Cleansing Palestine

UPDATED

U.S. taxpayers have provided the Israeli military that invaded Gaza on Thursday night with more than $121 billion since the state’s founding, subsidizing about 25 percent of the tiny country’s annual defense budget in recent years.

That subsidy has increased even as Israel’s economy has experienced a growth spurt and the country has discovered stores of natural gas. Indeed, President Obama last year pledged to begin early negotiations to extend the annual military subsidy to Israel for another decade. Unlike his predecessor, Obama has sold Israel powerful bunker buster bombs and helped finance the Iron Dome missile defense system that has protected Israelis from Hamas rockets and missiles in the current war.

  The Daily Beast

A five-hour humanitarian truce has just ended in Gaza. The break was requested by the United Nations to allow residents of the Gaza Strip to gather supplies and repair damage following 10 days of attacks by Israel.

Democracy Now

Five hours to repair the damage of ten days of bombing?!?

But wait. There’s more.

Ayman Mohyeldin, the NBC News correspondent who personally witnessed yesterday’s killing by Israel of four Palestinian boys on a Gazan beach and who has received widespread praise for his brave and innovative coverage of the conflict, has been told by NBC executives to leave Gaza immediately.

[...]

Mohyeldin recounted how, moments before their death, he was kicking a soccer ball with the four boys, who were between the ages of 9 and 11 and all from the same family. He posted numerous chilling details on his Twitter and Instagram accounts, including the victims’ names and ages, photographs he took of their anguished parents, and video of one of their mothers as she learned about the death of her young son. He interviewed one of the wounded boys at the hospital shortly before being operated on. He then appeared on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, where he dramatically recounted what he saw.

[...]

Mohyeldin is an Egyptian-American with extensive experience reporting on that region. He has covered dozens of major Middle East events in the last decade for CNN, NBC and Al Jazeera English, where his reporting on the 2008 Israeli assault on Gaza made him a star of the network. NBC aggressively pursued him to leave Al Jazeera, paying him far more than the standard salary for its on-air correspondents.

[...]

According to an NBC source upset at his treatment, the executives claimed the decision was motivated by “security concerns” as Israel prepares a ground invasion, a claim repeated to me by an NBC executive. But late yesterday, NBC sent another correspondent, Richard Engel, along with an American producer who has never been to Gaza and speaks no Arabic, into Gaza to cover the ongoing Israeli assault (both Mohyeldin and Engel speak Arabic).

[...]

NBC curiously had Richard Engel – who was in Tel Aviv, and had just arrived there an hour or so earlier – “report” on the attack. Charlton wrote that “the decision to have Engel report the story for ‘Nightly’ instead of Mohyeldin angered some NBC News staffers.”

  Glenn Greenwald

And then....

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to start a ground operation in Gaza, his office has announced.

[...]

The ground phase of Operation Protective Edge has claimed more than 20 lives overnight. And barely a day into the fighting, Netanyahu is announcing a significant expansion of the ground operation.

[...]

In the meantime, the Jerusalem Post is reporting that Hamas continues to launch rockets in the direction of southern and central Israel.

[...]

The IDF also accused Hamas of using civilian deaths to paint Israel’s actions in a negative light. "In the face of Hamas' tactics to leverage civilian casualties in pursuit of its terrorist goals, the IDF will continue in its unprecedented efforts to limit civilian harm," it said.

[...]

As the offensive began, Israel's chief military spokesman Brig. Gen. Motti Almoz urged residents in Gaza to evacuate areas in which the military is operating, since it is doing so with "very great force."

[...]

The IDF [Israeli army] also accused Hamas of using civilian deaths to paint Israel’s actions in a negative light.

"In the face of Hamas' tactics to leverage civilian casualties in pursuit of its terrorist goals, the IDF will continue in its unprecedented efforts to limit civilian harm," it said.

  RT

UPDATE

And then…

CNN has removed correspondent Diana Magnay from covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after she tweeted that Israelis who were cheering the bombing of Gaza, and who had allegedly threatened her, were “scum.”

[...]

Magnay appeared on CNN Thursday from a hill overlooking the Israel-Gaza border. While she reported, Israelis could be heard near her cheering as missiles were fired at Gaza.

After the liveshot, Magnay tweeted: “Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong’. Scum.” The tweet was quickly removed, but not before it had been retweeted more than 200 times.

[...]

The spokeswoman said Magnay has been assigned to Moscow.

  HuffPo

UPDATE 6:39 PM:  Oh, no!  There was money to be lost.