10: 20 EST MSNBC: Israel strike on UN school kill at least 35, untold injured

[Sensitivity]

The facts of attacks on prominently marked UN facilities seem to belie all claims about the targeted nature of the assault on Gaza.

This follow UN protest of a previous attack on UN school which killed 4.

This meets the classic definition of a war crime. Who will take responsibility.

Online report:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Israeli-Troops-Die-In-Friendly-Fire-As-Fighting-Continues-In-Gaza-Amid-Humanitarian-Crisis/Article/200901115197993?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15197993_Israeli_Troops_Die_In_Friendly_Fire_As_Fighting_Continues_In_Gaza_Amid_Humanitarian_Crisis

[malaise]

1. They also attacked the UN in Lebanon

Poor children - good effing grief.

[subsuelo]

12. As expected from any rogue terrorist group

[Hydra]

18. Yes, and I thought of that when I heard about this attack

How is it that Israel gets to attack UN troops and representatives at will with no consequences?

[patrice]

2. They're trying to destroy ANY Palestinian leadership, not just Hamas. nt

[Mnemosyne]

28. They seek to destroy all Palestinians, it would seem, by destroying the future. Shameful. n/t

[patrice]

30. This MUST be an issue by which to vet candidates for 2010.

How can the party, any party, expect us to put conscience aside? We ARE doing this to Palestine, just like we did it to Iraq.

[Mnemosyne]

34. Karma will rule in the end.

:(

[spanone]

3. all we are saying, is give peace a chance....slim chance

now just imagine if this was an israeli school.....we would be sending troops to kill palestinians

[oberliner]

21. Hamas has already bombed Hebrew University

Killing several Americans in the process.

[tekisui]

4. The schools were being used as shelters for displaced Gazans.

Shame on Israel.

[Sensitivity]

5. Link: to UN protest of prior strike on UN School

If Russia was doing this would we believe the claim of "all measures to avoid civilian harm."

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/06/israel.gaza/index.html

[tekisui]

6. This is indefensible. Israel needs to stop.

[JNelson6563]

10. Reminds me of the dynamic of where I live

I am homeless but staying with a dear friend of mine. I love her but the dynamics of her relationship with her dogs is a bit disturbing. Israel reminds me of the little dog in her pack. The little one is very vicious with the bigger dogs and gets away with bloody murder cause he's her favorite and the little one. Always with the excuses and justifications for his bahavior and the other dogs don't dare do anything cause the little one is so much smaller, the only established discipline with these dogs is that the little one is to be left to do as he pleases.

Likening the dog pack at my current home to the Middle East, the little dog is surely the Israeli government.

Julie

[dipsydoodle]

7. Deadly Attack On Gaza School

As many as 40 Palestinians have been killed in an attack on a UN-run school, witnesses have said, as aid agencies warn Gaza is in the grip of a major humanitarian crisis.

Two tank shells reportedly exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel on people who had sought shelter in the building.

Earlier at least 12 members of the same extended family, including seven young children, were said to have been killed in an Israeli air attack.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Israeli-Troops-Die-In-Friendly-Fire-As-Fighting-Continues-In-Gaza-Amid-Humanitarian-Crisis/Article/200901115197993?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15197993_Israeli_Troops_Die_In_Friendly_Fire_As_Fighting_Continues_In_Gaza_Amid_Humanitarian_Crisis

Repeat : Earlier at least 12 members of the same extended family, including seven young children, were said to have been killed in an Israeli air attack. That's now on our TV news as the main current issue of this event.

[Sensitivity]

8. Where are civilians to shelter NOW with massacres at mosques and UN school

[K Gardner]

14. Amanpour was saying two days ago that the people had absolutely nowhere to go, nowhere

to hide, they weren't set up for it. Alex Twit was interviewing someone living in Palestine, asking her why they didn't just hide out in the "bomb shelters" under their houses, and the lady said in disbelief, "there ARE NONE".

[kentuck]

9. no comment...

move on....nothing to see.

[cali]

11. Absolutely horrendous. And certainly a war crime.

[MadHound]

13. Another war crime to lay at Israel's door,

And another war crime that Israel will never be punished for.

[balantz]

15. And our government continues to support the murder.

In fact, they have for a long time now, against the will of others: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/usvetoes.html

[Zodiak]

16. I am only going to say this once

I have learned to despise Israel in its current incarnation. They are a rogue state hiding behind a superpower which itself acts like a rogue state. They have tarnished the very idea of a Jewish homeland with their behavior, and it will take decades to regain that goodwill.

I used to be a wholesale supporter...back when I did not know anything. Back when I thought being a "democracy" automatically made you one of the "good guys".

But after Lebanon in 2006.....they lost me. Their attack was bloodthirsty and their excuses for killing innocents stretched credulity. I saw them for what they were...simply murderers.

Because of this...they have lost me for some time. I no longer care about their "right to exist" and their "right to defend themselves" if murder and oppression are part and parcel to these rights.

They had better get some new leadership, fast....or I will start to consider this country an enemy to the US and to peace in general.

And if you lost me..who used to be a supporter....how many more have they lost? Is it worth it to watch someone's brains fly out of their head and feel all powerful with vengeance? Violence solves nothing. Bombs solve nothing, and history will ALWAYS favor the oppressed over the oppressor.

[Hydra]

19. You highlight the best point of all of this

Their behavior has become so blatant that people like me decided to start digging into what they did in the past...and it was no different back in the 6 day war. They did a better job of covering themselves PR-wise back then, though.

I really don't get it- why is past genocide being used to justify genocide now?

[TahitiNut]

20. I am, regretfully, in the same camp.

I eschew the hegemonistic, "might makes right" behavior of the U.S. and Israel for the same reasons. Appalling. Just as I acknowledge a massive plurality of opposition opinion in the U.S., I acknowledge a massive plurality of opposition opinion in Israel. However, the failure of the population to bring their government "too heel" condemns both them and us.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

26. May I join you?

I was just commenting on the very same in an I/P thread.

I grew up with things like Munich and the hijackings playing out on my TV. In those days in the US, Israel was 100% right and the Palestinians/Arabs were 100% wrong. And my views into adulthood reflected that completely.

But I watched and I learned. And when the bullshit in Lebanoin went down, I found myself going to my first rally against their actions. I wrote the following on the other thread:

"If remaining a Jewish State means continued abuses of basic civil rights, engaging in premptive military actions, and an internal, two-tiered apartheid system by the Israeli government -- I simply cannot support that.

Everything the US has done in Iraq that I have protested against in the last 5+ years -- the assasinations, the torture, the indefinite imprisonment without charges, the kidnapping, the razing of homes, the use of white phosphorus -- all have been done by the Israeli government as well. I find it disgusting.


If the desire to remain a Jewish State means Jewish Israelis sink to the depths of inhumanity and engage in atrocities, then I think they have lost much more than any possible State - they have lost their souls."

I am fast slipping away from Israel in its current incarnation. :(

[Ignis]

32. Thanks, very clearly and succinctly stated.

I think a lot of us are in the same boat--particularly after Israel's crimes against civilians went so thoroughly unpunished in 2006.

:hi:

[kentuck]

17. and all just to prove they are tough enough to win the next election...

They felt no threat from Hamas. Twenty five Israelis killed in the last seven years. With 7000 rockets lobbed into Israel, one might expect a higher casualty rate? It's all about the next election in Israel. And it is sad.

[slipslidingaway]

22. k n/t

[1776Forever]

23. Questions - Where else do the Israeli's think these civilians would have gone to?

And why aren't the Israeli troops going into this small strip of land and going through the schools and hospitals, etc by foot to find the Hamas members? And why can't they use scud missiles to shot down the rockets that are coming into Israel? Anyone have answers?

[soulcore]

24. My girlfriend is a teacher in Saudi for the semester...

...a fellow teacher, a Palestinian, lost her entire husband's family last night. The whole family.

Brothers, sisters, father, mother, neices and nephews and their kids and family.

This is genocide, plain and simple.

[oberliner]

25. Militants barricaded inside shot mortar shells at the Israeli forces.

An IDF spokesman said that troops had fired mortar rounds at the school, after militants barricaded inside shot mortar shells at the Israeli forces.

"Initial checks ... show that from inside the school mortars were fired at Israeli forces," a spokesman said. "In response, the forces fired a number of mortar rounds into the area."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053138.html

[Hell Hath No Fury]

27. Because the IDF would never LIE, would it?

Please. :eyes:

[High Plains]

29. Whose calculations are more cold-bloodedly cynical?

Assuming for the sake of argument that the IDF is not lying...

Hamas cynically fires mortars from an area with civilians, knowing Israel is likely to strike back at full strength.

The IDF cynically fires return mortars into the area, knowing their fire will undoubtedly kill many civilians.

Tough call. But Israel is already showing itself a clear, overwhelming victor in the mass murder sweepstakes.

[blindpig]

31. And you believe this?

Seems that every time they bomb a school/hospital/mosque they claim something like that.

If that don't smell to high heaven cut off your nose, it is useless.

[Zodiak]

33. When they refused reporters into Gaza

They destroyed their credibility. I will believe nothing unless I see it with my own eyes. I saw enough years of lying about the Iraqi population to know that easy justifications always follow a slaughter.

Without independent verification, any statement by either fighting faction is suspect. A statement by an army that just bombed a school is not worth spit to me....and probably not to the rest of the world save the USA (whjo also bombs schools and hospitals).