Jabaliya buries its dead
East Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip bore the brunt of Israel's latest military incursion into Gaza. The incursion, which was launched in the early hours of Thursday 28 February and lasted four days and nights. In that time Israeli troops killed 108 Palestinians, including 54 unarmed civilians, 26 of whom were children. The Palestinians who live in and around Abed Rabbo Street in east Jabaliya suffered intense air strikes by F-16 planes and helicopters, tank shelling, snipers, and having their houses invaded and vandalized by Israeli soldiers, who tied adults up with ropes, or else locked whole families into single rooms in order to use their homes as sniper towers to target local Palestinian fighters. Sixteen-year-old Jacqueline Abu Shbak and her fourteen year old brother, Iyad, both lived on Abed Rabbo Street with their mother and three other young brothers and sisters. The children's uncle, Hatem Hosni Abu Shbak, who lives next door, found the bodies of Jacqueline and Iyad in the early hours of Saturday 1 March, when he rushed upstairs after hearing intense shooting and then screaming.

Children and civilian bystanders in Gaza death toll
Israeli military air strikes and artillery attacks on the Gaza Strip during the last few days have killed over 100 Palestinians, including dozens of children and other civilian bystanders. Three Israelis – a civilian killed by a rocket fired by a Palestinian armed group on 27 February and two soldiers – were also killed.

Obama, Clinton Tout Dueling Endorsements From Ex-Ambassadors to Israel
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama is working to win the endorsements of former American diplomats in the Middle East, in an effort to strengthen his pro-Israel credentials.  This weekend Obama was successful in landing the support of Daniel Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel, who is considered to be a leading expert on the region and a strong backer of Israel.

Israeli troops open fire at a taxi near Ramallah, injure driver
Israeli soldiers opened fire on Wednesday at midday at a Palestinian taxi in the village of Rantis, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, injuring the driver.

Palestinians: IDF kills infant, top Islamic Jihad man in S. Gaza
A two-week-old Palestinian infant was killed after nightfall on Tuesday in a brief Israel Defense Forces ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said, just a day after Israel ended a bloody offensive in northern Gaza against Palestinian rocket squads.

Medical negligence suspected in prisoner's death
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is deeply concerned over the death of Fadel 'Ouda 'Atiya Shaheen, 47, from al-Jalaa' neighborhood in Gaza City, who had been detained by Israeli Occupation Forces in Be'r al-Saba' Prison, as there are indications that his health condition deteriorated and the administration of the prison failed to offer him appropriate medical treatment.

Israeli forces devastate Palestinians properties in al-'Aroob refugee camp in Hebron
On Wednesday morning, Israeli forces renewed their vandalizing operations for the third consecutive day in al-Aroob refugee camp, eastern of the West Bank city of Hebron, but no abductions have been reported.

Historic mosque in Jaffa attacked
The Jerusalem-based Al-Aqsa Institution for Rehabilitating Islamic Sites claimed on Tuesday that Jewish Israelis assaulted the Hassan Bek Mosque in Jaffa.  The perpetrators reportedly entered the mosque's yard and broke some of the mosque's contents, a statement from the Al-Aqsa Institution added. According to the statement, the assault was not the first of its kind as several Islamic sites inside Israel have been assaulted before.

Trade union building targeted in Gaza
Two F-16 missiles were all it took to bring down the five-story headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. The Union, established in 1965, is one of the forerunners of the movement calling for an international boycott of Israel, and imposition of sanctions on it until Israel meets its obligations over UN resolutions, borders, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9368.shtml

Gaza Video From Real News

P.A security arrests five Hamas supporters
Sources close to Hamas movement reported on Tuesday that Palestinian security forces, loyal to Fateh movement in the West Bank, arrested six Hamas members and supporters in several areas on Monday.

Olmert warns of more fighting soon
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, warned today that more fighting in Gaza was imminent and admitted one of his goals was now to "weaken" the Islamist movement Hamas.

Israeli Army aims 'to topple Hamas regime'
The government has yet to define or approve the overall goals of the current military campaign in the Gaza Strip, and will wait until Wednesday - after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit - to do so, senior government officials said Sunday night.

Bush approved plot to oust Hamas
The documents, which have been corroborated by sources at the US State Department and Palestinian officials, reveal that the plan was supposed to be implemented by the State Department.

Abbas aide: Dahlan is trying to oust PA head
Muhammad Dahlan, the former Fatah security commander in the Gaza Strip, is working to oust Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the veteran leadership of the ruling party, an Abbas aide told The Jerusalem Post. Fatah central committee member Hakam Balawi, a former PLO ambassador to Tunis, said Dahlan was responsible for the defeat of the Fatah-controlled PA security forces in the Gaza Strip by Hamas last June.

Dahalan advises Fatah cadres in Gaza not to fight IOF
Leader of the mutiny trend in Fatah faction Mohammed Dahalan has urged cadres and leaders of his Movement in Gaza not to be driven by their compassion to help Hamas in the ongoing fighting with the IOF troops. Dahalan's "advice" was exposed by members within Fatah at odds with him and published in the Jordanian weekly Al-Sabeel newspaper Tuesday.

MK Eitam to Arab MKs: One day we will expel you from Israel
Tempers flared Wednesday during Knesset plenary session when National Union MK Effie Eitam told Arab MKs that "one day we will expel you from this house, and from the national home of the Jewish people."

The Rabbi of Hate
"So I believe that I act in the spirit of the Almighty God. By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1924. ""A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail" Dov Lior, Rabbi of Kiryat Arba. "We will carry out a greater holocaust against the Palestinians," Matan Vilnai, Deputy Defense Minister, 1 March, 2008. Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-orthodox Shas party, which represents Jews from the Middle East, has urged Jews around the world to pray for Israeli soldiers, not only on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, but also on Mondays and Thursdays.

Hamas lets Fatah man who lost two kids in IDF raid visit their graves
Following Tuesday's Haaretz report, Hamas has decided to let a Fatah activist return to the Gaza Strip to visit the burial site of two of his children who were killed Sunday during an Israel Defense Forces' raid in Jabalya.

PFLP slams the statements of Rice in Ramallah
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) slammed on Tuesday the statements of the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, during meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Arab Israelis protest Gaza massacre
Thousands of Israeli Arabs rallied in the northern town of Umm al-Fahm on Tuesday to express solidarity with the Palestinians and protest the army's deadly offensive in Gaza. Gathered in the town centre amid a heavy police presence, the protestors waved Palestinian flags and called on Israel to stop its offensive in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, which killed more than 120 people in less than a week.

NCA holds a candle procession in solidarity with Gaza
The Christian National Assembly organized a candle procession in Jabal Al Zeitoon in Jerusalem on Monday at night in protest to the Israeli assaults against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Ahmadinejad blasts UN chief over Gaza
Iranian leader accuses Ban of submitting to 'Zionist blackmail' over his reaction to Palestinian rockets. TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out on Wednesday at UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over his reaction to the Israeli strikes on Gaza, accusing him of submitting to "Zionist blackmail".

Hamas looking like Hezbollah as Israel leaves Gaza
As Israel withdrew its forces from the northern Gaza Strip on Monday after a two-day assault on Hamas militants, and as Palestinians emerged from their houses to inspect the damage, Hamas leaders seemed to be following the playbook of their Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, in its 2006 war with Israel. Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, said that like Hezbollah, Hamas had "gone from the stone to the rocket." "What we learned from Hezbollah," he said, "is that resistance is a choice that can work."

Palestinians' bittersweet homecoming in Lebanon
Nahr al-Bared, Lebanon - Rabie Taha's first sign of hope has arrived: 300 prefabricated homes that families are moving into this week on a lot at Nahr al-Bared, the Palestinian refugee camp largely destroyed in fighting last summer between Lebanese soldiers and radical Islamic militants.

Provoking Hamas to Abandon Truce Proposals
2008 marks the 20th anniversary of Hamas as a political movement in Palestine, involving two decades of continuous struggle against Israeli occupation. Most importantly, Hamas has confronted not just the Middle East's most powerful army, equipped with state of the art weaponry and nuclear arms, but also the most powerful Western countries. These have supported Israel, completely contravening international law in relation to the Occupation. In addition, Hamas has been abandoned to its fate by neighbouring Arab regimes.

Photostory: The month in pictures, February 2008
This slideshow is a selection of images from the month of February 2008. The month in pictures is an ongoing feature of the Electronic Intifada. If you have images documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, or of solidarity with Palestine, please email images and captions to photos AT electronicintifada DOT net.

'Restraint' is deceitful, and 'forbearance' is vain
After the IDF already had killed about 50 Palestinians, at least half of them unarmed, and including quite a number of women and children, Jerusalem continued to claim, "At present there will be no major ground operation." It's incredible: The IDF penetrates the heart of a crowded refugee camp, kills in a terrifyingly wholesale manner, with horrible bloodshed, and Israel continues to disseminate the lie of restraint.

Academic freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
In the strange world of Israeli academia, an Arab college lecturer is being dismissed from his job because he refused to declare his "respect for the uniform of the Israeli army." The bizarre demand was made of Nizar Hassan, director of several award-winning films, after he criticized a Jewish student who arrived in his film studies class at Sapir College in the Negev for wearing his uniform and carrying a gun.

The mega prison of Palestine
In several articles published by The Electronic Intifada, I claimed that Israel is pursuing a genocidal policy against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while continuing the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. I asserted that the genocidal policies are a result of a lack of strategy. The argument was that since the Israeli political and military elites do not know how to deal with the Gaza Strip, they opted for a knee-jerk reaction in the form of massive killing of citizens whenever the Palestinians in the Strip dared to protest by force their strangulation and imprisonment. The end result so far is the escalation of the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians -- more than one hundred in the first days of March 2008, unfortunately validating the adjective "genocidal" I and others attached to these policies. But it was not yet a strategy.

Transforming Israel
Israeli and Palestinian activists push against a wall of soldiers in the West Bank. Now that Kosovo is the newest independent state to emerge out of the ruins of the former Yugoslavia parallels are being drawn between the Balkans and the Middle East. One response to this development came from Israeli foreign Minister Tzipi Livini who said that as she does not mind if the Palestinians follow the Kosovars and declare statehood; what worries her is that Palestinians will demand equal rights with Israelis.

Leviev: Zionism is bankrupt because of 'new American religion'
Businessmen Lev Leviev - who, in addition to being the richest person in Israel, operates a 100-school educational network in Israel, the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe - does not accept secular Jewish culture and believes that Zionism is bankrupt.

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