Palestine: Israel kills Gazans, threatens full-scale war

“As Palestinians were preparing for their weekend this Thursday afternoon,” ElectronicIntifada.net said on April 7, “all of a sudden barrages of Israeli artillery fire and air raids by warplanes struck several regions of the Gaza Strip”.

“Five Palestinians were killed and about thirty more injured. Israeli shells struck farm land, homes, a mosque and an ambulance.”

Israel has threatened to escalate its military assault on the Gaza Strip. ElectronicIntifada.net said on April 4 that more than 20 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks since the start of March.

Israel’s public security minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch warned on April 5 that Israel may launch another war on the besieged Palestinian territory along the lines of is 2008-09 “Operation Cast Lead”, Chinese news agency Xinhua said on April 6.

In that war, Israel killed 1400 Palestinians, most of them civilians.

Citing increased mortar and rocket fire from Gaza, Aharonovitch told the Jerusalem Post on April 5: “the Palestinians need to be hit hard.”

His words echo other members of the Israeli government. Vice-Premier Silvan Shalom said on March 23 the current situation was similar to the lead-up to Operation Cast Lead.

Shalom said: “We may have to consider a return to that operation.”

ElectronicIntifada.net said the increase in mortar and rocket fire from Gaza was a result of “deliberate provocation and escalation by Israel”.

On March 22, four Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli shelling. The next day Israel launched an air attack on a Hamas base in Netzarim, killing two people.

An Israeli airstrike was used to execute three Hamas members on April 2. Israel accused those killed of plotting to kidnap Israelis.

One person was killed and two others wounded when Israeli soldiers opened fire on them for trying to collect gravel near the Eretz crossing in north Gaza, ArabMonitor.info said on April 5.

ElectronicIntifada.net said: “It is difficult to believe ... that Israeli leaders did not know that killing Palestinians would prompt further retaliation from the Palestinian side. It seems very likely this was their intention.”

Israel also launched a series of bombing raids on Palestinian tunnels on April 6 which injured several people.





In a further escalation, Israeli security forces closed the only open crossing into Gaza on April 6, a move likely to make the humanitarian situation worse, Ahram Online said that day.

Palestinian crossings official Raed Fattouh told Ahram Online that Israeli security repeatedly stops 50% of imports to Gaza for reasons that were “unsubstantiated and unconvincing”.

He said Israel banned at least 700 types of goods from entering Gaza.

Israel’s war effort received a public relations boost on April 1, when the author of a United Nations report on Israel’s 2008-09 assault on Gaza renounced his conclusion that Israel intentionally targeted civilians.

After 18 months of intense pressure and personal attacks from the Israeli government and its supporters, South African Judge Richard Goldstone said in the Washington Post on April 1: “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”

The Israeli government and its supporters wasted no time in claiming Goldstone’s apology vindicated Israel’s actions in the Gaza war.

Jonathan Cook said in an April 6 ElectronicIntifada.net article that this is despite the fact that the “original accusation that Israeli soldiers committed war crimes still stands, as does criticism of Israel's use of unconventional weapons such as white phosphorus, the destruction of property on a massive scale, and the taking of civilians as human shields”.

Goldstone said he would not withdraw the report.

Goldstone said new “evidence” — from belated Israeli Defence Force (IDF) investigations — had convinced him that deaths caused by the Israeli military were not part of an intentional policy, and were merely battlefield errors.

“I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such [Israeli] evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted,” Goldstone said, “because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes”.

However, Adam Horowitz pointed out at Mondoweiss.net on April 2 that the small amount of new “evidence” Goldstone offers was not consistent with the findings of the independent experts’ report that monitored the Israeli investigations.

While moderating his criticism of Israel, Goldstone criticised the Palestinian group Hamas, which governs Gaza, more strongly: “That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying.”

Goldstone’s backdown was not enough for the Israeli government, however.

Israel is desperately trying to repair its reputation after its high-profile war crimes in the 2008-09 Gaza war and its deadly attack on an aid flotilla to Gaza in May 2010.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Jerusalem Post on April 2: “The fact that Goldstone backtracked must lead to the shelving of this report once and for all.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Ynetnews.com on April 3 his ministry had worked hard to undermine the report. He said: “Today it is clear to everyone that the IDF is the most moral army.”

Goldstone’s apology, which praised the flawed IDF investigations, may help Israel keep the report from being used against it in the International Criminal Court.