UN School Attacked in Gaza - Where's the BBC?

[Teddy Bear]

The UN school in Gaza was attacked by a militant group on Sunday. I got the story from AP. I went looking for it on the BBC website, but can find only a mention of it there in passing, and that on ANOTHER Alan Johnstone reference, and it also says the attack happened "in early May" - when in fact it was yesterday.

Reading the story in AP, which like most media is considerably left wing, but what a contrast to the BBC. Just reading the information given by AP, even written by a journalist with an Arab sounding name, just highlights how biased and distorted the BBC is.

The AP Story

U.N. beefs up security after Gaza attack By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 7, 10:41 AM ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Security was beefed up at the main U.N. compound in Gaza City Monday, with workers reinforcing the entrance gate and personnel inspecting the roof after a shadowy group of Muslim extremists attacked a U.N.-run school.

Sunday's incident, which killed one and wounded seven, is part of Gaza's out-of-control lawlessness that is increasingly aimed at foreigners. Most foreigners have left Gaza, and the latest attack on the U.N. was seen as a major escalation.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack in the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah, but security officials said they believe "salafiyeen," or Muslim fundamentalists, were involved. The group is believed to be behind a string of attacks on Internet cafes and music shops in recent weeks. It is not clear whether they are connected to any political party.

The latest incident underscored the inability of the new Palestinian unity government, a coalition of the Islamic militant Hamas and the Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to end the chaos.

Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas met late Sunday in another attempt to put together a security plan. The meeting ended without agreement, and another was set for Monday.

Interior Minister Hani Kawasmeh, the author of the plan, has threatened to resign because security commanders refuse to cooperate, mainly because of rivalries between coalition partners Hamas and Fatah.

New statistics illustrated the sharp increase in internal violence in Gaza.

In the first three months of this year, 147 Gazans, including 10 children, were killed by fellow Palestinians, according to the Palestinian human rights group Al-Mezan. By comparison, 57 people died in factional fighting in all of 2004, followed by 101 in 2005 and 252 last year.

If the upward spiral is not stopped, Gaza could become ungovernable, warned Ibrahim Ibrach, a political scientist at Gaza's al-Azhar University. "The collapse of the Palestinian Authority ... is at stake," he said.

Sunday's attack on the U.N. school in the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah began with a protest by Muslim extremists in long robes, who said a sports festival the school was hosting was un-Islamic. The U.N. "is turning schools into nightclubs," read one sign held up by the protesters.

At one point, the group tried to enter the school. Palestinian security fired in the air to keep them away. In the ensuing chaos, at least one bomb was thrown into the school, and a gun battle followed.

A senior Fatah official, Majed Abu Shamaleh, was leaving the school when his bodyguard was killed. Seven people were wounded, most by bomb fragments. Some children hid under their chairs during the fighting.

Police arrested two of the gunmen and were interrogating them. Later, the extremists tried to approach the police station where the two suspects were being held, to release the men. Police and gunmen from militant factions surrounded the station to prevent the extremists from entering, witnesses said.

So-called salafiyeen are known through the Muslim world as fundamentalists who try to imitate their pious ancestors and recreate the lifestyle of Islam's founder, the Prophet Muhammad. Most are peaceful, but some engage in violence.

A Palestinian intelligence official said the Gaza group appeared determined to attack all those who don't agree with its strict ideology. Other fundamentalist groups have existed in the same area of southern Gaza for years, but live in their own communities and peacefully preach their beliefs, he said.

"What's new is that this group, which seems to have developed a few years ago, believes in violence if they see things they believe is wrong," the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

He said the group has no more than dozens of members, but could easily grow as disaffected youths abandon the two largest political groups, Hamas and Fatah.

Here's the only BBC article to have any mention of it (highlights mine):

Kidnap compounds Gaza's crisis
Matthew Price
BBC News, Erez Crossing, Gaza


Raed Atamna's long, yellow, Mercedes taxi rattles us over the potholes of northern Gaza. His car is old, tired, and slowly falling apart. A little like Gaza itself.


Gazans have held regular protests calling for Johnston's release
He stops at the Palestinian side of the crossing point between Gaza and Israel, where a row of taxis stand idle under the hot Mediterranean sun.

"There's no business. Business has finished completely," Raed says. "There's nothing. No journalists. Business has dropped since the kidnap."

Alan Johnston was kidnapped eight long weeks ago.

He must - by now - be the most recognised western face in Gaza. Several times a week rallies have been held calling for his release.

His picture has been held aloft on countless posters. Most of the rallies have been organised by Palestinian journalists.

They are concerned about Alan Johnston's safety, but as Nidal al-Mugrabi from the Gaza Committee to Protect Journalists says, they're also worried about their own future.


We are afraid that Gaza will be classified as one of the most dangerous places in the world... countries will stop sending foreign journalists, business people, and aid workers into Gaza. Gaza will be forgotten

Nidal al-Mugrabi
Gaza Committee to Protect Journalists

"We are afraid that Gaza will be classified as one of the most dangerous places in the world. We're worried countries will stop sending foreign journalists, business people, and aid workers into Gaza. Gaza will be forgotten."

Deterioration

To a certain extent his worst fears are already coming true.

Gaza is deteriorating - and fast. Street battles between rival security forces or clans have killed many.

The kidnap threat for westerners is constantly high. Internet cafes, restaurants and a Christian bookshop have been targeted.

Even the United Nations is becoming a target.

In early May a radical group claimed responsibility for an attack on a UN-run school in the southern Gaza Strip. In a statement it said a festival being held at the school was not in keeping with Islamic values.
Radicalism prospers

John Ging is one of a handful of Westerners who do remain in Gaza. He's the director of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

Earlier this year his armoured car was shot at as he drove towards Gaza City.

People can not move in and out of Gaza. There's no economic activity. The cycle of violence that people have endured here has been ferocious¿ that's fertile ground for radicalism

John Ging
United Nations
"In the autumn of 2005 we had almost 100 UN international staff here. We have reduced to something around ten to 15," Mr Ging said.

"Simply put there is a closure regime. People can not move in and out of Gaza. There's no economic activity. The cycle of violence that people have endured here has been ferocious.

"All of those conditions combine to create despair among the population. That's fertile ground for radicalism and people are struggling to survive."

Radicalism is something which many in Gaza are beginning to fear.

"If the violence continues will we begin to see more radicalisation of politics," says Nidal al-Mugrabi from the Gaza Committee to Protect Journalists.


Johnston was the only Western reporter based permanently in Gaza

"Maybe it will give birth to more extreme groups that would target foreigners on the basis of nationality or religion."

At the long, grim, depressing walkway that leads out of Gaza and into Israel, some Palestinian workers are painting the walls.

The officials who normally check foreigners in and out of Gaza though are sitting around, idle. Few are passing through for now.

Eight weeks ago the officials gave a cheery smile to Alan Johnston, a man who they had got to know well.

They checked his passport, and then he strode through, towards his Gaza home. A couple of hours later he was kidnapped.

Ever since, it's not just been him who is suffering. Gaza is also feeling the effects.

[Teddy Bear]

There's more about this attack on the UN Gaza School, and other related incidents, that perhaps explains why the BBC are not to keen to go into details about what's behind it.

Muslims shot up the Omariyah elementary school in Gaza. One man was killed and six were wounded in the onslaught. The murderers attacked because the UN-run school in Rafah had organized a sports day for the children, in which little boys would be playing with little girls.

The idea that that boys and girls might play sports together was too much for the righteous believers. It was an insult to Islam, they said. And so they decided to kill the little boys and girls.

On May 3, in Gujrat, Pakistan, Muslims detonated a bomb at the gate of a girls' school. Their righteous wrath was raised by the notion that girls would learn to read and write. That too, they felt, is an insult to Islam.

On April 28, US soldiers in Iraq discovered detonation wires
across the street from the newly built Huda Girls' school in Tarmiya, north of Baghdad. They followed the wire to its source and discovered the school had been built as a deathtrap. The pious Muslims who constructed the school had filled propane tanks with explosives and buried them beneath the floor. They built artillery shells into the ceiling and the floor. To save the world for Allah, they decided to butcher little girls.