Palestinians fear 'no place is safe' in Gaza - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Palestinians fear 'no place is safe' in Gaza - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

>

Gaza City - Khader Khader had less than one minute to evacuate his home.

At 7am on Friday, the 55-year-old was sleeping under the staircase with his five children, when he heard his neighbour scream, "Dr Khader, evacuate! They are going to bomb my house!"

At that moment, Khader's seven-year-old son, Mohammed, tucked his tiny fingers into his father’s trousers and froze, unable to move. Quickly getting everyone out of bed, the family ran out of the yellow villa - which Khader spent years saving money to build and only moved into two years ago - just as the first Israeli missile, a warning shot, screeched by.

"We ran anywhere we could, away from the house so as not to get hurt or killed," Khader recalled, his voice shaking.

They crammed into the car and reached the top of the street before the second missile, fired from an Israeli F-16, hit the neighbourhood. Khader's home was not the target, but his neighbour's house was. "My children are traumatised from the bombing - what did they do to deserve this?" Khader, a respected university professor of linguistics, said.

My children are traumatised from the bombing - what did they do to deserve this? - Khader Khader, 55, father of five

His children, aged between seven and 16, have yet to return to see the damage. "The trauma is so immense, that they fear coming back to their home, where we escaped by a miracle," he told Al Jazeera.

---

RELATED: 'I never like the night'

---

At the same time the Khader family’s home was bombed, another house in Rafah, in southern Gaza, was hit by Israeli missiles. The Ghannam family received no warning and five people were killed in their sleep, while another 16 were injured.

At least 154 Palestinians have been killed and almost 1,000 others injured as Israel's military operation continued into a sixth day on Sunday. At least 70 Palestinian homes have been completely destroyed, according to the United Nations, while another 2,500 housing units have sustained minor damage.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday: "Hamas will pay a heavy price for firing at Israel's citizens."

On Twitter, the Israeli army has defended its operation, accusing Hamas of hiding rockets and other weapons in "houses, mosques, hospitals [and] schools" and of operating "deep within residential areas". The military has argued that it has made efforts to minimise civilian casualties, but said that houses can be considered lawful military targets.

But the UN has said that even if a home is being used for military purposes, "any attack must be proportionate, offer a definite military advantage in the prevailing circumstances at the time, and precautions must be taken".

Jaber Wishah, deputy director of the Palestinian Human Rights Center (PCHR) in Gaza City, said that Israel has engaged in the "punitive destruction" of Palestinian homes in Gaza. "Those houses - even if they belong to a Hamas [member] or Islamic Jihad [member] - they should be considered civilian objects. They did not participate in the military operations," he said.

Wishah told Al Jazeera that there are three scenarios that usually occur before Israel bombs a home in Gaza. The army may carry out an air strike without any prior warning, it may fire a warning shot - known as "roof-knocking", a dud missile will land on the roof of a house to alert the inhabitants that the real missile is on its way - or it may call Palestinian families to tell them to evacuate before they bomb their homes.

"Every single home in Gaza is within the target circle," Wishah said. "No place is safe in Gaza now. Each home could be a target, either directly or indirectly affected."

Palestinians fear 'no place is safe' in Gaza - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Gaza City -Khader Khader had less than one minute to evacuate his home.
At 7am on Friday, the 55-year-old was sleeping under the staircase with his five children, when he heard his neighbour scream, "Dr Khader, evacuate! They are going to bomb my house!"
At that moment, Khader's seven-year-old son, Mohammed, tucked his tiny fingers into his father’s trousers and froze, unable to move. Quickly getting everyone out of bed, the family ran out of the yellow villa - which Khader spent years saving money to build and only moved into two years ago - just as the first Israeli missile, a warning shot, screeched by.
"We ran anywhere we could, away from the house so as not to get hurt or killed," Khader recalled, his voice shaking.
They crammed into the car and reached the top of the street before the second missile, fired from an Israeli F-16, hit the neighbourhood. Khader's home was not the target, but his neighbour's house was."My children are traumatised from the bombing - what did they do to deserve this?" Khader, a respected university professor of linguistics, said.
My children are traumatised from the bombing - what did they do to deserve this?
- Khader Khader, 55, father of five
His children, aged between seven and 16, have yet to return to see the damage. "The trauma is so immense, that they fear coming back to their home, where we escaped by a miracle," he told Al Jazeera.

At the same time the Khader family’s home was bombed, another house in Rafah, in southern Gaza, was hit by Israeli missiles. The Ghannam family received no warning and five people were killed in their sleep, while another 16 were injured.
At least 154 Palestinians have been killed and almost 1,000 others injured as Israel's military operation continued into a sixth day on Sunday. At least 70 Palestinian homes have been completely destroyed, according to the United Nations, while another 2,500 housing units have sustained minor damage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday: "Hamas will pay a heavy price for firing at Israel's citizens."
On Twitter, the Israeli army has defended its operation, accusingHamas of hiding rockets and other weapons in "houses, mosques, hospitals [and] schools" and of operating " deep within residential areas". The military has argued that it has made efforts to minimise civilian casualties, but said that houses can be considered lawful military targets.
But the UN has saidthat even if a home is being used for military purposes, "any attack must be proportionate, offer a definite military advantage in the prevailing circumstances at the time, and precautions must be taken".
Jaber Wishah, deputy director of the Palestinian Human Rights Center (PCHR) in Gaza City, said that Israel has engaged in the "punitive destruction" of Palestinian homes in Gaza. "Those houses - even if they belong to a Hamas [member] or Islamic Jihad [member] - they should be considered civilian objects. They did not participate in the military operations," he said.

>

American Muslims' ongoing civil rights fight - Features - Al Jazeera English

Washington, DC -Thirteen years after the September 11 attacks, Arabs and Muslim Americans in the US still face continuing bias and prejudice, Arab Americans and civil rights activists say.
"It has gotten worse for us," said Nadia Tonova, the executive director of the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC) in Dearborn, Michigan. "We are a community that is constantly under suspicion. It'sreally at a point where it's out of control."
The NNAAC is rolling out a $4.5m grassroots mobilisation campaign called " Take on Hate" in New York City on July 15, designed to give Arab Americans and Muslims tools for combating bias and prejudice. The campaign, funded by the Open Society Foundation and the Proteus Fund, will focus on achieving public policy changes, educating the US public about Muslims and giving community activists a platform to battle discrimination.
The campaign aims to challenge acts of discrimination such as an incident that occurred on June 16, during a panel discussion held by the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC.
During a discussion about the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a Muslim law student named Saba Ahmed said: "We portray Islam and all Muslims as bad, but there's 1.8 billion followers of Islam. We have eight million plus Muslim Americans in this country and I don't see them represented here."
The worse things get in the Middle East, the worse things get for Arab Americans here in the US.
- Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
One of the panellists, Brigitte Gabriel, responded that moderate Muslims in the US were "irrelevant" in the fight against radicalism."It is time we take political correctness and throw it in the garbage where it belongs and start calling a spade a spade," retorted Gabriel- drawing a standing ovation from the crowd of about 150 people.
In a recent cable television exchange with Gabriel,Linda Sarsour - the national advocacy director for the NNAAC - challenged Gabriel for linking all Muslims to terrorism. "I want you to understand that if you want to combat terrorism, you need to work within the Muslim community. You need to make sure that we are part of that and the, quote, 'moderate' Muslims that you're talking about, which are almost every Muslim living here in this country, need to be part of this discussion."
Muslim American activists worry that rhetoric such as Gabriel's can fuel violent attacks and hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims. There are some 3.6 million Americans of Arab descent, many of whom are Christian, and an estimated six million American Muslims of varying nationalities, according to the Arab American Institute.
"The worse things get in the Middle East, the worse things get for Arab Americans here in the US. Every time there is something serious in the Middle East, things spike," Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), told Al Jazeera. "People get attacked and beaten for doing nothing but appearing Muslim."
Anti-Muslim hate crimes
There were 155 anti-Muslim hate crimes committed against Arabs and Muslims in the US during 2012, according to the most recent FBI statistics.The deadliest of these was the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin, in which a white supremacist, who incorrectly believed he was attacking Muslims, murdered six Sikhs and was shot by police before killing himself.

Palestinians are not ghosts

Palestinians are not ghosts
The brutal Israeli offensive against hundreds of alleged Hamas targets in Gaza this week, after many missiles were launched daily against Israel, is once again a battle of David and Goliath. The brutal bombing of heavily populated Palestinian residential buildings, hospitals and schools can only be described as vindictive and murderous since it is quite clear that the Hamas missiles are being launched from empty fields and not from crowded apartment blocks. Of course Israel has the right and indeed duty to defend its citizens from attack, but killing 78 Palestinians and injuring 550 of them in just three days with no dead Israeli is nothing fair or balanced.
Everything comes after the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers on June 12 that, after missing three weeks, were found dead. The Israeli government immediately blamed Hamas for it and ordered the arrest of more than 400 Palestinians — including former Hamas prisoners Israel had released in 2011 in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit — and the demolition of the house of a family of Palestinians in the West Bank who are known supporters of Hamas, for allegedly having participated in the kidnapping. But until today, Israel has not presented any evidence proving Hamas’ involvement.
The right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than calm the waters, left the most anti-Arab voices sound high, and groups of Jewish settlers from the West Bank roamed the streets of Jerusalem hunting for Palestinians to attack. Israeli police had to intervene and arrest several of these hoodlums. Unfortunately, the young Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, had no luck. On July 2, he was taken by force from a street by Jewish extremists. His body was later found completely charred, an autopsy report saying that he had been forced to drink gasoline before being burned alive.
>

Petition to ban India’s Shariah courts rejected

NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court Monday rejected a petition seeking to ban Shariah courts, but stressed that they had no legal powers over Muslims and their decisions could not be enforced.

Abusers insinuate to me remedy to their abuses

So these bagas from among the ‪#‎ muslim ‬kinship networks who have been subjecting me to soul shattering attrocities, keeping me beseiged. targetting me across neighborhoods, places on my routine itenerary, courts, at bus stands and in buses and have destructed me economically, mentally and defamed me, in short destroyed my career and my life, insinuate to me ” tum deen ke kaam me lug jao, nahi to paagal ban jao gey yaa to phir suicide kerna parey ga “meaning that i engage myself in Islamic missionary work by joining any of the dawa networks – a kind of plea bargaining – to mitigate my sufferings, else i will become mad or will have to commit suicide. Bafoons! I shifted rather escaped to Shaheen Bagh on 25 April 2014, from Okhla Vihar amidst intense almost climaxing mass abuses harassments, provocations and terrorisations. But this place breaks all previous records in terms of quickness with which harassments has started, its intensity and banality, nature and forms else in previous places it took 6 months to 1 year for the targetting to pick up

ISIS Demolishes Mosques & Shrines in Iraq

Islamic militant sect, ISIS, which has been rampaging across the north and west of Iraq since last month, has been demolishing sacred sites such as shrines and mosques around the historic northern city of Mosul in Nineveh province. Photographs from the area posted online under the banner“Demolishing shrines and idols in the state of Nineveh”depicted mosques being turned into piles of rubble – explosives deployed against Shiite buildings - and bulldozers flattening the shrines. At least four shrines to Sunni Arab or Sufi figures have been destroyed by the bulldozers, according to AFP. The structures had been built around graves of Muslim saints. Six Shiite mosques have also been destroyed using explosives.