U.N. Spokesman breaks down sobbing on live TV over Palestinian children killed in shelling

[bigtree]

Last edited Wed Jul 30, 2014, 06:01 PM - Edit history (2)

ThinkProgress ‏@thinkprogress 14m
U.N. Spokesman breaks down sobbing on live TV over Palestinian children killed in shelling http://thkpr.gs/1s4RPQd

Cameras on Wednesday captured a spokesman for the United Nations mission devoted to assisting Palestinian refugees breaking down in tears over the latest artillery fire against a U.N.-run school killed at least twenty civilians.

United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman Chris Gunness has been a go-to source for information on what’s happening on the ground in the Gaza Strip for the past three weeks, as first airstrikes, then Israeli ground forces, have waged a war. The Israeli government has defended its actions as protecting Israeli citizens, focusing its assault on Hamas — which the United States and many other governments rank as a terrorist organization — and the militants allied with them. But in the course of the latest incursion, the dead have been almost entirely on the Palestinian side of the conflict, with the vast majority of them being civilians.

Gunness, in a video aired on Al Jazeera’s flagship Arabic network, can be seen giving an interview on the latest instance of a UNRWA school being damaged during the fighting before being unable to continue speaking. “The rights of Palestinians, even their children, are wholesale denied, and it’s appalling,” he manages to get out. A voice on the other side of the camera can be heard speaking to him, to which Gunness responds “my pleasure.” He was unable to speak more after that.

watch:

UNRWA Condemns Israeli Shelling Of Its School In Gaza As Serious Violation Of International Law

NO ONE is responsible for this many attacks on innocent civilians, except the ones attacking them

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Telegenic sobbing.

I just KNOW I'm gonna need this---->

[malaise]

2. NO ONE is responsible for this many attacks on innocent civilians, except the ones attacking them

That simple. Everything else is an inversion of reality.

[Ed Suspicious]

11. yes.

[malaise]

50. The UN gentleman should have sent this line to

the US House and Senate.

[Ed Suspicious]

55. We're so on the same page on this point. Yesterday when replying to a person who said the blood of

the children is on the hands of the defenders, not the attackers, I said "Whoever is killing children, while they are killing children, is at fault for the death of children. Period. It's really that simple."

There is not much in life that is absolute, but I think this is one moral truth that really is impossible to argue against.

[malaise]

61. Ban Ki Moon finally found his balls when he said

"Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children,"

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jul/30/gaza-israel-shameful-attacking-sleeping-children-ban-ki-moon-video

Watch the video

[hifiguy]

15. 100% correct.

[Enthusiast]

16. +1

[BlancheSplanchnik]

22. inverting reality, the prime job requirement. n/t

[misterhighwasted]

29. THIS^ [phone]

It is that simple.
Thank You

[merrily]

32. Not even those who have defended Israel's actions untl this school got hit?

Sorry. Global politics are rarely "that simple."

[Uncle Joe]

39. Precisely, malaise.

[uponit7771]

43. +1

[magical thyme]

54. agreed. apparently it also is a deliberate strategy

The Dahiya doctrine is a military strategy put forth by the Israeli general Gadi Eizenkot that pertains to asymmetric warfare in an urban setting, in which the army deliberately targets civilian infrastructure, as a means of inducing suffering for the civilian population, thereby establishing deterrence. The doctrine is named after a southern suburb in Beirut with large apartment buildings which were flattened by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 2006 Lebanon War. Israel has been accused of implementing the strategy during the Gaza War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine

[hrmjustin]

3. Thanks for posting this.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. I'm sure he's just telegenically upset

[alsame]

5. "Today the world stands disgraced."

Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the shelling of the school was a "serious violation of international law by Israeli forces".

Krahenbuhl said: "Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced."

Khalil al-Halabi, the UN official in charge of the schools in the area, was quickly on the scene. Bodies were littered over the classroom, and the badly injured lay in pools of blood amid the debris and rubble caused by the blast. "I was shaking," he said. "It was very, very hard for me to see the blood and hear the children crying."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/world-disgrace-gaza-un-shelter-school-israel

[onecent]

6. Oh Bless this man's heart!

[Spazito]

7. Heartbreaking...

I can't help but juxtapose this heartbreaking video with the one of Netanyaho speaking of the "telegenically dead Palestinians". One video shows genuine emotion while the other shows obscene heartlessness, imo.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

23. this

[mylye2222]

8. Bless this man's soul.....

He got me tear up along with him.....

[rug]

9. He's a human being

reacting to what human beings are doing to other human beings.

[frylock]

10. i'm sure that Harry Reid is absolutely disgusted by this display

[Enthusiast]

17. I am absolutely disgusted by Harry Reid's display.

Harry Reid is fucking up about as bad as Israel.

[G_j]

38. +100

[riverwalker]

12. heartbreaking

Chris Gunness ‏@ChrisGunness · 1h
UNRWA is overwhelmed in #Gaza we have reached breaking point, our staff are being killed our shelters overflowing. Where will it end? RT

Chris Gunness @ChrisGunness

Precise location of Jabalia Elementary Girls School #Gaza & that it housed 3,000 displaced was communicated to Israeli army 17 times RT

Chris Gunness @ChrisGunness

Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge RT

‏@ChrisGunness

This is the 6th time 1 of our schools has been struck in #Gaza fighting. Our staff are being killed. Our shelters are overflowing RT

Chris Gunness @ChrisGunness ·

These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army RT

[4now]

13. It is heartbreaking watching Israel slaughtering children in our name

and with our money.
Harry Reid implied that Israel needed our money to continue the killing.

[Scootaloo]

14. And there's a whole throng of DU'ers laughing and cheerign with every death

One would think that DU would have standards.

But then one would have thought that, back when some of the same people thought the murder of Trayvon Martin was just the funniest thing in the world. Or when they've been attacking women for over a year.

[mountain grammy]

18. I haven't seen any, much less a "whole throng" of DU'ers laughing a cheering with every death.

I really don't understand why you would say that.

[Scootaloo]

19. How nice for you

[Ed Suspicious]

33. I wish you would explain that statement.

I've seen none of what you've described.

[regnaD kciN]

56. I haven't either…

…but that's only because I've been filling up my Ignore List since this started and, by now, I probably have about 2/3ds of DU on it by now.

[Comrade Grumpy]

20. The number seems to be shrinking. Even the most shameless are quieting down.

But there is that influx of new, low-post count posters who seem to have the IDF talking points down flat. I wonder where they're coming from.

[merrily]

30. Only quieting down?

I haven't seen the laughter at deaths, either, but this seems to require more than quieting down of any posters who were gleeful deaths before

[L0oniX]

48. AIPAC shills?

[Comrade Grumpy]

49. This, perhaps? I've posted this several times in response to them, and they seem to go away.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/14/israel-pay-students-propaganda_n_3755782.html

Israel To Pay Students For Pro-Israeli Social Media Propaganda
The Huffington Post UK | By Lucy Sherriff
Email
Posted: 14/08/2013 16:33 BST Updated: 14/08/2013 16:46 BST Print Article FACEBOOK

Israel has announced it will pay university students to circulate pro-Israeli information on social media networks, without having to identify themselves as working for the government.

The move was publicised in a statement from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, the Associated Press reported. Students will receive scholarships to "engage international audiences online" and combat anti-Semitism and calls to boycott Israel, it was alleged.

In 2012, a Palestinian-run blog reported similar arrangements between the National Union of Israeli Students and the Israeli government. Students would be paid $2,000 to post pro-Israel messages online for five hours a week.

According to Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, the most recent proposition is being spearheaded by Danny Seaman, who was slammed by the media for writing anti-Muslim messages on Facebook.

Students will be organised into units at each university, with a chief co-ordinator who receives a full scholarship, three desk co-ordinators for language, graphics and research who receive lesser scholarships and students termed “activists” who will receive a “minimal scholarship”, the Independent reported.

[L0oniX]

51. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ! ! !

[morningfog]

52. The ONLY people that can still defend this are either hate-filled or derive a

monetary benefit of some kind from it.

It has far surpassed what any reasonable, thinking, feeling person can support.

[countryjake]

21. Notice also that it's not just criticism of Israel that's under fire...

there's a full-bore attack against the left going on all over the Internet these past few weeks.

My best friend and former husband was called a filthy communist self-hating Jew at another site, for merely suggesting that Hamas is now the only defense that Palestine has. My daughter has been accused of being a traitor to her people because she posted an innocent selfie of herself wearing the Palestinian scarf that I gave to her years ago.

There is a fanatical right-wing onslaught going down, everywhere that discussion of Gaza is taking place on the web. Bibi's minions are on the offensive and they don't care if anyone is Jewish or not, which is why I continue to say that religion has absolutely nothing to do with this crushing of Occupied Palestine.

It's neo-fascism.

Once And For All! Uri Avnery's column 26/07/14
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1406281947/

The hatred of many Israelis for Israel's Arab citizens has grown considerably, and this cannot be repaired for a long time. Israeli democracy has been hard hit. Neo-Fascist groups, once a fringe, are now accepted in the mainstream. Some cabinet ministers and Knesset members are outright fascist.

They are acclaimed now by almost all the world's leaders and repeat parrot-like Netanyahu's most threadbare propaganda slogans. But millions around the world have seen day after day the terrible pictures of devastation and death in the Gaza Strip. These will not be eradicated from their minds by a cease-fire. Israel's already precarious standing in the world will sink even lower.

Inside Israel itself, decent people feel more and more uncomfortable. I have heard many utterances by simple people who suddenly talk about emigration. The choking atmosphere inside the country, the awful conformism of all our media (with Haaretz a shining exception), the certainty that war will follow war forever – all this is leading young people to dream about a quiet life with their families in Los Angeles or Berlin.

In the Arab world the consequences will be even worse.

For the first time, almost all Arab governments have openly embraced Israel in the fight against Hamas. For young Arabs anywhere, this is an act of shameful humiliation

[mountain grammy]

40. I've been seeing that as well. Militant right wingers are stifling any push back..

[Dragonfli]

24. Video removed, does anyone know a second source? /nt

[bigtree]

25. here you go

links to video:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/watch-u-n-official-breaks-down-over-deaths-of-palestinian-children/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/gaza/11001631/UN-spokesman-breaks-down-talking-about-Gaza-child-deaths.html

[Dragonfli]

26. Thank you.

[redqueen]

35. Thanks, bigtree

K&R

[SunSeeker]

45. Thanks. nt

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

27. How popular is this current conflict now in Israel?

Now that we've had weeks of terrible suffering on our TV sets and the terrible reality of war has sunk in, I'd be curious to know if the popular support is increasing or decreasing. I'd ask the same about Gazans but I doubt anyone is going around conducting polls over there. Changing the hearts and minds of both Arabs and Jews, ending the hatred, and learning to live together and accepting each others' differences is the only solution.

[bigtree]

28. just saw BBC report claimimg near unanimous support there

. . . said there's even more support for even stronger measures (I hate to contemplate what those might entail).

[Jack Rabbit]

36. Which brings up the next question . . .

. . . what are they seeing on television there?

[bigtree]

37. good question

[alsame]

44. Probably their version of

Al Qaeda on the monkey bars. It worked for Bushco.

[malaise]

46. Blitzer?

or worse

[bigtree]

58. yep, the Israel beat was his gig in Tel Aviv

. . . and a handful of Israeli newspapers in D.C..

[countryjake]

60. Well, here's one thing some probably read today...from haaretz...

Gaza myths and facts: what American Jewish leaders won't tell you by Peter Beinart 30.07.14

Myth: Gaza is free. Fact: it has been under Israeli occupation since 1967 to this very day.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.608008


If you’ve been anywhere near the American Jewish community over the past few weeks, you’ve heard the following morality tale: Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005, hoping the newly independent country would become the Singapore of the Middle East. Instead, Hamas seized power, ransacked greenhouses, threw its opponents off rooftops and began launching thousands of rockets at Israel.

American Jewish leaders use this narrative to justify their skepticism of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. But in crucial ways, it’s wrong. And without understanding why it’s wrong, you can’t understand why this war is wrong too.

Let’s take the claims in turn.

Israel Left Gaza


It’s true that in 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew Israel’s more than 8,000 settlers from Gaza. (At America’s urging, he also dismantled four small settlements in the West Bank). But at no point did Gaza become its own country. Had Gaza become its own country, it would have gained control over its borders. It never did. As the Israeli human rights group Gisha has detailed, even before the election of Hamas, Israel controlled whether Gazans could enter or exit the Strip (In conjunction with Egypt, which controlled the Rafah checkpoint in Gaza's south). Israel controlled the population registry through which Gazans were issued identification cards. Upon evacuating its settlers and soldiers from Gaza, Israel even created a security perimeter inside the Strip from which Gazans were barred from entry. (Unfortunately for Gazans, this perimeter included some of the Strip’s best farmland).

“Pro-Israel” commentators claim Israel had legitimate security reasons for all this. But that concedes the point. A necessary occupation is still an occupation. That’s why it’s silly to analogize Hamas’ rockets—repugnant as they are—to Mexico or Canada attacking the United States. The United States is not occupying Mexico or Canada. Israel, according to the United States government, has been occupying Gaza without interruption since 1967.

Read more

[Loudly]

31. Grief, despair, anger, helplessness.

[merrily]

34. If he can't take it, imagine the parents, siblings, etc. of the kids and teachers who got killed

and others who actually knew them.

[jen63]

41. Oh, fffs

those poor people. Now I know why I can't watch these videos. This is absolutely horrendous.

[jwirr]

42. A man to be trusted. I respect him for his openness and honesty.

[bigtree]

47. back up there

[historylovr]

53. K & R

[elias49]

57. It's rare to see a real human being on the TV news. nt

[Cha]

59. mahalo, bigtree.. :(

[bigtree]

62. If you want to understand why a UN official broke down on TV, read his tweets

The Raw Story ‏@RawStory 6m
If you want to understand why a UN official broke down on TV, read his tweets http://ow.ly/zO1xE

Gunness told Buzzfeed,

I’m not emotionally drained… I’m made of a sterner stuff, as my English grandmother would say…. My feelings pale into insignificance compared to the enormity of the tragedy confronting each and every other person in Gaza at this time. It’s important to humanize the statistics and to realize that there is a human being with a heart and soul behind each statistic and that the humanity that lies behind these statistics should never be forgotten.