After 12 days of the agreed cease-fire between Palestinian brigades and Israel in Gaza, situation is still unstable. On humanitarian level, situation is a disaster. Thousands of people who lost their houses still have no place to go. Size of destruction discovered is beyond the imagination of anyone. All relief actions that have been taken are still on the primary stage and offer those poor vulnerable people only basic aids.

The reconstruction operations are still pending due to the closure of all crossing points. Only few goods are allowed to enter Gaza, leaving the Gaza strip in a miserable shape; taking into account the huge impacts of the war and the continuous siege which was and still very strict since 20 months in arrow.

Despite all that, wounds and sadness stories of the war victims have become the fever of the media and press. Gaza has become the target of many Arabs and Muslims who came to support and relief the people in here. People and charity associations from Turkey, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Algeria, and others arrived and took hundreds of tours around to see the destroyed areas as well as governmental structures.

Many international NGOs, such as UNRWA and UNDP have already started assessing the damage rapidly to measure the size and type of damage occurred and try to figure out something that may help. Talking about the huge destruction that touches almost everything in Gaza, numbers can talk specifically more than words: 4000 houses had been totally demolished. 17,000 houses had been partially damaged. 95 mosques have been damaged (45 of them are totally destroyed) one hospital for the red crescent had been totally burned and some hospitals and health centers had been partially damaged.

All ministries and presidential buildings have been totally destroyed (including police stations and gov. ministries compound).
3 municipalities have been partially damaged. Islamic university have a core damage in one of its main buildings, which is scientific laboratories building, as well as other buildings. The estimated cost of repair is nearly 15 million US$. The list is too long and can never end. However, end of suffering for the people in Gaza have not showed up yet.

Addressing leaders at Friday’s emergency Arab summit in Doha, the Qatari capital, al-Assad declared that the Arab initiative for peace with Israel was now “dead”.

The gags were shoes covered with symbols of the United States and Israel, illustrating the frustration of demonstrators over the power of the two states to manipulate world events.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them Hamas supporters, attended a mass funeral procession in Gaza on Friday for de facto Interior Minister Said Siyam, who was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike on Thursday.

The funeral is also in honor of Siyam’s son Muhammad, his brother Iyad, his sister-in-law and her son, all of whom were killed in the same airstrike. The strike left a massive crater where Iyad Siyam’s house had stood.

A member of Hamas’ senior leadership, Siyam is the highest-ranking Palestinian figure to be killed in the current Israeli offensive.

Hamas hardliner turned Palestinian Martyr

Considered a hardliner within the Hamas movement, Siyam formed the Executive Forces, a parallel, Hamas-controlled security apparatus, after Hamas was elected to power in 2006.

While he took a hard line against Fatah in internal Palestinian politics, his assassination is likely to retroactively increase his stature among Palestinians of all political factions.

“Israel has a remarkable way of turning villains into heroes, into Gods,” said one Palestinian on Thursday, a resident of Bethlehem whose family is close to Fatah. He compared Siyam’s death to the assassination of Hamas’ wheelchair-bound spiritual leader, Ahmad Yasin, in 2004.

Born in 1959 in the squalor of Gaza’s Ash-Shati Refugee Camp, Siyam worked as a math and science teacher at local United Nations-run schools. He joined Hamas in the 1980s, one of its earliest members. Siyam quickly assumed leadership of the local teacher’s union.

He was active in the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against the Israeli occupation, which began in late 1987.

Israeli forces jailed Siyam several times in the 1990s, and in 1992 exiled him for a year to southern Lebanon with hundreds of other Palestinians.

In the mid-1990s, Hamas’ rival, the Fatah movement of then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, established the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, as part of interim peace deals with Israel. Siyam was jailed by Fatah-controlled PA security forces during this period.

He was elected to the Palestinian parliament in 2006, winning the most votes of any candidate.

As interior minister, Siyam had trouble controlling security forces that had been formed during Arafat’s rule, and were loyal to Fatah. It was then that he set up the Executive Force, which became the core of the Hamas police force in Gaza after the takeover of Gaza in June 2007.

After the takeover, Siyam’s forces established tight, if repressive control over the Gaza Strip, shutting down militias perceived to be loyal to Fatah.

On Thursday, Muhammad Nazzal a member of the Hamas political bureau, lamented the death of Siyam in as speech broadcast from Damascus.

Aluf Benn, an Israeli military correspondent, said Israeli intelligence confirmed the presence of Siyam and his staff near his brother’s home before ordering the assassination.

Hamas announced a period of mourning over the assassination of Syam, who was a member of the movement’s politburo, in addition to his role at the de facto Interior Ministry. Syam was appointed to the post shortly after Hamas won legislative elections in 2006.

Hamas condemned the killing of Syam’s son, brother Iyad and sister-in-law, as well as her son, who was killed along with four other neighbors near the home. Ten Palestinians were killed in the airstrike, including Syam and five of his family members.

Azzam

1- Burning and causing huge damage to the Palestinian Red Cresent center as well as Al - Quds hospital next to it. The hospital hosted nearly 300 injuries and patients. The burning took place after an Israeli open fire and shelling of the area.

2- Burning of UNRWA main warehouse and losing most of food and fuel supply that UNRWA was using to aid and relief nearly 750,000 Palestinians as well as hospitals and municipalities.

3- Assassination of the former interior minister and third man of Hamas Said Syam. The rid also resulted in killing of 10 Palestinians.

4- Destroying of the main police station of Khanyounis after an Israeli night rid by Israeli’s F16 warplanes.

5- Destroying of several houses and a mosque in Rafah area near the Egyptian borders after an Israeli night rid.

6- Death toll on Gaza is now : 1300 dead (345 of them are children and 100 are women) and 4700 injuries (50% of them are children).

The targeting of the UN HQ in Gaza was made while the Security general Ban Ge Mon visiting Jerusalem. Ihud Barrak, the Israeli defensive minister said it was a big mistake.

The talks about cease fire remain as talks on the stage, taking into account that Israel continues its war using every weapon it has, no mattar if it is internationally banded or not and without any care to the voices of millions around the world whom are protesting and saying no to the war.

Gaza’s de facto interior minister Said Syam assassinated along with his son and brother in Gaza by Israeli warplanes. According to sources, Syam was just leaving a car with his son beside a house that belongs to Syam family in Gaza when an Israeli warplane assassinate him. 6 palestinians were killed in this attack..that incidence took place one hour ago. The event came after the huge invasion of the Israeli army that took place early morning and still ongoing. The Israeli armor tanks invaded Gaza city from the south-western parts of the city. The army continued to shell the city randomly causing huge damage to the buildings and houses. Even the UN HQ of Gaza was hit and its warehouse that includes food and fuel stores were burned.

Syam was one of the biggest leaders of Hamas in Gaza. He was considered as the third man of Hamas in Gaza. He is also a parliment member of the PLO.

Ban made this remark at a press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Tel Aviv.

Ban also expressed outrage to top Israeli officials on after Israeli forces shelled the main UN relief compound in Gaza City.

“I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defense minister and the foreign minister and demanded a full explanation,” Ban said, adding that he had demanded an investigation into the shelling.

By last count, 984 Gazans, many of them women and children, have died in the Israeli assault since it began on December 27.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict meanwhile appeared to make little ground, although Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, arrived in Cairo on Wednesday morning to again push for a ceasefire.

After a comparatively quiet night, large plumes of smoke were seen rising over Gaza City on Wednesday morning. A house near the centre of the city was ablaze after Israelis bombed the area.

In Lebanon, television news sources reported that four projectiles were launched near the southern Lebanese down of Hasbaya.

The four latest deaths brought the overall toll for Wednesday up to 15 killed and dozens injured, medics said.