Palestinians clash with Israeli forces across West Bank

[Jefferson23]

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) – Fierce clashes broke out across the West Bank late Friday and early Saturday between Israeli troops and young Palestinian men protesting the ongoing military offensive against the Gaza Strip.

In Ramallah in the central West Bank, Palestinian protestors on Saturday morning used rocks to block the road to an Israeli military base near the town of Sinjel in the north. The protestors then clashed with Israeli troops who showered them with tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades. The young protestors responded with stones, gas bombs and fireworks.

Also Saturday, dozens of angry young Palestinian men attacked an Israeli military post in Tal al-Asour in the village of Kafr Malik north of Ramallah. The protestors threw several Molotov cocktails and fireworks at the post setting it ablaze. Israeli troops got out of their bunkers and started to extinguish the fire, while other soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas canisters at the protestors.

On Friday evening, hundreds of young Palestinian men demonstrated near Qalandiya checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem. During the protest, young men hurled several Molotov cocktails at an Israeli watchtower near the checkpoint setting it aflame.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=712228

[Jefferson23]

1. Ongoing Israeli airstrikes kill 19

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) – Ongoing Israeli airstrikes across the besieged Gaza Strip have killed 19 Palestinians since midnight Saturday, bringing the total death toll to 127, Gaza medical sources say.

Six Palestinians were killed and several others were injured in an airstrike targeting them in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza City, a Ministry of Health spokesman said.

He identified them as Rateb Subhi al-Saifi, 22, Azmi Mahmoud Obeid, 51, Nidal Muhammad Abu al-Malsh, 22, Suleiman Said Obeid, 56, Mustafa Muhammad Inaya, 58, and Ghassan Ahmad al-Masri, 25, from the al-Rimal neighborhood were killed.

The Ministry of Health added that 127 Palestinians were killed since the beginning of the offensive, and 940 were injured.

Earlier, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said three men were killed by an Israeli air raid on a park in the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=712231

[Loudly]

2. Stand down, Palestinians.

Become docile.

Pray, meditate, relax, enjoy life.

The world wants to help you.

Flower not thorn.

[Jefferson23]

3. Israel strikes Gaza mosque as death toll climbs

GAZA CITY — Israeli airstrikes hit a mosque in Gaza and a home for disabled people Saturday, raising the death toll to more than 120, Palestinian Health Ministry officials said.

Fourteen people were killed including two disabled women when an airstrike hit a home for disabled people in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, said Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for Health Ministry. More than 900 have been injured in the five-day offensive, al-Qidra said.


The Israeli military released an aerial photo of the al-Farouq Mosque it said it hit in northern Gaza, saying Hamas hid rockets in it right next to another religious site and civilian homes.

"Hamas terrorists systematically exploit and choose to put Palestinians in Gaza in harm's way and continue to locate their positions among civilian areas and mosques, proving once more their disregard for human life and holy sites," said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman.

Hamas said Israel hit two mosques in its operation Saturday. The competing claims could not be immediately reconciled, but the militant group said it hopes the attack galvanizes support in the Muslim world.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/07/12/israel-palestinians-gaza-un/12563379/

[azurnoir]

4. something interesting here

About Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other armed groups using Gazan civilians as “human shields.” This Israeli claim is based on the fact that Gazan militants live among the civilian population and keep much of their weaponry in the neighborhoods. But this is hypocrisy; every guerrilla army that fights on its own turf against an incomparably stronger enemy fights from among the civilian population. The pre-1948 Irgun and Lehi guerrillas would kill the British, then “melt back” into the Jewish neighborhoods. In Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan, there are civilian public buildings – including schools – with plaques at the entrance telling how they housed weapons caches and training camps for the Irgun, Lehi or Haganah. Up through Israel’s War of Independence, the kibbutzim were military outposts as much as they were civilian settlements.

http://972mag.com/blame-israel-and-hamas-both-for-gazas-civilian-deaths/93351/

[Jefferson23]

5. I know, thanks for the OP. Propaganda wars are in full rage..I would hope most people

read with caution and think about reserving final judgement..we don't know everything.

I am still waiting for that evidence from Bibi on the teens murders..his pretexts
are not going away for this mess. But while this gets sorted out, more people will die,
it is sickening.

[azurnoir]

7. I think anyone who knows the history knows but it is difficult to find put in print so clearly

as for the murders and Bibi's 'evidence' that seems to 'fish wrap' these days as bigger things are taking up the headlines, if we hear or see anymore it will be in the future when there is a lull or when some political necessity calls for it

[Jefferson23]

8. Probably so, but that is just wrong for the press to let that slide..if in fact they do.

His fucking pretext for this disaster needs to be pushed in his face daily, until he responds.

[Jefferson23]

6. LIVE UPDATES: Two Gaza rockets explode near Dimona

Rocket hits home in city of Netivot; Gaza death toll at 121; Netanyahu: Operation will end only when quiet is returned; Abbas: I have no partner for a two-state solution.

By Haaretz | Jul. 12, 2014

Israel's Operation Protective Edge entered its fifth day on Saturday, with rockets continuing to target Israeli towns and cities and the IDF continuing to carry out massive airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources in Gaza describe Friday night as the most lethal yet since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, with 14 people killed in the Strip, raising the number of Gaza deaths in to 121.

On Friday, ten Israelis were wounded, one of them seriously, by rockets that struck in Be'er Sheva and Ashdod. An elderly woman died after suffering a heart attack while seeking shelter in Haifa, which was targeted for the first time during the current round of fire.

Israeli jets have bombed over 1,100 targets across the Gaza Strip since the operation began. Reports from Gaza indicated widespread damage to houses, infrastructure and public buildings, with large numbers of civilian casualties.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.604570

[ellenrr]

13. "Operation will end only when quiet is returned"

the quiet of the grave

[ellenrr]

14. The death toll is going to be a lot higher...

bec. the number of injured Palestinians was at 600 last time I heard.

Hospitals overwhelmed, no medicine....
do the math...

another example of media bias- npr this morning - one of the most biased esp. bec. it pretends to be "liberal"
headline, "Israel attacks Gaza militants"
!

[Jefferson23]

21. The wounded are now cloer to 900. Those headlines and the agenda are always disturbing. n/t

[bemildred]

9. Israel deploys more missile interceptors, Gaza death toll up to 121

GAZA/JERUSALEM, July 12 (Reuters) - Israel rushed an eighth missile interceptor battery into service on Saturday to counter stronger-than-expected rocket fire from Gaza as the military pounded positions in the Palestinian enclave for a fifth day, killing 15 people, medics said.

The Jewish state kept options open for a possible ground offensive into densely populated Gaza despite international pressure to negotiate a ceasefire in the conflict, which has killed 121 in the Islamist-ruled enclave since Tuesday.

Residents said a mosque in the central Gaza Strip was bombed to rubble. The Israeli military said the mosque had housed a weapons cache. Referring to Israel's prime minister, graffiti scrawled on one of the mosque's blasted walls read, "We will prevail despite your arrogance, Netanyahu."

Eight other mosques have been damaged from bombing and 537 Gaza houses have either been destroyed or damaged, according to the Gaza-based Al-Mezan Association for Human Rights.

http://www.trust.org/item/20140712131444-4pyqc/

[bemildred]

10. Disabled Palestinians unable to escape Israeli air strike on home

Who knows who lived in the two first-floor apartments above a home for eight disabled adults in a neighbourhood of eastern Gaza.

Perhaps, as a neighbour suggests, one of them was a militant with Islamic Jihad who lived there with his family. But the neighbour says he isn't sure. What is certain is that the occupant was absent in the early hours of Saturday morning when the two Israeli drones "knocked on his roof" – firing warning shots to encourage civilians to vacate the building prior to a strike.

A few minutes later, an Israeli war plane fired a missile into the house. But it didn't detonate on the first floor. Instead, it smashed through to the ground floor where the explosion ripped through the room where five of the disabled residents were sleeping, killing two and injuring the others.

A neighbour found one of the dead, who was missing initially, after he noticed flies buzzing around the place where she was buried. "A body! A body!" the man shouted. Gingerly he lifted the piece of concrete concealing a curly head of hair, face down in the debris.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/12/disabled-palestinians-unable-escape-israeli-air-strike

[Jefferson23]

11. The rationale for these stories is making me feel ill.

The knock on the roof thing is so fucking twisted..it creeps me out!

[bemildred]

12. Israelis pictured on seats and eating POPCORN as they watch the deadly bombardment of Gaza

This is the incendiary picture of Israelis eating popcorn and cheering as they watch the bombardment of Gaza which has sparked outrage on Twitter.

The photograph was tweeted Danish journalist Allan Sørensen, the Middle East Correspondent for a Danish newspaper.

Sderot cinema. Israelis bringing chairs 2 hilltop in sderot 2 watch latest from Gaza. Clapping when blasts are heard. pic.twitter.com/WYZquV62O7
— Allan Sørensen (@allansorensen72) July 9, 2014

Along with the picture he wrote: “Sderot cinema: Israelis bringing chairs 2 hilltop in sderot 2 watch latest from Gaza. Clapping when blasts are heard.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/israelis-pictured-seats-eating-popcorn-3846801

Yeah, I'm sort of speechless

[ellenrr]

15. oh, shit....will there ever be justice.

I don't even know what justice would look like for these people.

[Jefferson23]

16. Ugh. It is disturbing to see anyone see this literally as theater...unimaginable to me. n/t

[bemildred]

17. I really just can't talk about it today.

Nothing personal, I don't trust my judgement.

[Jefferson23]

18. Understandable. n/t

[bemildred]

19. Gaza toll at 127 on day five of Israeli strikes

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed 22 people Saturday, bringing to 127 the toll on the fifth day of violence, medics said.

In the latest strike, six men were killed in the Sheikh Radwan district of western Gaza City, health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

Aged from 21 to 58, they were sitting outside their homes in the area when the strike hit, eyewitnesses said.

Their deaths brought the toll on Saturday alone to 22, including two people killed in a strike that hit a charitable association housing the disabled in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/07/gaza-toll-127-day-five-israeli-strikes/

[Jefferson23]

22. Sitting ducks. n/t

[bemildred]

23. At the crossroads of a Gaza ground operation

Toward the end of this week, is looked like Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip had reached a tipping point. Does Israel really intend to send ground troops to Gaza? Or is Israel just making the necessary noises in order to deter the Hamas government, and force it to return, at the last minute, to a cease-fire agreement?

The security cabinet's seven-hour meeting on Thursday, the invitation of media to document training exercises of troops on the Gaza border ahead of a possible ground operation, the Israeli army's phone message to Palestinian residents in north Gaza asking people to leave their homes- all these would seem to indicate that Israel seriously intends to send in ground troops.

As in previous Israel Defense Forces operations, the acceleration of ground deployment has slightly sped up the diplomatic clock, which, until now, had tick-tocked at a slower pace. For a few days, unfulfilled expectations hung in the air in Israel that Egypt would manage to convince Hamas to stop firing rockets.

Whether Egypt is procrastinating because it doesn't care that Hamas continues to be pummeled by Israeli strikes, or whether the delay reflects how suspicious Gaza is of the Egyptians, it looks like other channels of communication are necessary.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.604601

[Jefferson23]

24. If that was not intended as a green light, then I guess I am color blind. n/t

[Jefferson23]

25. Gaza death toll nears 100, Israel does not rule out ground offensive

GAZA/JERUSALEM: Israel said on Friday it would not bow to international pressure to end air strikes in Gaza that officials there said had killed almost 100 Palestinians, despite an offer by US President Barack Obama to help negotiate a ceasefire with militants.

Asked if Israel might move from the mostly aerial attacks of the past four days into a ground war in Gaza to stop militant rocket fire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied, "we are weighing all possibilities and preparing for all possibilities."

"No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power," he told reporters in Tel Aviv a day after a telephone conversation with Obama about the worst flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian violence in almost two years.

On Friday Washington affirmed Israel's right to defend itself in a statement from the Pentagon. But defence secretary Chuck Hagel told Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya'alon he was concerned "about the risk of further escalation and emphasized the need for all sides to do everything they can to protect civilian lives and restore calm."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Gaza-death-toll-nears-100-Israel-does-not-rule-out-ground-offensive/articleshow/38224183.cms

[Jefferson23]

26. AP PHOTOS: Palestinians bury dead after airstrikes

Gaza Strip (AP) -- Hundreds of Palestinians carried bodies through the streets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday as they buried those killed in Israeli airstrikes. On the other side of the border Israelis braced for rocket fire and soldiers massed on the border.

An Israeli offensive aimed at stopping near-daily Palestinian militant rocket attacks has set off the heaviest fighting between Israel and the Islamic militant group Hamas since an eight-day battle in November 2012, and it is taking a heavy toll on civilians.

Palestinian children played in the rubble of a house that was destroyed by an Israeli strike on Tuesday in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, while hundreds of angry men carried the bodies of seven people laid out on orange stretchers for their funeral in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the south. Trails of smoke, meanwhile, could be seen as Palestinian militants fired rocket salvos toward Israel.

Palestinian medics say a total of 49 people have been killed in Gaza, including 22 on Wednesday. Of the total dead, medical officials have confirmed at least 15 are civilians and 10 militants, with the remainder uncertain.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_PALESTINIANS_PHOTO_GALLERY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-07-09-15-12-26

[Jefferson23]

27. snip*Calm or catastrophe

The Israeli army’s top general, chief of staff Lt Col Benny Gantz, said the military was awaiting instruction. “Terrorists in Gaza understand that they’ve made a big mistake. Gaza is slowly sinking into the abyss, ” he said. “We’ve yet to exhaust our offensive capabilities. Gaza needs to choose whether it’s heading for calm or for a security catastrophe.”

The most likely scenario is a limited ground offensive that includes infantry, combat engineers and armoured corps.

Mr Netanyahu, who spoke yesterday with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and US secretary of state John Kerry, said Israel would continue to strike “decisive” blows against Hamas, adding that no “terror entity” in Gaza was immune from Israel’s long arm. No normal country would accept a situation in which rockets were fired on their cities and towns, he said.

A senior Israeli army official says 2,000 rockets and mortar shells have been destroyed in Gaza since the beginning of Operation “Protective Edge” on Tuesday. According to army intelligence, Hamas possessed 6,000 rockets and mortars before the operation began.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, called on Hamas to stop its rocket fire. “What are you trying to achieve by sending rockets?” he asked on Palestine TV, without referring to Hamas. “We prefer to fight with wisdom and politics.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/israeli-army-set-for-ground-invasion-of-gaza-1.1863665

[bemildred]

28. GAZA UNDER ATTACK: Death toll reaches 130 while over 1,000 injured

KUALA LUMPUR: The death toll from Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip has reached 130 as at 6.30pm (11.30pm Malaysian time).

Among those killed were 20 children and 25 women, including three women with different abilities who were inside the Handicapped Rehabilitation Association building in Northern Gaza.

Humanitarian agency Aman Palestin spokeperson Hamza Deirawi said the number of injured victims, who mostly suffered severe wounds and burns, had also risen to over 1,000 since the Zionist regime launched its massive attacks on Tuesday.

This, Hamza said, had resulted in overcrowding in seven main hospitals in the strip, with many victims having to wait for treatment while writhing in pain.

http://www.nst.com.my/node/12398

[bemildred]

30. Palestinian ambulance drivers defy risks to save lives

GAZA CITY // For 15 years, Ayman Shahwan has raced his ambulance through the death and destruction of Gaza’s seemingly unending war with Israel.

Braving the threat of air strikes and shelling, he has ferried scores of wounded men, women and children — and presumably fighters — to hospital from the wreckage of bombed-out Gaza homes. Often, he arrives to the grim aftermath of body parts that he must also collect for the authorities to identify.

“Sometimes you think this could be the end of your life. But you have to do this because there is no else who will,” Mr Shahwan, 42, said during a short break at Gaza City’s Tel Al Hawa neighbourhood ambulance station.

Taking advantage of a lull in the bombardment, he and a dozen colleagues from the Palestine Red Crescent Society fought of exhaustion by watching television news and discussing the war’s latest developments. Drowsy from their Ramadan fast and having only two hours sleep the night before, they did their best to resist the urge to doze, knowing that at any moment they could be called to the scene of the latest attack.

http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/palestinian-ambulance-drivers-defy-risks-to-save-lives

[bemildred]

31. Israel widens air attack, Gaza death toll hits 135

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israel widened its air assault against the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers on Saturday, hitting a mosque, Hamas-affiliated charities and an Islamic home for the disabled, as Palestinians said the death toll from the five-day offensive rose to 135.

While Israel vowed to press forward with its 5-day-old campaign, it found itself facing growing international calls to stop. In New York, the U.N. Security Council unanimously called for a cease-fire, while Britain's foreign minister said he would be discussing cease-fire efforts with his American, French and German counterparts on Sunday.

The 15-member Security Council issued a press statement calling for a de-escalation, restoration of calm and a resumption of Mideast peace talks. The press statement, which is not legally binding but reflects international opinion, was the first response by the U.N.'s most powerful body.

An Israeli official said the goal of the operation is to restore quiet to Israel for a continuous period. "This goal will be achieved whether it is done militarily or diplomatically. Israel will consider any suggestion that will bring the accomplishment of this goal," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_PALESTINIANS