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An abomination...which must stop!

With reports this morning that the Israelis are talking of attacking Gaza, or at least part of it - in retaliation for the rockets being sent across into Israel - the relentless attack of Israel on Gaza is totally under-reported. Just the last days have seen many innocent Palestinians killed, many of them children and babies.

To put a human face on the carnage and mayhem - let alone the suffering and trauma - the Israelis are wreaking on the people of Gaza, this very sad piece on the death of a 6 month old baby on The Electronic Intifada tells it all and puts a human dimension on what is going on. The slaughter of innocent people in Gaza, which goes unchecked, is an abomination - for which the Israelis deserve unqualified condemnation.

"The innocent laughter of six-month-old baby Mohammed al-Bor'i stopped forever on Wednesday night when shrapnel from an Israeli missile and rubble struck the infant in the head, minutes after he enjoyed his last meal.

"The baby sucked milk, he was playing with his mother; I was reading a book when a rocket hit the Ministry of Interior," said Nasser al-Bor'i, the baby's father.

With the first missile, the electricity was cut and darkness filled the ill-fated house. Stones and pieces of the asbestos ceiling fell onto the head of the laughing child. The explosions continued as two other missiles hit the building.

"I looked for my baby in the darkness between the rubble; I did not know where he was. When he cried once I followed the direction of his voice," Nasser al-Bor'i said. "My hands touched my baby who was breathing hard; I felt warm liquid on my two hands and realized that he was wounded."

Al-Bor'i carried his son to the nearby Shifa Hospital as the blood streamed from his tiny head. In the hospital, al-Bor'i became hysterical when he realized that his only child had been killed.

Tears poured from al-Bor'i's eyes when he saw Mohammed's shoes. "After five years of treatment for sterility, [my wife and] I had a baby. I can't imagine that I lost him in a second."

Lest it be thought that The Electronic Intifida is no more than Palestinian propaganda, The Independent also reports on the Israeli raids here.

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