SOCIALIST UNITY

Dear Friends,

Free Gaza! Free Palestine!
Haim

Published on January 3, 2009
GROUND ASSAULT STARTED IN GAZA Jan 3 at 17:30
Israeli troops ‘move into Gaza’ BBC

Israeli ground troops have started to enter the Gaza Strip, Israeli military officials have confirmed, a week after the offensive against Hamas began.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the intention was to “take control” of areas from which Palestinian militants have been firing rockets into Israel.

The BBC has woken up, 2 hours after the event, and is now reporting it!

Gaza protest at Israeli embassy BBC

Demonstrators are gathered close to the Israeli embassy in London, following a day of protests across the UK against Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip. Up to 5,000 protesters have been involved in a stand-off with police in Kensington. Some have burned Israeli flags and thrown missiles at officers. Earlier, up to 12,000 demonstrators marched through central London, hurling shoes at the gates of Downing Street. Other rallies took place in cities including Manchester and Glasgow.

As usual, th BBC heroic team is behind the police cordon! The report itself is biased and misleading. The number of 12 thousands is a joke! There were more than 50 thousands at the London March!
A group ,of protestors tells Israeli pilots what they think of their murder in Gaza

Tens of young protesters wear blood-stained clothes and lie on the road to Sde Dov airport in Tel Aviv - watch the clip below:

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Land, sea, sky: all will kill you

Mohammed is burying his family. So is Jamal. Haider doesn’t feel safe in his flat so is sheltering in his car. In a series of phone calls to friends besieged in Gaza, one writer reveals the reality of life under daily attack.

An excellent, moving, non-sensational, accurate and analytical piece in the Guardian by Karma Nabulsi
Israel’s righteous fury and its victims in Gaza

Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 2 January 2009

My visit back home to the Galilee coincided with the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza. The state, through its media and with the help of its academia, broadcasted one unanimous voice — even louder than the one heard during the criminal attack against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Israel is engulfed once more with righteous fury that translates into destructive policies in the Gaza Strip. This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity is not just annoying, it is a subject worth dwelling on, if one wants to understand the international immunity for the massacre that rages on in Gaza.
‘I expected an ambulance, but a donkey cart carried the injured’

Ewa Jasiewicz
The Guardian, Saturday 3 January 2009
Ewa Jasiewicz is a journalist and activist. She is currently the project co-ordinator for the Free Gaza Movement, and one of the only international journalists on the ground in Gaza. Here is her account of a week spent trying to document the attacks.
Palestinian self-determination is the real issue

The letters page in the Guardian today, one of the best ever. Read the letters.

Ground assault preceded by heavy artillery fire

By Amos Harel, Yoav Stern and Yanir Yagana, Haaretz Correspondents,

Israel entered the second week of its offensive against rockets from Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday evening by launching a much-expected ground operation into the coastal strip.

Israel okays call-up of tens of thousands of reservists as Gaza ground op gets underway

By Haaretz Service and Reuters
Israel’s government has approved the call-up of tens of thousands of reservist soldiers, it was annnounced Saturday, almost simultaneously with the launch of a Gaza ground incursion aimed at halting rocket fire on Israel’s southern communities.

Propaganda war: trusting what we see?

By Paul Reynolds: World affairs correspondent, BBC News website

Israel has tried to take the initiative in the propaganda war over Gaza but, in one important instance, its version has been seriously challenged.

Gaza facing ‘critical emergency’

The UN has warned that Palestinians in Gaza are facing a serious health and food crisis, as Israeli air strikes continued for a seventh day. The “critical emergency” comes despite an increase in humanitarian shipments, said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN’s chief aid co-ordinator for the territory. The UN believes that at least 100 of some 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli action so far were civilians.

Israel steps up offensive on Gaza

The Israeli military has stepped up its attacks on Gaza, as the offensive on Hamas enters its second week.
Israeli artillery and tanks bombarded the territory for what is thought to be the first time during the offensive, and further air strikes were launched. Later, a column of military vehicles crossed into northern Gaza, Palestinian witnesses said.

Thousands of Israeli Arabs protest Israel’s Gaza raids

By The Associated Press, in Ha’aretz

ANALYSIS / Israel must prepare to turn its military might from Gaza to Iran

By Amir Oren

Read this to find out the next round of fun prepared by the Israelis, which may well lead to the total destruction of what is left of the international order, such as it is. You better believe Israel when it says things like that.

Palestine’s Guernica

Mustafa Barghouti* cuts down the myths Israel spins in the media to justify its most recent campaign of slaughter; Al Ahram Weekly

Raining death

Saleh Al-Naami reports from Gaza on the carnage wreaked by five days of Israel’s bloody aerial assault; Al Ahram Weekly

Criminals vs cowards

The current uproar in Arab streets might not be of any direct help to Gazans but it draws battle lines between the masses and their regimes, notes Sherine Bahaa

Gaza op rallies in Tel Aviv

MK Erdan: protestors show sane majority supports Gaza op; anti-war rally held at Rabin Square: Vered Luvitch
Published: 01.03.09, 19:13 / Israel News/Ynet
A week after the launch of operation “Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip, both supporters and objectors are holding separate rallies in Tel Aviv.
About 300 people arrived at the city’s King David Boulevard in order to express their support for the IDF operation. Participants were chanting slogans in favor of eliminating Hamas and held signs reading “Let the IDF win” and “We’ve had enough, eliminate Hamas.”Meanwhile, hundreds of people arrived at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv in order to pretest against the Gaza war. The protesters were marching in the streets and carrying flags reading “Stop the fire” and “Children in Gaza and Sderot wish to live.”

Well if this is the size of the demonstrations in Te Aviv, Olmert, Brak and Livni have nothing to worry about - the Israeli nation is fully behind their war crimes (HB).