Israelis Abducted Hundreds of Palestinian Youth

[timezone]

Israelis Have Abducted Hundreds of Palestinian Youth for “Information”

Amin Abu Wardeh
Palestine News Network
January 10, 2009

http://english.pnn.ps/images/stories/2008/arrest2.jpg

Hundreds of Palestinians have become the captives of Israeli forces during the current military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset and head of the parliamentary assembly, Dr. Jamal Zahalka, said Friday that the detainees were moved to a military camp northwest of the Israeli city of Beerseba.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Defense Minister, established the detention camp last Sunday.

When PNN first reported the story last week there were approximately 500 Palestinians in four detention camps throughout the Strip, however they have now been moved outside.

Zahalka noted that “most of the detainees are civilians, according to Israeli law.” He said, “The detainees from the Gaza Strip were not considered prisoners of war because they are not part of the regular army.” When the Israeli administration withdrew its settlers and military from inside the Gaza Strip in 2005, it enacted its own law that this meant that the occupation had come to and end. Under international law and the United Nations, the Israeli state remained the occupier. It is through the Israeli law that the status of the Palestinians taken from the Gaza Strip was established.

Zahalka said that hundreds of families in Gaza who have been searching for their children do not know whether the Israeli army took them or they have been killed. He appealed to the Red Cross and Barak to disclose the names of the imprisoned Palestinians so that families can know the fate of their children.

The MP pointed out that Israeli soldiers are trying to capture the largest possible number of young people in the Gaza Strip in order to obtain information from them through coercion and torture. The Israeli administration is also using extortion and people as bartering tool with the Hamas government, despite the fact that the Israelis have imposed a news blackout on the subject.

There was limited footage shown of an Israeli soldier gingerly leading a row of bound Palestinians that was shot by embedded camera crews. Those are the foreign journalists who were “allowed into the Gaza Strip,” but only in the areas of Israeli ground troops. Foreign journalists are still banned by the Israeli administration from being among the people of the Strip. Another Palestinian journalist, Ala’ Murtaja, was killed last night when Israeli forces targeted a home in Gaza City’s Al Zeitoun neighborhood.

Information that is available indicates that there are hundreds of Palestinians who have been taken from Gaza during this period of attacks. The majority of them are over the age of 16. Again, Zahalka reiterated today, these Palestinians are not being treated as normal prisoners of the occupation of which there are 11,000.

[sophia_h]

`

wanna bet the Izzies are using TORTURE ?

its their history.

.

[zarah]

The Israeli Attack Force is vile beyond measure.

I found this article this morning, which illustrates Israel methods precisely.





Getting Away With Murder

By Julia Irwin

January 12, 2009 "SMH" -- YOU'VE got to hand it to the Israeli public relations flacks: only they could convince you that killing children was an act of self-defence.

As the recent bombing of Gaza began, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni gave instructions for the Foreign Ministry to take "emergency measures to adapt Israel's public relations to the ongoing escalation in the Gaza Strip". Livni went on to call for foreign language speakers to put Israel's case to the world.

In Australia, the ABC relies for "independent" comment on the smooth Mark Regev, an official spokesman for the Israeli Government, and Martin Indyk, a former official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

It's the oldest trick in the book: if they look and sound like us, we are more likely to be sympathetic towards them. Anyone putting an alternative view is immediately cast as anti-Semitic. Our media glibly accept the excuses of the Israeli public relations machine and ignore the horrific realities of Israel's barbaric behaviour in Gaza.

It's the same in most Western countries - the groundwork has been laid and the responses of world leaders are predictable. When the Israeli attacks began, right on cue Western leaders regretted the killing of children but in the same breath condemned Palestinians for firing rockets from their walled ghetto into Israel.

While French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an immediate ceasefire by both sides, US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called only for Hamas to halt rockets fired from Gaza. They did not call for Israel to halt its bombing.

There was a lot of handwringing by world leaders but no tough talk when it came to the bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza or the killing of 40 civilians in a United Nations school. We saw the same during the 2006 Israeli war against Lebanon.

It all reminds me of an old story from the days of the Roman Empire. The Emperor Nero was upset that his prized lions were being distressed by Christians who ran away from them in the Colosseum. Nero ordered that at the next circus a Christian was to be buried up to his neck in the sand to make things easier for the lions. When the lions entered the ring, the biggest and meanest saw the hapless condemned, swaggered over and stood astride the Christian's head, roaring for approval from the crowd. At that moment, the Christian craned his neck and bit off the lion's testicles. The crowd was shocked. "Fight fair! Fight fair!" they yelled.

It seems that no matter what injustice Palestinians have suffered in the past 60 years, they should be grateful for the privilege of being able to live under the jackboot of Israeli occupation.

For three years since daring to democratically elect a government not favoured by Israel or the US, the people of Gaza have been subjected to a starvation blockade. Yet the civilised world has barely raised a note of concern. Is this the standard by which we judge the behaviour of nations? We talk about Darfur and Zimbabwe but say little of the gross abuse of human rights that occurs daily in the illegally occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Our double standards have made a mockery of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention.

Our failure to condemn the totally disproportionate, not to say illegal, attacks by the Israeli Defence Force has changed the way conflict is regarded around the world. Last August, Russia employed the same tactics in its attack on Georgia as Israel did against Lebanon.

Neither Russia nor China sought UN Security Council emergency meetings in response to the Israeli attacks on Gaza. What happens in the Middle East today sets the standard for the world. And that applies to weapons as well as tactics.

Using cluster bombs or phosphorus bombs against civilian targets is perfectly legal if you can believe the Israeli Defence Force.

Assassinating Hamas leaders during a ceasefire does not constitute a breach. Collective punishments against communities, obstructing medical and humanitarian relief - all part of Israel's tactics - could now be considered acceptable behaviour in national and international conflict.

How can we criticise brutal regimes elsewhere in the world when we condone worse atrocities when they are committed by Israel? The Security Council has become a laughing stock. The Secretary-General is a pathetic figure reduced to faint pleas for a ceasefire while UN personnel are murdered on the ground in Gaza. And who will pick up the pieces when the bloodshed has finally stopped? The rest of the world will, of course. Through the world's contributions to the UN, its largest budget item is the UN Relief and Works Agency. With an annual $700 million budget going to support Palestinian refugees, the biggest component is being spent on Gaza.

Even before the Israeli bombing and invasion of Gaza, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur responsible for reporting on conditions in the occupied territories, Richard Falk, was denied entry to Gaza.

Last month, Falk called for an International Criminal Court investigation to determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.

To that long list of war crimes and crimes against humanity we can now add the atrocities committed in this recent invasion. But, with its superior public relations forces, Israel can easily deflect concern about its barbaric assault.

And will the world call Israel's leaders to account for their crimes? Not likely. Western leaders - including Australia's - will merely call on Palestinians to fight fair.

[always_rebel]

'Too shocked'

The parents were taken into separate rooms at Qishlik station. Um Gheith - the mother - takes up the story.

"There were two men in the room. I sat down and one stood behind me while the other started shouting in my face in a most aggressive and intimidating way.

"I was shocked, it was the first time I had even set foot in a police station and this man was saying horrible things about what they were going to do to Gheith.

"Then the one behind said: 'Cuff her hands for the night' and they put handcuffs on me and then took me along to another room, where I was surprised to see Gheith sitting.

***

Manipulating innocent family members is morally reprehensible whatever the danger

Eliahu Abram, PCATI

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7345025.stm

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/01PH8cyb0887W/610x.jpg

http://electronicintifada.net/artman2/uploads/2/080618-sheik-gaza.jpg

[mynameis]

Prison planet said that someone witnessed fighters being buried in mass graves. I wonder if this is all hyperbole or linked?

[lightgiver]

Prison planet said that someone witnessed fighters being buried in mass graves. I wonder if this is all hyperbole or linked?

It appears the stage is set,

All events are coinciding the illuminati plan is going well.

I do not hear much from world leaders do you:(

and just to add to the propaganda from the BBC finest,

UK economy downturn 'frightening'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7825213.stm

wouldn't you say they are pumping out the FEAR?

it appears orwell was nearly right.

It may soon be our turn?

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

We're All Fodder for the New World Order.

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush