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| Middle East |
| Gaza killings prompt Palestinian rage |
| 2002-12-06 |
| But then, everything prompts Palestinian rage, doesn't it? Thousands of angry Palestinians have taken to the streets of the al-Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip to bury 10 people killed in overnight fighting with Israeli troops. Mourners, some wearing masks, followed the bodies of those killed through the narrow streets of the camp chanting "revenge, revenge". What else? What else? They never seem to chant "Omigod! He's dead! And he was such a nice man, who never hurt anybody!" I dunno why... "We are committed to the continuation of jihad™ and martyr operations until our land is liberated," members of the militant group Hamas shouted through loudspeakers. "The more corpses, the closer we are to, uh... extinction!" Israel says at least five of those killed were members of Hamas and the group itself has issued a statement saying six of its people died in the raid, including two from its military wing. The camp's Mayor, Kamal Baghdadi and an official from a nearby hospital, Ahmed Rabah, have said they believe four of the dead were from the Mansour family, whose home they say was hit in the raid. "Yar! We be the Mansours! We be peaceable sorts, an' if you don't like it, we'll kill ye!" Two Palestinian homes were targeted in the raid - the house of Ayman Sheshnya, an activist from Mr Arafat's movement Fatah who is wanted by Israel, and the home of Jamal Ismail, a suicide bomber who blew himself up last month. He doesn't need the place anymore, after all... The incursion came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that militants from Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network were active in Gaza - a claim derided by Palestinians. And confirmed by al-Qaeda... Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat described the incursion as "Israeli terrorism". But then, he always does... "It is a new massacre," he said. "What happened is a continuation of the massacres against the Palestinian people. This is Israeli terrorism against our children, our women and our holy shrines from Rafah [in southern Gaza] to Jenin [in the West Bank]. Isn't what they are doing daily terrorism?" No. What they're doing daily is military operations, involving disciplined troops with a command structure and accountability for their actions. Sending people to explode on buses or to shoot little kiddies in their beds is terrorism. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |