*DAMN R6 Forum

Um Hisham Qishta shood at the spot where she cradled a dying Israeli soldier in her arms a few days ago and said she was going nowhere. But just in case the armoured bulldozers came too close, she bundled the entire contents of her immaculate flat into plasitc sacks yesteraday and sent the furniture off on the back of a donkey cart. On the stree below almost every family left in the Saladin district of Rafah was hauling belongings onto wooden carts  in advance of the coming storm.
Word that Israeli tanks had sealed off Rafah was enough to alarm those Palestinians whose homes survived the demolition by the army's bulldozers of Friday, which crushed about 200 houses in the name of the war on terror.
On Sunday Moshe Ya'alon, Israeli's chief of army staff, said there was more destruction to come.
Yesterday Mrs Qishta and hundreds of others in Rafah took him at his word. "Its's an acto fo terror to destroy all these homes. If you make people so afraid that they flee the homes thy have built with the only money they have just to save their lives, what can you call that but an act of terror?" she asked.

Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, accused Israel yesterday of practising "ethnic cleansing crimes and collective punishment of innocent civilians" by retaliationg for the deaths of seven of its soldiers in Rafah last week. Two members of Israel's parliament have denounced the destruction as a war crime But many in Rafah town and the nearby refugee camp believe the soldiers' deaths served as one more justification by Israel for a long-term strategy to drive Palestinians out of the area.
Since the beginning of the intafada, more than three years ago, Israel's armoured bulldozers have destroyed 1,200 houses in Rafah and according to the UN, made more than 12,000 people homeless: on in 10 of the population there.
The extended Qishta famiy dominates the Saladin neighbourhood in the part of Rafah that is not a refugee camp.
On friday many members of the family lost their homes, and on eman his life, after hte Israeli army moved in to recover the boyd parts of five soldiers killed when their armoured vehicle was blown up by Palestinians. The blast, made worse by explosives in the Israeli vehicle,  threw bits of body for hundreds of metres.
Palestinians paraded the dismembered fingers, hands and limbs in the streets in a macabre celebration of inflicting a blow on the occupation forces after months of taking hits such as the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas.
Israelis were outraged at the abuse of the dismembered bodies but Um Hisham Qishta says three soldiers who set up  a snipers' post in there flat showed no hostility.
"The soldiers were polite. One of them asked for permission to smoke," she said.
"They put me and my daughters into one room but after a while i asked to preare food for the children. One of the soldiers was standing in the kitchen dorr when i heard him scream. I never even heard the shot. I rushed to heold him. I was holding his head and rubbing his arms but he was dying right there.
"It was like my son was dying in front of me. His friends were very scared. They brought a stretcher and I helped carry i t down the stairs. At the bottom there was an-other shot and one of the soldiers carryiing the stretcher was shot in the head. He was a very young guy. ONly about 20 years old. After that, came hell."

The Qishta family says the Israeli response was swift.
"There were Apaches, rockets, shells. It was war, real war. THen the bulldozers. THey destroyed everything in their path," she said. A few dozen metres away andother part of the Qishta family fled their home. Thwo brothers, Ashraf and Hamad, had nne children between them. THye could hear the bulldozers at work close by but were terrified to step out into the night with so many bullets flying.
"My brother was against us leaving, " said Hamad.
" He said we should stay and defend the house, but there were too many children. So he helped us move all the kids and then said he was going back to pick up some inportant documents. We pleaded with him not to go, but he was stubborn"
Ashraf Qishta was last seen alive by his relatives standing in the dorrway of his home with a white flag in one hand and an axe in another.
"He thought the Israelis would respect him if he stood there and said he would defend his house," siad Hamad. "They just shot him in the chest. The bulldozser pulled the building onto him. WHen we found him we could see where the blad hit his head."

Outside Ashraf Qishtas' youngest son, Monhammed plays in the sand unable to grasap that he would never see his father again.

The hell of war I never wish to see. This is an example of two peoples that are forced into a conflict by their leaders......

Only problem I have with that story is that it is spin.  Just read it and you realize it was written by someone who is pro-Palestinian.  Although not the Palestinian people's fault (in general), on an individual level, the Palestinian Terrorist Leadership (PTL for those who travel in the right circles) is to blame for this.  If the Palestinian Leadership wanted peace, they would be handed peace on a silver platter by Israel.  You see, Israel does not want the Palestinians out, they simply want to live in peace.  But here is the real problem:  EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE in that region wants Israel destroyed.....all of the Arab nations that border Israel want it destroyed, and the Palestinian Terrorist Leadership wants Israel destroyed.  It really is as simple as that.  This is a battle that has been going on for thousands of years.  The Israelis believe God gave them that land (as do I), but everyone else in the region believes the Israelis are the scum of the earth and must be liquidated.  Until everyone in the region (and the rest of the world, for that matter) stops wanting to destroy Israel, there will never be an end to this war.

Peace.

-GhostSniper Out.

I disagree... Except then again Yes I guess Just about everyone who isn't in America has tended to shift pro Palestine becasue nobody agrees with the way Israel has behaved, and continues to behave.


Pease on Israeli terms? Peace but no we aren't going to move our troops out of your land? no we wil retain control off your borders, your land, your airspace, your movments and freedom?

Sharon does not want peace of any kind.. Why do you think he deleberatly went to visit the Wailing wall at the worst possible time, and triggered the infatarda?  As long as he is in power there will be no peace.

As long as  and refuse to share and live along side the palestinians there will not be peace.

just reading it you know its written by someone who is pro-isreali

Wow I already discussed to much about this its always the same bullshit
there are only 2 sides pro-isreali and pro-palestinian and both think its all the fault of the other country. Just like me its all the fault of isreal

This was no "pro-palestinian/pro-israeli" article, and if it genuinly comes accross as one to some individuals i am very surprised. It was written by Chris McGreal a top Journalist who is and has been in Rafah for a while now. He is not known for coming out with off the cuff remarks, and it seems out of order to suggest he is being biased in his report, in which i believe there non.

What i found interesting is it showed just briefly the difficutl relationship between some of the israeli soldiers and the palestinians. On the one side are these bulldozers destroying lives and families as they crush everything in front of them... We have the palestinian woman who's house is taken over by israeli snipers... who are polite etc... and she ends up cradling a dying soldier in her arms - with the emotion that it is her son.

These kids in the israeli army should not be in the army. What child should have to spend years of his life being trained to , and actually killing other people? The army should not be in palestinian homes and killing palestinans, and the palestians should not be killing them.

Who is telling the army to do what it does? The israeli goverment. If the army wasn't there the palestinians would not be fighting the soldiers becasue they simply would not be there.

No, this article does not seem biased to me.  But the fact that you went in and highlighted certain passages that you liked and then decided to keep other passages in plain text that went against your point seems biased.  

For example, you made this statement bold:

"He thought the Israelis would respect him if he stood there and said he would defend his house," siad Hamad. "They just shot him in the chest. The bulldozser pulled the building onto him. WHen we found him we could see where the blad hit his head."

but you left this in plain text:

"Palestinians paraded the dismembered fingers, hands and limbs in the streets in a macabre celebration of inflicting a blow on the occupation forces..."

So anyway, all I'm saying is that it does seem kind of biased.  I am not saying that I agree or disagree with the actions of the Israelis or Palistinians.

Thats very true gabe, i guess those were just things that i had not known of before and found particulaly inportant. i was aware of the bomb that blew up the israeli armoured personel carrier...

my modification of the article by highlighting several sections was 'biased' in that those were things particually inportant for me... the article itself however i do not think was biased. Maybe for some people who might read it, it will seem biased, but maybe they are biased themselves in their interpretation of the article and their refusal to accept what is being said or that there might be any truth in it... well i thought it was a bloody good article anway :)