In Gaza, Seeking Shelter From Israeli Fire

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Fatin Shabaat left home here Thursday with her three hip-high children, looking for safety from a slow-moving Israeli military assault launched to free a 19-year-old soldier being held by Palestinian gunmen.

Israeli artillery batteries lobbed shells around this farming community in the Gaza Strip's northeastern corner throughout the day, after leaflets dropped from the sky warned residents to remain clear of Israeli military operations. Shells whistled overhead, slamming into the fields and dunes where Palestinian gunmen regularly fire crude rockets at the Israeli city of Sderot, a white smudge along a ridgeline three miles away.

Although she never received one of the written warnings, Shabaat clutched her children, ages 2, 3 and 4, and headed to her father's home in the town center, far from the dirt paths that have served in the past as routes for Israeli tanks. An Israeli airstrike had already left her without electricity, along with about 700,000 other residents of the strip, and artillery shells were falling close to her back yard.

"This is only going to get worse," said Shabaat, 25, who despite the impending clash favors keeping the Israeli soldier captive until at least some Palestinian prisoners are released from Israeli jails. "We will not get anything otherwise. And they are going to invade anyway. This soldier is just an excuse."

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[Tom Joad]

1. Not only threatened with hunger, but shelled and bombed.

We must organize, we must stop the attacks on civilians.
Stop all U.S. aid to the Israeli deathmachine attacking Palestinian children.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. You have a small point

but not quite the way you will like it... WE ALL MUST STOP ENABLING BOTH SIDES.

Why the caps? Well yes this is a humanitarian tragedy and one more ratcheting up in the cycle of violence, but reality is BOTH SIDES are guilty, and BOTH SIDES have done terrible things to each other.