Homeless in Gaza
by Helena Cobban

Meanwhile, are you wondering why Ariel Sharon, his tanks, his D-9 armored Caterpillar bulldozers, and his helicopter gunships seem to be going quite insanely beserk with their violence in Gaza? 12,000 Palestinians rendered homeless thru demolitions, and counting... Well, number one, perhaps, because they can. Who's going to stop 'em? Colin Powell? The Pope? Right, I can just see Sharon quaking in his shoes at the prospect... Also, don't under-estimate the pique of this Israeli leadership after the IDF lost two APC's full of soldiers to IEDs last week, in two consecutive days. I think a total of eleven Israeli soldiers lost their lives? ... Looks like the militants in Gaza have been picking up some tips from Lebanon's Hizbollah on how to really make a difference in Israeli thinking: hit at soldiers carrying out missions that are controversial inside Israel, rather than hitting at civilians. (Nearly all of Hizbollah's lethal actions were aimed against soldiers.) [...] What this portends for Gaza is that if Sharon is indeed on the way to a significant pullout there, he's going to make darn' sure he leaves a virtual wasteland behind him. "You want Gaza? Take it!" seems to be his attitude, as he makes sure there's just about nothing left standing in the Strip that's worth taking.

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Children among 20 dead as Israeli army begins huge crackdown on Rafah
Palestinian fighters vow to defend camp house by house

Israel's "state terrorism" in Gaza

At this very moment (Friday, May 14), Israel army bulldozers are razing dozens of homes in the Rafah refugee camp in retaliation for the deaths of five Israeli soldiers. Prime Minister Sharon and Defense Minister Mofaz last night authorized the army to demolish hundreds of Palestinian houses at Rafah, on the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt, so as to create a "sterile" zone hundreds of meters wide. This, in addition to dozens of homes demolished or threatened with demolition in the Zeidun refugee camp in Gaza City. According to witnesses, panic-stricken residents are grabbing whatever belongings they can carry and are fleeing, some waving white flags at approaching Israeli forces. The demolitions are being carried out as part of a campaign of collective punishment visited on the Palestinian population of Gaza after two army troop carriers were destroyed in the wake of the Israeli invasion. The demolitions are part of an ongoing war against Palestinian civilians that goes far beyond terrorist attacks. So disproportionate is the Israeli response, so indiscriminate in its attacks upon an innocent civilian population -- some 1,200 houses have been demolished in Gaza the past three years -- that Israeli actions can only be described as state terrorism. Attacks on non-combatant populations, collective punishment and the demolition of homes are all illegal under international law and constitute war crimes, as former Israeli government minister Yossi Sarid declared today in the Haaretz newspaper.

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Israeli helicopters attack civilian targets in Gaza

Gaza: horror beyond belief

The Jesus Landing Pad
Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move

It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios. But now we know. "Everything that you're discussing is information you're not supposed to have," barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained by the Voice. The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

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  thanks to Eschaton