[ElectraDupu]

Israelis bury Jerusalem victims


Thousands of mourners turned out on the streets of Jerusalem to pay their respects to eight students killed by a Palestinian man at a Jewish religious school.

The attacker, identified as a resident of East Jerusalem, was shot dead after he opened fire with an automatic weapon in the library of the Merkaz Harav Jewish religious school.


The shooting has led to a security clampdown across Jerusalem and the West Bank, and follows a series of Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip which left more than 130 Palestinians dead.

Hamas labelled the attack as "heroic", while thousands of Gazans poured on to the streets to celebrate.


Al-Aqsa restrictions


Israel deployed thousands of police and set up road blocks across Jerusalem on Friday, Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman said.

Police also limited Palestinian access to al-Aqsa mosque due to fears violence could break out in the Old City as both Jews and Muslims gathered for prayers.


The Israeli military, for its part, sealed off the occupied West Bank until Saturday night.

The seminary assault was the bloodiest attack on Israelis in two years and the first such in four years in Jerusalem.

"The time for us has come to understand that an external struggle as well as an internal struggle are raging," Rabbi Yaakov Shapira told mourners outside Merkaz Harav seminary.

Shapira, who runs the well-known centre for Jewish studies linked to those leading the Jewish settler movement in the occupied West Bank, called for "stronger leadership" in Israel.

The seminary serves some 400 high school students and young Israeli soldiers, many of whom carry arms.

Fighters killed

As Israel buried the victims of Thursday's assault, its military kept up the pressure on Palestinian fighters.

Two of them were wounded, including one seriously, late on Friday in an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip, local medical sources and witnesses said.

The two members of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, were injured after Israeli forces fired at them east of Gaza City, the sources said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman told the AFP news agency that ground forces fired a missile at a "group of armed men approaching the security fence near Nahal Oz" on the border with Gaza.

Assailant's identity

Earlier, Israeli defence officials said the perpetrator of Thursday's seminary assault came from east Jerusalem, the predominantly Arab section of the city which Israel captured and occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.


In contrast to Palestinians in the West Bank, those in Jerusalem have Israeli identification cards, allowing them relatively free movement inside Israel.

East Jerusalem residents identified the
attacker as Ala Abu Dhaim [Reuters]
Police said the attacker, believed to be in his early 20s, worked for a private transport company but did not elaborate.

Residents of East Jerusalem named the attacker as Ala Abu Dhaim.

Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said Abu Dhaim walked through the seminary's main gate and entered the library, armed with an assault rifle and pistol.

At least six empty bullet clips were found on the floor, Rosenfeld said.

Israeli police have arrested more than 10 relatives and friends of the Palestinian suspect, including his father who was released hours later.

Fallout feared

The incident could further complicate US-backed efforts to broker a deal for the creation of Palestine by the end of 2008.

It followed a visit to the region by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, who persuaded Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to resume peace talks he suspended over Israel's attacks on Gaza.


Abbas has already condemned the Jerusalem assault.

Saeb Erekat, an Abbas aide, said: "President Mahmoud Abbas condemns the attack in Jerusalem that claimed the lives of many Israelis and he reiterated his condemnation of all attacks that target civilians, whether they are Palestinians or Israelis."





Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

[StincPriene]

By Omar, a humanitarian worker in partnership with Oxfam
Gaza Diary: Not a life for children



A young Palestinian girl wounded in an Israeli air strike on Gaza [GALLO/GETTY]

"Why us? Why are we cold? What is happening?" my children ask all the time.
They are six and two. When they ask for chocolate and I cannot give it to them, they ask why. I explain to them that it is because of the closure, but this does not explain things any further to them, they still ask: "Why? Why us?"
What they least understand is why their lives are being affected by something which they are not responsible for.
It is hard for me to explain. I am 37-years old and have spent my whole life under occupation. My father was a refugee from Barbara, my original village. He said to me the other day: "Son, we have never lived in a situation like this before. I hope that this will be the last time that we live like this, forever".
But people live in hope. They believe, even after all this time, that peace will return to us.
It has been five days now since I have had a shower. This is due to a lack of power to fuel the water system and to the hectic times that are upon us.
It is winter and we are all beginning to get very cold. Without electricity, all my family and I can do to stay warm it to huddle around a gas lamp. We cover ourselves in sheets.

Sometimes, I warm some water for my children to immerse their hands or feet in. But there is very little that we can do apart from hope that this will be the last time that we live like this.
The cold makes it difficult for us to get to sleep but even when we manage to, the blasts of Palestinian and Israeli rockets wake us throughout the night. The tremors and explosions scare my children so much that they now sleep with my wife and me.
They are so small and vulnerable and also very confused. They come home from school talking of Hamas and Fatah, but they do not understand the situation.
This is not a life for children. It is not for anyone.
Stress and anxiety
I try as best as I can to divert their attention away from the crisis that is continuing to unfold before them - I take them to the sea or to a relative's home.
I cannot even turn on the television because we have had no electricity for five days. To find out what's going on or whether or not there will be military operations I ask my colleagues in Jerusalem to keep me updated.

I also call my family every few hours to find out if they are OK.
My children live in an area of violence and hear on a daily basis people arguing, complaining and shouting about the situation. To be honest, they need some professional support for their stress and anxiety but, of course, this is not available to us.
Like many other children living in Gaza, they can rarely get away from the crisis, even while they sleep.
This situation is affecting a lot of children. The other day, when I went to my kid's school, the teacher said that 70 per cent of the children were failing their exams.
The stress of the situation, whether children realise it or not, will effect their education. It is not great for school work or anything at all.
A lack of good quality food, clean drinking water, milk, sleep, fear and cold are just some of the issues that the children of Gaza face.
The adults, too.
The unborn child
There is already little hope for the future for the children of Gaza but without education, they really have nothing. Education is the only capital that we have for our future.
My third child is due in March. This is just two months away.
As a father and a husband I am worried - really worried for my wife and my unborn child. How can she deliver a child when there is no electricity and little supplies in the hospitals?
Will she and our third child suffer as a result? These are some of the questions that keep me awake at night.
Speaking about this makes me want to cry, not just for my family but also for the people of Gaza.


Source: Al Jazeera

[ErnestTU]

Israel pushes back into Gaza

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=2938