But sometimes you just have to get stuff out there.
Survivors say Israelis shelled Gaza building where troops told them to shelter
Israeli troops knocked on the door of the Samouni clan in Gaza City last weekend and told them to leave, directing them to the building owned by a relative. Twenty-four hours later, three shells slammed into the structure where dozens of people were huddling, according to survivor accounts Friday.
A newly released United Nations report said 30 people died in the shelling, citing four unidentified survivors who spoke by telephone. It called the shelling "one of the gravest incidents" to happen since Israeli infantry and armored troops entered Gaza Jan. 4 to quell Hamas rockets on Israel.
Other accounts given to The Associated Press and an Israeli human rights group provided lower casualty figures, but all agreed that shells hit the large, unfinished warehouse-like building a day after Israeli troops told them to get inside it for their safety.
And now the United Nations is backing up the story.
I really didn't want to write a diary on this. I really don't even like getting sucked into discussions here on this nastiness. Because it really upsets me that there are people right here on Dailykos who support this kind of crap. People who wouldn't DREAM of supporting such actions when they were done by any other country, people who were as appalled as any of us by the U.S.'s actions in, say, Fallujah, hit us with this obvious strawman arguments of "Israel has no choice". "What else are they supposed to do". "Hamas started it".
Israel has been planning this since last March,when they threatened to unleash a "holocaust" upon Gaza. They have simply been waiting for the right time to do it. There was no pressing urgency to do this now, to stop missile attacks.
They selected this time deliberately, and are now planning to let foreign journalists into the area (which would indicate some kind of cease fire) during the Obama inauguration, when the world's attention (and especially America's) will be elsewhere.
Last night on The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC correspondent Richard Engel discussed Israel’s refusal to let reporters into Gaza. "I’ve called everyday and said ‘when are we going to be allowed in?’" he said, adding that one Israeli official "had an interesting explanation" for the situation. The official told Engel that Israel doesn’t want reporters in Gaza documenting the humanitarian situation or revealing military tactics. Israel is trying to "manage the image" of the war, Engel reported, adding this:
ENGEL: This official told me he expects this operation, while negotiations are taking place, will last several more days. And that after that, reporters would eventually be allowed in. But at that stage, Israel is assuming the United States will mostly be focused on all of the coverage around the inauguration, and that viewers simply won’t care at that point.
And don't forget to check out Chris Floyd's take on this:
Gazing at Gaza's Destruction: Israelis Sip Pepsi, where you can see the Israeli yuppies, the ones who are supposedly in such mortal danger from these rocket attacks, sitting in plain view on a hillside, totally exposed, while their government massacres women and children in the distance ...
A tower of white smoke rose from the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun after another Israeli bombardment Monday morning, and a half-dozen Israelis, perched on a dusty hilltop, gazed at the scene like armchair military strategists.
Avi Pilchick took a long swig of Pepsi and propped a foot on the plastic patio chair he'd carried up the hillside to watch the fighting. "They are doing good," Pilchick, 20, said of Israeli forces battling Palestinian militants in Gaza, "but they can do more."
Somewhere in Beit Hanoun, Ashraf El-Masri's family cowered in their concrete tenement home, their neighborhood surrounded by Israeli soldiers. El-Masri said that five residents had been killed by Israeli shelling that morning, and the blasts had traumatized the youngest of his nine children into a terrified silence...
On the hilltop overlooking Beit Hanoun, Pilchick squinted into the sharp sunlight. He'd taken time off from his job at a foreign exchange bureau in Jerusalem and driven down to Sderot with a friend on Saturday, the day the ground operation opened...Sderot residents — some of them carrying binoculars — have gathered on the hilltop since the offensive began for a glimpse of the fighting...
In their darkened home in Beit Hanoun, Ashraf El-Masri's children were in utter distress. No one has stepped outside since Israeli ground forces entered the town Saturday night, and more Israeli shelling awakened them Monday morning, including a strike on a nearby mosque.
El-Masri's 12-year-old son, Abdelatif, has suddenly begun to wet the bed. His 10-year-old, Ahmad, a talented soccer player and popular kid in the neighborhood, spends the days hiding in a corner of the room where the whole family now sleeps. Four-year-old Mahmoud, usually a nonstop talker, is barely saying a word...
I am writing this diary because there are still people here who think that Israel is NOT targeting civilians, women and children. The story above the fold pretty much proves otherwise. And it is just one of many.
I am amazed that we cannot all agree that Israel's actions are wrong.
I am amazed we cannot all agree that to criticize Israel's actions does NOT mean that Israel should "do nothing". That is a strawman. What people like me are saying is that Israel's dealings with this problem are an utter failure and need to stop. Something else needs to be done, not this. My god, they admitted they used white phosphorous in Lebanon and it seems they also secretly used depleted uranium there, too, and they were unable to hide that they've used white phosphorous already in Gaza.
I am amazed that there are people here who are every bit as jingoistic and hate-filled as those who put "America - love it or leave it" bumper stickers on their pickup trucks in this country.
Israel has failed at dealing with this situation. It is their responsibility, as the bigger, stronger country, backed with billions in foreign aid, to act like responsible adults, and find a solution that works. This is not working. Their approach never HAS worked. And so what do they do? More. More more more.
Naomi Klein has a great take on this, in which she suggests we should treat Israel the way we treated South Africa during the Apartheid days -- for that country also failed utterly with regards to its "troublesome populations". Of course, with both Dems and Repubs patting Israel on the back and goading them on, we've got a long way to go.