Kim Bullimore
After weeks of bombarding Gaza with more than 2000 heavy artillery shells, killing more than two dozen people and wounding hundreds, Israel continues to target the region. Shelling began on March 31. On average, 150 artillery shells are being fired at the Gaza Strip each day.
During the bombardment, the Israeli military announced that it would reduce the "safety range" from 300 metres to 100 metres. The safety range is ostensibly designed to limit civilian casualties, particularly as the Gaza Strip has one of the highest population densities on the planet.
The deliberate disregard for Palestinian civilian lives has resulted in entire families either being wounded, sometimes critically, or killed, as Israeli artillery has a shell-fragmentation range of 100 metres. Hundreds of children have been treated for shock and distress.
Military officials have boasted that the attacks on Gaza would continue and that the attacks so far were "just a preview" of what was to come, according to an April 17 International Middle East Media Center report.
Israel has argued that the attacks are in retaliation for Palestinian attacks with Qassam rockets, but Israeli military officers have admitted that the attacks are part of the campaign to bring down the democratically elected Palestinian Authority government, which is led by Hamas.
According to a senior Israeli military officer quoted by Israeli journalist Amos Harel in Ha'aretz on April 11, "This is a war of attrition against Hamas. We may have to continue this shelling for a month or more, but the goal is to break them in the end."
Since April 7, Israel has also stepped up its military attacks in the West Bank, targeting the cities of Tulkarem and Nablus. On April 19, Israeli soldiers began arresting the wives, mothers and relatives of "wanted men" in order to force their surrender.
Arab states, led by Qatar, presented the UN Security Council with a draft statement on April 13 outlining concerns about "indiscriminate shelling against the Gaza Strip, resulting in extensive human casualties". The draft statement called on Israel to halt "military operations and excessive use of force that endangers the Palestinian civilian population".
However the statement was blocked, an April 14 article by Ha'aretz reporting that "Palestinian UN observer Riyad Mansour strongly suggested that the United States was the lone holdout against the statement, though he did not mention the U.S. by name".
From Green Left Weekly, April 26, 2006.
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