(source: Ma’an News Agency)

Bethlehem – Ma’an – In a landmark publication, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has released a fully researched and cross-referenced list of casualties from Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip in December and January.

According to B’Tselem’s research, Israeli security forces killed 1,387 Palestinians during the course of the three-week operation. Their research further found the following:

• Of these, 773 did not take part in the hostilities, including 320 minors and 109 women over the age of 18.

• Of those killed, 330 took part in the hostilities, and 248 were Palestinian police officers, most of whom were killed in aerial bombings of police stations on the first day of the operation.

• For 36 people, B’Tselem could not determine whether they participated in the hostilities or not.

Comparative study

Official Government of Israel statistics had 1,166 Palestinians killed, 60% of whom were “members of Hamas and other armed groups.” According to the military, a total of 295 Palestinians who were “not involved” in the fighting were killed.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights published a revised and expanded report on Tuesday, 8 September, detailing the following numbers:

• 1,419 Palestinians were killed including 1,167 non-combatants and 252 resistance activists. The non-combatants include civilians and civil police officers who were not involved in hostilities, the protected persons of international humanitarian law.

• Investigations conducted by PCHR indicate that 918 civilians were killed. The civilian victims include 318 children and 111 women.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health puts the number of dead at 1,455. Read More »Israeli study over half of Gaza war dead were civilians

Congolese Court Sentences Two Norwegians to Death

(source: bet.com)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people, telling a French newspaper that the bombing of Gaza late last year was an unprovoked attack. “The question is not whether the Israelis want to exterminate the Palestinians.They’re doing it openly,” Chavez said in an interview with Le Figaro published on Wednesday.

The Venezuelan president, who has just completed a tour of Middle Eastern and Arab countries, brushed aside Israeli assertions that its attack on Gaza was a response to rocket fire from Islamist group Hamas which rules the coastal enclave. “What was it if not genocide? … The Israelis were looking for an excuse to exterminate the Palestinians,” Chavez said, adding that sanctions should have been slapped on Israel. Israel launched an offensive against the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008, with the declared aim of curbing rocket fire from the region into southern Israel.

The land, sea and air assault lasted 22 days, and left some 1,300 Palestinians dead, according to medical sources. Chavez said he recognized Israel’s right to exist, as with all countries, but added that the Jewish state must respect the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. The Venezuelan president said he wanted more clarity from the United States on its foreign policy, adding that he was disappointed by recent U.S. dealings in South America, including the installation of military bases in Colombia. “Sadly, the arrival of Obama brought with it a lot of hope, but little change,” he said.

Read More »Chavez says Isarael committed genocide

(source: www.presstv.ir)

A recently released Palestinian woman has unveiled information about Israel’s misbehavior and immoral insults to Palestinian women who are kept in custody.

“Palestinian women prisoners have been and continue to be exposed to repeated interrogation even throughout nights”, said Saberin Abu-Ammarah, a 26-year-old Palestinian woman who has recently been freed after spending six years in an Israeli prison.

She added that Israeli jailors stripped Palestinian women of their clothes.

She said that Israel’s misbehavior towrard Palestinian women is a crime against humanity and added that Israeli jailors did not let prisoners meet with their families especially in the holy month of Ramadan and did not provide them with television or radio.

The released woman said that some prisoners are in bad health, but Israelis prevent the entering of doctors into prison facilities.

More than 12,000 Palestinians — including women and children — imprisoned by Israel are suffering under harsh conditions in unaccountable detention facilities. Read More »Freed female prisoner discloses Isaraels cruelty

Israeli ads warn against marrying non-Jews

By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

(source: The National-Abu Dabi)

The Israeli government has launched a television and internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews. The advertisements, employing what the Israeli media described as “scare tactics”, are designed to stop assimilation through intermarriage among young diaspora Jews by encouraging their move to Israel.

The campaign, which cost $800,000, was created in response to reports that half of all Jews outside Israel marry non-Jews. It is just one of several initiatives by the Israeli state and private organisations to try to increase the size of Israel’s Jewish population.

According to one ad, voiced over by one of the country’s leading news anchors, assimilation is “a strategic national threat”, warning: “More than 50 per cent of diaspora youth assimilate and are lost to us.”

Adam Keller, of Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace group, said this was a reference both to a general fear in Israel that the Jewish people may one day disappear through assimilation and to a more specific concern that, if it is to survive, Israel must recruit more Jews to its “demographic war” against Palestinians.

Read More »Israel gets tough on intermarriage