The Ceasefire was broken by Israel when their armed forces carried out several attacks on November the 4th 2008 resulting in the death of 6 Palestinians
Hamas had not fired a rocket since June 19 2008 ( when the Ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was finalized) and only resumed after the Israeli attacks. Israels claim of Self Defense is a lie.
Also added Protests from January 2nd, 3rd, 4th at the bottom of the page.
December 29, 2008 – 11:13AM
Demonstrators in cities around the world on Sunday marched in protest against the Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip that have killed nearly 300 people in the Palestinian territory.
British police made 10 arrests as a demonstration outside the Israeli embassy in London turned violent. Riot police moved in after people tore down the barriers keeping them back from the embassy.
Earlier on Sunday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called for an “urgent ceasefire and immediate halt to all violence” in Gaza.
A call to “urgently halt” the military action also came from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who spoke to his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni.
The top diplomats in Italy and Spain, Franco Frattini and Miguel Angel Moratinos, also spoke by telephone with Livni who said Israel would try “to limit the suffering of the people of Gaza”, the Italian foreign ministry said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency, told Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas by telephone of his grave concerns about the escalating violence in the region and the need for both sides to stop their aggressions.
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday denounced the violence between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza, and urged everyone involved in the “tragic situation in the Middle East” to strive for humanity and wisdom.
The UN chief added his voice to the UN Security Council’s call for an immediate end to hostilities and urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the poverty-stricken territory.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “deplores that violence is continuing today, and he strongly urges once again an immediate stop to all acts of violence”, his spokeswoman Michele Montas said in a statement.
While the outgoing Bush administration has blamed Hamas “thugs” for provoking the Israeli offensive by firing rockets into the Jewish state from Gaza, a top aide to Barack Obama was more measured, saying the president-elect is “committed” to achieving peace in the Middle East.
Recognising the special relationship between the United States and Israel, Obama will work closely with the Israelis, David Axelrod said in an interview on CBS television.
“But he will do so in a way that will promote the cause of peace, and work closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians on that – toward that objective,” said Axelrod.
Around European capitals, Danish police arrested a man on the fringes of a protest march in Copenhagen after he threw a petrol bomb at officers. Police said the rally drew about 700 people, though organisers put the number closer to 2,000.
In Paris, about 200 people gathered on the Champs Elysees, while across the city in the northern district of Barbes, an area with a high concentration of north Africans, police said 1,300 others had joined an anti-Israel protest.
In Madrid, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Israeli embassy, brandishing placards reading “Israel terrorist”, “Stop state terrorism” and “No to the Palestinian holocaust”.
The largest single protest of about 8,000 people took place in Egypt on the streets of the southern city of Assiut. Some 4,000 protesters rallied in the capital Cairo, while a demonstration in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria drew a similar number, a security official said.
Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah urged Egyptians in their “millions” to take to the streets to force their government to open the country’s border with Gaza, to help save Palestinians from the Israeli bombardments.
Another major showing of anti-Israeli sentiment was seen in Turkey where thousands of people joined demonstrations in about a dozen Turkish cities.
In Syria, protesters burned Israeli and American flags as thousands demonstrated in central Damascus. Security was tight around the US embassy, which lies some two kilometres from the scene of the protest in the Syrian capital.
Demonstrators also burned Israeli flags in the Jordanian capital Amman, where hundreds of people led by Islamist lawmakers gathered to demand the closure of the Israeli embassy.
With Egypt, Jordan is one of only two Arab governments to have signed peace treaties with Israel.
The Israeli bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza has killed more than 280 people since Saturday, the Jewish state’s biggest offensive against the Palestinian territory since its capture in the 1967 Middle East war.
British aid agency Oxfam warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza if the Israeli bombardments do not cease.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement: “The influx of war wounded has put a tremendous strain on Gaza’s already overburdened hospitals, which are in dire need of medical equipment.”
Egyptians Protest Against Israel, Own Government Over Gaza Attacks
By JOSEPH MAYTON
SOLIDARITY — Egyptians participate in a pro-Gaza rally outside the headquarters of a doctors’ union in Cairo on Dec. 28. (MaanImages via Newscom)
CAIRO — It is the only story in the Arab world: Gaza’s battering at the hands of Israeli planes. Across the region, frustration continues to grow as hundreds of Gazans die and hundreds more are injured in the three days of bombing by the Israeli air force despite international calls to end the violence. In Egypt, thousands of protesters continue to pour onto the streets to voice their anger at Israel’s actions as well as their own government, highlighting how deep the chasm as run.
At a demonstration Monday, Egyptian protesters called for an immediate end to Israeli “aggression” and asked for all “to boycott the Jewish state.” Reports indicated that tens of thousands of people made their way to the streets to demonstrate against the Israeli military action in Gaza and against what they deemed as President Hosni Mubarak‘s “inaction” to help bring the situation to an end.
Ironically, the demonstration on Monday and another over the weekend in Cairo are reminiscent of the action taken by Egyptians two and a half years ago when Israel began what turned into a month-long war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Thousands went to the streets in 2006, and even larger numbers are heeding opposition leaders’ calls for action this time.
“Showing solidarity with besieged Palestinians by means of words and action is not a crime, but a duty that should be upheld by all freedom-loving people,” senior Brotherhood member Mohammed Morsi said on the movement’s Web site.
The protests showed how far reaching the conflict has run within the Arab world. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood went to the streets alongside secular activists in their calls for an end to the Israeli “holocaust in Gaza.”
“It is horrible that we are out on the streets and demanding something be done, while the Arab leaders are sitting in their palaces doing nothing. I hold them responsible for what is going on,” one protester told the Middle East Times.
Images of the wounded and dead continue to bombard Arab television and have heightened the tension between citizen and state. Arabs feel their governmental leaders are not doing enough to pressure Israel to end the attacks, which the United Nations has condemned.
Leading Kifaya member, Karima el-Hefnawy, said at an earlier demonstration that the violence is a “natural result of the treason and collaboration of the Arab regimes with America and Israel who want to generally wipe out any resistance in Gaza.”
She continued to show her anger over Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni‘s recent visit to Egypt.
“What made the Egyptian foreign minister invite her at such timing? Did she come to tell him she was going to bomb Gaza the following day so that he agrees? This is what had happened and he didn’t dare say there was going to be bombardment of Gaza.”
Egypt’s foreign ministry, which according to a Ha’aretz newspaper report, knew of the planned assault against Gaza days before the incursion began and approved, has lashed out against the Jewish state, calling on Israel to stop the “murder” of Palestinian civilians.
“We call for an immediate end to Israeli military operations. We cannot allow these attacks to continue. We cannot permit the murder of Palestinians,” Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on state television.
“We summoned the Israeli ambassador and we said we refuse this aggression,” foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki added.
Abul Gheit talked with his U.S., Russian and French counterparts – Condoleezza Rice, Sergei Lavrov and Bernard Kouchner – and urged them to call for an end to Israeli operations that should be “reciprocal” with Hamas, a statement said.
Mubarak condemned “the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip and blames Israel, as an occupying force, for the victims and the wounded.”
At least 300 people have already been killed in the three days of bombing in Gaza, with well over 1,000 wounded. According to Egyptian state television, an Egyptian police officer was killed at the Rafah border crossing as a result of Israeli bombing. Independent news agencies said he was killed in a firefight while trying to stop Palestinians from passing through a breach in the wall, a result of Israeli bombing.
Mark Regev, the Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said that bombing along the Egyptian border is an attempt to curtail the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.
Police arrest 12 protesting against Israel in Central Jakarta
December 29 2008
Police arrested 12 protesters rallying against Israel’s attacks in Gaza at the Hotel Indonesia circle on Monday for not having permission to hold a demonstration, kompas.com has reported.
The 12 are Agung, Ahmad, Arsilan, Ferry, Gempar, Mulyana, Oji, Oking, Okta, Sayidan Muhamad, Umar and Zainal. Some are members of Indonesian Muslim Students Action Unity (KAMMI) and students at Darma Tirta University in Banten and the University of Indonesia.
Ferry from Darma Tirta said Monday he and his friends were facing charges for organizing the rally.
The police had not given permission to the students to stage a rally because they had not informed police about their plans. Police said the rally was unofficial and had violated city ordinances because it was staged on a holiday.
Ferry said he and the other students were talking with the police to get permission to continue protesting through the afternoon.
The demonstrators were opposing Israel’s attacks on Hamas facilities in Palestine that have claimed 300 lives so far.
Protests against Israeli assault on Gaza in pictures
December 29 2008
Beirut- From Beirut to Jakarta in the east and Houston Texas, USA in the west , demonstrators took to the streets across the Arab and Muslim worlds in protests against Israel’s deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Over 345 Palestinians have been killed so far during the first 3 days of the assault .
Tens of thousands of Lebanese Hezbollah supporters protested Israel’s air assault on the Gaza Strip. In a speech addressed to the protesters Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah attacked the United States and Egypt and called for a third intifada ( uprising ) not only in Palestine but in the Arab world as well. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit on Monday accused Nasrallah of “declaring war on the Egyptian People” but said “the Egyptian People would confront this war.”
Some of the demonstrations were peaceful but some others were violent .A protest in the occupied West Bank turned deadly, when one Palestinian demonstrator was killed in clashes with police.
A demonstration in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was also marred by bloodshed when a suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up among the crowd, killing one person and wounding 16, police said.
Here are pictures of some of the demonstrations courtesy of AP and Reuters photographers :
Jordanians shout anti-Israel and U.S. slogans during a protest against the Israeli attacks on Gaza, in Amman December 29, 2008.
Demonstrators protest against the Israeli air strikes in Gaza, in front of the journalists’ syndicate in Cairo December 29, 2008. Israeli aircraft killed more than 345 Palestinians in the deadliest violence in the territory in decades.
A Palestinian flag flutters in the wind, as people protest in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, Lebanon, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008. Tens of thousands of Lebanese Hezbollah supporters poured into the streets south of Beirut to protest Israel’s air assault on targets in the Gaza Strip
Several hundred Bahrainis raising Palestinian flags and images of killings in the Gaza Strip pray, cry and shout during a demonstration Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008, in Muharraq, Bahrain.
Women take part in an anti-Israeli protest in Sanaa December 29, 2008. The posters read, “Relieve Gaza”
Demonstrators shout slogans in Istanbul December 28, 2008 during a protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Thousands of Syrian and Palestinians demonstrated on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008, at the Youssef al-Azma square in Damascus, Syria, in a show of protest against the Israeli assault against Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal is based in Damascus
December 30 2008
Protesters took to the streets of Europe’s capital cities on Monday in demonstrations against Israel’s assault on Gaza.
In Greece, riot police fired tear gas to stop protesters from hurling rocks at the Israeli Embassy in Athens during a rally.
In London, some 600 protesters gathered outside the Israeli Embassy waving flags as the police looked on.
In Berlin, about 2,000 Palestinians and their supporters formed a protest. Men and women held Palestinian flags, chanted slogans against Israel and waved banners denouncing the Israeli operation in Gaza.
Israeli warplanes continue to bomb the Gaza Strip for the third day. Ten more Palestinians have been killed in the attacks taking the toll to 330.
Several people have been seriously injured. The air strikes flattened government buildings in Gaza City and the Islamic University has been struck once again.
According to the United Nation figures, 320 Palestinians have died so far. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for immediate ceasefire.
Israel has launched more than 300 airstrikes, and its military has said naval vessels have also bombarded targets from the sea.
Meanwhile, several groups across the world have united to send aid and supplies to the troubled Gaza region. On Monday, a group of international activists said they would try to defy an Israeli naval blockade and send a boat with medical supplies to Palestinians in Gaza.
The group has successfully made five deliveries of aid by boat to Gaza since August, defying the blockade Israel imposed when Hamas won control of the territory in June 2007.
Organisers acknowledged that the Israeli Navy may try to stop the boat but they said the need for aid “outweighs the risks” of entering a war zone.
Israel Used Internationally Banned Weaponry in Massive Airstrikes Across Gaza Strip
Back in November
Israel blocks foreign media from Gaza
U.N.: Israel won’t allow food aid to enter Gaza
Israel has done everything humanly possible to destroy the Palestinians. This has been ongoing for a very long time.
Aid to Israel should be stopped and a boycott isn’t such a bad idea either before they murder all the Palestinians, which is their goal it seems. All weapons of mass destruction should also be stopped from entering Israel as well. The US gives money in aid to Israel, aid which buys weapons of mass destruction. Weapons they use to terrorize the Palestinians and their neighbors. They are starving and murdering the Palestinians.
Much of the media and others are blaming the wrong people.
Israel is anything but the innocent victim as some have made them out to be. They are in fact the guilty war criminals. They have become the enemy they hated most. They are now the exterminators. They rate right up there with Bush and his cronies exterminating Iraqis. They are not so different. The Iraqis were starved and treated horrifically just as the Palestinians have been. Now it seems the “shock and awe” is now being implemented against the Palestinians. There is no real difference.
US tax dollars are paying for this.
Not a very proud day to be American.
Sunday Jan 4 Reports: US protests against Attack in Gaza
Sunday Jan4 Reports: Protests around the World Against Gaza assault
Protests Sat Jan 3
Did You Know 