The 9/11 hearings were on the news today.
A court-martial, as well as the little slap on the wrist given as punishment, were news today. (which was disgusting..he got away with murder).
Not enough attention has been paid to the horror and atrocities occuring in the refugee camp in Rafah.
I am tired of hearing Israel give excuses for it's violence in these camps. The killing of innocents is not new for Israel. I do not negate or minimize the problems Israel faces from suicide bombers, however, these people aren't the suicide bombers. I don't think they (Israel) can justify the continuing violence they assault the refugees with. They can, of course, continue to rationalize it.
This is more than "troubling", a word used by Bush. Peacekeepers should be sent in, and the slaughter of the innocents should be stopped.
There is a huge difference between defending oneself from terrorists, and being the terrorist. ....... ruthie
Israeli Forces Fire on Crowd in Gaza, Killing 10
By Cynthia Johnston
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli forces opened fire on a protest march in a besieged Gaza refugee camp on Wednesday, killing at least 10 Palestinians and raising the death toll to 33 in Israel's bloodiest raid in Gaza in years.
Israeli media said at least 22 bodies, most of them school children, had been counted after the strike in the Rafah camp, which some witnesses said was carried out by helicopter gunships and others blamed on firing by tanks.
People fled screaming, some dragging bloodied comrades and others carrying wounded children in their arms.
"It was horrifying," said Mahmoud Abu Hashem, 35. "There was one person with his intestines coming out. Another had blood covering his face and you couldn't even make out his features."
Medics said 10 people were killed and 50 wounded in Rafah in southern Gaza, which raised the two-day death toll to one of the highest in three and a half years of conflict.
The Palestinian Authority branded the attack a "war crime" and demanded international protection for the Palestinian people.
The Israeli army said it was investigating but that it was too soon to say what had happened. "This is a combat zone filled with explosive devices laid in advance by the Palestinians," said Captain Sharon Feingold, an army spokeswoman.
The bloodshed seemed certain to bring fresh international pressure on Israel to end its assault, which began Tuesday with the stated goal of rooting out militants and uncovering tunnels used to smuggle weapons across the border from Egypt.
The marchers had been surging toward the Tel Sultan neighborhood, the focal point of Israel's sweep into Rafah, when the firing began.
Wednesday morning, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians and demanded the mass surrender of militants in Rafah.
BODIES PILED IN FLOWER FREEZER
Bodies had piled up earlier in a flower freezer converted into a makeshift morgue after overflowing the refugee camp's main hospital, where staff strained to cope with the dead along with dozens of wounded in two days of Israeli military assaults.
After the strike on the protest march, residents flooded the hospital, looking for loved ones. "Did you see my brothers, the three of them who were in the rally?" cried one person. "Where is Ahmed?" a woman shouted.
Soldiers in the Tel Sultan neighborhood, a militant stronghold, called on loudspeakers for armed militants to come out waving white flags of surrender or risk demolition of family homes. Troops searched house to house amid clashes with gunmen.
The raid has raised an international outcry because of Israeli threats to flatten hundreds of Rafah homes to widen an army-controlled security corridor along the border with Egypt.
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces were summoning all male residents over 16 to come out and assemble in a local school. The army said it was after militants, not all males.
Some residents said they had heard of neighbors being shot at by troops after emerging from their houses. The army said some militants were firing wildly from rooftops while other men surrendered. Neither of these reports could be confirmed.
Amid the bloodshed, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon worked to revive his Gaza withdrawal plan, which aides said may be presented for cabinet approval as early as next week.
Violence has worsened in Gaza since Sharon proposed evacuating troops and Jewish settlers in a plan backed by most Israelis and the United States, but rejected by his right-wing Likud party in a referendum earlier this month.
Militant groups want to claim as a victory any pullout by Israel from territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, while the army is determined to smash them first.
President Bush called the Gaza bloodshed "troubling" but, addressing Jewish-Americans in a tight election campaign, told the powerful pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC that Israel "has every right to defend itself from terror."
Reuters via AWW
update... at least 18 dead, 50 wounded. I am sure the count will continue to rise.
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