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ARAB and U.N. IMPOTENCE
suspend, their diplomatic relations with Israel,
then at least the world might take note of what
is happening. But their own dependence on
the Americans to keep their police-state regimes
in power has them hog-tied; and they know it."
MER - Mid-East Realities - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 4 August: The United Nations Security Council will meet in emergency session today about the Israelis. In the end, largely due to American pressures and threats, it will do nothing other than issue another worthless 'plea for peace'. And thus things will be even worse after the Security Council meets than before; and the Israelis will have even a greater free hand to rampage and kill at will.
The Arab regimes, and their pathetically weak Arab League, have issued a variety of statements and appeals. But truth be told once again hardly anyone takes them very seriously any more, not even themselves. The Arab League has been fractured, paralyzed, co-opted, and discredited beyond all hope.
Now if Egypt and Jordan -- the two Arab countries that have peace treaties with Israel signed under totally different circumstances and promises -- would break, or at least suspend, their relations with today's rogue Jewish State, then at least the world might take note of what is happening. But their own near-total dependence on the Americans to keep their police-state regimes in power has them hog-tied; and they know it.
The realities are bleak; the future ominous. Gaza is already the world's largest prison camp and the United Nations and the world community, in addition to the United States superpower, all bear considerable responsibility. Just in the past week alone, per capita in comparison to the population of the U.S., the Palestinians in Gaza have suffered fully three times more deaths than the Americans did on 9/11; and probably 10 times more badly injured.
When the Security Council meets later today and does essentially nothing, it will be one more huge stain on the integrity and decency of that international body, and of the international community it claims to represent.
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Aljazeera -
Monday 04 October 2004, 2:06 Makka Time, 23:06 GMT: The
Arab League has decided to appeal to the United Nations to halt
Israel's deadly military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip.
The
Palestinians are faced with "a serious humanitarian situation", Arab
League representatives said on Sunday and called for aid organisations
to provide emergency relief. The five-day Israeli military onslaught
has claimed the lives of more than 65 Palestinians, including
dozens of civilians. After talks at its Cairo headquarters, the
League
asked Arab representatives in New York "to make an urgent appeal to the
General Assembly and/or Security Council to halt Israel's continued war
of extermination against the Palestinian people". They will also call for international
protection of
the Palestinians "in line with the Geneva accords [on people living
under occupation] and international laws". Permanent representatives of the Arab League
also
urged the Middle East peace quartet - a grouping of the United Nations,
Washington, Moscow and the European Union - "to live up to its
responsibility and move rapidly to take a decisive stand to end the
Israeli aggression". The Israeli army launched an operation in
northern
Gaza late on 29 September that escalated a day later after a
Palestinian rocket attack killed two children in the southern Israeli
town of Sderot.
GCMHP
Calls for Immediate Intervention to Stop the Israeli Military Incursion
in the
Over 66 Palestinians,
including 19 children, have been killed and at least 246 injured since
the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) launched a renewed incursion into
the northern Gaza Strip in a large scale operation called "days of
penitence". It is the largest and deadliest offensive in
IOF, reinforced by over
200 tanks & armored personnel carriers and Apache helicopters,
opened fire on the densely heavily populated Jabalya refugee camp and
residential area in the
In this military operation, IOF have demolished over 75 homes, destroyed large areas of agriculture land & civilian property, torn up roads, and converted schools and a number of houses into military sites. They have cut off the electricity and water supplies rendering about 15,000 people living in the area of the raid without water and electricity for 7 days. Shortage of milk supplies and food is also escalating.
Moreover, the Gaza Strip remains partitioned into three parts after Israeli armored bulldozers sealed off the main coastal road. For more than two weeks, the Gaza Strip is still considered a military zone, where entry and exist is prohibited.
GCMHP warns of the worsening of the health and humanitarian conditions if the IOF continue their operation for weeks as declared.
GCMHP denounces the Israeli military operation in the northern Gaza Strip and the whole OPT and appeals to the entire world to act immediately and rapidly to stop the attacks and prevent further escalation and deterioration of the humanitarian conditions.
GCMHP calls the
international human rights organizations, the EU, and the quartet to
intervene immediately, and pressure
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| Tens of victims of the Israeli raid have been buried |
<>Aljazeera - Monday 04 October 2004
6:42 AM GMT:
<><> Eight Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip on
the fifth day of a huge Israeli offensive with army commanders talking of
a weeks-long operation.
The child was killed by Israeli gunfire during another army incursion into a village near Khan Yunus in southern Gaza, according to Palestinian medical and security sources.
The killings came after an Israeli military
chief warned that the troops were there to stay. "Our forces are ready to operate not just for
days
but for weeks," Israeli army chief Lieutenant-General Moshe Yaalon told
military radio on Monday. Early on Monday, Israeli missiles killed four
Palestinians in the northern town of Bait Lahya. Among those killed was
a Hamas field commander in northern Gaza, Dharif Masri, 29. The army said the men were detonating a bomb
and a missile was fired at them from a helicopter. The death brought to 73 the number
of Palestinians
killed by Israeli forces since tanks and troops swarmed into the
densely populated Gaza Strip last Tuesday. Hundreds more have been
injured. A few hours earlier, Israeli occupation forces
targeted a local Hamas commander in a Gaza City air strike, seriously
wounding him, another resistance fighter and a woman, witnesses and
hospital officials said. The military had no comment.
Moshe
Yaalon: Troops are ready to About 15,000 people living in the area of the
raid have been without water and electricity for days. Land seized Israeli forces have also seized a
9-km area in Gaza to use as a buffer zone to move its towns out of
range of the rockets. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged to
expand the area under Israeli control to stop the rocket fire. Sharon is committed to smashing
Palestinian
resistance groups in advance of an announced withdrawal of
settlers and
troops from the Gaza Strip. The onslaught, concentrated in the Jabalya
refugee camp, has been deadly. International reaction
A school
has been reduced to On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
called on
Israel "to halt its military incursions into the Gaza Strip, which have
led to the deaths of scores of Palestinians, among them many civilians,
including children". The statement from a UN spokesman added:
"The
secretary-general likewise calls on the Palestinian Authority to take
action to halt the firing of rockets against Israeli targets by
Palestinian militants." Ismail
Haniya (2nd R): Israel to "The Palestinian Legislative
Council,
while asserting our people's right to resist Israel's ugly occupation,
calls on all factions to put this resistance in a strategic frame that
is consistent with the Palestinian higher interests," the lawmakers
said. However, Haniya said: "All
international and regional
establishments, including the Legislative Council, should not impose
any pressure upon the resistance and Palestinians.
Up to 200
Israeli tanks have been
Fighters killed
The
onslaught in northern Gaza intensified again late on Sunday when
about
25 tanks moved into Bait Hanun, the town closest to the Israeli border
and the town of Sderot across the fence.
continue for weeks
"The forces will have to remain there as long as this danger exists,"
Sharon told army radio.
Palestinians
say the Israeli occupation forces have destroyed homes, torn up roads
and left a school in ruins. Toys, colouring books, and posters of
Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse were scattered in the dust.
Previous
Israeli military operations have halted suddenly when civilian
casualties soared, and there are signs that the international community
is losing its patience.
rubble in the Jabalya camp
Resistance reacts
Palestinian resistance groups met over the weekend to
discuss the situation.
"Factions have discussed
how to supply the Palestinians with force elements to face this
aggression and protect the resistance, as it is the only weapon through
which the Palestinians can defend themselves, defeat the occupation and
attain all their rights," Ismail Haniya, a member of Hamas's political
bureau told Aljazeera.
be pressured, not Palestinians
"It is obvious that
there is a strategic Israeli plan being carried out to end
the
intifada, eliminate the resistance and break the will of the
Palestinians."
Pressure
But
Palestinian legislators, following an emergency meeting on
Sunday, issued a statement implying that resistance fighters
should
stop firing rockets at Israel.
deployed in and around Gaza
"The pressure should be imposed on the Israeli
occupier as it is the one carrying out mass killings in Jabalya refugee
camp, Bait Hanun and Bait Lahya, in accordance with the United States."
Monstrous attack
On Sunday, Palestinian President Yasir Arafat referred to Israel's campaign as a "monstrous, criminal, inhumane attack on our people".
He called on "the entire world
to act immediately and rapidly to stop the criminal and racist" attack.
On Friday, US state department spokesman Adam Ereli said Israel had the right to defend itself, but added: "We urge Israel to avoid civilian casualties and minimise humanitarian consequences." http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/336E5DCF-9936-407B-85BD-12FFFCEF6EA2.htm
