sometimes one is glad that hell in the Hereafter is real and everlasting

Welcome to Hell: Gaza's unending misery
Last week, an Israeli attack outside a UN school killed nearly 40 people. Israel and Palestinian witnesses said militants carried out an attack from the area moments earlier. But it is Israeli fire, Israeli weapons and Israeli military that do the aiming – and Palestinian women and children being killed at a rate that is sickening world opinion, if not yet world leaders.
And behind the statistics, the pictures of broken bodies wrapped in winding sheets are the stories of real people. People such as Olvera Al-Jarou and her tiny son Yusuf. Mrs Al-Jarou, 36, originally from Ukraine and married to a Palestinian doctor, became the first foreigner to lose her life in Gaza. Her one-year-old son Yusuf, clinging to her in fright during a bombardment, also died when an Israeli shell hit their home. A daughter, Yasmine, was severely injured and is now in intensive care; another son, Abdulrahman, was also wounded but is expected to make a full recovery.
Mrs Al-Jarou could have left with about 300 other foreign nationals allowed to leave Gaza by the Israelis last week. But other family members were denied the same escape and she decided she could not abandon her husband and children, as well as the community that has become her home. "My wife said to me that her place was with us, here, in Gaza. She could never just leave us. So she stayed, and she died," said Dr Awny Al-Jarou, who received cuts to his head. "She died. My beautiful son died as well. My wife was cut in half and my son was in pieces. My heart is breaking but I have two other children and I now have to make sure that they live and grow up. I try not to think about my wife and son."
Death from the skies is not the only threat facing Gaza's children. Medical facilities are stretched almost to breaking point, and no one can vouch for this better than Dr Al-Jarou. He is at the Shifa, Gaza's biggest hospital, where about 70 patients are in intensive care, among them his daughter Yasmine. They cling to life through four generators working round the clock at a hospital which has been without power for the past seven days because Gaza's sole power plant has stopped working due to lack of fuel. "How terrible it would be," Dr Hassan Khalaf, the hospital's director, said, "if our patients survive attacks – and then die because of a lack of electricity."
And the threats to Gaza's families, these "collateral" inhabitants waiting to be damaged, now include, according to the World Bank, being drowned by sewage as the Israeli offensive threatens to cause the collapse of a giant lagoon of human waste. The bank says the earthen walls of the 75-acre lagoon – which contains 450 million gallons of sewage – are being weakened by the bombardment and the build-up of water pressure because pumps have run out of fuel. If they were to burst they could bring about a death toll far greater than that of the military action so far.

innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji'oon

JERUSALEM (CNN) — An Israeli border policeman has been arrested in connection with last week’s shooting death of a Palestinian boy, an Israeli police spokesman said Sunday.

Maysaloun Moussa, mother of the slain boy, holds a poster bearing his image at her home Wednesday.

The border policeman was placed under house arrest Thursday, two days after Ahmed Moussa’s death in the West Bank.

According to Israeli media reports, Moussa was shot in the head during a demonstration against an Israeli security barrier near the village of Nil’in. His age initially was reported to have been 9, but other reports have said he was 10 or 11.

Eyewitnesses said Moussa was killed when Israeli soldiers fired shots near a group of Palestinian youths during the demonstration.

what do you call a man-made disaster?

Humanitarian situation in Gaza worst since 1967 say aid groups
Agencies
London: The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at its worst since the occupation began in 1967, according to British aid groups. The coalition of groups including Amnesty International, Save the Children and Christian Aid have all criticized Israel’s blockade on Gaza, branding it as illegal collective punishment.
They also called on the international community to resume dialogue with Hamas, as the "international policy of isolating Hamas has not reaped any benefits."
The report entitled Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion says that almost 75 per cent of people in the private sector have lost their jobs and 1.1 million Gazans are dependent on food aid. The groups have also called on Israel to ensure people in Gaza are able to get basic necessities such as clean water, food and electricity.
The report added: "The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than at any time since the beginning of the Israeli military occupation in 1967." Amnesty UK Director Kate Allen said: "The current situation is man-made and must be reversed."

it's raining death

innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji'oon
from: Arab News
GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH, 29 February 2008 — The Israeli warplanes continued Wednesday night and early yesterday to target different sites in the Gaza Strip killing nine civilians including three children and a 5-month-old infant. Several other people were also wounded during the attacks, witnesses and medical sources said.
Palestinian media and medics reported late in the evening that three children from one family were killed and a fourth was critically wounded when the Israeli warplanes targeted them while they were playing in eastern Jablaiy refugee camp in the northern of the Gaza Strip.
[...]
An infant was killed in an airstrike on Hamas government building in Gaza city last night ...after nightfall, an Israeli strike killed two children as they left a mosque, local sources said.

What about the children in Gaza?

By Jamal Anderson
As the prison doors close again on the large-scale concentration camp that is the Gaza Strip, the desperate inhabitants are once more sealed away from the world.
Below is a reproduction of an account by a member of the UK charity Islamic Relief of what he saw and experienced.

"As our team arrived in Gaza we saw first hand how this situation is one of the worst we have ever encountered. The atmosphere is one of tense despair where people are enduring sub-human living conditions.
"It is damp and bitterly cold here but the homes we are visiting have no heating and most have no windows as they have been blasted out during bomb raids. The first home we visited was that of an old lady looking after a 12 year old disabled child; she
hadn't eaten for days in order to give him what little she had.

"In another home we found a couple looking after 14 children, some were their own, and others the children of families whose parents have been killed. They didn't have enough blankets, and were having to choose at night which of them got to use the blankets. We have been providing blankets as well as food and clean water, but so much more is needed.

"The situation is desperate! Hospitals are poorly equipped, not just for patients who are sick but also for those who are injured by the bombing raids. We encountered children and adults with limbs blown off, as well as those needing operations - but
doctors warn if the power supply fails, many won't survive! There is also a horrendous sewage problem which will only compound the health problems.

"Of all the war and disaster zones I have visited this is the worst ever. The people of Gaza are suffering in a big way, and are feeling like the world doesn't care. They ask us please not to forget their suffering. I really don't know how they are enduring it. As well as the suffering there's the tense desperation that death could come at any minute if another bomb falls out of the sky. Everyone seems ready for death, it is a weird sensation and no civilian population should have to suffer such an unjust situation."
www.islamic-relief.org.uk

us and them

These days, I find myself thinking a lot about Palestine.

How can one not?

I'm completely dumbfounded when peope shrug their shoulders with supreme self absorption and dismiss Palestine as a ''territorial issue'' or '' not my problem''. I believe it takes a truly hardened heart to brush away so much pain with such nonchalance.

alhamdulillaah, there are several media outlets and personal pages that cut across religious and race lines (AngryArab, UmmKahlil, Leila Um Yousef, Sabbah, Uri Avnery...to name a few of those I regularly follow) who've been doing an excellent job on reporting Palestine, when most of the mainstream media are content to let sleeping stories lie...for various reasons.

It's also achingly ironic that this new spate of violence in Palestine comes at a time when Muslims are fasting in thanks to mark the day Moses is said to have left Egypt with Bani Israa'eel, after the Prophet صلىالله عليه وسلم said: ''...we have more right to Moosaa ...''

subhaanallaah.

catching 'em young

Seven-year-old Muslim boy stopped in US three times on suspicion of being a "terrorist"

For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida was a dream trip to reward him for doing well at school.
But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist.
The security alerts were triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity.
The family even missed their flight home from the U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. And Javaid's passport now contains a sticker saying he has undergone highlevel security checks.
----
It would have been funny were it not so ridiculously sad.

The Real Toy Story

Ever wondered how happy are the people who make the cheap 'Made-in-China' toys that come with your children's "Happy Meals" and "Kiddie Meals" at fast food restaurants?

Here's your chance to find out:"Happy Meal" Toys Made by Sad Sweatshop Workers

I got thinking about this b/z of the recent ruckus regarding Mattel's recall of nearly two million Chinese-made toys over concerns they contain excessive levels of lead paint and loose parts.

An extract from 'The Real Toy Story' by Eric Clark (published by Black Swan at £8.99) reveals the real cost of cheap toys from China:

"The dominance of China in toy production is staggering.
There are about 8,000 factories employing some three million workers spread over six areas, of which the Pearl River Delta is by far the largest. Virtually all the familiar Western toy names - led by U.S. giants Mattel and Hasbro - are made here. These workers make 80 per cent of all America's toys.
In children's picture books, Santa's beaming elves may still be making the toys, but the reality is that for elves we should read migrants - millions of them who have travelled by bus from rural areas up to three days' journey away, part of the biggest movement of people in human history.
Since the migration began, more than 50 million have passed through the factories of Guangdong province, where the Pearl River Delta lies.
If it is almost impossible to comprehend the scale of the movement of people, it is even more difficult for a Westerner to imagine the daily life of one of these toy workers.
Conditions obviously vary, from the acceptable to the unimaginably awful, but it is possible, from a host of reports and interviews conducted well away from factory premises, to construct a composite of the life and working conditions of one of the workers.

Li Mei is worn out, so she looks older than her 18 years.
Her skin is bad from too little daylight and she has many healing and still-open cuts on her hands.
Her neck, chest and forearms are heavily mottled with the raised red patches of allergy caused by toxic chemicals, which she scratches as she speaks.
She coughs a lot, and has chronic aches and pains, frequent headaches and blurred vision.
All these ailments have appeared during the past two years. Li Mei is a migrant from the rural province of Western Sichuan. At first, she is thrilled to be one of the dagongmei - the working girls - and to leave the hamlet where there are no roads and only limited electricity. But she is frightened because the factories have a reputation as sweatshops. Many return with disfigurements and illnesses.

And there was the fate of Li Chunmei.
Lin Chunmei, 19, was a 'runner' in the Bainan Toy Factory, rushing stuffed animals from one worker to the next for each step in production.
Mattel recalled thousands of toys over choking fearsIt was said she ran 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for two solid months.
Lin Chunmei was paid the equivalent of 7 pence an hour.
She collapsed one night, bleeding from nose and mouth, and was found hours later. She died before the ambulance arrived. Her parents were told it was an 'unknown death' and received a small sum in compensation.

But the villagers said it was the new disease, death from overwork.
Li Mei is certain nothing like this will happen to her: she is strong, accustomed to physically demanding tasks such as drawing water and cutting wood.
Her parents have borrowed heavily to buy the various personal documents she needs.
In four or five years, she plans to go home, buy a house and get married. She thinks about this all the time.

The factory where she toils is one of three buildings in a compound with high fences and a sliding metal gate, where two guards check everyone going in and out.
Beside it stands a warehouse and dormitory block. Li Mei's dormitory is on the eighth floor, a small room about 12 by 23 feet.
There are 32 rooms like it on this floor.
It is lit by a single fluorescent bar - her wages have the electricity costs docked - and the floor is concrete.
Double and triple bunk beds made of metal take up every inch of wall space.
During peak periods, when the factory takes on extra staff, girls often sleep two to a single bed.
Under the window, a grubby sink has a single tap. A notice is stuck to the wall, rules which another girl reads to her.

There are many, so she can remember only a few: 'No step on grass, offenders will be fined 50 yuan (£3.30).' 'No male or female staff going to the other gender's dormitory. The offender will be fired.'

Li Mei waits in a long queue of girls for the bathroom that two dozen people use to shower and wash their clothes. She is still there at midnight, when everyone in the village has long been asleep, but the workers are only just off shift, too tired even to grumble as they wait in line. Sometimes, the girl beside her says, 'there is no water even to brush your teeth, and the toilet is horrible.' The water (which, like lavatory paper, Li Mei is charged for) is cold. By 2am she is finally in her lower bunk bed, separated from the hard surface by a straw mat even thinner than the one she uses at home. Next morning she has no breakfast, for it is a meal she has to buy and prepare herself.

At 7.30am, in factory uniform of blue blouse with a white collar over trousers with her ID card displayed (she would be fined two days' wages if it was lost), she follows her guide through passages lined with cardboard boxes.
The air in the spraying and colouring department is filled with paint dust and smells sourly of chemicals -acetone, ethylene, trichloride, benzene.
The windows are fitted with wire mesh, the exits locked to prevent pilfering.
Noisy ventilators add to the din of the machines so the team leader has to shout to be heard.
Li Mei is given a blue apron and shown how to paint the eyes of the dolls with four pens of different sizes: she has to paint one every 7.2 seconds - 4,000 a day.
By the end of the second day, Li Mei's cotton mask and gloves are thick with paint particles and difficult to use. She asks for new ones but is refused. During the first few days, she finds the heat combined with the smell of chemicals repulsive.
She feels sick, has stomach-aches and is dizzy. Once, when she faints, her section leader tells her to rest, rub on some herbal ointment then return to work. Li Mei sneezes constantly and her eyes stream.

The bosses move her to the moulding department. She feels a blast of heat - she is told later it rises to 104F - when the door is opened. She is told to watch the other workers and then begins to stamp out parts of plastic dolls with repetitive movements performed many times a minute, 3,000 times a day. Gloves are issued but no one can wear them - it is unbearably hot and they make it difficult to handle the tiny plastic parts: once the production line starts, her hands and eyes cannot stop for a minute.
Li Mei has to learn a lot of rules because she will be fined for any infringement.
Her section leader tells her there is to be no chatting, joking, laughing or quarrelling.
She must not disturb anyone's work, nap, or read a newspaper.
She must not fail to punch her work card, nor must she punch in for another worker.
She will lose two hours' wages for each minute she is late, and for half an hour she will lose a day's pay. For poor quality work, she may be dismissed or fined.
So she works carefully - and that means too slowly, so she is fined two days' pay.
Like most workers, Li Mei knows within a month that she is being unlawfully exploited.
She soon has wounds on her hands and elbows, and burn marks on her uniform.
When she is moved to a job trimming the plastic toys with small sharp knives, she often cuts herself, once so badly that her hand bleeds heavily - but the medical box is locked. So she binds the wound up in cloth. Worse things happen: workers in the die-casting and moulding departments lose fingers and even arms, while hole-making workers often have their hands punctured and crushed because they have no reinforced gloves.

With her tiny pay and all her debts, Li Mei cannot save. She cannot resign from the factory but must apply for 'voluntary automatic leave'. This means she would be severing the 'work contract' at her request. As punishment she must forfeit one-and-a-half months' wages. Without that, she does not have enough for the fare home. Li Mei says: "I'm tired to death and I don't earn much. "It makes everything meaningless." All she can do is go on. "When we are working at the factory, we belong to the factory."

The American toy industry dominates the whole of the globe. It is a $22 billion business. Every year it puts almost 3.6 billion toys into the home market alone, including 76 million dolls, 349 million plush toys, 125 million action figures, 279 million Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars.

Yet the toy business is no longer fun and games. It's a harsh, corporate world, driven by social and demographic changes, concerns about stock prices and fierce battles between global brands. By law, the maximum any Chinese worker should be on the assembly line is 53 hours per week.
But the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based journal supporting independent unions and workers' rights, says 80 hours is common.
"Mattel has no way to know the truth about what really goes on here," said one worker. "Every time there is an inspection, the bosses tell us what lies to say."
This was supported by others who said that managers promised them extra pay if they pretended that they worked only eight hours a day, six days a week.
One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that when government officers or foreign business executives visit the factories, the managers are tipped off beforehand and under-age workers are sent home.

In August 2006, the Chinese press carried the story of a female migrant worker who died from brain-stem bleeding after reportedly working non-stop for 21 hours in a toy factory in Zengzheng county in Guangzhou. But it is unrealistic to expect that Chinese manufacturers will voluntarily improve conditions for workers.

The crux of the problem is this: by demanding that their suppliers produce goods at ever cheaper prices and demanding deadlines, the toy industry is almost forcing them to act illegally, despite the codes of practice it struggles to impose on them.
For consumers, this presents a dilemma which was neatly summed up for me by a couple pushing a loaded trolley down the toy aisles of a large superstore last Christmas.
"They're probably made under awful conditions but what do you do?" they asked.
"Accept it, or leave the kids with nothing."

this could have been my/your daughter

I've received a link to a memorial website set up for Abeer Qasim Hamza Al-Janabi, the 14-year-old girl from Iraq who was brutally molested and murdered in cold-blood by American soldiers.

innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji'oon...to Allaah we belong and to Him is the return.

Please spare a prayer for the oppressed and suffering, everywhere.

''do you think I will be assassinated?''

After a really long time, I finally caught up with the intensely brave blog of Palestinian journalist and mother, Laila El-Haddad: 'Raising Yousuf Unplugged' ...that can serve as an eye-opener to even the most blinkered specimen of the human species.

an excerpt:

''I was down in Rafah again this week. While inspecting the site of a future park project my friend Fida is working on (and which we are making a film about), we were disrupted every few minutes by the voracious sound of multiple F-16 fighter jets flying overhead in unision. Sometimes one or two; then four or five.

Children scurried about playing football with a deflated basketball on the sand lot.

"Do you think I will be assassinated one day?" one child asked another. He didn't say this jokingly.''

11-year-old hijab-wearing girl feels it's "her fault" FIFA won't let her play!

From: Butting Heads over Headscarves in Quebec by Zahed Amanullah/altmuslim.com

...an 11 year-old soccer player was asked by an official (a Muslim, incidentally) in the town of Laval, Quebec to remove her hijab before playing in a tournament. Asmahan (Azzy) Mansour refused and her team (and several others) walked out in solidarity with her. The result has been a Zidane-sized storm of protest across Canada, with the international body FIFA starting an investigation. [...]
The soccer ejection was backed by Quebec Premier Jean Charest who, along with the Quebec Soccer Federation, was almost alone among Canadian organisations and politicians to support the ban. "It's up to them to apply the rules, and they applied them in the way they saw fit," said Charest. "I don't have a problem with that."
[...]
Mansour's herself felt responsible for her team's forfeiting the match. "I'm so sorry my team couldn't play," said Mansour. "It was my fault." But despite the sympathy and precedents, FIFA's rule-governing body, the International Football Association Board, leaned toward the referee in the case at a meeting in Manchester, England. "It's absolutely right to be sensitive to people's thoughts and philosophies," said a representative. "But equally there has to be a set of laws that are adhered to, and we favor law 4 being adhered to." (Law 4 governs what may be worn on the head during a game). The Canadian Soccer Association, to whom Quebec authorities said they would yield to, is unlikely to go against the IFAB, though the ruling was also not seen as clearly defined.
"I truly think they should have (overridden) what Quebec's rule is," said Asmahan's mother Maria. "(She) is still hoping that Quebec will remove that rule someday so she will be able to play (in Quebec)." In the meantime, Azzy is determined to show that she's not going to give up easily. She scored two goals during a game in Ottawa just as the FIFA ruling was announced.

"...the bad guy who won't let him return home"

From Um Yousuf's blog: what do I tell a two-year-old?

Dear Mr. Peretz:

My son Yousuf, 2 years and 9 months, would like me to inform you that he wants to enter Gaza. He has asked me to tell whoever it is who is keeping it closed to open the border for him immediately. In fact, he asks me everyday.

And now, asking is no long sufficient: he wants answers, too.

Why is the border still closed?

And who is keeping it closed and why?

So, in addition to asking you to open the border, I am also writing to ask you what I can tell a 2 year old to satisfy his insatiable curiosity. What can I tell him of borders and occupation and oppression and collective punishment?

What would YOU tell him?

Lying doesn’t work-2 year olds are like natural born lie detectors. And so he figures it’s the bad guy-like in the stories that we all read growing up. And now, he demands to know who the bad guy is. What do I tell a 2 year old, Mr. Peretz, about the bad guy who won’t let him return home?

A Palestinian mother

the girl who can't smile

pic: Haaretz

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz

Little Meisa walks around barefoot among the ruins of her home, stepping on a carpet of glass splinters. In silence she walks among the ruins, here and there, not knowing what to do with herself. Her gray face expresses shock. Meisa does not say a word, it is impossible to get even a trace of a smile from her. This child is now a victim of shock.

Five years old, on Shabbat afternoon, when the shell shook the walls of her house, hit the roof and destroyed it, Meisa was on the top floor of the family's impoverished home. Now she is walking around the house restlessly, hugging to herself a bundle of rags that were her clothes. Meisa does not leave the rags, holds them tightly, so they won't get lost.

Abed, her cousin, was on the roof and was wounded. This house is home to 35 people, almost all of whom were at home when the shell landed on the roof. Most of them are small children.

-------------

So vicious, this cycle

Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff on the Beit Hanoun massacre in Haaretz

Raad al-Atamna, lived with his wife and children in the home of his extended family in the Hamad neighborhood, which is on the western edge of Beit Hanun. Early on Wednesday morning he set out for work. A few minutes later, when he was at the entrance to Gaza, his mobile phone rang. His brother Wael informed him that the family home had been bombarded and there were many people injured there; he asked him to call for first aid.

Raad drove back to the house in a frenzy. "You don't understand. It's impossible to forget this sight," he says. "Children without hands, without feet, flung in every corner, tremendous destruction. Our whole family lives there. The stairwell was completely destroyed and in every corner there was someone who was wounded or killed. Blood was everywhere and amputated limbs. Even our neighbors, who came to help, were wounded by the last shells." According to him, the house was hit by at least seven shells. "I don't know what to tell you. We have five children in the family who are seriously wounded and it is not clear to me whether they will survive the night. My children, praise God, are alive. But I have sent them to friends, because we don't have anywhere to sleep. In the meantime I'll sleep at the neighbors' house."

Raad, who works regularly with Israeli journalists, finds it hard to understand the bombardment. "There wasn't any problem with Israel in our family. Ever. But even if there had been anything like that, how is a 4-year-old little boy or little girl to blame; how is a 7-year-old girl whose foot was amputated to blame?"

how can the image of a dead child help?

How can the image of a dead child help?
Gulf News

"Your newspaper was not allowed into my house on Monday morning. I had it thrown straight into the bin. It is distressing enough to read of the deaths of innocent children in times of war and conflict but completely unnecessary to show that image on the front page.
What happened to the classic photojournalism of war-torn countries which has won awards over the years for its clear message without having to resort to graphic and brutal pictures of burning bodies and crushed limbs? We live in times when violence is so commonplace on TV to the point where no one takes any notice of real conflict and pain. How can the image of that dead child change what is happening in Lebanon?"

(Letter to the Editor)

The PhotoDirector has a really nice reply, that ends with:

"...We live in the Playstation age where children and adults alike are desensitised by the carnage on their television sets because apparent "death" is so common and "resurrection" is a mere press of the button away. In real war there is no second chance or "restart" button and perhaps parents should be duty bound to explain the difference between "real" death and "cyber" death.
By throwing Gulf News in the bin you may have lost a great opportunity to teach your children about the reality of life and how different it is from Playstation's artificial life..."

----------------

PS: yes we're back...just speechless at all the goings on to post..soon, in shaa Allaah

A 10-year-old remembers

The Marines and a 'massacre' in Iraq
From Ali Hamdani in al-Haditha, Ned Parker and Nick Meo in Baghdad, and Tom Baldwin in Washington

Girl tells how soldiers shot 24 civilians after road bomb
US troops to face homicide charges amid cover-up claims
Source: Times Investigation

WITH remarkable self-assurance for a ten-year-old girl, Iman Hassan recounted how her family was killed by American troops as she cowered in terror in a corner of her living room.

It happened soon after 7am on November 19 last year, she claimed in an interview with The Times. She was still in her pyjamas and preparing for school when a US military convoy rumbled down the road near her home in al-Haditha, a town on the Euphrates surrounded by date farms that has become a hotbed of insurgents. Three months earlier 20 American soldiers had been killed there.

At that moment a Humvee was blown up by a roadside bomb, killing Miguel Terrazas, its 20-year-old driver from El Paso, Texas. Iman’s father was praying in the next room of her house, a basic two-storey building made of breezeblocks. Her grandparents were still in bed. The family heard shots but knew to stay indoors.

What happened next is the subject of a massive inquiry by the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The results are expected to deal another devastating blow to America’s standing in Iraq and across the world.
US Congressmen briefed on the investigation expect it to conclude that Corporal Terrazas’s fellow marines ran amok, killing as many as 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in cold blood. A dozen marines face courts martial or even charges of homicide. A separate inquiry is determining whether there was a cover-up.

Pentagon and military officials who have seen the findings of the investigation have said that it may be the worst case of misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq, and that includes the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Critics will draw comparisons with the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, when US soldiers killed more than 500 unarmed villagers.

(...)

As Iman tells it, US marines burst into her house 15 minutes after the bomb destroyed the Humvee, apparently looking for insurgents. They shouted at her father. Then a grenade was thrown into her grandparents’ room. She saw her mother hit by shrapnel. Her aunt grabbed a baby and ran from the house.

Soldiers opened fire inside the living room, where most of the family were gathered. Her uncle Rashid came downstairs, saw what was happening, then fled outside, where he was pursued by Marines and shot.

“Everybody who was in the house was killed by the Americans except my brother Abdul-Rahman and me,” Iman said. “We were too scared to move and tried to hide under a pillow. I was hit by shrapnel in my leg. For two hours we didn’t dare to move. My family didn’t die immediately. We could hear them groaning.”

Iman’s grandfather Abdul al-Hamid Hassan, her grandmother Khamisa, her father Walid, uncle Mujahid, her mother, uncle Rashid and cousin Abdullah, 4, had all been fatally wounded.

Innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji'oon.

Rana's blood and her last supper

Translated by Saed Bannoura-IMEMC, December 15, 2004

The Last Supper 7-year-old Rana Syiam had with her family in Khan Younis, ended with blood and tears after a bullet fired by Israeli soldiers entered her head and exited to wound her father in the leg.
On Friday December, 12, 2004, an Israeli soldier fired a bullet from a sniper-rifle and killed the joy and smiles of the family when this fated bullet penetrated Rana’s head.
The family still hold on to her memories and keep her blooded clothes to remind them of their child who, was killed in cold blood. Rana did no mistake more than sitting in the dining room.
Rana’s father, Omar Syiam, 50 years old, said that a soldier fired one bullet from his sniper rifle, taking the innocent life of his child.
“Those soldiers in the military camp near here, do not differentiate between a child and an adult. What did she do to them? What crime is it to sit at home and eat dinner with your family?”, he asked.
Syaim stated that he was sitting with his wife and children in the evening when they heard gunfire, but here, in Khan Younis camp, that is an everyday event.
“Over the last four years [of Intifada], we got used to the sounds of shooting and shelling. Our home is only 600 meters away from the Naveh Dkalim settlement and its surrounding military camps”, the father added.
With his face cast down in sadness, Syaim’s eyes filled with tears and he began to describe the death of his daughter. He said that as he went to wash his hands before the meal, he felt something sticking him to his right foot,
“I screamed, help me, I am hit, and the family rushed toward me -- except Rana and her sister Hiba (6 years old). Hiba started to scream, calling her mother, and when we all rushed toward the girls, we saw Rana lying on her side, with blood flooding out of her head”.
Her father, in spite of his pain from the bullet in his leg, took his child and rushed to Nasser hospital. The hospital is only a few meters away from their home, but death, for Rana, came faster.
Rana’s mother cannot sit in the living room where her daughter was killed -- whenever she sits there, she remembers the murderous bullet which took away the innocent life of her child. But it is impossible for her to avoid – simply by looking out her window, she sees the military camp, full of soldiers resembling the “murderer” who took away the life of her beloved child.
“I saw her screaming, and falling down to the ground, she was in front of me….”, Rana’s mother cried, remembering the “little angel” removed from this world by a bullet of hatred.
The Israeli army gave no explanation for the shooting.

Source: WAFA
Innaa lillaahe wa innaa ilayhe raaji'oon

The Flowers of Nablus

Israel Army Seizes And Imprisons Two 15-Year-Old Girls
IDF Steals The Flowers Of Nablus For Prison

NABLUS, Palestine (IPC) - The Israeli pre-programmed campaign against children in the West Bank, especially the city of Nablus, has been recently stepped up.

In one day, the Israeli occupying forces (IOF) arrested two young girls, after raiding their homes and terrorizing them and their families, leading both girls, younger than 15 years of age, into the military jeep in their pajamas, despite the begging and cries of their families.

Aseel Al Hendi, born on October 10, 1989 and a ninth grade student at the Al Fatemiya School in Nablus, was arrested on the dawn of June 16, after large forces of the Israeli occupation surrounded her family's house and ordered all dwellers to come out barefooted with their house gowns. Aseel begged the soldiers to give her time to wear proper clothes and some shoes, but they were deaf to her cries.

Then the barbaric interrogation of the mother and Aseel's young siblings, the oldest is 14, with the soldiers shoving the mother's shoulder with the butts of their rifles and shouting at them. The horrified children were too afraid to even breathe.

After checking everybody's ID card, they found out that Aseel was only 15 years old, but that did not prevent them from leading her into the military jeep along with her father, leaving the mother behind crying and begging the soldiers to let her child wear at least some shoes.

Al Hendi's mother said her daughter is considered one of the best students in her class, enjoys reading and has interests in computers. She was hoping to travel abroad to pursue her postgraduate studies.

At the same night, the Israeli forces had a date with another young flower to pick in the middle of night, and in the same cruelty, they advanced to the Rafidia neighborhood, where they surrounded the house of Al Kokhen family and arrested their 15-year-old daughter Majd.

Majd was born on April 7, 1989 and with her arrest, she was deprived of participation in the honoring ceremony of her scout group at the Al Fatemiya School.

IPC correspondent said that the Israeli forces surrounded the Al Kokhen family house and then ordered all the dwellers of the house to leave immediately. Afterwards, the soldiers barbarically checked the family members' ID cards, before asking about Majd in a sharp tone, as the Israeli soldier was holding a list of names in his hand.

Majd, who was arrested by the occupying forces and thrown into the military jeep along with her father, is under the international standard of childhood, so she is considered a child. The IOF troops argue that she was two months older than 15! Majd's mother watched in silent tears as the jeep that has her daughter and husband drive away to the western part of the city, praying that it won't be the last time she sees them.

According to Al Kokhen's teachers, she was also a top student, and led the basketball team of her school. She has also artistic and sports interested, in addition to her preparation to join the "Seeds of Peace" international organization for her beliefs in the virtue of peace.

After 24 hours of detention and interrogation at Howara military base, both Aseel's and Majd's fathers were released, but without their daughters, and later they were both transferred to the notorious "Al Ramleh" prison, according to the complaints office "Hamoked" in Jerusalem.

The Association of Prisoners and Ex-Detainees "Hossam" says that the Israeli occupying authorities torture even the children inside the Israeli jails and concentration camps, pointing out that child prisoners are frequently tortured, and this was particularly obvious in the "Etzion" prison, where children were being beaten and placed in solitary confinement cells, after being stretched all night on barbed razor wire in the prison's yard.
Also, the children are also deprived of hot water and bathroom visits, due to which hygienic problems spread among them, especially when treatment is not provided and cleaning materials are not present.

According to a report by the Palestinian National Information Center (PNIC) in Gaza, the number of children that have been imprisoned in Israeli jails has reached more than 2,500 children, 463 of them are still inside prisons. The ratio of children among the Palestinian prisoners is 7.6%.
243 children are still detained pending trial, while 22 others are "administratively detained" without charge or trial.

As for the female children, they are sent immediately to the infamous "Neveh Tirtza" prison, which has frequently witnessed since April 2001 attacks on the Palestinian female prisoners there by the Israeli wardens and shock troopers. During these attacks, their personal possessions were confiscated, and some of them were placed in solitary confinement, such as the prisoner Soad Ghazal, 17, who was placed in a solitary confinement cell of two square meters.

PNA International Press Center

[Source:aljazeera.net]