Cross-posted from Wallwritings
The destruction of the home came on an early Saturday morning while only five of the 19 severely handicapped residents were in the building.
Jamila Elaiwa, who founded the center 20 years ago, told the New York Times the remaining 14 residents of the Mabaret Palestine Society home were visiting their families.
Ms. Elaiwa spoke to the Times at Gaza's Shifa's hospital's burn unit. She was there visiting the wounded survivors of the building's destruction, two of whom were Mai Hamada, 30; and Salwa Abu al-Qomssan, 53, the caretaker, both of them with severe burns.
Jamila Elaiwa, the founder of the Mabaret Palestine Society, suggested the attack must have been pre-planned, and was not one of Israel's unfortunate "accidents," as Israel claimed was the case with the bomb that killed nine Palestinians sitting on the beach watching a TV presentation of a World Cup football match.
She recalled a small explosion on the building roof a few minutes before the bomb hit that destroyed the home for the handicapped.
That smaller explosion would have been an Israeli "door knocking" message, which Israel claims is meant to warm occupants to leave the building. These were occupants, however, who were not in a condition to make a fast exit.
Two other wounded survivors of the blast are in extensive care. Killed in the bombing attack were Ula Wisha, 31, and Suha Abusada, 39, whose family reports "had been born severely handicapped and unable to speak."
In its story reporting the bombing of the home, the Times reports that Israel bombed a mosque in which Israel claimed "aerial photos indicated was harboring a weapons cache."
The mosque was destroyed. No casualties were reported. What the Times did not report was that the "weapons cache" claim is a frequent Israeli excuse for bombing sacred buildings.
This is clearly an asymmetrical (as in excessively one-sided) war. It is also an ongoing war that is renewed almost every two years or so. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is not interested in a cease fire. Of course he is not.
He will stop this recurring devastation when he feels he has weakened Hamas for this round. The bell will ring when he gives the signal for it to ring.
That is his pattern. Starting with Hamas' victory over Israel's preferred US military-trained Fatah army in 2006, Israel has found some some convenient pretext to repeatedly launch vicious and highly destructive air and sometimes ground assaults against Hamas.
Like clockwork, starting in 2007, and followed by assaults in 2009, then, pausing a year during Obama's first term, back to attacks in 2012, and now, in 2014, it is Operation Protective Edge.
Israel likes to give its Gaza recurring attacks, media-friendly, noble-sounding names. In 2012, the attack bore the memorable moniker, Pillar of Defense.
Like the Bob Gibson folk song, "The Thinking Man," Israel is reported to have a department with the sole responsibility of "drumming up names" for its lethal incursions into Gaza and Lebanon.
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