Solidarity, Iraqi 9yr old singer's Gaza tribute

Jan 26 - Nine-year-old Kajal Asaad has become a singing sensation in her hometown Arbil in northern Iraq by singing a song for Palestinians in Gaza.

The song is called "Gaza al-Samida" (Gaza the Steadfast) and is the Kurdish girl's debut song. She says it was inspired by images of wounded children on television from the Gaza conflict.



{Click on link if player doesn't load, it's a Reuters report and player}

The Aftermath for Gaza, Jan. '09 Destruction Of!!

Gaza rebuild 'to cost billions'

BBC: Paul Wood sees the damage and possible evidence of white phosphorus use

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been left homeless and 400,000 people still have no running water, it says.

A Few Gaza Facts

Gaza: It is about 41 kilometers (25 mi) long, 6 and 12 kilometers (4–7.5 mi) wide, total area of 360 square kilometers (139 sq mi).

Area - comparative: slightly more than twice the size of Washington, DC

Population: 1,500,202 (July 2008 est.)

Age structure: 0-14 years: 44.7% (male 343,988/female 325,856)
15-64 years: 52.7% (male 403,855/female 386,681)
65 years and over: 2.7% (male 16,196/female 23,626) (2008 est.)

Median age: 17.2 years male: 17 years female: 17.4 years total (2008 est.)

PBS News Hour: Gaza Cease-fire Emerged Amid Mix of Political, Internal Pressures

Transcript at PBS Link: Israeli officials said their military has been ordered to pull out of the Gaza Strip by Tuesday, but only if Hamas militants keep their end of this weekend's cease-fire agreements. Analysts examine where both sides stand after three weeks of fighting.

How Israel is Multiplying Hamas by a Thousand

Molten Lead in Gaza

JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, Aljazeera’s Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning.

It was impossible not to think about the tens of thousands of Gazan children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs to fall.

As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.

Those who decided to close the crossings – under whatever pretext – knew that there is no real cease-fire under these conditions.

That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip “in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence”. From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.

Read Rest Here

Uri Avnery's Column of Gush Shalom

Gaza's Scant Resources Stretched to Exhaustion

Stench in the air: scant resources stretched to exhaustion

FIDA BASAL, 20, was not there when the missile struck her uncle's house the day after Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza. But her sister, Hanin, 18, was.

Fida found Hanin at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. One of Hanin's legs, her sister was told, had been amputated. "I want her leg now," Fida screamed at her mother. "God has no mercy. You get me her leg now."

Her uncle lost both legs.

Yet on Sunday the day Israeli troops flooded Gaza and ground battles with Hamas began, there appeared not to be a single one.

The casualties at Shifa on Sunday - 18 dead, hospital officials said, among a reported 30 around Gaza - were women, children and men who had been with children. One surgeon said he had performed five amputations.

"I don't know what kind of weapons Israel is using," said a nurse, Ziad Abd al Jawwad, 41, who had been working 24 hours without a break. "There is so much amputation.

Read Rest Here

U.S. Supplied, Israel Uses WMD's

Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims

Medics tell Press TV they have found traces of depleted uranium in some Gaza residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive on the strip.

Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.

Read Rest Here

Israel rains fire on Gaza with phosphorus shells

Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.

As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles of thick white smoke to cover the troops' advance. "These explosions are fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so that our forces can move in," said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with Lebanon.

The use of the weapon in the Gaza Strip, one of the world's mostly densely population areas, is likely to ignite yet more controversy over Israel's offensive, in which more than 2,300 Palestinians have been wounded.

Read Rest Here

In The Name of Peace - Palestinians,Jews,Muslims

On an ABC News report, one I have not seen anywhere else, there is this report of a gathering of women and men, children and adults; Muslims, Christians, Jews, Druze, Bedouin and Palestinians, both secular and religious.
This takes place in Israel each year, last years was canciled because of the War, and was started in 2001.

This years gathering was from August 14-16 in the olive groves of Latrun Monastery midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Jews and Muslims Making Grassroots Peace
A diverse cast meets in Israel, trying to teach politicians how to make peace.


Apparently it has had a rapid growth since it's conception, from a few hundred participants, the first year, to and estimated 6000 this year. This is Grassroots at it's best and a Grassroots movement that can only expand, especially in the Middle East, as more understand that the leaders of the political and faction groups, on all sides, are not interested in a peace that strips them of the growing power they seek and gain from the fear they spread.

As one of the organizers says:

Gabriel Meyer, co-founder of the Project: "Peace is not a concept or an ideology; it's a way of being. We are surprising reality one heart at a time, until it changes."

A quick search brought up one short article in the The Jerusalem Post:
In the name of peace

The three day festival is called "On the Way to Sulha."
Their site Sulha Peace Project, describes it so

A grassroots organization inspired by the indigenous process of mediation {Sulha}, aims to rebuild trust, restore dignity and move beyond the political agenda.

Many already know that there is a large Peace movement, of diverse groups, in Israel and the Palestinian onclaves.

One other group, of Israelli and Palestinian combatants, started up only a few years ago, and have grown.

I posted a video, from their site last year:

"Combatants For Peace"


From the Combatants for Peace homepage:

We are a group of Israeli and Palestinian individuals who were actively involved in the cycle of violence in our area. The Israelis served as combat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinians were involved in acts of violence in the name of Palestinian liberation.

We all used weapons against one another, and looked at each other only through weapon sights; however today we cooperate and commit ourselves to the following:

We no longer believe that the conflict can be resolved through violence.

We believe that the blood shed will not end unless we act together to terminate the occupation and stop all forms of violence.

We call for the establishment of a Palestinian State, alongside the State of Israel. The two states can exist in peace and security beside each other.
We will use only non-violent means to achieve our goals and call for both societies to end violence.

When these ex-combatants went public they invited Ellen Barfield, a board member of Veterans For Peace to attend, in Israel, their first public event.

You can find what she wrote of her visit Here at my site.

A little snippet

I was greatly honored to be able to represent Veterans
for Peace at the first public event of the new peace
organization Combatants for Peace, Palestinian and
Israeli former fighters who have renounced violence and
now work together for peace and justice.

Last weekend, from august 15th to august 19th two of their members were in St Louis for the Veterans for Peace annual conference

Combatants for Peace members, Yonatan Gur and Raed Hadar represented our group in annual Veterans for Peace convention in St. Louis, Missouri. During the convention they talked in the main plenary and took part in various workshops concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Iraq. Raed and Yonatan also gave interviews to several independent newspapers, spoke in a local Muslim-American radio station and spoke to members of the Jewish community in Saint Louis. Raed and Yonatan arrived at St. Louis after giving two successful lectures in Chicago, Illinois. One was with members of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and with members of the Jewish community; the second was with Arab and Jewish peace activists from Chicago.

There isn't much up about the conferance yet, abit too soon to put it all together, at the VFP site. There are a few articles that were written about it that can be searched out, if interested. But I did find the following photo at the site:


Photo is a human peace sign made under the St Louis arch!

Those of you in California, if close by and interested in finding out more about Combatants for Peace, they are on a speaking tour of the state.

Speaking Tour

Combatants for Peace members, Shimon Katz and Raed Hadar will be in Los Angeles in late August as guests of Topanga Peace Alliance and will give several talks.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

Tuesday, August 21, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Cousins' Club of Orange County
Irvine Ranch Water District Office
15600 Sand Canyon Avenue
Irvine, CA 92618

Thursday, August 23, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
Topanga Peace Alliance
Topanga Community House
1440 North Topanga Canyon Blvd.
Topanga, CA 90290

Friday, August 24, 2007, 7:00 a.m.
Interfaith Communities United For Justice and Peace
Immanuel Presbyterian Church
3300 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA

Friday, August 24, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Beth Shir Sholom
1827 California Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90403

Saturday, August 25, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
First Congregational Church
241 Cedar Avenue
Long Beach, CA 90802

Sunday, August 26, 2007, 11:30 a.m.
Unitarian Universalist Community Church
1260 18th St.
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Sunday, August 26, 2007, 2:00 p.m.
Vets For Peace
Arlington West
Santa Monica Beach, CA

Tuesday, August 28, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
All Saints Church
132 Euclid Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91101

Peace Brothers and Sisters, Peace!