Israel attacks civilians

[JStone]

Report: 80% of Gazan Women Face Violence

The vast majority of women in Gaza face violence of varying types, a new survey has found.

The study, by the Gaza-based Palestinian Women's Information and Media Center, found that violence against women in Gaza has increased since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in the June 2007 coup and Israel subsequently imposed restrictions on the coastal enclave.

The study found that 77.1% of Gazan women have experienced violence of various sorts, with almost half experiencing violence of more than one type.

A quarter of the women said they do not feel safe in their own homes because of violence and more than a third said they were unable to fight back as they had more urgent priorities to deal with.

67% of the women surveyed said they had encountered verbal violence, 71% mental violence, 52% physical violence and more than 14% sexual violence

"Many say they suffer from disrespect and deprecation," Hamouda said. "There's also domestic violence, which is committed by relatives such as the father, the brother or the husband."

Women

 

[P F Tinmore]

Report: 80% of Gazan Women Face Violence

The vast majority of women in Gaza face violence of varying types, a new survey has found.

The study, by the Gaza-based Palestinian Women's Information and Media Center, found that violence against women in Gaza has increased since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in the June 2007 coup and Israel subsequently imposed restrictions on the coastal enclave.

The study found that 77.1% of Gazan women have experienced violence of various sorts, with almost half experiencing violence of more than one type.

A quarter of the women said they do not feel safe in their own homes because of violence and more than a third said they were unable to fight back as they had more urgent priorities to deal with.

67% of the women surveyed said they had encountered verbal violence, 71% mental violence, 52% physical violence and more than 14% sexual violence

"Many say they suffer from disrespect and deprecation," Hamouda said. "There's also domestic violence, which is committed by relatives such as the father, the brother or the husband."

Women

This article is by Linda Gradstein who takes speakers fees for speaking to Jewish groups.

In the sites article on Hamas they state:

Hamas has been the controlling force in the Gaza Strip since 2006, seizing full governance in a 2007 bloody coup

Hamas | HOME: Justice for Gaza

Of course that is not true and it gives them away as an Israeli propaganda site.

 

[JStone]

Women’s Rights ‘Deteriorating’ In Gaza; Gays, Christians Also Suffer

Fatma Ashour is not typical of women in Gaza. At 32, she is single and a lawyer with her own office. Ashur, who wears the traditional Islamic headscarf, says it is not easy to be a woman in Gaza and describes a pattern of discrimination and even violence against women.

“If I walk down the street and I am wearing pants instead of the traditional dress, men will call me a prostitute,” Ashur, who grew up in the more liberal Egypt, said ruefully. “I can’t do a lot of things that I want to. I can’t go swimming. I can’t ride a bicycle. I can’t smoke a water pipe in a restaurant. I can’t even walk with a male colleague.”

Last year, Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers announced that female lawyers must wear the headscarf and traditional dress known as the jilbab to appear in court. Ashour stayed home for three months in protest. Eventually, Hamas repealed the ban, but other directives, like making it illegal for women to smoke a water pipe in public, remain in force.

Gaza is a traditional society, and only an estimated 11-13 percent of women work outside the home, according to Khalil Shaheen, the director of the economic and social welfare department at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights or PCHR.

“Women’s rights are deteriorating day by day and there is growing violence against women,” he said. “There is a culture of fear in Gaza.”

Islamic law, which is enforced in custody cases in Gaza, mandates that fathers are given custody for boys older than age 7 and girls older than 9. If a divorced woman remarries, she must immediately give up her children, regardless of their age. These laws, combined with women’s lack of independent financial resources often keep women in unhappy marriages. Shaheen says Gaza mental health centers are reporting more cases of verbal and physical abuse of women.

Violence has increased as unemployment and poverty have grown. Unemployment stands at 45 percent, one of the highest in the world, and an estimated 1 million of Gaza’s 1.5 million people are dependent on food aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to survive.

Women marry young in Gaza, in their late teens or early 20s, and often have large families despite their poverty. All of these factors conspire to keep women in traditional roles.

The situation is even worse for gays in Gaza. Homosexuality is illegal and has been prosecuted. In April, a militant group in Gaza kidnapped and killed Italian civil rights activist Vittorio Arrigoni. Several press reports said that one reason for his death was that Arrigoni was openly gay and living with a partner in Gaza.

Mental health professionals in Gaza say there are no reliable statistics on homosexuals in Gaza as the social taboo is too strong and homosexuals are afraid of being arrested.

Numbering about 2,000 in Gaza, Christians, too, face difficulties. Legally, their right
to worship is protected, but any suspected missionary activity has been harshly stopped. In 2007, Rami Ayyad, the Baptist owner of a Gaza bookstore was killed after his bookstore was firebombed. Islamic extremists took responsibility and accused him of missionary activity.

Most Christians in Gaza are Greek Orthodox. They see themselves as an integral part of the Palestinian nation. Some have complained they are uncomfortable with Hamas’s directives against women and feel social pressure to wear the veil, even though they are not Muslims.

http://justiceforgaza.com/2011/06/2...orating’-in-gaza-gays-christians-also-suffer/

 

[P F Tinmore]

Women’s Rights ‘Deteriorating’ In Gaza; Gays, Christians Also Suffer

Fatma Ashour is not typical of women in Gaza. At 32, she is single and a lawyer with her own office. Ashur, who wears the traditional Islamic headscarf, says it is not easy to be a woman in Gaza and describes a pattern of discrimination and even violence against women.

“If I walk down the street and I am wearing pants instead of the traditional dress, men will call me a prostitute,” Ashur, who grew up in the more liberal Egypt, said ruefully. “I can’t do a lot of things that I want to. I can’t go swimming. I can’t ride a bicycle. I can’t smoke a water pipe in a restaurant. I can’t even walk with a male colleague.”

Last year, Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers announced that female lawyers must wear the headscarf and traditional dress known as the jilbab to appear in court. Ashour stayed home for three months in protest. Eventually, Hamas repealed the ban, but other directives, like making it illegal for women to smoke a water pipe in public, remain in force.

Gaza is a traditional society, and only an estimated 11-13 percent of women work outside the home, according to Khalil Shaheen, the director of the economic and social welfare department at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights or PCHR.

“Women’s rights are deteriorating day by day and there is growing violence against women,” he said. “There is a culture of fear in Gaza.”

Islamic law, which is enforced in custody cases in Gaza, mandates that fathers are given custody for boys older than age 7 and girls older than 9. If a divorced woman remarries, she must immediately give up her children, regardless of their age. These laws, combined with women’s lack of independent financial resources often keep women in unhappy marriages. Shaheen says Gaza mental health centers are reporting more cases of verbal and physical abuse of women.

Violence has increased as unemployment and poverty have grown. Unemployment stands at 45 percent, one of the highest in the world, and an estimated 1 million of Gaza’s 1.5 million people are dependent on food aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to survive.

Women marry young in Gaza, in their late teens or early 20s, and often have large families despite their poverty. All of these factors conspire to keep women in traditional roles.

The situation is even worse for gays in Gaza. Homosexuality is illegal and has been prosecuted. In April, a militant group in Gaza kidnapped and killed Italian civil rights activist Vittorio Arrigoni. Several press reports said that one reason for his death was that Arrigoni was openly gay and living with a partner in Gaza.

Mental health professionals in Gaza say there are no reliable statistics on homosexuals in Gaza as the social taboo is too strong and homosexuals are afraid of being arrested.

Numbering about 2,000 in Gaza, Christians, too, face difficulties. Legally, their right
to worship is protected, but any suspected missionary activity has been harshly stopped. In 2007, Rami Ayyad, the Baptist owner of a Gaza bookstore was killed after his bookstore was firebombed. Islamic extremists took responsibility and accused him of missionary activity.

Most Christians in Gaza are Greek Orthodox. They see themselves as an integral part of the Palestinian nation. Some have complained they are uncomfortable with Hamas’s directives against women and feel social pressure to wear the veil, even though they are not Muslims.

Women

Justice for Gaza is an Israeli propaganda site.

 

[JStone]

Gaza's Elected Islamist Rulers Crack Down on Secular Community
Gaza's elected Islamist rulers crack down on secular community - Telegraph

After nearly four years of Hamas rule, the Gaza Strip's small secular community is in tatters, decimated by the militant group's campaign to impose its strict version of Islam in the coastal territory.

Hamas has bullied men and women to dress modestly, tried to keep the sexes from mingling in public and sparked a flight of secular university students and educated professionals. Most recently, it has confiscated novels it deems offensive to Islam from a bookshop and banned Gaza's handful of male hairdressers from styling women's hair.

Gaza, a tiny sliver of land squeezed between Egypt and Israel, always had a significant Islamic flavour, but once tolerated bars and cinemas, especially during Egyptian rule from 1948 to 1967. A conservative religious movement began to take hold in the 1980s, as part of a larger, region-wide religious awakening.

The trend toward religious fundamentalism preceded the Hamas takeover. In recent years, hardliners have burned down the cinemas. Their charred remains are still visible in Gaza City. Militants blew up the last bar in 2005.

Gaza women, whose attire once varied from Western pants and skirts to colourful traditional embroidered robes, began donning ankle-length loose robes. Women with face veils, once rarely seen in Gaza, are now a common sight.

Today, plainclothes officers sometimes halt couples in the streets, demanding to see marriage licenses. Last year, the Interior Ministry banned women from smoking water pipes in public. Islamic faith does not ban women from smoking, but it is considered taboo in Gaza society.

"In the end, the people who think differently are leaving," said Rami, a 32-year-old activist in one of Gaza's few secular groups. He refused to give his last name, fearing retribution

 

[P F Tinmore]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian health official says a civilian man has been killed and 25 people, including an infant, wounded in Israeli airstrikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Rescue services say three separate airstrikes took place early Friday against training facilities of the militant Hamas group. They say one set a nearby house on fire, destroying it and killing a 65-year-old civilian man. Health official Adnan Abu Salmia identified him as Bahajat Zaalan.

Fire also erupted in other homes and some houses were hit by shrapnel. Abu Salmia says the wounded included seven women and children who were crticially wounded.

Gaza official: Israeli airstrike kills 1 civilian - Yahoo! News

 

[JStone]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i08L09V0_sg]Hamas In Their Own Voices - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian health official says a civilian man has been killed and 25 people, including an infant, wounded in Israeli airstrikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Rescue services say three separate airstrikes took place early Friday against training facilities of the militant Hamas group. They say one set a nearby house on fire, destroying it and killing a 65-year-old civilian man. Health official Adnan Abu Salmia identified him as Bahajat Zaalan.

Fire also erupted in other homes and some houses were hit by shrapnel. Abu Salmia says the wounded included seven women and children who were crticially wounded.

Gaza official: Israeli airstrike kills 1 civilian - Yahoo! News

Israelis are fighting back against the group that fires anti-tank weapons at Israeli school buses? Outrageous!

 

[P F Tinmore]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian health official says a civilian man has been killed and 25 people, including an infant, wounded in Israeli airstrikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Rescue services say three separate airstrikes took place early Friday against training facilities of the militant Hamas group. They say one set a nearby house on fire, destroying it and killing a 65-year-old civilian man. Health official Adnan Abu Salmia identified him as Bahajat Zaalan.

Fire also erupted in other homes and some houses were hit by shrapnel. Abu Salmia says the wounded included seven women and children who were crticially wounded.

Gaza official: Israeli airstrike kills 1 civilian - Yahoo! News

Israelis are fighting back against the group that fires anti-tank weapons at Israeli school buses? Outrageous!

Why waste it on a school bus.

Why not at the tanks and armored bulldozers that frequently go into Gaza to destroy crops and uproot trees?

This story does not pass the sniff test.

 

[JStone]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian health official says a civilian man has been killed and 25 people, including an infant, wounded in Israeli airstrikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Rescue services say three separate airstrikes took place early Friday against training facilities of the militant Hamas group. They say one set a nearby house on fire, destroying it and killing a 65-year-old civilian man. Health official Adnan Abu Salmia identified him as Bahajat Zaalan.

Fire also erupted in other homes and some houses were hit by shrapnel. Abu Salmia says the wounded included seven women and children who were crticially wounded.

Gaza official: Israeli airstrike kills 1 civilian - Yahoo! News

Israelis are fighting back against the group that fires anti-tank weapons at Israeli school buses? Outrageous!

Why waste it on a school bus.

Why not at the tanks and armored bulldozers that frequently go into Gaza to destroy crops and uproot trees?

This story does not pass the sniff test.

Hamas faces rising anger after bulldozing Gaza homes

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian health official says a civilian man has been killed and 25 people, including an infant, wounded in Israeli airstrikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Rescue services say three separate airstrikes took place early Friday against training facilities of the militant Hamas group. They say one set a nearby house on fire, destroying it and killing a 65-year-old civilian man. Health official Adnan Abu Salmia identified him as Bahajat Zaalan.

Fire also erupted in other homes and some houses were hit by shrapnel. Abu Salmia says the wounded included seven women and children who were crticially wounded.

Gaza official: Israeli airstrike kills 1 civilian - Yahoo! News

Israelis are fighting back against the group that fires anti-tank weapons at Israeli school buses? Outrageous!

Why waste it on a school bus.

Why not at the tanks and armored bulldozers that frequently go into Gaza to destroy crops and uproot trees?

This story does not pass the sniff test.

Your terrorist buddies don't think killing children is a waste.

 

[JStone]

Burak Bekdil, Hurryet Daily News [Turkey]: Hamas Are Terrorists

Anyone who is mystified by [Turkish] Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s great quotes, like me, should remember well this one from earlier this year: “Calling [Hamas] terrorists would be disrespectful to the will of the Palestinian people.” I asked, at that time, “Which man of peace, unless from Jihad, would ally with an organization whose charter declares members to be Muslims who ‘fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors?"

I know Messrs. Erdoğan and Davutoğlu are not convinced that Hamas is a terrorist organization even though Hamas’ charter vows to annihilate a legitimate state – Israel. I know they did not link Hamas with terrorism when their darling Khaled Mashaal described the 10,000 rockets Hamas sent to Israeli territory as “modest, homemade rockets,” one of which in 2004 killed 4-year-old Afik Zahavi

I know Messrs. Erdoğan and Davutoğlu simply shrugged off the U.N.-sponsored Goldstone report, which stated: “[Hamas’s activities] constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population. These actions would constitute war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity ... The rocket and mortar attacks launched by armed Palestinian groups have caused terror.”

Forget all of that. Not even the Hamas statement over the killing of Osama bin Laden tainted Mr. Erdoğan’s love for Hamas: “Hamas condemns the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior, Osama bin Laden” (whose skilful operatives had once bombed Istanbul, killing mostly Muslim Turks). Last year, in this column, I wrote: “When combined into one compact idea, the picture is telling us that ... The Turkish government views as a great friend, an entity [Hamas], which views the boss of Istanbul’s bombers as a holy warrior.” Bizarre? Maybe.

How does Mr. Erdoğan really justify that Hamas is not a terrorist entity but a political party like his own when it trades a foreign soldier for terror convicts?

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=the-arab-israeli-exchange-rate-part-ii--2011-10-20

 

[P F Tinmore]

Israelis are fighting back against the group that fires anti-tank weapons at Israeli school buses? Outrageous!

Why waste it on a school bus.

Why not at the tanks and armored bulldozers that frequently go into Gaza to destroy crops and uproot trees?

This story does not pass the sniff test.

Your terrorist buddies don't think killing children is a waste.

Israeli propaganda says that the Palestinians have anti tank missiles yet there are no reports of any destroyed tanks.

Israeli propaganda says that the Palestinians have anti aircraft missiles yet there are no reports of any downed planes.

And you believe that the Palestinians hit a school bus with an anti tank missile.

That makes no sense.

And besides, hitting a school bus would be counter to their strategy.

 

[JStone]

Shiraz Maher: Muslims Should Condemn Hamas, Not Israel Britain's Muslims should condemn Hamas, not Israel - Telegraph

I am a Muslim and spent a large part of my childhood in Saudi Arabia – something which, in the eyes of many Muslims, means I should automatically defend the "Palestinian struggle". This is absurd and such support invariably means overlooking the vicious crimes being perpetrated by Hamas – against the Jews and, increasingly, its own population too. Israel is responding to a barrage of Hamas rockets which threaten its citizens who live in the south. Indeed, around 10 per cent of the Israeli population now lives within striking distance of katyusha rockets.

All this follows the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli settlements in Gaza in 2005, after which Hamas swept to power and turned "the Strip" into its own paramilitary playground, using it as a springboard to launch a campaign of sustained and indiscriminate attacks into southern Israel.

Hamas will now pay a heavy price for its bloodlust and innocent civilians will tragically die as a result. Of course, it is in their name that those who have staged loud and noisy demonstrations in recent weeks claim to be acting. But what message are they sending exactly

Muslim leaders...have so far – but cannot any longer – allow this to continue unabated. Those who claim to support and empathise with the Palestinians must recognise that it is the terrorists of Hamas who have so disastrously betrayed their own people. At its core, this is the straightforward decision that British Muslims will have to make: between Hamas, a terrorist group committed to destroying a sovereign state and its people – and Israel, the region's only democracy which is responding to that threat.

My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but allah, we will chase you everywhere We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no better blood than the blood of the Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood, we will not rest until you leave the Muslim countries.

 

[P F Tinmore]

Occupiers always have security problems.

It comes with the territory.

 

[JStone]

Tashbih Sayyed, Muslim Pakistani scholar, journalist, author and former Editor in Chief of Our Times, Pakistan Today, and The Muslim World Today
Global Politician - Israel’s Arab Citizens And The Jewish State

Blinded by their anti-Semitism, Arabs ignore the fact that neither are they an indigenous group nor is the Jewish nationhood a new phenomenon in Palestine; the Jewish nation was born during 40 years of wandering in the Sinai more than five thousand years ago and has remained connected with Palestine ever since. “Even after the destruction of the last Jewish commonwealth in the first century, the Jewish people maintained their own autonomous political and legal institutions: the Davidic dynasty was preserved in Baghdad until the thirteenth century through the rule of the Exilarch (Resh Galuta), while the return to Zion was incorporated into the most widely practiced Jewish traditions, including the end of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder, as well as in everyday prayers. Thus, Jewish historic rights were kept alive in Jewish historical consciousness.

Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, never had a separate identity. They always thought of themselves as Arabs rather than as Palestinians. It is a matter of record that the Arabs owe their presence in Palestine to the Ottomans who settled Muslim populations as a buffer against Bedouin attacks and Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian ruler who brought Egyptian colonists with his army in the 1830s. And during all those times when Arabs lived under the Ottoman rule, they never showed any desire for national independence. According to Bernard Lewis, “From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a larger entity.” Lewis notes, "There had been a steady movement of Jews to the Holy Land throughout the centuries." In 135 CE Jews took part in the Bar Kochba revolt against imperial Rome and even re-established their capital in Jerusalem. Defeated by the most brutal of the Roman legions under the command of the emperor Hadrian, Jews were forbidden to reside in Jerusalem for nearly five hundred years. Once a year on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, they were allowed to weep at the remains of their destroyed Temple at a spot that came to be called "the Wailing Wall." In the meantime, the Roman authorities renamed Judea as Palestina in order to obliterate the memory of Jewish nationhood.

A resolution adopted by the first Congress of the Muslim Christian Association which met in Jerusalem in February 1919 underlines the Arab understanding of the situation conclusively. It said, "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."

Jerusalem has always remained a Jewish majority – a symbol of Jewish yearning to be an independent nation as they thrived in communities in many of Palestine’s towns. “By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem - more than half a century before the arrival of the British Empire and the League of Nations Mandate. During the years that the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel was restored, a huge Arab population influx transpired as Arab immigrants sought to take advantage of higher wages and economic opportunities that resulted from Jewish settlement in the land. President Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that "Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period."

The present Arab declaration challenging the Jewish character of Israel cannot be ignored because it is not just an expression of dissatisfaction by a minority about their socio-economic situation but a reminder that Islamist radicalism and fundamentalism has now decided to challenge openly the legitimacy of the Jewish state using Arab citizens of Israel as its proxy in Israel. It must not be forgotten that the Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of the same Global Jihad that has been murdering our gallant soldiers on the war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[P F Tinmore]

A Palestinian was critically wounded Friday when he was hit in the face by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops at a rally in the West Bank, medics and witnesses said.

Mustafa Abelrazek al-Tamimi, 28, was taking part in a protest against the West Bank barrier in Nabi Saleh, some 10 kilometres (six miles) northwest of Ramallah, when he was struck by the tear gas canister, medical officials said.

Jonathan Pollak, a veteran Israeli activist who was at the demonstration, said Tamimi was shot at close range from a moving vehicle.

He said three other people had sustained head injuries during the demonstration, which takes place every week in Nabi Saleh to protest against the route of the barrier.

West Bank protester critically hurt by Israeli fire - Yahoo! News

 

[P F Tinmore]

GAZA, (PIC)-- A Palestinian man was killed and 17 others were wounded, most of them were from the same family as a result of a series of Israeli occupation airstrikes at dawn Friday in what is seen as a fresh escalation of the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip.

Spokesman for the Emergency and Ambulance Services in the Gaza Strip, Adham Abu Selmeyya, told the PIC correspondent that Bahjat al-Za’lan (38 years) was killed while 12 others, including seven children, two women and two elderly persons, were wounded as a result of the airstrikes. Most of the wounded are from the family of the man who was killed in the attack.

Abu Selmeyya said that amongst the wounded are the wife of Martyr and a number of his children, two of them suffering critical wounds. He added that medical crews provided field first aid to five others who were slightly injured as a result of shrapnel and glass from broken windows as a result of the attack.

One Palestinian killed, 17 others wounded in occupation airstrikes

 

[Jos]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n0fEbdsE-Y&feature=g-u&context=G14086FUAAAAAAAPAA]Gaza Under Fire: Israel air assault claims civilian lives - YouTube[/ame]

 

[georgephillip]

"On Nov. 26, Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, threatened to cut Israeli electricity, water and ties to Gaza's infrastructure serving the 1.6 million residents of the Gaza Strip...

"'Everything will be affected: drinking and washing water, sewage and sanitation, hospitals, schools and children,' says Ahmed al-Amrain, head of power information at the Palestinian Energy and National Resources Authority (PENRA)..."

MIDEAST: Life Without Water a Growing Threat - IPS ipsnews.net