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Clashes between Palestinians and IDF infantry are reported in the north of Gaza, while the Israeli Air Force fired rockets and missiles into Gaza City.
"Shoah is the Hebrew word for Holocaust, adapted from its biblical definition, "calamity." Literally, as Wikipedia defines it, the term is derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning completely burnt, as a sacrificial offering to God. But which god would demand the broken and charred bodies that lay dead beneath the rubble of Gaza today?
Scores are dead, more than sixty reported killed Saturday.
While today's attack is the biggest IDF assault in more than two and
half years, the week ended with more than three dozen dead
Palestinians, killed indiscriminately by the IDF "in response" to
Kassam and other homemade rockets fired into Jewish occupied areas that
killed one Israeli.
Mohammed Omer, reporting
for BBS News from Gaza, describes the aftermath of Wednesday's IDF's
shelling of a group of school boys playing soccer; an event preceding
the dramatic escalation of rockets fired from the Strip:
- "I had a
long day, an awful day, taking photos and writing from on the ground in
Gaza City and northern Gaza. I met with two children who survived
Wednesday's Jabalyia soccer bombing: the other 4 kids were, as you
likely know, killed. One of the children I saw had no flesh on their
legs, had burns all over their bodies from the tank's shelling. This
was one of the scariest things I have seen yet, and I have seen a lot
more than that."
Israel's onslaught comes just days before U.S.
secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice is scheduled to visit the region,
ostensibly to search out a route to peace.
Exiled Hamas
leader, Khaled Meshaal said from Damascus, Israel would be resisted,
"not by dozens, but by 1.5 million people."
-
"Killing
Palestinian women and children will not bring security to the people of
Israel," he said, while reminding the Hamas leadership, rocket attacks
against Israel would not achieve the aims of the Palestinian people.
At
least 68 Palestinians were killed in February, 62 in January, and more
than 60 dead on the first day of March. Rockets from Palestine have
killed three Israelis over the last year.
Matan Vilnai's use of the
word "Shoah" has proven a political embarassment, with Hamas
spokepersons using it to liken Israel's attacks to the genocidal practices Nazi
Germany employed against Jews and other "undesirable" elements.
Historically, "Holocaust" is term reserved for Jewish suffering under
Hitler's Reich, so Hamas has used Vilnai's comments to infer a parallel
between the Nazis and the present administration in Israel.
Vilnai
defended his statement, saying he meant the term in the biblical
sense, as a "disaster" or "calamity" that would befall Gaza should
rocket attacks continue.
- "The
more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they
will bring upon themselves a bigger 'shoah' because we will use all our
might to defend ourselves."
For at least sixty Palestinians and their families and friends, today the distinction is a purely semantic one.
Al Jazeera reports from Gaza on the tragedy of one Palestinian family whose child died during Wednesday's air raid over the city.
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Friday, Israel's deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai promised Gaza would experience a "Shoah," and today the Israeli Defense Forces made good the minister's promise, 
