Will Israel be held accountable for War crimes?

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | NOVEMBER 20, 2012

The question above is one that always comes to mind whenever a more powerful military force uses its might to destroy livelihoods anywhere in the planet. In the case of the Israeli regime, its despise for live, especially that of Arab people is simply horrendous, and that is why it is just fair to ask. During the latest attacks carried out by the Israeli army, almost 50 percent of innocent victims are children and women.

The sum of civilian deaths in Operation Defensive Pillar continues to rise inexorably. On Monday morning there was a score, and throughout the day another dozen were killed in different parts of the Gaza Strip. The total number of deaths already exceeds one hundred.

“What is happening here is a war crime,” said Salah Abed Alaty, a representative of the Independent Commission for Human Rights in the north of the Gaza Strip. “The international community can not remain indifferent to a massacre like this, especially women and children,” he adds, when suddenly leaps up to feel the rumble and flare caused by a Qassam rocket launched from a hundred yards of the Omar el Moktar Avenue.

Statistics are never the best way to provide an account of the damage and destruction caused by war, but according to the numbers compiled by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, most of the fatalities in the territory are children, women and the elderly. The same three groups are also an important minority among the wounded, which already hit 700. The indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza caused the official condemnation by the UNICEF and international NGOs present in the area. Such condemnation has never been heard so publicly in the past, which is why is relevant to ask whether this time, the murder carried out by the Israeli army will be punished.

On  Monday, four members of a family, including two children under four years of age, were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. “Although a senior officer of the Qassam Brigades Ezadín had been in the building, there was no justification to destroy it,” said Abed Alaty, a lawyer who witnessed the attack. In his opinion, the alleged “extrajudicial execution” of a militia leader of Hamas is not enough to launch several missiles at the  building in which he was assumed to be.

Israel’s Air Force bombed a second time the building in Shuruq, Gaza City, which until Monday harbored Al Aqsa TV, which was linked to Hamas. In the same venue also operated crews from foreign channels such as Sky News and Al Arabiya.

Palestinian sources reported that at least two people died, one Ramiz Harb, leader of Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad. The Israeli military said in a statement that Harb was “responsible for the propaganda” of the militia. At least three other people were injured, including two journalists.

The tower was converted into a column of black smoke, and in dozens of soil and debris from broken glass objects. On Sunday, the tower next to the Al Shawa, which also hosted television producers serving international channels, was hit by an air to land missile. The director of the press office of the Hamas government, Ihab Al Ghusain says that the antennas were used exclusively for television. “The Israelis say masts served as the communications signal of our security forces,” he says. “But that’s silly, because these antennas are in the barracks and police stations, which are also being systematically bombed,” the spokesman stressed.

“We have come to the Beach Hotel,” said Mahmoud Jaber, the CEO of Palestinian Media Productions, the production company that was attacked on Monday for the second time. The new headquarters is a constant bustle of journalists, some are quick to come out with cameras, others stay glued to computer screens and connected to the radio, the most reliable source of information on the Strip.

“We believe that hotels are the safest, as host to foreign journalists and aid workers, so we have temporarily changed to Hotel Beach” concluded Jaber. The crisis is generating great benefits for the many direct connections prompted for foreign television. From the hotel, journalists follow the last-minute attempts in Cairo to reach a ceasefire through Egyptian mediation. The leader of the political wing of Hamas abroad, Khaled Meshal, and other members of the intelligence apparatus of the military require guarantees that Israel’s bombings will be halted.

Palestinians also called for an end to targeted killings against members of their militias and other armed groups in Gaza. The Israelis want to maintain control over the security zone near the border with Israel, which covers between 300 meters and a kilometer, but Hamas leaders have refused to accept such a request.

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Israel attacks Gaza and mercilessly murders innocent Arabs

The Israeli army uses white phosphorus bombs on the Arab population.

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | NOVEMBER 19, 2012

While Israeli warships bombarded Gaza from the sea, other Israeli forces pounded the headquarters of several media outlets in Gaza. In the meantime, from the West, usual supporters of the murderous Israeli leadership, have been warning that more attacks against defenseless Arabs on the Gaza Strip will result in more deterioration of the Jewish cause in the world. Both London and Washington asked the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu to show restraint.

However, the United States has also said that Israel has the right to defend itself from attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists, such as Hamas. This support from Washington has emboldened the Israeli leadership to take its military offensive to another level. The destruction of the Gaza Strip advances at a fast pace, as numerous and more frequent attacks pound the civilian population.

A supposed ceasefire brokered by the Egyptians gave some hope that the attacks against Gaza would stop, but Israel not only did not stop its large-scale attacks, but also enhanced the scope of its military operation called Defensive Pillar. Late last week, Egypt itself said it would stand with the Arabs in this conflict, but has not issued any direct warning about what will the country do if Israel does not stop the murder of Arabs in Gaza.

After Israel lit the match that made the latest round of attacks turn into a blood bath on the Arab side — with children bearing the brunt — by striking and killing a leader of Hamas last week, the terrorist organization initiated attacks that sought to avenge the death of its leader. In the last few hours seven Arab children have been killed by bombs, four of which were members of the same family. They are part of at least 26 Palestinians, many of them civilians, who have died this Sunday during the latest terrorist campaign by the Israeli regime on the population of Gaza.

Meanwhile, Palestinian rockets have again flown over the border separating Israel from the Palestinian territory, in the direction of Tel Aviv. The attacks have gone from being scarce and localized to turning into a shower of rockets that arrive from almost anywhere in the Gaza Strip. The number of people dead or injured in Israel is not even close to the result of the attacks led by the Israeli army, and neither is the destruction.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Cabinet ministers that he is may unilaterally “expand the operation.” He did not offer many details, but the possibility of a ground invasion is gaining strength as the hours go by. In the afternoon, you could see clouds of soldiers hanging around southern Israel. The military has called some 75,000 army reservists to take part of the operation.

Operation Defensive Pillar also includes the mobilization of  tanks which are being loaded on trucks to be transported to the border. The  sound of sirens when a Palestinian rocket is shot from across the border warned Jewish people it was time to seek shelter, which at times turns the cities located near Gaza into ghost towns. The Palestinian people do not have the luxury to run underground and so more innocent civilians are so exposed to Israeli attacks. Both territories are now war zones.

The  British foreign secretary, William Hague, has warned Israel of the danger of launching a ground invasion in Gaza. Hague said that such action would put Israel in a very uncomfortable position in the eyes of the International community. A ground attack of Gaza would certainly increase the number of civilian casualties. Even U.S. President Barack Obama, who reiterated his support for Israel also considered it “better” if Israel kept its heavy artillery inside its own territory.

News of a possible ground incursion caused the neighbors to the north of the Gaza Strip to flee in terror. The streets of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, northern territory, offered on Sunday a ghostly image. There was not a soul. It was as if a bomb had fallen. A little further south, on the outskirts of Gaza City, was where the
Israeli air force had destroyed the house of Mohamed Dalu, a suspected member of the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules Gaza and whose leaders are seldom heard of these days. Nine members of Dalu’s family died with him, including four children.

The Israeli armed forces amounted to fifty the number of targets hit on Sunday. These “underground stations and tunnels are used for terrorist purposes”. In
total, at least 72 Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed since Wednesday, which shows the disproportionate levels of the Israeli attacks. There are also more than 500 people wounded in Gaza, according to Palestinian hospital sources.

The Israeli chief of staff, Benny Gantz, had ordered the bombing to be intensified on Sunday over the Gaza Strip, amid rumors of a possible imminent ceasefire mediated by Egypt. The facts on the ground contradict — at least temporarily — what has been allegedly said from Cairo. What happened in Gaza on Saturday night and into Sunday was definitely nothing like a truce. The Israeli army attacked by sea and air. The bombings of the F-16 he accompanied the bombing of the Israeli navy, whose ships were just off the Gaza coast. Attacks on Gaza arrived in rounds of three or four shots, which after a few moments were followed by the impact of the bombs over Arab territory.

Israeli  Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said at a news conference that after talks with his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, he made it clear that the first
condition for any ceasefire agreement is the complete cessation of rocket attacks against Israel.

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Israeli Offensive a distraction to postpone Election?

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | NOVEMBER 19, 2012

Several Likud ministers and leaders of the opposition Labour Party have raised the possibility of postponing the parliamentary elections of January 22 because the military offensive in Gaza. Note that they are turning the latest Israeli offensive into an excuse to not hold the scheduled elections. From outside Israel however, it is easy to see how this offensive was launched to postpone the election and keep as much of Likud’s influence in place for a later military offensive in the region.

“We have to consider the possibility of postponing the primaries to avoid jeopardizing the voters,” said Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, the Likud leader, according to a report published today by the newspaper “Yediot Aharonot”. How many times in history have governments created threats to further their agendas? How many times have they caused conflict to stay in power so that those agendas can be furthered without delay?

Although most media outlets which bother to do some analysis on the Israeli-Palestinian situation think this military offensive is all about the possibility that the United Nations recognizes Palestine as an observer member within that entity, Israel’s military offensive is just a tool to provoke Islamic radicalism to attack Israel so the so-called leaders of the Jewish people have an excuse to perpetuate their power for a longer period. That will enable them to solidify their footing so that they are able launch larger attacks on Israel’s neighbors.

Erdan had joined this weekend other members of government and members of Likud, the party headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a proposal that could also be supported by the Labour Party, led by Sheli Yajimovich.

A considerable part of officials and activists involved in the preparation of the Labor primaries have been enrolled within the quota of 75,000 reservists called Friday by the Israeli government in preparation to invade Gaza.

“There is no doubt that this is an extraordinary mobilization of key people in our ranks,” said Yajimovich, who asked to wait until they return from the border with Gaza. The problem say party leaders, the only ones that still need to have their primaries, is not only one of organization, but also of security, they say. How could we ask voters to go to the streets to vote amid rocket attacks from Gaza?” said Erdan. The Minister forgot that it was Israel who started the latest round of attacks by murdering one of the most influential leaders of Hamas. Israel also made inflamatory comments about how the country planned to bomb Gaza and murder Arab people and their leaders.

The inability to hold primaries would prevent the parties to submit lists of candidates to Parliament before December 6, as required by the electoral law, which would require delaying the elections on January 22. Isn’t this coincidentally convenient? What a better way to make sure the current murdering policy of the Israeli government is maintained than to postpone elections so that the same murderers who now occupy positions of power get to stay in office to prolong the Arab-Israeli conflict?

By the way, given recent criticism about our coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict, we’d like to clarify that when criticising Israel’s murderous campaigns against innocent Arab populations, we describe the actions of the Israeli leaders, not the Israeli people. As mentioned in several written in the last three years, the leaders of Israel do not represent the Jewish people, but their own interests to destabilize the Middle East region to balkanize the population even further as a way to justify the mass murder of both Jews and Arabs. So, there is not anti-Semitism here.

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Israeli bombings over Gaza kill 22 Palestinians

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | NOVEMBER 16, 2012

The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli operation Defensive Pillar rose to 22 last night. Eleven of the victims were civilians, which included an eight year old boy.

The last three fatalities occurred in an air raid in the town of Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza, said Ashraf Al Qedra, spokesman of the Ministry of Health, Government of Hamas in Gaza.

The number of people wounded as a result of the attacks surpassed 150. The latest bombing on Beit Hanoun added six more people to the list. Previous air attacks over the Gaza Strip left more innocent victims dead.

Hours before, another Israeli attack had killed three Palestinian civilians, including an eleven year old girl and an eighteen-month-old child who died in the hospital as a result of the wounds he had after a bombing in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Rescue teams also found the body of a 52 year old man who was buried under the rubble of a building previously bombed by Israeli warplanes in the area of ​​Al-Amudi, in northern Gaza.

Five other Palestinians were killed: three militants in an Israeli attack on the town of Khan Yunis and two civilians in the town of Jabalia, in the north.

In Israel, three civilians (two females and one male) died due to the explosion of a rocket sent from Gaza, which landed near their home in Kiryat Malachi. The city is located 30 kilometers from Tel Aviv, whose suburbs have been attacked in 270 different times.

A total of 55 Israeli civilians and soldiers were wounded by shells, “two of them seriously, and three of whose prognosis is not very good,” reported Channel 1.

The new wave of violence began after Israel murdered the leader of an armed wing of Hamas during a cirurgically conducted aerial attack. The leader known as Ahmad Jabari, was the first victim of Israel’s  Operation Defensive Pillar. The Israeli leadership threatened other Hamas leaders afterwards and confirmed it is crafting plans to carry out a full ground invasion and attack over the Gaza Strip.

Since then, the Israeli Air Force attacked 300 targets in Gaza, the military said in a statement. Israel aggressive moves and speech prompted the Egyptian president to condemned the attacks and warn Israel about future aggression over the Palestinians. Mohamed Morsi said that Egypt stands next to Palestine and against any and all aggression coming from Israel. Morsi was elected president of Egypt after the demise of Hosni Mubarak.

The Egyptian Prime Minister, Hisham Qandil, who visited Gaza hours ago, also threw his support behind the Gazan militants saying that the Arab World saying they stand behind Palestine. “This tragedy cannot pass in silence and the world should take responsibility in stopping this aggression,” Qandil said. Israel halted its attacks over Gaza for the time the Prime Minister remained in the Strip, but the attacks continued immediately after the Egyptian delegation left the territory..

Aerial military attacks from Israel have intensified after a rocket launched from Gaza landed near Tel Aviv. Israel conducted over 70 bombings in just an hour against supposed rocket launcher sights in Gaza.

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Israel’s terrorist speech results in vocal and physical aggression

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | NOVEMBER 15, 2012

Israel’s intention to decapitate the government of Palestine should the United Nations accept the Palestinians as an observer member rendered consequences even before the announcement was made. While the Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel threatened Palestine with attacking his political leaders, terrorist organizations in the region began to launch bombs across the south border between Gaza and Israel.

But the reaction from Israel’s foes did not stop there. Egypt requested immediately that Israel toned down its speech of aggression and decided to pull its ambassador from the Jewish capital. Additionally, the Palestinian government has now asked the United Nations’ Security Council to stop Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

On Wednesday night, U.N. observer Riyad Mansour confirmed that Israel had publicly threatened Palestinian leaders and that the Israeli government was boasting about killing Palestinians after blowing up Hamas mastermind Ahmed Jabari.

Mansour said that “war crimes are being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people.” The U.N. observer than said that “the international community must act to bring an end to Israel’s illegal policies and practices against the Palestinian people”.

From Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, an ally of the United States in Libya and other countries in the region, said that it “will not allow the Palestinians to be subjected to Israeli aggression, as in the past.” In a statement, the now turned political party said that “swift Arab and international action to stop the massacres committed by Israel must take into account the changes in the Arab region and especially Egypt.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, known historical for its own movement of social and military aggression against anyone who disagreed with its precepts, founded the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt, and now, it is a strong player in Middle Eastern politics. In mid 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood arrived to power in Egypt after winning the general election, which brought to power party leader Mohamed Morsi, the new  president-elect.

The statement issued by the Freedom and Justice Party included a warning emphasing that all options are now on the table to resolve the latest round of Israeli aggression against the people of Gaza, and the consequent response of Hamas, a terrorist organization that is charged with launching attacks from across the border in the south of the Strip.

It seems that Israel’s speech of aggression against Palestine and its elected government has caused a flare of unrest around the Jewish enclave in the region. No Arab nations seems to agree with letting Israel kill Arabs under any circumstance, especially after the country’s leaders have been adamant about their intention to kill Arab leaders. With Israel now announcing that their fight across the Gaza border may turn into a full ground attack against Hamas and the Palestinian people, the conditions are established for this confrontation to developed into a full blown war.

With Mohamed Morsi’s political party announcing that it will not let Israel oppress Palestinians or any other Arab population, it is expected that the 1979 peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel will come to an end, and with that, war will be given a green light.

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