[News] Israeli Airstrikes Damage 500 Palestinian Homes in Gaza - Gaza teeters on the brink

Wed Mar 27 10:56:14 EDT 2019

<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-teeters-brink> 

/*2 articles follow*/

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-airstrikes-damage-500-palestinian-homes-in-gaza-video/ 

  Israeli Airstrikes Damage 500 Palestinian Homes in Gaza

March 27, 2019 <http://www.palestinechronicle.com/2019/03/>
------------------------------------------------------------------------

A total of 500 houses in the Gaza Strip were damaged by the latest 
Israeli airstrikes, Palestine’s public works minister said late Tuesday.

Mufeed al-Hasayneh said in a statement:

    “In Israeli airstrikes against Gaza, 30 houses were completely
    destroyed and 500 houses were damaged.”

    Live from #GazaFrom the destruction of a residential building.

    Posted by Wafa Aludaini <https://www.facebook.com/wafa.aludaini.7>
    on Wednesday, March 27, 2019

He added that they are working to remove the traces of the airstrikes 
and alleviate the pain of their people.

Israel launched a wave of airstrikes Monday across the Gaza Strip 
following rocket fire from the enclave which injured seven Israelis 
north of Tel Aviv.

The army reportedly deployed missile-defense batteries in several 
locations across the country while sending two additional infantry 
brigades to the Gaza-Israel buffer zone.

    A Palestinian girl cleans the face of her brother outside their
    destroyed house after an Israeli missile hit the area, in Gaza City
    March 26.#Gaza
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gaza?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    pic.twitter.com/2Sj2saetbd <https://t.co/2Sj2saetbd>

Hamas announced late Monday that Egypt had managed to secure a 
cease-fire between Israel and Gaza-based resistance factions.

While there was no comment from Egypt, several Israeli officials denied 
that a cease-fire deal had been reached.

_____________________________________________________________________

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-teeters-brink 

  Gaza teeters on the brink

Maureen Clare Murphy 
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy> - 26 March 
2019

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A tentative calm prevailed in Gaza most of Tuesday after a violent 
flare-up the previous day 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-pounds-gaza-after-rocket-strikes-house>, 
when a rocket fired from Gaza hit a home in central Israel and 
precipitated airstrikes on the territory.

The break in violence was short-lived, however, as Israel resumed its 
bombardment after rockets were fired from Gaza late Tuesday.

An Israel official said 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/military-prepares-for-gaza-offensive-after-rocket-strikes-central-israel-1.7059002> 
earlier in the day there was no official ceasefire with armed groups in 
Gaza, “and the fighting can be renewed at any minute.”

Reports suggested that Israel had demanded the cancelation of a mass 
protest marking the one-year anniversary of the Great March of Return 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return> demonstrations 
along Gaza’s eastern boundary, during which Israeli snipers have killed 
nearly 200 Palestinians.

Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations’ Middle East peace envoy, told the 
Security Council on Tuesday 
<https://unsco.unmissions.org/security-council-briefing-situation-middle-east-reporting-unscr-2334-delivered-un-special-1> 
that the two instances of projectiles fired from Gaza towards Tel Aviv 
this month “represent a very serious escalation.”

    “New conflict will be devastating”

He said his office was “working intensely with Egypt” to prevent the 
situation from spiraling further out of control.

“A new conflict will be devastating for the Palestinian people, it will 
have consequences for Israelis, who live in the vicinity of the Gaza 
perimeter, and it is likely to have regional repercussions,” he added.

Israel fired 72 missiles in 23 attacks on Gaza on Monday and into 
Tuesday morning, according to <http://mezan.org/post/28427> Al Mezan, a 
human rights group in the territory. Three residential buildings were 
hit, as well as 13 security sites, public and private property, and open 
land.

Al Mezan said that two people were injured during the bombing, though 
Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday that seven were injured.

Video shows Palestinians recovering materials from Omar Bin Abd al-Aziz 
mosque in northern Gaza after it was badly damaged in an Israeli strike:

    دمار في مسجد عمر بن عبدالعزيز جراء قصف الاحتلال على شمال قطاع #غزة
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>.#غزة_تحت_القصف
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9_%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B5%D9%81?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    pic.twitter.com/EmRxL77A1Y <https://t.co/EmRxL77A1Y>

    — شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) March 26, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/qudsn/status/1110542606881169409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Another video compiles footage of various sites in Gaza destroyed in 
Monday’s attacks:

    جانب من آثار الدمار الذي خلّفه قصف الاحتلال على قطاع #غزة
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>،
    الليلة الماضية.#غزة_تحت_القصف
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9_%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B5%D9%81?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    pic.twitter.com/aBE43xVijB <https://t.co/aBE43xVijB>

    — شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) March 26, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/qudsn/status/1110533851594608640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Meanwhile a senior Israeli official stated that US recognition of 
Israel’s claims to the Golan Heights opens the door to the annexation of 
other occupied territory.

An unnamed “senior Israeli diplomatic source” who was on the plane 
during Benjamin Netanyahu’s return from Washington on Monday told 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-official-golan-recognition-proves-israel-can-retain-occupied-territories-1.7060288> 
/Haaretz/ newspaper that “Everyone says you can’t hold an occupied 
territory, but this proves you can. If occupied in a defensive war, then 
it’s ours.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the executive order 
signed by Donald Trump on Monday recognizing Israel’s claims to the 
Golan does not change its status as occupied territory under 
international law.

The Golan Heights is Syrian territory captured by Israel during the 1967 
war along with the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Egypt’s 
Sinai Peninsula, from which Israel eventually withdrew.

After Israel claimed to annex the Golan Heights in 1981, the UN Security 
Council declared 
<https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/73D6B4C70D1A92B7852560DF0064F101> 
the move “null and void and without international legal effect.”

Guterres, in his quarterly report 
<https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/S/2019/251> on the implementation of 
Security Council resolution 2334 
<https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/2334%20(2016)>, which condemns Israeli 
settlement-building in occupied territory, states that “expansion of 
illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East 
Jerusalem, continues unabated.”

In addition to the approval or tender of more than 3,000 housing units 
in West Bank settlements, Israel has fast-tracked the legalization of 
settlement outposts built without government sanction.

All Israeli settlements in the West Bank – and the Golan Heights – are 
illegal under international law.

“I am concerned by reports of increased number of settler attacks and 
incidents of harassment,” the secretary-general adds in his report.

Israeli settlers under army escort attempted to raid 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=782995> two Palestinian 
elementary schools in Tuqu village near Bethlehem in the southern West 
Bank on Tuesday.

Teachers and school staff prevented the settlers from breaking in, but 
classes were dismissed early due to the threat of settler violence, 
Palestinian media reported.

Video shows Israeli soldiers firing crowd-control weaponry in front of 
one of the schools:

    الجنود أطلقوا النار..#شاهد
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%B4%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%AF?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    عشرات المستوطنين يقتحمون محيط مدرستي الخنساء والجرم في بلدة تقوع
    ببيت لحم pic.twitter.com/f297gPijts <https://t.co/f297gPijts>

    — وكالة شهاب (@ShehabAgency) March 26, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/ShehabAgency/status/1110514506222968832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The frequency of occupation-related violence in or near Palestinian 
schools in the West Bank has increased 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-steps-attacks-palestinian-schools> 
during the current academic year.

    9-year-old boy arrested at school

This video shows Israeli soldiers seizing a 9-year-old Palestinian child 
at his school in the southern West Bank city of Hebron last week:

The heavily armed soldiers accuse the small child of throwing stones. 
One of the soldiers threatens to arrest a teacher who tries to prevent 
the detention of the boy.

The child was detained at a checkpoint for an hour, according to 
<https://www.btselem.org/video/20190321_soldiers_forcibly_seize_9_year_old_at_school_in_hebron#full> 
the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

There are two checkpoints in close proximity to the school, leading to 
“frequent altercations” between soldiers and students after class lets 
out, B’Tselem states.

“Throughout 2018, B’Tselem documented several instances in which 
soldiers burst into the school compound, fired tear gas canisters into 
the yard, or arrested students and teachers after school hours.”

The infrastructure of Israel’s military occupation, imposed to protect 
the state’s settlement colony enterprise, is the site of routine and 
often deadly violence.

“Military fixtures like checkpoints and watchtowers in the West Bank and 
the heavily surveilled ‘buffer zone’ along the border of Gaza are sites 
of frequent clashes, representing significant risks of death, injury and 
arrest to children who live or pass near them frequently,” according to 
<https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_forces_killed_two_palestinian_teens_in_last_week> 
Defense for Children International Palestine.

-- 
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