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Showing posts with label Gaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaza. Show all posts

Thursday, 16 September 2010

Gaza: Hamas updates number of "paradise virgins"

PA Legislator's New Math Updates Number of Virgins for ‘Martyrs’ - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News:
"Most Muslim preachers and politicians have used the expression '72 virgins” to encourage Arab youth to be ready to die in anti-Israeli terrorist attacks and suicide bombings.�Bahr’s new arithmetic reasons, 'In the Garden of Eden, there is a palace... with 500 gates. At every gate, there are 5,000 black-eyed virgins. Brothers, 500 multiplied by 5,000 is 2.5 million.
He said in his speech, aired on Hamas television, that men “should be praying for a son who would wage Jihad for the sake of Allah... As long as we continue on this path, nobody on Earth will be able to confront the resistance, or to confront the mujahedeen, those who worship Allah and seek martyrdom."'"
What happens? The number of applicants for suicide bombers have declined that quickly lately?

Found here.

Thursday, 9 September 2010

Gaza: Christians issue a call for protection amid burned Bibles and violence

Father Manuel Musallem, head of Gaza's Latin church, told the AP that Muslims have ransacked, burned and looted a school and convent that are part of the Gaza Strip's small Romany Catholic community. He told the AP that crosses were broken, damage was done to a statue of Jesus (*), and at the Rosary Sister School and nearby convent, prayer books were burned.
Gunmen used the roof of the school during the fighting, and the convent was "desecrated," Mussalem told the AP.
"Nothing happens by mistake these days," he said. 
Father Musalam additionally told The Jerusalem Post that the Muslim gunmen used rocket-propeled grenades (RPGs) to blow through the doors of the church and school, before burning Bibles and destroying every cross they could get their hands on.
Well, I haven't seen anyone condemning this actual violence like everyone -it seems- (including the Catholic Church, more here) has condemned the announcement of the "Day of Koran burning" (or whatever), have you? From my point of view, the "Day of the Koran burning" is nothing more than a way for Rev. Jones to have some publicity,. The Koran has passages which are most regrettable but burning the book is not going to make them dissappear. If he wants to be effective in these grounds, he should study it and denounce those regrettable parts.

But that doesn't make the double-standards of most journalists and most politicians vanish. On the contrary, they appear much more real. It looks like a book (whatever its contents) is more important than a human being. And that someone threatening to burn a book is much more dangerous that someone who is actually using violent methods (with rocket-propeled grenades included) and burning other -religious-books.

(*) Note their deep respect for other people's faith but specially for Jesus, who Muslims say, is also a prophet of Islam. What would happen if in Europe some guys would enter a mosque and burn some Korans?

Friday, 23 April 2010

Gaza: Hamas "raises" taxes, burns "painkillers" and confiscates cigarettes

Well, in reality that's an euphemism. The terrorist organization is not raising the taxes, they are just asking anyone which is "doing" a non-taxed "activity" to pay... without any law that says expressly why they should pay and what amount:

In the last couple of weeks, Gaza Strip store keepers, owners of supermarkets and grocery stores complained that the deposed government of Hamas movement in Gaza is imposing unreasonable and unfair taxes on products such as cigarettes, cars, motorcycles, electric generators and fuels.
"They (Hamas government) are searching for any reason to collect money from the poor people who have been suffering from the Israeli siege, which shows the real financial crisis that Hamas is passing through these days," Abu Ahmed, another store keeper who declined to give his full name, told Xinhua.
Mohsen Abu Ramadan, a Gaza-based economist, told Xinhua that any government in the world "has the right to collect taxes from the people, but in accordance with a transparent and clear law of taxes and customs," adding "unfortunately, the tax situation in Gaza doesn't have any basic law."

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

Gaza: women suffer from die-hard custom of "honor killing"

M.M., a 34-year-old male resident of Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza City never regretted the killing of his sister, who he believed had slept with a stranger.
"I protected the honor and dignity of my clan, and now I can walk down the street holding my head high," said the man, who spoke on condition of only using the abbreviation of his name.
Having served three years in prison for the murder, M.M. thought it was a proper price to pay to keep his family's reputation.
His case was ruled as passion killing by the local court and was given a much lighter penalty than first class murders, because it was categorized as "honor killing", in which a woman was murdered by her male relatives, often her father or brothers, for sex outside marriage.
Honor killing is not entirely rare and insular in the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip of 1.5 million population, where Israel's blockage since June 2007 has increased people's poverty as well as ideological isolation.
Seven women were killed by their family members in the name of "honor" in Gaza since the beginning of 2009, while two were killed in 2008, and eight in 2007, according to a report by the Gaza-based Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR).
via Gaza women suffer from die-hard custom of "honor killing"_English_Xinhua.

So for the Chinese agency honor killlings happen thanks to the "Israeli blockage". Even when it's clear that Hamas has been stealing aid supplies to sell them to residents. Even UN halted aid to Gaza after the theft of thousands of tonnes.
The UN Relief and Works agency said it made the decision after Hamas personnel intercepted an aid shipment for the second time this week.
In a statement, the agency said 10 truckloads of flour and rice delivered into Gaza yesterday were taken away by trucks affiliated with the Hamas-run social affairs ministry. Earlier this week, Hamas police took away thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents.
The blockage has done nothing to the reasons why these girls are savagely killed. That happens throughout the world, whether the interested are rich or poor.

NOTE: The Stop Honor Killings' web is down. Don't know why.