The Palestine thread

Started by give her dixie, October 17, 2012, 01:29:42 PM

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seafoid

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/the-least-of-all-possible-evils/

Israel's bombing and invasion of Gaza in the winter of 2008–9 marked the culmination of its violence against the Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948, and resulted in widespread international allegations that Israel had committed war crimes. It was also the assault in which Israeli experts in international humanitarian law—the area of the law that regulates the conduct of war—were more involved than ever before. Since the 2006 Lebanon War, the Israeli military has become increasingly mindful of its exposure to international legal action. Preparations for the next conflict included those in the domain of law, and new "legal technologies" were introduced into military matters.

This development gives rise to a series of related questions. Might it be that these legal technologies contributed not to the containment of violence but to its proliferation? That the involvement of military lawyers did not in fact restrain the attack—but rather, that certain interpretations of international humanitarian law have enabled the inflicting of unprecedented levels of destruction? In other words, has the making of this chaos, death, and destruction been facilitated by the terrible force of the law?

In more domains than one, the elastic and porous border has become the contemporary pathology of Israel's regime of control. It manifests itself in a variety of ways—one such being the elasticity that military lawyers identify and mobilize in interpreting the laws of war.

The laws of war pose a paradox to those protesting in their name: while they prohibit some things, they authorize others. And thus a line is drawn between the "allowed" and the "forbidden." This line is not stable and static; rather, it is dynamic and elastic and its path is ever changing. An intense battle is conducted over its route. Much like the route of the separation wall, the thresholds of the law will be pulled and pushed in different directions by those with different objectives. The question hinges on which side of the legal/illegal divide a certain form of military practice falls. International organizations such as the UN and the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), large NGOs and human rights groups, and also some highly regarded academic authorities on international humanitarian law have the means to push the line in one direction—to place controversial military practices on the prohibited side—while state militaries and their apologists seek to push it in the opposite direction. International law can thus not be thought of as a static body of rules but rather an arena in which the law is shaped by an endless series of diffused border conflicts.

According to Eitan Diamond, the legal scholar and adviser for the ICRC in Israel, "the architecture of international humanitarian law is typified by 'rigid lines of absolute prohibition' and 'elastic zones of discretion.'" The rigid prohibitions are derived, he states, from the law's origins in the nineteenth century, "a time when legal thought was dominated by a positivist-formalist approach that conceived of law as a closed system distinguished from politics and ethics." Today, he fears, "states and their advocates are using arguments based on the logic of the 'lesser evil' to subvert the law's absolute provisions and to subject them to malleable cost-benefit calculations."20 Diamond and the ICRC—allergic to the "creativity" of state lawyers—would prefer to see a more rigid legal structure and absolute prohibitions. A deontological legal system demanding the strict application of the law is useful in the kind of backroom discussions the ICRC is involved in with the military.

New frontiers of military practice are being explored via a combination of legal technologies and complex institutional practices that are now often referred to as "lawfare"—the use of law as a weapon of war. Lawfare is a compounded practice: with the introduction and popularization of international law in contemporary battlefields, all parties to a conflict might seek to use it for their tactical and strategic advantage. The former American colonel and military judge Charles Dunlap, who was credited with the introduction of this term in 2001, suggested that "lawfare" can be defined as "the strategy of using—or misusing—law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve an operational objective."21 In the hands of non-state actors, Dunlap says, the "lawfare effect" is created by an interaction between guerrilla groups that "lure militaries to conduct atrocities" and human rights groups that engage in advocacy to expose these atrocities, and who use whatever available means for litigation they have. In a similar vein, Israel now often claims that it faces an unprecedented campaign of lawfare, which threatens to undermine the very legitimacy of the state. Lawfare is used tactically by state militaries themselves. In this context, it refers to the multiple ways by which contemporary warfare is conditioned, rather than simply justified, by international law.22 In both cases, international law and the systems of courts and tribunals that exercise and enact it are not conceived as spaces outside the conflict, but rather as battlegrounds internal to it.

It is within the "elastic zones of discretion" that Israeli military lawyers find enormous potential for the expansion of military action. Daniel Reisner, a former chief international lawyer for the Israeli military, argued that because international humanitarian law is not so much a code-based legal system but a precedent-based legal corpus, state practice can continuously shift it.

International law is a customary law that develops through an historic process. If states are involved in a certain type of military activity against other states, militias, and the like, and if all of them act quite similarly to each other, then there is a chance that this behavior will become customary international law.23

It is in this sense that international law develops through its violation. In modern war, violence legislates: "If the same process occurred in criminal law, the legal speed limit would be 115 kilometres an hour and income tax would be 4 per cent."24

Reisner is proud to have been the first international lawyer to have defended, at the request of then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the policy of "targeted assassinations" towards the end of 2000, when most governments and international bodies considered the practice illegal. "We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal molds. Eight years [and, as he subsequently said in this interview—by way of reference to 9/11—'four planes'] later it is in the center of the bounds of legitimacy."25

Asa Kasher, a professor of ethics at Tel Aviv University, has worked with Reisner to provide an ethical and legal defense for targeted assassination. He talks in similar terms about the nature of law and the ways in which it might be transformed:


We in Israel have a crucial part to play in the developing of this area of the law [international humanitarian law] because we are at the forefront of the war against terror, and [the tactics we use] are gradually becoming acceptable in Israeli and in international courts of law ... The more often Western states apply principles that originated in Israel to their own non-traditional conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, then the greater the chance these principles have of becoming a valuable part of international law. What we do becomes the law.26

After the Goldstone fact-finding mission on Gaza, Israel's prime minister emphatically called for a radical rewriting of international humanitarian law. "Paradoxically," Netanyahu said, "it is possible that the firm response of important international leaders and jurists to [the Goldstone report] will accelerate the re-examination of the laws of war in an age of terror." His minister of defense, Ehud Barak, added: "We cannot change the law but we can help develop it."

The actions of the Israeli state against Gaza may become acceptable in law. The siege— ongoing since 2007—the 2008–9 invasion, and the 2009 attack on an international flotilla carrying supplies into the enclave have all been carried out with relative impunity, and do not appear to have significantly affected Israel's international standing. Each of these forms of aggression contains within it a multiplicity of small-scale practices and incidents: restricting the supply of food to the point of starvation; targeted assassinations; sending advance warnings that then allow the military to kill those civilians who choose not to evacuate;27 attacks on activists in international waters; the use of white phosphorus in inhabited areas—the list goes on. In these acts—if Israeli lawyers have their way—lie the seeds of new legislation.

Working at the margins of the law is one way to expand them. For violence to have the power to legislate, it needs to be applied in the grey, indeterminate zone between obvious violation and possible legality, and then to be defended diplomatically and by legal opinion. Indeed, the legal tactics sanctioned by military lawyers in Israel's invasion of Gaza in 2008–9 were framed in precisely this way. "When something's in the white zone, I'll let it be done, if it's in the black I'll forbid it, but if it's in the grey zone then I'll take part in the dilemma, I don't stop at grey," said Reisner. Proportionality might indeed be thought of as one of the mechanisms for reshaping juridical space in a way that increases and makes use of the grey zone.

The invasion therefore did two simultaneous and seemingly paradoxical things: it both violated the law and shifted its thresholds. This kind of violence not only transgresses but also attacks the very idea of rigid limits. In this circular logic, the illegal turns legal through continuous violation. There is indeed a "law-making character" inherent in military violence. This is law in action, legislative violence as seen from the perspective of those who write it in practice.

This use of the law has much in common with that of the George W. Bush Administration's misappropriation of the Office of Special Counsel in the Justice Department, in order to figure out a way to legalize the use of torture. Inherent in this was the clear intention to stretch the law as far as possible without actually breaking it.28 In this example, US Department of Justice attorney John Yoo used the balancing of interests to authorize certain forms of torture. His famous torture memos were grounded in an Israeli precedent: relying on what is essentially a proportionality analysis, the 1987 Israeli commission of inquiry into the methods of investigation in the General Security Service (the Landau Commission) arrived at the conclusion that the prohibition on torture is not absolute, but is rather based "upon the logic of the lesser evil."

Thus, "the harm done by violating a provision of the law during an interrogation must be weighed against the harm to the life or person of others which could occur sooner or later."29 Some legal scholars have suggested that Yoo's legal advice in itself might be considered a crime.

Similar lines of legal argument are inspired by a strand of legal scholarship known as "critical legal studies," an approach that emerged together with other post-structuralist discourses at the end of the 1980s. Critical legal studies scholars aimed to expose the way the law is made—the workings of power in the making and enactment of law—to challenge law's normative account and to offer an insight into its internal contradictions and indeterminacies. It was, broadly speaking, a critical, left-leaning practice, which attempted to deploy law at the service of a socially transformative agenda. But when international law stands as an obstacle in the way of state militaries, it is easy to see why military lawyers would adopt the attitude of those scholars seeking to challenge rigid definitions and expose the law as an object of critique and contestation. Today, when the creative interpretation of the law is exercised by state and military lawyers, it is primarily human rights and antiwar activists who insist on the dry letter of the law.

The appeal, by military lawyers, to international humanitarian law to justify wars could easily be dismissed as cynical propaganda. Most human rights groups have correctly pointed out that international humanitarian law was not properly observed in Gaza, in the sense that it was used too permissively. Evidence and testimonies, including those of soldiers, collected by the Goldstone investigation and human rights groups reveal in baroquely nightmarish details some of the most gruesome and egregious violations. There were about twenty reported instances of Israeli soldiers firing at women and children carrying white flags; reports of the denial of medical aid and ambulances for wounded Palestinians, who bled to death; the wanton destruction of homes and neighborhoods; the use of white phosphorus—and more besides.30 But in the age of lawfare, the elastic nature of the law, and the power of military action to stretch it, those appealing for justice in the name of the law need to be aware of its double edge.

Gaza, in this sense, is a laboratory in more than one sense. It is a hermetically sealed zone, with all access controlled by Israel (except the border with Egypt). Within this enclosed space, all sorts of new control technologies, munitions, legal and humanitarian tools, and warfare techniques are tried out on its million-and-a-half inhabitants. The ability to remotely control large populations is also tested, before these technologies are marketed internationally. Most significantly of all, it is the thresholds that are tested and pushed: the limits of the law, and the limits of violence that can be inflicted by a state and be internationally tolerated. This limit, newly defined with every attack, will become the new threshold of what can be done to people in the name of the War on Terror. When the legislative violence directed at Gaza unlocks the chaotic powers of destruction that lie dormant within the law, the consequence will be felt by oppressed people everywhere.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

give her dixie

Another 2 Palestinian men have just been murdered by Israel in Gaza, making it 5 in the past 24 hours.
next stop, September 10, for number 4......

Ball DeBeaver

Quote from: give her dixie on October 23, 2012, 10:02:29 PM
Another 2 Palestinian men have just been murdered by Israel in Gaza, making it 5 in the past 24 hours.
Were these 2 murdered men in the middle of firing rockets into Israel by any chance?

Quote
IAF Strikes in Gaza Three Times in One Night

IAF aircraft hit Gaza-based terror squads three times in one night, following continuous rocket fire.


AAFont Size
By Elad Benari
First Publish: 10/24/2012, 1:02 AM / Last Update: 10/24/2012, 6:15 AM




IAF Counterstrike (Gaza)

Flash 90


IAF aircraft struck a terror squad in southern Gaza early Wednesday morning, as it was preparing to fire a rocket at southern Israel, the IDF announced in a statement.

The statement said that a direct hit at the terrorists was identified. It was the third time in one night that the IDF retaliated against the ongoing rocket attacks by Gaza terrorists at southern Israel.

Shortly after midnight, on Tuesday night, IAF aircraft targeted a terror squad in northern Gaza, as it was making final preparations to launch a rocket at southern Israel.

According to a statement by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, a direct hit was identified at the terrorists and the rocket attack was thwarted.

"The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers and will continue to operate against anyone who operates terror against Israel," said the statement.

This air strike took place about an hour and a half after another terror squad was hit as it was preparing to launch rockets at Israel. In this attack, as well, direct hits were identified.

The air strikes came after terrorists from Gaza fired seven rockets at Israel earlier in the evening. The rockets came in three rounds – with one round landing in one town in the Eshkol Regional Council, a second round landing in another town, and the third round landing in an open area.

No one was injured and no damaged was reported in any of the attacks.

Tuesday night's attacks were a continuation of what appeared to be an escalating deterioration of the security situation in southern Israel.

An IDF officer was wounded Tuesday morning when an explosive device blew up during an IDF exercise in the Gaza border area. The officer was flown by helicopter to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva, where he was declared by doctors to be in serious condition, with his life in danger. The officer's condition was little-changed Tuesday night.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/161272

Quote
Three Wounded in Massive Rocket Barrage on South

Hamas and allied terrorists pummeled southern Israel with more than 30 rocket attacks Wednesday morning. Three wounded.


AAFont Size
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
First Publish: 10/24/2012, 7:27 AM




Kassam  rockets

Israel news photo: Flash 90



Hamas and allied terrorist groups take to heart the Qatari emir's call for "resistance" and pummeled southern Israel with more than 30 rockets, wounding three people and scoring direct hits on three homes.

The Iron Dome system operated shortly after 7 a.m. to down rockets headed towards the port city of Ashkelon.

Hamas appears to be trying to prove that its rocket launching capability is stronger than IDF counterterrorist operations that are able to target terrorists when caught in the act of preparing to launch Kassam missiles.

The latest attacks came less than a day after the visiting emir of oil-rich Qatar incited Gaza residents by saying during his visit, "There is no clear strategy of resistance and liberation" in the absence of peace talks, which both Hamas and its rival faction Fatah have boycotted.

The Air Force struck Gaza three times overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday after terrorists from Gaza fired seven rockets at Israel earlier in the evening. The rockets came in three rounds – with one round landing in one town in the Eshkol Regional Council, a second round landing in another town, and the third round landing in an open area.

Tuesday night's attacks were a continuation of what appeared to be an escalating deterioration of the security situation in southern Israel.

An IDF officer was wounded Tuesday morning when an explosive device blew up during an IDF exercise in the Gaza border area. The officer was flown by helicopter to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva, where he was declared by doctors to be in serious condition, with his life in danger. The officer's condition was little-changed Tuesday night.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/161277

Maybe they were just celebrating Halloween a bit early, with some extra special fireworks. I think I'll save my sympathy for those who deserve it, the innocent.
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

Ball DeBeaver

Harriet Sherwood cherry picks results of poll to smear Israel with 'apartheid' label

Harriet Sherwood's latest report, Oct. 23, contains a dramatic headline, 'Israeli poll finds majority in favor of 'apartheid' policies.

The highlights of the poll reported by Sherwood, and based on a Ha'aretz article by Gideon Levy which cited the results of polling conducted by a group called Dialog, are as follows: (Graph from Ha'aretz)



Critical omission by Sherwood on the findings:

Here's the opening passage of Sherwood's story:


"More than two-thirds of Israeli Jews say that 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank should be denied the right to vote if the area was annexed by Israel, in effect endorsing an apartheid state..." [emphasis added]

However, Sherwood failed to acknowledge that only 38 percent of the Jewish public wants Israel to annex the territories with settlements on them in the first place, which is arguably the most important stat, as many of the subsequent questions, such as the one highlighted by Sherwood, pertain to a scenario where such annexation occurs. The fact that a majority of Israelis do not express support for annexation renders the subsequent questions extremely less meaningful, and her conclusion about Israeli support for 'apartheid' dishonest.

A few additional observations.
•The sample size of the Dialog poll is 503 (out of a Jewish population of over 6 million), which is problematic. Further, since there is no link to the full poll it's not possible to judge the methodology.
•Levy admits that "the survey conductors said that the term 'apartheid' "was not clear enough to some interviewees", which may explain the following additional quote by Levy about the results: "39 percent believe apartheid is practiced "in a few fields"; 19 percent believe "there's apartheid in many fields" and 11 percent do not know."  Further, it's unclear how 'apartheid' – widely understood as a systemic policy of separation based on race – could be characterized as a dynamic localized in certain fields. It seems possible that Israelis were expressing their belief that "discrimination" occurs in certain fields, which is a far different phenomenon than 'apartheid'.
•Sherwood writes that "58% believe Israel already practices apartheid against Palestinians", a number, it seems, based on Levy's report, cited above.  As I noted in the previous bullet, this is extremely problematic conclusion, based on what may be an unclear understanding of what the word 'apartheid' meant in the context it was being used.

Palestinian Context

The most glaring omission by Sherwood is her broader failure, in this or other reports alleging Israeli racism, to provide similar data indicating the political views of Palestinians.  This is part of a larger problem within the Guardian's coverage of the region, which consistently fails to rigorously examine Palestinian society and mores.

As such, the following Palestinian poll results should at least serve to provide a bit of context to contrast the recent polling on Israelis.
•51% support the August 2010 Hamas attack on settlers near Hebron that resulted in the death of four settlers? (PCPSR, October 2010)

•54% support armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel? (Harry Truman Research Institute/PCPSR, March 1-7, 2009

• 64% support launching rockets from the Gaza Strip against Israeli towns and cities such as Sderot and Ashkelon? (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, March 13-15, 2008)

•84% support the bombing attack that took place in a religious school in West Jerusalem in 2008. (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, March 13-15, 2008)

•60% of Palestinians eventually hope that one state − Palestine − will replace the Jewish state. Only 23 percent of Palestinians said they believed in Israel's right to exist as the national homeland of the Jews.  (Based on a poll in 2010)

•Only 4% of Palestinians have a favorable view of Jews. (Pew Global, 2011)

•47.5% of Palestinians still support terrorist attacks inside pre-1967 Israel. (2012 PSR Survey)

•73% of Palestinians "believe" the Islamic Hadith that preaches it is Islamic destiny to kill Jews. (2011 poll)

Of course, there is as good of a chance Sherwood would report these disturbing findings about Palestinian racism, support for violence, and intransigence as the chance she would avoid skewing the results of an Israeli poll in a misleading manner which shows Israelis in the worst possible light.


http://cifwatch.com/
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

seafoid

Harriet Sherwood cherry picks results of poll to smear Israel with 'apartheid' label
in thread
Re: 2,279 calories per person: How Israel made sure Gaza didn't starve

I believe the correct term is  "chutzpah"

Nobody asked Israel to occupy the West Bank and Gaza.  Israel is a sovereign state that decides for itself and it a real tragedy that the people of Israel would choose  apartheid. They won't pull out of the West Bank and they won't give palestinians the vote.

Israel is in a real hole. Hopefully they can pull out of it before it is too late and they try to expel the Palestinians.     
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

give her dixie

The death toll in the past 24 hours has now increased to 7 as 2 more Palestinians have been murdered by Israel. The skies are filled with Drones and F 16's, and there is a real fear in Gaza right now.
next stop, September 10, for number 4......

seafoid

Quote from: give her dixie on October 24, 2012, 10:09:28 AM
The death toll in the past 24 hours has now increased to 7 as 2 more Palestinians have been murdered by Israel. The skies are filled with Drones and F 16's, and there is a real fear in Gaza right now.
and they say Gaza is not occupied
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

seafoid


http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/the-psychology-of-israel-s-declining-democracy.premium-1.472013#

But I think there is an additional reason for the rise in racism. Israel has been occupying the West Bank for more than two thirds of its history now, and has discriminated against Israeli Arabs all along. All Israelis understand that the country cannot be both Jewish and democratic if Israel continues to hold on to the West Bank. But Israel's political right, which has largely ruled the country for more than half of its existence, claims that Israel cannot or must not withdraw from the West Bank either on theological grounds or because this would endanger Israel's security.

Psychological research has shown for many decades that human beings are incapable of seeing themselves as bad in the long run. If a group does something that is immoral under a given value system, it cannot in the long run bear the cognitive dissonance. As a result it will tend to change its value system in order to avoid feeling bad, guilty or ashamed.
The implications for Israel are clear: The longer Israel holds on to the territories, and discriminates against Israeli Arabs the stronger the psychological need to adjust core values, to avoid feeling bad. If Israel has ruled over Palestinians for so long without giving them political rights, the consequence will be to simply say that it is justifiable to discriminate against Arabs
.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

Ball DeBeaver

Quote from: give her dixie on October 24, 2012, 10:09:28 AM
The death toll in the past 24 hours has now increased to 7 as 2 more Palestinians have been murdered by Israel. The skies are filled with Drones and F 16's, and there is a real fear in Gaza right now.

The number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel TODAY stands at 72. I see not even Haaretz has the gall to say any of those killed were innocent civilians.

ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

Íseal agus crua isteach a

Quote from: Ball DeBeaver on October 24, 2012, 02:49:24 PM
Quote from: give her dixie on October 24, 2012, 10:09:28 AM
The death toll in the past 24 hours has now increased to 7 as 2 more Palestinians have been murdered by Israel. The skies are filled with Drones and F 16's, and there is a real fear in Gaza right now.

The number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel TODAY stands at 72. I see not even Haaretz has the gall to say any of those killed were innocent civilians.

You are a fraud Ball DeBeaver and a disgusting excuse for a human being. Shame on you.

give her dixie

No harm to the MOD's on here, but why is it that people are allowed to mock the deaths of Palestinians as if they are not humans? How long would any of us last if we were to poke fun at the deaths of others on another thread? The attitudes of some on this board is a reflection of why the world is so fcuked up.
next stop, September 10, for number 4......

Ball DeBeaver

I'm a fraud? How so? Have I come here and pretend to be something I'm not? I think you'll find that  it is others on here who are the blatant liars.
I have, and will continue, to show that no matter what you read from certain members of this board, that not everyone is taken in by their propoganda. What has been posted by me shows that the situation in the middle east is a hell of a lot different from that portrayed. It is a lot more complex than Israeli = bad, Palestinian = good. I will never accept that firing rockets into civilian areas indiscriminately is justifiable. Neither will I accept the indiscriminate shelling of civilians by Israel, both are just as abhorrent. Those who do these things deserve all the pain they receive.


There are two sides to the story. If anyone can show me where these latest 7 dead have been claimed to be civilian, I will gladly condemn their deaths. For too long this board has been fed half truths and blatant manipulation of the facts.
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

Ball DeBeaver

Quote from: give her dixie on October 24, 2012, 03:29:01 PM
No harm to the MOD's on here, but why is it that people are allowed to mock the deaths of Palestinians as if they are not humans? How long would any of us last if we were to poke fun at the deaths of others on another thread? The attitudes of some on this board is a reflection of why the world is so fcuked up.
Dry yer eyes.

I will mock and rejoice in the deaths of anyone directly involved in the murder of innocent civilians. On either side. They ARE subhuman.

By you trying to have me censored just goes to show how frail your argument is.

If you dont like what I'm saying, or if you think I have broken any rules of the board, then use the report feature at the bottom of the post.
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

Ball DeBeaver



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/24/gaza-israel-shelling-resumes


Gaza-Israel shelling resumes after departure of Qatari emir
Israel carries out targeted air strikes in response to sustained rocket fire following brief lull during visit of Sheikh Hamad
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Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 October 2012 14.29 BST



An Israeli man inspects damage to his house following a rocket attack on the the Israeli kibbutz of Beeri from neighbouring Gaza. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images


More than 70 rockets have been fired into southern Israel from Gaza since the departure on Tuesday of the emir of Qatar, whose visit to the Gaza Strip was seen as a boost for its ruling faction, Hamas. Three foreign agricultural workers were injured and several buildings were hit.

Four militants were killed in resurgent Israeli air strikes overnight as a short period of calm ended. Three were members of Hamas's military wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam brigades, according to reports on its website.

Hamas, which normally distances itself from rocket fire from Gaza, has claimed responsibility for some operations in recent days. "These holy missions come in response to the repeated, continuous crimes of the enemy against our people, which killed four and injured 10 in the past 48 hours," it said in a statement.

Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, said he would order whatever action was necessary to stop rocket fire from Gaza. "If a ground operation will be necessary, there will be a ground operation. Nobody is eager for this but we will act as we are required to stop this wave and to increase the effectiveness of the operation."

Israeli tanks have fired into Gaza in addition to air strikes, according to reports. Schools in both southern Israel and central Gaza were closed on Wednesday, and the Israeli authorities shut crossing points to the enclave.

Both Israel and Hamas are thought to want to avoid an escalation into full-scale conflict. But if Israeli casualties resulted from rocket fire, Israel would be expected to engage in a more sustained assault than targeted assassinations.

Hamas is also under pressure from more radical organisations within Gaza, which may explain its unusual open participation in this latest round of violence. "Hamas feels a tension between the need to be a government [in Gaza] and the need to be part of the resistance [to Israel]. It has in its ranks quite a few people who co-operate with the more radical groups," Yossi Kuperwasser, the director general of Israel's ministry of strategic affairs, told reporters in a briefing last week.

Weapons were "pouring in" to Gaza, he added. "Everyone is extremely busy building a terror infrastructure. Libya is a new and very important source of weapons. The arming process is very intensive and with it comes a growing tendency to use such arms."

Earlier this month, an anti-aircraft missile was fired from Gaza for the first time at an Israeli military helicopter, according to Israeli defence officials. The shoulder-fired Strela missile missed its target.

The visit by the Qatari emir, the first head of state to visit Gaza under Hamas rule, was seen as conferring legitimacy on the Islamist organisation. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani also announced a $400m investment and construction programme for Gaza
ani ohevet et Yisrael.
אני אוהבת את ישראל

seafoid

Quote from: Ball DeBeaver on October 24, 2012, 03:47:38 PM
Quote from: give her dixie on October 24, 2012, 03:29:01 PM
No harm to the MOD's on here, but why is it that people are allowed to mock the deaths of Palestinians as if they are not humans? How long would any of us last if we were to poke fun at the deaths of others on another thread? The attitudes of some on this board is a reflection of why the world is so fcuked up.
Dry yer eyes.

I will mock and rejoice in the deaths of anyone directly involved in the murder of innocent civilians. On either side. They ARE subhuman.

By you trying to have me censored just goes to show how frail your argument is.

If you dont like what I'm saying, or if you think I have broken any rules of the board, then use the report feature at the bottom of the post.
Go on then. Take the piss out of the Golani brigade of the IDF.


"How frail your argument is.".

Thanks for the laugh habibi

"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU