Archive for December, 2008
{
Ho, but I forgot. These rockets are harmless. The people who died and dozens of injured they, well, probably all faking it. Ah, Jewish imagination.
}
// End Sarcasm
There are many places where you could find lists of claims and answers to them, but seems the internet is so full of misconceptions, false facts and even blunt lies. Since I get tired of posting the same answers again and again (I know, I should be doing copy&paste, but I don’t) I’m going to organize this page as a reference to people I talk with.
Feel free to comment, link to this, correct me if you think I’m wrong, support me if you think I’m right – whatever. Just remember this is a page on constant update.
My response to this thread:
1. Israel continues now and had been supplying electricity and fuel to Gaza even while the Hamas was shooting rockets daily trying to hit the Power station Ashkelon that supply them with that exact electricity. (…)
3. Israel sent in 52 trucks with aid on Friday, a day before the attack. Today around 100 trucks with food and medical aid were sent in from the Israeli side and the Egyptians (with coordination with Israel) allowed more trucks getting in from their side. So even during this attack now, Aid is sent in from Israel.
4. Don’t you find it weird that the Israeli governments are fighting with the Hamas in Gaza, while the same governments have talks with Abbas and the Palestinians in the West Bank?
I mean, Abbas and Israel still have a lot of issues they disagree on, but they TALK. and people from the West Bank are not under siege, they are not starving, they go places freely, they move in and out of Israel (not easily but they do). So, why can Israel and Palestinians in West Bank talk while Israel and Palestinians in Gaza can’t?
Don’t you think it has anything to do with Hamas officially calls for the destruction of Israel and the establishing of an Islamic caliphate? That they are part of the Muslim Brotherhood that is radical Islam that threats even secular Arab regimes? That they are linked to Hizbulla, financed and trained by Iran?
Hamas is a radical Islam, terrorist, group which prefer to have all Palestinians die as mujaheedin (holy fighters) rather than live in peace.
That is why Gaza suffers. Not Israel – Hamas.
YouTube is full of videos on the issue. I’m going to list here the less common.
This is how it feels for most of us: (a near miss in Ashkelon)
This what happens when it hits: (notice this video is from way before the current war – this is how we lived in Ashkelon for the past year and how Sderot lives for 8 years now)
List of more videos (feel free to ad links in comments):
Continue reading ‘Gaza War and Rockets in Ashkelon – Videos On YouTube’
GlobalVoicesOnline publish all kind of reviews from blogs about the current situation. The majority of opinions expressed on the side are strongly pro-Palestinians and anti-Israeli. Because of that, I found it a much more interesting place to discuss with people in the comments.
This is the second comment I desiced to bring here after commenting it there.
In the past 2 days I’ve been talking with a lot of people, both pro and con the operation. There have been some valid points from people, there have been some unacceptable points and mostly there have been so so so much ignorance even on pure history facts. (One of the commenters on this very site went so far as to argue Hamas never did a coup to seize control of Gaza…)
Israel doesn’t do massacre, Israel doesn’t do a crime against humanity and Israel do not target civilians. It targets Hamas buildings, rockets hideouts and members. According to the UN (which is constantly against Israel) out of 307 dead “only” 51 were civilians. This means the majority of dead ARE Hamas people.
An interesting article covering the situation and possible outcomes: Analysis: What is Israel’s end game in Gaza?
Apart from the usual suspects — Iran, Syria and their Lebanese proxies, Hezbollah — most Arab leaders are probably delighted that Israel is taking apart Hamas fighting ability. Most pleased, privately, is the West Bank Palestinian leadership of Fatah, which saw Hamas obliterate its own power structure in Gaza in a few violent days 18 months ago.
…
Moreover, Israel has much better intelligence than it had in southern Lebanon. Gaza is closer to home, in fact in some senses, it is home; and no doubt Fatah men in Gaza are helping Israel’s own secret services identify the targets.
…
The model is the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who after Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon — after he kidnapped two Israeli soldiers — said if he had known the reaction from Israel, he would have never kidnapped the soldiers. And in the Israeli parliament on Monday, Barak declared that this is a “war to the bitter end against Hamas.”
Essentially, Israel wants to destroy as much as possible of Hamas military infrastructure, teach Hamas the same lesson, and reach a cease-fire that will last.
2 rockets fell in Ashkelon a minute ago, no electricity in some places.
Rocket fell in center of Ashdod, 2 severely wounded, 3 light. (22:19 – Hammas takes responsibility for this rocket)
21:50 Rockets in Shaar Hanegev, 1 seriously wounded, 1 light.
21:52 The Ashkelon rocket hit in a neighborhood next to my Ashkelon house. (Won’t say the name so I won’t help Hamas to target)
22:04 A link to a news item covering this
22:14 Sirens in Ashdod
22:30 Man killed in rocket falling in Kibbutz Nahal-Oz
22:54 73 Rockets from Gaza on Israel today so far (1 hour, 5 minutes to go)
23:02 Sirens in Ashdod
23:06 Sirens in Ashkelon
23:10 RT @QassamCount: The woman mortally wounded in Ashdod has died. Tonight, 2 Israeli dead, 32 injured, in Ashdod and Nahal Oz (Israel TV) #Gaza
23:26 Hamas takes responsibility for all rockets tonight. No interest in any talks.
23:30 Rocket hit Ofakim, 1 seriously wounded, 3 people in shock.
Continue reading ‘Rockets in Ashkelon, Ashdod – Dead people’
A video from IAF pilot perspective showing a missile hitting a rockets storage hideout and how the rockets inside start flying around. Just in case you thought Israel is only busy targeting civilians… (Irony. Just stating to make sure everybody gets it)
Since this morning there has been many rockets falling on Ashkelon. A rocket hit a construction site, killing one worker and wounding 17. The irony is that the workers are Israeli Arabs. A bus driver stopped the bus when a siren went on, all passengers quickly found shelter in a nearby coffee, and a rocket who was about to hit the bus exploded on a close by tree.
Here’s a short news report about the attacks.
I called both my father, which is at home, and my mother, which is at work. They are both fine. I couldn’t really talk with my father properly as every time I called we managed to say 2 sentences before another siren sound again and he had to go to the secured room. My mother was a bit agitated on the phone as one of the rockets had hit a little park in a nearby street.
Continue reading ‘Morning full of rockets in Ashkelon, Dead and wounded in the city’
Ok, I want someone of those anti-israel club te tell me which other country does that DURING a war – sending 100 trucks carrying food, medications and humanitarian aid to the enemy side.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m very happy it’s being done.
This is not about being biased anymore, this is about being just plain blunt about who you favor. An agency like the BBC should know better.
In articles about the on-going situation here, the BBC template asks for comments – if you or your family live in Gaza. And this is not a text to do with the article above – all articles have the same text:
Do you have family and/or friends in Gaza? Have they been affected by the Israeli military action? Send us your comments using the form below.
Most BBC don’t have comments open at all, but the ones that do has this text on. Here are some of the articles that have it, I’m sure there are more:
Hamas killed 2 Egyptian guards. How not surprising. They also refuse letting wounded Palestinians cross over to be treated in Egypt and demand Egypt will give them the medical equipment instead. I guess it just goes along with the nature of this civilian-abusing organization:
Tensions at the border, Gaza’s only one not with Israel, had risen during the day, with Egypt blaming Hamas for not letting wounded Palestinians through and Hamas asking for medical aid to be handed over.
In the evening, an Egyptian security official revealed that two policemen had been hit by gunfire from the Gaza side.
“A border officer died in hospital in El-Arish after being shot twice in the chest,” a medic said.
The security official said that a second officer had been wounded adding that the source of the fire on the main Saleheddin crossing had not been established.
It’s no secret Egypt is in a hard place. On one side, Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, a very extreme and very widespread movement in the Arab world which wants to topple all secular regimes in Arab countries in order to create a Caliphate, a Muslim theocracy.
Continue reading ‘Hamas shot Egyptian guard, Egypt blams Hamas for israeli attack’
The Gaza war on Twitter
Reactions and tweets on Twitter. Very interesting to read this and it’s updating every 2-3 seconds. Click this and see reactions from different people in the world.
Also interesting to note there aren’t that many Israelis on Twitter so it’s interesting to see that many of the people still express support to Israel (though supporters of Hammas and people condemning the operation are still a small majority).
Some stuff picked up from the discussion:
The blogosphere is full with comments pro and con the attack. As someone personally affected from all those missiles coming from Gaza for quite a while, I have a strong urge to answer many false and misinformed claims.
Let’s take a comment I got as an example. أمنية wrote this comment on a GlobalVoices post:
civax :
1- it’s really funny to call these things as “rockets” . i belive a car accident would cause more damage.
2- why are these – so – called “rockets” are being “fired”??
did you notice that your government has been making a seige over a one and a half million perons?
do u know how long it has been and what it is causing?
you want these people starve – die in silent and not even bother you while diying?? at least give them the right to send you these “rockets’ as a MESSAGE telling you
” WE ARE DYING ”
” WE ARE DYING ”
” WE ARE DYING ”
” WE ARE DYING ”
” WE ARE DYING ”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hopefully you got the message
And here is my answer:
Recent comments