News Roundup for January 29

Now for some insight from the Middle East press. First, from the Palestinian civil war we have some beautifully-crafted descriptions of events in Gaza courtesy of the Hamas website.

At the time of A very big campaign against the Elected Palestinian government from the Zionist and American governments.

When your official website to the world has a sentence fragment.

After the delivered weapons from the American and Israeli governments to Dahalan's forces in the area, many clashes happened in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Isn't that a bumper sticker, "Clashes Happen"?

These incidents happened On Saturday 27 January, 2007 with many incidents at the same day resulting a lot of Corruption in different parts of the Gaza Strip.

Your geuss is as good as mine.

* * * *
Next, a suicide bomb in the Israeli port city of Eilat that killed at least three Israelis so far. One resident describes their experience.

“I opened the window, and the entire house shook from the blast,” a local told Ynet. “It was really close by, and I’m shaking with fear; it’s as though we are living in Texas – in the Wild West."

Yes, the wild west of Texas where outlaw suicide bombers once roamed the prairie.

* * * *
From Lebanon, Israel is using the old poisonous balloon ploy to terrorize civilians.

Eight people were hospitalized Saturday after inhaling toxic gases from poisonous balloons dropped by Israeli warplanes over Upper Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon, the National News Agency reported. ...

I don't know about you, but when I find a stray balloon the first thing that comes to mind is to immediately inhale whatever is inside.

The agency said Israeli warplanes dropped at least 10 poisonous balloons with Hebrew markings over Upper Nabatiyeh at about 9 am Saturday. ...

Warplanes dropping balloons...

NNA had earlier said that the Lebanese army's engineering unit headed to the area and destroyed the balloons by explosives.

Popping them from a safe distance by, say, shooting is apparently out of the question. Get the explosives and blow those puppies up!

The army, in a communiqué issued Friday, warned civilians against messing with the balloons and urged them to report finding them to the closest army unit.

Remember, no "messing" with them poison balloons. Israel, on the other hand, offers an explanation.

An Israeli promotional campaign involving balloons caused panic among Lebanese civilians Saturday when the wind carried them over the border into southern Lebanon. ...

However, the photographs published on the Web site of Hezbollah's TV station Al-Manar show green balloons from a promotional campaign for Ha'ir, a Schocken group newspaper.

Sure Zionists, but what about that "toxic" helium?

Sources from UNIFIL said that lab results have shown the Israeli balloons did not contain any toxic gases.

Typical Zionist plot: drop poisonous balloon decoys in order to lower everyone's guard.

* * * *
And finally from Pakistan, where a demonstration urging non-violence goes horribly wrong.

On Saturday morning, the students fought over a poster urging students not to fight on campus. According to reports, the fight was over who would put up the poster first. And what started as an exchange of hot words snowballed into a full-fledged fistfight following which, the students hurled classroom furniture at each other. ...

Traffic on the road was suspended for around three hours, till the police arrived. Personnel from all of police stations in the area reached the troubled spot, and used tear gas, baton charge and open fire to disperse the students.

It seems that the concept of "non-violence" still has a long way to go for Middle Easterners. Oh well.