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<h1 class="article-title">Israel announces launch of ground invasion
into Gaza; 100,000 civilians told to leave their homes</h1>
<div class="article-subtitledetails">
<span class="article-details">
<span class="article-detail"><img class="icon"
src="cid:part1.07060809.00000205@freedomarchives.org"
alt="author"> Thursday July 17, 2014 23:29</span><span
class="article-detail"><img class="icon"
src="cid:part2.00000004.02060400@freedomarchives.org"
alt="author"> by Saed Bannoura - <b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.imemc.org/article/68507">http://www.imemc.org/article/68507</a></small></small></b></span></span></div>
<blockquote class="article-intro">After its latest round of
airstrikes Thursday evening killed seven small children (four of
whom were four years old), and Israeli officials flatly rejected a
ten-year truce offered by Palestinian resistance groups, the
Israeli military announced late Thursday night that hundreds of
tanks and thousands of soldiers have begun a ground invasion of
the Gaza Strip.<br>
</blockquote>
Power was cut to the entire Gaza Strip, as close to two million
Palestinian civilians huddle in the dark reporting explosions,
flares and Israeli airstrikes hitting in the north and eastern parts
of the Gaza Strip.<br>
<br>
An Israeli military official issued a statement which read, "Israel
is committed to act to protect its citizens. The operation will
continue until its goals are reached: To bring quiet to the citizens
of Israel for a long period of time, and to seriously harm Hamas and
other terrorist organizations' infrastructure in the Gaza Strip." <br>
<br>
The last time Israel launched a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip,
in January 2009, Israeli troops killed over 1400 Palestinians, the
vast majority of whom were civilians, including hundreds of small
children. Many of those killed were blown to pieces by artillery
shells and missiles.<br>
<br>
Palestinians in Gaza have no army, and no official government, as
the have lived under Israeli military rule since 1967. In 2006,
after the election of the Hamas party to run the Palestinian
Authority, Israeli military forces sealed the borders of Gaza,
creating what many human rights groups have termed ‘the largest
open-air prison on earth’.<br>
<br>
In Thursday’s invasion into Gaza, Israeli military officials say
that artillery, infantry, naval forces, air forces and hundreds of
tanks are being deployed as the troops move in to Gaza, one of the
most crowded places on earth.<br>
<br>
Earlier Thursday, Israel dropped leaflets in the streets of northern
Gaza ordering 100,000 Palestinians to leave their homes. The leaflet
drops were followed by increased aerial bombardment in an area that
has already seen heavy civilian casualties and destruction from
Israeli bombs.<br>
<br>
Tens of thousands of Palestinians left their homes and walked
southward to try to take shelter in United Nations schools. But in
the last major ground invasion of Gaza, in 2009, Israeli forces
attacked UN schools with artillery shells and white phosphorus, a
weapon whose use is banned in civilian areas.
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