Saturday 12 March 2016

Israelis Kill 10-Year-Old Gaza Boy and His 6-Year-Old Sister in Airstrike

Something like this is so disgusting you hardly know what to say about it. In the hours before dawn this morning a missile launched from an Israeli F-16 killed 10 year old Yassin Abu Khoussa…
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The news was on the computer when I first turned it on this morning. Yassin’s 6-year-old sister, Israa Abu Khoussa, was said to be critically injured. Then a few hours later came the news that Israa had succumbed to her wounds as well…
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According to a report here by Gaza journalist Mohammed Omer, the Khoussa family was living in a pre-fabricated hut in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza. Here is what the hut looked like on the inside after shrapnel from the missile tore through the place and neighbors had arrived on the scene…
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Many Gaza families have been living in huts like this since the massive destruction unleashed by Israel in the summer of 2014. The mainstream and Jewish media are reporting that the attack that killed the two children was “retaliation” for rockets allegedly fired from Gaza, but we’ve all heard that old tired story before. Here is what Omer reports:
Before 10-year-old Yassin Abu Khoussa went to sleep, he prepared his schedule for school on Saturday, checked his bag on the floor next to his bed and tucked himself in, sleeping on a pink pillow. He would be getting up at 6am to leave for school to be present, in line, at 7am with his classmates.
He didn’t make it to his school line. Instead, people were waiting in line at the morgue of Kamal Adwan Hospital to see his body and pay final respects.
Yassin was asleep early Saturday when a missile from an Israeli F-16 hit nearby and shrapnel tore through his bedroom. Israel officials described the attack as a raid on four separatHamas military-training camps in response to rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel, although no Israeli casualties were reported. Israel said in a statement the four rockets fired from Gaza landed in open fields.
Gaza’s Interior Ministry said that the targets in Gaza were empty training camps, which was confirmed by local residents.
The Khoussa home was near the “empty training camps.” And that presumably justifies the killing of two children, at least in Israel’s warped view of things. Omer goes on to report:
Several of Abu Khoussa’s siblings were wounded in the airstrike, including 13-year-old Ayoub, who is now in a hospital.
Later on Saturday, his six-year-old sister Yasmine Abu Khoussa was also pronounced dead by local medics at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The attack was the first F-16 airstrike since a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence began at the end of last year. Since 2015, seven rockets have been launched from Gaza into Israel, including the four on Friday.
Most rockets from Gaza are fired by small factional groups, often groups that are in conflict with Hamas. Still, Israel has ultimately held Hamas responsible and has retaliated against the group’s facilities.
In October, a two-year-old Palestinian and her pregnant mother were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit their home in Gaza City.
A five-year-old was killed by an unexploded missile last month, in addition to others wounded and killed during protests against the Israeli fence with Gaza.
As Omer alludes, Gazans have held protests at the fence that runs along the border between Gaza and Israel, and according to a report here, five people were killed in those protests in December and January alone.
It’s hard to disagree with British Labor Party Member Sir Gerald Kaufman.
The Israelis, Kaufman says, “don’t have a better nature.”


Sir Gerald Kaufman, UK Labor Party, who is Jewish
“You can’t appeal to a better nature when they don’t have it”
Too bad we can’t get Jeremy Corbyn to utter a few simple truths like that, but I guess he hasn’t quite worked up the nerve.

Meanwhile in the West Bank, the Israelis have also raided a Palestinian TV station and media production company.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
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