Kim Bullimore
While most world attention has focused on the brutal Israeli attack on Lebanon, Israeli occupation forces have continued to their month-long assault on the Gaza Strip. Since June 28, Israeli occupation forces have carried out more than 170 bombing raids against the Palestinian civilian population.
During the offensive, Israel has fired more than 1000 heavy artillery shells into the region and used more than 125 air-to-surface missiles, resulting in the death of more than 170 Palestinians. More than 600 have been wounded; around one-quarter of them have been children.
Haaretz reported on July 28 that Israeli troops "killed 23 Palestinians in fighting across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including at least nine militants, three children and a disabled man, medics and witnesses said ... Wednesday's death toll in Gaza was the highest in two weeks.
"Medics said two girls, one an infant, died when a tank shell struck a house near Jabalya, a Hamas stronghold. A three-year-old girl was killed earlier in the day. Nearly 60 people were wounded, including a cameraman for Palestinian television. Six were in a critical condition."
On July 20, Israeli ground forces attacked Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza, while the Israeli Air Force carried out air strikes, killing 15 people and wounding 52 others. On July 24, Israel carried out air strikes on Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, killing five people and wounding 14 others.
Israeli bulldozers have wrecked hundreds of dunams of land and destroyed the wall of a United Nations Refugee Works Agency medical clinic and three UNWRA schools. According to the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as a result of the Israeli assault many water wells remain inaccessible and hospitals are running low on water.
A July 18 situation report issued by UNWRA said that the "humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate in the Gaza due to shortages of electricity and water, caused by the June 28 bombing by the Israeli Air Force of the Gazan power plant".
On July 25, the United Nations issued a report accusing Israel of using disproportionate force in Gaza.
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Israeli occupation forces have closed both Karni and Rafah border crossings, ensuring that no goods, fuel, food products or people could enter the region.
In the past few weeks, more than 6000 Palestinians have been stranded on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza as Israel has refused to open the crossings, except on one occasion. On July 14, dozens of Palestinian militants, accompanied by hundreds of young men, forcibly opened the crossing, letting through several hundred people. Eight people have died from medical complications while waiting at the crossing.
According to the PCHR, between July 13 and July 19 Israeli occupation forces also carried out more than 27 attacks on targets in the West Bank. A Palestinian doctor was killed by the Israeli military as he attempted to come to the aid of protesters who were wounded by the Israeli military.
Occupation forces have destroyed more than 70 houses in the West Bank city of Nablus. They have arrested more than 30 people and detained more then 100 Palestinian security personnel. In addition, according to PCHR, Israeli forces have repeatedly used Palestinian civilians as human shields, despite this being against both Israeli and international law.
As the brutal assaults on Gaza and Lebanon have continued, Israeli Jewish and Israeli Palestinian citizens have began to organise protests against the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Israeli Palestinian organisations Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) and Balad (Country) combined forces with Israeli organisations including Gush Shalom, the Coalition of Women for Peace, Anarchists Against the Wall and the Israeli refusenik organisation Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit) to call for an end to the Israeli assaults.
A Tel Aviv rally attracted more than 2500 people from all over Israel, including the Galilee. Protesters chanted slogans including "We will not kill, we will not die in the name of Zionism" and "We will not die and we will not kill in the service of the United States".
According to Stopthewall.org, on July 25 some 2500 Palestinians protested in Ramallah in opposition to the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Most shops shut down in support of a call for a general strike. Under the slogan "We are struggling for justice and there is no place for murderers and war criminals among us!", the protest demanded that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas kick Rice out of the country. Protesters carried Palestinian and Lebanese flags and called on the Palestinian Authority to follow the example of the Lebanese resistance. Presidential guards blocked the crowd and used sticks to beat protesters.