The head of the UN agency in Gaza running the school that was attacked by Israel forces has rejected claims that Hamas fighters were inside the converted shelter. The Israeli military accused Hamas of using civilians sheltering inside the building as "human shields" and said its troops had returned fire after fighters fired mortars at their positions from within al-Fakhora school in the Jabaliya refugee camp. But John Ging, the director of operations in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), told reporters that he had visited the school during a three-hour lull in the fighting on Wednesday and "was reassured by the management of the school ... that there were no militants in the school". Ging added that these were his "own staff, senior, experienced, long-serving staff". "I am very confident now that there was no militant activity inside the school nor militants in the school," he said. He also reiterated a call for an independent investigation into the incident. "If anybody has evidence to the contrary, then let's bring it forward," Ging said. The Israeli strike on Tuesday left 43 Palestinians dead and about 100 injured. At least 700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and nearly 3,085 wounded since Israel's military offensive began on December 27. Seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians have died in the same period. The Israeli army said on Wednesday it stood by its statement issued the day before in which it claimed that mortars had been fired "from within" the school, but then issued another statement later dropping the word "within" to say "mortar fire from" the school. Chris Gunness, a spokesman for Unrwa, said this was "an extremely important distinction because we have been accused of very serious allegations that our premises were being used to fire rockets". Michel Abdel Massih QC, a London-based international human rights lawyer, also called for an independent investigation. "If [Israeli] claims are to be tested properly we need an independent tribunal. The International Criminal Court was set up to deal with these issues, so there is a mechanism for the UN security council to refer the case for investigation," he told Al Jazeera. When asked if Israel would allow such an investigation, Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, said Israel had already held an "initial investigation" which found that troops had returned fire from the UN building. Regev accused Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip, of committing a "war crime" by using those sheltering in the UN school as "a human shield". The incident has provoked strong international condemnation with Ban-Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, branding both the incident and Hamas rocket attacks as "unacceptable" - Thanks to ArchivesAlgeriennes - Reporters in Gaza : http://ingaza.wordpress.com/ http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml

Author: 1GangRelated
Keywords: Breaking News Breakers UN No Hamas fighters in targeted school
Added: January 8, 2009

Initially believed to be new footage from the current events in Gaza information has come to light that this media is in fact from 2005 although it seems to have only been released in this particular form recently. Hamas parades weapons in Gaza, they blow up, killing 15, including kids By israelinsider staff and partners September 23, 2005 Dead and wounded at the Hamas ral More..ly. Parading homemade weapons can be dangerous. (AP) A pickup truck carrying masked militants blew up at a Hamas rally on Friday, killing at least 15 Palestinians and wounding 80, The PA Interior Ministry confirmed. Witnesses said the truck carried homemade weapons, and Palestinian security officials said the blast apparently was caused by the mishandling of weapons. Hamas blamed Israel, saying Israeli aircraft flew overhead during the rally. Israel denied it was involved. Seven of the wounded were in serious condition, hospital doctors said. The rally was held in the Jebaliya refugee camp. Witnesses said participants crowded around the pickup truck carrying militants when the explosion went off. The witnesses said the truck carried homemade weapons. One man, who only gave his first name, Hussam, said he helped pull three men out of the pickup, two dead and one man who was still alive, but had a leg severed. The side of the pickup was charred. The witness said he saw five dead children nearby. Dozens of children were wounded in the blast. The Hamas military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, is popular with youngsters. When the pickup with the gunmen arrived at the rally, many children crowded around the vehicle. After the blast, men carried bloody body parts and lifeless bodies wrapped in blankets to nearby cars. The dead and wounded were taken to nearby hospitals. Doctors initally said they had a total of 56 wounded at two hospitals, but Hamas later revised the figure to 45 wounded. The toll was later revised upward again on Saturday, to 140. At Shifa, doctors had to treat patients on the floor of the emergency room because they ran out of beds. Masked Hamas men wheeled in casualties, including children.

Author: juliendu671
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Added: January 8, 2009

The head of the UN agency in Gaza running the school that was attacked by Israel forces has rejected claims that Hamas fighters were inside the converted shelter. The Israeli military accused Hamas of using civilians sheltering inside the building as "human shields" and said its troops had returned fire after fighters fired mortars at their positions from within al-Fakhora school in the Jabaliya refugee camp. But John Ging, the director of operations in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), told reporters that he had visited the school during a three-hour lull in the fighting on Wednesday and "was reassured by the management of the school ... that there were no militants in the school". Ging added that these were his "own staff, senior, experienced, long-serving staff". "I am very confident now that there was no militant activity inside the school nor militants in the school," he said. He also reiterated a call for an independent investigation into the incident. "If anybody has evidence to the contrary, then let's bring it forward," Ging said. The Israeli strike on Tuesday left 43 Palestinians dead and about 100 injured. At least 700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and nearly 3,085 wounded since Israel's military offensive began on December 27. Seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians have died in the same period. The Israeli army said on Wednesday it stood by its statement issued the day before in which it claimed that mortars had been fired "from within" the school, but then issued another statement later dropping the word "within" to say "mortar fire from" the school. Chris Gunness, a spokesman for Unrwa, said this was "an extremely important distinction because we have been accused of very serious allegations that our premises were being used to fire rockets". Michel Abdel Massih QC, a London-based international human rights lawyer, also called for an independent investigation. "If [Israeli] claims are to be tested properly we need an independent tribunal. The International Criminal Court was set up to deal with these issues, so there is a mechanism for the UN security council to refer the case for investigation," he told Al Jazeera. When asked if Israel would allow such an investigation, Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, said Israel had already held an "initial investigation" which found that troops had returned fire from the UN building. Regev accused Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip, of committing a "war crime" by using those sheltering in the UN school as "a human shield". The incident has provoked strong international condemnation with Ban-Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, branding both the incident and Hamas rocket attacks as "unacceptable"

Author: ArchivesAlgeriennes
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Added: January 8, 2009

Gaza City, Aza, January 6, 2009, Al Jazeerastabc News (Not affiliated with Al Jazeera or ABC News): Palestinian reborter Waheel or Wahil (sp?) Habib, reborting as an aircraft from Israel flies overhead. That craft, or ones similar to it, had been dropping bombs over the Gaza Strip for over 12 days already when this was shot. The bombardments started because Hamas broke a 6 month ceasefire on claims that it was not worth their while, and Israel responded with overwhelming force with its military might, killing over 600 Palestinians (approximately 26% civilian, 74% hamas and other militant terrorists) and ten israelis in the first dozen days of fighting. franco-egyptian proposal peace war hate love israelis zionist self-determination un resolution united nations 242 338 1701 zion hizbullah hibulah ismail haniyeh zaatar minister prime cabinet security knesset kosher halacha halal muslim terror food market economy recovery winnable unconditional surrender ceasefire cease fire nicolas sarkozy hosni mubarak george w bush barrack hussein obama president president-elect middle east muddled news

Author: marshallkimoon
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Added: January 8, 2009

GAZA — The Samouni family knew they were in danger. They had been calling the Red Cross for two days, they said, begging to be taken out of Zeitoun, a poor area in eastern Gaza City that is considered a stronghold of Hamas. No rescuers came. Instead, Israeli soldiers entered their building late Sunday night and told them to evacuate to another building. They did. But at 6 a.m. on Monday, when a missile fired by an Israeli warplane struck the relatives house in which they had taken shelter, there was nowhere to run. Eleven members of the extended Samouni family were killed and 26 wounded, according to witnesses and hospital officials, with five children age 4 and under among the dead. Hundreds of members of the clan flooded in to Shifa Hospital, all from Zeitoun, many in shock. Masouda al-Samouni, 20, lost her mother-in-law, her husband and her 10-month-old son. She said she had been preparing food for the baby when the missile struck. He died hungry, she said. Ten days into Israels offensive against Hamas, the militant Islamic group that governs Gaza, the civilian toll was rising alongside that of the militants. As the fighting closed in on the city, Gazans began accusing Israel of deliberately aiming at civilians, to turn them against Hamas. Israel blames Hamas, saying it focuses the battle in the densely populated areas of this narrow, crowded coastal strip and uses residents as shields. We have no intention of harming civilians, said Maj. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman. Hamas cynically uses civilians by operating in their midst, she said, adding, Sometimes there can be situations where civilians get hurt. Israel began its campaign on Dec. 27 with the primary intention of breaking Hamass military infrastructure and its ability to launch rockets at southern Israel. About 550 Palestinians have been killed so far, medical officials in Gaza said, with at least a quarter of them civilians, according to the United Nations. Hospital officials in Gaza said that at least 93 people had been killed and more than 370 wounded since Saturday, when Israeli ground forces joined the campaign. In the crowded Shati refugee camp, near the coast, another family was wiped out early Monday when a shell fired from a navy ship hit their house while they slept. In the Tuffah district, another poor neighborhood of Gaza City, the Israelis fired tank shells into a house, witnesses said. A neighbor drove Mumin Alawi, 13, to the hospital. When Muhammad Alawi, Mumins father, came looking for his son and found that the boy had died, he was beside himself and wanted to jump from a balcony, until relatives held him back. He died a martyr, said Muhammads mother. At least this body is whole. A Red Cross official in Gaza said there had been many cries for help. In the case of the Samouni family, she said, the organization was told by the Israelis that it would be too dangerous to go into the Zeitoun neighborhood. A study about to be published in Israel by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an independent research group that has close ties to the Israeli military establishment and is supported by the American Jewish Congress, presents Hamas as having methodically built its military infrastructure in the heart of population centers. The study presents photographs of militants manufacturing and storing weapons inside houses and of Israeli soldiers finding weapons hidden in a mosque in northern Gaza during a military incursion in March 2008. Hamas not only hides among the population, the study contends, but has made a main component of its combat strategy channeling the army into the most densely populated areas to fight — a model that is now playing out. Shireen Shihab, 30, a resident of Gaza City, said Monday that she had seen Hamas fighters firing rockets toward Israel from a site two blocks away from her home. She said she and others could not express any opposition for fear of being labeled spies. Ms. Shihab, a former supporter of Fatah, the secularist rival of Hamas, said that the Israelis and their pro-Western Palestinian allies from Fatah were using the people, killing them to make Hamas pay a price. Among the survivors of the Samouni family, opinions were divided. Some blessed the resistance. But Hamada Al-Samouni, 28, who was lightly wounded by the Israeli rocket and was clearly still in shock, said this was all happening because of the rockets fired by Hamas. He said he had seen the bodies of eight Hamas fighters dressed in civilian clothing lying in the streets around Zeitoun. They had been lying there for two days and nobody had come to collect them, he said. Taghreed El-Khodary reported from Gaza City, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem.

Author: fartunoviopli
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Added: January 8, 2009