[News] Israelis Terrorize Palestinian Civilians, Vandalize Media, Bomb Charities

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.aljazeerah.info/3%20n/Israelis%20Terrorize%20Palestinian%20Civilians,%20Vandalize%20Media,%20Bomb%20Charities,%20Terrorist%20%20Ehud%20Olmert%20'I%20Want%20No%20One%20to%20Sleep%20at%20Night%20in%20Gaza'.htm

Israelis Terrorize Palestinian Civilians, 
Vandalize Media, Bomb Charities, Terrorist  Ehud 
Olmert: 'I Want No One to Sleep at Night in Gaza'

03/07/2006

Palestine Media Center – PMC

Using the release of the Israeli Corporal Gilad 
Shalit as pretext, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud 
Olmert unleashed his occupation forces to 
reoccupy Gaza Strip, terrorize Palestinian 
civilians with sonic booms, thin them to 
starvation, disrupt traffic, electricity supply, 
and access to water, bomb soccer fields, schools, 
TV stations, cultural centers and charities, 
vandalize hospitals, and kidnap mafia-like 
cabinet ministers, mayors and parliamentarians, 
revoke Palestinian residency in Jerusalem, and 
bomb the offices of prime and interior ministers.

Olmert told his Cabinet on Sunday: “I take 
personal responsibility for what is happening in 
Gaza. I want no one to sleep at night in Gaza.”

Israel kidnapped on June 28 about 100 members of 
Hamas, including eight cabinet ministers, 
legislators and senior officials, the Government 
of Israel acknowledged in a statement on Thursday.

Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Education and 
Higher Education, Dr. Nasseruddin Al-Shae’r, was 
not among those kidnapped as was initially reported on Thursday.

Al-Shaer said Wednesday the Israeli invasion of 
Gaza could not have been launched without a US green light.

Israel's deputy Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, 
said on Sunday his country would prosecute the 
kidnapped Palestinian government officials: “They 
will be put to trial,” he told CNN.

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) pushed their 
tanks and troops backed by warplanes into 
northern Gaza Strip overnight Monday in the 
second stage of “Operation Summer Rains,” which 
began at midnight on Tuesday, and shootouts were 
reported with Palestinian defenders.

Christer Nordahl, the deputy director UNRWA told 
Reuters Sunday: “We estimate that 25,000 people 
could be forced to flee Beit Hanoun if Israel 
attacks in the north” of Gaza Strip.

The IOF shot dead four Palestinians in the Gaza 
Strip Monday, including two in the vicinity of 
the Israeli-reoccupied Gaza airport. Another 
Palestinian wounded in an Israeli air strike died 
of his wounds in Gaza early in the day. Israeli 
warplane the same day targeted a car in the 
southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, killing one Palestinian.

Israeli air and artillery attacks began shortly 
after Cpl Gilad Shalit, 19, was captured in a 
daring Palestinian attack on an IOF military base on June 25.

Israel’s General Security Service (Shin Bet) 
head, Yuval Diskin, told the cabinet meeting on 
Sunday that the Israeli operations in Gaza “could take weeks or even months.”

Israeli aircraft sent missiles tearing through 
the office of Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail 
Haniyeh, on Sunday. Israeli warplanes bombed a 
building of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior 
at dawn Sunday, killing a night guard in the 
northern Gaza Strip town of Jabaliya.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accompanied 
by Haniyeh insspected the rubble of the premiership building on Monday.

Abbas on Wednesday condemned the Israeli invasion 
of Gaza as a “crime against humanity” and a 
“collective punishment” against the Palestinian people.

IOF sealed off and banned entry to and exit from 
the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, besieging Abbas, 
Haniyeh and top officials of the Palestinian 
National Authority (PNA) as leading 
anti-occupation activists went underground.

Abbas however told reporters that he had no 
intention to leave Gaza until the Israeli invasion stops.

Palestinians in Gaza Strip are preparing for what 
they feared could be a long Israeli invasion, and 
tried despite their meager resources amid an 
exacerbating food and humanitarian crisis to 
stock up on food, candles and batteries for radios.

Closure of the Rafah border crossing between the 
Gaza Strip and Egypt for the 6th consecutive day 
is stranding more than 4,000 Palestinians in two Egyptian towns.

UN's World Food Programme (WFP) and International 
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on 
Israel Friday to allow urgent medical and food supplies into Gaza Strip.

Israel on Friday revoked the Jerusalem residency 
of four Palestinian lawmakers, including a 
Cabinet minister, Israel's Interior Ministry said.

The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) was 
scheduled to convene in an emergency session in 
Ramallah and Gaza on Monday to debate the 
deteriorating situation in the West Bank, 
including eastern Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in 1967.

Israeli War on Infrastructure

“Israel is now openly engaged in infrastructure 
warfare, the wanton destruction of the basic 
platforms of human survival,” Mike Whitney wrote on Monday.

IOF warplanes bombed the soccer field of the 
Islamic University in Gaza late Wednesday after 
destroying the only power plant in the strip 
early in the day, plunging Gaza Strip into 
darkness and depriving about one million 
Palestinians from electricity for months to come, 
hitting very hard not only households but also hospitals and schools.

Water supplies were also cut early Wednesday by 
bombing water pipelines, after destroying three 
bridges linking the south and north of the Gaza Strip.

Al-Arqam school, a cultural center and a charity 
in Gaza city were bombed to rubble by the IOF warplanes.

The IOF also damaged the Atfaluna Society for 
Deaf Children's facilities in Gaza City. When IOF 
warplanes caused massive sonic booms and nearby 
explosions in air strikes, the Palestinian NGO's 
building windows shattered. As a result, several 
deaf vocational trainees were injured from the shattered glass.

According to the Palestinian Center for Human 
Rights six power transformers were destroyed, 
which provide an estimated 45 per cent of the 
electricity in Gaza for approximately half the population.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination 
of Humanitarian Affairs, the Gaza Electrical 
Distribution Company estimates it will take nine 
months to procure replacement transformers.

The Coastal Municipalities Water Utility manages 
the 132 water wells in Gaza, which is powered by 
GEDCO. Since back-up generators are needed to 
keep water flowing, there is concern about the 
financial and physical stability of using back-up 
generators because the IOF closed off the energy pipeline into Gaza.

The Associated Press reported that the “Israeli 
tanks and bulldozers crossed the Gaza Strip and 
began razing farmland east of Khan Younis.”

When the tanks withdrew from a spot of a farm 
land in A’basan in the southern Gaza Strip, they 
left a trail of destruction in their wake, AFP reported Monday.

Palestinian families, uprooted from their homes 
during Saturday's day-long operation, returned 
after dawn to ransacked homes. Israeli tanks and 
bulldozers had destroyed storehouses, knocked 
down bedroom walls and uprooted olive trees.

Soldiers battered down doors and upturned 
furniture in what an IOF spokeswoman said was an 
attempt to locate a tunnel Palestinians were 
reportedly digging towards Israeli positions 
along the Gaza border east of the city of Khan Younis.

Terrorizing Civilians

Israel is deploying a terrifying new tactic 
against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip 
by letting loose deafening “sound bombs” that 
cause widespread fear, induce miscarriages and traumatize children.

The Palestinian health ministry says the sonic 
booms have led to miscarriages and heart 
problems. The United Nations has demanded an end 
to the tactic, saying it causes panic attacks in 
children. The shockwaves have also damaged 
buildings by cracking walls and smashing thousands of windows.

“I have never heard such a loud explosion. I 
thought it was right over the top of my 
building,” said the owner, Tareq Dayyeh. 
“Sometimes you hear the rockets the Israelis fire 
but this was different. I felt like I was in the 
middle of a bomb. When I ran out the door I 
thought I might find the rest of the street was gone.”

Sonic booms are caused by aircraft when the fly 
beyond the sound barrier. When a warplane flies 
at low altitudes above civilian populations, the 
terrorizing sound as the aircraft “wakes” 
traumatizes children (Donald Macintyre, November 
2005) and causes infrastructure damage.

Last year the petition filed by Physicians for 
Human Rights-Israel and the Gaza Community Mental 
Health Programme reported an increase in 
miscarriages from sonic booms as well.

War on Charities

Meanwhile the IOF were raiding, confiscating and 
sealing off several institutions and humanitarian 
services charities in several West Bank cities, 
towns and refugee camps, in Jenin and Bethlehem 
on Sunday and in Jericho on Monday.

The IOF troops were also vandalizing media outlets and hospitals.

On Monday they raided a local newspaper in 
Ramallah and the Nablus local TV station.

Separately, according to Ynet, the IOF soldiers 
caused a great deal of damage to the Nablus 
hospital property while searching for a suspect whom they failed to detain.

Palestinian sources in the hospital told Ynet 
that soldiers destroyed equipment and caused 
severe damages during the search. Activists from 
Physicians for Human Rights said that during the 
search, soldiers made all the hospital employees 
assemble on one floor and interrupted their work.

The Israeli Physicians for Human Rights 
organization condemned the soldiers’ conduct in 
the hospital. The organization stated that, 
“Hospitals and hospital staff must be excluded from all military operations.”


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