By Juan Cole
A new element entered the current Gaza war on Thursday, as Israel shelled a UN school full of displaced persons taking refuge there and large protests broke out in the Palestinian West Bank. The shelling of the UNRWA school, which killed 15 and injured 200, was a war crime. The UN had given the school’s coordinates to the Israelis, so they knew it was a school and was holding displaced persons. The UN, when informed it would be shelled, asked for more time to evacuate people but were denied it.
Some 10,000 Palestinian protesters marched from the Amaria refugee camp near Ramallah toward Jerusalem, stopping at the infamous Apartheid South Africa-style Qalandia checkpoint that often bars or makes difficult and time-consuming Palestinians access to the third holiest city in Islam. The crowds threw rocks and bottles at the Israeli troops, who replied by firing into the crowd, killing two young men and wounding others.
The march had been called for, in part in reaction to the shelling of the UN school, by “youth groups” and “popular organizations.”
The primary hospital in Ramallah said that they had admitted dozens of “live fire victims.”
Protests were also held in towns throughout the West Bank. There are roughly 2.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, but they are denied the basic rights of citizenship in a state and are kept stateless and under military occupation by Israel.
There have been demonstrations and protests every night in the West Bank, which is mobilizing against the attack on Gaza in ways it did not in 2012.
Thursday’s demonstration at Qalandiya was the biggest since the 2nd uprising of 2000-2005. The first uprising broke out in the late 1980s and led to the Oslo Peace Process. That process was deliberately destroyed by Binyamin Netanyahu, something he has boasted about on video. The buzz on the web is about the possibility of a third uprising.
The Night of Power is the holiest night in the Muslim calendar and involves people staying up late to pray.
Related video:
Thank you for this informative report on important developments. So far this morning I have checked several of the major U.S. news sources, but didn’t find a clear discussion of what happened. Without your contribution, I would still be confused and uninformed about this subject, as will likely be the case for many Americans.
In m estimation the most guilty entity in the ongoing Palestinian Genocide is American Professional Journalists working for the MSM. They know that they are COLLABORATORS. They know how propaganda, manufacturing of consent, works. They know that if the American public would be exposed to the horrors one sees in Internet sites, the American public would hit the ceiling and demand the USA Government would stop the barbaric killing.
If they can sue the president…. One of the reasons Roger Ailes and Murdocian Fox friends call their handiwork entertainment is that labeling it as news requires actual responsibility for what they say. Or so we (O Democracy) hold dear. Disinformation that’s documented, deliberate, professionally marketed — isn’t it like yelling fire in a crowded theater? I’m no attorney, but — this goes beyond the obvious culpability of the viewer. We live in a world where Beck and Rush teach “history” and actual teachers of history, those essential high school courses, are hamstrung by teaching to tests. Those bound for college take advance placement classes and never read another book.
“: Night of Destiny in Palestine: A Third Uprising? – link to t.co link to t.co
There is a global petition against the violence on Palestine. When it is said? The dead Palestinian children were merely collateral damage, the citizens of the world were horrified and angry. The deaths of those children are war crimes and crimes against humanity. We really don’t know what is behind these atrocities? However, something is going on behind these dastardly deeds. PM Harper of course, is up to his neck in these atrocities. Harper even seems the ringleader.
I would think the signatures on that petition would now be, in the millions.
I agree with you Nel! For the past week or so, most of the International news coverage, has been given to the Ukrainian plane disaster and the numerous daily interviews with the usual pundits.
The Gaza conflict seems to have taken a back seat to other world events that were important newsworthy items, but don’t really need any further attention. So why is the ongoing brutal assaults on civilians by the Israeli government not taking precedence on our nightly news reports. Hundreds of innocent Palestinians have been killed since last week, and all I hear from the US newscasters are mainly interviews with Israelis and Sen. Kerry.
Re Nel’s comment… as far as mainstream coverage goes Al-Jazeera has done a better job of reality-based reporting and has taken heat for it in some quarters. But what do you expect when Washington routinely covers for Israel and refuses to make it accountable – most recently at the UN when the US was the lone “no” vote against an inquiry into human rights abuses in Gaza.
Bottle rockets. They’re throwing bottle rockets. Such a fair fight. Very pin point…thank you sec. kerry
Putin is doubling down and so is Netanyahu. How will the west respond?
Israel is blatantly committing war crimes and genocide!!! it is such a joke to warn people of Gaza to run and obviously they don’t have any other place to run!! The last place they thought would be ” safe’ is the UN schools..that too came out to be totally wrong! Israel strike there anyway!
The world need to boycott Israel and calling the US government to stop sending them any aids. But that is not going to happen. This will create more and more violence towards the west because is being done to these people.
There’s no running from the truth.
The US could stop this in a day if they subjected Israel to the same threats and sanctions the Americans routinely invoke against nations on their enemies list as disturbers of world peace. But since the US and Israel both use the other as their cat’s paw in Mideast meddling, this will never happen.