MARIÂNGELA BERQUÓ enfoca a Geopolítica: Rogue IDF: O. Protective Edge 32° Dia

Norman Finkelstein: Has Amnesty International Lost its Way? (Part 9)
A forensic analysis of AI' reports on Operation Protective Edge
“We entered Gaza with insane amount of firepower”
https://www.byline.com/project/13

Sexta-feira, dia 08 de agosto de 2014

Attempts to extend the 72-hour ceasefire failed because Israel wanted to keep the blockade unchanged. As the ceasefire collapsed and shelling resumed shortly later, within hours the IDF struck 51 sites in the Gaza Strip and five Palestinians were killed, including a child.

Remembering the dead during Israeli offensive on Friday, August 8.
Below, only Palestinian identified victims.
Nome dos mortos palestinos no dia 08 de agosto de 2014.
Source/Fonte:IMEMC-International Midlle East Media Center. 2015

1. Ibrahim Zoheir ad-Dawawsa, 10, Northern Gaza.
2. Mahmoud Mohammad Abu Haddaf, Khan Younis.
3. Suleiman Samir Abu Haddaf, Khan Younis
4. Mahmoud Khaled Abu Haddaf.
5. Ahmad Na’im ‘Okal, 22, Rafah.

Press TV: M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky comments the genocide

Reservistas da IDF, forças israelenses de ocupação,

Shovrim Shtika - Breaking the Silence

54. “Everything exploded. Everything destroyed.”
Rank: Staff Sergeant. Unit: Infantry. Area: Northern Gaza strip:
We fired ridiculous amounts of fire, lots of it, and relatively speaking our fire was nothing. We had spike missiles (guided anti-tank missiles) and artillery, and there were three tanks with us at all times – and another two D9s (armored bulldozers). I don’t know how they pulled it off, the D9 operators didn’t rest for a second. Nonstop, as if they were playing in a sandbox. Driving back and forth, back and forth, razing another house, another street. And at some point there was no trace left of that street. It was hard to imagine there even used to be a street there at all. It was like a sandbox, everything turned upside down. And they didn’t stop moving. Day and night, 24/7, they went back and forth, gathering up mounds, making embankments, flattening house after house. From time to time they would tell us about terrorists who had been killed.
Did you see any bodies?
No. But they told me lots of Hamas militants were killed, and I trust them.
What’s left after two to three days of three to four barrages per day? What’s left to shoot at?
You keep shooting at the same houses, at the same windows. When you shoot at a house it doesn’t totally collapse. They stay standing. I was surprised by how long it takes until they fall. You can take down three walls and somehow they remain standing despite the fact that they’re all blown to bits, it’s all ruined. It’s like “Call of Duty” (a first-person shooter video game). Ninety-nine percent of the time I was inside a house, not moving around – but during the few times we passed from place to place I remember that the level of destruction looked insane to me. It looked like a movie set, it didn’t look real. Houses with crumbled balconies, animals everywhere, lots of dead chickens and lots of other dead animals. Every house had a hole in the wall or a balcony spilling off of it, no trace left of any streets at all. I knew there used to be a street there once, but there was no trace of it left to see. Everything was sand, sand, sand, piles of sand, piles of construction debris. You go into a house by walking up a sand dune and entering it through a hole in the second floor, and then you leave it through some hole in its basement. It’s a maze of holes and concrete. It doesn’t look like a street anymore. I really remember how every day we would get new aerial photos and every day a few more houses were missing from the map, and there would be these sandboxes instead.

55. “By the time we got out of there, everything was like a sandbox”

Rank: Staff Sergeant. Unit: Mechanized infantry. Area: Deir al-Balah area:
By the time we got out of there, it was all like a sandbox. Every house we left – and we went through three or four houses – a D9 (armored bulldozer) came over and flattened it.
What does that look like?
First of all, it’s impressive seeing a D9 take down a big two-story house. We were in the area of a fairly rich, rural neighborhood – very impressive houses. We were in one spot where there was a house with a children’s residence unit next door – just like in a well-off Moshav (a type of rural town) in Israel. The D9 would simply go in, take down part of the wall and then continue, take down another part of the wall, and leave only the columns intact. At a certain point it would push a pile of sand to create a mound of rubble and bring down other parts, until the house was eventually left stripped, and from that point it would simply hit the house [with its blade] until it collapsed. The D9 was an important working tool. It was working nearly non-stop.
56. "In the 'Hannibal Procedure', you [hit] all the targets that you’ve prepared in advance”
Rank: Lieutenant. Unit: Infantry. Area: Northern Gaza strip:
In the 'Hannibal Procedure', you [hit] all the targets that you’ve prepared in advance, all optional targets. Optional targets, that can mean shafts [Hamas militants] could come out of, that can mean buildings in which they might be hiding.
Can you describe what happened there?
Say a certain force goes into a building to blow it up. I consider all the possible scenarios of what happens if [an IDF soldier] is kidnapped. Where there are shafts they could come out of, where there are buildings they can hide in. I brought them a list of targets for preliminary approval, and they told me: “That’s not enough targets, bring it back [with more].” Now, I look at the aerial footage, and I don’t know – I mean, I don’t know if there are civilians in there, I don’t know anything – I just analyze it. Now, while I was doing that I felt fine about it. I mean, I was getting all the support, I felt like everything was fine. I’m allowed to. I’m allowed to designate a seven-story building as a target, I’m allowed to say now I’m ordering a ‘debilitating strike’ along this 600-meter stretch, which is a central route where there’s a power station. Because it’s a key route where if they manage to kidnap a soldier, he won’t be coming back. Hannibal is like, everything’s allowed.

Ask Gaza

Gaza #SOS : Bayan's Message in a bottle