Israel bombs Gaza killing 200+

[JaJae]

So Israel and Hamas are back at it again. Hamas broke the ceasefire/truce and fired over 200 rockets into Israel. Israel's patience wore thin and they retaliated by firing at every known Hamas installation they are aware of. The world is pleading for restraint from Israel on their counter attacks, but time will tell.

Israeli troops are lined up at the border preparing for a ground invasion, but have not yet entered.

Israeli assault on Hamas kills more than 200

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer
Sat Dec 27, 6:04 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli warplanes rained more than 100 tons of bombs on security installations in Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 230 people in one of the bloodiest days in decades of the mideast conflict. The government said the open-ended campaign was aimed at stopping rocket and mortar attacks that have traumatized southern Israel.
More than 400 people were also wounded. Most of the casualties were security forces, but Palestinian officials said at least 15 civilians were among the dead.
The unprecedented assault sparked protests and condemnations throughout the Arab world, and many of Israel's Western allies urged restraint, though the U.S. blamed Hamas for the fighting.
But there was no end in sight. Israel warned it might go after Hamas' leaders, and militants kept pelting Israel with rockets — killing at least one Israeli and wounding six.
Hundreds of Israeli infantry and armored corps troops headed for the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground invasion, military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the goal was "to bring about a fundamental improvement in the security situation of the residents of the southern part of the country." He added, "It could take some time."
The Israeli airstrikes caused widespread panic and confusion, and black plumes of smoke billowed above the territory, ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as students were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children.
"My son is gone, my son is gone," wailed Said Masri, a 57-year-old shopkeeper, as he sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, slapping his face and covering his head with dust from a bombed-out security compound nearby.
He said he had sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and could not find him. "May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn," Masri moaned.
Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas. Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.
The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired some 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and 10 times that number over the past year.
"There is a time for calm and there is a time for fighting, and now is the time for fighting," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, vowing to expand the operation if necessary.
In Gaza City's main security compound, bodies of more than a dozen uniformed Hamas police lay on the ground. Civilians rushed wounded people in cars and vans to hospitals because there weren't enough ambulances to transport all the dead and wounded.
"There are heads without bodies .... There's blood in the corridors. People are weeping, women are crying, doctors are shouting, " said nurse Ahmed Abdel Salaam from Shifa Hospital, Gaza's main treatment center.
Military officials said aircraft released more than 100 tons of bombs in the first nine hours of fighting, focusing initially on militant training camps, rocket-manufacturing facilities and weapons warehouses that had been identified in advance.
A second wave was directed at squads who fired about 180 rockets and mortars at Israeli border communities. In an attack early Sunday, Palestinians said Israeli aircraft bombed a mosque near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, destroying it.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas' political leaders could soon be targeted. ""Hamas is a terrorist organization and nobody is immune," she declared.
The campaign was launched six weeks before national elections. Livni and Barak hope to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister, and the outgoing government has faced pressure to take tough action.
Gaza's political leaders, who have been targeted in the past, went into hiding earlier this week. In a speech broadcast on local Gaza television, Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, declared his movement would not be cowed.
"We are stronger, and more determined, and have more will, and we will hold onto our rights even more than before," Haniyeh said. It was not clear where he spoke.
In Damascus, Syria, Hamas' top leader, Khaled Mashaal, called on Palestinians to rekindle their fight against Israel. "This is the time for a third uprising," he said.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005 after crushing the second Palestinian uprising, but it has maintained control over the territory's border crossings.
Despite the overwhelming show of force, it was not clear the offensive would halt the rocket fire. Past operations have never achieved that goal.
Late Saturday, Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said 230 Palestinians were killed and more than 400 were wounded.
The lone fatality in Israel was in the town of Netivot, where a rocket killed an Israeli man. Six other people were wounded, rescue services said.
Netivot only recently become a target, and dozens of stunned residents, some weeping, gathered at the house that took the deadly rocket hit. A hole gaped in one of the walls, which was pocked with shrapnel marks.
"We need to finish this once and for all and strike back hard," said next-door neighbor Avraham Chen-Chatam, 57.
Streets were nearly empty in Sderot, the Israeli border town pummeled hardest by rockets. But dozens of people congregated on a hilltop to watch the Israeli aerial attacks.
The TV images of dead and wounded Gazans inflamed Arab public opinion, and protests erupted in Arab Israeli villages, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Arab world.
The campaign embarrassed moderate Arab regimes that have encouraged Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and weakened Hamas' rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007.
Abbas condemned the attacks, but fearing violence could spiral out of control, his forces also broke up protests in the West Bank.
The offensive also risked opening new fronts, including unrest that could destabilize the West Bank and ignite possible rocket attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas on northern Israel.
Britain, the EU, the Vatican, the U.N. secretary-general and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair all called for an immediate restoration of calm. The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the situation.
But the U.S., Israel's closest ally, blamed Hamas. "These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Print Story: Israeli assault on Hamas kills more than 200 - Yahoo! News

Hamas wanted this war, time will tell if Israel will give it to them.

[motivez]

Once again we see the blatant bias blaming only Hamas for the current conditions.. I don't see you talking about the 18 month blockade of Gaza?

The rocket attacks are a direct response to the Israel breaking the ceasefire in a Nov 4th raid.. but of course, that little tidbit is ignored because it doesn't fit the standard narrative of Israel "defending itself."

You can't expect oppressed people not to fight back for basic dignity and human rights. It's human nature. Their methods may be deplorable but their cause is one we'd defend and support if we had a rational policy toward the current situation.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank are atrocious, Israel is guilty of numerous war crimes, but of course.. our country continues to apologize for everything they do.

The only way this will ever end is if one side is exterminated, ie genocide, which Israel is in the process of doing, just slowly instead of quickly like happens in Africa, through their cutting off vital supply lines, refusing humanitarian relief, and so forth..

or, if Israel gives the people autonomy so their society can progress. So long as they're forced to live under military oppression, the people will side with militant groups which promise to fight back against the indignity they're forced to live under.

If they act peaceful, Israel shits all over them, bulldozing their homes, stealing their land, and building settlements on top of the ruins.. erecting barricades so they're unable to travel

When they try to resist the oppression and occupation, they get bombed to hell and idiots actually try to blame them solely for the current state of things.

[Photon1001]

Israel has every right to defend themselves. The Palestinians have been offered statehood ELEVEN times now, and have refused. Hamas' only objective is to see "all the infidels destroyed", etc., and everybody knows this.

[kinggovernor]

Egypt is shooting at the Palestinians who try to breach their border

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

Egypt is shooting at the Palestinians who try to breach their border

Yeah, don't let those people out of their concentration camp.

A really disgusting post.. I've lost a lot of respect for you with comments like this.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Photon1001

Israel has every right to defend themselves. The Palestinians have been offered statehood ELEVEN times now, and have refused. Hamas' only objective is to see "all the infidels destroyed", etc., and everybody knows this.

Israel wasn't defending themselves, they broke the ceasefire and launched an aggressive military action.

Statehood is no good when it doesn't include autonomy.

[Photon1001]

Hamas isn't interested in autonomy, only "death to the infidels", and are neither constitute a reasonable party, or a majority in the PLO movement. Hamas is a terrorist organization that needs to be eliminated. Fatah, on the other hand may be able to be worked with toward peace. Peace is the last thing Hamas wants.

[Donkey®]

So I guess Bin Laden was right in attacking our citizens to force us to put pressure on our government to remove our troops from the holy lands.

[Photon1001]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

So I guess Bin Laden was right in attacking our citizens to force us to put pressure on our government to remove our troops from the holy lands.

Hamas would think so. ..not that that matters to "conservative" ideologues like Al-Qaeda or Hamas. ..or Likud or the GOP...

Netanyahu and his ilk cannot be allowed to win in the elections this new year.

[Photon1001]

Religious fanaticism must be stopped. ...everywhere.

[Spideynw]

Maybe the U.S. should stop giving military aid to the Middle East...

[arab]

after an offensive blockade, the terrorists Zionism attacked GAZA and killed more than 284 people and wounded many people until now. they were civilian people including schoolchildren. What's more, there is shortage in medicine and hospitals in Gaza.this is another message proves that this occupation forces don't want peace and only Arabs want it.The Arab and Muslim street is very angry and they protest publicly in most Arab towns.The attacks continues on Gaza strip even though the security council asks for ceasefire.The security council couldn't even condemn these attacks because of American's veto, but it could condemn Hamas' rockets, which are very small and simple compare to the military force of occupation forces.

[kombayn]

Originally Posted by arab

after an offensive blockade, the terrorists Zionism attacked GAZA and killed more than 284 people and wounded many people until now. they were civilian people including schoolchildren. What's more, there is shortage in medicine and hospitals in Gaza.this is another message proves that this occupation forces don't want peace and only Arabs want it.The Arab and Muslim street is very angry and they protest publicly in most Arab towns.The attacks continues on Gaza strip even though the security council asks for ceasefire.The security council couldn't even condemn these attacks because of American's veto, but it could condemn Hamas' rockets, which are very small and simple compare to the military force of occupation forces.

NOT THE ZIONISTS!!! Are there links up on conspiracy theorist sites for this place? It's one crazy dude after the other.

[HughRuss]

Originally Posted by kombayn

NOT THE ZIONISTS!!! Are there links up on conspiracy theorist sites for this place? It's one crazy dude after the other.

Actually, no, he's got a point. Israel is the closest representation to a terrorist state, and America backs 'em. Albeit, both Muslims and Jews are to blame for the atrocities, but a governmental ceasefire is a farce.

I would like to see links attesting to this version, though.

(Oh, and Israel is not a representative state, despite their claims to be... they represent Jewish hegemony, and Islamic suppression; while in other countries, the very same thing can be said, but precisely the opposite: Jewish suppression, Islamic domination).

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Spideynw

Maybe the U.S. should stop giving military aid to the Middle East...

It definitely should. Our complete support for everything Israel does, no matter how atrocious is one of the main reasons the Arab world doesn't like us. And honestly, when you see Israel blatantly bombing civilian centers like they did today.. right as school let out, can you really blame them?

And then we want to act like it's not okay for other countries like Russia to assist places like Iran because Iran says some stuff we disagree with.. the hypocrisy is really incredible.

[LetTheTruthBeTold]

On December 27th and 28th,Israel continues to bombard Gaza repeatedly killing over 300 innocent Palestinians including: women, men and children. The Israeli's may think that their strategy for killing the Palestinians will assist them in taking control of all Palestinian Lands, but many critics believe otherwise. Here are some of the Acts of Terrorism by the Jews Throughout History: In 1946 Zionist Terrorist Group Irgun, lead by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin bombs the King David Hotel. 91 people were killed and 45 were injured. The King David Hotel housed the British military command and the British Criminal Investigation Division. This was the gratitude that the Jews gave the British for fighting so hard against the Jews' enemies (the Germans) in WWII. Modern day Jews like to talk about their fight against Palestinian Terrorism. But they don't like to talk about how it was they who invented modern terrorism. 1973 Soldier Jew Ehud Barak, who later became Prime Minister of Israel, enters a house in Lebanon as part of a military hit team, and kills an entire Arab family. Strangely, this event is never mentioned when Barak later becomes Prime Minister. 1948 Salha Massacre (Israel/Palestine). After forcing the population of a village into the local mosque, Israeli jews order them to face the wall, then shoot them from behind. Jews murder 105 indigenous Palestinian villagers. P.S. here is some footage of the Palestinian Massacre on Dec 27th and 28TH and this maybe just the beginning of Israeli terrorism and the saddest thing is that America does not condemn this atrocity.

YouTube - BBCArabic com - -

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Destruction continues in Gaza

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by JaJae

So Israel and Hamas are back at it again. Hamas broke the ceasefire/truce and fired over 200 rockets into Israel. Israel's patience wore thin and they retaliated by firing at every known Hamas installation they are aware of. The world is pleading for restraint from Israel on their counter attacks, but time will tell.

Israeli troops are lined up at the border preparing for a ground invasion, but have not yet entered.


Print Story: Israeli assault on Hamas kills more than 200 - Yahoo! News

Hamas wanted this war, time will tell if Israel will give it to them.

The ceasefire expired, and Hamas decided not to renew it since Israel has failed to meet the conditions agreed upon under it (such as not having the blockade in place).

As Motivez also already pointed out Israel violated the ceasefire by engaging in military operations which resulted in the deaths of 6 Palestinians within Gaza. Hamas rockets were fired in retaliation.

As for the situation, I have to say that the manner in which Israel is currently carrying out its attacks is questionable as it is currently violating the Fourth Geneva Conventions through their targeting methods. They are deliberately targeting non-military and even civilian structures for bombing which I rather have a problem with.

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by Photon1001

Israel has every right to defend themselves. The Palestinians have been offered statehood ELEVEN times now, and have refused. Hamas' only objective is to see "all the infidels destroyed", etc., and everybody knows this.

Have you even read any of the proposed peace plans put forward by Israel? They are not realistic plans, especially the more recent ones and are put forward simply for political reasons rather than to actually engage in productive peace talks (will go into further detail if you would like me to).

If Israel is such a partner for peace then why have they done nothing with the Road Map? Why have they failed to meet every single one of their peace pledge prmoises? Why did they specifically stop the peace process in 2006 with the pullout? Why is Abbas currently sitting at the peace table twiddling his thumbs?

I think that Israel's failure to bring about a Palestinian state in the West Bank serves to marginalize the Abbas government and the more peaceful Palestinian factions and rather serves to empower Hamas at the moment. Israel has the capability to make the reverse true as well.

That being said I also feel that Hamas' use of Qassam rockets is a war crime and that Israel has every right to defend itself, as long as such defense follows international law such as the Geneva Conventions. Law which Israel has both signed and ratified.

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by Photon1001

Hamas isn't interested in autonomy, only "death to the infidels", and are neither constitute a reasonable party,

I guess that is why the Hamas party dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto back in 2006 and instead campaigned on platform consisting of a two state solution right?

or a majority in the PLO movement.

Hamas is not a member of the PLO, they are a part of the legislative branch of the Palestinian National Authority.

Hamas is a terrorist organization that needs to be eliminated.

There are many different branches within Hamas. In addition to the armed wing and splinter groups they are also a political party and head many charities which do things such as build schools and hospitals. Everything with a Hamas tag on it is not a terrorist cell.

[Photon1001]

Israel is one of the most liberal-progressive nations on the planet. Hamas, like so many others in the Arab world, is an ultra-conservative group that hates Israel and the west because of our freedoms, which they believe no one should have because their "Allah" (more ridiculous religious bullshit) "tells" them so.