- Signs of the Times for Fri, 29 Sep 2006 -

• Signs Editorials
• Sacrificing Palestinians to Yahweh
• Meanwhile in Iraq
• Target: Iran
• Israeli and the Non-Existent Lobby
• Foreign Affairs
• Soiling the Nest
• Less Bang for Your Buck
• Do You Like the New Jackboots?
• Life in George-uh
• The Right to Bear Arms
• The Asian Desk
• Israel's Still in Lebanon

Notes:

UK Indpendent: Children Killed in a War the World Doesn't Want to Know About
Comment on this Editorial

A heart-wrenching, blood-drenched reminder of what our Zionist-controlled mainstream media wants you to forever forget - how this whole bloody fiasco started in Gaza.

Israelis deliberately fired several rounds of shells onto a crowded beach ripping to pieces this 12 year old girl's entire family before her very eyes.

But, instead of this incident and many more in between, our Zionist controlled media inserts their celebrated Shalit "kidnapping" following EVERY new grisly murder of Palestinian civilians by bloodthirsty Israelis, in order to "remind" readers how it allegedly all started. They even include Israel's 'cause celebre' in photo captions to justify images of dead children - killed by Israel's war machine, and paid for by our tax dollars.

An Israeli warplane bombed and destroyed a home in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, [September 27, 2006] killing a teenage girl in a neighboring building and wounding 10 other people, Palestinian medics said.

The Israeli army confirmed it had fired at a house camouflaging a weapons-smuggling tunnel in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and that its occupants had been warned [MINUTES] beforehand to leave.

Dr. Ali Mousa, the director of Rafah's hospital, told Reuters a girl, 14, died when a block from the house that Israel bombed twice ricocheted into a neighboring building causing it to collapse.

He said 10 other people were wounded by the blast, most of them women and children who suffered broken bones, bruises and shrapnel wounds.

The Israeli strike came hours after a rocket fired from Gaza wounded an off-duty Israeli soldier in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

Israel has stepped up military operations in Gaza, a coastal strip it had withdrawn from last year, after Palestinian militants captured a soldier in a June 25 cross-border raid.

The tears have not yet left the innocent face of one astonished girl, Huda Ghalia, 12, who lost 7 members of her family yesterday, while they enjoyed their weekend at the shore in the town of Beit Lahia, north of Gaza.

These enjoyable moments did not continue for long. Soon, the Israeli navy gunboats shot two bombs among the beachgoers.

Ali hailed a taxi and called for his family members to leave quickly, as soon as possible, and they collected their luggage, the children collected their toys, and they fled the now-dangerous beach.

"Suddenly, a rocket hit our family. I was only several meters away. The rocket fell among my mother, father, sisters and brothers. The dust was so intense that I couldn't see anything," she said, while laying on her bed at Kamal Udwan Hospital.

Seven members of the family were killed on the spot - the father Ali, 45, his son Haitham, 6 months, daughter Hanadi, 18 months, daughter Sabreen, 3, daughter Ilham, 7, daughter Alia, 25 and Ali's second wife, Raifa, 26. Several other women and children were wounded.

"I was so scared and ran away for several meters, and then I came back. I saw my brothers and sisters bleeding. I saw a head and hands but did not realize to whom they belonged. I saw my father - he was dead, lying on the dunes."

Eyewitness, Moneer Ghabin, said that he saw the "unbelievable and horrible" scene at the sea soon after the bombardment.

"Huda was running between the sand dunes as if she were looking for something. She was weaving between the bodies, and the body parts, of her family. She was scared, astonished, surprised and crying," Ghabin said.

Ayham, 20, another of Ali's sons, said that he was talking to his father just seconds before the attack.

"When the shell hit us, I do not know what happened. Within seconds, I realized that my family had been turned into a heap of flesh. Unconsciously, I carried someone's hand or leg - I'm not sure whose. I did not know what to do, and do not know why it happened," Ayham said.

Samir Kullab, 33, was carrying his bag leaving the shore. As his children followed, he said that the Israelis committed this crime because "they feel angry to see Palestinians enjoying their lives."

Kullab said that he could not understand why it happened and promised that he will never come, or allow his children to come, to see the sea again.

"At the end of the day in our constitutional system, someone will have to decide whether that [decision to designate someone an enemy combatant] is a right or just decision," Olson said. "Who will finally decide that? Will it be a judge, or will it be the president of the United States, elected by the people, specifically to perform that function, with the capacity to have the information at his disposal with the assistance of those who work for him?"

In a recent legal brief, Olson argued that the detention of people such as Hamdi or Padilla as enemy combatants is "critical to gathering intelligence in connection with the overall war effort."

Nor is there any requirement that the executive branch spell out its criteria for determining who qualifies as an enemy combatant, Olson argues.

"There won't be 10 rules that trigger this or 10 rules that end this," Olson said in the interview. "There will be judgments and instincts and evaluations and implementations that have to be made by the executive that are probably going to be different from day to day, depending on the circumstances."