In Memory of all those who Died in Gaza Palestine During the December 20, 2008

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One year after Gaza massacre

Monday, January 4, 2010
By: Chris Garaffa
Let Gaza live!

Dec. 27 marked one year since the beginning of Israel’s 2008-2009 brutal siege and invasion of Gaza. The three-week land and air assault on the Palestinian residents of Gaza was a highly concentrated use of firepower directed overwhelmingly at civilians.

The Gaza massacre was a methodically planned, murderous crime against humanity. It is inconceivable that it had anything other than the full backing of U.S. imperialism.

As a result of Israel’s barbarity and its blatant attempt to destroy infrastructure and the spirit of the illegally occupied people of Gaza, opposition to the occupation around the world has escalated over the past year.
The beginning of the attack lasted three minutes, 40 seconds and involved 54 warplanes bombing Palestinian civilian and government buildings. During the first nine hours of the attack, 100 tons of munitions were dropped on the Gaza Strip.
Days later, on Jan. 3, 2009, Israeli Defense Forces ground troops entered Gaza in the second stage of the attack. Planning for the attack began six months before the invasion.

In all, 1,440 Palestinians were killed, including 926 civilians. Over 5,000 were wounded and thousands of homes were destroyed. Israeli forces targeted women and children, ambulance drivers, schools and hospitals and destroyed as much infrastructure as possible. They used highly destructive weapons, including banned phosphorus munitions.

The Gaza Strip has the sixth highest population density in the world, with 1.5 million people forced into an area of 139 square miles, equaling 10,665 people per square mile. 4,000 homes were destroyed, leaving 50,800 Gazans displaced. The total damage has been estimated at over $2 billion.

Though a new administration wearing the hat of a different political party and campaigning on a promise of change is running the government in Washington, the Palestinian people have seen more of the same. U.S. aid to Israel has not decreased, and the administration’s response to new Israeli settlements being built in the West Bank amounts to a slap on the wrist. A deeply reactionary government runs affairs in apartheid Israel.
Despite all this, the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and refugee camps in other countries continue to struggle heroically against the racist, imperialist occupation of their land.

Following the military attacks, Israel strengthened its debilitating blockade on Gaza. Israel continued to maintain its import-export ban on Gaza, which halted 95 percent of Gaza’s industrial operations in 2007. Access to electricity, natural gas and other sources of fuel is severely limited.

Palestinians are generally unable to rebuild their homes, businesses and schools in a meaningful way, as Israel refuses to let steel and cement through the border crossings, claiming Hamas could use them to build weapons. Only a small number of Palestinians are able to afford the overpriced, low-quality cement available on the underground market. On Feb. 12, 2009, Egypt blocked 2,200 tons of food and medicine being brought in through the Rafa crossing.

With a population of 7.3 million people, 0.01 percent of the world population, Israel receives a vastly disproportionate amount of foreign aid from the U.S. government.

Due to complex financial and diplomatic tricks, the total amount of U.S. aid to Israel cannot be reliably determined, but is estimated at over $206 billion between 1949 and 2007. The Pentagon often participates in joint projects with the Israeli Defense Forces and spends billions of its large budget to develop weapons programs for Israel’s use.

Some of the billions in funds come back to the U.S. government and military corporations in the form of weapons purchases. Israel used its fleet of Lockheed Martin’s F-16 jet fighters, Boeing’s AH-64 Apache helicopters and 7,000 guided artillery rounds developed with Raytheon in the attack on Gaza.
The F-16s were outfitted with a U.S.-made precision guidance system to deliver 1,000-pound bombs. This half-ton bomb is capable of delivering the blast of a one-ton bomb, twice its size, through 6.5 feet of concrete.

People have rallied around the world on the anniversary of the invasion of Gaza, staging protests, forums and broad campaigns to stop the ongoing siege of Gaza. A total of 1,362 people from 43 countries arrived in Egypt in the last week of December to participate in the Gaza Freedom March, which planned to march from Egypt through the Gaza border.

Justice demands an immediate end to the siege of Gaza.

Source of Article and Photo: PSLweb.org
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January 4, 2010 - Posted by Elias

River to Sea  Uprooted Palestinian