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Elite Navy SEAL dies in rescue mission to save US doctor in Afghanistan (+video)
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A United States special operations member was killed during a weekend rescue mission in Afghanistan that freed an American doctor, raising questions about the safety of aid workers in the region as it prepares for a drawdown of US combat troops by 2014.
Dr. Dilip Joseph, a US citizen, and two others who work for a faith-based nonprofit organization, were captured by Taliban on Dec. 5 while they were returning from a rural health clinic outside the capital, Kabul.
The early Sunday raid that successfully rescued Dr. Joseph, a three-year employee of the Morning Star Development, an organization in Colorado Springs, Colo., came after 3-1/2 days of negotiations that reportedly included demands for a $100,000 ransom, according to the Colorado Springs' Gazette newspaper.
The rescue highlights the fact that, despite international efforts to control violence, kidnappings for ransom are still a frequent and lucrative business in the area, Foreign policy reports.
Much of the threat is simply criminal. There is a burgeoning kidnapping industry in Afghanistan, part of the conflict economy that has been fed by tens of billions of dollars the international forces and community have pumped into the country since 2001. Most kidnappings end either in the payment of a ransom or the death of the hostage, and ransoms for foreigners can approach half a million dollars – though it's wealthy Afghans who are most often the victims.
Joesph and the other two local Morning Star Development staff members were kidnapped on Dec. 5 by a group of armed men while returning from a visit to one of the organization’s rural medical clinics in eastern Kabul Province. They were eventually taken to a mountainous area about 50 miles from the Pakistani border.
It was not clear who was behind the kidnapping. Although US sources told NPR that seven members of the Taliban were killed in the raid, some Afghans believe the kidnappers were smugglers, according to CNN.
According to Morning Star Development’s website, negotiations began almost immediately and led to the release of two other employees on Saturday. About 11 hours later, after intelligence reports indicated the situation was life-threatening, the special forces team moved in.
According to Fox News, the special forces member who was killed was part of the Navy SEAL Team Six – the same special operations group used for the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, though it's unknown if he took part in that raid last year.
President Obama issued a statement about the fallen solider, saying that "he and his teammates remind us once more of the selfless service that allows our nation to stay strong, safe, and free."
The doctor's family reportedly paid a $12,000 ransom for his release, but Morning Star Development stressed that it had not paid anything for ransom.
The organization
The Gazette described the Morning Star Development organization as a “lower-profile faith-based organization in Colorado Springs.”
Its founder, Daniel Batchelder of Colorado Springs, told The Gazette in 2010 that the organization “does evangelical work in countries where the law permits. In Afghanistan, where Islam is the predominant religion, employees refrain from proselytizing."
Though Morning Star Development, which was created in 2002, had just seven employees in Colorado Springs in 2010, the nonprofit has a rather large overseas budget.
It employed 153 people in Afghanistan at one point, funded by an annual budget of about $900,000, according to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), an accreditation agency dedicated to funding transparency in Christian organizations. Approximately 90 percent of the budget is spent on community and economic development in the rural areas of Afghanistan.
Kidnappings in Afghanistan
Some recent high-profile kidnappings have ended with negotiations and release, but other aid workers have also been killed:
Two foreigners were reported missing in October by a provincial reconstruction team in volatile Wardak, west of Kabul, and were feared to have been kidnapped, Afghan police told Reuters, and investigation is reportedly underway. And in May, two Western female doctors working for a Swiss medical charity were kidnapped with two Afghan colleagues by gunmen in northeastern Afghanistan. They were later rescued by NATO special forces soldiers.
Last year, two French journalists were released after 547 days in Taliban captivity (see the Monitor report here). In 2010, a British aid worker was kidnapped and used as a bargaining chip to free neuroscientist Dr. Daafia Siddiqui. And in 2008, the Monitor reported on a group of 23 South Korean church volunteers who were kidnapped in southern Afghanistan. Two were killed before the others were released.
"[The] mission exemplifies our unwavering commitment to defeating the Taliban," Gen. John Allen, the commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, told reporters.
A view of damages on an empty street in the Aleppo district of Salaheddine, Syria, Dec. 5. Serious concerns have been raised about the Syrian regime using chemical weapons. (Aref Hretani/Reuters)
How deadly would chemical weapons in Syria be?
Serious concerns have been raised about chemical weapons in Syria as unnamed US officials on Wednesday told NBC News that Syrian forces have loaded sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into bombs that can be dropped by planes.
The officials said the bombs had not been loaded onto planes and there was not yet a decision from Syria's leader to use them.
President Obama has said the use of chemical weapons in Syria is a “red line” that would draw the US into the war. Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has denied that he’s planning to use them, unless international forces intervene. And Syrian officials have called recent accusations a “pretext for intervention.”
The international community is now debating if and how to respond to this latest development.
As the situation unfolds, for many unfamiliar with sarin gas there may be some question as to what it is and just how deadly it can be. Though it’s classified as a weapon of mass destruction and is extremely lethal, it is not in the same league as nuclear weapons.
“Chemical weapons are not nuclear weapons. In order to produce a lot of damage they have to be distributed very efficiently. The problem with them is that they can be very deadly and efficient if used in population centers and their effects are indiscriminate,” says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
“The explosion of a single chemical shell would not necessarily be a catastrophe if it went off accidentally at one of these storage sites, but the deliberate use of one chemical shell in a population center could be very deadly,” adds Mr. Kimball.
Sarin is a colorless and odorless nerve agent that can be attached to missiles and artillery rounds and is primarily lethal when inhaled but can also penetrate skin and clothing.
It evaporates quickly, though under the right conditions it can linger for up to five days. As a result, a sarin attack requires little clean up and areas affected by sarin can be quickly reoccupied, making it a desirable weapon for military units looking to advance without destroying infrastructure and equipment.
It was first developed in Germany in 1938, but there was no known use of it as a weapon, until 1988 when Iraq used it against the Kurdish town of Halabja. The Iraqi military is also believed to have used sarin against Iran during the war between the two countries that spanned from 1980 to 1988.
Most recently, it was used by the Japanese group Aum Shinrikyo which manufactured their own form of impure sarin gas and released it on the Tokyo subway in 1995. The attack killed 12 and injured at least 5,500 people.
It’s unclear exactly how much damage would be caused were Syrian jets to drop bombs filled with sarin gas on an apartment block or populated area, but experts say the attack would likely be lethal and devastating, creating a major impact.
Persons dressed as 'Zwarte Piet' or 'Black Pete' attend a parade last month after St. Nicholas, or Sinterklaas, arrived by boat in Amsterdam. Foreigners visiting the Netherlands in winter are often surprised to see that the Dutch version of St. Nicholas's helpers resemble a racist caricature of a black person. (Margriet Faber/AP)
A traditional Sinterklaas debate: Is 'Black Pete' racist?
Tonight, as is the tradition on Dec. 5 in The Netherlands and Belgium, many children will receive gifts from Sinterklaas, or St. Nicholas. But there's another, more recent tradition that accompanies the holiday as well: the debate over Sinterklaas's traditional helper, Zwarte Piet, or "Black Pete."
For decades, the celebration of Sinterklaas has been surrounded by a discussion about whether Black Pete, who is traditionally portrayed by whites in blackface and wigs of curly black hair, is racist. This year is no different: One of Amsterdam's aldermen on Monday said that it is time to say farewell to the saint's black servant.
“When the Sinterklaas celebrations began, there was no Black Pete, and it's time to continue without Black Pete,” Andrée van Es said on Monday in the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool.
Sinterklaas is a tradition that has been traced back as far as the 15th century, and originally, Black Pete was a cruel man who would punish children who didn't behave. But it wasn't until Jan Schenkman's popular book "Saint Nicholas and His Servant" was published in 1850 that Sinterklaas – and Black Pete – truly became a national celebration in The Netherlands.
Since the 1930s, the country has held an official parade where Sinterklaas is accompanied by multiple Black Petes. For a long time, these Petes also had curly hair and big earrings, and talked with an accent of Surinam – the South American country that was a Dutch colony until 1975.
In the 1980s, several Surinamese action groups called for the end to Black Pete, and while they did not stop the tradition, they did prompt efforts to change it: for example, there were some attempts to make Petes of various colors in the 1990s.
The traditional explanation for Pete's blackness is derived from the fact that he climbs down the chimney to put gifts in the children's shoes, thereby covering himself in soot. Ms. Van Es suggests that this version should be more prominently reflected in the Black Pete's appearance: just some dark smudges on the face, instead of a completely painted black face.
Even some people closely associated with the celebration see room for change. Actor Bram van der Vlugt, who played Sinterklaas on national television from 1986 to 2010, recently noted in an interview that the helpers on TV have already lost their Surinam accents. “I have also argued for just calling them Pieten instead of Zwarte Pieten. The tradition has been modified before.”
To a foreigner's eye, this all might seem quite absurd. Two American stand-up comedians, Greg Shapiro and Pep Rosenfeld, have been living in the Netherlands for around 20 years, and still are offended by the existence of Black Pete.
“I just can't get used to it," Mr. Shapiro told newspaper nrc.next in a recent interview. "It's an army of black slaves!”
The comedians have put their frustrations in a comedy show, "There’s no Such Thing As Sinterklaas," which includes their plea for a Black Pete reboot.
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Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is seen meeting James William Davies, the five month old son of Tessa Davies (r.) who was named after Prince William, following a visit to the Guildhall in Cambridge, central England in November. (Arthur Edwards/Reuters/File)
Boy or girl, Kate's royal offspring likely to reign - eventually
Today's announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – also known as Prince William and Princess Kate – are expecting a baby was met with a right royal hue and cry by the British press.
Kate, formerly Kate Middleton, is currently in hospital being treated for morning sickness. Verifiable facts are thin on the ground, but one thing is known for sure: regardless of the sex of the child, he or she is likely to reign – eventually.
Primogeniture, the rule that male children take precedence in succession to the throne, has been scrapped. The centuries-old tradition was ended last year at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Nations, a supra-national group of countries mostly consisting of former parts of the British Empire.
The laws to do this haven't even been tabled yet, though they may take on a new urgency given the announcement.
“A de facto change has already been introduced pending the legal changes that now need to be made,” said deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, speaking to the British Parliament in November.
Then again, perhaps not that much urgency given it will be a long time before this child basks in the regal glory of coronation anthem, Handel's Zadok the Priest: Queen Elizabeth II shows no signs of quitting the throne at all.
During the 1990s, speculation was rife that she would stand aside to let her eldest son Prince Charles become king. It didn't happen, and is rarely spoken about today.
At this point you may be thinking this is all uncannily like reading tea leaves, and, indeed it is. The monarchy doesn't make much in the way of planning announcements and the speculative stories based on sources "close to" various royals are a stock-in-trade of the British press, particularly, though by no means exclusively, the tabloids.
Getting back to the facts, what we know is that Prince Charles, now 64, is heir apparent to the throne, followed by his eldest son William, aged 30. After him will be the new child and everyone else in line to the throne, such as William's brother Prince Harry (Henry), (currently third-in-line) and uncle, Prince Andrew, (currently fourth-in-line) get bumped one place.
It is unclear whether Queen Elizabeth's second child, Princess Anne, 62, will enjoy a move up due to the end to primogeniture, or languish tenth in line, soon to be eleventh.
The announcement that the Duke and Duchess were expecting was made in a press release and, in a first for royal social media, a rather terse, tweet. (Not a bad day for hierarchy fans on Twitter: the Pope, who is head of state of the world's smallest country, the Vatican City State, joined the social network).
Not everyone is pleased by the news of the royal pregnancy. An online poll undertaken by the republican-leaning Guardian newspaper is currently giving a 64 percent thumbs down to the question: "Do you share David Cameron's delight at news the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant?" Goodness.
The newspaper also published a snarky comment piece lightning fast.
(This writer's own Facebook feed has cleaved – unsurprisingly, given I'm in Ireland – with about a third excitedly congratulating the couple they will never meet and a further third unreasonably hot under the collar about the potential expansion of the royal line. The final third are, mercifully, silent on the issue.)
On which note, I shall resume my own dignified silence.
A couple of young surfers play with a small wave during a morning surf at Coogee beach in Sydney, Australia, in October. A red algae bloom has closed 10 beaches so far in and around Sydney and up the more northerly Central Coast in Australia during the past 24 hours. (Daniel Munoz/Reuters/File)
Red algae bloom closes Sydney's beaches, but probably not for long
Don’t worry. It’s not blood. It’s not even poisonous, just an irritant to skin and eyes and to anyone hoping for a swim now that summer’s finally about to hit Sydney.
A red algae bloom has closed 10 beaches so far in and around Sydney and up the more northerly Central Coast in Australia during the past 24 hours. And more beach closures could be on the way, say officials. But aside from some startlingly other-world pictures, it's not likely to scare away the tourists.
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The "crimson tide," or an algal bloom that has variously been compared to shark attacks or oily tomato sauce in the Aussie media, washed up on Sydney shores earlier this week, temporarily closing famed tourist beaches like Bondi. But it doesn't seem like too many around here are worried.
Turns out the blood-colored algal bloom isn’t a result of pollution, but rather an upswelling of nutrient-rich waters that the buoyant algae can feed off. Two different blooms have apparently come from the same source and essentially floated to Sydney’s shores. Their ammonia-rich diet can cause skin and eye irritations but little else problematic, according to experts.
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"This bloom has likely occurred as a result of the upwelling of nutrient-rich deep ocean water on to the continental shelf," the Metropolitan Sydney, South Coast, and Hunter Regional Algal Coordinating Committees told media Tuesday. They said tests had identified the algae as noctiluca scintillans or "Sea Sparkle" (for its phosphorescence) and pointed out that most algal blooms last around a week.
Despite the closure of Sydney’s favorite beaches on the cusp of a hot summer – and a possible heat wave of a weekend, with temperatures predicted to pass 100 Fahrenheit – it’s doubtful this red tide will cause any longstanding problems either for locals or the tourism industry. And in the meantime, not all of Sydney's beaches are closed, and there are plenty of hotels with swimming pools.
And anyway, Australia has faced much worse in the water: Real blood in the water with the odd shark attacks, or stings from one of the many species of box jellyfish like the Chironex fleckeri, the world’s most venomous animal. The sting from this particular jellyfish can cause death in minutes, according to Australian jellyfish experts.
It will take much more to keep people from hitting Sydney's beaches.
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Chinese workers sort packages on November 12, the day after the largest Chinese online shopping day. (China Daily)
Black Friday: Think it's crazy in the US? You should see China's version.
If you think America goes shopping mad on the day after Thanksgiving, you should look at China.
They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving Day here, of course, but Nov. 11, has become the biggest shopping day on the Chinese calendar.
That’s because it is known as “Singles Day” (11.11 – geddit?) – a type of Valentine’s Day for those without lovers, but with friends to whom they give gifts.
Online stores have cashed in on the idea, offering mouthwatering discounts on everything from cars to clothes to tempt consumers online on Singles Day, turning it into a retail bonanza… and it works.
“I hadn’t planned to buy anything but I heard there would be great discounts so I went online to have a look,” says Liu Na, a 20-something book editor. “I bought a blouse and a bag for myself, at 50 percent off.”
This year, e-commerce sales on Nov. 11 reached $4.6 billion, according to an estimate by the Economic Herald, a specialist daily in Shandong province.
That may not look like much compared with “Black Friday” spending in the US (which topped $11.4 billion last year), until you take a couple of things into account:
First, average Chinese salaries are 10 times smaller than average American salaries.
Second, this is just online. A comparable day in America might be “Cyber Monday,” coming up after the weekend. Last year online US shoppers shelled out $1.25 billion – little more than a quarter of what their Chinese counterparts spent two weeks ago.
The Chinese government may not be keen on the political corners of the Internet, but it loves the commercial aspect; its current five year plan for the economy foresees a fourfold jump in e-commerce from 2010 levels to $2.9 trillion by 2015.
China has the world’s largest online population, at 538 million, and has more online shoppers than anywhere else too: On Nov. 11, some 213 million people – nearly half of all Chinese Internet users – visited one of Alibaba’s two retail platforms. Alibaba, which runs the two biggest e-commerce sites in China, reported sales of $2.94 billion on Nov.11.
Ten million consumers – more than the population of Greece – clicked on an Alibaba site in the first minute of Nov. 11, in the dead of night.
The massive Singles Day sales promotions are expected to boost the number of online shoppers even further. Ms. Liu for example, says she has normally shopped in bricks-and-mortar stores, but her Singles Day experience has converted her.
“Apart from the discounts, it’s a lot more convenient,” she says.
Rockets launched by Palestinian militants towards Israel make their way from the central Gaza Strip, seen from the Israel Gaza border, Monday. Thanks to an app thought up by an Israeli teenager, Israelis all over the country know exactly when and where each rocket from Gaza is headed. (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
When Hamas launches a rocket, Israeli iPhones buzz
Adi Pito and his friend Avi Genasia were checking out the damage from the first – and so far only – fatal rocket attack of the past week when there was a deep rumble on the horizon.
There was also a buzz from Mr. Genasia’s iPhone. A rocket had been fired from Gaza.
Thanks to Color Red, a new app thought up by a 13-year-old, Israelis all over the country know exactly when and where each rocket is headed.
The geeky solution for Israel’s more than 3 million residents threatened by rocket fire isn’t the first time Israel’s high-tech prowess has been applied to its security threats. In fact, much of Israel’s innovation economy – which is considered second only to Silicon Valley – is spurred by the demands of its military and related security industries.
Perhaps adversity whets Israel’s competitive edge, as suggested by the 2009 best-seller Start-Up Nation. According to Israeli press reports, the young teenager behind Color Red is from Beersheva, one of the cities that bears the brunt of Gaza rocket fire – and thus pops up most frequently on the app.
You can choose to have all alerts sent to your phone, or just those for areas you select from a long list – all in Hebrew. The system efficiently delivers its notifications based off the government's public warning alerts.
Depending on where Israelis live, they have between 15 and 90 seconds to reach a bomb shelter once the sirens begin to wail. Lately, the sirens have been followed by a large BOOM as Israel’s Iron Dome system kicks in.
Then, if you also have the app from daily newspaper Haaretz, you see an alert pop up while sipping your latte on the Mediterranean coast: Iron Dome intercepts rocket over Tel Aviv.
Apps may not blunt the rockets, but it’s nice to know where they’re falling – and where they’re not.
Israelis take cover as an air raid siren warns of incoming rockets from Gaza, next to an Iron Dome defense system in Tel Aviv, Saturday. Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels. (Oded Balilty/AP)
Rocket sirens pierce the Tel Aviv 'bubble'
Israel’s cosmopolitan capital has developed a reputation over the past decade for residents leading lives removed from the rest of Israel and the Middle East, but this weekend's rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip have burst the infamous Tel Aviv bubble.
Video footage showing bathers sprinting from a hotel beach on Saturday with rocket intercepts overhead served as a jarring contrast to the city’s image as a destination for carefree pleasure seekers. On Sunday, Tel Aviv was targeted by two separate rocket salvos, though all of them were shot down.
Not only does Tel Aviv symbolize Israel’s capital city for business and culture, it’s also a city that symbolizes efforts by Israelis to maintain a sense of normalcy despite the daily feuding of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But now the new normal in Tel Aviv includes the opening of municipal bomb shelters to the public.
"People here hold up the banner of freedom," says Motti Haimovich, the owner of a French bakery in central Tel Aviv. "When there are rockets, then there isn't any freedom."
On the morning after the first siren last Thursday evening, weekend café goers at the Le Moulin bakery showed for their usual coffee and croissant to check in with one another, says owner Motti Haimovich. But when a siren sounded at the height of the midday rush on Friday, the café emptied quickly.
That type of blow to the daily routine is being held up by Palestinian militants as an achievement. For Hamas and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip the very success of placing Tel Aviv under attack – even if there are no casualties – is a symbolic milestone matched by no one else in the region since Saddam Hussein fired Scuds at the Jewish state in the first Gulf War in 1991. Because of that, many Israeli commentators say that the prime minister may want to prolong the fighting.
Israelis derisively refer to the city as "the State of Tel Aviv" to impugn it as a mecca for out of touch armchair liberals who still insist on pushing the peace process with the Palestinians. The plight of rocket attacks could remake the attitudes of Israelis who dismiss the city and its residents as naïve peaceniks.
"Now maybe we are even," said Israeli author Etgar Keret, referring to the dividing lines between armchair liberals and mainstream Israelis. "Now we can start talking." (The original version of this story misstated the source of the quote.)
Residents of Tel Aviv often are nostalgic about that period around the first Gulf War, which left the city virtually unscathed. They have more serious and pained memories of the second Palestinian intifada, which unleashed a wave of bombings around the city.
So far, rockets haven’t turned Tel Aviv into a ghost town like Israeli cities in southern Israel. Part of the reason is that none of the rockets have hit buildings so far, giving people more confidence to keep their daily routine.
"Has the world stopped?" asked Madaleine Koger, a retired shopowner, who was forced by a siren to interrupt a bike ride on the sea promenade to take cover in a hotel basement. "For this I should stop all of our life?"
Syrian women work on their field in the village of Tarafat, Syria in October. Many Syrians have expressed concern for Americans hit by hurricane Sandy. (Manu Brabo/AP)
Syrians want to know: 'Are you okay after Superstorm Sandy?'
I had just sat down to interview a commander of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo and we were exchanging the normal pre-meeting pleasantries as some distant gunfire cracked in the background. After 20 months of conflict here, most artillery and gunfire goes unnoticed unless people are close enough to be directly affected.
With this as the backdrop for our interview, I was taken off guard when he asked if my friends and family were all right after Superstorm Sandy.
As a Californian living abroad, I was aware of Sandy. I had seen a few pictures of the aftermath, but I hadn’t even followed the Sandy news close enough to know that it had been classified as a “superstorm,” as a opposed to a hurricane. Yet here was a man whose nation is being torn apart by a violent civil war that had claimed the lives of several friends and tens of thousands of Syrians, and he’d been following Sandy news.
I initially thought the comment was a one off, a lone hurricane watcher, perhaps he was a Syrian with an interest in meteorology. Yet it has happened again and again and everyone who asks knows that it was a superstorm, not a hurricane.
Working in the midst of a war like Syria, it’s easy to assume that for those involved the conflict, the situation is their entire life and there is little time for details, like a destructive storm thousands of miles away.But Superstorm Sandy is just one of the odd questions about America you might encounter in Syria as people try to take a mental break from the war.
One night, I found myself with a group of FSA fighters watching Jumanji on an Arabic movie station that gives Arabic subtitles. We got into a debate about whether the child actress in the film was a young Drew Barrymore or someone else. (It was a teenage Kirsten Dunst.)
A few days later, I sparked a heated discussion when I jokingly asked a Syrian activist wearing a glove on only one hand if it was a tribute to Michael Jackson. The person wearing the glove argued that while Michael’s music was impossible not to enjoy, it had been tainted by the scandals surrounding his personal life. His friend argued that art is not defined by the artist and Michael Jackson remains hands down one of the best singers ever, regardless of what happened off stage.
In all the conflicts I have ever covered, I find myself in these conversations. Everyone tries to hold on to a normal world of news and pop culture to take them beyond their current hardships.
An Israeli woman takes cover as a siren sounds warning of incoming rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, in the southern town of Ofakim November 18. Many Israeli residents only reluctantly express support for the expansion of the conflict. (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)
Israelis question too, 'Who wants this war?'
Just days after Adi Pito married a woman from the town of Kiryat Malachi, he heard that a rocket from Gaza had struck an apartment building there, killing three residents.
“I was worried about my wife,” says Mr. Pito, who was in a nearby city at the time. “If you ask me, I think we have to destroy Gaza. I think they are animals, not people,” he says, pulling at his new wedding ring as he stood outside the damaged apartment yesterday. “It’s the right thing to do.”
But in towns across southern Israel that have been hit by rockets, other residents only reluctantly express support for a potential expansion of Israel’s Pillar of Defense operation and express sympathy for the suffering on the other side of the border, where at least 53 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds injured since the operation began five days ago.
“When people say, ‘Let’s kill them,’ I don’t think they really mean to do it,” says Yehudit Bar Hay, a trauma expert at the Israel Center for Victims of Terror and War, known as NATAL. “It is an angry feeling but … we don’t want to kill the people of Gaza. We see the mothers and the children, we are sorry for them.”
Even those who are “very, very injured” from the trauma of living under rocket fire say they don’t want to hurt anybody, adds Ms. Bar Hay, who lives less than a mile from the Gaza border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that Israel’s military “is prepared for a significant expansion of its operations,” even as at least 16,000 reservists have been called up for a potential ground invasion. The Defense Ministry has authorized the calling up of as many as 75,000 reservists – more than six times as many as participated in the 2008-09 Gaza war.
But while some Israelis say war is necessary or inevitable, few are happy about it.
“Who wants this war? Nobody in Israel,” says Ashdod resident Bebert Avitan, his pink-rimmed glasses hanging from his neck.
Part of the reason for a lack of public pressure may be the effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome system, which has kept casualties very low despite a barrage of rockets from Gaza. See today's Monitor story on the Iron Dome system.
“Hamas apparently has much greater capability than it had in the last war on Gaza,” says Galia Golan, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, but notes that there hasn’t been a parallel uptick in Israeli casualties. “Because Iron Dome has been relatively successful, there has been less pressure on the government or within the government to launch a ground attack.”
Only three Israelis, all from one building in Kiryat Malachi, have been killed in the recent escalation.
As the evening news shows a picture of a bombed out building, lifelong resident Masodi Sugaker says, “It’s so sad to see this. To [have to] make everything new after this? Why? Because of Hamas.”
“Hamas exploits their own people, the Palestinians,” says she adds.
Her sister, Hanna Shukrun, adds, “We don’t want [war],” because there are kids [in Gaza].
But she says, “Israel can’t just sit here and do nothing…. Our army doesn’t need to wait until they have many weapons.”
(This story was edited after posting to correct the name of Galia Golan from IDC Herzliya. We apologize for the error).
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