Obama Inaugural Blasts Israeli & Hamas Terrorism

by: fairleft

Tue Jan 20, 2009 at 14:26

. . . for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you. . . .

Aftermath of Tel Aviv suicide bombing attack.

Gaza, mother and injured child.

. . . because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve. . . .

Apartheid Wall, Bethlehem.

Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, 1-20-09

Gaza kindergarten.

Suicide attack aftermath, Tel Aviv.

Northern Israel, children in bomb shelter.

Injured girl, Gaza.

[Emphasis added]

Dr. Erik Fosse, a Norwegian surgeon who worked at the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza during the Israeli offensive in Gaza, also told Al Jazeera there was a significant increase in double amputations.

"We suspect they [Israel] used Dime weapons because we saw cases of huge amputations or flesh torn off the lower parts of the body," he said.

"The pressure wave [from a Dime device] moves from the ground upwards and that's why the majority of patients have huge injuries to the lower part of the body and abdomen."

Fosse described the injuries as "extreme" and "much more dramatic" than those inflicted by landmines as "legs are blown off to the groin, it's like they have been cut to pieces".

He described them as "new injuries" that most doctors will not have come across, although he noted similar wounds were reported in the 2006 Lebanon war.

Noting that Dime explosives are precision weapons that are supposed to minimise civilian casualties, Fosse said: "The problem is that most of the patients I saw were children. If they [the Israelis] are trying to be accurate, it seems obvious these weapons were aimed at children."

Fosse called on the UN to establish a body in Gaza to monitor survivors to see if they developed cancer, following claims Dime devices contain radioactive material.