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<a href="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" eudora="autourl">
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<br>
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</a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=5>Israelis Terrorize
Palestinian Civilians, Vandalize Media, Bomb Charities, Terrorist
Ehud Olmert: 'I Want No One to Sleep at Night in Gaza'<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>03/07/2006 <br><br>
Palestine Media Center – PMC <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.”
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
Al-Shaer said Wednesday the Israeli invasion of Gaza could not have been
launched without a US green light. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.” <br><br>
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. <br><br>
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accompanied by Haniyeh insspected the
rubble of the premiership building on Monday. <br><br>
Abbas on Wednesday condemned the Israeli invasion of Gaza as a “crime
against humanity” and a “collective punishment” against the Palestinian
people. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
Abbas however told reporters that he had no intention to leave Gaza until
the Israeli invasion stops. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
Israel on Friday revoked the Jerusalem residency of four Palestinian
lawmakers, including a Cabinet minister, Israel's Interior Ministry said.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
<b>Israeli War on Infrastructure <br><br>
</b>“Israel is now openly engaged in infrastructure warfare, the wanton
destruction of the basic platforms of human survival,” Mike Whitney wrote
on Monday. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
Water supplies were also cut early Wednesday by bombing water pipelines,
after destroying three bridges linking the south and north of the Gaza
Strip. <br><br>
Al-Arqam school, a cultural center and a charity in Gaza city were bombed
to rubble by the IOF warplanes. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
The Associated Press reported that the “Israeli tanks and bulldozers
crossed the Gaza Strip and began razing farmland east of Khan Younis.”
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
<b>Terrorizing Civilians <br><br>
</b>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.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
“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.” <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
<b>War on Charities <br><br>
</b>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. <br><br>
The IOF troops were also vandalizing media outlets and hospitals.
<br><br>
On Monday they raided a local newspaper in Ramallah and the Nablus local
TV station. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.” <br><br>
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