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  • johnpi 11:09 pm on February 10, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , gaza, , Jaljalat, , , , ,

    Al Qaeda sympathisers detained in West Bank, Gaza.

    Palestinian security forces detained six radical Islamists with explosives in the West Bank in the first known arrests of al Qaeda-inspired militants in the territory, a senior Palestinian officer said.

    In the Gaza Strip, controlled by a separate, Hamas-run administration, the authorities announced the arrest of a leader of a pro-al Qaeda group, the latest sign of a crackdown on radicals accused of bombing security offices and Internet cafes.
    ….

    Hamas security officials cited 12 bombings which they believed were carried out by radical movements in recent weeks, the highest number of such attacks since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip.

    Vehicles belonging to two Hamas officials and the office of a Hamas security service were blown up in the bombings. There were no casualties.

    The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the head of a fundamentalist group known as the Jaljalat was arrested late on Tuesday and that several other members of groups supporting al Qaeda were detained in recent days. “A preliminary investigation linked (him) to several if not all of the bombing attacks against security offices and personnel and Internet cafes. He is being interrogated,” said Ehab al-Ghsain, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

     

  • johnpi 4:55 pm on February 1, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , ,

    Israel disciplines top officers over UN compound attack.

    The Israeli military said Monday it has reprimanded two high-ranking officers for approving the firing of artillery shells toward a U.N. compound during the Gaza Strip war last year – the first admission of any high-level wrongdoing during the offensive.

    Israel announced the punishment in a document submitted to the United Nations last Friday in response to a U.N. report that has accused Israel’s military of committing war crimes, including the use of white phosphorus, an incendiary munition, in the warehouse attack.

     

  • johnpi 10:06 am on January 23, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , reparations,

    Israel pays UN for damage in Gaza offensive.

    That’s swell of them. As long as we’re on the topic of reparations…

     

  • johnpi 1:18 am on December 18, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , birth defects, consanguinity, , gaza, , inbreeding,

    When ‘marrying into a good family’ goes horribly wrong.

    Inbreeding prompts outbreak of rare pseudohermaphrodite births in Gaza.

    Deficiency of the hormone 17-B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17-B-HSD) during pregnancy left their male reproductive organs deformed and buried deep within their abdomens.

    At birth, doctors identified Nadir and Ahmed as girls, because they appeared to have female genitalia.

    As a result, they spent the first 16 years of their lives dressing and acting like girls.
    ….

    There are an unusually high number of male pseudohermaphrodite births in the Gaza neighborhood of Jabalya, where Nadir and Ahmed live.

    Dr. Jehad Abudaia, a Canadian-Palestinian pediatrician and urologist practicing in Gaza, says he has diagnosed nearly 80 cases like Nadir’s and Ahmed’s in the last seven years.

    “It is astonishing that we have [so] many cases with this defect, which is very rare all over the world,” Abudaia says. He attributes the high frequency of this birth defect to “consanguinity,” or in-breeding.

    “If you want to go to the root of the problem, this problem runs in families in the genes.” Abudaia says. “They want to get married to cousins… they don’t go to another family. This is a problem.”

     

  • abunoor 6:25 pm on November 4, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , gaza, ,

    U.S. Congress votes 344-36 to denounce the Goldstone report.

    Both Muslim Congressmen, Ellison and Carson, vote Nay.

     

  • aziz 8:33 pm on November 3, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, ,

    The New Yorker has a long, balanced article about the Gaza war and the abduction of Gilad Shalit. A real must-read.

     

  • johnpi 9:28 pm on October 27, 2009 | 10 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , gaza, , , , , ,

    Salafism: A new threat to Hamas.

    On the streets of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, clusters of men wear long tunics over baggy trousers, a costume common in Pakistan but virtually unknown among Palestinians — until recently.

    It is an emblem of Salafism, a branch of Islam that advocates restoring a Muslim empire across the Middle East and into Spain. Some Salafis preach violence, even killing Muslims deemed not pious enough. While historically a fringe group in the southeastern Mediterranean, Salafis have sought inroads in Lebanon and Jordan and are battling Hamas in Gaza.

    While Al Qaeda, which shares its conservative religious views and promotion of holy war, has not gained a foothold in the region, Salafism may be the wave of the future. In Algeria and Morocco, similar movements have expanded in the past two decades to create havoc through civilian bombings and attacks on the police.

    “This is the challenge we face in the world,” said Bilal Saab, a researcher in Middle East security at the University of Maryland in College Park. “We are getting better at dealing with insurgencies, though Afghanistan is proving to be an exception. It is much more difficult to combat the constant threat of underground urban terrorism.”

     

  • johnpi 9:32 pm on October 17, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , , ,

    Israeli PM vows to “delegitimize” UN Gaza report.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a lengthy diplomatic battle to “delegitimize” the United Nations charges that Israel committed war crimes in its deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip, an official said on Saturday.

    The U.N. Human Rights Council singled out the Jewish state for censure in a resolution on Friday, while endorsing a report by South African jurist Richard Goldstone which condemned both Israeli and Hamas actions in a war last December and January.

    Netanyahu, who has said the Goldstone report could undermine U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace moves, was quoted as saying Israel would wage a protracted struggle against the criticism.

    Abu Aardvark had the best response to this: “If Netanyahu decided to walk away from peace talks, how would anyone be able to tell the difference?”

     

  • thabet 9:44 am on October 11, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , gaza, , , , ,

    “IDF ethics advisor on civilian casualties: ‘whoever stayed [in Gaza], let the blood be on his head.’”

     

  • johnpi 9:50 pm on October 10, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, ,

    Hundreds of war crimes lawsuits filed against Israelis.

    Almost 1,000 lawsuits alleging war crimes by Israeli ministers and military personnel have now been filed around the world, Israel has admitted.

    And the situation could become immeasurably worse for Israel’s politicians and soldiers as efforts continue to have the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel and Hamas of crimes against humanity during last winter’s Gaza Strip invasion, raised at the United Nations.

    Last week, Moshe Yaalon, one of four deputies to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, cancelled a planned fundraising trip to Britain because he feared arrest on war-crimes warrants issued by human rights and pro-Palestinian groups.

    The week before, the defence minister, Ehud Barak, only avoided arrest on a visit to the British Labour Party conference in Brighton after a court ruled that he had diplomatic immunity.

    Israelis travelling without such diplomatic protection now face the possibility of arrest in many countries across the globe, including Norway, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Holland and Canada.

    Human rights lawyers are using the principle of universal jurisdiction in international law to file suits worldwide for war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity.

     

  • aziz 9:15 am on October 8, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, ,

    The Goldstone Report: executive summary and full PDF download.

    It’s kind of laughable how it bends over backwards to paint the rockets from Gaza as equivalent “war crimes” to the civilian shields used by the IDF.

    UPDATE: excellent op-ed by former Director of BT’selem regarding the report, very balanced analysis.

     

  • johnpi 7:10 pm on October 7, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , , , , , , , , ,

    Richard Silverstein sheds light on some interesting facts about Libya’s status at the UN that makes the Goldstone report – which indicts Israel for war crimes – an issue that can’t be easily dispensed with a security council veto from the US.

    Libya not only sits on the Security Council, it also is president of the General Assembly. So that means that Qaddafi has the U.S. over a boulder twice over. If the U.S. vetoes Security Council consideration of the Report, Libya can introduce it before the General Assembly, where we don’t have veto. If Abbas hadn’t singed himself so badly in mishandling this affair, he might’ve been able to weasel out of this by telling Libya to take a hike. But Hamas already has his ass in a sling over his betrayal of the Gazans. He can’t very well dump Goldstone twice.

    So Obama may have the Goldstone nightmare return to haunt him in the Security Council. It might even be passed by the General Assembly. So much for our president’s supposed political adeptness.

     

  • johnpi 5:50 am on October 7, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , , , , ,

    UN council mulls emergency meet on Gaza report.

    The United Nations Security Council will hold closed-door consultations on Wednesday to consider whether to accept a Libyan request for a meeting mainly to discuss a U.N. report that accused Israel and Palestinian fighters of war crimes during Israel’s assault of Gaza, diplomats said.

    Libya’s deputy ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi told AFP that his country circulated a letter on behalf of the U.N. Arab group requesting “an emergency meeting” of the 15-member body to consider the U.N. report.
    ….

    A spokesman for Libya’s U.N. mission, Ahmed Gebreel, said his country, which currently has a Security Council seat, had requested a meeting “because of the seriousness of the report and because we think it’s too long to wait until March.”

    “We are welcoming Libya’s step that they have asked the Security Council to meet to discuss the Goldstone report,” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said in a telephone conversation from Rome.

    “Libya’s step is supporting the Palestinian people’s rights.”

    Critics of the Palestinian Authority have accused Abbas of letting his people down by agreeing to the postponement. A statement by the Palestinian observer mission at the United Nations said it fully supported the Libyan request for a Security Council meeting.

     

  • johnpi 5:03 pm on October 6, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , , ,

    Palestinians to ask UN to pass Goldstone report after all.

    The move appeared to mark a change in position, as the Palestinian delegation on Friday backed a move at the U.N. Human Rights Council to defer a vote on whether the report should be passed on.

    Erakat said Abbas’s decision came “in light of the controversy that has arisen” around the report, which accused Israel and Palestinian armed groups of committing war crimes during the three-week land, air and sea assault on Gaza that Israel started on Dec. 27.

    “We want to discuss the report in international bodies so they will take decisions on what emerged in the report, in order to insure that the crimes committed by Israel against our people are never repeated,” he said.
    ….

    The Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza has led a chorus of criticism of the move, accusing Abbas of betraying the 1,400 Palestinians killed in Israel’s.

     

  • johnpi 4:50 pm on October 6, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , , , ,

    Marc Lynch considers the ramifications to the Obama administration and the Palestinian Authority of the stifling of the Goldstone report (via Richard Silverstein).

    The most likely tactical considerations behind the administration’s decision [to block Goldstone] seem short-sighted. Its move likely responded to the intense public and private Israeli campaign against the report, and probably aimed at winning back some positive relations with the Israelis and maintaining momentum on the peace process. But if the administration’s hope was that killing the report would make the issue quietly go away while winning some political capital with the Israelis, it is likely to be disappointed. Quite the contrary: the report is becoming a major political issue in the Arab world, badly damaging the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, while Obama seems to be getting little credit from Israeli public opinion or the Israeli government.

    …There seems to be little question that Abbas’s decision to go along with American pressure will have a significant impact on the popularity and legitimacy of the PA…Whatever gains made by Fatah after its Bethlehem conference and by Fayyad with the announcement of his agenda for a Palestinian state are likely to be washed away in this deluge. The credibility of the Hamas narrative about the PA’s collaboration with Israel and unrepresentative nature will be strongly enhanced. And it will not help Salam Fayyad establish authority that he has been fingered by some sources as the person directly responsible for the decision.

    Why was the PA leadership put in this untenable situation?

    Lynch goes on to point out that the Israelis seem to have taken the American protection for granted while continuing to villify and dismiss Obama. Lose-lose for Obama all the way around.

     

  • johnpi 9:02 pm on October 5, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , Mamoud Abbas, ,

    There are three dominant theories being floated as to why the West Bank government of Mahmoud Abbas scuttled a resolution “calling for the most incendiary international criticism of Israel’s actions during the Gaza War to date.”

    The first posits that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a clandestine deal with the U.S. to scuttle the Goldstone report in return for U.S. pressure to stop all Israeli construction in the Palestinian territories. Ibrahim Khraishi, the ambassador of the PLO to the U.N., was quoted as saying that the Palestinian negotiation had only agreed to postpone voting on the resolution so as to avoid creating “an obstacle” for the Americans.
    ….

    The second theory is that Israel threatened to cancel the licensing of Al-Wataniya, a second Palestinian mobile phone operator into which a number of Palestinian political leaders have personally invested [a $700 million investment].
    ….

    The final theory, and arguably the most conspiratorial among them, centers on the premise that Israel has recordings of senior Palestinian officials encouraging Israel to continue the January war with Hamas in Gaza, including a video of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas enthusiastically trying to convince Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to continue the attack on Hamas. The theory is that an Israeli threat to release the tapes to the U.N. committee led to the Palestinian leadership pulling out of the resolution.

    “Aside from the threat regarding Al Wataniya, Avigdor Lieberman threatened the PA to expose evidence of their deep complicity in Israel’s massacre in Gaza,” Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian analyst and founding member of the Palestinian civil society campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, told The Media Line. “That would have caused several top heads to roll, so to speak.”

     

  • johnpi 5:36 am on August 18, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , ,

    Jund Ansar Allah, the group that announced an “al-Qaida-style” Islamic emirate in the southern Gaza Strip and that claims to be the keeper of the flame of true Islamic virtue there, has changed its focus to revenge.

    A radical Muslim group “Warriors of God” on Monday said it works to appoint a new leader after its late Imam was killed in clashes with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

    “We are now waiting our new Emir,” the group said in a statement

    Moreover, the group vowed to target the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers in retaliation for the killing of their leader and some followers in recent clashes.
    ….

    “We will revenge your blood and will widow your (Hamas) women in the same way you widowed our holy fighters’ women,” the statement said.

    The Muslim group, that sometimes calls itself “Army of God followers,” rejected Hamas’ accusations that it was behind a series of attacks that targeted internet cafes and wedding parties over the past months.

     

  • johnpi 9:45 am on August 15, 2009 | 8 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , ,

    Cleric who declared an ‘Islamic emirate’ in Gaza and dubbed himself “commander of the faithful” was among those killed in a clash with Hamas yesterday.

    Hamas forces blew up the home of Sheikh Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi, leader of the radical group Jund Ansar Allah, or Soldiers of the Partisans of God, Hamas sources said.

    The death toll has risen to 21, injured to 121.

    Jund Ansar Allah is part of the radical Islamist movement that follows the doctrines of the “Salaf,” or the predecessors — referring to the early generations of Muslims. They reject all modern influences such as politics and government.

    The group accused Hamas of not being Islamic enough, saying they care more about pleasing “tyrants” than “obeying God.”

     

  • johnpi 5:06 pm on August 14, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , gaza, , ,

    ‘Islamic Emirate’ declared in Gaza, battle with Hamas kills 13, injures 100.

    Speaking before weekly prayers, Abdul Latif Moussa — known to followers by the al-Qaeda-style nom de guerre Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi — announced the start of theocratic rule in the Palestinian territories, starting at Rafah.

    “We declare the birth of the Islamic Emirate,” declared Maqdessi, a heavily-bearded, middle-aged cleric in a red robe who was guarded by four black-clad, masked men with assault rifles. One wore what appeared to be an explosive suicide belt.

    An audience of several hundred men filled the mosque with cheers and shouts. Al-Qaeda uses the historical term “emirate” to mean clerical rule across the Islamic world.

    Ismail Haniyeh, who heads Gaza’s Hamas government, denied in his Friday sermon that there were any non-Palestinian gunmen in the territory, as alleged by Israel which charges that veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken up residence.

     

  • thabet 8:30 am on August 13, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , , ,

    The Only Democracy In The Middle East and Its Moral Army:

    During Israel’s recent Gaza offensive, Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed 11 Palestinian civilians, including five women and four children, who were in groups waving white flags to convey their civilian status, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Israeli military should conduct thorough, credible investigations into these deaths to tackle the prevailing culture of impunity, Human Rights Watch said.

    (Hamas is no better.)

     

  • johnpi 2:45 pm on August 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza,

    Resistance rises within Hamas: Government (of Hamas officials) refuses to support the ministry of religious affairs ‘virtue campaign’ to avoid coersive pressure on Gazans, while ordering a review of the Gaza Supreme Court chief’s order that compels all women to cover their hair in court for the same reason.

     

  • johnpi 9:31 pm on July 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , ,

    Hamas ‘virtue campaign’ shows a much broader coercive effort to force Gazans to comply with the group’s arbitrary strictures.

    Yesterday I linked to a story about Hamas forcing women lawyers to wear headscarves despite the group’s vow to never force its beliefs on others. This story shows Hamas coercion is expanding into other areas:

    In government schools, head scarves for female students are supposed to be optional. But one high school has made robes and head scarves a condition for enrollment. Teachers are now being asked to pressure the girls to put them on, said Education Ministry spokesman Khaled Radi.

    Police are enforcing the restrictions on mannequins and salesmen say they ripped off the tags on packages of panties and bras which showed women in underwear.

    Other shopkeepers said they were told to remove the mannequins’ heads so they don’t violate the Islamic ban on copying the human form.

    Enforcement is spotty and seems restricted to working-class markets. Most traders said they moved the mannequins back after police left.

    Lingerie seller Mohammed Helu, 23, hid his under-clad mannequins but was allowed to display an outfit of a plunging top and miniskirt with the mannequin’s head covered by a plastic bag.

    On a Gaza beach, Mohammed Amta, 18, said a plainclothes security man told him to put on a shirt, saying his appearance was un-Islamic, and to remove his two silver rings and woven bracelet because they were a sign of Western culture.

     

  • johnpi 7:09 pm on July 27, 2009 | 8 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , gaza,

    Facebook blocks Hamas leader’s fan pages.

    All fan pages bearing the name of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah were deleted and no reasons were given to justify this action, said the administrator of Haniyah’s fan pages.

    The administrator warned that Facebook might take similar steps toward fan pages of other Hamas leaders like politburo chief Khaled Mashaal whose fan page has more than 17,000 members. One of Haniyah’s pages had more than 10,000 members.

    Activists launched a Facebook campaign calling for the return of Haniyah’s page and demanding that the website administration stop tampering with any pages related to leaders of the Palestinian resistance, the London-based al-Hayat reported Sunday.

     

  • johnpi 5:42 am on July 26, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , , ,

    How conservative Islamic political movements lose trust and support:

    Gaza judge: Female lawyers must wear headscarf.

    Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007 and vowed never to impose its conservative values on others. But it has taken a series of steps in recent months that appear to be aimed at forcing residents to accept its Islamic-oriented social agenda….

    Subyiya Juma, a female lawyer, said the judge’s decision would affect only 10 or so lawyers — since the vast majority of the 150 registered female lawyers already cover their hair.

    Juma, who does not wear a headscarf, said the point wasn’t the number of women, but that freedoms were being eroded.

    “This is dangerous — it’s a clear violation of the law, it is taking away our personal freedoms — and by whom? The very person who is meant to defend our freedoms,” Juma said.

     

  • aziz 10:24 am on July 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , gaza, ,

    my commentary on the IDF’s alleged use of human shields in Gaza.

     

  • muse 11:16 pm on July 14, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, ,

    Israeli soldiers confirm war crimes in the Gazan offensive last winter.

    One Israeli reservist said a brigade commander gave them stark orders as they were preparing for combat. “He said something along the line of ‘Don’t let morality become an issue; that will come later,’” the soldier said. “He had this strange language: ‘Leave the nightmares and horrors that will come up for later — now just shoot.”

    “You felt like a child playing around with a magnifying glass, burning up ants,” another Israeli soldier said. “A 20-year-old kid should not be doing such things to people. . . . the guys were running a ‘Wild West’ scene: draw, cock, kill.”

    No surprises here, least of all that the IDF conducted an internal inquiry and cleared itself. Actually, I am surprised that its being reported on Yahoo.

     

  • johnpi 9:06 pm on July 14, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza,

    Chewing gum caper in Gaza.

    Hamas suspects that Israeli intelligence services are supplying its Gaza Strip stronghold with chewing gum that boosts the sex drive in order to “corrupt the young,” an official said on Tuesday.

     

  • johnpi 5:36 am on July 14, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , gaza, , ,

    Britain revokes Israeli arms licenses over Gaza attack.

     

  • thabet 9:01 am on July 8, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , ,

    The Moral IDF:

    Israeli forces at the Erez crossing stopped a 5-month old baby from crossing into Israel. His mother and five-year old sister both had a permission to leave the Strip, so the 5-year old girl could receive medical treatment in Israel.

     

  • thabet 8:49 am on July 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gaza, , , , , , , ,

    The Only Democracy In The Middle East: no better than a ‘terrorist organisation’.

     

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