Militarized out of control chickens come home to roost and Cops Don’t Like It One Bit

liftarn   Wikimedia.org


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People Are Waking Up to the Dark Side of American Policing, and Cops Don’t Like It One Bit

 

Pushing back against a creeping police state.

By Matt Harwood / TomDispatch

 

If you've been listening to various police agencies and their supporters, then you know what the future holds: anarchy is coming -- and it's all the fault of activists.


In May, a Wall Street Journal op-ed warned of a "new nationwide crime wave" thanks to "intense agitation against American police departments" over the previous year. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went further. Talking recently with the host of CBS's Face the Nation, the Republican presidential hopeful asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement wasn't about reform but something far more sinister. "They've been chanting in the streets for the murder of police officers," he insisted. Even the nation's top cop, FBI Director James Comey, weighed in at the University of Chicago Law School, speaking of "a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year."


According to these figures and others like them, lawlessness has been sweeping the nation as the so-called Ferguson effect spreads. Criminals have been emboldened as police officers are forced to think twice about doing their jobs for fear of the infamy of starring in the next viral video. The police have supposedly become the targets of assassins intoxicated by "anti-cop rhetoric," just as departments are being stripped of the kind of high-powered equipment they need to protect officers and communities. Even their funding streams have, it's claimed, come under attack as anti-cop bias has infected Washington, D.C. Senator Ted Cruz caught the spirit of that critique by convening a Senate subcommittee hearing to which he gave the title, "The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement." According to him, the federal government, including the president and attorney general, has been vilifying the police, who are now being treated as if they, not the criminals, were the enemy.


Beyond the storm of commentary and criticism, however, quite a different reality presents itself. In the simplest terms, there is no war on the police. Violent attacks against police officers remain at historic lows, even though approximately 1,000 people have been killed by the police this year nationwide. In just the past few weeks, videos have been released of problematic fatal police shootings in San Francisco and Chicago.


While it's too soon to tell whether there has been an uptick in violent crime in the post-Ferguson period, no evidence connects any possible increase to the phenomenon of police violence being exposed to the nation. What is taking place and what the police and their supporters are largely reacting to is a modest push for sensible law enforcement reforms from groups as diverse as Campaign Zero, Koch Industries, the Cato Institute, The Leadership Conference, and the ACLU (my employer). Unfortunately, as the rhetoric ratchets up, many police agencies and organizations are increasingly resistant to any reforms, forgetting whom they serve and ignoring constitutional limits on what they can do.




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“It should shake us up that on our continent, Christians are not safe.” - EP President Martin Schulz

BREITBART

EuroParliament Prez: Christians ‘Not Safe In Our Continent’

 

Reuters

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.3 Dec 20151,044

In a high-level meeting on religious persecution in Brussels, the President of the European Parliament (EP) said that Europe cannot afford to continue ignoring the fate of Christians, who are “clearly the most persecuted group” in the world.

In Wednesday’s meeting, EP President Martin Schulz said that the persecution of Christians is “undervalued” and does not receive enough attention, which has also meant that it “hasn’t been properly addressed.”

Schulz’s concerns were echoed by EP Vice President Antonio Tajani, who warned that Europe sometimes “falls into the temptation of thinking we can ignore this task,” referring to the protection Christians throughout the world who suffer persecution.

Speakers cited the work of Open Doors, a human rights organization that monitors the persecution of Christians, noting that 150 million Christians worldwide suffer torture, rape and arbitrary imprisonment. Christians in Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea and Nigeria are among those hardest hit.

The Open Doors report for 2015 found that “Islamic extremism is by far the most significant persecution engine” of Christians in the world today and that “40 of the 50 countries on the World Watch List are affected by this kind of persecution.”

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“Building a better future through collective action”. Anonymous , UK bonfire night Million Mask March

Anonymous plot bonfire night Million Mask March

Published time: 2 Nov, 2015 16:56

 

Protesters hold up their Guy Fawkes masks on the Liberty Bridge during a demonstration by supporters of the Anonymous movement as part of the global "Million Mask March" protests, in Budapest, November 5, 2014. © Bernadett Szabo / Reuters

 

 

 

Activist collective Anonymous have released details of the 2015 Million Mask March, which will see coordinated demonstrations in cities across the globe protesting against corruption, human rights abuses and censorship.

 

Following in the footsteps of previous marches, the worldwide demonstration will take place on November 5, coinciding with bonfire night in the UK.

This year’s message is “building a better future through collective action,” a statement from the group released on Monday reads.

The London march in 2014 attracted over 1,000 participants who marched through the city center wearing distinctive Guy Fawkes masks, which have become the unofficial emblem of the movement.
Fawkes, part of a band of persecuted English Catholics, was captured and executed by the British state after attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. His image was popularized by the 2005 film adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel V for Vendetta.

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Death toll in Saudi haj disaster at least 2,070 - Reuters tally

World | Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:11pm GMT

Reuters

 

Rescue workers carry the body of a Muslim pilgrim after a stampede at Mina, outside the holy Muslim city of Mecca, in this September 24, 2015 file photo.

Reuters/Stringer/Files

 

 

The deadly crush that occurred at the haj near Mecca last month killed at least 2,070 people, nearly triple the number accounted for in a death toll maintained by Saudi authorities, a Reuters tally indicated on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the disaster. Safety during the pilgrimage is a politically sensitive issue for the kingdom's ruling Al Saud dynasty, which presents itself as the guardian of Islam and custodian of its holiest sites in Mecca and Medina.

The figure, based on information provided by the state and religious authorities and local media reports in the home countries of the victims, would make it the worst such catastrophe to befall the annual pilgrimage since 1,400 people were crushed to death in a tunnel in 1990.

Saudi officials have stood by their official counts of 769 dead and 934 injured, which have not been updated since two days after the crush. The healthy ministry has said any discrepancies in death tolls may stem from countries counting pilgrims who had died of natural causes.

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Department of Justice is not trying to reach down from Washington and dictate to every local department how they should handle the "minutia" of record keeping ( lethal shootings of civilians ),

U.S. Attorney General to Allow Police Depts to Keep the Number of Citizens they Kill a Secret

By Jay Syrmopoulos on October 6, 2015  

 
Washington, DC – In complete reversal of course from the stated position of her predecessor, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the federal government shouldn’t mandate police departments to report lethal shootings of civilians.


Lynch’s statements diverge drastically from her predecessor Eric Holder, who left the position in April of this year. Former Attorney General Holder is on record calling the lack of official data on police shootings “unacceptable,” with him labeling the collection of this data a “first step” in improving ever deteriorating police-community relations.

Back in January, Holder said,

“I’ve heard from a number of people who have called on policymakers to ensure better record-keeping on injuries and deaths that occur at the hands of police. I’ve also spoken with law enforcement leaders – including the leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police – who have urged elected officials to consider strategies for collecting better data on officer fatalities. Today, my response to these legitimate concerns is simple: We need to do both.”

The about-face by Lynch reveals an utter contempt for the civil rights of American citizens while pandering to the Fraternal Order of Police’s default position.

“One of the things we are focusing on at the Department of Justice is not trying to reach down from Washington and dictate to every local department how they should handle the minutia of record keeping, but we are stressing to them that these records must be kept,” she said at the Washington Ideas Forum, hosted by AtlanticLIVE and the Aspen Institute.

Lynch’s implication that she is attempting to uphold state’s rights is a completely ridiculous notion that has absolutely no validity in reality. Furthermore, “stressing how records must be kept” is akin to asking really nicely, as the records are given to the Department of Justice, by police agencies, on a completely voluntary basis currently.

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Howard Zinn, The Outer Limits of Empire : Tomdispatch Interview

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Howard Zinn speaking at Marlboro College February 2004

 

 

Occupy Oakland, November 12, 2011, Howard Zinn quotation

Images via Wikipedia.org
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Posted by Tom Engelhardt at 12:02pm, September 8, 2005.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch.

The Outer Limits of Empire: A Tomdispatch Interview with Howard Zinn
He's tall and thin, with a shock of white hair. A bombardier in the great war against fascism and an antiwar veteran of America's wars ever since, he's best known as the author of the pathbreaking A People's History of the United States, and as an expert on the unexpected voices of resistance that have so regularly made themselves heard throughout our history. At 83 (though he looks a decade younger), he is also a veteran of a rugged century and yet there's nothing backward looking about him. His voice is quiet and he clearly takes himself with a grain of salt, chuckling wryly on occasion at his own comments. From time to time, when a thought pleases him and his well-used face lights up or breaks out in a bona fide grin, he looks positively boyish.
We sit down on the back porch of the small coffee shop, alone, on a vacation morning. He has a croissant and coffee in front of him. I suggest that perhaps we should start after breakfast, but he assures me that there's no particular contradiction between eating and talking and so, as a novice interviewer, I awkwardly turn on my two tape recorders -- one of which, on pause, will still miss several minutes of our conversation (our equivalent, we joke, of Nixon's infamous 18-minute gap). In preparation, he pushes aside his half-eaten breakfast, never to touch it again, and we begin.
Tomdispatch: You and Anthony Arnove just came out with a new book, Voices of a People's History of the United States, featuring American voices of resistance from our earliest moments to late last night. Now, we have a striking new voice of resistance, Cindy Sheehan. I was wondering what you made of her?

Howard Zinn: Often a protest movement that's already underway -- and the present antiwar movement was underway even before the Iraq War began -- gets a special impetus, a special spark, from one person's act of defiance. I think of Rosa Parks and that one act of hers and what it meant.
TD: Can you think of other Cindy Sheehan-like figures in the past who made movements coalesce?
Zinn: In the antiwar movement of the Vietnam years, there wasn't one person, but when I think back to the abolitionist movement, Frederick Douglass was a special figure in that way. When he came north, out of slavery, and spoke for the first time to a group of antislavery people, the beginnings of a movement existed. [William Lloyd] Garrison had already started [his antislavery newspaper] the Liberator, but Frederick Douglass was able to represent slavery itself in a way that Garrison and the other abolitionists could not. His dramatic appearance, his eloquence, provided a special spark for the abolitionist movement.
TD: I guess Cindy Sheehan also represents something that can't be represented by anyone else, almost, in fact, can't be represented -- the American dead in the war and, of course, her own dead son.
Zinn: It's interesting. There have been mothers other than Cindy Sheehan who have spoken out, but she decided on an act that had a special resonance, which was simply to find where Bush was going [he chuckles to himself at the thought] and have a confrontation between the two poles of this war, between its maker and the opposition. She just parked herself near Bush and became the center of national attention, of gravity, around which people gathered, hundreds and hundreds of people.

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No mercy: Video of weeping homeless man losing dog to activists sparks online outrage

 

Published time: 25 Sep, 2015 12:20

 

© Seven LE DUC / YouTube

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The French animal rights group, Cause Animal Nord, has come under fire after a video emerged of the activists taking away a puppy from a crying homeless man in central Paris.

The video shows the man fighting for his dog, but eventually losing out as three members of the group, including the organization’s president, seized the puppy and ran away. The homeless man was left in tears.

 

The cruel act has been condemned by the media and internet users. A number took to social networks to express their disgust, while others left highly critical messages on the organization’s Facebook page.

Follow

Hombre Kaiman @HombreKaiman

3 French animal rights activists steal puppy from homeless man, and put it up for adoption under the name "Vegan":h…

8:07 PM - 23 Sep 2015

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Man Jailed for Traffic Ticket Dies in Cell After 17 Days of Torture. Officers Watched It Happen.

• ReasonTV

Macomb County man David Stojcevski died of drug withdrawal and neglect as officials ignored his plight.

Robby Soave|Sep. 24, 2015 11:40 am

 

Local 4 / clickondetroit
It was a death sentence.

David Stojcevski, a 32-year-old resident of Roseville, Michigan, was arrested for failing to pay a $772 fine stemming from careless driving. A court ordered him to spend a month in the Macomb County jail.

Over the next 17 days of his incarceration in a brightly lit cell—where he was denied clothing—he lost 50 pounds, suffered convulsions, and eventually began to hallucinate. He died in agony, from a combination of obvious, untreated drug withdrawal and galling neglect.

Making matters worse (if anything could be worse than that), the entirety of his demise was captured on jail surveillance footage. Indeed, Stojcevski was under self-harm watch—stemming for a profound misdiagnosis of his condition, which was drug addiction, not mental instability—and jail officials were supposed to be watching him constantly. Either their vigilance was inadequate, or they watched and simply didn’t care.

WDIV's report on the story is a must-see, though it’s highly disturbing: the video shows clips from the jail footage while a medical expert offers commentary on the inhumanity of Stojcevski’s treatment.

Read More Here

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• Family Sues After Man Dies While In Jail For Unpaid Parking Ticket
• Inmate dies 'excruciating' death from drug withdrawal in Macomb County Jail
• How 30 days in jail turned out to be a death sentence
• 'Oh My God': Family Wants You to Watch Disturbing Video of Man Jailed For Traffic Ticket Dying in Police Custody
• Family of Roseville man sues Macomb County for jail death
• Man loses 50 pounds and dies in Michigan cell after being jailed for traffic

September 25, 2015: The UN Launches A ‘New Universal Agenda’ For Humanity

End Of The American Dream

The American Dream Is Becoming A Nightmare And Life As We Know It Is About To Change

By Michael Snyder, on September 24th, 2015

One of the biggest steps toward a one world government that we have ever seen is happening this week, and yet barely anyone is even talking about it.  In fact, it is even being called a “new universal Agenda” for humanity.  Those are not my words – those are the words that the United Nations is using.  If you don’t believe this, just go look at the official document for this new UN agenda.  You won’t have to read very far.  The phrase “new universal Agenda” is right near the end of the preamble.  Officially, the name of this ambitious new program is “the 2030 Agenda“, and it is being hyped as a way to get the whole world to work together to make life better for all of us.  And a lot of the goals of this new agenda are very admirable.  For example, who wouldn’t want to end global poverty?  But as you look deeper into what the UN is trying to do, you find some very disturbing things.

If you didn’t like Agenda 21, then you really are not going to like the 2030 Agenda, because the 2030 Agenda takes things to an entirely new level.  Agenda 21 was primarily focused on climate change and the environment, but the 2030 Agenda goes far beyond that.  As I have noted previously, the 2030 Agenda addresses economics, agriculture, education, gender equality, healthcare and a whole host of other issues.  It has been argued that there are very few forms of human activity that do not fall under the goals of the 2030 Agenda in one way or another.

The UN says that this new Agenda is “voluntary”, and yet virtually every single nation on the entire planet is willingly signing up for it.  In the official document that all of these nations are agreeing to, there are 17 sustainable development goals and 169 very specific sustainable development targets.  You can read them for yourself right here.

Read More Here

Related articles

• Sustainable development, science, and the UN
• The UN's "Sustainable Development Agenda" is Basically a Giant Corporatist Fraud
• UN's 'HeForShe' gender equality campaign launches global bus tour to colleges, starting in UK

The “crown jewels” of the UN's Human Rights Council have been handed to a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world

 

Yes, quite a shocker brought to you by the  same organization that bestowed the Peace Prize upon a man who talked a good game.  One who in truth has continued, expanded upon and mechanized the wars attributed to war criminals Bush/Cheney.  I suppose civilian deaths by drone are not taken into account either? 

Not to mention the  expansion of the continued erosion of the rights of his  own  citizens by way  of the former  war criminals "Patriot Act", NSA, Homeland Security and any number of  Black Ops being funded by taxpayer  dollars at any given time .  The very same war criminals in fact that many nations  wish to imprison for their crimes against humanity.  But Obama gets the Peace Prize and his killing  spree continues without so much as a peep from said organization.

Nope  it  makes  absolute sense......

DR

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Global Research

United Nations Farce: Saudi Arabia to Head UN Human Rights Council

By Felicity Arbuthnot

Global Research, September 24, 2015

All victims of human rights abuses should be able to look to the Human Rights Council as a forum and a springboard for action. (Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, 12 March 2007, Opening of the 4th Human Rights Council Session.)

Article 55 of United Nations Charter includes: “Universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.”
In diametrical opposition to these fine founding aspirations, the UN has appointed Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the United Nations Human Rights Council to head (or should that be “behead”) an influential human rights panel. The appointment was seemingly made in June, but only came to light on 17^th September, due to documents obtained by UN Watch (1.)

… Mr Faisal Bin Hassan Trad, Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador at the UN in Geneva, was elected as Chair of a panel of independent experts on the UN Human Rights Council.
As head of a five-strong group of diplomats, the influential role would give Mr Trad the power to select applicants from around the world for scores of expert roles in countries where the UN has a mandate on human rights.

Such experts are often described as the “crown jewels” of the HRC, according to UN Watch.
The “crown jewels” have been handed to a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world. Saudi Arabia will head a Consultative Group of five Ambassadors empowered to select applicants globally for more than seventy seven positions to deal with human rights violations and mandates.

In a spectacular new low for even a UN whose former Secretary General, Kofi Annan, took eighteen months to admit publicly that the 2003 invasion of, bombardment and near destruction of Iraq was illegal, UN Watch points out that the UN has chosen: “a country that has beheaded more people this year than ISIS to be head of a key Human Rights panel …” (2)

In May, just prior to the appointment, the Saudi government advertised for eight extra executioners to: “ … carry out an increasing number of death sentences, which are usually beheadings, carried out in public” (3.)

Seemingly: “no special qualifications are needed.” The main function would be executing, but job description: “also involves performing amputations …”

The advert was posted on the website of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of the Civil Service.


Read More Here

 

 

Related articles

• UN Farce: Saudi Arabia to Head Human Rights Council
• Saudi man faces execution for taking part in anti-government protests
• Saudi Arabian envoy heads UN panel on human rights
• UN Watch: Condemn Appointment of Saudi Arabia as HRC Chair
• MEPs respond to the appointment of Saudi Arabia's ambassador at the UN Human Rights Council

Yemen: Explosions rock Sanaa as Saudi-led coalition try to push back Houthis

Ruptly TV

 

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RT

Saudi air raids kill dozens of Yemeni civilians amid humanitarian crisis

Published time: 20 Sep, 2015 04:52

A man sits on cars damaged by a Saudi-led air strike in Sanaa, Yemen, September 19, 2015 © Mohamed al-Sayaghi / Reuters

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The latest Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen have left dozens of civilians dead and nearly 160 injured at a time that sees medical facilities struggling to provide even the most basic services. The country is suffering from a shortage of vital supplies due to the ongoing blockade.

The coalition air raids against Houthi forces in Sanaa overnight on Friday killed at least 40 civilians and injured at least another 130 people, Yemen News Agency (SABA) reported. 

One strike leveled an apartment building in the center of the city killing a family of nine, while another strike killed a man who had been searching for his family in the rubble, AP reported. The coalition has even managed to attack Yemen’s interior ministry in the capital, launching about 10 strikes at the building as well as at a police camp and a military building close to it.
The airstrikes also hit the residence of Oman’s ambassador in Sanaa.

Read More Here

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Breaking News May 2015 Saudi Arabia used USA supplied cluster bombs in Yemen

u2bheavenbound

 

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CNN

Report: Saudi Arabia used U.S.-supplied cluster bombs in Yemen

By Ben Brumfield and Slma Shelbayah, CN

(CNN)

 Human Rights Watch has accused Saudi Arabia of dropping U.S.-supplied cluster bombs in the fight against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The small bombs, if unexploded, can lay dormant and then detonate when people stumble upon one by chance, killing or maiming them as a result.

An international treaty against cluster bombs has been adopted by 116 countries, but the United States, Saudi Arabia and Yemen are not among them.

The particular cluster munition systems HRW said were used are CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons, which are guided bombs intended to take out tanks and other armored vehicles with a flurry of explosions spread out over an area.

If the cluster bombs fail to detect their target, they are designed to self-destruct in the air, or if that fails, to deactivate themselves after a short time. But sometimes those mechanisms don't work, posing a lethal danger for those who later encounter them.

Read More Here


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UN condemns ‘virtual silence’ on civilian casualties in Yemeni conflict

Published time: 16 Sep, 2015 05:12Edited time: 16 Sep, 2015 17:17

© Khaled Abdullah / Reuters

248317.

UN officials have openly criticized the “the virtual silence” with regards to civilian suffering in the Yemeni conflict from the world community, warning that unless violence on the ground is stopped via political compromise more people will suffer.

Adama Dieng, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Jennifer Welsh, the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, “expressed concern at the ever increasing impact on civilians of the ongoing conflict in Yemen, and the virtual silence of the international community about the threat to populations.”

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Underground lifelines used by residents of the town of Rafah are being flooded by Egypt, worsening existing isolation.

TRT World - World in Focus: Egypt to Flood Gaza Tunnels

TRT World

Published on Sep 10, 2015

POPULATION UNDER SIEGE

The Gaza Strip one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Around 1.8 million people call this coastal strip of just 360 square kilometres, home. And eight years of blockades and wars have crippled its economy. 43 percent of Gazans are unemployed, and 39 percent live in poverty. They’re still rebuilding after last year’s war with Israel and depend on international aid to survive. Much has been pledged, but Israel only allows a portion of the essentials to pass through.

TUNNELS OF LIFE
Tunnels that run beneath the Egyptian border provide a vital lifeline for many struggling families in Gaza. Smugglers often risk their lives to use the tunnels - as Egypt has restricted access to the Rafah crossing since its military deposed former president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. So far this year, the crossing’s only been open for 15 days. Egypt also begun to demolish the tunnels in Sinai - over 1,400 of them since the beginning of 2014. And now, it seeks to flush out the smugglers once and for all by flooding the tunnels.
EGYPTIAN FISH FARMS
Egypt says it wants to use its 14-kilometre border with Gaza for a different purpose - to build fish farms. And Egypt’s military has already begun to dig along border to set up 18 fisheries. But Gazans fear the project is just a ploy to reinforce the blockade. Hamas official Mushir al Masri said it was to tighten the siege on Gaza. Egypt previously cleared homes along the border to expand a buffer zone and its military regime has accused Hamas of supporting militant groups in the Sinai peninsula. But Hamas, which is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood now outlawed by Egypt, has denied the claims.
STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE
But because of the fisheries, prices of supplies smuggled into Gaza have skyrocketed.
Smugglers are now installing water pumps into tunnels to ease the flooding. Currently, it’s believed that only 20 tunnels are still actively being used. The mayor of Rafah, Subhi Radwan, has warned that the flooding of the tunnels could cause homes on the Gazan side of the border to collapse. He also said that filling them with sea water could contaminate Gaza’s drinking water. But for now, Gazans have little choice but to watch on from behind the borders.

Gaza after Egypt floods tunnels

Freaking Crazy

Published on Sep 20, 2015

People rarely came this far, she told us, and it seemed to her that very few of those that did, cared enough to ask how they were doing.

"Not well at all," she said needing little prodding. "Not well at all."
Mansura was clearly exhausted from having stayed up the night before.
Fearful for her family, she sat outside her makeshift house just a few hundred metres from the border between Gaza and Egypt, on guard until dawn.
"We're used to the guns and the rockets and the explosions," she said. "But now - water?"
Witness: The Gaza tunnels
Her voice trembled, and tears began to pool in her eyes.
"This is our life," she said hopelessly.
"We are so, so tired."
Mansura lives in Rafah, the town divided between Gaza and Egypt by international

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Al JAZEERA

 

Strangled: Gaza after Egypt floods tunnels

 

20 Sep 2015 09:29 GMT

 

Marga Ortigas

Marga Ortigas covers the Asia-Pacific region for Al Jazeera English.

Seventy-three year old Mansura Abu Shaar was more than happy to talk to strangers.
People rarely came this far, she told us, and it seemed to her that very few of those that did, cared enough to ask how they were doing.
"Not well at all," she said needing little prodding. "Not well at all."
Mansura was clearly exhausted from having stayed up the night before.
Fearful for her family, she sat outside her makeshift house just a few hundred metres from the border between Gaza and Egypt, on guard until dawn.
"We're used to the guns and the rockets and the explosions," she said. "But now - water?" Her voice trembled, and tears began to pool in her eyes.
"This is our life," she said hopelessly.
"We are so, so tired."
Mansura lives in Rafah, the town divided between Gaza and Egypt by international political agreements in the 1980s.
With Israel the only other way in or out, Gazans saw the border with fellow-Arab Egypt as the "friendly" alternative.
It was a pressure valve when all else around them seemed to be closing in.
But the "friendly border" closed when Hamas took control of the government in Gaza in 2007.
At least in theory.

Read More Here

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Al JAZEERA

'Rafah has turned into a ghost town'

As Egypt works to create a buffer zone, the destruction of tunnels has further crippled Gaza's already besieged economy.

Walaa Ghussein | 18 Nov 2014 09:04 GMT
 

Egyptian authorities have ordered residents living along the border with Gaza to evacuate their homes [Al Jazeera]

Rafah, Gaza - Ahmed al-Afifi cannot focus on studying as midterm exams approach. For the past two weeks, the constant sounds of explosions have echoed from across the border.
"We are not psychologically ready for this," said al-Afifi, 22, a Gaza-based university student who lives in the Palestinian side of Rafah, which shares a border with Egypt's restive Sinai peninsula. His home is about 400m from the border, and the explosions are part of an Egyptian military operation to initially create a 500m-deep buffer zone.
But on Tuesday November 18, Egyptian authorities said they were to expand the buffer zone to one km.
The army is clearing the area by using dynamite and bulldozers, a systematic campaign also aimed at destroying smuggling tunnels into Gaza. The operation followed the killing of 33 Egyptian soldiers in an attack in North Sinai in October. Egyptian authorities have ordered residents living along the country's eastern border with Gaza to evacuate their homes, which are targeted for demolition.
On Monday November 17, Rober Turner, head of UNRAWA operations in Gaza, said that the buffer zone set up by Egyptian authorities will make things more difficult . He described the siege as 'unjust'.

Read More Here



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Egypt floods people-smuggling tunnels leading from Sinai to the Gaza Strip in a renewed effort to stamp out terror activity

• Authorities feared the tunnels would allow Islamist militants to smuggle people and weapons across the border in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip
• Military pumped water from the Mediterranean Sea into the tunnel pipes, which are now to be converted into fish farms
• Hamas previously infiltrated Israel via smuggling tunnels, killing 12 soldiers and destroying 32 underground passages 

By Sophie Mogridge For Mailonline

Published: 18:49 EST, 19 September 2015 | Updated: 20:49 EST, 19 September 2015 

Egyptian forces flooded smuggling tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border in Rafah on Friday in a reported attempt to stamp out terror activity. 

Authorities feared the tunnels, which lead from Sinai to the Gaza Strip, would allow for smuggling by Islamist militants between the blockaded Palestinian enclave, according to a report by DPA.

The military pumped water from the Mediterranean Sea into the pipes of the underground cross-border tunnels in an effort to curb the use of the passages in their entirety. 

A Palestinian youth shows how to abseil into one of the tunnels on the Gaza side after Egyptian forces flooded smuggling tunnels beneath the border to the Gaza strip, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip

Read More Here

Related articles

• World Inaction Is Driving the Slow Death of the Gaza Strip
• Horror and fear in Gaza after Egypt floods tunnels
• Egypt destroys Gaza smuggling tunnels in crackdown on militants
• Hamas contacting Egypt to halt Gaza tunnel flooding
• Egypt bulldozing along Gaza to stop tunnels
• Egypt floods Gaza's underground 'lifelines'
• Egypt begins flooding Gaza-bound tunnels, officials say