venue of bombings but medical vehicle were not able to reach them.

Condemnations from EU, Turkey, Arab and foreign countries didn't halt the Israeli military operation in the Strip. Humanitarian and medical conditions still dire. People committed to their houses without water due to power cuts and inability to operate key drinking water wells in Gaza.

Medicine students are being called to the local hospitals to deal with the number of victims which is dramatically going up. In opposition of Israeli key target of thing hamas militants, most of victims are civilians and this is so obvious in Gaza hospitals.

Around 10 militant killed today and all the rest are normal people who have nothing to do with firing rockets and militants.

Deadly Outcomes of Israeli Ground Military Operation:

1- Israeli Air forces strike on a water will that provides fresh drinking water for thousands in Jabal Al Kashif east of Gaza City.
2-Air raid bombarded a printing house in Al Nasir area northern west of Gaza Strip. Two Palestinians killed and they are children according to the medical sources.
3-Extensive artillery bombardment on some houses and farms near Jabal Al kashif northern Gaza Strip.
4-More than 30 shells fall down on Al Nusairat Refugee Camp within 10 minutes. Many houses damaged and several people wounded.
5-Four Palestinians killed in Rafah City near the Egyptian borders.
6-Israeli F16s bombed a house in Al Janinai quarter in Rafah City and many people wounded in the strike.
7-Massive popular emigration into some schools in Jabalia Camp. Heavy bombings taking place beside them and a case of panic amongst children and women.
8-A rocket hit a house in Al Shija'ya densly populated quarter killing a child, a woman and an old man. Several people injured and all are civilians.
9-Air strike bombed a house in Al Zaytoun neighborhood. A massive fire set in the place and some adjacent houses.
10-A total house turned to rubbles after F16 rocket hit it in Al Yarmok quarter mid of Gaza City.
11-Artillary shell destroyed Al Yazji Bakary in Al Zaytoun qauarter. One killed and tens injured while buying bread to their families. The strike was followed by fire that totally burned the bakery.
12-Israel uses phosphorous firing bombs against the Gaza Strip. Additionally, more new heavy weapons are being used for the first time.
13- Apache helicopters open heavy machine fire into group of civilians in al Zaytoun area. Many people were killed and others injured.
14-Five Palestinian militants killed in the hottest conformation. Israel says she has killed around 30 militants.
15-Hamas says she has killed 9 Israeli soldiers and injured 28 and captured two soldiers. However, Israel says 3 of its soldiers killed while 28 wounded.
16-Hamas says it she has destroyed many Israeli tanks and injured 9 Israeli soliders in the north of Gaza town of Bait Lahia.
17-Palestininian factions still fire homemade rockets into Israeli settlements despite the ground military operation.
18-Israeli tanks shelled Al shayma' buildings northern Gaza Strip.
19-Bombings in the main busy square of Gaza and near the Main market. Medical sources report that many people killed and injured. Massive damage in the buildings around.
20-Four Palestinian brothers from Barbakh family killed due to a shell hit their house in Kahn Yonis City.
21-F16s raided on building for Ministry of religious affairs mid of Gaza City. Many people injured in that highly populated area.
22-Israel hit a group of innocent civilians sheltered to a school north of Gaza Strip. Medical sources states that around 8 killed and other number wounded.
23-News spread that Israel is asking hundreds of families to leave their houses in Al Moghraqa area. This areas is near the borders where Israelis started the ground military operation south east of Gaza.
24- A woman killed in Al Zaytoun quarter due to a rocket destroyed her house. Many people wounded in the strike.
25-Local Radios: A number of victims in an air strike near a mosque in Al Zaytoun quarter.
26-Israel uses strange smoking bombings on the ground while deadly fighting is taking place across Gaza strip.
27-Israeli tanks and armored vehicles occupied the sole Gaza airport in Rafah City. The airport was totally damaged before and bombed by tens of rockets and shells yesterday.
28-Israeli army bombed house of Al hilo family eastern Gaza City.
29-Palestinian militants they tried to fire an Israeli Apache.
30-A house for Dardona family bombed in Jabalia. One woman killed.
31-Israeli air force targeted city council of Om Al Nasir town in Rafah City.
32-Thousands of People flee their houses in the middle of Gaza Strip into Al Nusairat Refugee Camp.
33-Shalat family hit by an Israeli rocket and many people wounded.
34-Two children from Al Mashrawi family killed in Israeli bombing to their home.
35- Two Palestinians killed and many wounded in an Israeli Air force bombed Salah El din street between Khan Yonis and Rafah City. The bombings caused great damage in Electricity, water and infrastructure network services. Many people are not having water.
36-Israeli army shells Om Al nasir and Al atatra family.
37-Airforce raided on Al Omoor quarter near Rafah City.
38-Israeli Apaches heavily fire Al zaytoun area; many houses were affected.
39-Ambulance and Medical officer killed by an Israeli artliary shell north of Gaza Strip. His mate, khaled Abu sa'da was wounded.
40-Around 17 peoples killed in Al atatra family in Bait lahia town north of Gaza. Amongest them several children, two brothers, 20-year-old and many old men who were all killed by one rocket. Israeli tanks prevents ambulances from reaching wounded people in the same place. Among the recognized victims; Osama sliman, Mueen Abu aljdya, Ahmed Abu sltan, Hamaoda Abu sultan, Ali Al sous, Muhammad Al atar, Ahmed Tantish and one from Al shalfooh family.
41-Artillary shells target Al sorani farm mid of Gaza City, near Al nafaq street. A child was reported to be wounded.
42-Fire exchange between Israeli soldiers and group of Palestinian militants.
43-Israeli army cuts Gaza City and the northern areas by occupying the old settlement of Nitsarim which was evacuated in 2005.
44- Israeli army cut the transmission of Palestinian local radios and broadcast statements of warning asking civilians to leave their houses.
45-Medical sources reported that a Palestinian killed north of Rafah City and many wounded.
46-Five Palestinians from one family "Bakr" killed west of Gaza City.
47-Three paramedics and ambulance staff killed by an artillery shell and F16 rocket near Shikh Ejlin area. The paramedics were in a mission of rescuing a family hit near Al mahrosa hall. The family still bleeding and no news coming up about them till this moment.
48-A family of five members hit by a missile while having dinner in Al Shati' Camp. The family members of Al Amodi are mostly in critical conditions. A child aged 9 in bad health conditions.
49-Medical sources in AL Shifa' hospital; 50 people wounded while bombing their houses in the north of Gaza. Some of them are children and oldmen.
50-A strike destroyed to rubble a house in Rafah Camp. Few people wounded in the nearby houses.
51-Five Palestinians killed in a bombing targeted Mus'ab Bin Umair mosque northern Gaza Strip.
52-Three Palestinians wounded due to a missile of F16 hit their house in Absan town, south of Gaza in Khan Yonis City.
53-Many Palestinian houses are occupied by Israeli soldiers in the mid area. Many explosions are taking place.
54-The second day of the ground started with heavy presence of air force and loud voice of artillery shells hitting some areas in Gaza Strip.
55-Palestinian factions fired around 10 missiles into Israeli settlements and military bases.

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wbsfr8 (not verified)

at 06:54 on January 7th, 2009

~ nice one-sided biased reporting here. For the other view:

By Tuesday, Day 11 of Operation Cast Lead, Hamas was described as “desperate for a lull,” its leadership in underground bunkers and Gaza in near-anarchy. The terror organization was both boxed in and isolated as apprehensions of Hezbollah opening a second front to Israel’s north failed to materialize—inviting plausible speculation that the war was a ploy by Iran to distract attention from its progress toward the bomb.

Still Hamas operatives above ground in Gaza were able once again to fire a few dozen rockets at Israel, one of which injured a three-month-old girl in Gedera 45 kilometers from the Strip. Israeli forces had, though, reportedly taken over most of the rocket-launching sites in northern Gaza.

A stream of EU visitors in Jerusalem were firmly rebuffed by Israeli leaders who in the past had not excelled at resisting Western pressures, and whose once-hawkish worldviews had become much softer over the years. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the French, Czech Republic, and Swedish foreign ministers that “This is the time for action not words. We are fed up with empty gestures,” and that the IDF campaign in Gaza, not a premature ceasefire, would stop the rockets.

President Shimon Peres, who in the 1990s became the key figure in setting Israel on a path of appeasing terror, spoke even more strongly to the Czech Republic and Swedish FMs along with EU foreign policy chief Benita Ferraro-Waldner, telling them that “Europe needs to open its eyes with respect to the fighting in Gaza”—and that they “must understand that Hamas is a terror organization of the worst order that uses its population of women and children as human shields.”

And Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni—now also an aspirant for the office of prime minister and rival of hawkish Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu—went so far as to tell the Europeans that “When Israel is targeted, Israel is going to retaliate. Israel is going to give an answer to [rocket fire] because this is an ongoing, long war against terror.”

Meanwhile, in addition to intense gun battles in Gaza City in the north of the Strip, Israeli forces were closing in on Dir al-Balah and Khan Yunis in central and southern Gaza. Although a total of about 500 Hamas fighters had been killed by Tuesday evening with at least 80 taken prisoner, the six Israeli soldiers lost so far were, as always, a focus of detailed and mournful attention in casualty-sensitive Israel. They include two residents of West Bank communities, two Jerusalemites, a Russian immigrant from Beersheba, and a Druze Israeli from Haifa.

Also on Tuesday evening about 30 Gazans were reportedly killed when IDF tank fire hit a UN school in Jebalaya in northern Gaza. The IDF announced that terrorists had used the school to fire mortars at troops who had fired back in self-defense, and that the dead included numerous Hamas men. It wasn’t yet clear whether the incident would turn out to be an Allah-sent coup for Hamas, like the staged Kafr Kana incident in the Second Lebanon War. But Barack Obama’s response—breaking his silence on the war—that “the loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me” sounded ominous.

At about the same time the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center happened to release an 81-page report on “Hamas Exploitation of Civilians as Human Shields.” It describes such Hamas practices as:

firing projectiles “at Israeli population centers from inside or close to private Palestinian residences and sometimes from educational institutions and mosques”;
“exploit[ing] IDF warnings to civilians to evacuate their residences…to send children and adolescents to the relevant locations”; and
“repeatedly attack[ing]” the crossings into Gaza “with rocket and mortar shell fire as well as attempted mass-casualty and suicide bombing attacks.”

Detailed reports, though, have little power compared to the graphic images projected to the world by the media-terrorism complex. Although the Associated Press reported that “Area residents confirmed the [IDF] account [of the school incident], saying militants were seen staging attacks from the area,” it also described the growing agitation against Israel including a top UN official “call[ing] for an investigation into the mounting civilian death toll.”

International pressures were expected to intensify after the incident as the UN Security Council prepared to hold its second meeting on the war. Olmert, despite his earlier tough talk, said he was “currently in discussions [about a diplomatic solution] with many leaders around the world” and that “the sooner [Israel’s offensive ends], the better.”

In other words, there’s already good reason to fear that Israel’s efforts and sacrifices will again go up in smoke, while Hamas, for all its moral failings, will be pulled out of the fire.