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nterview where Israeli spokesman Mark Regev is taken to task by Jeremy Paxman over the UN School bombing in Gaza. \You knew what you were doing didnt you?\ is Paxmans combative opening/nForty-two women and children were killed when an Israeli tank opened fire outside a UN-run school in Gaza today, the third such attack in 24 hours. Two tank shells exploded outside the al-Fakhora school in Jabaliya refugee camp, spraying shrapnel on those inside and outside the building, where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from Israeli shelling./nThose who died in the attack today were people sheltering in the school and local residents. Schools run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have opened their doors to provide shelters for thousands of Palestinians who have fled their homes. The Israeli government has been informed of this fact by the UNRWA representatives in Gaza. At least 17 schools are sheltering more than 5,000 people. Nine of the schools in the Jabaliya refugee camp are in the front line of fighting./nMax Gaylard, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said that Israel had the GPS co-ordinates of all U.N. buildings in Gaza including its schools. Neither homes nor U.N. shelters are safe for civilians, he said in a statement that reaffirmed UN ceasefire calls. These tragic incidents need to be investigated, and if international humanitarian law has been contravened, those responsible must be held accountable./nIsrael has a history of attacking U.N. shelters holding civilians. In Qana, south Lebanon, the Israeli army massacred hundreds of civilians when they bombed UN shelters in 1996. This deliberate war crime was repeated in 2006 when Israel again bombed U.N. buildings protecting civilians./nToday we call on the Canadian Government to condemn this grave war crime, as any justification for this despicable act perpetuated by the Israeli military will only signal that the Conservative government views Palestinian live as subhuman./nAlso at this moment, we can only reaffirm our commitment in the strongest possible terms to continue mobilizing friends and allies in other progressive social movements to respond to the call by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations for a comprehensive campaign of boycott, sanctions and divestment/nOne by one the justifications given by Israel for its latest war in Gaza are unravelling./nThe argument that this is a purely defensive war, launched only after Hamas broke a six-month ceasefire has been challenged, not just by observers in the know such as Jimmy Carter, the former US president who helped facilitate the truce, but by centre-right Israeli intelligence think tanks./nThe Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose December 31 report titled \Six Months of the Lull Arrangement Intelligence Report,\ confirmed that the June 19 truce was only \sporadically violated, and then not by Hamas but instead by ... ogue terrorist organisations\./nInstead, \the escalation and erosion of the lull arrangement\ occurred after Israel killed six Hamas members on November 4 without provocation and then placed the entire Strip under an even more intensive siege the next day./nAccording to a joint Tel Aviv University-European University study, this fits a larger pattern in which Israeli violence has been responsible for ending 79 per cent of all lulls in violence since the outbreak of the second intifada, compared with only 8 per cent for Hamas and other Palestinian factions./nIndeed, the Israeli foreign ministry seems to realise that this argument is losing credibility./nDuring a conference call with half a dozen pro-Israel professors on Thursday, Asaf Shariv, the Consul General of Israel in New York, focused more on the importance of destroying the intricate tunnel system connecting Gaza to the Sinai./nHe claimed that such tunnels were \as big as the Holland and Lincoln tunnels,\ and offered as proof the \fact\ that lions and monkeys had been smuggled through them to a zoo in Gaza. In reality, the lions were two small cubs that were drugged, thrown in sacks, and dragged through a tunnel on their way to a private zoo./nIsrael\s self-image/nThe claim that Hamas will never accept the existence of Israel has proved equally misinformed, as Hamas leaders explicitly announce their intention to do just that in the pages of the Los Angeles Times or to any international leader or journalist who will meet with them.

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http://www.arabiatube.com/video/2772/-BBC-argues-with-Israeli-Spokesman-over-UN-School-Bombing


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