Israeli War Crimes In Gaza Provoke Global Outrage: Report

New Delhi, July 16, IRNA -- As the Israeli onslaught on Gaza enters its second week, more and more evidence of atrocities is being made public, producing widespread expressions of outrage around the world. There have been numerous protests in India, Europe and North America, which though still relatively small, reflect the growth of popular understanding of the criminal character of the one-sided “war” against Gaza. Since the non-stop air strikes began on Gaza July 7, Israel has carried out more than 1,300 bomb and missile attacks on the Gaza Strip, an average of one massive explosion every nine minutes, 24 hours a day. Amid reports that Israel’s security cabinet was to meet early Tuesday morning to consider a cease-fire proposal advanced by the Egyptian regime, there was no letup in this onslaught, and Israeli troops and tanks remained poised on the border of Gaza for a potential ground invasion. According to a news report, every Israeli bomb and missile finds some human target in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, with over10,000 people in each square mile. The death toll among Palestinians in Gaza stood at over 185, as of this writing. The vast majority of these are civilians, not fighters in any of the Palestinian armed groups, and a significant number, at least 50, are children. At least 1,200 more Gazans have been wounded. The Israeli military also claimed its first victim on the West Bank since the latest onslaught on Gaza began. Soldiers shot to death a Palestinian man, 21-year-old Munir Ahmed Hamdan al-Badarin, in the village of Samua in the southern West Bank. His “crime” was to participate in a protest against the Gaza war that including throwing stones at passing Israeli cars. Pierre Krähenbühl, the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, which assists Palestinian refugees, told the press Monday that he was “deeply alarmed and affected” by the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip and the devastating human and physical toll it is taking on civilians, including Palestine refugees. He called on Israel to “put an end to attacks against, or endangering, civilians and civilian infrastructure which are contrary to international humanitarian law.” A whole series of horrific incidents have been reported that are war crimes under international law. The following facts have been widely reported in the world media, including within Israel itself: Israel bombed a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, killing four people, including a nurse and three disabled people. Others were severely burned by the explosion. Another two were killed and four wounded in an attack on a home for the disabled in Beit Lahiya. More than 1,000 private homes have been destroyed or heavily damaged by air strikes, clear evidence that Israel is deliberately targeting the civilian population of Gaza, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Those wounded by the airstrikes are further endangered by the policy, enforced by Israel and Egypt, of restricting the passage of medical supplies into Gaza. Many hospitals are already running low on basic medicines and another 10 days of bombardment would mean catastrophe, doctors and medical relief workers said. The Israeli-Egyptian blockade has also affected fuel supplies for ambulances, which are unable to provide effective emergency services in the territory for lack of gasoline. Even some of the actions the Israeli regime claims are aimed at reducing casualties constitute war crimes under international law. On July 13, for example, the Israeli military dropped thousands of leaflets on northern Gaza warning the population to evacuate because a large Israeli military operation was imminent. Some 17,000 people fled as a result, a deliberate displacement of civilians by terrorist threats against their lives. This is not the first time that Israel is engaged in inhuman and criminal act. Since 2006, Israel’s illegal blockade, this is the third Israeli war on the people of Gaza. The ongoing bombardment of Gaza is the latest chapter in a 66-year history of violence against the Palestinian people. Israel was established through the seizure of Palestinian land and the expulsion of its people. While many Jewish people came to Israel to escape the horrific crimes committed against them in fascist Europe during World War II, the tragic outcome of the Zionist project is a state that commits crimes against the Palestinian people recalling many of the methods employed by the Nazis. Nearly a half-century has passed since the Six Day War of June 1967, in which Israel seized control of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, Syria’s Golan Heights and other Arab territories. The Zionist regime has been defined by the unending cycle of war, occupation and repression unleashed by this war. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Israel has made permanent the refugee status of millions of Palestinians and subjected generations of people to poverty and repression. This history has had terrible consequences for the people of the region./end