Israeli
Violence in Gaza Escalates
On the heels of a much-hyped visit from U.S. President George Bush, Israel has escalated its attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing dozens of civilians and wounding hundreds more in indiscriminate bombings and armoured assaults.
While in Israel, Bush backtracked on comments he had made during his first term in which he had described the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and (at the time) the Gaza Strip as “facts on the ground” which could not be ignored. By contrast, during this recent visit he sternly advised the Israelis that they would have to end the occupation of the West Bank and accept the reality of a Palestinian state.
The Israeli incursions in Gaza began almost immediately after Bush’s departure and seem to underscore what kind of end to the occupation and Palestinian state Israel envisions. Although the Israeli settlements in Gaza were dismantled in the summer of 2005 the area remains under complete Israeli military control, effectively turning the 1.5 million residents into inmates in the world’s largest open-air prison.
In September 2007, the Israeli government declared Gaza a “hostile entity” after democratically-elected Hamas took over the area and forced Fatah supporters out. Since then numerous human rights and aid agencies have documented the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, with humanitarian aid deliveries into the area being severely restricted by the Israeli military. Not surprisingly, this situation has led to increased resistance from Palestinian fighters who regularly launch rockets and fire shells into southern Israel.
As in the past, Israel has used this resistance as the pretext to justify renewed military attacks against Gaza in the last week. Beginning on January 15, Israeli armoured vehicles moved into the centre of Gaza City, opening fire and killing 17 Palestinians, including five civilians, and wounding dozens more. Residential and agricultural areas were also attacked, where another three civilians were killed as they worked on their land. Ambulances were only allowed to enter the area and tend to the wounded when the Israeli vehicles withdrew, four and a half hours after the attack began.
The Palestinian Committee for Human Rights (PCHR) issued a statement pointing out that the attack constituted a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian civilian population, in violation of Article 33 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War. The PCHR also called on the international community to immediately intervene to put an end to Israel’s attacks, a call which, to date, has been completely ignored.
The Israeli incursion continued with several air strikes. On January 16 a vehicle driving in a neighbourhood east of Gaza City was bombed. One of Israel’s routine attempts at extra-judicial killings of Palestinian military or political personalities, this attack missed its target, killing instead the three civilian occupants of the car, including a five-year-old boy, and wounding three more civilian bystanders.
On January 19 Israeli warplanes bombed the former Interior Ministry building in Gaza City, killing one civilian and wounding another 30. The building, which had been sitting empty for several months and was located in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, was completely destroyed. Several nearby houses and apartment buildings were also damaged and a guest at a wedding party was killed. Israeli warplanes also bombed the marine police headquarters. Later the same day, another air strike in the northern Gaza Strip killed one resistance fighter and a teenage boy. Despite the civilian casualties, a spokesperson for the Israeli Defence Forces called these attacks “successful” and said that the Israeli military “will strive to ensure the safety of Israeli citizens by all means necessary.”
In addition to these overt military attacks, on January 19 Israel began preventing imports of diesel into Gaza, tightening the fuel import restrictions first imposed in October 2007. These restrictions come in the middle of what has been an unprecedented cold snap through parts of the Middle East, including Gaza, where temperatures have dropped below zero for the first time in decades. The Israeli Defence Ministry also closed all border crossings into Gaza, preventing the delivery of a UN aid shipment. Furthermore, from now on all humanitarian shipments into Gaza will need the personal approval of Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak. A ministry spokesperson said, “if milk is low in Gaza, the minister will be asked to approve a milk shipment, and it will enter.”
In
response to these most recent Israeli actions, a spokesperson for the UN Relief
and Works Agency, whose aid shipment was blocked, declared: “Gaza is completely shut down. This will only add to an already dire
situation”. John Holmes, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs,
said “the Israeli reaction is not justified,” describing it as the imposition
of illegal collective punishment.
The
nature of these attacks in Gaza – opening fire in residential neighbourhoods, bombing empty buildings, targeting
agricultural areas – all yet again reinforce that Israeli actions are not
really about ending rocket attacks on Israel. Rather, they are part of a
longstanding and well-organized, albeit illegal, Israeli campaign of collective
punishment of the Palestinian people.