GAZA – Death and destruction

Israel’s air force obliterated symbols of Hamas power on the third day of its overwhelming assault on Gaza on Monday even as its defence minister said it is in an “all-out war” with the Islamic militant group.Israeli jets targeted a house next to the Hamas premier’s home, devastated a security compound and flattened a five-story building at a university closely linked to Hamas.The three-day death toll rose to 315, including seven children under the age of 15 who were killed in two separate strikes late on Sunday and Monday, medics said. Israel launched the deadliest against Palestinians in decades on Saturday in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at civilians in southern Israeli towns.

 

The strikes appear to have gravely damaged Hamas’ ability to launch rockets but a medium-range rocket fired at the Israeli city of Ashkelon killed a man there on Monday and wounded several others. It was the second fatality in Israel since the beginning of the offensive and the first person ever to be killed by a rocket in Ashkelon, a city of 120,000.Generations of Palestinians have suffered ethnic cleansing, military occupation, brutality and daily cruelties that range from gross excess to petty spite.The PHRC calls upon the NZ government to condemn Israel's human rights violations against the Palestinian people and to demand a cessation of this military offensive. Israel's persistent unilateral attempts to change by force the situation of some 1.5 million Palestinians blatantly contravene international humanitarian law and all human rights conventions.

 

 

Palestine Human Rights Campaign horrifed by death and destruction in GAZA

Israel has begun an aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has killed over 200 Palestinians and left hundreds wounded. Speaking menacingly on Israeli Army radio, military spokesman, Avi Benayahu, said that the massive bombardment was only a beginning.The Palestine Human Rights Campaign is horrifed that the people of Gaza are in the front line of what amounts to a war against the rule of international law, human rights and the Geneva Conventions. This latest, merciless assault on a defenceless and captive people demonstrates the nature of a state driven by a hateful ideology. Spokesperson Janfrie Wakim says 'encouraged by largely sycophantic world leaders and corporate news media, Israel is heaping more death and destruction on a people already suffering under an unprecedented blockade. Israel demonstrating yet again its intention to continue defying UN Resolutions and international humanitarian law; appeasement will serve only to feed its ambition'.

 

Like any occupied people, the Palestinians have the right to resist, whether they choose to exercise it or not. But there is no right of defence for an illegal occupation - there is an obligation to withdraw comprehensively. During the last seven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by mostly homemade rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, while more than 5,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel with some of the most advanced US-supplied armaments in the world. And while no rockets are fired from the West Bank, 45 Palestinians have died there at Israel's hands this year alone. The issue is of course not just the vast disparity in weapons and power, but that one side is the occupier, the other the occupied.

 

GAZA – Death and destruction video-