"We did not attack any boat, we merely fulfill the Israeli government's decision to prevent anyone from going into the Gaza strip without coordinating with Israel," a statement from the Israeli military said. "The flotilla is a provocation made to de-legitimize Israel. Had they really wanted to deliver the cargo into Gaza they could have done so via Israel as it is done on a daily basis."
At least 10 killed during an assault by an Israeli commando.
They say some passengers have attacked the commando with knifes and axes.
Now, if it has happened in international waters, I guess the Israeli raid could be considered as an act of piracy, and what the passengers did was self-defence.
And if it has happened in Israeli territorial waters, then it is also the fault of the humanitarian flotilla, but still, 10 deads during an assault of an humanitarian flotilla, it's not a very smart move in terms of public relations.
That's their justification for killing 16 unarmed civillians in international waters?!?! BS
Israel says it allows about 15,000 tones of humanitarian aid into Gaza every week.
But the United Nations says this is less than a quarter of what is needed
RAFAH, Gaza — Dusty sacks filled with cans of Coca-Cola were being loaded onto trucks by young boys, headed for Supermarkets in Gaza City.
Thousands of Motorcycles were lined up on display in a nearby stadium, ranging in price from $2,000 to $10,000.
At Nijma market, refrigerators, flat-screen televisions, microwaves, air-conditioners, generators and ovens filled the tents, all at inflated prices, having been spirited into this town on the border with Egypt through tunnels under the sand. Some Gazans have even purchased Cars smuggled in parts into the isolated Palestinian enclave.
[...........]
there are more tunnels now than ever, and Rafah has turned into a Shopping Mecca where the tunnel owners are kings.
[...........]In the past, armed gangs roamed this frontier town with a lawless feel; journalists and humanitarian workers were about the only visitors to venture here. Now, customers flock in from all over Gaza. What started as a few clandestine tunnels dug beneath houses has turned into a booming industry that nobody bothers to hide.
Before the Gaza war the tunnels numbered in the hundreds. Today about 1,500 of them are said to be crammed into an eight-mile stretch along the border, employing in the neighborhood of 30,000 Palestinians from all over the territory. A local merchant has opened a 24-hour grocery store called “Dubai” to cater to them. Only the milk and the yogurt come from Israel. The Soft drinks, Beans, Chocolate, Cookies and Cooking oil come in consignments from under the ground.
Across the street Abu Raed Alarja, 58, fixes tools that are used to dig the tunnels. Inside his dark store, he also stocks cement, generators and blue plastic barrels strung together with strong ropes, used to drag goods from the Egyptian side....
....The tunnels that snake under Gaza’s border with Egypt have multiplied so fast that supply sometimes exceeds demand. So stiff is commercial competition that tunnel-diggers complain that their work is no longer profitable. As a British parliamentary report recently noted, Israel officially allows Gaza to import only 73 of more than 4,000 items that are available in the strip. The rest is home-made—or acquired illicitly. For instance, cement, which cost 300 Israeli shekels ($80) a sack two years ago, has dropped almost tenfold in price, precipitating a Spate of building for the first time since Israel’s attack a year ago reduced 4,000 houses to ruins. And eyewitnesses say that flashy 4x4 vehicles can actually drive through tunnels built from shipping containers.
Israel’s siege still causes misery. Yet some economists say the strip is growing faster than the West Bank run by Hamas’s rival Palestinian Authority (PA), albeit from a far lower base. The petrol pumped into Gaza by underground pipes and hoses from Egypt costs a third of what it does in Ramallah, the Palestinians’ West Bank capital, where Israel supplies it.
Free health care is more Widely available in Gaza. Imports travel faster through the tunnels than via Israel’s thickets of bureaucracy...."
As well as lower prices, Gazans benefit from civil-service payrolls. Several outfits pump cash into the strip’s economy: the local Hamas government; the UN, which employs 10,000 Gazans; and Salam Fayyad’s West Bank government, which is the largest employer of all. Payments to Hamas and its connected tunnel-operators boost the economy too. A car-dealer bringing in a new Hyundai saloon through the tunnels stands to make a profit of $13,000.
Above ground things look better, too. In the 14 months since the war ended, Hamas has swept up much of the wreckage. The Islamic University, bombed by Israel’s aircraft, sparkles again. New cafés have opened across Gaza City......"
It's a Shame if anyone lost their lives in this PR Stunt-... as Gaza is Not starving nor short of Anything they're bringing.
October, NY times
Rafah Journal
Goods Flood Gaza’s Tunnels, Turning Border Area Into a Shopping Mecca http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/wo...t/22rafah.html
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY
October 21, 2009
Economist.com The Economist
Hamas has done well to survive but it is threatened by Rivalry among Islamists
The Economist, Mar 31st 2010
GDP:
purchasing power parity - $1.7 billion (2002 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:
-22% (2002 est.)
GDP - per capita:
purchasing power parity - $800 (2002 est.)
GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 9%
industry: 28%
services: 63%
note: includes Gaza Strip (1999 est.)
Population below poverty line:
60% (2003 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA%
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
2.2% (includes Gaza Strip) (2001 est.)
Labor force:
NA
Labor force - by occupation:
services 66%, industry 21%, agriculture 13% (1996)
Unemployment rate:
50% (includes Gaza Strip) (2003 est.)
Budget:
revenues: $676.6 million
expenditures: $1.155 billion, including capital expenditures of NA (includes Gaza Strip) (2003 est.)
Industries:
generally small family businesses that produce cement, textiles, soap, olive-wood carvings, and mother-of-pearl souvenirs; the Israelis have established some small-scale, modern industries in the settlements and industrial centers
Industrial production growth rate:
NA%
Electricity - production:
NA kWh; note - most electricity imported from Israel; East Jerusalem Electric Company buys and distributes electricity to Palestinians in East Jerusalem and its concession in the West Bank; the Israel Electric Company directly supplies electricity to most Jewish residents and military facilities; some Palestinian municipalities, such as Nablus and Janin, generate their own electricity from small power plants
Electricity - production by source:
fossil fuel: 100%
hydro: 0%
nuclear: 0%
other: 0% (2001)
Electricity - consumption:
NA kWh
Electricity - imports:
NA kWh
Agriculture - products:
olives, citrus, vegetables; beef, dairy products
Exports:
$603 million f.o.b., includes Gaza Strip
Exports - commodities:
olives, fruit, vegetables, limestone
Exports - partners:
Israel, Jordan, Gaza Strip (2000)
Imports:
$1.9 billion c.i.f., includes Gaza Strip
Imports - commodities:
food, consumer goods, construction materials
Imports - partners:
Israel, Jordan, Gaza Strip (2000)
Debt - external:
$108 million (includes Gaza Strip) (1997 est.)
Economic aid - recipient:
$2 billion (includes Gaza Strip) (2001-02 est.)
Currency:
new Israeli shekel (ILS); Jordanian dinar (JOD)
Currency code:
ILS; JOD
My links from the Economist and NY Times are "Dishonest"?60% of Gaza lives under poverty levels. Your links are meaningless and quite dishonest. Black markets with inflated prices are not representative of a populations wealth but of the poverty it is experiencing. What I find best is your selective highlighting.
No official statements from the Israeli government or Navy yet.
Israeli media are reporting that the convoy was instructed by radio to either return to Cyprus or head for the port city of Ashdod where humanitarian supplies would be off-loaded and then transfered to Gaza.
It seems that when neither directive was followed, Israeli helicopter-borne commandos boarded the convoy flagship. Apparently, activists then engaged them with lethal force and the commandos responded with lethal force.
No firm report on fatalities. It is reported that seven wounded (one critical) have been flown to a hospital in Haifa, but is is unknown at this time if these casualties are commandos or activists.
An ugly situation indeed
No official statements from the Israeli government or Navy yet.
Israeli media are reporting that the convoy was instructed by radio to either return to Cyprus or head for the port city of Ashdod where humanitarian supplies would be off-loaded and then transfered to Gaza.
It seems that when neither directive was followed, Israeli helicopter-borne commandos boarded the convoy flagship. Apparently, activists then engaged them with lethal force and the commandos responded with lethal force.
No firm report on fatalities. It is reported that seven wounded (one critical) have been flown to a hospital in Haifa, but is is unknown at this time if these casualties are commandos or activists.
An ugly situation indeed
My links from the Economist and NY Times are "Dishonest" or me?
What shall we call your Undocumented Crap then?
What's Dishonest?
Those are from reporters on the ground reporting the actuial on-the-ground situation.
Much more With Pictures available.
Gazans have all the goods and services they can afford and more.
RAFAH, Gaza — Dusty sacks filled with cans of Coca-Cola were being loaded onto trucks by young boys, headed for Supermarkets in Gaza City.
Thousands of Motorcycles were lined up on display in a nearby stadium, ranging in price from $2,000 to $10,000.
At Nijma market, refrigerators, flat-screen televisions, microwaves, air-conditioners, generators and ovens filled the tents, all at inflated prices, having been spirited into this town on the border with Egypt through tunnels under the sand. Some Gazans have even purchased Cars smuggled in parts into the isolated Palestinian enclave.
The UNRWA, their very own agency which we pay for, keeps them overall much better than less well known similar ones mentioned below.
Many Gazans do live in poverty... of course.. no worse poverty than other countries with a median age of 17 and growing the population 40% every 10 years. (doubling every 20 yrs)
They're simply No place for them to work.
Only the Arab Gulf states can afford the Arab fertility rate, and even the Saudi GDP per person is falling.
Think Condoms!
They are in no worse shape the the residents of Cairo overall or any other Place with similar demographics (Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, etc).
But that can hardly be attributed to Israel.
As someone who is fluent on this topic and made most of his posts here on it and in the M-E section, it's amusing/Insdulting/Laughable to get a lecture from a total Rookie who just read todays' headlines.
But this is hardly News for me.. even tho it is for You.
3/20/2010
http://www.debatepolitics.com/middle-east/68581-gaza-open-air-prison-ghetto-refugee-camp.html
IDF: Soldiers were met by well-planned lynch in Gaza waters
Israel is trying too justify this massacre thought they also forget a 85 year old Holocaust survivor was on the Flotilla.
According to IDF reports, at least 10 acitivists were killed during the ensuing clashes as well as six Navy commandos, some of them from gunfire and at least one in serious condition with a head wound. Foreign reports claimed that the number of dead was close to 15. Some of the wounded were evacuated to Israeli hospital by Air Force helicopters.
Upon boarding the ships, the soldiers encountered fierce resistance from the passangers who were armed with knives, bats and metal pipes. The soldiers used non-lethal measures to disperse the crowd. The activists succeeded in stealing the weapon from one of the IDF’s soldiers and reportedly opened fire, leading to an escalation in violence.
Well then, you've committed an infraction. Or, Rather, have been forced to accuse me of Dishonesty because you could NOT refute my links.. NY Tiimes and Economist mag.You.
What's not documented yet is the death toll You trumpeted gleefully, and perhaps why they are dead.. (some reports say thet tried to wrestle weapons from Israeli soldiers). and what's also not Refuted is WHY they live in Poverty.Which undocumented crap? The one that says over 50% of Palestinians live in poverty? Lol. Hardly undocumented.
And you had no real answer then either.You. We went over this above.
Already covered.Irrelevant, people on the ground reporting that there are black markets with inflated prices while forgetting the majority of the population lives in poverty are simply paying lip service to Israel's defenders. Nothing more, nothing less.
Again, I already said many Gazans (and Cairenes and Somalis and Yemenis and Pakistanis, etc) lived in Poverty and Explained why-- while you innuendo against the Jewish State without documentation of why.Only the majority of them can't afford it. As over 50% of them live in poverty and prices as your articles say are inflated. Oh I'm sorry?
Am I exposing your dishonesty? Here, I'll highlight the part you forgot:
And Gaza has a history of terrorism which brought on the Blockade.. nonetheless they are also No worse off the Cairenes just 200 miles away, or Yemenis, nor Pakistanis. ALL of the latter you HAD to Drop as you could NOT explain it away.Laughable. Somalia has over 50 years of oppression at the hands of foreign and local establishments. Pakistan only became a country this century and for most of it's history has been engulfed in various wars. Yemen had a civil war less than 20 years ago. Comparing Gaza to them only serves to cement my point. Not yours. Now stop this. You're making yourself look simple.
If we assume (as newspapers report) that it has happened in international waters, do you think that the israeli commando had the right to board these ships?
And, second question, let's also assume that the deads are not Israeli (that's also very likely, but newspapers have to confirm that), don't you think that the use of force (10 killed apparently) is totally out of proportion with the danger caused by these ships (humanitarian ships loaded with wheelchairs and food, with several European MEP and apparently some guys who had knives)?
I have not seen any reports that it was actually in international waters, can you offer a link please?
In terms of legal issues, if Israel is in an open state of conflict with Hamas, which I think they are, then imposing a blockade is not actually illegal, and it is not illegal to prevent ships from entering the blockade area, regardless of their purpose or intent.
I saw reports that the crew attacked soldiers with bats, knives, etc, and wrestled a gun from one IDF soldier and opened fire, resulting in fire being returned.
Just need to wait for more info.
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