"Is Israel The World's Foremost Terror State? Israeli General's Son Thinks So"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/07/is-israel-worlds-foremost-terror-state.html
***
U.S. "Appalled" At "Disgraceful" UN School Bombing By Israel
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-appalled-disgraceful-school-shelling-24826323
***
"Is Israel The World's Foremost Terror State? Israeli General's Son Thinks So"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/07/is-israel-worlds-foremost-terror-state.html
U.S. "Appalled" At "Disgraceful" UN School Bombing By Israel
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-appalled-disgraceful-school-shelling-24826323
***
Gaza school attacked as children queue for sweets
Ban Ki-Moon condemns attack, which killed 10 people including children, as 'a moral outrage and a criminal act', as Israel announces seven hour 'humanitarian ceasefire' on Monday
It was the second such incident in less than a week and prompted another broadside from Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, who called it "a moral outrage and a criminal act" and appeared to blame Israel.
"The attack is yet another gross violation of international humanitarian law, " said Mr Ban, who had strongly condemned an attack last week on another assault on a UN school in Jabaliya, that left 16 dead.
"United Nations shelters must be safe zones not combat zones. The Israel Defence Forces have been repeatedly informed of the location of these sites. This attack, along with other breaches of international law, must be swiftly investigated and those responsible held accountable."
The Israeli army said it had targeted three members of Islamic Jihad on a motorbike near the school - contradicting witnesses who said they saw no vehicles - but was investigating the effects of the attack.
It marked the third deadly strike on a UN shelter since hostilities broke out between Israel and Hamas on July 8.
Witnesses to Sunday's incident said a missile that appeared to be a rocket hit an area just outside the gates of the Rafah Preparatory A Boys School where children were queuing to buy sweets and biscuits from stalls.
The school had been providing shelter to more than 3,000 people - the same number that had been seeking refuge at a girl's school in Jabaliya last Wednesday when it came under attack from a hail of Israeli shells.
In contrast to that strike, which wrecked a classroom full of sleeping woman and children, the physical destruction this time appeared minimal: just a small but deep hole in the road where the missile had landed.
But that clinical effect masked a devastating human cost. Pools of blood, some of it partially washed away, were seen inside and outside the school, demonstrating how the blast's powerful impact had washed inside the grounds of what was supposed to be a safe haven.
Refugees had flocked there to escape the violence that had enveloped Rafah - a town on the Egyptian border that has long been a dangerous flash-point - throughout the 26-day conflict but which had intensified in the previous 48 hours.
Among the dead were at least four children and Hazen Abu Hilal, the school's caretaker. He was inside the school gates when he was struck by flying shrapnel, according to Yousef Musa, of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which runs the shelter.
Four others, including a seven-year-old boy, were laid out in shrouds on the floor of a makeshift morgue at the local al-Kuwaiti hospital, which specialises in elective surgery and was under-prepared and overwhelmed by the sudden deluge of casualties.
Eyewitnesses voiced a mixture of anger, panic and bewilderment over why the school, in western Rafah, had been targeted. Most of them had fled their homes in the town's eastern neighbourhoods, which have faced a terrifying bombardment since Friday following the reported capture of an Israeli solder who was subsequently declared dead.
"We don't feel safe to go out," said Ali al-Shawi, 54, who had brought his family of 12 to the school from the eastern suburb of Janina on Friday after it was bombarded following the collapse of a 72-hour ceasefire.
"Children go outside the gates to buy sweets and suddenly there are fragments flying in all directions.
"For one soldier they [Israel] kill hundreds of people, and all the world is with them. They have committed massacres because of one soldier and everyone is blaming us. Are these children firing rockets?"
Survivors said there was no obvious provocation or trigger for the strike.
"There was no motorcycle or car passing at the time, so they seemed to be targeting the people," said Salah al-Malilah, 24, as he received treatment at al-Kuwaiti hospital for a chest wound caused by shrapnel. "I was in the middle of the school yard sheltering under a tree from the sun. Suddenly there was this explosion and I saw people lying dead and injured."
An estimated 260,000 people are now sheltering at 86 UNRWA schools throughout Gaza in crowded and insanitary conditions that have prompted warnings of a looming public health crisis.
The latest incident happened on a day when Israel pulled most of its forces out of Gaza for the first time since its land invasion on July 18, Israeli media reported.
In addition, late on Sunday Israel announced it will hold its fire in most of the Gaza Strip for a seven-hour “humanitarian window” on Monday.
According to an army statement, the ceasefire will take place between 10am and 5pm local time in all of the Palestinian enclave besides the area east of southern city Rafah, “where clashes were still ongoing and there was Israeli military presence.”
Head of the Israeli military activities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, General Yoav Mordechai, warned in the statement that “if the truce will be violated, the army will respond with fire toward the source of the (Palestinian) fire during the declared hudna,” or truce.
Mordechai also called on residents of Abasan al Kabira and Abasan al Saghira, two villages east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, to return to their homes from dawn.
For those in Rafah, where forces remained visibly on the ground, there is no respite at all. Nine members of the al-Ghoul family died when a missile wrecked their home in a narrow street at 7am yesterday. The dead were named as Ismael al-Ghoul and his wife, Khadera, along with two of their children and five grandchildren.
"The parents had a whole family and none of them were militants," said Yousef al-Ghoul, 22, a neighbour and relative.
Even those areas that Israeli officials had declared safe for residents to return home appeared to gain no dividend from the military pull back.
In the north-eastern town of Beit Lahiya, a family of 10 were reported to have been injured by a shell strike on an empty neighbouring house on Saturday evening hours after the Israeli army had given it the all-clear for people to move back. There were reports of a strike on a house in western Beit Lahiya on Sunday that was said to have left three dead.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, said on Saturday that Israel's military action would continue for as long and with as much force as necessary to stop Hamas rocket attacks, even though the army has said its stated mission of destroying tunnels was virtually complete.
He also blamed the Palestinian casualties - which on Sunday stood at more than 1,800 dead, compared with 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel - on Hamas, the Islamist group that dominates Gaza.
"Hamas wants the residents of Gaza to suffer and be hurt and thinks that the world will blame Israel for their suffering.," he said. "There are many people in the world who understand exactly what Hamas is.
"But, unfortunately, there are other voices and to them I say: Terrorism has no borders.
"Will you stand alongside Israel, a democratic and moral state which is acting to defend its citizens?"
However, the US added its voice to condemnation of the school attack. A spokeswoman for the State Department urged Israel to live up to its own standards of avoiding civilian casualties.
"The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians," she added.
No comments:
Post a Comment