Post by sjdigriz on Jan 8, 2009 20:32:23 GMT -6
I don't care who you think is right / wrong in Gaza, this ain't right.
online.wsj.com/article/SB123136613816062175.html#printMode
Israelis Watch the Fighting in Gaza From a Hilly Vantage Point
They Come With Binoculars and Lawn Chairs; Nurse Znaty: 'I'm Sorry, but I'm Happy'
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* Video
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By CHARLES LEVINSON
GAZA BORDER -- Moti Danino sat Monday in a canvas lawn chair on a sandy hilltop on Gaza's border, peering through a pair of binoculars at distant plumes of smoke rising from the besieged territory.
An unemployed factory worker, he comes here each morning to watch Israel's assault on Hamas from what has become the war's peanut gallery -- a string of dusty hilltops close to the border that offer panoramic views across northern Gaza.
He is one of dozens of Israelis who have arrived from all over Israel, some with sack lunches and portable radios tuned to the latest reports of the battle raging in front of them. Some, like Mr. Danino, are here to egg on friends and family members in the fight.
Moti Denino and other residents of Sderot in Israel call themselves the "hill people", watching attacks unfold between Israel and Gaza from a hillside. WSJ's Sivan Raviv reports.
Others have made the trek, they say, to witness firsthand a military operation -- so far, widely popular inside Israel -- against Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.
Over the weekend, four teenagers sat on a hill near Mr. Danino's, oohing and aahing at the airstrikes. Nadav Zebari, who studies Torah in Jerusalem, was eating a cheese sandwich and sipping a Diet Coke.
"I've never watched a war before," he said. A group of police officers nearby took turns snapping pictures of one another with smoking Gaza as a backdrop. "I want to feel a part of the war," one said, before correcting himself with the official government designation for the assault. "I mean operation. It's not a war."
The spectators share hilltop space with an army of camera-toting Israeli and foreign journalists, who have so far been banned by the Israeli military from entering Gaza to report on the conflict.
Mr. Danino has a personal link to the fighting. His 20-year-old son, Moshe, is a soldier in an infantry unit fighting somewhere below his hilly perch. From the sidelines, he is here to root for his son the soldier, he says, just as he once sat on the sidelines of soccer fields cheering for his son the high-school athlete.
"The army took all the soldiers' cellphones away before the attack, so this is my way of staying in contact," he says.
View Slideshow
[SB123126505270157947]
Pavel Wolberg/European Pressphoto Agency
Orthodox Jews watched smoke rise over the northern Gaza Strip Tuesday.
On another hilltop overlooking Gaza, Sandra Koubi, a 43-year-old philosophy student, says seeing the violence up close "is a kind of catharsis for me, to get rid of all the anxiety we have inside us after years of rocket fire" from Hamas.
Jocelyn Znaty, a stout 60-year-old nurse for Magen David Adom, the Israeli counterpart of the Red Cross, can hardly contain her glee at the site of exploding mortars below in Gaza.
"Look at that," she shouts, clapping her hands as four artillery rounds pound the territory in quick succession. "Bravo! Bravo!"
Ms. Znaty lives in Sderot, the immigrant community on Gaza's border that has long been a target for rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian militants. Her daughter lives on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, an Israeli community even closer to the Gaza Strip.
Last year, Gaza-launched rockets struck Ms. Znaty's home twice in a single week. She escaped both attacks unscathed but has a simmering anger for those living on the other side of the Gaza fence.
She acknowledges an uncomfortable, self-conscious awareness that she is cheering on a deadly war. Israeli planes, ships and artillery have blasted the small, sealed-off territory for more than a week, killing more than 680 Palestinians and injuring about 3,000. Ten Israelis have been killed, including three civilians, according to U.N. officials.
More
* Israel Resumes Gaza Attacks
* Strike Kills 30 Outside Gaza School
* Wash Wire: Bush, Obama Talked About Gaza
* Egypt Becomes Flashpoint Over Gaza
* Iran Has Much at Stake in Outcome
* Notebook: Doctors Struggle With Shortages
* Interactive Map: Day-by-day developments
Discuss
* What is the best way to end the violence?
* How should the U.S. respond?
Video
* What Could Happen to Gaza After War?
* In Combating Hamas, Israel Looks to the Past
* Israeli U.N. Ambassador Shalev on Gaza Conflict
* Israel May Consider Egyptian Peace Plan
* Gaza Fighting Eases, But Many Still Dying
* Strike on Gaza School Kills Many
* Moussa: Israel's Offensive is 'Naked Aggression'
* Israeli Troops Push Deeper Into Gaza Melee
The weekend ground assault has sent civilian casualties climbing, overwhelming hospitals and triggering the International Committee of the Red Cross to declare a humanitarian crisis inside the small, seaside enclave of 1.5 million.
On Tuesday, the UN said one of its schools in Gaza was hit by an Israeli strike, killing 43 civilians who had sought refuge from the attacks and injuring about 100.
"It's weird that we have to take lives in order to save lives," Ms. Znaty says. "But we were held hostage by Hamas while our government ignored us, and now we fight back. I am sorry, but I am happy."
War watching is not a new phenomenon. Up until World War I, when more powerful weapons began to be used on the battlefield, it was common for civilians to perch on grassy lookouts on a battlefield's periphery.
Nor is it unique to Israelis in the current conflict. On the Egyptian side of the border, across from southern Gaza, Arabs, too, were coming from miles away to watch the aerial bombardment.
But at Gaza's border crossing in the dusty town of Rafah, the mood was of anger and somber resignation amid the punishing Israeli attacks. Egyptians in Rafah, and many of the Arab aid workers who have flocked there to help evacuate Gaza's wounded, share deep ethnic, family and economic ties with the territory.
Over the weekend, as ambulances ferried out bloodied Palestinian casualties, plumes of black smoke, accompanied by dull thuds and trembling earth, rose across the border, just a hundred yards across a no man's land marking the border with Egypt.
[Gaza Conflict]
Gaza Conflict Intensifies
See the steps that led up to Israeli troops entering Gaza.
"We feel helpless. We feel like we are so close but we can't do anything," said Rami Ibrahim Shahin, a 20-year-old mechanic, whose family is originally Palestinian. His brother lives on the other side of the border, now under Israeli fire. They talk every day, when phone connections work. Each evening, Mr. Shahin walks several miles to reach the border crossing, where he can get a better view of the attacks.
"All day long, it's like this, we see the attacks with our own eyes," shrugs Rafah resident Osama Al-Beyali, a 51-year-old porter in torn gray coveralls. As blasts ring out across the border, onlookers swear at Israel or offer prayers for victims.
A father of six, Mr. Al-Beyali says he thinks of the Palestinian children suffering in the cold, with little food or safety, under the barrage. "When I see my children, I feel ashamed and guilty. I feel like I should find a way to go over there and fight the Israelis."
"Injustice, injustice," he mumbles.
Many Israelis see the Gaza offensive as a welcome change. "I come here because our army is finally doing something, showing the world that we are not weak," says Mr. Danino, the unemployed factory worker. On his hilltop overlooking Gaza, Mr. Danino has taken to quarterbacking the assault from his folding chair.
Having sat here for much of the past week, he now fancies himself something of an expert. He says, for example, that Palestinian militants are fond of firing rockets from the cover of a distant block of greenhouses.
When a plume of smoke -- the result of an Israeli attack -- rose from what appears to be empty farmland Monday, Mr. Danino shook his head. "No, no, no," he said. "We should be hitting the greenhouses."
—Farnaz Fassihi in Rafah, Egypt and Margaret Coker in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.
online.wsj.com/article/SB123136613816062175.html#printMode
Israelis Watch the Fighting in Gaza From a Hilly Vantage Point
They Come With Binoculars and Lawn Chairs; Nurse Znaty: 'I'm Sorry, but I'm Happy'
* Article
* Video
* Slideshow
* Comments
more in World »
By CHARLES LEVINSON
GAZA BORDER -- Moti Danino sat Monday in a canvas lawn chair on a sandy hilltop on Gaza's border, peering through a pair of binoculars at distant plumes of smoke rising from the besieged territory.
An unemployed factory worker, he comes here each morning to watch Israel's assault on Hamas from what has become the war's peanut gallery -- a string of dusty hilltops close to the border that offer panoramic views across northern Gaza.
He is one of dozens of Israelis who have arrived from all over Israel, some with sack lunches and portable radios tuned to the latest reports of the battle raging in front of them. Some, like Mr. Danino, are here to egg on friends and family members in the fight.
Moti Denino and other residents of Sderot in Israel call themselves the "hill people", watching attacks unfold between Israel and Gaza from a hillside. WSJ's Sivan Raviv reports.
Others have made the trek, they say, to witness firsthand a military operation -- so far, widely popular inside Israel -- against Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.
Over the weekend, four teenagers sat on a hill near Mr. Danino's, oohing and aahing at the airstrikes. Nadav Zebari, who studies Torah in Jerusalem, was eating a cheese sandwich and sipping a Diet Coke.
"I've never watched a war before," he said. A group of police officers nearby took turns snapping pictures of one another with smoking Gaza as a backdrop. "I want to feel a part of the war," one said, before correcting himself with the official government designation for the assault. "I mean operation. It's not a war."
The spectators share hilltop space with an army of camera-toting Israeli and foreign journalists, who have so far been banned by the Israeli military from entering Gaza to report on the conflict.
Mr. Danino has a personal link to the fighting. His 20-year-old son, Moshe, is a soldier in an infantry unit fighting somewhere below his hilly perch. From the sidelines, he is here to root for his son the soldier, he says, just as he once sat on the sidelines of soccer fields cheering for his son the high-school athlete.
"The army took all the soldiers' cellphones away before the attack, so this is my way of staying in contact," he says.
View Slideshow
[SB123126505270157947]
Pavel Wolberg/European Pressphoto Agency
Orthodox Jews watched smoke rise over the northern Gaza Strip Tuesday.
On another hilltop overlooking Gaza, Sandra Koubi, a 43-year-old philosophy student, says seeing the violence up close "is a kind of catharsis for me, to get rid of all the anxiety we have inside us after years of rocket fire" from Hamas.
Jocelyn Znaty, a stout 60-year-old nurse for Magen David Adom, the Israeli counterpart of the Red Cross, can hardly contain her glee at the site of exploding mortars below in Gaza.
"Look at that," she shouts, clapping her hands as four artillery rounds pound the territory in quick succession. "Bravo! Bravo!"
Ms. Znaty lives in Sderot, the immigrant community on Gaza's border that has long been a target for rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian militants. Her daughter lives on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, an Israeli community even closer to the Gaza Strip.
Last year, Gaza-launched rockets struck Ms. Znaty's home twice in a single week. She escaped both attacks unscathed but has a simmering anger for those living on the other side of the Gaza fence.
She acknowledges an uncomfortable, self-conscious awareness that she is cheering on a deadly war. Israeli planes, ships and artillery have blasted the small, sealed-off territory for more than a week, killing more than 680 Palestinians and injuring about 3,000. Ten Israelis have been killed, including three civilians, according to U.N. officials.
More
* Israel Resumes Gaza Attacks
* Strike Kills 30 Outside Gaza School
* Wash Wire: Bush, Obama Talked About Gaza
* Egypt Becomes Flashpoint Over Gaza
* Iran Has Much at Stake in Outcome
* Notebook: Doctors Struggle With Shortages
* Interactive Map: Day-by-day developments
Discuss
* What is the best way to end the violence?
* How should the U.S. respond?
Video
* What Could Happen to Gaza After War?
* In Combating Hamas, Israel Looks to the Past
* Israeli U.N. Ambassador Shalev on Gaza Conflict
* Israel May Consider Egyptian Peace Plan
* Gaza Fighting Eases, But Many Still Dying
* Strike on Gaza School Kills Many
* Moussa: Israel's Offensive is 'Naked Aggression'
* Israeli Troops Push Deeper Into Gaza Melee
The weekend ground assault has sent civilian casualties climbing, overwhelming hospitals and triggering the International Committee of the Red Cross to declare a humanitarian crisis inside the small, seaside enclave of 1.5 million.
On Tuesday, the UN said one of its schools in Gaza was hit by an Israeli strike, killing 43 civilians who had sought refuge from the attacks and injuring about 100.
"It's weird that we have to take lives in order to save lives," Ms. Znaty says. "But we were held hostage by Hamas while our government ignored us, and now we fight back. I am sorry, but I am happy."
War watching is not a new phenomenon. Up until World War I, when more powerful weapons began to be used on the battlefield, it was common for civilians to perch on grassy lookouts on a battlefield's periphery.
Nor is it unique to Israelis in the current conflict. On the Egyptian side of the border, across from southern Gaza, Arabs, too, were coming from miles away to watch the aerial bombardment.
But at Gaza's border crossing in the dusty town of Rafah, the mood was of anger and somber resignation amid the punishing Israeli attacks. Egyptians in Rafah, and many of the Arab aid workers who have flocked there to help evacuate Gaza's wounded, share deep ethnic, family and economic ties with the territory.
Over the weekend, as ambulances ferried out bloodied Palestinian casualties, plumes of black smoke, accompanied by dull thuds and trembling earth, rose across the border, just a hundred yards across a no man's land marking the border with Egypt.
[Gaza Conflict]
Gaza Conflict Intensifies
See the steps that led up to Israeli troops entering Gaza.
"We feel helpless. We feel like we are so close but we can't do anything," said Rami Ibrahim Shahin, a 20-year-old mechanic, whose family is originally Palestinian. His brother lives on the other side of the border, now under Israeli fire. They talk every day, when phone connections work. Each evening, Mr. Shahin walks several miles to reach the border crossing, where he can get a better view of the attacks.
"All day long, it's like this, we see the attacks with our own eyes," shrugs Rafah resident Osama Al-Beyali, a 51-year-old porter in torn gray coveralls. As blasts ring out across the border, onlookers swear at Israel or offer prayers for victims.
A father of six, Mr. Al-Beyali says he thinks of the Palestinian children suffering in the cold, with little food or safety, under the barrage. "When I see my children, I feel ashamed and guilty. I feel like I should find a way to go over there and fight the Israelis."
"Injustice, injustice," he mumbles.
Many Israelis see the Gaza offensive as a welcome change. "I come here because our army is finally doing something, showing the world that we are not weak," says Mr. Danino, the unemployed factory worker. On his hilltop overlooking Gaza, Mr. Danino has taken to quarterbacking the assault from his folding chair.
Having sat here for much of the past week, he now fancies himself something of an expert. He says, for example, that Palestinian militants are fond of firing rockets from the cover of a distant block of greenhouses.
When a plume of smoke -- the result of an Israeli attack -- rose from what appears to be empty farmland Monday, Mr. Danino shook his head. "No, no, no," he said. "We should be hitting the greenhouses."
—Farnaz Fassihi in Rafah, Egypt and Margaret Coker in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.