These children are not wolves in sheep's clothing!


Gaza hospital overwhelmed by dead, wounded

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writers Ibrahim Barzak And Diaa Hadid, Associated Press Writers – Mon Jan 5, 3:32 pm ET

Palestinians carry the bodies of three toddlers Ahmed, Mohamed, and Issa AP – Palestinians carry the bodies of three toddlers Ahmed, Mohamed, and Issa Samouni, who according to Palestinian …

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Wailing in grief, Salah Samouni banged his head against a wall inside the hospital morgue where the bodies of his three young nephews lay on the floor Monday.

After 10 days of a relentless Israeli assault, Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, is overwhelmed. Bodies were crowded two to a morgue drawer, and some — like 3-year-old Issa, 4-year-old Mohammed and 5-year-old Ahmad — were on the floor.

Shifa's shabby halls echoed Monday with the sounds of people screaming and the wail of ambulance sirens. Many of the wounded were being treated in hallways by harried doctors and nurses running on little sleep. The hospital was powered by emergency generators after shelling damaged power lines.

Since Israel began a ground offensive Saturday, most of the dead and wounded arriving at Shifa are civilians, as Israel's offensive shifts from airstrikes to artillery shelling and fighting close to densely populated areas.

Israel says it is targeting only the Hamas militants who control Gaza in an attempt to halt seven years of rocket fire at Israeli communities. But the 550 Palestinians who have been killed include at least 200 civilians, according to Dr. Moaiya Hassanein of the Gaza Health Ministry.

On Monday, 20 children between the ages of 2 and 15 were killed, he said. Since the military offensive began Dec. 27, three Israeli civilians and two soldiers have been killed.

Nurse Ahmad Abdul Salam, 34, red-eyed and smelling of sweat, his clothes stained with blood, said he couldn't sleep. "When my shift ends, I help my colleagues. These are our brothers and friends who are being harmed," he said.

The hospital's most gruesome scene was in its morgue, where blood pooled on the floor and refrigerators meant to hold 35 bodies were crammed with 70, laid side-by-side in drawers.

Lying on a gray mat on the floor, the three Samouni brothers appeared baby-faced and almost as though they were asleep, except for a large bandage wrapped around Issa's head.

The children's father was also killed in what relatives said was an Israeli strike on a house in eastern Gaza City where the family had fled to escape fighting nearby.

Relatives wept Monday and one man screamed for help for other family members he said were buried under the rubble of the house. "For God's sake, rescue them!" he pleaded.

No militants were seen at Shifa. Israel says its forces have killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen, but Hamas has not listed its casualties and it is unclear where militants are being treated or where their bodies were taken.

Shifa has been powered by generators since power completely cut out in Gaza City three days ago. Israel has not replenished Gaza's power station with industrial fuel since fighting began, and airstrikes have badly damaged power lines.

U.N. health official Mahmoud Daher said the generators were meant only as an emergency backup and he feared they would break down with the constant use, imperiling some 70 people hooked up to lifesaving equipment.

Throughout the day, exhausted medics rushed in with the wounded and the bodies of the dead.

Mohammed Salman, 26, a volunteer medic washing blood from the inside of an ambulance, said he had treated people with horrific injuries, including headless children and a woman whose stomach had been torn open.

The woman screamed, "Leave me and save my children," he said, and burst into tears.

Israeli aircraft have hit three ambulances in Gaza since the campaign began, killing seven medics, according to Gaza health officials.

A medical building owned by a relief organization not connected to Hamas was also bombed, said Daher. He said the building was destroyed, along with an ambulance, three mobile clinics and donated medicines.

The Israeli army says it has no records of any of those strikes.

Raed Arini, a Shifa hospital official, said he has stopped filling out the space on death certificates that says "reason for death."

"The reason for death is the Israeli army," he said, as medics rushed in with more wounded people.

NPR News ...

It's 110% better then Fox News.

NPR is the Citadel of Liberalism... ...I just watched Hannity and Combs...what a show !...Karl Rove...**** Morris, and Ann Coulter...

And you think that you watch news?!

Have you ever listened to NPR? They tell both sides of the story 100 x's more then Fox.

550 killed, 25% civilian, that means 75% soldiers hiding among civilians...

i have a brilliant suggestion! it has just come to me!
why don't they just stop firing rockets at israelis?

ya think maybe hamas wants to see mass numbers of civilian gazan caaualties? call me cynical.

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The article that I posted said that out of 550 Palestinians killed, at least 200 were civilians. That's more like 38% civilian and 62% soldiers.

well i'm sure nobody knows the real percentage. the article i read suggested about 25% civilians. any civilian casualties is a tragedy. at least the israelis do not purposefully try to kill the civilians that hamas hides behind while hamas purposefully aims at maximum civilian
casualties.

the hamas motto is: "maximize civilians killed"

i have a brilliant suggestion! it has just come to me!
why don't they just stop firing rockets at israelis?

Why dont we just let the UN go in and stop all he killing?

They are attacking houses and even a kindergarten school and the refugee camp.

HIwinx have a great day back to the grindstone for me. WOrk is over rated

Hamas is using houses, schools, mosques and refugee camps as shields as they openly conduct military operations in these places. Hamas prefers mass civilian casualties they are trying to kill (martyr) their own people.

one bit of proof on this would be great. but keep in mind Hamas was voted in by the people of Gaza so in all liklyhood just about everyone supports them. Gaza is one of the most densly populated places on earth so a big damn bomb goes off some woman or child is likely to get hit. the Military planners know this unfortunaly you dont

oh i understand it all right. i deplore it. hamas should never have been elected. if you watch the Mossab Hassan Yousef (former Hamas youth leader) video, he describes how Hamas tortures their own members for coercion. Hamas is a radical Islamic organization they believe in religious martyrdom, suicide bombing of civilians and most certainly sacrificing civilians (most especially non-believing civilians) for the sake of their cause.

so, I offer Mossab Hassan Yousef's testimony as proof. but there are also the secondary explosions of munition dumps blowing up within mosques etc. and public comments by Hamas leaders that they do not care how many are killed in their cause...their tapes on martyrdom, the Hamas kindergarten suicide bomber curriculum...etc. etc.

for months, israel tried to get Hamas to cease firing rockets at israeli towns, schools, houses. they wouldn't stop. it is a Hamas strategy to martyr civilians on both
sides.

http://kdka.com/topstories/israel.gaza.hamas.2.897889.html

Instead, both intensified their fire. Israel bombed a mosque that it said was used to store rockets as well as vital smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border, and the Islamic militants hammered southern Israeli cities with about 60 rockets.

The chief of Israel's internal security services, Yuval Diskin, told a government meeting that Hamas members are hiding inside mosques, believing they'll be safe from airstrikes and using them as command centers, according to an Israeli security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to share the information.Other militants were hiding in hospitals, some disguised as doctors and nurses, Diskin said, according to the official.

http://www.hamasterrorism.com/category/hamas-weapons-smuggling/


A proponent of using civilian human shields to protect wanted Hamas members, on November 19, 2006, Hamas’ Rayan promised on Palestinian TV that the terrorist group would use “the bodies and souls” of [Palestinian] civilians to protect the houses of terrorists (he called them “jihad fighters”).

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=58837

Hamas terrorists brag of hiding behind kids
'Palestinian people have developed methods of death and death-seeking'

Hamas MP Fathi Hammad

A prominent member of Hamas, a recognized terrorist group, has been captured on video boasting of using women, children and the elderly as human shields in its firefights with Israeli soldiers.During the fighting, focused largely on the minor Hamas infrastructure in the city of Jabaliya about one mile into the Gaza Strip, an Israeli commander speaking to WND Jerusalem Bureau Chief Aaron Klein from inside Gaza said Hamas has been drawing Israeli forces into populated civilian areas, shooting at Jewish fighters from occupied civilian homes while women and children were inside.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733150721&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter


The IDF also struck the American International School in Beit Lahiya, the most prestigious educational institution in Gaza. The school is not connected to the US government, but teaches an American curriculum in English. The IDF said the campus was used to fire rockets and was a legitimate target.



http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=17870

Report: Hamas hiding most potent missiles under Gaza hospital

Israel's Channel One News reported on Monday evening that Hamas is hiding its most potent missiles under Gaza City's main hospital. Israeli officials are discussing how to destroy the massive cache of Grad missiles.One of the rumored options is to give the Palestinians three hours to evacuate the hospital before Israeli jets destroy the building and the weapons warehouse beneath.

And yet knowing that Hamas is firing from homes with families in them IDF still find it better to use bombs instead of bullets?? They are then as bad as Hamas since they show the same total disregard for civilians.

Have you ever been in the military?I have.Anyone with half a brain would rather bomb a target then to send in 30 men to risk half of them dead by a IED,missle,or ambush.Your answers bore me.

51 Service Batt. Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, 122 Trans. Co.

followed by

48th Highlanders


Since the majority are civilians. Since these civilians are not firing. Since it is in keeping with Geneva Conventions to protect civilians in an area of conflict.

YOU DON"T INTENTIONALLY CAUSE DEATHS AMONG CIVILIANS!!!!


You do not punish an entire population for the acts of a few.



I find your responses typical of the American military mindset from those I met while in uniform......'Nuke them till they glow and shoot them them in the dark'. Thankfully I have met some who know how to think.

Former US Navy and contractor for the US Army Stryker program.


Since we are both prior military I salute you!

And who would the UN Peacekeepers go to protect? Everybody? I doubt it. They are only calling on the Israelis to stop their completely legal retaliation against the Palestinian terrorists. If the UN Peacekeepers started attacking the Israelis, then things would escalate out of control.