. . . 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. . . .
Child injured in Israeli attacks. Hospital officials say she suffered white phosphorus burns. 1-19-09
Deutsche Welle: In Gaza City, residents continued sifting through the rubble left behind by Israeli air raids and heavy shelling, and rescue teams found at least 10 more bodies. At least 100 bodies were uncovered on Sunday, Gaza emergency chief Mo'aweya Hassanein told reporters.
A boy in Jebaliya. 1-19-09
They brought the Palestinian death toll in the Israeli offensive to at least 1,310, 514 of them women and minors. The actual civilian toll was likely higher, as health officials were unable to say how many of the adult men were fighters.
Ayat cries for her uncle, who was found dead in the rubble. 1-19-09
More than 5,500 people were injured, 2,650 of them women and children. Some 100,000 Gazans are said to have fled their homes.
Boy asleep on a donkey cart, 1-19-09
Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed and dozens injured in the ground fighting and in rocket attacks.
More photos, information, analysis, and a place to give below, in this 'final' Gaza invasion diary.
Reuters: Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in the campaign. . . .
Israeli forces have killed some 1,138 people and wounded 5,100 during the Gaza war, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
The Gaza/Israel and Palestine/Israel conflict is very long, very complex, and there are outrageous wrongs constantly being done by and to both sides. The game where we argue (usually by highlighting the negative facts about the 'bad guys') over and try to establish which side is (much) more to blame and then side with the other side is NOT part of a solution strategy. The immediate crisis, the Israeli invasion of Gaza, for example, does not require long and detailed arguments and a hammering out of the truth on all the points of contention and all the history that has gone on between Israel and Palestinians over the last century or so.
No, a solution -- at least a long-term 'temporary' solution -- to the Gaza crisis is exceptionally simple: do not allow military imports but otherwise end the killing siege on Gaza, in exchange for Hamas once again instituting a ceasefire on its own (feeble, mostly harmless) rocket attacks on Israel and doing its best to stop other groups' (feeble, mostly harmless) rocket attacks. Hamas is already willing to do such a deal. The hold up is that Israel (with the avid, vital, slavish support of the U.S.) wants to reinstitute the killing siege. (I say killing siege because through denial of medical supplies and care, denial of sanitation/sewage and water system repairs, and denial of food and water, the siege placed on Gaza has killed many Gaza civilians, a great many of them children.) The article below describes the Hamas ceasefire proposal as I have; they won't give in on an end to the siege.
(More below: machinations behind competing ceasefire proposals, a Jewish UK legislator says the Israelis act like Nazis, why Congress backs Israel, and Norman Finkelstein's insights on the whys of Israel's invasion.)
"It looks like phosphorus, it smells like phosphorus and it's burning like phosphorus. That's why I'm calling it phosphorus."
-- UNRWA Director John Ging
Reuters: The Palestinian death toll from the air-and-ground offensive has risen to at least 1,073 and there were more than 5,000 wounded, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. A Palestinian rights group said at least 670 of the dead were civilians.
Thirteen Israelis have been killed -- 10 soldiers and three civilians hit by Hamas rocket fire since Israel launched on December 27 a military campaign it said was aimed at ending such salvoes.
CNN (warehoused version; original CNN has been modified): Israeli forces moved into Gaza City overnight. During the clash with Hamas fighters, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency headquarters complex -- located in a densely populated neighborhood -- was hit repeatedly by shrapnel and artillery.
BBC: Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip have passed 1,000 . . .
Nearly a third of the dead are reported to be children and nearly 5,000 people have been injured. . . .
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said 1,010 people have died in the conflict which started 19 days ago.
More than 300 of the dead are said to be children and about 4,700 people in Gaza have been injured.
Thirteen Israelis have been killed, including three civilians and one soldier from rockets fired from Gaza and nine soldiers killed in fighting in Gaza.
It is impossible to independently confirm casualty figures as Israel has refused to allow international journalists to enter Gaza.
Reuters: The number of Palestinians killed in a 19-day-old Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip reached at least 1,000 on Wednesday, including hundreds of civilians, officials in the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the enclave said.
The figures, in common with previous counts, are subject to the difficulties of counting and verification in the chaos of the war. Israeli officials have given no firm casualty toll for Palestinians but say troops have killed hundreds of militants.
Gaza: ICRC president demands greater respect for civilians and humanitarian workers
"It was 10pm on Monday, 4 January when my father and four brothers were sitting in the yard of this house," said Ali, 27, son of Jihad Abu Jbarah who was killed along with two other sons. "They were burning a wood fire to warm up and make tea. This is the cup my father was drinking tea from."
Last Monday, Israeli warplanes hit the Abu Jbarah family home, killing three family members and wounding two others including one severely. . . .
"My brother Khaled was carrying his daughter towards her bed as the weather was getting cold and as soon as he turned his back the rockets hit the house," Ali recalled. "His daughter was about to sleep as he fell down to the ground after he sustained two shrapnel into his back." . . .
Basel, 30, Usama, 21 and their 53-year-old paralyzed father, Jihad, were all killed as the missiles dismembered them, scattering body parts in different directions.
"My father went to paradise," says Jihad, Basel's young son, as he stands near the wood stove that his father, uncle and grandfather had been sitting around when they were killed.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: The Palestinian death toll of Israel's Gaza offensive has reached at least 947, two thirds of whom are civilians, an official in the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the strip said Tuesday.
Mo'aweya Hassanein [Health Ministry chief of emergency services] said that of the 947 killed, 635 were civilian men, women and children. Another 165 were Hamas policemen while the remaining 147 were gunmen in Hamas' armed wing and other militant factions.
The numbers could not be independently verified. Israel puts the number of militants killed at at least 400. . . .
Reuters: The Palestinian death toll in the offensive since December 27 reached 937, Palestinian medics say. The Health Minister of the Hamas-run government says close to 400 of those are women and children.
Israel's death toll since the offensive began is 10 soldiers, while three civilians were killed in rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip.
Wounded baby, outside Shifah Hospital in Gaza, Jan. 11, 2009
Reuters: The Palestinian death toll in the 17-day-old Israeli offensive reached 908, more than a third of them children, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Thirteen Israelis have been killed -- 10 soldiers, and three civilians killed by Hamas rocket fire.
AP: The army announced Sunday that it was sending reserve units into Gaza to assist thousands of ground forces already in the territory. The use of reserves is a strong signal that Israel is planning to move the offensive, which Gaza officials say has killed some 910 Palestinians, into a new, more punishing phase.
LA Times: 1 dead, dozens injured in Gaza by suspected white phosphorus munitions
By Richard Boudreaux and Yasser Ahmad
January 12, 2009
Reporting from Jerusalem and Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian villagers said the shelling came from the direction of the Israeli border, less than a mile away, scattering flaming objects in their midst and burning down 20 homes and the local United Nations-run school.
"One landed in my kitchen and caused a fire," said Zohair Mohammed abu Rejila, 35. "I went to put it out, but another one landed on Mayar, my baby daughter. It was like a block of fire, a piece of plastic on fire. When I knocked it off her, it exploded and out came this heavy white smoke with a very bad smell."
Doctors who treated Abu Rejila, his family and dozens of neighbors in southern Gaza said they were apparent victims of white phosphorus fired from Israeli artillery. One woman was killed. . . .
Yousef abu Rish, director of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, said 55 people from nearby Khoza were treated for burns, breathing difficulties, and throat and eye irritation after exposure to toxic white smoke from shells fired just after midnight Sunday.
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