Posts Tagged ‘Beit Hanoun’

In Pictures: Massacre of Gazan Children

January 8, 2009

Published on URUKNET
Dec 31, 2008, 15:11		 Email this article Printer friendly page

December 30, 2008

PNN -Israeli forces killed two girls in an air attack on Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip early Tuesday. Local sources report that a missile destroyed a house belonging to Talal Hamdan in Beit Hanoun today, killing his two daughters of 12 and 4 years old. A son is reported seriously injured. Yesterday Israeli forces killed four sisters and a four year old boy. Over 40 children have been killed since Saturday.

The bodies of two girls, aged four and 11, who were killed in an Israeli air strike in Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip Strip December 30, 2008.

Palestinians carry the body of 4-year-old Lama Hamdan during her funeral in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip December 30, 2008.

Palestinians bury the body of 4-year-old Lama Hamdan at Beit Hanoun cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip December 30, 2008.

Palestinians mourn beside the bodies of three children in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008.

Three Palestinian children from the Balosha family, of five who were all killed in the same Israeli missile strike, are seen in the morgue before their burial at Kamal Edwan hopsital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008


Palestinian children from the Balosha family, who were all killed in the same Israeli missile strike, are seen in the morgue before their burial at Kamal Edwan hopsital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008.

Palestinian women mourn over the bodies of three Palestinian children from the Balosha family, of five who were all killed in the same Israeli missile strike, in the morgue before their burial at Kamal Edwan hopsital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008.

A Palestinian man buries the body of 4-year-old Dena Balosha at Beit Lahiya cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008.

A Palestinian man carries the body of his 4-year-old daughter Dena Balosha during the funeral for her and her four sisters in Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008.

A Palestinian mourner shouts as he lifts the body of a child from the Balosha family, of which three children and two teenagers, were killed in an Israeli missile strike,durng their funeral in the Jebaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008.

A Palestinian man buries the body of 5-year-old Sodqi al-Absi in Rafah cemetery in the southern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008.

A Palestinian mourner carries the body of 4-year-old Dena Balosha, foreground, one of five members of the same family including three children and two teenagers who were killed in an Israeli missile strike, during their funeral in the Jebaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008

The father of Palestinian Dena Balosha, 4, left, one of five members of the same family including three children and two teenagers who were killed in an Israeli missile strike, carries her body during their funeral in the Jebaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008.

Bedroom of 5 killed girls

Samera Baalusha (34) carries her surving child Mohamad (15 months) while she waits to see the body of her daughter Jawaher Baalusha (aged 4) during the funeral held for her and four of her sisters who were killed in an Israeli missile strike, on December 29, 2008 in the Jebaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip

BR>
Palestinian mourners bury 8 children killed in Israeli air strikes

Dec 29 – Palestinian mourners on Monday (December 29) buried 8 children who were killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza Strip.

In the northern Gaza town of Jabalya, hundreds took to the streets to attend a funeral procession for five girls of the same family who were killed in one Israeli strike.

In this image taken from APTN video, Palestinian men carry two injured children into hospital after Israeli aircraft struck Hamas security compounds across Gaza in Gaza City on Saturday Dec. 27 2008.

A wounded Palestinian boy is carried by his father following an Israel air strike in Gaza December 28, 2008.

A Palestinian boy is carried to al-Shifa hospital following an Israel air strike in Gaza December 28, 2008

A Palestinian security force officer carries a wounded girl into the emergency room at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008.

A Palestinian girl wounded in an Israeli missile strike is carried into the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008.

A Palestinian man carries his wounded child to the treatment room of Kamal Edwan hospital following an Israeli missile strike in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008.

A wounded Palestinian boy is carried by his father at a hospital in Gaza City following an Israeli air strike

Children Wounded – Image by Watan News Agency

Shifa hospital ICU: a six year old down’s syndrom with brain trauma

Children From Gaza – December 27, 2008

Children of Gaza – song on guitar

Live recording of Doc Jazz playing a (new!) song emanating from the grief not only over the war crimes committed by the thugs of the state of Israel against defenseless Palestinian children – but over the criminal silence with which this Holocaust is condoned … Break the Silence!

Visit http://www.soundclick.com/docjazzfor more songs by the Palestinian writer of songs of liberation.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=50118

http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/9818

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Palestine, Peace Movement, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Desmond Tutu: Israeli shelling in Gaza may be war crime

September 16, 2008

· Archbishop wants inquiry into Beit Hanoun attack
· 18 family members killed in ‘reckless’ artillery salvo

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem|The Guardian,Tuesday September 16 2008

Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel laureate, said yesterday there was a “possibility” Israel had committed a war crime when 18 Palestinians from a single family were killed by Israeli artillery shells in Gaza two years ago.

Tutu said the Israeli attack, which hit the Athamna family house, showed “a disproportionate and reckless disregard for Palestinian civilian life”.

The archbishop presented his comments in a final report to the UN Human Rights Council, which had sent him to Gaza to investigate the killings in Beit Hanoun in November 2006. For 18 months Israel did not grant the archbishop or his team a visa. They entered Gaza in May this year on a rare crossing from Egypt.

On the three-day visit, Tutu and his team visited the house, interviewed the survivors and met others in Gaza, including the senior Hamas figure and former prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh. At the time, Tutu said he wanted to travel to Israel to hear the Israeli account of events, but he was not permitted.

“In the absence of a well-founded explanation from the Israeli military – which is in sole possession of the relevant facts – the mission must conclude that there is a possibility that the shelling of Beit Hanoun constituted a war crime,” Tutu said in his report to the 47-member council.

Tutu also said that rockets fired by Palestinian militants into southern Israel should stop and should be investigated. “Those firing rockets on Israeli civilians are no less accountable than the Israeli military for their actions,” he said.

For the past three months a ceasefire between Israel and the militant groups in Gaza has been in place. It has significantly reduced the number of incidents and the death toll from the conflict there. Israel maintains a tough economic blockade on the territory, restricting imports and banning nearly all exports.

“It is not too late for an independent, impartial and transparent investigation of the shelling to be held,” Tutu said.

He said those responsible for firing the shells should be held accountable, whether the cause of the incident was a mistake or wilful.

After the incident, Israel’s military said the shelling into Beit Hanoun that day was a mistake and was the result of a “rare and severe failure in the artillery fire-control system” which created “incorrect range-findings”. It said the shells had been aimed 450 metres away from the edge of town. No legal action was taken against any officer. However, it is unclear why the artillery was fired so close to a residential area that morning and why shells continued to be fired after the first one hit the Athamna house.

Tutu also said he recommended that Israel pay adequate compensation to the victims “without delay”. His report said “reparation” should also be made to the town of Beit Hanoun itself, and suggested a memorial to the victims would also help the survivors. He suggested a physiotheraphy clinic as one possibility.

The survivors in the family remain bitter and most of the large extended family no longer live in the building. Since the shelling they have received no financial help, apart from a monthly stipend from the Palestinian Authority of £50 for each of the 18 dead.

Aharon Leshno-Yaar, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, where the Human Rights Council was meeting, rejected Tutu’s report as “another regrettable product of the Human Rights Council”.

“It is regrettable that this mission took place at all,” he added.

Leshno-Yaar said the report gave de facto legitimacy to Hamas, the Islamist movement that won elections in 2006 and then seized full control of Gaza last year. “This does not serve the interests of Israel or the Palestinians or the cause of peace,” he said.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Human rights, Palestine, War Criminals, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »