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At least 89 entire families have been killed in Gaza since Israel started its military campaign, Palestinian health officials said. The Judeh family, a woman and her four children, died after an airstrike hit their house reportedly without warning.

"They lay with shrapnel everywhere and a pool of blood around them. It's like they were swimming in it. There were six of them, five killed.

Some Arabs wish to see Israel crush any semblance of Palestinian resistance.

More than 326,000 Gaza children, according to the latest UN figures, need immediate, specialized psycho-social support after experiencing the deaths of family members, injury or homelessness.

Mahmoud Abu Said could hardly speak about what happened to him when the soldiers first arrived to his neighborhood. His eyes filled with tears, the muscles in his face began to twitch, and his voice faltered.

A government source in Jerusalem told Ynet, that the US would be looking out for Israel's interests among the international community, namely in the UN Security Council, where concrete decisions could potentially be made regarding the future of Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank.

Israeli media commentators voiced deep disappointment over his leadership during the most prolonged bout of Israeli-Palestinian violence in a decade, echoing attacks by members of Netanyahu's governing coalition.

It's based on the notion that wrongdoing repeated often enough unaccountably will get nations worldwide to accept it or do nothing to stop it.

258 artillery pieces, according to the officer's estimate - pumped at least 7,000 high explosive shells into the Gaza neighborhood, which included a barrage of some 4,800 shells during a seven-hour period at the height of the operation. Senior U.S. officers were stunned by the report.

Mahmoud Abbas, needless to say, is grovelling to the Egyptians and Americans in thankfulness for the truce.

A letter by U.S. Republican Senators Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez, Mark Kirk and James Risch read, "Your actions send a troubling message to the United States about your government's commitment to long-lasting peace between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization."

This piece is by Richard Falk. I don't know (Professor?) Falk but I thought he was someone I'd respect. For example, he publicly endorsed Gilad's "The Wandering Who" - no small thing in my opinion.

But here, I cannot agree with him. Actually, I more than cannot agree with him, here I'm disappointed. 

First, in my view, it's fine that Hamas don't seem to much care if they're accepted as 'a legitimate political actor', so long as they're accepted as 'a legitimate political resistor'.

Second, much of Hamas' resistance lies precisely in their abandonment of strategy. Who cares 'if-we-do-this-will-they-do-that', whatever the Palestinians do the Israelis will try to eliminate them. 

And who cares about the tone of their Charter? The Hamas Charter is about resistance, so what does it matter what the Israelis and the rest of the grovelling world think? And by the way, if Hamas uses the J-word for those slaughtering their children, then that's just about right. And if Hamas calls for the elimination of the Israeli state (not the people), that's fine by me. 

And as far as the recent summary execution of collaborators which Falk finds so objectionable - well, my understanding is that the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto did much the same. Would  Falk like to condemn that as well?

I'm afraid Richard Falk has fallen into the trap of so many of those Jewish sages to whom the Palestinian people are so indebted. He presides over the discourse, allocating moral brownie-points to all and sundry - but fails to see who is the perpetrator is and who is the victim.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ontario branch of the Canadian Federation of Students, representing more than 300,000 university students in the province, has unanimously passed a motion to boycott Israel.