Hundreds of Gaza refugees trapped at Israeli border

[WestViking]

So who are the enemies, the bullies, the murderous tyrants here? For years, we have been told that “the Palestinians” hate Israel as a nation and Israelis as oppressors, murderers, and far worse.

Yet, when the thugs of the Hamas terrorist group seize control over Gaza through a bloody coup, Israel transforms into a safe refuge for Palestinians! The irony is palpable.

While Hamas gunmen continue to fire rockets into Israel hoping to kill or maim Israeli civilians, many of the Palestinians they claim to control quake in their shoes, fearful of revenge attacks on those who have not supported Hamas and plead for humanitarian aid. Clearly, Hamas represents no one but itself; not even those Palestinians who it has, by armed force, coerced into submission.

The Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations, supported by neighbouring Arab states, are dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The Palestinians are expendable pawns in this larger game, and can never enjoy peace or stability, as the terrorist strategy is to keep Gaza and the West Bank in continual ungovernable chaos. They cannot allow a peace for Palestinians and reach their objective. Access to lands abutting Israel is critical to terrorist tactics so a stable state of Palestine is not acceptable to them.

The more moderate Fattah group cannot gain enough support to control and govern Gaza and the West Bank. Consequently, no one can speak for Palestinians with legitimate authority and no one can negotiate a peace. The charade of Yasser Arafat negotiating a peace plan while condoning continued bomb and sniper attacks on Israel should have taught us that negotiating with anyone dedicated to the destruction of Israel is futile.

There is nothing whatever ‘humanitarian’ about providing aid to the Palestinians while leaving them at the mercy of murderous groups of terrorist gunmen with an agenda that is not in the best interests of Palestinians. Where is our outrage at the murder of non-combatants while the armed factions fight it out? Where is our anger at ‘justice’ meted out through the barrel of an automatic weapon? Who gave terrorists a free pass to engage in an endless series of barbarous attacks without consequences?

Not long ago, Palestinians allegedly elected numerous Hamas representatives to their government. How is it that they are now refuges fleeing their representatives?

The cock and bull story that passes for media coverage of the Middle East has more holes than a fishing net after a major storm. We need to seriously reconsider supplying aid to Palestinians. Keeping them alive to die on a crossfire between warring factions or in a crossfire with Israel is abhorrent. The terrorist have to go and Palestinians need a clear shot at creating a peaceful nation of their own.

Change cannot happen while Hamas and Hezbollah are allowed to meddle in Palestinian affairs. If we are going to aid the Palestinians, we have to take control over Gaza and the West Bank, disarm or remove the terrorists and allow proper free election of people who represent the Palestinians, and who we can work with to bring and end to the vicious cycle of murder and reprisals that plague the region. Throwing money and aid at the Palestinians and hoping for the best is not working.

Hundreds of Gaza refugees trapped at Israeli border

CBC News

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Roughly 600 terrified Palestinians are stranded on Tuesday in a dangerous no-man's land at an Israeli border crossing, where they are running out of food and water, reports say.

The Gazans are mostly Fatah supporters fleeing the region in the wake of the violent takeover by Hamas last week. But their only way out hinges on gaining permission at the Erez passage to go through Israeli territory for sanctuary in the West Bank.

Israel refuses to allow that, fearing that the Palestinians could destabilize the quieter West Bank if they all flock there.

In the meantime, the Gazans are sandwiched between high concrete walls about 10 metres apart. Tired women, children and young men sit on bare concrete amid trash and the narrow laneways reeked of urine and human waste, reports said. Many have been there for as many as five days.

The stranded Fatah supporters have said they fear death or persecution if they return.

More than 100 Palestinians died in the conflict and reports said some people were executed in the streets.

Hamas grenade attack kills one

On Monday, Hamas gunmen targeted the narrow Erez crossing by hiding themselves among the fleeing civilians and hurling grenades at Palestinians as well as Israeli soldiers. The attack killed one Palestinian and injured 15 others.

However, Israel has maintained none of the Palestinians' lives are in danger.

In a move to maintain order, Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles rolled up to the Palestinian side of Erez on Tuesday, chasing away cars parked next to the tunnel, including vehicles belonging to journalists.

Israel, which has sophisticated weapons-screening equipment in place at Erez, said it was only letting the staff of international organizations, people with special permission and humanitarian cases to cross.

"We don't think that all of them there are threatened," Nir Peres, a military liaison officer, told Israel Radio.

Israel allowed about 50 senior Fatah officials and their families to cross into the West Bank from Gaza on the weekend, citing threats to their safety. Some 200 other Fatah officials are in Egypt, trying to get to the West Bank via Jordan, Fatah officials said.

With files from the Associated Press

********************************************************************************

*******

Israel to admit 'humanitarian cases' from Gaza crossing

CBC News

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Israeli army will allow an unspecified number of Palestinians fleeing the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to enter Israel, the Defence Ministry said Wednesday.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who took over the position of Labour leader on Tuesday, instructed officials to let in "humanitarian cases," in apparent reference to people in need of medical treatment.

An estimated 200 Palestinians have been stranded for days in a 270-metre tunnel between two high walls 10 metres apart at the Erez crossing from Gaza into Israel. Their only way out hinges on gaining permission to go through Israeli territory for sanctuary in the West Bank.

Five Palestinians who were wounded in last week's fighting or in a subsequent attack on the tunnel by Hamas-allied fighters have already been admitted into Israel for medical treatment.

Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft attacked Palestinian rocket launchers in northern Gaza on Wednesday, in the first Israeli airstrike since Hamas militants seized control of the coastal strip last week, the army said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Aircraft attacked two rocket launchers after one rocket hit near the Israeli town of Sderot, the army said.

Israeli troops also killed four Palestinian militants in separate battles in southern Gaza.

Court challenge

Israel has been reluctant to admit the Gazans at Erez, fearing that their admittance could destabilize the quieter West Bank and lead to a larger flood of refugees at the border crossing.

But shortly after Barak's order was given, a 17-year-old boy with leukemia was on his way through the passage, Israeli military liaison official Shadi Yassin said.

There is little sanitation in the tunnel and humanitarian groups have warned that some of the would-be refugees are in urgent need of medical care. Many have been there for as long as six days.

The stranded Fatah supporters have said they fear death or persecution if they return.

On Monday, Hamas gunmen targeted the narrow crossing by hiding themselves among the fleeing civilians and hurling grenades at Palestinians as well as Israeli soldiers. The attack killed one Palestinian and injured 15 others.

Barak's decision came as Israel's Supreme Court was to hear a petition Wednesday from Israeli activist group Physicians for Human Rights seeking to force authorities to offer medical treatment to Palestinians caught at the crossing.

Israel is allowing food into the territory, which has slightly eased concerns over a growing humanitarian crisis.

Israel previously allowed about 50 senior Fatah officials and their families to cross into the West Bank from Gaza on the weekend, citing threats to their safety. Some 200 other Fatah officials are in Egypt, trying to get to the West Bank via Jordan, Fatah officials said.

With files from the Associated Press

[kimmy]

While Hamas gunmen continue to fire rockets into Israel hoping to kill or maim Israeli civilians, many of the Palestinians they claim to control quake in their shoes, fearful of revenge attacks on those who have not supported Hamas and plead for humanitarian aid.

I heard an interview on CBC radio tonight that supports this comment. One of the hosts of "As It Happens" interviewed a man, ostensibly to report on how his sick mother was unable to get medical treatment because Israel would not allow her across the border. (that she'd been able to obtain treatment in Gaza prior to the Hamas takeover was mentioned only in passing.)

It quickly became apparent, though, that the real story this man had to tell was the fear this man was living in.

He could not relate any information about his mother or the border crossing, because he had not left his home for a week. "They will kill me," he said over and over. "Hamas?" the host asked. "Yes," he replied. "It is very bad" and "there is no peace here" were other things that he repeated over and over to the host, who seemed surprised that her story about Israeli callousness had quickly turned into a story about Hamas vindictiveness. "Were you with Fatah?" she asked him. No, he replied, he had been a policeman up until the takeover. "Not part of one, not part of the other."

I found it quite enjoyable to listen as an interview obviously designed to make Israel look cruel quickly turned on the baffled host into one man's testimonial about the fear Hamas wields against it supposed constituency.

-k

[jbg]

What an excellent post!!! I sometimes wonder why more people who rail at Israel continuously don't notice that when people in that part of the world are truly terrified, they try to flee to safety in Israel. People must not forget the salutory role that civilized countries have in the world.

[geoffrey]

So a bunch of people elect, by a majority, a terrorist government dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and then complain when Israel won't let them in.

I've really got to question people's sense of reason sometimes.

Fatah had promise for peace. The Palestinians rejected that. They now can lay in the bed they made.

[jbg]

Fatah had promise for peace. The Palestinians rejected that. They now can lay in the bed they made.

Agreed. The argument can no longer be made that the people are the victim of a totalitarian government imposed on them. The people voted for struggle. They'll get it, in spades.

[Rue]

Well this supporter of Israel says Palestinians elected Hamas because it was their only choice. It was at the time the only non corupt organization. They voted for it because they want what we all want, schools, community centres.

I strongly support Israel and despise all terrorists but I will not "blame" or "demonize" Palestinians because their leaders chose to turn to terror.

Do you really think the average Palestinian can walk into a Hamas meeting and say to these thugs, please stop the terror? That is the point. Palestinians are as much a victim of Hamas as Israeli civilians are.

That is the point you guys missed when you seem to have turned it around to impose collective guilt on Palestinians.

I don't like it. I don't like it when people are lumped in categories the same reason I can't stand it when anti-Israelis do it to Jews and Israelis. Its wrong.

Yes there are Palestinians who believe terror is the way to go. There are also idiots in Israel and in the Jewish community who feel the same way and there are no shortage of Christians and Muslims and people of all walks of life who feel the same way. I will not simply write off a people or humanity because of the minority of terrorists in their midst who dominate the media's attention. That is precisely what terrorists want-for you to demonize the people they claim to represent so they can fuel hatred to justify their terror.

I say to Palestinians some of us who strongly support Israel also support your need to live in freedom and in peace and without terror and do not think you deserve your fate anymore then I believe anyone deserves to suffer.

[Guest chilipeppers]

So who are the enemies, the bullies, the murderous tyrants here? For years, we have been told that “the Palestinians” hate Israel as a nation and Israelis as oppressors, murderers, and far worse.

Israel is allowing food into the territory, which has slightly eased concerns over a growing humanitarian crisis.

Israel previously allowed about 50 senior Fatah officials and their families to cross into the West Bank from Gaza on the weekend, citing threats to their safety. Some 200 other Fatah officials are in Egypt, trying to get to the West Bank via Jordan, Fatah officials said.

With files from the Associated Press

Excellent post as usual WV...like to see more of yours

Watch the fault line

By MICHAEL COREN torontosun.com

June 23, 2007

They drag families out of homes and force wives and children to watch as the men are murdered. They shoot a rival 40 times in the head until there is only mush and muck left. They bind innocent people hand and foot and throw them from the top of apartment buildings.

Whom to blame? Israel and the U.S.A. of course.

They raid the hospitals, caring nothing if the sick and dying are thrown to the floor and trampled. They always seem to go for the hospitals. In Lebanon militia members dragged wounded men, from the same sub-sect of Islam, from their sickbeds and killed them with knives and blades as they moaned for pity.

Whom to blame? Israel and the U.S.A. of course.

They round up their Palestinian brothers as helpless prisoners and then machine-gun them to death. They drag the body of a commander of another faction through the streets from the back of a car, laughing as they do so. They firebomb and shoot bullets into a United Nations' school that is immensely sympathetic to their cause but is, they claim, teaching children Christianity. It is not. They round up enemies they claim to be informers when they are nothing of the kind. They kill them like animals while crowds of onlookers cheer.

Whom to blame? Israel and the U.S.A.

A mother of eight children who is pregnant with her ninth plans to be a suicide bomber and kill innocent Israelis -- Muslims and Christians as well as Jews. She is allowed to enter the country because Israel makes exceptions to its closed border on compassionate grounds and gives first class medical treatment to people sworn to destroy it. She is captured, but is unrepentant, as apparently indifferent to the fate of Israeli children as she is to her unborn baby.

Whom to blame? Israel and the U.S.A. of course.

When Israel leaves Gaza, the Palestinians are left businesses and industries. They immediately destroy them. Within days they have assembled mobile rocket launchers and are shelling Israeli border towns. They do this every day until Israel responds.

The rockets and launchers require time and money, both of which could be used to build houses and hospitals and schools. But no. They complain that western countries have cut off aid after they elected a government dedicated to murdering Jews and exterminating a member of the UN.

But when North America and Europe was giving billions of dollars, they still launched rockets and failed to use the money properly. And what of the billion dollars recently given by Iran, or the countless amounts of cash possessed by Saudi Arabia and the Arab world?

They refuse to deal with this because, yes, it is far easier to blame Israel and the U.S.A.

The world says so little. So few words compared to what was said when Israel defended itself against holy fascist murder gangs in Lebanon or Fatah child-killers in the West Bank. The world lied about the numbers or blindly accepted everything the notoriously dishonest Palestinian spokespeople had to say. The world called for boycotts and motions and condemnation.

Because it's so easy to blame Israel and the U.S.A. But finally good and fair people are turning. Enough of your lies, enough of your animalistic behaviour, enough of your cause. You, they are saying, and only you are to blame.

[jbg]

So who are the enemies, the bullies, the murderous tyrants here? For years, we have been told that “the Palestinians” hate Israel as a nation and Israelis as oppressors, murderers, and far worse.

Israel is allowing food into the territory, which has slightly eased concerns over a growing humanitarian crisis.

Israel previously allowed about 50 senior Fatah officials and their families to cross into the West Bank from Gaza on the weekend, citing threats to their safety. Some 200 other Fatah officials are in Egypt, trying to get to the West Bank via Jordan, Fatah officials said.

With files from the Associated Press

Excellent post as usual WV...like to see more of yours

Watch the fault line

By MICHAEL COREN torontosun.com

June 23, 2007

They drag families out of homes and force wives and children to watch as the men are murdered. They shoot a rival 40 times in the head until there is only mush and muck left. They bind innocent people hand and foot and throw them from the top of apartment buildings.

Whom to blame? Israel and the U.S.A. of course.

*snip*

Chilipeppers, good find of an article (link to earlier post).

[Bonam]

Yup good post.

Also, to the post that says they elected Hamas because it was "their only choice" since Fatah was corrupt... it wasn't their only choice at all. Yes, Fatah was corrupt, and the Palestinians knew that. But they also knew that Hamas had a more aggressive stance towards Israel and that terrorism and the resulting Israeli retaliation would continue. They had a choice between corruption and terrorism/war, and they picked the second over the first. Sure, no one wants a corrupt government, but when the alternative is death, terrorism, prolonged occupation, and harsher retaliation, a government that's only corrupt begins to sound like quite an attractive option.

Now, I'm not trying to "demonize" Palestinians, but they did pick Hamas, and it wasn't their only choice. Basically, they knew what they were getting into when they voted for Hamas, and they knew the alternatives.

[ScottSA]

I strongly support Israel and despise all terrorists but I will not "blame" or "demonize" Palestinians because their leaders chose to turn to terror.

Well, it may seem a small differnce, but they didn't elect leaders who then turned to terror, they elected leaders who promised to continue already sufficiently demonstrated terror. They didn't elect them so they could build schools and community centres, they elected Hamas because Hamas promised to kill the pigs n' apes in Israel.

[WestViking]

I strongly support Israel and despise all terrorists but I will not "blame" or "demonize" Palestinians because their leaders chose to turn to terror.

Well, it may seem a small differnce, but they didn't elect leaders who then turned to terror, they elected leaders who promised to continue already sufficiently demonstrated terror. They didn't elect them so they could build schools and community centres, they elected Hamas because Hamas promised to kill the pigs n' apes in Israel.

With respect, I submit that the Palestinians have been coerced by, and under the control of, armed terrorists for decades. The PLO under Arafat was a terrorist organization that has morphed into Fattah. Arafat held sway over the West Bank and Gaza becuse he had money, plenty of arms, lots of gunmen and was absolutely ruthless.

Hamas chafed under Arafat, but could not dislodge him. Fattah is less militant than the PLO and Hamas has managed to out-gun them, at least in Gaza (so far).

I recall seeing television coverage of the last Palestinian 'election'. There were roving bands of gunmen everywhere, clearly armed with RPG launchers, automatic weapons and assorted military hardware. There were truckloads of armed thugs everywhere. I could not believe that no one commented on so much obvious intimidation in an alleged free election.

Why western nations chose to accept the results of that election eludes me. Why we think we can negotiate with terrorists is unrealistic. Palestinians will never see peace as long as they are controlled by terrorist groups run under the table by militant neighbour states. They have no voice while under the guns of amoral, ruthless gunmen who retain control by murdering anyone foolish enough to oppose them.

Any viable peace plan must be contingent on excluding the terrorists, not including them in any way shape or form. The terrorists seized control of the Palestinians; they are not frustrated Palestinians expressing anger. The terrorists are the sharp end of the stick Iran and Syria want to use against Israel.

[Moxie]

I strongly support Israel and despise all terrorists but I will not "blame" or "demonize" Palestinians because their leaders chose to turn to terror.

Well, it may seem a small differnce, but they didn't elect leaders who then turned to terror, they elected leaders who promised to continue already sufficiently demonstrated terror. They didn't elect them so they could build schools and community centres, they elected Hamas because Hamas promised to kill the pigs n' apes in Israel.

Sadly they wanted their cake and to eat it also, where are all their fellow Arabs? Why isn't the Arab world racing to aide the Palestinian People? Of course it's apparent that the Arab world uses the Palestinian people to spread their brand of Jewish Hatred but they have no interest in aiding the people of Palestine do they. Pawns of a barbaric culture, and I have no doubt the slaughter will continue in the name of their Prophet. They will of course blame Israel and the US, and the foolish will believe them.