August 4, 2014 at 1:22 P.M. BBC News reported an Israeli attack on a UN agency that was using a school as a location. This location's coordinates had been communicated to Israeli authorities 33 times. As many times as my information has been provided to Invicta, perhaps, and with as little effect.
The UN's Chris Gunness (no "i" in that name) has been highly eloquent in describing the horrors that he has experienced, first-hand, while trapped in Gaza during the shelling.
Shrapnel wounds and collected debris suggests that Israel has, in fact, used prohibited weapons against a civilian population. Sadly, I am prohibited from using images that might illustrate the events in Gaza.
Given my experiences, it seems, that northern Manhattan is regarded by some persons -- like Mr. Sharansky, maybe? -- as equivalent to the Gaza Strip. ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
The UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon called the Israeli action in Gaza "criminal"; the U.S. described the bombing of UN facilities as "disgraceful," hardly a "pinpoint operation," agreeing (finally) on the need for immediate humanitarian relief.
Steve Erlanger & Fares Arkram, "Missile Strike Near UN School in Gaza Kills 10 -- Jihadists Were Targets: Outrage at Israel grows; U.S. Calls Attacks 'Disgrace,'" The New York Times, August 4, 2014, p. A1.
Ben Hubbard & Jodi Rudoren, "Questions of Weapons and Warnings in Past Barrage On a Shelter: After a 'Safe Zone' Becomes Deadly, Fire From Israelis Comes Under Scrutiny," The New York Times, August 4, 2014, p. A1.
Mark Mazetti & Carl Hulse, "Inquiry by C.I.A. Affirms It Spied On Senate Panel: Hacking of Computers," The New York Times, August 1, 2014, p. A1. (At issue is the Constitutional authority of the Senate, as a coequal branch of the government, as against the Executive. Intelligence agencies must be subject to the rule of law.)
"The C.I.A.'s Reckless Breach of Trust," (Editorial) The New York Times, August 1, 2014, p. A20. ("[The] C.I.A. admits that it did ... break into the Senate's computers." Will the OAE admit to its crimes against me? Mr. Rabner, were you guilty of actions as New Jersey Attorney General that you wish to cover-up as Chief Justice of the state's Supreme Court? "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")
Jodi Rudoren & Isabel Kerschner, "Gaza Fighting Intensifies As Cease Fire Falls Apart: 70 Dead in Israel's Response to Attack -- Officer Believed Captured by Hamas," The New York Times, August 2, 2014, p. A1. (Israeli Captain Golden may never have been captured, but was apparently killed in fighting. His capture was a ruse by Israel that allowed for "revenge" or "punishment" against his killers in violation of a cease fire.)
Melissa Eddy, "Anger in Europe Over the Gaza Fighting [Increases] Antisemitism," The New York Times, August 2, 2014, p. A9. (Attacks and threats make Jews wonder about their safety in longtime European homes. The Israeli relationship with the U.S. has been severely strained by this latest Gaza action.)
Carl Hulse & Mark Mazetti, "Obama Expresses Confidence in C.I.A. Director," The New York Times, August 2, 2014, p. A13. (Mr. Obama may be the only person with confidence in Mr. Brennan. Director Brennan and Ms. Pelosi will find it difficult to work together in the future in the absence of trust. Mr. Brennan needs to go.)
David E. Sanger, "U.S. Privacy Panel Backs N.S.A.'s Internet Tapping: Monitoring Foreigners' Communications," The New York Times, July 3, 2014, p. A11. (New Yorkers -- as "foreigners" -- take it for granted that they are spied upon, as are government officials in D.C., lawyers and judges in most places. Now the spies are being spied upon by other spies, local and foreign.)
Mark Mazetti, "Ex-Chief of C.I.A. Is Set to Respond to Sharp Rebuke: Report On Detentions," The New York Times, July 26, 2014, p. A1. (Furor over spying hurts relationships crucial to U.S. and affects America's ability to mobilize support for, say, anti-Russia sanctions. Torture by the C.I.A. under Mr. Tenet -- and, probably, also today -- diminishes U.S. credibility on all human rights issues.)
Alison Smale, "Ties Strained, Germans Press U.S. to Answer Spy Allegations," The New York Times, July 7, 2014, p. A4. (Outrage in many countries over criminal violations of sovereignty are fueling efforts to prevent U.S. control of the Internet. Such control would certainly prevent me from writing online.)
Sudarsan Raghavan, "At Gaza Hospital, A Scene of Grief and Shock," The Washington Post, July 29, 2014, p. A8.
William Booth, Sudarsan Raghavan, & Ruth Egland, "Israeli Leader Warns of a Long Fight," The Washington Post, July 29, 2014, p. A1.
"JERUSALEM -- Israel will press its air and ground offensive in the Gaza strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, preparing his country for a longer and bloodier campaign and dashing hopes that the three-week-old conflict would end soon." (Booth, p. A1.)
Coverage of these events in The Washington Post has been the best in American print media. Not only is the writing better than what we have seen in the Times, but the tone is much more factual, objective, and less tilted towards the Israeli side of the conflict:
"Rebuffing appeals from President Obama" -- Mr. Netanyahu is accused of all but insulting Mr. Obama in racist terms -- "the United Nations and others for an immediate cease-fire, Netanyahu said in a television address 'We will not finish the mission, we will not finish the operation, without neutralizing the tunnels' through which Hamas fighters have sought to infiltrate Israel. 'The tunnels,' he said, 'have the sole purpose of destroying our citizens, killing our children.' ..."
The images of seemingly indiscriminate bombings of residential areas, entire neighborhoods obliterated, with Palestinian children's and women's bodies scattered and fragmented, many have been decapitated and some bodies could not be collected for burial, recall the most grim accounts of battlefield carnage.
The World War One poets come to mind. ("'Images and Death': A Book Review.")
Except that this "battlefield" is a city and civilian population likened by observers to the Warsaw Ghetto -- or an open-air version of Auschwitz -- where the Palestinian people are murdered by the hour. ("The Audacity of Hope.")
Silence in the face of such evil can only be called complicity in atrocity. For this reason, I think, the U.S. was compelled to join the chorus of nations calling for a halt to the bloodshed. At the very least, protest and articulation of sadness and anger at ALL of the killing, by every side, becomes a duty.
It has been pointed out by a number of commentators that Israel could have "closed" or bulldozed the tunnels (most of which are designed to lead to Egypt for supplies) from within Israeli territory.
Letters may be altered, size of text may change, but the truth of what I am saying will not be denied. ("How censorship works in America.")
Use of illegal weaponry to maximize lethal effects of bombs and missiles (1,800-2,000 Palestininan casualties now) only enhances the suffering of nine year-old "Jihadists" even as the targeting of UN facilities, where innocent civilians took refuge in Gaza, further alienates the Israeli military from international law and military conventions, or civilized behavior.
Is this the Israeli military today? What is going on in Gaza? There must be more to this operation that is not being disclosed by Israel?
More funerals of Israelis and Arabs will be held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem from revenge killings (63-70 persons have been killed in Israel, so far) in the immediate future, tragically.
Until something halts the madness -- peaceful negotiations are one suggestion -- we may only expect more killings, seemingly in perpetuity.
There is growing concern that the response to these events in the Middle East will be felt in Europe (where Right-wing Fascist parties that are intensely anti-semitic are growing stronger) and even in the U.S., where Boston bombing-type incidents are anticipated in a number of major American cities.
Threats have been received by U.S. authorities, allegedly, which are also not being made public:
" ... Ahmed Al-Hefu was not thinking of blame, at least not yet. He was at the hospital, crying in front of his father's shattered corpse, a headless tangle of flesh and bone. He didn't notice the dead child [emphasis added] in the sheet [next to him] or the dead girl in red passing by [on a stretcher]." (Baghavan, p. A8.)
Again:
" ... explosions Monday [and every day] rocked a neighborhood and left at least 10 people dead on a street, as a brief lull on one of Islam's holiest days gave way to fresh attacks and tragedy." (Booth, p. A8.)
Conditions in hospitals have become desperate or dangerous. The destruction of the lone power plant for the entire population of the Gaza Strip creates emergency conditions for all wounded residents merely from lack of refrigeration or temperature control.
Water has become scarce and food is in very short supply. International efforts to bring food and water as well as medical supplies, have been frustrated or prevented by Israeli authorities that control all entries and exists in Gaza.
Persons in hospitals are endangered by these conditions that threaten the precious and dwindling reserves of blood and plasma products that are needed to treat the wounded to say nothing of creating more risks of disease from unsanitary conditions due to multiplying corpses and human waste.
A young Palestinian woman whose legs were amputated at the hip is among the persons whose lives will never be the same and whose sufferings have become symbolic (or unforgettable) aspects of this conflict for observers from all over the world.
What could possibly justify the suffering of thousands of innocent persons?
Drones hover overhead in Gaza 24-hours-per-day, bombings continue, no location is safe, children will have to live with the effects of heinous trauma for the rest of their lives -- they are the lucky ones:
"Yayhra al-Durby, 10, remembered how he was playing with friends on the swing set of a portable contraption set up to entertain children during Eid. He had felt tired and had gone to his house. The other children, residents said, were either on the swings or in the street when the rocket struck."
None of the children on that occasion have survived. Ironically, the Israelis (perhaps unknowingly) have also been bombing the cemetery in Gaza.
How many times must Palestinian children be murdered in this "pinpoint operation"?
