Gazans grapple with scale of death and destruction

<snip>

"After 22 days of devastating Israeli air strikes and shelling, shocked Palestinians emerged onto the rubble-strewn streets of the Gaza Strip on Sunday to collect their dead and inspect their shattered homes.

Women sat weeping amid the ruins of their houses, hiding their faces, many too distressed to speak. Others sifted through the debris to gather cherished belongings in plastic bags.

One held a necklace. "This is all that's left," she said.

Children tried to salvage school bags and torn notebooks.

After a unilateral Israeli ceasefire took effect at 2 a.m. (0000 GMT), the bombing stopped, although limited clashes between Israeli forces and Hamas militants continued.

Families who had fled advancing Israeli troops began returning to barely recognizable neighborhoods to discover who had survived and who had died. "Thank God you are alive! The house can be rebuilt, God willing," one man consoled a friend.

Hamas, eager to show it still controls Gaza despite the Israeli onslaught, sent policemen back onto the streets -- even the traffic cops were out on mangled, cratered roads.

Municipal bulldozers pushed aside crushed cars and fallen chunks of concrete from the streets, but nothing could conceal the scale of destruction wrought by Israel's military machine."

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<snip>

"Palestinian medics said that they had so far pulled 95 bodies from the rubble in Gaza on Sunday, following Israel's unilateral ceasefire in its war on Hamas.

The majority of the corpses were found in the northern towns of Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya and some were also found in Zeitun, an outlying neighbourhood in southwestern Gaza City, according to Dr Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.

The three locations were the sites of some of the most furious clashes between Israeli ground forces and Palestinian fighters.

The discoveries bring to at least 1 300 the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since Israel launched its Operation Cast Lead on Hamas on December 27, he said."

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2455088,00.html

The stench of decomposition alone must be horrible

and that the Palestinians will finally elect a government that looks out for their best interests.

It isn't likely, but we can always hope.

and now they are boasting of their great victory.

Hamas's idea of "victory".

1200 dead, 5000 injured, and very few Israeli deaths.

There is no reasoning with people so braindead and irrational.

or is just projection?

Before the cease fire:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=82464§ionid=351020202

Hamas: Victory is within arms reach

Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal The Hamas chief, Khaled Mashaal, says the resistance movement is hours away from defeating the Israeli aggressors in the Gaza Strip

"With patience victory will be ours in a few hours …. We are now nearing the final stages," said Mashaal.

He said that "unprecedented" resistance has prevented Israel from achieving its goal of advancing deep into Gaza, adding that Israel is trying to cover up its failure by inflicting as many civilian casualties as possible in the final moments of the battl.



After the cease fire

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7836277.stm

Full text: Hamas ceasefire statement

Hamas has announced an immediate ceasefire by its fighters and other Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip. Here is his statement in full.

In the Name of Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful. This is a statement in the name of the Palestinian resistance factions.

The Zionist aggression against the Gaza Strip which has gone on for more than three weeks has failed, and with God's blessing it failed to impose its conditions on the resistance and on our people.

We, the Palestinian resistance factions announce a ceasefire of our factions in the Gaza Strip and we stress that our demand is the withdrawal of the enemy forces from the Gaza Strip within a week, along with the opening of all the crossings for the entry of humanitarian aid, food and other necessities for our people in the Gaza Strip

in the BBC link which was their full official statement and presstv get real, nope the one declaring victory was Olmert

In a speech broadcast on Hamas television on Sunday night, Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said the Palestinians had achieved a historical and strategic victory over Israel, and claimed that Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip had failed.

The Hamas leader repeated the terror organization's demand for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, and for the opening of the border crossings.

Haniyeh promised that Hamas would give aid to Palestinian families whose relatives were killed or injured during the war, and said Israeli leaders should be tried for war crimes.

Haniyeh went on to say Hamas's decision to declare a truce on Sunday was "wise and responsible

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232292901812&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

or maybe the BBC edited it out of the official announcement but your right they did claim victory after you made the initial claim.

So when Allende won election in Chile, or Chavez in Venezuela, that didn't count because we wanted someone else to win, as we did in Gaza.

:puke:

that people have human rights, civil rights.

That they have freedom of speech, press and religion (which Hamas has surely not provided).

That women and gay people are not oppressed and subjugated.

There is no freedom or democracy in Gaza, under the military boot of Hamas.

And election does not a democracy make.

because we sure ain't got freedom and democracy here!

or any country in the middle east (except Israel).

Get real.

at any rate.

<snip>

"Mourning tents dotted the Gaza Strip on Monday as Palestinians gathered to remember loved ones among the 1,300 people killed by Israeli forces.

Saber Jnaid said his son, a Hamas fighter, had been killed 12 days ago during Israel's 22-day onslaught on the Islamist militant group. He could not formally receive condolences until fighting stopped on Sunday and Israeli forces pulled back.

"May God make the Islamic resistance stronger," the grey-bearded father told Reuters as he sat with relatives. "I have 10 more sons and I hope all of them die as martyrs."

Hours after Israel declared its attack over, Hamas announced a ceasefire, saying it would observe it provided the Israeli army left Gaza within a week.

Apart from the dead, 5,300 Palestinians were wounded during the Israeli campaign. Many of the 1.5 million people in the Gaza Strip have seen their homes and other property blown to pieces.

"We want a solution that would guarantee Israeli tanks will not return to kill us," said Yehya Aziz, 28. "They said a ceasefire for a week. I don't feel good, I doubt it is over."

Israeli soldiers have been withdrawing from Gaza, leaving scenes of devastation and what Palestinians see as desecration.

Graffiti scrawled inside a mosque in the battered Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City read "Hamas whores" in Hebrew and "Hamas is dead" in English. Discarded military rations littered the floor. A shell hole gaped in one wall."

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