Israel-Palästina

[ThomasWach]

Man liest noch ganz andere Dinge. Bisher räumte ich der israelischen Seite gegenüber durchaus ein, dass sie zumindest eine gewisse Vorsicht und Sorge der Zivilbevölkerung gegenüber walten ließ.
Aber wenn man sowas liest, dann zweifle ich doch wieder mehr (also sowieso schon):

Gaza Children Found With Mothers’ Corpses

PARIS — The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it had discovered “shocking” scenes — including small children next to their mothers’ corpses — when its representatives gained access for the first time to parts of Gaza battered by Israeli shelling. It accused Israel of failing to meet obligations to care for the wounded in areas of combat.
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In another house, the statement said, the rescue team “found 15 other survivors of this attack including several wounded. In yet another house, they found an additional three corpses. Israeli soldiers posted at a military position some 80 meters away from this house ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do.
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The statement quoted Pierre Wettach, an International Red Cross representative for Israel and the Palestinian areas, as calling the incident “shocking.”

“The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded,” he was quoted as saying.
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Quelle:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/world/...cross.html

Und hier ein Artikel über den Angriff auf die UN-Schule und die unübersichtliche Lage und fatalen Konsequenzen, die in einem überbevölkerten urbanen Raum im Rahmen asymmetrischer Kriegsführung entstehen.

Grief and Rage at Stricken Gaza School

JABALIYA, Gaza — The bodies of the children who died outside the United Nations school here were laid out in a long row on the ground. Some were wrapped in the vivid green flag of Hamas, some were in white shrouds, and some were in the yellow flag of Fatah, which is rarely seen these days in Hamas-run Gaza.
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Most [families] came from farther north in Gaza, near Beit Lahiya, where the fighting has been intense, an hour’s walk away. Israeli forces ordered them to evacuate their homes for their own safety.
But Al Fakhura, set in the northern part of the densely packed Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City, is in a crowded neighborhood full of Hamas fighters. Israel said that a preliminary investigation showed that mortar fire from the school compound prompted Israeli forces to return fire. The Israeli mortar rounds killed as many as 40 people outside the school; Palestinian hospital officials said Tuesday that 10 of the dead were children and 5 were women.

Residents of the neighborhood said two brothers who were Hamas fighters were in the area at the time of the attack. The military identified them as Imad Abu Asker and Hassan Abu Asker, and said they had been killed. But the residents also said the mortar fire had not come from the school compound, but from elsewhere in the neighborhood.
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Quelle:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/...scene.html

Und hier noch ein sehr interessanter Kommentar:

Op-Ed Contributor
What You Don’t Know About Gaza


NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.
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Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will.
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The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition.
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Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”

Quelle:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinio...di.html?em

Und noch ein kritischer Artikel, und dies alles aus amerikanischer Feder:

Nicholas D. Kristof: The Gaza boomerang

At a time when Israel is bombing Gaza to try to smash Hamas, it's worth remembering that Israel itself helped nurture Hamas.

When Hamas was founded in 1987, Israel was mostly concerned with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and figured that a religious Palestinian organization would help undermine Fatah.

Israel calculated that all those Muslim fundamentalists would spend their time praying in the mosques, so it cracked down on Fatah and allowed Hamas to rise as a counterforce.

What we're seeing in the Middle East is the Boomerang Syndrome.

Arab terrorism built support for right-wing Israeli politicians, who took harsh actions against Palestinians, who responded with more terrorism, and so on. Extremists on each side sustain the other, and the excessive Israeli ground assault in Gaza is likely to create more terrorists in the long run.
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But Israel's right to do something doesn't mean it has the right to do anything. Since the shelling from Gaza started in 2001, 20 Israeli civilians have been killed by rockets or mortars, according to a tabulation by Israeli human rights groups. That doesn't justify an all-out ground invasion that has killed more than 660 people (it's difficult to know how many are militants and how many are civilians).
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Israel's strategy has been to make ordinary Palestinians suffer in hopes of creating ill will toward Hamas.
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Quelle:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/08/o...ristof.php