Cross-posted from Wallwritings
Amy Goodman's current report on Democracy Now is broadcast from Washington and Gaza. This edition of Democracy Now, posted early Friday afternoon , runs for roughly 10 minutes. The link to the program is below.
It includes an on-the-scene set of interviews with two Palestinians, Raji Sourani, award-winning human rights lawyer, and Gaza City-based Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, award-winning Palestinian journalist who is originally from Rafah.
The New York Times identified the captured Israeli as Second Lt. Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old officer in an infantry brigade.
Amy Goodman's interviews provide the scene from the Palestinian side. To view this up-to-the-minute video report with a transcript, click here.
The capture of Lt. Goldin provides Israel with its latest justification for continuing its all-out military assault on a largely civilian Gaza population.
The Times' story began the Israeli narrative for this latest rationale for the third assault on Gaza since 2006 with this emotional reaction from Lt. Goldin's father, Simcha Goldin...
"Speaking to journalists outside his home in Kfar Saba, Israel, [Goldin] said he was confident that Israel's military forces would 'not stop under any circumstances until they have turned over every stone in Gaza and have brought Hadar home healthy and whole.'"
Israel always launches its military assaults with whatever rationale is currently available. This third assault in six years has thus far killed 1,460 Palestinians, mostly civilians, women and children.
The 1,460 Palestinian death total since the current assault began, exceeds the death toll of the first Israeli assault on Gaza in 2008-09, when 1,450 Palestinians were killed. That was the infamous assault Israel halted in time to avoid the Obama inauguration.
This current 2014 assault was launched, Israel claimed, to "halt rockets from Gaza into Israel," rockets that were largely ineffective. When the ground war began, Israel's official rationale shifted to a "search and destroy" mission to destroy Gaza's underground tunnels.
We may assume that the latest rationale for continuing this assault against the Gaza civilian population and rejecting any further efforts at a cease fire, will involve the goal of rescuing Lt Goldin.
Lt. Goldin was captured prior to when the cease fire began Friday morning (Gaza time) when Hamas militants encountered a tunnel destruction unit in southern Gaza. Israel disagrees, claiming that the capture came after the cease fire began.
Lt. Goldin was apparently hustled away into the tunnel Israel was attempting to destroy. Hamas has not claimed credit for the capture. Instead it suggests it may have been a rogue unit not under Hamas control.
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