Our friends in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza report massive casualties from Israeli air strikes. Hospitals are overflowing with more than 200 dead and over 500 wounded (so far). So-called “Hamas compounds” included a civil police training school where scores of young men desperate for a salary to support families were assembled for a graduation ceremony. Bombs hit at school let-out time so children were in the streets in large numbers.
Many expected that no Israeli attack would be launched just hours after Israel, as widely reported in the western media, had finally allowed the delivery of a small amount of humanitarian aid to the starving population of Gaza. Widespread property damage is making life in the cold and dark of Gaza even more miserable than it was, if such a thing can even be imagined. And as I write this, it is reported that new missile attacks are targeting a mosque and various social welfare agencies located in densely crowded neighborhoods.
And the U.S. media continues to promote the myth of Israeli “retaliation” when in reality it was Israel that broke the truce several weeks ago.
If you need more information on today’s events in Gaza, click here: Gaza City hospital a gruesome scene; families pick through body parts to identify loved ones:
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(27 Dec) Death shrouds the hallways of Gaza City’s Ash-Shefa medical compound Saturday, its smell creeping in from all corners. Amputated bodies are strewn throughout hallways because morgues in the city can no longer accommodate the dead. In one corner a man stands with his seven year old son in a cardboard box because the hospital ran out of sheets to cover the dead with. This is how he will carry him home and bury him. Another man stands dazed, in shock after watching his son Mohammed killed during his graduation ceremony at the de facto police headquarters. The father of one of Mohammed’s classmates stood next to his son as he was decapitated. The man is still screaming.
and here, Gaza-based foreigners witness catastrophic violence:
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(27 Dec) In front of our house we found the bodies of two little girls under a car, completely burnt. They were coming home from school. This is more than just collective punishment. We are being treated like laboratory animals.
See also this from Ali Abunimah at The Electronic Intifada:
Gaza Massacres must spur us to action.
If you are ready to do something, read on.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Jewish Voice for Peace and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation are all issuing calls for protests to our government officials. Do three things:
- Contact Representative Tammy Baldwin’s office
Phone: DC: (202) 225-2906, Madison: (608) 258-9800 - Contact Senator Russ Feingold’s office
Phone numbers: DC: (202), Middleton: (608) 828-1200 - Contact Senator Herb Kohl’s office
Phone numbers: DC: (202) 224-5653, Madison: (608) 264-5338