For any individual out there who thought the Gaza “disengagement” plan meant any inkling of freedom for Gazans, please think again. The occupation of Gaza is alive and well. When Israel is allowed to run its tanks in and out of Gaza whenever it wants, begins shelling power plants, destroying bridges, and targeting civilians, how are we supposed to believe that Gaza was given any independence in the first place?! Not that I fell for the “disengagement” joke, but sometimes I try to play devil’s advocate with myself in favor of the IOF line, and I’m consistently unconvinced.

Over the past few hours, Israeli tanks, F-16, and Apachi helicopters began an expected assault on the 1.4 million residents of the Gaza Strip after an Israeli soldier was taken prisoner by Palestinian fighters on Sunday. Aljazeera is reporting that the IOF has called the operation “Summer Showers”.

Aljazeera journalists reporting from different parts of the Gaza said that a main bridge connecting the norther part of Gaza to the central and southern parts has been attacked by the Israeli airforce, as well as a central power plant which has resulted in the absence of electricity in many parts of the Gaza Strip. Shelling has also begun in Rafah, Khan Yunus, and in other parts of southern Gaza. The AP has also confirmed the same information.

Israeli planes attacked two bridges and a power station, knocking out electricity in most of the Gaza Strip early Wednesday and stepping up the pressure on Palestinian militants holding captive a 19-year-old Israeli soldier.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children are now sitting in the darkness of Gaza, waiting for their homes to be shelled, their men to be detained, and their relatives to be killed by a 20-something Israeli sniper. Patients in Gaza’s hospitals will find themselves in the dark, their respirators and other necessary medical equipment suddenly shut down, and will lie in bed waiting to see if the world will so much as utter a whimper in the face of Israeli aggression. Nobody should be surprised if they are left to die in those hospital beds.

On the other side of the world, I sit in the comfort of my suburban Washington home, slightly annoyed by the heavy rains and thunderstorms that have disrupted my daily outings. When we lost power for an hour last night, my biggest worry was that I could not watch the soccer matches on tv, access the Internet on my laptop, microwave my dinner, or enjoy a night’s sleep with my precious A/C pumping cool air into my bedroom. There were no F-16’s flying over head, or tanks rolling into my street, or snipers stationed in the house across mine. They were just summer showers; the wet type, not the burning type.

May God be with you, Gaza.

[Israeli soldiers cheer as they prepare to move into the Gaza Strip at an army base outside Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, near the border with the southern Gaza Strip, early Wednesday June 28, 2006. AP photo]

UPDATE: Aljazeera’s live coverage has been very informative, and I’m glued to the tv for the most part. Members of a resistance group in the West Bank have claimed responsibility for taking an Israeli settler hostage through a phone call made to Aljazeera. The spokesman said that the settler is a military trainee. He said their requests from the Israeli government are the same as those who captured the other Israeli soldier: the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The reporters scattered throughout Gaza are saying that the IOF is using a well known technique of faking an air strike by breaking the sound barrier through sonic booms. This is mainly used as psychological warfare as it scares the residents (mainly young children) who assume that an air attack is imminent.

[technorati tags: Israel, IDF, terrorism, Palestine, Gaza, human rights, resistance, occupation, international law]

I managed to make it this morning to the 24-hour vigil organized by the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition that I wrote about yesterday. The turnout was not huge, but that was mainly due to the heavy rain fall and thunderstorms that have been hitting the DC area. The offices of TASSC were flooded last night so that affected the whole day’s program. In front of the White House, attendees passed out informational flyers, held up banners and signs, chanted anti-torture slogans, and half a dozen people got arrested after a civil disobedience session.

I met an old Peruvian man who was wearing a picture of his son who was tortured to death in 1993 by the Fujimori government. He was an innocent university student who was arrested, tortured, and then burned to death by the authorities. I met an American nun who was tortured by the government in Guatemala during a period of civil unrest until she escaped. These and other governments in Latin and South America were supported by the US; some of the torturers were even trained by Americans.

I met a young Jordanian-American woman whose brother was tortured in Saudi Arabia at the behest of the US government. Ahmed Abu-Ali is an American citizen who languished in a Saudi jail for 20 months without being charged, was tortured by the “Mabahith” (secret police), and then finally sent back to the US where the government sought to get revenge from him and his family by making frivolous charges against him. He was convicted by a jury based on confessions he made while being tortured. Yes, you heard me right, they took the statements he made while his body was whipped and his nails were pulled off, and used that as evidence against him. (Please recall my earlier post about Maher Arar who was rendered by the US to Syria where he said, “I was terrified, and I did not want to be tortured. I would say anything to avoid torture.”)

The effects of torture on an individual cannot be erased. I could tell while speaking to these survivors that this was not something easy to do, to reopen the wounds and recall the painful memories. But they were brave enough to do it because they realize that innocent people like themselves are facing the same type of oppression, and as survivors of torture, they want to put an end to it. From Guantanamo to Syria to Guatemala to China, prisoners around the world in more than 150 countries are being tortured as we speak.

The burden is on us to make a difference, to change the policies, to lobby for change, to ask for justice.

Here are some pictures of the event (click to enlarge):

Tomorrow, Monday June 26th, is the UN International Day in Support of Victims and Survivors of Torture. June is Torture Awareness Month, and I have written a couple of posts about this topic as a member of the Bloggers Against Torture campaign. Whether you are a blogger or not, there is a lot each of us can do to make a positive impact and put pressure on our governments to stop using this inhumane policy against prisoners.

For those of you in the Washington D.C. metro area, an organization called the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition is holding a 24-hour vigil to commemorate the victims of torture and raise awareness about this important cause. The events will take place in Lafayette Park across the White House from 7am on Monday to 7am on Tuesday (see directions below) . There is a full day program with various activities and events taking place, including:

- There will be a Mock Prison Cell on site during the 24-Hour Vigil to symbolize the ongoing practice of torture today. Each hour a different volunteer will sit in the cell and represent a specific individual—someone who is disappeared or detained, who has been tortured, or is at risk of being tortured today.

- Friends of TASSC will demonstrate their solidarity with survivors by a non-violent protest against torture during the Vigil in which they will risk arrest.

- Be a “ Walking Billboard .” And see the sites of Washington ! Spend a few hours walking through downtown Washington with a sign raising awareness about torture. Walking is good for you and human rights, too! (Full schedule in pdf)

Other events in DC and New York (source):
June 26
Washington, DC 9:00 to 5:00pm Lobby Day Against Extraordinary Rendition follows teach-in and lobby training June 25. Capitol Hill. Contact

Mary Jo at Amnesty International to coordinate lobby visits.

Washington, DC 5:00 to 6:30pm Vigil at the Vice President’s House, Sponsored by the Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture. Email

WRRCAT.

New York City 10:30am to 1:00pm Solemn procession and demonstration to shut down Guantanamo. Witness Against Torture Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 47th St. and 1st Ave.

New York City 6:30 to 8:30pm Movie screening: “Gitmo: The New Rules of War” Followed by a panel with Mark Kennis, Amnesty International, and Ramzi Kassem, counsel for Guantanamo detainees. $10 admission to benefit torture victims. Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive New York, Room 10T. For more information call 212-87-6854.

June 27
Washington, DC 12:00 to 1:30pm (EDT) Capitol Hill Panel Discussion on Guantanamo: “Should the U.S. Shut Down Gitmo?” Speakers include former Guantanamo Bay Muslim Chaplain James Yee. Room 2226, Rayburn House Office Building. Council on American-Islamic Relations.

If you live in the area, please make an effort to stop by even if only for a few minutes. We cannot sit back and watch scandals like Abu Ghraib take place and taint the image of our country. We should not allow our government to send suspects to foreign governments to be tortured and stripped of every basic human right they possess.

Lafayette Park is located directly north of the White House on H Street between 15th and 17th Streets, NW. The easiest way to get there is using Metro; Farragut West on the Blue and Orange lines is the closest station to the site of the events. Here is a map of the area; the red star is the Farragut West station.

[technorati tags: torture, international law, human rights, campaigns, torture awareness month]

The Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) were stunned as an attack on one of their convoys by Palestinian resistance fighters caused the death of three and injured four others. One other soldier has been taken hostage. The lives of Israeli soldiers are apparently worth more than that of Palestinian civilians, dozens of whom have been killed in the past two weeks in the Occupied Territories. The Israeli Defense Minister has vowed to take revenge on those who perpetrated the attack, as Prime Minister Olmert not surprisingly put the blame on the Abbas and his government. Israelis seeking revenge for soldiers killed in battle is acceptable, but Palestinians seeking revenge for children and innocent men and women killed in cold blood is not. Welcome to Israel, the “only democracy in the Middle East”.

The Hamas led Palestinian government had this to say about the attack:

“We are calling on the resistance groups, if they do have the missing soldier… to protect his life and treat him well,” said spokesman Ghazi Hamad, speaking in Hebrew at a press conference.

“We urge Israel not to go towards an escalation,” he said.

An article in the Washington Post completely disregarded the above statements made by the Palestinian government’s spokesperson, and instead opted to include Abbas’s condemnation of the attack.

This is what he had to say, from Aljazeera:

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, condemned the attack in a statement saying: “We have always warned against the danger of certain groups or factions leaving the national consensus and carrying out operations for which the Palestinian people will always have to pay the price.”

In another statement from his office, Abbas had this to say:

”All [factions] had agreed to continue the cease-fire and stop all the military attacks against Israel, in order not to give Israel any pretext to launch a large-scale military operation that they were threatening our people with in Gaza. This attack contradicts all we heard.”

Who is this man kidding?! Since when does Israel need a pretext for firing missiles into Gaza and the West Bank?! Since when does Israel need an “excuse” to attack Palestinians on beaches, in their homes, and in the streets?! Israel does whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whoever it wants. Without any regard for human life, Israel launches attacks left and right on a daily basis, and gets full support from its strongest ally, the US.

[technorati tags: Israel, IDF, Palestine, human rights, resistance]