Peoples Geography — Reclaiming space

Creating people's geographies

Israel mounts air strikes in Gaza

Eleven civilians, including a 12-year-old girl (Isra Nasser), are now among the dead. 27 Palestinians have been killed in IDF Gaza raids over the weekend in Operation ‘Autumn Clouds’. This dubiously named military operation has as its objective the aim to stop the launch of relatively primitive, home-made Qassam rockets from towns like Beit Hanoun into Israel.

In purely practical terms, will it work? Will the rain of these rockets (more annoying than lethal) stop as the Occupation continues and Gaza and the West Bank remain open-air prisons and PA ministers are detained (along with thousands of other “administrative detainees”? No, they will not. THERE IS NO MILITARY SOLUTION.

BBC :: Last Updated: Saturday, 4 November 2006, 10:24 GMT

Israeli forces have mounted a series of air strikes overnight, killing at least eight Palestinians.

The strikes bring the number of those killed since the Israeli offensive began on Wednesday to at least 30.

The violence comes after at least 17 people were killed in a single day on Friday, including two women shot during the siege of a mosque in Beit Hanoun.

Israel says its operation, one of the largest since the Gaza pull-out targets militants behind rocket attacks.

An Israeli military spokesman said five air strikes had taken place after nightfall on Friday, targeting the towns of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, Jabaliya and Rafah. Rest rest of article here

********JOIN THE INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR GAZA (spearheaded by Gush Shalom)*********

From the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, may those who have been killed in the town of Beit Hanoun rest in peace, and their courageous mothers who sought to protect them see the end of this occupation and this siege:

1. Ahmed Yousef Sa’adat, 23, hit by several live bullets throughout the body;

2. Hussam Mohammed Abu Harbid, 25, hit by several live bullets throughout the body;

3. Tariq Mustafa Nasser, 23, hit by shrapnel from a missile throughout the body;

4. Mohammed Saleh al-Masri, 22, hit by a live bullet to the back;

5. Ahmed Zuhair ‘Edwan, 20, hit by several live bullets throughout the body;

6. Fayez Mohammed Zwaidi, 18, a member of the Palestinian National Security Forces;

7. Khalil Nasser Hamad, 22, hit by a live bullet to the head when he was inside his house;

8. Mohammed Mahmoud Fayadh, 49, died from a heart attack;

9. Diab Ahmed al-Basiouni, 75, hit by a live bullet to the head when he was in the balcony of his house;

10. Yousef Rawhi ‘Aqel, 22, hit by a live bullet to the chest;

11. ‘Essam Mohammed Abu ‘ouda, 29, hit by several live bullets throughout the body; and

12. Bassem Mohammed al-Jammal, 21, hit by a live bullet to the chest.

Ha’aretz reports:

The other two civilians killed Saturday were named as 46-year-old Marwan Abu Arbid, who was killed when the wall of a building collapsed, and Ahmed al-Mad’un, a paramedic.

Witnesses reported on Saturday morning that large military bulldozers began demolishing homes near a mosque that was the scene of a standoff on Friday. Witnesses said residents of the homes received no warning ahead of time and were seen running for safety.

Residents also reported six IAF strikes in Beit Hanun overnight …

In the West Bank, Palestinians said an elderly woman was killed during an IDF arrest raid in the town of Bethlehem on Friday morning. A Border Police officer was also wounded.

The woman, 65, was caught in a crossfire between militants holed up in a house and IDF soldiers surrounding the building, Palestinian witnesses said. Two other residents were wounded, they said.

The IDF said forces were operating in Bethlehem, but provided no other details.

Israel arrested Palestinian Minister Abdel Rahman Zaidan, a Hamas official, at his home in the West Bank town of Ramallah before dawn Friday, Israel Radio quoted Israeli and Palestinian sources as saying. According to the report, Zaidan, the minister of housing and public works, is the tenth Palestinian minister to be arrested since Shalit was abducted.

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"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes perceptibly worse than what it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself."
-- Aldous Huxley

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for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"


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