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Indybay Feature

Photos from Sunday's Protest of Dianne Feinstein at Pro-Israel Rally

by Kate R.
Over 100 activists stood in protest as Dianne Feinstein spoke to the assembled thousands on Sunday at Justin Hermann Plaza.
young-man-arrest_1.jpg
Police decided that no one Arab was allowed to use a bullhorn or walk down through the plaza. They wanted to keep us all in a cage, but organizers outsmarted them and found a spot where we could be seen by all the people on their way to the ballpark, as well as those attending the rally.
§Susan and Dalit try to reason with the cops
by Kate R.
zionists-1_1.jpg
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by AIPAC shill
I wouldn't spit on Feinstein is she was on fire.
She should just get it over with and register republican.
Here's another slaughter of an innocent family. I'm sure that many more were recruited to support Hezzbollah and maybe join the resistance...

CAIRO — The Shaito's family had thought they were on the road to safety when they decided to leave their home in their tiny Tireh village in southern Lebanon to escape the Israeli bombardment. But the road turned out to be a highway of death.

"Don’t go to sleep Mama, look at me," Ali shouted, tears streaking his bloodied face as his mother's eyes rolled back, reported The New York Times.

"Don’t die, please don’t die!"

An Israeli missile had pierced the roof of the family's white van on Sunday, July23 , instantly killing three passengers sitting in the third row and wounding sixteen others.

As the mother teetered near death from shrapnel wounds, medics screamed at her and her son Ali begged her to stay awake.

Behind her black veil, her eyelids were slowly sinking. "I'm going to die," she sighed.

"Don't say that, mama," Ali begged, and then slid to the ground in tears.

Leave

Without much food or water, the family gave up its stand to stay home and decided to pack up and head north toward relative safety.

"They said leave, and that’s what we did," Musbah Shaito, Ali's uncle, told The New York Times, speaking of the Israelis who dropped leaflets warning residents to leave the area and head north of the Litani River.

His niece, Heba,16 , cried hysterically behind him for her dead father, whose head was nearly blown off.

"This is what we got for listening to them," Shaito said.

The family had waved a white flag from the van, signifying to Israeli aircraft that they were non-threatening. But to no avail.

In recent days, many families like the Sha'itas were killed in Israeli shelling as they were escaping the south's inferno.

With bridges on the main coastal roads destroyed and secondary routes blocked by smoldering trucks or craters, there was no way out for many Lebanese residents in the south.

Six Times

The Sha'itas were not the only family devastated on Sunday.

Witnesses told The New York Times that Israeli warplanes hit people escaping by vehicle from their villages at least six times.

The Zabad family and their relatives, the Suroors, gave up their stand to say too on Sunday.

Suddenly an Israeli missile hit the Suroors’ sedan, killing Mohammad Suroor, the father, and Darwhish Mdaihli, a relative, and severely burning Mohammad’s son, Mahmoud,8 , and wounding his two brothers and sister, the Times said.

As soon as the Zabads saw the car hit, they sped past, hoping to get to the Najm hospital on the outskirts of Tyre, less than a mile away.

But a minute later a missile struck near them, setting the car on fire, and the family jumped out.

The hospital nurses rubbed cream on an8 -month-old baby for burns until they found her mother, Mrs. Suroor.

Despite the severe burns on his face, Mahmoud turned to his mother while in the emergency room and asked where his father was. She did not respond.

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-07/24/03.shtml
by nOT A ZIONAZI APOLOGIST
Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said today.
PRESS RELEASE BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
For Immediate Release

Israeli Cluster Munitions Hit Civilians in Lebanon

Israel Must Not Use Indiscriminate Weapons

(Beirut, July 24, 2006) – Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said today. Researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Human Rights Watch researchers also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.

“Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “They should never be used in populated areas.”

According to eyewitnesses and survivors of the attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Israel fired several artillery-fired cluster munitions at Blida around 3 p.m. on July 19. The witnesses described how the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village. They clearly described the submunitions as smaller projectiles that emerged from their larger shells.

The cluster attack killed 60-year-old Maryam Ibrahim inside her home. At least two submunitions from the attack entered the basement that the Ali family was using as a shelter, wounding 12 persons, including seven children. Ahmed Ali, a 45-year-old taxi driver and head of the family, lost both legs from injuries caused by the cluster munitions. Five of his children were wounded: Mira, 16; Fatima, 12; ‘Ali, 10; Aya, 3; and `Ola, 1. His wife Akram Ibrahim, 35, and his mother-in-law `Ola Musa, 80, were also wounded. Four relatives, all German-Lebanese dual nationals sheltering with the family, were wounded as well: Mohammed Ibrahim, 45; his wife Fatima, 40; and their children ‘Ali, 16, and Rula, 13.

Human Rights Watch researchers photographed artillery-delivered cluster munitions among the arsenal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) artillery teams stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border during a research visit on July 23, (http://hrw.org/images/pressers/photos/high_res/israel_lebanon/index.htm). The photographs show M483A1 Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, which are U.S.-produced and -supplied, artillery-delivered cluster munitions. The photographs contain the distinctive marks of such cluster munitions, including a diamond-shaped stamp, and a shape that is longer than ordinary artillery, according to a retired IDF commander who asked not to be identified.

The M483A1 artillery shells deliver 88 cluster submunitions per shell, and have an unacceptably high failure rate (dud rate) of 14 percent, leaving behind a serious unexploded ordnance problem that will further endanger civilians. The commander said that the IDF’s operations manual warns soldiers that the use of such cluster munitions creates dangerous minefields due to the high dud rate.

Lebanese security forces, who to date have not engaged in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, also accused Israel of using cluster munitions in its attacks on Blida and other Lebanese border villages. These sources also indicated they have evidence that Israel used cluster munitions earlier this year during fighting with Hezbollah around the contested Shebaa Farms area. Human Rights Watch is continuing to investigate these additional allegations.

Human Rights Watch believes that the use of cluster munitions in populated areas may violate the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law. The wide dispersal pattern of their submunitions makes it very difficult to avoid civilian casualties if civilians are in the area. Moreover, because of their high failure rate, cluster munitions leave large numbers of hazardous, explosive duds that injure and kill civilians even after the attack is over. Human Rights Watch believes that cluster munitions should never be used, even away from civilians, unless their dud rate is less than 1 percent.

Human Rights Watch conducted detailed analyses of the U.S. military’s use of cluster bombs in the 1999 Yugoslavia war (http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/nato2/), the 2001-2002 Afghanistan war (http://hrw.org/reports/2002/us-afghanistan/), and the 2003 Iraq war (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/). Human Rights Watch research established that the use of cluster munitions in populated areas in Iraq caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the U.S.-led coalition’s conduct of major military operations in March and April 2003, killing and wounding more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians. Roughly a quarter of the 500 civilian deaths caused by NATO bombing in the 1999 Yugoslavia war were also due to cluster munitions.

“Our research in Iraq and Kosovo shows that cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life,” Roth said. “Israel must stop using cluster bombs in Lebanon at once.”

Human Rights Watch called upon the Israel Defense Forces to immediately cease the use of indiscriminate weapons like cluster munitions in Lebanon.

Background
Israel used cluster munitions in Lebanon in 1978 and in the 1980s. At that time, the United States placed restrictions on their use and then a moratorium on the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel out of concern for civilian casualties. Those weapons used more than two decades ago continue to affect Lebanon.

Israel has in its arsenal cluster munitions delivered by aircraft, artillery and rockets. Israel is a major producer and exporter of cluster munitions, primarily artillery projectiles and rockets containing M85 DPICM (Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition) submunitions. Israeli Military Industries, an Israeli government-owned weapons manufacturer, has reportedly produced more than 60 million M85 DPICM submunitions. Israel also produces at least six different types of air-dropped cluster bombs, and has imported from the United States M26 rockets for its Multiple Launch Rocket Systems.

There is growing international momentum to stop the use of cluster munitions. Belgium became the first country to ban cluster munitions in February 2006, and Norway announced a moratorium on the weapon in June 2006. Cluster munitions are increasingly the focus of discussion at the meetings of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, with ever more states calling for a new international instrument dealing with cluster munitions.

Human Rights Watch is a founding member, and a steering committee member, of the Cluster Munition Coalition: http://www.stopclustermunitions.org.

For additional background on cluster munitions, please see the following Human Rights Watch reports:

• “Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq,” http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/
• “Fatally Flawed: Cluster Bombs and Their Use by the United States in Afghanistan,” http://hrw.org/reports/2002/us-afghanistan/
• “Ticking Time Bombs: NATO’s Use of Cluster Munitions in Yugoslavia,” http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/nato2/
• More documents on cluster munitions at: http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=arms_clusterbombs

For Human Rights Watch’s ongoing coverage of the Israel-Lebanon conflict, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/israel_lebanon/

For more information, please contact:
In Beirut, Peter Bouckaert (English): +961-70-157-318; or +27 82 968 6013
In Beirut, Nadim Houry (English, Arabic, French): +961-3-639244
In Jerusalem, Lucy Mair (English): +972-548-167-775
In Amman, Sarah Leah Whitson (English): +1-718-362-0172; or +962-79-606-4294
In Washington, D.C., Steve Goose (English): +1-202-612-4355; or +1-540-630-3011
In New York, Marc Garlasco (English): +1-914-450-4251


http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/news.asp?id=23
by GreaterPeace
Sorry to post here, but I made a set of t-shirts to help get the anti-occupation word out and to raise consciousness among the American public. If interested check out the link. Otherwise please ignore.

http://www.zazzle.com/holyland

by off people's suffering
Thats not the role of Indymedia- this is a non-commercial site
Dianne Feinstein's Democratic Party is just as 100% pro-Israel as the Republican Party. All of the US Senators and all but 8 of the House members voted to support Israel's war crimes of attacking civilian populations, making them all war criminals just like the Nazis. The Democrat-Republican party is one capitalist party.

Now that you have picketed Feinstein, how about going door to door in Democratic Party strongholds, namely the workingclass districts of San Francisco and most of the rest of San Francisco as this city votes 80% for the leading Democrat in the general election, and teaching them that to vote Democrat or Republican is to vote for war criminals and that they must vote Peace & Freedom or Green if they want peace. That is where the real problem lies: With the voters in this country. FOR ISRAEL'S ENTIRE 58 YEARS, IT HAS BEEN COMMITTING THESE SAME WAR CRIMES, SUPPORTED BY THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES. This latest invasion of Lebanon is no different from the invasions of Lebanon of 1978 and 1982. The heinous crimes against humanity in violation of all international law perpeted by Israel against the Palestinians for 58 years are all supported by the Democratic and Republican Parties. If you want to put an end to this insulting representation of California, you have to walk the precincts and tell the voters the truth of what Israel is doing with $6 billion annually of our tax dollars.
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