Thu Sep 4, 2014 7:44AM GMT

By Tim King

What motivates the Israeli government to wage a two-month long attack on the civilians of Gaza? The answer is right in front of our nose: Israel will lose its trump card, America’s “Super Veto” power in the UN, if Palestine achieves statehood.

In the recently released aerial view of Al-Shejaiya’s destruction by Media Town, we see the real story of Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza. The recent two-month war, “Operation Protective Edge” the Israelis call it, came only a few years after the last full-scale attack waged by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza, a landlocked strip of Palestine surrounded by Israel, a sea patrolled by ruthless Israeli military vessels, and Egypt to the south.

The last attack in 2007/2009 was called “Operation Cast Lead” which was at least honest in its nomenclature, rather than a play on words to make the Israelis sound defensive, when they are in fact the most offensive world government in existence, with a long, sordid history of stealing real estate from innocent families and attacking its neighbors with the military hardware of the US government.

Gaza’s government is the legally elected group, Hamas. The group has reported the damage consistently, as more than 2000 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs. In retaliation, rockets were fired from Gaza, striking different parts of Israel, killing a small number of civilians, and a much larger number of Israeli Defence Forces.

Kill Ratios
The number of civilians killed by weapons fired from Gaza is sparse; 5 Israelis and one Thai national. Israel admits that around 65 soldiers were killed, Hamas places the number well above 100. Conversely, the same ratio applies to the militant/civilian death ratio in Gaza, only in reverse.

In other words, weapons from Gaza were used to kill Israeli soldiers, whereas weapons from Israel were primarily used to target Gaza civilians. Israeli and American politicians make political statements, blur numbers and literally excuse and justify the horrific civilian death toll in Gaza.

For perspective:
According to officially accepted counts, between 2,000 and 2,143 Gazans were killed in “Operation Protective Edge” including 495–578 children and between 10,895 and 11,100 were wounded.

66 IDF soldiers, 5 Israeli civilians and 1 Thai civilian were killed and 450 IDF soldiers and 80 Israeli civilians were wounded. Gaza’s Health Ministry, UN and human rights groups say 70–75% of the Palestinian casualties were civilians. With no respect to international observers, Israel claims 50% were civilians which is virtually impossible. Even if their numbers were true, Israel still admits to waging a war where one out of every two people killed were civilians, which is an extreme violation of International Law and a crime any other nation would be drug to war crime courts in Geneva over. This approach of Israel’s is called “Total War” and the avoidance of this barbaric practice that Israel relies upon, is the very reason International Laws were created in the first place.

The real truth is that as much as 30% of Gaza’s Muslim and Christian population was fully displaced by the most recent war from the so-called Jewish State. Just under half a million people in Gaza have no access to adequate food or water, medical supplies and building materials are strictly regulated by Israel, the people of Gaza always lack in these basic areas due to the military occupation of Palestine. United Nations schools became the places of refuge for these battered civilians and they, along with hospitals and other educational institutions were targeted and attacked by Israel’s US-supplied weapons, which are infinitely more devastating than the unguided rockets fired out of Gaza as a means of desperation.

In this latest war, hundreds of thousands of people were severely traumatized by the attacks. They will always live with the sounds of war, the screams of dying children, the smells of death and destruction. But we’re just getting started in surveying the damage to Gaza, where in the recent Israeli offensive, more than 17,200 homes were totally destroyed or badly damaged. Another 37,650 homes suffered damage but are still inhabitable. The video tells a story no human being should ever know.

Israeli Plans to Block Palestinian Statehood
The differences between Hamas and Fatah in the West Bank mellowed after 2011, following protests in Ramallah and Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated his willingness to visit Gaza and sign an agreement that would create a unified Palestine. But before this could happen, three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered and while the west and Israel blame Hamas, no members of the armed resistance group have claimed to have killed the boys. Only one expat from Hamas who lives in exile connected the dots to Hamas. Still, this was used as Israel’s excuse for laying waste to more than 2100 people in Gaza. In fact, the IDF stated the killings were in response to the launching of a single Qassam rocket, which hit no one. Yedioth Ahronoth’s Alex Fishman argued they were a “premeditated escalation” by Israel.

Why would Israel commit such a dastardly act?

Because Palestine, particularly a unified Palestine, is headed toward full statehood in the United Nations, and once this is reached, the United States will lose its “Super Veto” power which has been used by one US president after another, to prevent Israel from being convicted for war crimes and punished accordingly. Israel has been charged with war crimes dozens of times over the years, since Israel was formed in 1948, but Israel has remained exempt from responsibility for one reason only, super veto power.

It is a difficult time for the people of Gaza, but because Hamas did fight back, and Israelis were killed, and the world did see the horrific terrorism Israeie Defence Forces visited upon the Gaza Strip, things are changing. The public is slowly waking up to the fact that the Israeli government has pushed and pushed the Palestinians while stealing millions of acres of Palestinian land, under the guise of religious supremacy. In turn, Americans, Canadians and Britons are decreasingly believing the statements from people like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and they do in turn believe their own eyes, and even the mainstream US media has largely failed at sanitizing the reputation of Israel this time, because it is an impossible task.

Perhaps the mantra “never again” will have to be ceded and handed over to the Palestinians; a people truly victimized just as the Jews were in murderous Nazi Germany.
It just isn’t nice to kill little children.

TK/NN

Tim King specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide. His years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine. Tim is the news editor for Globalnewscenter.com and holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and the The Red Cross
More articles by Tim King

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria launched a series of airstrikes targeting a stronghold of the Islamic State extremist group on Saturday, killing at least 29 people, most of whom died when one of the missiles slammed into a crowded bakery, activists said.

The eight airstrikes smashed parts of buildings, set cars alight and crushed people under rubble in the northeastern city of Raqqa, which is ruled by the extremist group, according to video of the aftermath uploaded to social media networks.

At least 20 civilians were killed, alongside nine Islamic State fighters, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Most of the civilians were killed after at least one strike hit the Andalous bakery on a busy street, and the death toll was likely to rise, said the Observatory, which obtains its information from a network of activists on the ground.

The airstrikes were also reported by an activist who uses the name Abu Ibrahim and is a member of a media collective called "Raqqa is being silently slaughtered." He fled Syria fearing for his safety and asked that his current place of residence remain anonymous.

Another group, the Raqqa Media Center, uploaded video of the aftermath, which appeared to be genuine and was consistent with AP reporting of the event.

Abu Ibrahim said the local morgue was packed with charred bodies, making identification difficult. He and the Observatory said at least eight members of one family were killed.

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This image posted by the Raqqa Media Center of the Islamic State group, a militant extremist group, …

Other strikes hit a government finance building that the Islamic State used as its headquarters and another building used as a jail, Abu Ibrahim said.

It has been virtually impossible for journalists to visit Raqqa, a city of some 500,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates River, since the town fell to the Islamic State group earlier this year. The group routinely abducts reporters and recently beheaded two American journalists in response to U.S. airstrikes against the militants in Iraq.

The Syrian government strikes were part of an uptick of military action against the Islamic State group since it swept into neighboring Iraq, seizing northern and western swaths of that country and declaring a proto-state straddling the border.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has also suffered heavy losses against the Islamic State group, which killed hundreds of soldiers and pro-government fighters in recent months as it overran oil fields and military bases. There was no immediate government comment on the airstrikes.

In a separate incident, a Syrian military helicopter dropped a barrel bomb on a bus station in a rebel-held neighborhood of the northern city of Aleppo on Friday, killing at least 15 people, according to the Observatory and Aleppo-based activist Zein al-Rifai.

Al-Rifai and the Observatory said residents were still pulling out bodies from under the rubble on Saturday.

It wasn't immediately clear why the station, in the otherwise largely-abandoned, bombed-out neighborhood of Haydariyeh was targeted.

The government has carried out hundreds of raids in which it has dropped explosives-filled barrels on Aleppo in a bid to flush rebels out of Syria's second largest city and onetime commercial hub.

Activists say the so-called barrel bombs have killed thousands of civilians, and international rights groups have condemned the tactic, saying the bombs cannot be precisely targeted.

Baghdad (AFP) - Iraq on Saturday welcomed US President Barack Obama's plan for an international coalition against jihadists as a "strong message of support", after repeatedly calling for aid against the militants.

Obama outlined the plan at a NATO summit Friday for a broad coalition to defeat the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, which led an offensive that overran chunks of five Iraqi provinces in June and also holds significant territory in neighbouring Syria.

International concern has been building over IS, which has carried out numerous atrocities including killings, kidnappings and attacks on minorities in areas it controls in the two Arab states.

But the beheading of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, which IS claimed, have sparked significantly more outrage in the West than its other abuses, providing increased impetus for action.

On Saturday, the United Nations Security Council added further pressure, condemning the "heinous and cowardly" murder of Sotloff and saying that IS "must be defeated."

The United States has sent military advisers to Iraq and launched a campaign of air strikes against the jihadists, while it and a string of other countries have promised arms for Iraqi Kurdish forces battling IS militants.

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An image grab taken from a video released by the Islamic State (IS) and identified by private terror …

It carried out two more strikes on Friday and Saturday with a "mix of attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft," the US military's Central Command said in a statement.

The strikes destroyed four Humvees, one armoured personnel carrier and two trucks belonging to IS fighters, according to CENTCOM.

The American strikes raised to 133 the total carried out across Iraq since August 8, at least some of which, such as attacks on Humvees, are destroying US military equipment which the jihadists captured from the Iraqi military.

Obama said regional involvement was "absolutely critical" for the anti-IS effort, although the State Department added there were "no plans" for military coordination with Iran in the fight.

"We're going to degrade and ultimately defeat (IS)," Obama said.

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Iraqi Shiite militia fighters hold the Islamic State flag as they celebrate after breaking the siege …

He said there was "unanimity" among NATO members that the group "poses a significant threat", but European allies of the United States, while supportive of Obama's initiative, were more cautious.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari praised Obama's remarks as a strong response to Baghdad's long-standing appeals for aid.

- 'This is basically our fight' -

"We welcome that, and we have repeatedly called on our international partners for help and support because this threat is a very deadly threat... not only to the people of Iraq or the region, but to Europe, to America, to NATO," Zebari told AFP on Saturday.

"This is basically our fight... but we need the support -- our capacity is limited, and we need the support to enhance our capacity.

"Nobody's thinking of any ground troops at this stage -- they are calling for air support, for tactical support, for arming the forces on the ground, like the (Kurdish) peshmerga, the Iraqi security forces, and also to provide... intelligence, reconnaissance," said Zebari.

Across the border on Saturday, Syrian air strikes in the jihadist-held northern city of Raqa killed 35 people, 15 of them IS fighters, a monitoring group said.

Washington has said that operations in Syria will be needed to defeat IS, but has thus far ruled out any cooperation with the government in Damascus.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime carried out a bloody crackdown on opponents of his rule, sparking a civil war that has devastated the country and provided fertile ground for the rise of jihadists.

In Iraq, IS militants shot dead two doctors who allegedly refused to treat jihadists and a woman who ran for parliament earlier this year in the northern city of Mosul, a morgue employee and witnesses said.

Mosul was the first city to fall to the initial IS-led militant drive in June that swept Iraqi security forces aside.

Baghdad won its first major victories of the conflict when federal troops, Shiite militiamen and Kurdish fighters broke a months-long siege of one town on August 31 and then retook other nearby territory.