The United Nations will launch a 613 million dollar appeal to meet the "massive" needs of those hit by Israel's 22-day war in Gaza, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.
The money is needed to provided to provide food, water, shelter, health care and other assistance after the conflict which left at least 1,300 dead and caused widespread destruction in the Palestinian territory, UN officials said.
"These needs are massive and multi-faceted," Ban told a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, adding that the money could "help overcome at least some measures of this hardship."
Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-winger tipped to become Israel's prime minister in a looming election, was also at Davos and accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of pursuing "terror efforts" despite a fragile ceasefire.
"We'll deal with it," the Likud party leader told reporters on the sidelines of the forum when asked about the latest Israeli air attacks against Gaza and new rocket attacks into Israel.read more digg story
Showing posts with label aid Gaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aid Gaza. Show all posts
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Gaza Horror: Updated Large Photo Gallery of Gaza Massacre
Never forget! Hold the perpetrators of these crimes accountable, and do your part to help bring them to justice.
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
If you wont broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself
Tony Benn to BBC: "If you wont broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself"- then does it!!!
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BBC refuses to broadcast charity appeal for Gaza aid
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The BBC is refusing to broadcast a plea from leading British charities for aid to Gaza, saying the ad would compromise the public broadcaster's appearance of impartiality.
The Disasters Emergency Committee, which includes the British Red Cross, Oxfam, Save the Children and 10 other charities, plans to launch its appeal Monday.
British broadcasters, led by the BBC, originally declined to air the advert -- but in the face of criticism from government ministers and others, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 changed their minds. CNN was not approached to broadcast the ad, a DEC spokesman said.
About 5,000 people demonstrated in front of the BBC's Broadcasting House in central London on Saturday over the broadcaster's stance. Seven people were arrested.
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The Disasters Emergency Committee, which includes the British Red Cross, Oxfam, Save the Children and 10 other charities, plans to launch its appeal Monday.
British broadcasters, led by the BBC, originally declined to air the advert -- but in the face of criticism from government ministers and others, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 changed their minds. CNN was not approached to broadcast the ad, a DEC spokesman said.
About 5,000 people demonstrated in front of the BBC's Broadcasting House in central London on Saturday over the broadcaster's stance. Seven people were arrested.
read more digg story
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Israel 'will be back in Gaza in one year'
An Israeli officer says Tel Aviv will return to Gaza once more within a year to stage more attacks against the blockaded strip.
"We will strike again, not tomorrow but in a year," said a lieutenant colonel who spoke under the pseudonym 'Amos', AFP reported.
Israeli forces "were very close to" the whereabouts of the Hamas leadership, he added in reference to the latest wave of Israeli operations in the strip, which began on December 27.
"Another two or three days, (it would have been) a different story. The suffocation effect would have been much more effective," continued the army reserve officer.
Israel ended its major operations in Gaza and announced a unilateral ceasefire after having killed 1,330 Palestinians and wounding 5,450 others. The majority of the victims were civilians.
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"We will strike again, not tomorrow but in a year," said a lieutenant colonel who spoke under the pseudonym 'Amos', AFP reported.
Israeli forces "were very close to" the whereabouts of the Hamas leadership, he added in reference to the latest wave of Israeli operations in the strip, which began on December 27.
"Another two or three days, (it would have been) a different story. The suffocation effect would have been much more effective," continued the army reserve officer.
Israel ended its major operations in Gaza and announced a unilateral ceasefire after having killed 1,330 Palestinians and wounding 5,450 others. The majority of the victims were civilians.
read more digg story
Sunday, January 18, 2009
A rainbow over the northern Gaza Strip…
(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
Israeli troops invade Gaza - Yahoo! News Photos
Technorati Tags: Gaza,Gaza Strip,Palestine,Middle east news,Israel,ceasefire,peace,rainbow,photography
Friday, January 16, 2009
Gaza Ceasefire? Israel May Halt Gaza War.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli leaders were preparing to order a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, possibly as early as Saturday evening, political sources said. They may declare a halt to the three-week-old offensive without concluding...
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as the story continues you discover the reason for the ceasefire;
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as the story continues you discover the reason for the ceasefire;
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was due to convene his security cabinet on Saturday night to decide on a ceasefire.
Word could come less than 72 hours before the inauguration of Barack Obama as U.S. president. Some say Israel wants to avoid casting a cloud over a historic moment for its main ally.
Gaza Is a Concentration Camp
By Ellen Cantarow, AlterNet. - One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza; it is impossible to keep pace with the death toll.
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Gaza is an immense concentration camp -- 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth. The 2005 "pull-out" left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen. The claptrap about "pinpoint" accuracy and "avoiding civilians" is a lie so flagrant, so transparent, that any child -- certainly any Gaza child -- could grasp it.
There have been eight military assaults on Gaza since 2004; blockades started in 2005, and then a siege of medieval proportions in 2006, punishment for Gazans' having elected the wrong party for Israel and its U.S. patron. By December 2008, Richard Falk, special rapporteur on the Occupied Territories for the United Nations, reported an overall Gaza malnutrition rate of 75 percent, a childhood anemia rate of 46 percent and a devastated infrastructure. (For more, see Richard Falk's "Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe.")
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Sunday, January 11, 2009
WHO: SIEGE & MENTAL HEALTH PALESTINE REPORT 2008
The siege on Gaza, imposed for a period of over 15 months and with no foreseeable end in sight, has fostered feelings of alienation and abandonment by the Palestinian people, which has made Palestinians unable to care for anything except their basic needs of survival.
The 'read more' link below brings you to a pdf file from The World Health Organization's 2008 report.
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The 'read more' link below brings you to a pdf file from The World Health Organization's 2008 report.
read more | digg story
Israel Retracts Lie Of Hamas Firing From UN School
UN calls for independent investigation into Israel’s bombing of school as possible war crime.
PACIFICA – UN spokesperson Chris Gunness said Israeli officials have privately retracted their widely cited initial claim that Hamas militants were firing from a UN school sheltering Gaza civilians in Jabalya, Democracy Now! reported Thursday.
Another four Palestinians died Wednesday from injuries sustained in the Israeli bombing of the school, bringing the death toll to forty-six. Another fifty-five were wounded.
“I’ve been authorized to say that the Israeli army, in private briefings with diplomats, is admitting that the firing that came out of Jabalya yesterday, the militant fire, was not from within the UNRWA school compound, it was from outside the UNRWA school compound. This is a crucial distinction,” said Gunness, UNRWA spokesperson.
“Those allegations are baseless. It, as far as we’re concerned, illustrates the need for a full and independent investigation. It’s been shown that these allegations … are completely baseless," added Gunness.
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Israel Halts Attack Briefly to Allow Aid Into Gaza
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
GAZA — Israel pressed on with its 12-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday , but it allowed a brief suspension to permit humanitarian aid to reach the beleaguered population and agreed to future brief halts, while the Israeli security cabinet postponed a vote authorizing a further stage of the ground operation.
The day after Israeli mortar shells killed as many as 40 Palestinians, among them women and children, outside a United Nations school in Gaza, diplomatic efforts to bring the fighting to a halt intensified. France and Egypt and Turkey were working on a plan that would work to halt rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, open up crossings into Gaza from both Israel and Egypt, and end weapons smuggling from Egypt. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said the cease-fire plan had been agreed on, but Israel and Hamas both said that there were many details to be worked out. Israel was due to send officials to Cairo for further discussions.
The death toll in Gaza reached around 660 on Wednesday, according to Palestinian health officials. The United Nations has estimated that about one-fourth of those dying in Gaza are civilians, but there is little certainty about the current figures.
Israel has said repeatedly that it will not end the operation in Gaza until it is assured that Hamas will stop firing rockets into Israel and that arms smuggling will halt. The Israeli military reported on Wednesday that a rocket fired from Gaza landed in a yard in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and nine people were treated for shock. Three other rockets landed elsewhere.
The Israeli military contended that it fired on the school on Tuesday because Hamas fighters had fired mortars from the school compound. United Nations officials have called for an independent inquiry into the episode.
While the guns fell silent for several hours on Wednesday, news reports from the Israel-Gaza border area said a string of explosions was soon heard after the three-hour lull ended. Israel said the three-hour lull would be repeated every other day between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to allow Gaza’s population to seek medical help, buy food and receive humanitarian supplies.
In Paris, Mr. Sarkozy, who toured the region earlier this week in a diplomatic drive for a cease-fire, issued a statement welcoming what he called “the acceptance by Israel and the Palestinian Authority” of a cease-fire plan put forward Tuesday evening by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Mr. Sarkozy said he was urging the implementation of the plan “as soon as possible for the suffering of the population to stop.”
But the status of the proposal was far from clear and some Palestinians remained skeptical. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, told the BBC that the plan fell short of a cease-fire. “Israel is still buying time to create facts on the ground,” she said.
According to Reuters, Mark Regev, the spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: “We welcome the French-Egyptian initiative. We want to see it succeed.
read more digg story
GAZA — Israel pressed on with its 12-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday , but it allowed a brief suspension to permit humanitarian aid to reach the beleaguered population and agreed to future brief halts, while the Israeli security cabinet postponed a vote authorizing a further stage of the ground operation.
The day after Israeli mortar shells killed as many as 40 Palestinians, among them women and children, outside a United Nations school in Gaza, diplomatic efforts to bring the fighting to a halt intensified. France and Egypt and Turkey were working on a plan that would work to halt rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, open up crossings into Gaza from both Israel and Egypt, and end weapons smuggling from Egypt. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said the cease-fire plan had been agreed on, but Israel and Hamas both said that there were many details to be worked out. Israel was due to send officials to Cairo for further discussions.
The death toll in Gaza reached around 660 on Wednesday, according to Palestinian health officials. The United Nations has estimated that about one-fourth of those dying in Gaza are civilians, but there is little certainty about the current figures.
Israel has said repeatedly that it will not end the operation in Gaza until it is assured that Hamas will stop firing rockets into Israel and that arms smuggling will halt. The Israeli military reported on Wednesday that a rocket fired from Gaza landed in a yard in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and nine people were treated for shock. Three other rockets landed elsewhere.
The Israeli military contended that it fired on the school on Tuesday because Hamas fighters had fired mortars from the school compound. United Nations officials have called for an independent inquiry into the episode.
While the guns fell silent for several hours on Wednesday, news reports from the Israel-Gaza border area said a string of explosions was soon heard after the three-hour lull ended. Israel said the three-hour lull would be repeated every other day between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to allow Gaza’s population to seek medical help, buy food and receive humanitarian supplies.
In Paris, Mr. Sarkozy, who toured the region earlier this week in a diplomatic drive for a cease-fire, issued a statement welcoming what he called “the acceptance by Israel and the Palestinian Authority” of a cease-fire plan put forward Tuesday evening by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Mr. Sarkozy said he was urging the implementation of the plan “as soon as possible for the suffering of the population to stop.”
But the status of the proposal was far from clear and some Palestinians remained skeptical. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, told the BBC that the plan fell short of a cease-fire. “Israel is still buying time to create facts on the ground,” she said.
According to Reuters, Mark Regev, the spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: “We welcome the French-Egyptian initiative. We want to see it succeed.
read more digg story
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