The following article is abridged from an entry by Gaza City resident Mona El-Farra in her blog, From Gaza, With Love (<http://fromgaza.blogspot.com>).
August 1 — Today the Israeli Occupying Forces redeployed into the area south-east of Rafah, targeting Alshoukas village. They launched a big military operation against the village in a desperate attempt to demolish alleged tunnels. At least 50 army tanks, along with helicopters and drones, took part in this operation. What concerned me is that eight people were killed, among them two Palestinian fighters, and the rest were civilians, including one boy age 11. Twenty-six people were injured; 10 are in serious conditions.
The health emergency teams were not allowed entry to rescue the injured for 12 hours, leaving the injured to face their destinies. I am sure, as are my colleagues at the Rafah hospital, that this inhuman act increased the number of the dead and seriously injured. During the operation, ambulances were attacked by shelling at the hospital's gate. Tens of families in the village were forced to leave their homes; children, women and men left their homes because the shelling was too severe.
What of morality? Of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its charters regarding civilians and the safety of health teams working during war times? This accord means nothing and is not respected by the Israeli Army.
For us here in Palestine, we know very well that Israel, with its colonial-Zionist ideology, aims to kill more and more Palestinian civilians. During its so-called military operations to "defend its security" hundreds of civilians, including entire families, were unnecessarily killed.
Israel aims to break the Palestinian people's will and determination to achieve their inalienable national goals. I said before they will not succeed and I am saying it again and again. It is impossible to control an entire nation using collective punishment and continuous occupation. It is impossible to confiscate an entire nation's right of freedom and self-determination. Israel and the United States should read history lessons.
Here in Gaza City the artillery shelling continued in the east and north. We don't have air-raid shelters, we don't have electricity, we don't have clean water. The war boats patrol the sea and the helicopters continue their shelling at all times of the day. Lately, Israel has also been distributing flyers against the resistance movement.
I was in the Omar Elmukhtar high street and watched the sarcastic expression on the faces of a bunch of teenagers as they picked up these flyers and read them. I remembered myself as a teenager during 1967 wartime. I read the same sort of flyers and laughed. Israel aims to make Palestinian people hungry, thirsty, to make us face humanitarian disaster after humanitarian disaster, and dependent on the world's sympathy.
We are a nation with a noble cause; we resist injustice and occupation. We are not alone and we know that very well. What we face is the most ugly version of the United States' imbalanced policies in the Middle East. The immorality and injustice of these policies will reflect itself on the future of USA, let us wait and see.
I was asked by some of you why I keep referring to the Israeli army as occupying army. This is the truth and I am saying the truth. The disengagement plan from Gaza last September did not end the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. All it has meant for me is that I can visit my mother in the south (20km drive) without passing through the Israeli checkpoints. But I am still under the threat of the jet fighters, sonic booms and continuous shelling from the north and east. Israel still has control of the commercial borders and has closed them at will, causing shortages of baby formula, bread, food and medicine.
Israel and the rest of the world have imposed economic sanctions on us as a collective punishment for our choice during the January election. How would you define the above but occupation?
In love and solidarity,
Mona