Israeli PM backs attack on Gaza aid

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has supported the military action against the Freedom Flotilla, carrying humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip.

"The prime minister reiterated his full backing for the IDF and inquired about the well being of the wounded," Netanyahu's office told AFP on Monday.

The Israeli navy killed at least 20 people aboard the ships, mostly Turkish nationals. About 50 others were also injured, according to Palestinian sources.

Netanyahu, who is currently in Canada, cancelled plans to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday in the wake of the deadly Israeli raid.

"Netanyahu decided to cut short his visit to Canada and return to Israel early," read an official statement, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council is scheduled to hold a meeting regarding the brutal assault later on Monday.

The humanitarian convoy was carrying thousands of tons of supplies and hundreds of politicians, activists and journalists.

The Flotilla was seeking to break Israel's crippling blockade of Gaza and deliver basic necessities to the impoverished Palestinians living in the coastal enclave.

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Born in Gaza

Firas Mazloom was born with two holes in his heart. His condition could have been fixed by routine surgery, but Israel's siege on the Gaza Strip has crippled the medical system there. The doctors do not have the training or the equipment to perform the necessary operation.

Firas went to Israel for a check up after he was born and was supposed to return for a follow-up. But Gaza is blocked off from the outside world and Firas never made it back to Israel for his heart operation.

His parents say their request to cross the border was turned down six times because his case was not considered an emergency.

But when their son's condition suddenly started to deteriorate and the doctors in Gaza could no longer help him, their only solution was to send him to an advanced hospital in Israel - and now it was urgent.

An Israeli doctor accepted the request and Firas' parents, Amal and Assad, started a race against time and bureaucracy to get their son out of Gaza.

Just when they finally managed to push through the red tape to get their son out of Gaza, Firas died.

The journey to Israel would have taken only an hour, but after three hours of obstacles and delays, Firas' journey never began.

Ran Yaron from Physicians for Human Rights helps Palestinian patients get access to the medical treatment they need.

He says: "Since Israel controls the only gate out for Palestinians who seek for care unavailable, it has responsibility to let them out.

"Nearly 25 per cent of the patients who apply for exit permits are denied due to rejection or to delays. I do my best to help Palestinians, not only because they are human beings ... but also as an Israeli I feel responsibility for them."

But Israel's main concern is security. Colonal Moshe Levi, the Gaza Strip coordinator of the Israeli army, says: "Four out of five requests we received every day, we approved. This is 80 per cent from the requirements from the Palestinian side we approve.

"Our challenge is how to create a balance between the security needs and between the civilian needs. This is the main issue, this is the main challenge of Israeli policy here."

One year later, the pain caused by the death of their first child has subsided because Amal is due to give birth again. She is expecting another boy - they will call him Firas.

Hope has been restored for this young family in the besieged Gaza Strip, but the political situation remains unchanged.

There are still more than 1,000 patients in Gaza who are desperately waiting for the bureaucracy to allow them adequate health care.

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Christians targeted in Mosul blasts

A shopkeeper has been killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, as two bombs went off near buses carrying Christian students.

More than 100 people, including students and other civilians, were injured in the blasts on Sunday morning.

Abdul-Rahim al-Shammari, the head of the provincial council's security committee, said a roadside bomb exploded first, followed by a car bomb moments later.

The buses were transporting university students from the mainly Christian town of Hamdaniya, 40km east of Mosul.

"All of them were Christian students. They go in buses like that to Mosul's university after the troubled times when Christians were targeted in the past," Nissan Karoumi, the mayor of Hamdaniya, said.

Dr Muhsin Shamzi, who works at a hospital in Irbil, said at least 17 critically injured patients were taken to the hospital.

Protection urged

About 750,000 of Iraq's 30 million population are Christians.

The US-based National Council of Churches last week sent a letter to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, calling on her to urge Iraqi officials to do more to protect Iraq's Christian community.

The organisation said they were particularly worried now as Iraq struggles to seat a
government after the March 7 parliamentary elections.

"Our concern is now particularly acute because it is possible that tensions will increase as various political forces continue to vie for power following the recent elections,'' the letter said.

"We fear that a growing climate of mistrust and animosity will further threaten the fragile Christian community."

In November, the US-based Human Rights Watch warned that minorities including Christians were the collateral victims of a conflict between Arabs and Kurds over control of disputed oil-rich provinces in northern Iraq.

While sectarian violence has dropped dramatically across Iraq since its peak between 2005 and 2007, attacks remain common, especially in Baghdad and Mosul.