GAZA STRIP: Arab media cover the war
Once again Arab television blanketed the airwaves with coverage of the conflict in Gaza.
And once again Arab media gave a rather distinct view of the conflict, which differed starkly from the view presented to the West.
Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, broadcast interviews with victims of violence at a hospital in Gaza, asking survivors what they felt about the invasion.
One woman, whose 20-year-old son was hit by a shrapnel from the air raid in the head, said that her whole family was in fear, that they had stopped sleeping and spent most of their day praying God to save them.
The channel broadcast constant images of children covered with blood being rushed into hospitals and interviews with parents who had lost their children.
In one report, Al Jazeera cited Palestinians as saying that despite all their technology, the Israelis would not be able to achieve a quick victory over Hamas.
The channel showed images of Israeli soldiers limping with a reporter saying this is how the soldiers appeared after the first phase of the incursion.
Another commentary by Al Jazeera from the United Nations headquarters said this was first time Israel had come under so much criticism by the Security Council.
The report spoke of the divide between the Arab people and their leaders.
The channel showed simultaneously images of masses protesting in Rabat, Morocco, Beirut and Istanbul.
The reporter in Rabat said that the usual divisive religious and political slogans were absent and people were unified in protesting against the "barbarism" of the Israelis.
Arab television also played footage of a speech in Beirut by Osama Hamdan, the representative of Hamas in Lebanon:
Our enemy has lost the war before the beginning of the incursion... this is why they are hiding the facts.... United Nations, you are adding a crime against our people.... [Oh nation] this war in Gaza is not the war of Hamas and Palestine only. It’s your war. You either win it or lose it like you lost Palestine 60 years ago.... To the people of Gaza I say ... God chose you to write a page of glory.... This is the beginning of victory to Gaza.... To the Israelis we say: This is the beginning of the great war.... This is the beginning of the end for you. Pack your bags.... You should understand clearly that we decided to win this fight and we will, if God wills.
The ticker at the bottom of the screen read, "Millions around the world protest to demand an end of Israeli operations in Gaza."
Al Arabiya, the other huge pan-Arab news channel, scrolled at the bottom of its screen: "Urgent: children and women among the victims of the Israeli invasion.”
“The images and the rushing of ambulances are enough to show what the humanitarian situation in Gaza is,” the anchorman of Al Arabiya said.
The reporters called Israeli soldiers the army of the occupation.
On the Shiite militia Hezbollah’s Al Manar television, the reporter in Gaza claimed that the Israeli tanks remained in the uninhabited zones and could not enter inside the villages.
He added that the primary goal of the Israelis was to kill the biggest possible number of Palestinians. This morning, there were two martyrs whose age was less 2 years, he added.
A retired Lebanese army general and military expert, Walid Soukariyeh, said in a live interview with the channel that Israeli elite soldiers had only entered the uninhabited zones of the Gaza Strip and like the July 2006 war with Hezbollah would find a lot of resistance in the villages and would not be able to enter the residential areas.
He said that the resistance fighters were showing steadfastness and would prevent Israeli soldiers from entering inhabited areas. He said that Israelis were trying to isolate the different parts of the Gaza Strip but all they were doing was encircling towns in vain.
A spokesperson from a Palestinian militant group in Gaza, Abou Ahmad, told Al Manar in a telephone interview that the enemy tried to isolate Gaza City but instead the opposite happened and all their efforts were squandered.
He assured viewers that there were thousands of fighters that were fiercely battling the Israeli army. He said that the enemy's elite had been vanquished.
A caricature published in the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper today showed one spent rocket signed, “From Hamas” falling inside Israel with tens of television and photo cameras focused on it, while tens of Israeli rockets falling on Gaza were ignored.
The main headline of the newspaper said, “An invasion from several fronts.... Gaza under the threat of a holocaust.”
The Lebanese pro-Hezbollah daily Al Diyar described the battle of Gaza as the historical war for Palestine.
The newspaper wrote that “based on reports the Palestinian resistance is fiercely fighting against the Israeli army and inflicting material and human losses and is fully ready to face the aggression and will show heroic acts and offer martyrdom to prevent Israel from reaching its goal of causing the fall of Gaza.”
An editorial published by the newspaper today said that “the resistance of Gaza and its victory will be the second defeat for Israel,” adding that Israel would not overcome this defeat after losing a first battle against the Lebanese resistance.
“The next generations will talk about the defeat of Israel and the collapse of its nation ... in the face of a resistance fighting with their chests against rockets, warplanes and fire,” it said.
— Raed Rafei in Beirut
Photo: An adult carries a child to safety in a scene from Al Arabiya television. Credit: Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles TImes
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Don't the Arab and Israelis tired of all the violence and killing? Exactly what is their motive for fighting for the past 50 years. I can't remember a year that there hasn't been combat going on between the arabs and israelis,
Libyians, Egyptians, jordanians or palestinians. Why are they fighting Israel and what for? For Jerusalem, the holy land. Where in the bible does it say to fight over the holy land? To kill mankind? What about the commandment, thou shall not kill. I guess the muslims live by different commandments. This recent attach on Israel by Palestine and then trying to make it look like it's Israels fault is so insulting to the World. Who is going to believe Hamas or any other arab group. They are terrorists for Gods sake. I don't blame Israel for fighting back. I know that the US is reluctant to get involved with a mid east war in support of Israel, because once the US became involved, it would become an all out Third World war, the Arab Nations against Israel and the US.
The war to end all wars per the bible.
Posted by: Todd | January 14, 2009 at 02:45 PM
Case closed with previous comment in mind.
US people should know by now who are they supporting: white European settlers in Palestine who are asking for blood and killing as oppose to supporting indigenous people who're asking for justice and homeland, apartheid South Africa all over again!
Posted by: Jack | January 06, 2009 at 04:19 PM
nothing less than total annihilation.
Posted by: elihu i | January 06, 2009 at 01:15 AM
Kill them all ... You have my support Israel... Hamas could have easily extended the cease fire and prevented all of this... however they shoot rockets, Israel retaliates and then Hamas turns around to play the victim...
You ignorant terrorists sympathizers, feel free to move to Gaza...
Posted by: MSkiba | January 06, 2009 at 01:12 AM
An airstrike demolished the main building of the American International School in Beit Lahiya, killing a watchman. The school, which is not connected to the U.S. government, teaches an American curriculum in English and is considered the most prestigious educational institution in Gaza.
Who started this?
Some say that the truce was thrown into jeopardy in November when the Israeli military killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid on Gaza. The Palestinians noted that it was election day in the US, timed so most of the rest of the world did not notice what happened. Hamas then responded by firing a wave of rockets into Israel. Six more Palestinians died in two other Israeli attacks in the following week.
They were assaulting Gaza militarily, by sea and by air, all through the ceasefire.. Neither did the killing of Palestinians stop. In the nearly three years since Hamas came to power, and before the latest assault on Gaza, Israel forces had killed about 1,300 people in Gaza and the West Bank. While a significant number of them were Hamas activists - and while hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by other Palestinians in fighting between Hamas and Fatah - there has been a disturbing number of civilian deaths.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights says that one in four of the victims is aged under 18. Between June 2007 and June 2008, Israeli attacks killed 68 Palestinian children and young people in Gaza. Another dozen were killed in the West Bank.
In February, an Israeli missile killed four boys, aged eight to 14, playing football in the street in Jabalia. In April, Meyasar Abu-Me'tiq and her four children, aged one to five years old, were killed when an Israeli missile hit their house as they were having breakfast. Even during the ceasefire, Israel killed 22 people in Gaza, including two children and a woman.
Perhaps crucial to the ceasefire's collapse were the differing views of what it was supposed to achieve. Israel regarded the truce as calm in return for calm. Hamas expected Israel that the latter said was a security response to the firing of Qassam rockets.
But Israel did not end the siege that was wrecking the economy and causing desperate shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Gazans concluded that the blockade was not so much about rocket attacks as punishment for voting for Hamas.
Posted by: william worrell | January 05, 2009 at 02:40 PM
Gee, I don't remember all these UN and Arab calls for a ceasefire when the only fire was the rockets coming from Gaza into Israel. Of course the Israelis should try to minimize civilian casualties, but they should be killing as many Hamas people as possible. Every Hamas death makes peace more likely. You can support the barbarism of Hamas or you can support the Israelis. Most of the left in the West, and most of the Arabs everywhere, are for the barbarians of course.
Posted by: james | January 05, 2009 at 09:03 AM
I never can believe the Arab or Islamic press, can anyone?
Posted by: steve rodriguez | January 05, 2009 at 12:26 AM
Lets see - mass casualties being reported (Arab media), vs. justifying the mass casualties (LA Times / American media). Are you going to publish a story about your own slant?
Posted by: Sophie | January 05, 2009 at 12:13 AM
Those Americans who still do not understand why their nation was attacked on 9/11 need only look to Gaza, for which the US is now being blamed as much as Israel.
Posted by: Jack | January 04, 2009 at 10:51 PM
Hey now we know the truth about you! How many money did you get from the zionists? 2000,5000,or10000?
Posted by: hells | January 04, 2009 at 02:30 PM