Dear friends,
one day after I wrote my last blog, the Palestinian resistance detonated the wall that separated Palestinian Rafah from Egypt. Within hours, tens of thousands of Palestinians were flooding into the Sinai to buy much needed food, clothing, heating oil, fuel and other supplies. By afternoon, the Egyptian authorities put the figure at 60,000 while the UN put the figure as high as 350,000.
According to Israeli journalists, such as Amira Hass, the detonation of the wall had been planned for months by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. They had covertly weakened the foundations of the wall over a period of time and then on the morning of January 23, they detonated up to 20 explosions bringing down two section of the wall.
Please find below an excellent piece by Israeli activist, Jeff Halper from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. The title of his piece says it all!
POWER TO THE (PALESTINIAN)PEOPLE!
in solidarity, Kim
*************************************
POWER TO THE (PALESTINIAN)PEOPLE!
by Jeff Halper
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
January 23, 2008
The people of Palestine have done it again, taking their own fate in their hands after being let down by their own "moderate" political leadership and, indeed, the entire international community in their struggle for freedom. Early this morning they simply blew up the wall separating Gaza from Egypt, breaking a siege imposed on them by an Arab government in collaboration with Israel.
We, the peoples of the world, should take great pride and encouragement in this quintessentially civil society refusal to accept subjugation, to abandon their fate to governments, including their own, for whom the lives of ordinary people are simply grist for their political charades – Annapolis and its subsequent "peace process" being but the last cynical expression. For the Palestinians represent far more than just themselves. Their refusal to submit to the dictates of governments, or to governments' lack of interest in the well-being of people in general, reflects the desire of billions of oppressed people for identity, freedom, a decent life and actualization of their collective and individual rights and potentials. Most of the oppressed, the "wretched of the earth" as Franz Fanon called them a half-century ago, are too preoccupied with the daunting daily struggle for survival to organize and resist. Others do resist in a myriad of ways, but are most often repressed by their own political and economic "leaders," disappearing anonymously from view. In a few cases they have managed to mount effective resistance to oppression, even to prevail – though the billions spent on "counterinsurgency" warfare by the US, Europe, Russia, Israel and many "developing" nations augur ill for peoples attempting to
overthrow oppressive regimes.
In this the Palestinians stand at the forefront, in the front lines of peoples' insistence everywhere that their rights, well-being and fundamental values as human beings be respected by governments. And they do so (and I write this as an Israeli with great sorrow and shame) against one of the world's strongest and most ruthless military powers – a power that has dispossessed them from 85% of their land, which is trying to transform its occupation into a permanent regime of apartheid, which has spent decades impoverishing and disenfranchising them; the fourth largest nuclear power
which nevertheless casts itself as the victim. Not only have the Palestinians experienced the dehumanization all oppressed and colonized peoples experience, not only have they been made into the embodiment of the rich and powerful's greatest fear, evil "terrorists" who may tear down their privileged "civilization," but they have been turned into guinea pigs. Israel is able to gain an edge in the counterinsurgency industry and win entree into the heart of the American military/hi tech complex by turning the Occupied Territories into a laboratory for the development of fiendish weaponry and tactics intended for use against people.
And yet the Palestinian people – and in particular those who remain *sumud*, steadfast, in Palestine – continue not only to resist but to surprise and confound its would-be Israeli master at every turn. Despite unlimited control, a complete monopoly over the use of force, utter callousness and a vaunted Shin Beit, Israel's military intelligence, Palestinians vote as they want, resist, carry on their daily lives with dignity – and blow huge holes in the walls and policies constructed in order to imprison and defeat them.
All this is not on the minds of those desperate people who surged into Egypt today. They may not have the "Big Picture." Yet they deserve the respect and gratefulness of every person who cherishes a better world based on human rights and dignity, a world that is inclusive. As an Israeli Jew, I have been saddened and mortified that my own people, after all they have experienced, cannot see what they are doing to others. But on a larger scale, not as an Israeli Jew but as a human being, I take heart in the Palestinians' active refusal to be ground under a global system that is producing unimaginable wealth and power for a few at the expense of the growing ranks of the wretched.
I am not a Palestinian; I am not one of the oppressed. I only hope I can use my privilege in an effective way in order to redeem the gift the people of Gaza have given all of us: the realization that the people do have power and can prevail even in the face of overwhelming power. We may each express our responsibility towards the people of Gaza in whatever way most suits us, but as the privileged we must do something. We owe the Palestinians and the Palestinians writ large at least that.
17 comments:
Yup- Now they're Egypt's problem; as they should be.
Kim: Thank you for this totally unbiased insight from the cesspool you chose to make your mission in life. No mention of the reason for the closure by Israel: seven years of unremittant Kassam rocket attacks from Gaza into the sovereign country of Israel and on the civilian population of Sderot and the surrounding settlements; no mention of the fact that your precious Palestinians, by choosing to elect an internationally recognised terrorist organisation to be their leaders in a democratic election, gave these killers the opportunity to plunge their own people into chaos and war with their excess of hatred for Israel. By the way, try to find ONE Palestinian in Gaza today, who is not a card-carrying Hamas terrorist, who will admit to you that they voted for Hamas. It seems they all suffer from amnesia these days. After Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Palestinians were so ecstatic that they tore down every single hothouse left to them by the Israeli farmers so that they could be self-sufficient. This was done in "the heat of the moment, because they were so overjoyed at being free of the Jews at last". Right, and now the Israelis have to feed them. Wake up and smell the roses, Kim. And if you do insist on running a blog, at least start by getting your facts right; otherwise you are just another propaganda tool for Hamas - they are very good at recruiting foreigners like you.
Great news- Habash is dead.
Dear Marcell,
if we are going to talk about bias, lets talk about the fact that you and many other zionists like you fail to mention that you hold up as heroes of the Zionist state dozens of internationally recognised terrorists.
How convenient it is that you and other Zionists forget that many of you people you hold up as heroes in Israel and even elected to govern your country were once listed as terrorists, were recognised internaitonally as terrorist and were even jailed as terrorists
Many, for example, were involved in the terrorist bombing of the King David Hotel, they were involved in the bombing of British trains in Palestine, as well as police stations. They were involved in the murder of British diplomats and they regulary threw bombs into crowed Palestinian markets in cities at places like Haifa.
But you call them heroes. You call them "resistance" fighters because you claim they defended your cause and your people.
Well, sorry Marcell, you can't have it both ways. If you want to hold up what people recognised internationally as terrorists as heroes of the Israeli and Zionist cause, then you can't complain when Palestinians also choose to see their resistance fighters in the same light.
And as for bias, how about the fact that you have failed to mention that in Gaza in the last 7 years more than 3000 have been killed by Israeli state weaponary, while how many have been killed in Sderot (less than a dozen).
That is not to say the lives of Israelis living in Sderot any less valuable then a Palestinian life, every life is sacred. However, to try and justify the killing of thousands in the name of security is sick and disgusitng and you fail to mention this at all.
You reveal yourself to be nothing by racist. You brand all Palestinian terrorists - this is nothing but Islamophobia and racism.
As for tearing down infrastructure in the Gaza after disengagement - Marcell get you facts straight - the illegal settlers and the zionist state destroyed everything in order for it not to be used.
Sadly you are the one with amnesia and little facts but then again that is typical of most Zionists.
Habash may be dead but he has inspired millions to continue the struggle for a free Palestine and that is something you will never be able to do away with.
Your moral compass is completely screwed up, lady. You think that ARAB TERRORISTS DELIBERATELY AND INTENTIONALLY MURDERING INNOCENT PREGNANT WOMEN AND CHILDREN, and ARAB TERRORISTS DELIBERATELY AND INTENTIONALLY MURDERING A BABY IN A STROLLER is the same as calling to warn the British that their military headquarters will be targeted before going ahead with it?
You must have grown up in a void.
It isn't about race. It's about not tolerating Arab murderers. We won't.
We will eliminate them wheneever we can and make the world a better, safer place for all civilized people.
A TERRORIST DESECRATION
13 September 2002
by Dr. Anthony McRoy
Imagine if Al-Qaida were able to gain control of 'Ground Zero' the site of the Word Trade Center. Imagine if they were to build an airport on the site of their massacre - over the graves of the people they massacred. Imagine the revulsion people across the world would feel if airlines agreed to use 'Bin Laden International Airport, New York'. Likewise, imagine if the Serbs did the same at Srebenica, site of their massacre in July 1995 of 12,000 Muslim civilians. Similarly, imagine if the Nazis had won the War and did the same at Auschwitz. In each case the action would be seen as a calculated insult to the dead; every time a plane landed, it would rightly be viewed as a desecration of the massacre victims.
People sometimes refer to 'Tel Aviv' Airport, yet 'Ben Gurion Airport' is actually in Lod - originally the Palestinian town of Lydda. Few people - even British Arabs or Muslims - know the dark history of this place. The city was conquered by Haganah and Irgun terrorists in 1948. On July 13, 1948, Zionist terrorists forced the entire population of as many as 70,000 men, women and children to flee their homes. The initial attack against Lydda and its twin city, Ramleh, was led by Lt. Col. Moshe Dayan, later Israeli defence and foreign minister. It is the complicity of senior Israeli officials like Dayan, Rabin, Allon and Ben Gurion in the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Lydda and Ramleh that mark the event as a definitive symbol of the nature of the Zionist regime's terrorist creation. The Zionist State was born in the blood of innocent Palestinians.
Two US journalists witnessed the attack on Lydda. The article 'Blitz Tactics Won Lydda' by Keith Wheeler of the Chicago Sun Times wrote stated that 'practically everything in their way died. Riddled corpses lay by the roadside.' Kenneth Bilby of the New York Herald Tribune reported that he saw 'the corpses of Arab men, women and even children strewn about in the wake of the ruthlessly brilliant charge.'
Accounts of the attack and what followed recall uncomfortable echoes of Srebenica. All men of military age were sent to camps. The residents of Lydda were promised that if they congregated in mosques and churches they would be safe. On July 12, a brief firefight broke out in Lydda between Zionist terrorists and a Jordanian reconnaissance team in which two Zionists were killed. The retaliation was terrible. The Zionist commander ordered his troops to kill anyone on the streets. The Zionist terrorists massacred 426 men, women, and children. Zionist terrorists then attacked the people sheltering in mosques and churches, killing 176 people in Dahmash mosque alone. This is important to remember. The massacre and ethnic cleansing of Lydda and Ramleh was not just racist, but also sectarian. Churches and mosques were desecrated, yet there has been a deafening silence on this issue from both Christian and Muslim leaders in the West.
The same day Ben Gurion ordered the expulsion of all Palestinians from the towns. The order said: 'The residents of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age.' It was signed by Lieutenant-Colonel Yitzhak Rabin, operations chief of the Lydda-Ramleh attack and later Israeli military chief of staff and Prime Minister. A similar order was issued about Ramleh. Out of the 19,000 people who formerly lived in Lydda, only 1,052 were permitted to remain. Israeli historian Benny Morris reported:
'All the Israelis who witnessed the events agreed that the exodus, under a hot July sun, was an extended episode of suffering for the refugees, especially from Lydda. Some were stripped by soldiers of their valuables as they left town or at checkpoints along the way.... One Israeli soldier ... recorded vivid impressions of the thirst and hunger of the refugees on the roads, and of how 'children got lost' and of how a child fell into a well and drowned, ignored, as his fellow refugees fought each other to draw water. Another soldier described the spoor left by the slow-shuffling columns, 'to begin with [jettisoning] utensils and furniture and in the end, bodies of men, women and children, scattered along the way!' 'Quite a few refugees died-from exhaustion, dehydration and disease-along the roads eastwards, from Lydda and Ramleh, before reaching temporary rest near and in Ramallah. Nimr Khatib put the death toll among the Lydda refugees during the trek eastward at 335; Arab Legion commander John Glubb Pasha more carefully wrote that 'nobody will ever know how many children died.'
Just as Bosnians were looted and plundered by the Serbs, and Jews looted by the Nazis, the same happened to the Palestinians of Lydda and Ramleh. Zionists terrorists searched Arabs to steal their possessions and indiscriminately murdered many. The Economist reported: 'The Arab refugees were systematically stripped of all their belongings before they were sent on their trek to the frontier. Household belongings, stores, clothing, all had to be left behind.' One youthful Palestinian survivor recalled: 'Two of my friends were killed in cold blood. One was carrying a box presumed to have money and the other a pillow which was believed to contain valuables. A friend of mine resisted and was killed in front of me. He had 400 Palestinian pounds in his pocket.'
After the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, looting began in Lydda and Ramleh. Israeli historian Simha Flapan reported: 'With the population gone, the Israeli soldiers proceeded to loot the two towns in an outbreak of mass pillaging that the officers could neither prevent nor control .... Even the soldiers from the Palmach-most of whom came from or were preparing to join kibbutzim-took part, stealing mechanical and agricultural equipment. Israeli troops carted away 1,800 truck loads of Palestinian property, including a button factory, a sausage factory, a soft drinks plant, a macaroni factory, a textile mill, 7,000 retail shops, 1,000 warehouses and 500 workshops.' In the light of Jewish groups lobbying Swiss banks to restore Jewish property looted by the Nazis, should not the same happen in this case regarding Palestinian property?
The interesting fact about Lydda and Ramleh is that it is the one massacre and ethnic cleansing that the Zionist regime has been forced to admit, if only because of the indiscretion of some of the perpetrators. Rabin referred to the Lydda massacre in his memoirs but the Israeli government censored the passage. He wrote in his diary soon after Lydda's and Ramleh's occupation:
'After attacking Lydda and then Ramla... What would they do with the 50,000 civilians living in the two cities... Not even Ben-Gurion could offer a solution... and during the discussion at operation headquarters, he [Ben-Gurion] remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave [Lydda's] hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endangered the supply route [to the troops who were] advancing eastward.
Ben-Gurion would repeat the question: What is to be done with the population?, waving his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out!.' (Soldier of Peace, p. 140-141)
350 people died of exhaustion and dehydration before reaching their final destination. Again, in echoes of Bosnia, the Zionist forces were guilty of rape against Palestinian women and girls. Aharon Cizling, Israeli Agriculture Minister, stated in July, 1948:
'...It's been said that there were cases of rape in Ramla. I can forgive rape, but I will not forgive other acts which seem to me much worse. When they enter a town and forcibly remove rings from the fingers and jewellery from someone's neck, that's a very grave matter... Many are guilty of it.'(Tom Segev, 1949, The First Israelis, p. 71-72)
It was clear that the massacre and ethnic cleansing was meant as a warning to other Arabs as to what would happen unless they fled. Yigal Allon stated in mid-July 1948 about the ethnic cleansing at Lydda and Ramleh:
'Moreover, the phenomenon of the flight of tens of thousands will no doubt cause demoralisation in every Arab area [the refugees] reach... This victory will yet have great effect on other sectors. '(Benny Morris, p. 211 Israel: A History, p. 218)
Currently, the people of Lydda and Ramleh and their descendants number around half a million, mainly residing in refugee camps around Amman and Ramallah. The very fact that the regime named the Airport after Ben Gurion - the man who ordered the ethnic cleansing - demonstrates that its very existence is a deliberate insult to the memory of the dead and deported.
What can be done? Readers should flood their MPs with letters demanding that the UK and EU ban all flights to and from 'Ben Gurion Airport' until the refugees and their descendants are repatriated and compensated for their ordeal. If any Zionists soldiers are still alive, they should be hunted by the War Crimes court at the Hague. Councils should be lobbied to hold 9/11-like 'Lydda Memorial Days' every 11 July. Local Arab and Muslim communities in Britain should send delegations to all their local travel agents demanding that they refuse to handle booking that involve landing at the airport, warning them that unless they do so, they will face organised communal boycotts and pickets. At the 9/11 New York commemoration a banner stated 'We will never forget'. We owe it to the dead of Lydda and Ramleh to ensure that they are not forgotten - and the best way to commemorate their murders would be to force the closing of 'Ben Gurion Airport'.
Yishai, the only one with a lack of moral compass is yourself. Perhaps you would like to explain how throwing bombs into crowded Arab markets is not a terrorist act. Or how massacring more than 426 people in Lydda (Lod) was not a terrorist act? Or how raping Palestinian women was not a terrorist act? (Israel's own historians record these facts).
The fact Israel was born of terrorism. So you are in no position to try and take any moral ground and make out that zionist terrorism is somehow justifable but as supposed zionist resistance and then condemn the Palestinian resistance.
Oh and how about the deliberate terrorist act of Baruch Goldstien, or how about the deliberate terrorist acts of the Zionist underground and the Kach movement? Along with the hundreds of state terrorist acts carried out by Israel which has killed four times as many Palestinian civilians as Israelis have been killed. It seems to me that your racism blinds you to any sort of humanity. How sad and pathetic but then again most racists are sad and pathetic.
good for you, kim !
"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city.... By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa."
- Time Magazine, May 3, 1948, page 25
"[The Arabs of Haifa] fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel."
- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1949
"Israelis argue that the Arab states encouraged the Palestinians to flee. And, in fact, Arabs still living in Israel recall being urged to evacuate Haifa by Arab military commanders who wanted to bomb the city."
- Newsweek, January 20, 1963
"The Arab armies entered Palestine …. they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland...The Arab States succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people."
[By Abu Mazen, in an article entitled "Madha `Alamna wa-Madha Yajib An Na`mal", published in "Falastin eth-Thawra", the official journal of the PLO, Beirut, March 1976 ]
"The call by the Arab Governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and to leave for the bordering Arab countries, after having sown terror among them...
Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave...We have brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees, by calling upon them and pleading with them to leave their land, their homes, their work and business..."
[By Khaled al-`Azm, who served as Prime Minister of Syria in 1948 and 1949, wrote in his memoirs (published in Beirut, 1973, Part 1, pp. 386-387) ]
He also said:
"Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of refugees… while it is we who made them to leave… We brought disaster upon… Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave… We have rendered them dispossessed…
We have accustomed them to begging… We have participated in lowering their moral and social level… Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon… men, women and children - all this in service of political purposes…".
"The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem."
- Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948.
"The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees."
- The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.
"Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it."
- The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.
"The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead."
- The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963.
"For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy."
- The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.
I love it when people of your ilk bring up Baruch Goldstein- as if it's a paradigm, when in fact it's clearly a case of man bites dog.
Condemned by every segment of Israeli society- including our RELIGIOUS and political leaders, except for a few dozen marginalized people.
That's not even CLOSE to your sick society where suicide bombers are encouraged by their own parents; not to mention their religious and political leaders.
Hey, space for housing in Gaza has just become available. You see, Israel helps people in Gaza, blows up a terrorist building to make way for housing. (Israel blows up Hamas Terror Ministry) So, demolition is a good thing, and it won't cost them anything!
This is what happens to your friends from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Good riddance.
Line up the virgins!
Senior Islamic Jihad commander dies in IAF strike in Gaza City
By Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondent and The Associated Press
Tags: Israel Air Force, Gaza
An Israel Air Force strike after nightfall Monday killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander, prompting threats from the militant group to carry out suicide bombings in Israel.
The IAF fired missiles at a car laden with explosives in Gaza City Monday, killing two militants and setting off a huge blast that was heard around the city, witnesses and hospital officials said.
Medical officials said a third militant had been critically wounded in the strike.
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Medical workers said the attack also wounded two bystanders.
Hours later, a second IAF strike in Gaza City killed three additional Islamic Jihad militants, including a chief rocket maker, in the southern part of Gaza City. The Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the men had fired rockets toward Israel.
The IDF said the target of the first airstrike was Majed Harazin, a senior Islamic Jihad militant in charge of rocket squads responsible for incessant barrages of Qassam rockets against southern Israel.
According to defense officials, Harazin was the one who determined the timing and the targets of Qassam and mortar shell attacks against Israel.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Khaled el-Batch confirmed that Harazin was killed in the attack.
Harazin was a top Islamic Jihad commander for both the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians said, and he rarely traveled in vehicles for fear of an Israeli airstrike. He was on Israel's wanted list for nine years, they said.
The group's armed wing said in a statement "the assassination of the general commander will open the door wide to a wave of martyrdom operations."
Hundreds of Islamic Jihad gunmen gathered in the streets and fired into the air after the attack.
Islamic Jihad supporters gathered around the morgue and pledged revenge. "The blood of our comrades will be the fuel for the rockets that will bring death and destruction to the Zionists," Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza told reporters.
Palestinian officials said Harazin was the most senior militant commander to be killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza in more than a year.
Israel often targets militants in airstrikes, aiming for squads involved in daily rocket fire toward southern Israel.
Hamas radio said the targeted car was filled with explosives and warned people to stay away, but people crowded around the burning vehicle. Witnesses said the initial blast was followed by smaller explosions after the car was hit while slowing down near a mosque.
Kim
Thank you for posting this powerful statement by Jeff Halper. His statement that ordinary people and civil society can stand up to the brute force of overwhelming military power, and the poison fog of lies broadcast by world-wide monopolies like the Rupertian Empire; that a society of non whites can resist colonisation by white settlers financed by the world's military and economic superpowers, would be absurd if it was not already proved true.
Anyone of Irish ancestry knows exactly what is going on in Palestine. It all happened in Ireland hundreds of years ago. The same process of creeping theft of the land, destruction of the native society, barbarous collective punishments and cruel laws, and the scattering of the native population around the world. There was even a 'separation wall', it was called 'the Pale' because it was a stockade of earth banks and sharpened stakes.
Those who lived 'beyond the Pale' were beyond any consideration as human beings. They were eventually over-run by Zionists who thought they were 'the lost tribe of Ancient Israel'. The most famous and successful leader of the 'British Zionists' was a general called Oliver Cromwell.
All they created was a drain on the prosperity of their home country, wealth for a few, and eventual dishonourable defeat.
Yes, a helpless, dispossessed, despised and impoverished people can win if they are steadfast.
Brian Banban
Line up the virgins, more terrorists sent their way. Good riddance.
Israel air strikes kill six Gaza militants: medics
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Reuters
Wednesday, February 27, 2008; 5:38 AM
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli air strikes killed at least six Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including Hamas men who local residents said returned recently from training in Syria or Iran.
Five of the militants, senior members of the Islamist Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, were killed when the van in which they were traveling was attacked from the air near the southern town of Khan Younis.
Local residents who knew the men said some of them had undergone training in Syria or Iran and returned home after Hamas breached the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt in defiance of an Israeli blockade of the territory of 1.5 million people.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman of Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, denied they had traveled outside the Gaza Strip.
Egypt closed the border, at Rafah, about two weeks after the breach, but allowed Palestinians who had crossed into its territory to go back to the Gaza Strip.
Israel's military intelligence chief said on Tuesday that dozens of Gaza militants who had gone "primarily to Syria but also to Iran for training in various areas of terror expertise" had taken advantage of the open Rafah border to return home.
An Israeli army spokeswoman described the air strike as a joint operation by the military and the Shin Bet intelligence service.
Israel frequently carries out raids and air strikes in the Gaza Strip in a declared bid to curb cross-border rocket attacks by militants.
But Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri called the strike on the van an Israeli "assassination" of senior members of the group's armed wing and said they had not been on an operational mission.
In a separate air attack, a militant from the Islamic Jihad group was killed east of Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, medical workers said.
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Editing by Keith Weir)
Check this to see what sort of people you are supporting Ms Bullimore
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1710.htm
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