:icon_sadangel2: Palestine Peace a dream?

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Israel used phosphorous on UN center
Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:18:59 GMT
A UN compound in Gaza that came under Israeli fire was apparently hit by white-phosphorus shells, the UN humanitarian affairs chief says.

"The main warehouse was badly damaged by what appeared to be white-phosphorus shells," John Holmes told reporters at a news briefing in New York, Reuters reported Thursday.

"Those on the ground don't have any doubt that's what they were, if you were looking for confirmation that looks like it to me." Holmes added.

A 1983 international convention prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilians.

Israel has declined comment on its munitions.

Speaking by video link from the shelled compound, John Ging, UNRWA's director of operations in Gaza, said the Israelis had not alleged to the agency during a meeting in Tel Aviv on Thursday that there were militants in the compound.

"There were militants operating, they allege, in the area, but there were no militants or any firing from our compound. That's the official position of the Israeli authorities that deal with us," Ging told reporters.

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Israel targets hospital in Gaza City
Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:04:05 GMT
A wounded Palestinian woman is brought into an already overcrowded hospital during the Israeli offensive in Gaza City. The majority of Gazans are women and children.
Israeli forces have targeted a hospital in the blockaded Gaza City, setting fire to a wing of the medical center, witnesses say.

The strike took place in the vicinity of Al-Quds Hospital in the southwestern Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood.

There were, however, no immediate reports on casualties in the incident.

The Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood houses hundreds of Palestinians who had taken shelter from advancing Israeli tanks.

Over 1,066 Palestinians -- including at least 311 children and 97 women -- have been killed and 4,700 have been wounded since Israel launched its offensive against the Palestinian territory on December 27.

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American Jews blast Israel atrocities
Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:15:54 GMT
Lisa Adler, a member of the International Jewish Solidarity Network chains herself to block an entrance to the Israeli Consulate in protest to the Israeli attack on Gaza in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009.
Hundreds of Jewish Americans have thronged in front of Israeli consulate in Los Angeles in protest to the ongoing Israeli assaults on Gaza.

The Jewish demonstrators staged the protest on Wednesday to condemn the recent Israeli atrocities against the people in Gaza, calling for and end to the Israeli apartheid in the beleaguered enclave.

The protestors chained themselves to the entrance of the Israeli Consulate and blocked the driveway to the parking structure, blocking all traffic in and out of the building.

The demonstration started at about 8:30 a.m. and prompted Los Angeles authorities to close Wilshire Boulevard, where the Israeli consulate stands, until late morning, Los Angeles Police Department said.

"While the end of the siege on Gaza is our most immediate priority, this is only the latest chapter in Palestinians' 60 plus year experience of occupation and ethnic cleansing. Peace and justice in the region will only come when Palestinians have freedom and control their own destiny," said Lisa Adler, a community organizer in Los Angeles and another member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

Over the past days anti-Israeli demonstrations have been held all across the world, denouncing Israeli crimes against humanity in the impoverished region of Gaza Strip.

Israel has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007 after the democratically-elected Hamas took control of the enclave.

Israel's 20-day-long heavy aggression on Gaza has left 1,074 people killed and 4,700 others injured. The Israel officials pay no heed to the international calls to end the assault.

AO/MMN

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ICC overlooks Israel's war crimes allegation
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:34:38 GMT
Israel is accused of using white phosphorus against Gazans. The US intelligence has classified WP as a "chemical weapon."
The International Criminal Court prosecutor says it lacks jurisdiction to investigate possible Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza.

The ICC prosecutor said in a statement Wednesday that the "court's jurisdiction is limited to war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide committed on the territory of, or by a national of, a state party while Israel is not a member state.

Tel Aviv launched Operation Cast Lead on December 27 to put an end to rocket attacks against southern Israeli towns. At least 1,015 Palestinians have died during the offensive, while some 4,700 others are reported wounded.

Hamas, the democratically-elected ruler of the coastal sliver, demands a cessation of an 18-month Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip before its fighters suspend the rocket attacks.

The huge number of civilian casualties in the densely-populated coastal sliver has provoked widespread outcries around the globe among many nations as well as their leaders.

A fierce controversy has also broken out over the alleged use of white phosphorus, also known by the military as WP or Willie Pete, by the Israeli army in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch says its researchers have observed the use of WP -- which causes horrific burns, severe injuries or death when it comes in contact with human skin -- by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip.

The legality of the toxic chemical agent is a matter of debate, with many groups recognizing it as an illegal weapon, while international law allows its usage solely for smoke-screening.

The US intelligence has classified WP as a "chemical weapon."

There are also reports that Tel Aviv has used depleted uranium against civilians in Gaza.

The International body in The Hague made the remarks Wednesday after a Palestinian rights group called on the ICC to investigate Israel for committing war crimes in Gaza, Reuters reported.

"In Gaza at present, the ICC lacks such jurisdiction," Nicola Fletcher, a spokeswoman for the ICC prosecutor, said adding that the ICC can investigate Israel's war crimes only if Tel Aviv voluntarily accepted the court's jurisdiction, or if it is referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council.

Israel and the United States are not among the 108 signatories of the Rome Statute creating the Hague-based court in 2000 to investigate and prosecute war crimes.

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Hamas accepts Egyptian truce: Spain
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:51:24 GMT
Israel has used unconventional weapons including white phosphorous during a 19-day-old war in Gaza.
Spain says the Hamas movement has accepted an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire to put an end to Israel's military aggression in Gaza.

"Hamas is going to publicly express its support and acceptance," Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told the reporters Wednesday after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The truce calls for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the densely-populated Gaza Strip, which would be followed by negotiations on long-term arrangements including an end to the blockade of the impoverished regional coast.

An unnamed Egyptian official said earlier that the Palestinian resistance group had agreed to the proposal and that Cairo was awaiting Israeli response, AFP reported.

A report by the Saudi-owned Arabic language Al Arabiya claimed that Hamas would accept the truce after adding some amendments, including the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.

"There are still points of difference on the initiative and these points have not been resolved so far, the initiative in its present form does not realize the [Palestinian national] interest. Specific points in it have to be changed... We believe there is no initiative which cannot be modified or changed," Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera television.

The senior Hamas officials, who are holding talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo, are to announce the outcome of the negotiations later in the day.

A senior Israeli defense ministry official, Amos Gilad, is expected to travel to Cairo on Thursday to discuss the details of the initiative designed to halt the war in the Gaza Strip.

More than 1,015 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,700 others have been wounded in the Israeli war on Gaza.

Tel Aviv says its operation's objective is to put an end to rocket attacks on southern Israel. At least 10 Israeli soldiers have been killed during the operation.

The Hamas movement, the democratically-elected government of the Gaza Strip, demands a cessation of Israeli attacks and the opening of the Gaza border -- which has been closed due to the 18-month Israeli blockade.

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Israeli pilot refuses to target Palestinians
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:41:23 GMT
An Apache helicopter pilot of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) is seen here. Captain Orr, who could not reveal his full name, wore his flying helmet and visor during the interview.
An Israeli Apache helicopter pilot is refusing to take part in the ongoing onslaught against the civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Captain Orr, who has flown dozens of combat missions over Gaza the past few weeks, said Tuesday that he decided to abort missions to avoid killing civilians after seeing children near his intended targets.

He also expressed sorrow for civilian casualties, the people who were caught up in the bombardment by him and his colleagues, saying that the vast majority of damage and casualties in Gaza were caused by flying attack helicopters and jet fighters.

Since the start of "Operation Cast Lead", Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians and wounded over 4,580 others -- most of whom are women and children.

Captain Orr made the remarks in an interview with the Associated Press. He was also accompanied by a military minder in order not to disclose confidential information.

As the civilian casualties in Gaza continues to rise, UN Sesratary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday called for an "immediate and durable ceasefire" in the region.

"I again urge both parties to stop now, to stop the fighting now, there is no time to lose," Ban said at the start of his Middle East tour aimed at brokering a truce between Hamas and Israel.

The call for ceasefire comes as Tel Aviv continues to attack residential areas across Gaza with unconventional weapons including White phosphorus bombs.

White phosphorus, classified as a 'chemical weapon' by the US intelligence, is an incendiary material that causes horrific burns, severe injuries or even death when it encounters human skin.

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Moroccan Jews condemn Israel over Gaza
Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:18:13 GMT
Director of the Foundation of Judeo-Moroccan Cultural Heritage Simon Levy
Jewish communities in Morocco have condemned Israel's deadly military campaign in the Gaza Strip, calling for an end to the violence.

"For more than two weeks the residents of Gaza, sitting targets, are suffering under the bombs, the widespread destruction, the lack of food and water… The pictures of Palestinian children torn from life are unbearable," the Council of Jewish Communities in Morocco (CCIM) said in a Thursday statement sent to AFP.

"We, Moroccan Jews, are in solidarity with the innocent victims who are suffering, in Gaza and elsewhere… No just and viable solution can be found through force," the council added.

The director of the Foundation of Judeo-Moroccan Cultural Heritage Simon Levy also said that the unjustified slaughter going on the Palestinian region was 'more than deplorable.'

"It's horrible and it is not like that that I see Judaism," he added, urging international organizations to intervene and resolve the crisis.

The condemnation from a community of over 5000 Jews came just a day after hundreds of Jewish Americans surrounded the entrance of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles to protest Israel's offensive in Gaza.

On Monday, many other Jews communities staged similar protests around the world calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Jewish groups in Turkey, Britain, Australia, and Canada organized demonstrations in favor of peace in the Gaza Strip.

Reports indicate that Israeli Jews in Jerusalem (al-Quds) and Tel Aviv have also staged several protests in the past few days, calling for an end to the offensive against Gaza.

The Jewish demonstrators, who were demanding an end to 'Israeli apartheid' in the Palestinian coastal strip, chained themselves to the entrance of the Consulate and blocked the driveway to the parking area.

In another protest in Manhattan, New York, Rabbi Yisroel Weiss of the orthodox Neturei Karta movement also attacked Israel for its operation in Gaza.

“We want the world to know that Zionism is stealing the identity of the Torah and of the Jewish people,” said the well-known Rabbi.


The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, however, has responded to world-wide protests against the regime's military onslaught in Gaza by expressing concern over what she has called 'a wave of anti-Semitism'.

This is while a third week of Israeli attacks come to an end in Gaza with over 6000 Palestinian casualties, including 1100 lost lives.

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The New Nazis
Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:03:56 GMT
By Alan Hart
Alan Hart
Knowing the documented truth about the creation of Israel by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing, and watching - mainly thanks to Al Jazeera and Press TV live feeds - the war on Gaza, Israel's latest display of state terrorism, I have come to a conclusion. It is time to give Israel's hardcore Zionists their real name. They are the New Nazis.

Europeans and Americans could have stopped the original Nazis and prevented the extermination of six million Jews. If Europeans and Americans do not stop the New Nazis, it is likely that their end game will be the extermination of millions of Palestinians.

In his book An Ethical Tradition Betrayed, The End of Judaism, Dr. Hajo G. Meyer, a Nazi holocaust (Auschwitz) survivor, compared Israel's policies - as of 2007 when the book was published - with the early stages of the Nazi persecution of Germany's Jews.

He stressed that he was not seeking to draw a parallel between Israel's current policies and the Nazis' “endgame” - the slaughter of six million European Jews (and also the mass murder of many non-Jews).

He was merely trying to point out, he wrote, “the slippery slope” that eventually led to that catastrophe, and the necessity of “foreseeing the possible consequences” of a policy that oppresses and marginalizes the Palestinians in their own homeland.

The Gentile me is privileged to have Hajo Meyer as a dear friend and I have just talked with him. In the light of what Israeli forces are doing over and in the Gaza Strip, I asked him if he was still not seeking to draw a parallel between Israel's policies and the Nazis' endgame.

He replied, “It's becoming harder and harder not to draw that parallel.” And he agreed that it was now time to describe Israel's hardcore Zionists and those Israelis who follow their orders as “Nazis”.

As we were speaking, I opened an e-mail from another Jewish friend. It contained quotes from a statement made yesterday in the House of Commons by Sir Gerald Kaufman, the only Jewish MP who has been consistent for many years in his criticism of Israeli policy.

His statement included this: “Is it not an incontrovertible fact that Olmert, Livni and Barak are mass murderers and war criminals?” I read that to Hajo. He said, “Kaufman is right. Every effort must now be made to bring Israel's leaders to trial.”
Of course that will not happen, so how might their endgame be played out?

In my analysis, there is no mystery about Israel's current real purpose. It is to put Hamas out of political as well as military business in order to improve the prospects for bullying and bribing President Abbas and his Fatah-dominated, quisling Palestine National Authority into accepting crumbs from Zionism's table - the crumbs being an Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank to provide the Palestinians with two or three Bantustans which they could call a state if they wished.

Would President Abbas actually be prepared to settle for very much less than a complete Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank including Arab East Jerusalem? The answer ought to be “No” because to do so would be to betray his own people and their 60 years of struggle for an acceptable minimum of justice.

But what if he came under pressure from President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, and their message to him, endorsed by Quartet envoi Tony Blair, was something like, “You've got to be pragmatic. This is the best deal you Palestinians are ever likely to get.”

Obama and Clinton would not need to add, “Because we're not going to press the Israelis to do what they don't want to do.”

Under such pressure, and also that applied by the regimes of the existing corrupt, repressive and impotent Arab Order, it is not impossible that President Abbas would buckle completely and accept the crumbs on offer from Zionism's table, but if he did, he and they would be rejected by the overwhelming majority of the occupied Palestinian people.

Then what?

Israel creates a pretext for war with them all. Endgame. A Zionist holocaust.

In my view, which Hajo Meyer shares, that could happen unless enough Israelis and the Jews of the world are prepared to acknowledge that a terrible wrong was done to the Palestinians by Zionism (the few) in the name of all Jews.

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CAIRO — Smiling after signing an anti-smuggling deal with US Secretary of State Condoleezza, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was denounced by journalists as a "terrorist" and "murderer" of Palestinian children, reported the Yediot Aharonot on Saturday, January 17. "Since when are terrorists accommodated here," one journalist asked at a press conference at the Washington Press Club on Friday.

The journalist started quoting a Human Rights report on the situation in Gaza, before asking Livni to comment on the murder of innocent civilians in Gaza.

"Dad, I'm Dying" Gaza's Empty Coffins Gaza's Traumatized Children "You let her speak here and don't let us ask questions," the journalist yelled when he was prevented from completing his questions to Livni, before being removed from the microphone.

Another journalist compared the Israeli government to the authoritarian regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

"What, are you like Zimbabwe?" another reporter asked Livni.

Livni, however, remained cool, repeating claims that Israel was trying to avoid killing civilians during its attacks in Gaza.

At least 1200 people have been killed, including 355 children and 108 women, have been killed since Israel launched a deadly offensive in Gaza on December 27.

More than 5300 others, including 1,800 children, have been wounded.

The Israeli minister only lost temper when she was asked by an Al-Jazeera reporter that if her visit to the US was part of her election campaign.

"Nonsense," Livni replied. "we work together. Defense Minister Barak and I are doing the job. I work according to my commitments as the foreign minister."

Livni, the leader of the Kadima party, hopes to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the February 10 elections.

Gaza Tragedy

Israel continued on Saturday to pummel Gaza with new strikes on Saturday.

Six people where killed when Israeli tanks shelled a United Nations-run school in the northern town of Beit Lahiya where civilians had taken refuge from the Israeli attacks.

"This yet again illustrates the tragedy that there is no safe place in Gaza. Not even a UN installation is safe," Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"There is no place to flee."

Medical workers said a woman and a child were killed when a first shell hit the school.

Witnesses said other shells struck nearby as people tried to escape and four more were killed.

About 45,000 Gazans are sheltering in UN-run schools in the enclave.

In a second attack in northwest Gaza City, three Palestinians were killed by a tank shell that landed in a residential area, medical workers said.

A two-year-old baby and three other people were killed when Israel hammered Gaza with some 50 raids.

The new deaths came one day after Israeli attacks killed at least 66 people, in one of the deadliest day of Israeli onslaughts in Gaza.

The Israeli war in Gaza has drawn worldwide protests and raised fears of a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished territory of 1.6 million people, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade.

Source: IslamOnline

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The rosy picture US media paints of genocide
Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:39:14 GMT
By Shirin Barghi and Dex A. Eastman, Press TV, Tehran
A wounded Palestinian woman is escorted to the hospital after an Israeli strike in Gaza City. The war on Gaza has so far killed around 1200 Palestinians and wounded over 5300, many of them women and children.
For those who still believe the United States of America is the land of freedom of speech, US news coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza provides a second insight and more than enough evidence to the contrary.

In the follow-up to Tel Aviv's Operation Cast Lead on Gaza, the US media for three weeks has silently watched Israel kill innocent civilians day in and day out without so much as a wince.

At a time when world news outlets -- some of which are owned by Tel Aviv's allies -- are condemning the war, the so-called free media of the US has virtually cheered and championed Israel for its courage to kill, providing a completely divorced-from-reality version of what is happening in the virtual ghetto.

The New York Times has so far provided one-sided coverage of the conflict with little editorializing and commentary, and the Washington Post has -- in its usual contortionist manner -- described the offensive as "risky" but thoroughly "justified".

So this brings us to the inevitable question: Why have American news outlets opted to follow Washington's example of abetting Israel even when it has time and again proven to see no obstacle in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity?

Perhaps it is because of its forced but sacrosanct marriage with Tel Aviv that Washington continues to feed the US media, think tanks and academia with billions of taxpayer dollars to manipulate the realities on the ground at the expense of US national security and its image worldwide.

"Especially since the Six-Day War in 1967…the centerpiece of US Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel … the United States has been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interest of another state (Israel)," say political strategists John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt.

For a country that has long trumpeted its provision of "first amendment rights" to its nation and claims on top of that to be "the freedom of speech beacon for the rest of the world", what a total disgrace to stand behind Europe with a rank of thirty-sixth in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index -- according to the latest report by Reporters without Borders.

The annual rankings have been established based on the amount of self-censorship and government abuses of the press as well as physical abuse of journalists, all of which have become prevalent in the United States.

America set a glaring example of the extent of its eroding press freedoms in September, when nearly 100 journalists were arrested and detained in Minnesota while trying to report on the Republican National Convention.

The US government also showed its biased colors when it decided to prolong the imprisonment of Al Jazeera's Sudanese correspondent Sami al-Hajj for six years. His crime? He was of the wrong color, the wrong nationality, the wrong religion and working for the wrong news outlet covering the wrong war -- the war on Afghanistan.

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one that has its roots in the injustices of history, the average American who follows the news has almost no knowledge of the endless problems faced by the Palestinians as well as their philosophy of resistance.

Most Americans therefore know not even the simplest fact about the conflict: that there was no Israel before 1948 and that their own corrupt government joined European powers to steal the native land of the Palestinians.

The issue becomes even more shocking when one considers that the US media has propagated the lies of Zionist histrionics by having suggested that not that many Palestinians resided in the currently occupied territories when Israel was created.

In a world where the occupier becomes king of the land and the hearts of countless unknowing Americans go out to the invaders, it is indeed not of relevance to know that the very people living in the Gaza Strip have been crammed into this sliver of land due to the hostile takeover of their homes elsewhere in their native Palestine.

While the US disinformation campaign continues to blow out of proportion the insignificant rocket attacks against the Israelis, what receives no media attention in the United States is that the Palestinians have been subject to over sixty years of horrific crimes.

The US media has not only managed to portray Hamas as the violator of the ceasefire, but also makes no mention of the fact that the Gazans have been under an 18-month blockade. How can rocket retaliations therefore be unjustifiable?

For the rational American thinker, there are many questions that have been left unanswered and have even been avoided.

Have the Palestinians been given the state they have been promised? Did the Israeli invaders not have sixty years to relinquish control of land for the creation of a Palestinian state? Why did the US and Israel label the Palestinian Hamas as the terrorist just after it was democratically elected?

Having drawn lessons from its many wars on democracy, Washington should be expected to at least know that terrorism spawns terrorism and that it is also responsible for the various crimes committed against the Palestinian population. Nevertheless, the cozy relationship between Israel and the US has created only world hatred toward America and has further provoked Israeli acts of terrorism.

In this serious time of crisis when over 1,200 Palestinians have been brutally killed and nearly 5,000 others have been injured, it is a relief to know that America has finally found its role model journalist, 'Joe the Plumber'.

Covering the onslaught in Gaza from an Israeli perspective, the most popular plumber in the United States has set aside his wrench to remind Americans just how bizarre the world of US media can become.

The Ohio plumber, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, arrived in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Sunday and began tackling the BIG issues from the start, just to show local and foreign reporters "how to do it right".

The people of Sderot "can't do normal things day to day" like get soap in their eyes in the shower for fear of rockets, said Joe.

"I'm sure they're taking quick showers," he said. "I know I would."

"You should be patriotic, protect your family and children, not report like you have been doing for the past two weeks since this war has started," said the newly-discovered American talent.

"Why hasn't Israel acted sooner?" asked Wurzelbacher, who was dubbed the embodiment of the common American man by Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

"I know if I were a citizen here, I'd be damned upset," he said.

While Joe's one-sided propaganda has prompted both American and international media outlets to send correspondents to cover the giant steps he is taking for mankind, one man has managed to expose the harsh reality of life in Gaza.

"It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health," the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories Richard Falk says of the ongoing blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza.

The Jewish professor of law is the embodiment of everything American reporters lack; he stands for his beliefs and not for the Zionist agenda in spite of being subject to humiliation, imprisonment and subsequently deportation from Israel in December.

"This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live," Falk adds.

This is the reality of the ghetto created by Washington and Tel Aviv and what the US government and media will never let Americans know.

If you would like to contact the writers please write to eastman@presstv.ir