THE VISIT of an Israeli ambassador was disrupted last week by a protest against bombing attacks on Gaza.
Students protested in front of the John Rylands University Library last Tuesday after they learned that Talya Lador-Fresher, the Deputy Israeli Ambassador to London, was scheduled to visit.
Over twenty upset students began their protest as the ambassador was scheduled to arrive, in order to "show the position of the student body."
Many were infuriated by comments made about the attacks on Gaza by another Israeli diplomat, Zvi Rav-Ner, in a recent interview.
23-year-old Anan from the Action Palestine said: "It's completely unacceptable for somebody to come to an academic institution like Manchester and to support this [action]."
The E-Business student added that the attacks also directly affect students at The University of Manchester.
One student lost three members of his family, including his mother and brother, in the bombing strikes.
"If Mohammed had been there with his family he would be dead now," he said.
The protesters included members of a number of societies, including the Action Palestine.
Ms Lador-Fresher was supposed to visit the library to look at several ancient texts.
Meanwhile Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor also had to cancel a speaking engagement at The University of Edinburgh due to student protests for solidarity with Palestine.
Manchester - Soldier's Sniper Bullet Takes 12-year-old Girl's Life
Oh! i'm sorry, i just noticed i got the name of the location wrong. However, obviously....surely?.... that does not matter?.
I'm sure it won't change the level of shock and disgust that you feel. I'm sure you are still going to rise up and protest about what is far from an isolated incident in Palestine.
Her father relates the last moments of her life;
"I put my hand on her chest to stop the streaming blood. She told me that she could not breathe, her body trembled and she closed her eyes," said Ra'd Abu Saif of his 12-year-old daughter Safa's last moments after she was shot by an Israeli sniper last Saturday.
Safa was shot in the left side of her chest while she was inside her home in Jabaliya, northern Gaza. An ambulance tried to reach her but Israeli soldiers opened fire at it, wounding a paramedic and causing the tires to lose air, and so she bled to death three hours after she was wounded.
Her 39-year-old father Ra'd, 37-year-old mother Samar, and the rest of Safa's family surrounded her, praying for her safety. Her father pressed on the wound while her brother Ali held her hands as her body was severely trembling. She asked her father to help her to breathe.
"Dad, I cannot breathe, all of you leave me please, let me breathe, enough, enough," were Safa's last words, according to her father.
Ra'd tried CPR, but he failed. No more pulse and no more breath.
Safa had gone to fetch some clothes from the second floor when, according to Ra'd, "the Israeli sniper on a nearby building shot her in her chest."
The gunshot penetrated both her chest and the door of the room, and blood poured from her chest and back.
"I heard a gunshot and soon her scream filled the house. I went upstairs, [and saw] her knees gave in and slowly she fell down while calling for her mother," said her 17-year-old brother Ali.
Her father carried his wounded daughter and tried to evacuate her to the hospital but when he reached the door of the house, his brothers prevented him from leaving as Israeli snipers were shooting anything moving.
Several phone calls later, the ambulance center told the family to evacuate the girl. Her mother Samar carried Safa but as soon as she left the house, the Israeli soldiers opened fire at her and the wounded girl fell to the ground. Samar dragged her into the house.
While Safa laid dying, the family waited as explosions, gunshots, drones and helicopters sounded all around them. Israeli forces cut the electricity and shot the water tanks on the roof. The radio and mobile phone batteries lost their power.
"We used water only for drinking; the smell of the toilet filled our home and we used [text messaging for communication] to conserve batteries," said her brother Ali.
"My uncle Nabil, 28, crawled from our house to his house and brought a kerosene lamp, but it went out the same night," Ali added.
The following day the Red Cross intervened and coordinated with the Israeli troops. The ambulance arrived and took Safa's lifeless body; the Israeli soldiers allowed only her farther to join her.
"Near the door of our house there were dead bodies; the Israeli soldiers prevented paramedics from carrying them away," Ali said.
Ali began to cry as he recalled his "clever sister," who shared many of his interests. "She likes sport like me; she is also a good volleyball player and used to participate in school championships."
The family could not afford paints for Safa to practice her favorite hobby. "She used to [draw] landscapes with a pencil, [there was] no money for colors," Ali said."
(The extract above is taken from the full news article here)
My main question to everyone is why does such a tragedy have no impact just because it is in a foreign land?. Why do you have absolutely no compulsion to protest against such daily happenings?.
Please don't dumbly digress this article into accusing me of supporting terrorism in view of the recent atrocity in Israel. I do not support the killing of innocent people under any circumstances.
Surely, i don't have to waste time providing stats and links showing that deaths - especially, of women and children - are suffered far more by people in Palestine, Iraq and numerous countries over recent years than in Israel and America?.
If i read of atrocities abroad it affects me no less than if they had happened over here. Why is it that the vast majority of people fail to show or even feel a glimmer of emotion just because something doesn't occur in their own backyard?.
How much longer can we as a nation stand back and ignore deaths such as Safa's.
Poor little mite, she never asked for nothing. You know she never did.
Then again, i guess London and New York show that the price of ignorance is not bliss. Here in Manchester we have a strong human rights and peace activist movement. However, those involved in such worthy causes are just as likely to get blown to bits in a future 'terrorist/freedom fighter' attack as anyone.
Surely, the time has come for everyone to question the relentless slaughter and human rights breaches all over the world. I do include the archaic religous practices and cultures of under-developed nations. However, it is the advanced nations who are more guilty because they know what is wrong and backward. Yet, they commit the vast majority of the killings and inflict the most suffering across the planet, far more than those whose peoples they are supposed to be liberating.
It's all very comfy while they keep the war vocal, but what happens when the bombs from afar start coming to your local?