http://www.imemc.org/content/view/22483/1/
Two fighters killed in Gaza and Beit Lahia
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Monday, 06 November 2006, 14:55

Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported on Monday afternoon that two Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli military attacks in Gaza city and Beit Lahia. At least four residents were injured in Jabalia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

One fighter of the Al Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was killed in Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, when the Israeli air force targeted fighters of the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas; at least four residents were injured.

In a press release, the Al Qassam brigades identified the fighter was identified as Mahmoud Taha, 31. He was killed east of Al Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City.

In Beit Lahia, one resident identified as Ala' Tawfiq Siyam, 24, was shot and killed by Israeli troops stationed at the border line with the Gaza Strip. Siyam was standing near the American School in the town.

Moreover, local sources reported that four Palestinians were injured after the Israeli air force fired one missile at fighters in Al Qarm area, east of Jabalia. The four were moved to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

The army also fired several shells at Jabal Al Rayyes area east of Gaza City as several tanks and military vehicles attempted to advance and were met by fierce resistance, local sources reported.

Earlier on Monday, two children were killed after the Israeli air force fired a missile at a vehicle driving beside a school bus; nine children, and one teacher, were also injured in the attack.

The two were identified as Mohammad Ahmad Ashour, 16, and Ramzi Al Sharafi, 15. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that the injured children are 10 – 13 year-old.

At least fifty-four residents have been killed since the Israeli army started its military offensive “Autumn Clouds” six days ago, more than 300 were injured, dozens seriously.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/22479/1/
Two children killed in northern Gaza
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Monday, 06 November 2006, 12:21

Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that two schoolchildren were killed after the Israeli air force fired a missile at a vehicle driving beside a school bus; nine children, and one teacher, were also injured in the attack.

The sources identified the two children as Mohammad Ahmad Ashour, 16, and Ramzi Al Sharafi, 15. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that the injured children are 10 – 13 year-old.

One female teacher was seriously injured and was moved to the Intensive Care Unit at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

In a separate attack, four fighters were injured after the Israeli air force fired a missile at them east of Jabalia town, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

As the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip continues for the sixth day, at least 52 Palestinians were killed and 300 were injured, including 38 who are in serious conditions.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=16802
PMRS Appeal to End Gaza Carnage: 47 Gazans Killed, including more than 21 Civilians, in 5 Days of Israeli Bloodshed
Date: 05 / 11 / 2006 Time: 18:11

Bethlehem - Ma'an - The Palestinian Medical Relief Society have released the following appeal.

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Ramallah, 05-11-06: PMRS urgently appeals to its friends and partners around the world to take immediate action to bring an end to 5 days of carnage in the northern Gaza Strip, in which at least 47 Gazans have been killed, more than 21 of whom were mostly civilians, including 7 children, 3 women, and 3 paramedics, since Israel began its bloody re-invasion of Beit Hanoun last Wednesday. A 12-year-girl was killed by a single shot to the head from an Israeli sniper in Beit Hanoun on Saturday evening.

More than 200 Palestinians have also been injured in the same period, most of them civilians, including approximately 43 women, 30 children, 1 paramedic, and 1 journalist. [1]

Gaza's health infrastructure, already buckling under the pressure of a financial crisis brought about by cuts in international funding to the Palestinian Authority and Israel's withholding of Palestinian tax monies, as well as prolonged border closures and the deliberate bombing of Gaza's only domestic power plant by Israeli warplanes on 28 June 2006, has reached breaking point. A shortage of essential medications and medical supplies due to a lack of funding and Israeli-imposed border closures preventing the importation of such items, means that health workers in the northern Gaza Strip are unable to cope with the sheer number of dead and injured.

This situation is being exacerbated by the fact that the Israeli military is forcibly preventing ambulance services from other areas of the Strip to access Beit Hanoun. On Friday 3 November for example, it took ambulance workers several hours to reach the bodies of two women killed when Israeli troops opened fire on a group of around 150 women who were peacefully marching towards a mosque in Beit Hanoun where their male kin were being held by the Israeli military. [2]

On the same day, three paramedics were also killed whilst attempting to reach the dead and wounded. Two medics were killed while attending to the casualties of an Israeli missile strike in the western part of Beit Lahiya, when a second Israeli rocket was launched, killing both men. [3]
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, who is currently in Gaza, reports that health workers are also have to cope with new kinds of injuries resulting from Israel's use of lethal weapons against civilians, including new dangerous weapons which cause severe tissue damage, burning and tearing the victim's body from the inside and leaving long term deformations.

PMRS urgently appeals to members of the international community to demand an immediate end to Israel's indiscriminate attacks on women, children and other civilians, which represent a form of reprisals and collective punishment in violation of article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

PMRS calls on its friends and partners around the world to pressurize their respective governments to take concrete action to end this carnage, which threatens to plunge the region back into the depths of bloody conflict at the expense of innocent Palestinians. It also appeals to its partners working in Palestine to support the Palestinian health system in coping with the deteriorating humanitarian crisis.

For more information on the crisis, and on ways to take action, please contact PMRS' External Relations Department:

Tel: 00972-2-2969970/00972-599-940073
E-mail: bahia@pmrs.ps

References

[1] Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights. 5 November 2006. IOF kill 44 Palestinians, target a medical team, and escalate their extra-judicial assassinations in Gaza. http://www.mezan.org/site_en/press_room/press_detail.php?id=547
[2] PCHR. 4 November 2006. For the 4th Consecutive Day: IOF Perpetrate State-sponsored Terrorism in Beit Hanoun. http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2006/122-2006.htm; Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights: 5 November 2006.
[3] PCHR: 4 November 2006.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=16782
Israelis hold up ambulance on way to hospital until man inside dies
Date: 05 / 11 / 2006 Time: 11:51

Bethlehem - Ma'an – A Palestinian citizen from Deheisheh refugee camp, near Bethlehem, has died while being transported from Beit Jala hospital to a hospital in Jerusalem.

Medical sources said that Jamal Ajouri, 48, was being transported by ambulance when Israeli forces at a military checkpoint delayed him and prevented his passage.

It is known that Israeli military checkpoints are used to delay ambulances and have caused the death of many Palestinians.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/294AD793-2E4F-4A3F-874E-C153D62DCAB1.htm
War games predicted Iraq failures

Sunday 05 November 2006, 10:58 Makka Time, 7:58 GMT

About 140,000 US troops are currently serving in Iraq

Secret Iraq war games conducted by the United States in 1999 had predicted many of the problems the invasion currently faces.

The 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials who took part in "Desert Crossing" assumed that at least 400,000 troops would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs if they invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

"The conventional wisdom is the US mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," Thomas Blanton, director of the George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library, said.

"But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."

There are currently about 144,000 US troops deployed in Iraq, down from about 160,000 in January.

The study - which became public through a Freedom of Information Act request by the archive on Saturday - tested "worst case" and "most likely" scenarios for a post-Saddam Iraq.

Stability 'not guaranteed'

The state department, defence department, national security council and the CIA all took part.

A spokeswoman for US Central Command, which sponsored the study and declassified the report in 2004, declined to comment saying she was not familiar with the documents.

Several years before the sectarian violence which has developed since the 2003 invasion the 1999 report was able to warn that "a change in regimes does not guarantee stability."

"A number of factors including aggressive neighbours, fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines, and chaos created by rival forces bidding for power could adversely affect regional stability."

Post-Saddam government

The report was similarly pessimistic about the kind of government which would follow Saddam.

"A change in regimes does not guarantee stability"

Desert Crossing After Action Report, 1999

"Even when civil order is restored and borders are secured, the replacement regime could be problematic - especially if perceived as weak, a puppet, or out-of-step with prevailing regional governments," it said.

A transitional government set up by the US would be likely to encounter difficulties "from a period of widespread bloodshed in which various factions seek to eliminate their enemies," contributors suggested.

The report also stressed that the creation of a democratic government was not feasible but a new pluralistic Iraqi government including nationalist leaders could be possible.

Warnings 'forgotten'
Marine General Antony Zinni, who lead Centcom at the time of Desert Crossing and retired short after its completion, has repeatedly said that many lessons that could have been learnt from the report were ignored.

Before the invasion, Zinni says he raised the issue of Desert Crossing but it had seemingly been forgotten by Central Command.

"When it looked like we were going in [to Iraq], I called back down to Centcom and said, 'You need to dust off Desert Crossing.' They said, 'What's that? Never heard of it.' So in a matter of a few years it was gone," he said in a speech in 2004.

The report said that the government and military should work towards a stable, unified country in the years following an invasion.

More than three years after George Bush declared that the mission had been completed in Iraq, his Republican party is under pressure over the situation ahead of congressional elections on November 7.

National Security Archive: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html