Israeli tank fire kills 42 at U.N. school

CptSternn · 01-06-2009, 10:28 AM

http://tinyurl.com/8hl57m

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli tank shells killed more than 40 Palestinians on Tuesday at a U.N. school where civilians had taken shelter, medical officials said, in carnage likely to boost international pressure on Israel to halt a Gaza offensive.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was looking into information on the incident at al-Fakhora school in Jabalya refugee camp, on the fourth day of a ground assault launched after a week of air strikes failed to end Hamas rocket salvoes.

People cut down by shrapnel lay in pools of blood in the street. Witnesses said two Israeli tanks shells exploded outside the school, killing at least 42 civilians and wounding dozens -- Palestinians who had taken refuge there and residents of nearby buildings.

A senior U.N. official in Gaza said 350 people had been sheltering at the school and the United Nations regularly gave the Israeli army exact geographical coordinates of its facilities to try to keep them safe from attack.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, asked by reporters about the deaths, said she was "not familiar" with the incident.

"Unfortunately, (Hamas fighters) are hiding amongst civilians," she said, adding that Israel was trying to avoid civilian casualties.

In a separate attack earlier in the day, three Palestinians were killed in an air strike on another school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The deaths in Gaza, home to 1.5 million people, raised to 77 the number of Palestinian civilians killed on Tuesday alone, according to medical officials.

The spike in civilian casualties could prove to be a turning point in Israel's "Operation Cast Lead," launched on December 27 with the declared aim of removing the Hamas rocket threat.

The killing of dozens of unarmed Lebanese in Israel's bombing in the village of Qana in the 2006 Lebanon war drained foreign support for its campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel said it had not known civilians were in the area.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States "would like an immediate ceasefire" but one that is "durable, sustainable and not time-limited" -- comments that stopped short of a formal demand for a truce now.

International efforts already under way to end the fighting have focused on securing a deal that would meet Israel's demand that Hamas, an Islamist group in charge of the Gaza Strip, could not rearm once hostilities end.

"If there is an end to terror, an end to the smuggling of ammunition from Sinai to Gaza, the Israeli fighting will stop," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, referring to rockets and other weaponry Hamas obtains through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.

In fighting on Tuesday, Israeli forces pushed into the southern town of Khan Younis and battled Hamas militants on the outskirts of the city of Gaza. Palestinian medical officials said four militants were killed.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, at least 631 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,700 wounded since Israel began its offensive.

Ten Israelis, including three civilians hit by rocket fire, have been killed in the conflict. At least five rockets landed in Israel on Tuesday, including one that hit the town of Gadera, 28 km (17 miles) from Tel Aviv. A three-year-old girl was wounded.

TRUCE EFFORTS

A senior Israeli official said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a Middle East visit and in partnership with Egypt, was pursuing "a serious initiative" for a ceasefire.

Commenting on the deaths at Jabalya school, Sarkozy said during a visit to French U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon: "It reinforces my determination for all this to stop as quickly as possible. Time is working against us. We must find a solution."

Talks were focusing, the Israeli official said, on the size of an "international presence" along the blockaded Gaza-Egypt border, where rockets and other weapons have reached Hamas through a network of tunnels.

Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy of major powers sponsoring Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said Sarkozy, the European Union and the United States were all in agreement that new anti-smuggling measures would be needed to clinch a ceasefire.

"What is being talked about is a credible plan to stop the smuggling," Blair, a former British prime minister, told reporters in Jerusalem.

He said he hoped the plan could be completed quickly and that enhanced Israeli security would lead to "a significant advance in opening up Gaza to the outside world."

Hamas, which has rebuffed Western demands to recognize Israel, end violence and accept existing interim peace deals, has demanded a lifting of the blockade of the Gaza Strip in any future ceasefire. It seized the territory in 2007.

Most of the deaths reported by Gaza hospitals in recent days have been civilians.

The Israeli military said it killed 130 militants since it began a ground assault on Saturday, a figure that suggested the total Palestinian death toll might be close to 700 and that bodies could still be on the battlefield.

Many of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million people lack food, water or power. In southern Israel, schools remained closed and hundreds of thousands of people have been rushing to shelter at the sound of alarms heralding incoming rockets.

Necrophagist · 01-06-2009, 11:17 AM

Typical.......

Drake Dun · 01-07-2009, 12:02 AM

It's getting so bad now that even the American news media is beginning to defect. They're putting up photos of kids covered in blood, and writing whole sentences about it without attempting to place all of the blame on the Palestinians.

A lot more people are going to have to die though. Right now the tone of the conversation is "Shut down the tunnels, or we keep shooting." So essentially the world is saying to the Palestinians, "You can have peace, or you can have food and water. You choose."

I still haven't read even a single article about someone suggesting that hey, maybe the Palestinians should actually be allowed to get food and medicine. I know, it's a crazy idea. I'm such an anti-semite.

CptSternn · 01-07-2009, 02:05 AM

There was a brilliant banner at the protest last weekend - I'll have to find a picture to send - it said...

The survivors of the holocaust are now perpetrators of another

I thought that was spot on. The israelis are doing to the Palestinians the same that was done to them in Germany. They are using the same techniques - torture, revenge attacks on families, punishing families/supporters, killing civilians, and of course blocking all outside media to keep the world from knowing the atrocities they are trying to perpetrate on the people who live there.

They bombed three schools, and claimed they 'had the right' to do it because they said 'a militant' was seen near those areas. Really? Killing dozens of babies is ok if your trying to kill a militant? First, the UN reports today they are, and I quote, 99.9% positive there was no militant. They had aid workers helping people into the shelter and no one reported anyone firing rockets off around the school.

This comes after the previous bombing of FIVE mosques, which were filled with WOMEN AND CHILDREN they again they claimed 'militants' were near, so they had to go carpet bomb the area. They already bombed all the SCHOOLS last week, including a leading University in the Middle East, one sponsored by the US/EU/UN, which again they claimed they had the right to bomb because a militant was near there.

Drake Dun · 01-07-2009, 05:05 AM

Well, they had to act fast. The militants were armed with all the WMDs they snuck out of Iraq just before the invasion in order to make the Americans looks bad. The Israelis couldn't wait for the final proof, which could have come in the form of a mushroom cloud. The Palestinians hate their bagels.

$haDe · 01-07-2009, 07:44 AM

40 % of Palestinians are dead.

Invasion - Nope

Killing Spree - Damn right, it is.

Necrophagist · 01-07-2009, 07:57 AM

Iran's president was obviously right.

Drake Dun · 01-09-2009, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by $haDe

40 % of Palestinians are dead.

100% of the statistics given in that post were false.

$haDe · 01-10-2009, 04:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

100% of the statistics given in that post were false.

lol

It's my assumption.

I'm guessing from the size of the country and the recorded population number combined with the rate of death each day.

Excluded the refugees.

Wednesday Friday Addams · 01-10-2009, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by $haDe

lol

It's my assumption.

I'm guessing from the size of the country and the recorded population number combined with the rate of death each day.

Excluded the refugees.

I really hope you are joking..

$haDe · 01-10-2009, 06:13 AM

Oh My FUCKING GOD!!!

This is my worst assumption EVER!!!

I read the whole thing too fast.

It's approx' 520 palestinian deaths and that 40 % is people injured from the assualt !!

What's wrong with me!! I increasingly and clumsily made these kind of mistake, lately. !!!

Magila · 01-10-2009, 06:45 AM

Children make up third of Gaza dead, maybe that's what you meant.

I am not sided with any one on this war, but i feel sorry for the children and women who are innocent.

But, Hamas did start the rocket firing first.

But also i ask myself this question, IF i was caged in my own room, starving and not allowed to advance in my life, saw a rock below my feet, would i throw it at the armed guard ? yes i would.

This Picture should be interesting.

Drake Dun · 01-10-2009, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by $haDe

Oh My FUCKING GOD!!!

This is my worst assumption EVER!!!

...

What's wrong with me!! I increasingly and clumsily made these kind of mistake, lately. !!!

Lol. At least you're willing to learn. You'll be all right.

CptSternn · 01-11-2009, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magila

Children make up third of Gaza dead, maybe that's what you meant.

I am not sided with any one on this war, but i feel sorry for the children and women who are innocent.

But, Hamas did start the rocket firing first.

Incorrect, the IDF assassinated six Hamas members breaking the cease fire. Every major news outlet, except the American ones, reported this days before the rocket attacks resumed.

http://www.claresinnfein.com/forums/...p?TOPIC_ID=162

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...581467173.html