The New Nation - Internet Edition

Fatema G Valji

Israeli shelling and gunfire this month has killed over 100 Palestinians and wounded more than 250 others in the besieged Gaza Strip, while much of the world looks on in appeasement of Israeli vengeance.

The blitzkrieg was triggered by Palestinian rocket attacks killing one Israeli civilian in the border town of Siderot. The Israeli onslaught sweeping Gaza massacred 125 Palestinians, 95 of them civilians, many of whom were children, including babies. Two hundred Palestinians were injured, the majority of them civilians.

Israeli warning of the bloody scale of its offensive came early when Israel's Labour Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, declared on February 29 that continuing Palestinian rocket fire would risk a "greater shoah" of the Palestinian people. Israeli officials later insisted that Vilnai warned of disaster in a generic sense, but the term is used in Hebrew circles almost solely to refer to the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews in Europe.

Vilnai's chilling warning came two days after Israel launched its deadliest offensive this year on a Gazan population already beleaguered by a strangulating siege. On February 27, in retaliation to the first Israeli fatality by Palestinian rocket fire in 9 months, Israel escalated air attacks, bombing a military base in a civilian area in Khan Younis, killing 5 Hamas members and a six month old baby.

The next day, the Israeli Air Force rained fire near a playing field in northern Gaza, maiming and killing 3 children playing football and wounding 17 others, including 5 children and a baby aged 7 months. Two Palestinian farmers in northern Gaza were also killed when Israeli tanks shelled their farm, bringing the death toll to 11 within 24 hours. By February 29, the number of Palestinian dead reached 32, nine of them children.

Less than 24 hours after Vilnai alluded to a Palestinian "holocaust", Israeli ground troops, backed by warplanes, entered Gaza, leaving a bloodbath of 61 Palestinians dead, at least half of them civilians. In the heavily shelled town of Jabiliya, Palestinian families in underground shelters huddled together in fear of more missiles. As they mourned and buried their dead the next day, persisting air and ground assaults killed 5 more Palestinians, including 3 civilians, one of them a 21 month old baby. Hospitals in Gaza reported 155 Palestinians were injured in the attacks, 9 of them critically wounded.

By March 2, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel's 5-day assault had killed 107 Palestinians and injured 250. More than half the Palestinian casualties were children. Palestinian rocket attacks had killed two Israeli soldiers and one civilian. In a UN emergency session, UN Secretary General condemned Israeli attacks as a "disproportionate and excessive use of force that has killed and injured so many civilians, including children." He "called on Israel to cease such attacks."

However, precluding any possibility of a Security Council statement to this effect, spokesman for the veto wielding US, Gordon Johndroe, stated, "There is a clear distinction between terrorist rocket attacks that target civilians and actions in self-defence."

The British response was only slightly less muted. On March 2, Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, released a statement condemning Palestinian rocket fire as "acts of terrorism" while stating "Israel's right to self-defence is clear and must be supported." His addendum, stating Israel must act "in accordance with international law, minimising the suffering of innocent civilians," clearly stopped short of condemnation.

By contrast, other countries took a less disquiet stance, with even pro-western countries, like Jordan, condemning the Israeli onslaught as a "flagrant violation" of international law. Turkey, Israel's closest Middle East ally, also denounced Israeli attacks stating there was "no humanitarian justification" for the killing of civilians and children.

Rejecting international criticism, Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, vowed on March 2, that, "We will operate with force to change the situation and we will change it." Israel's withdrawal of ground troops and pause in air attacks on March 3 merely indicated a temporary lull in Operation Warm Winter, before an armoured contingent of 25 tanks rolled into southern Gaza the next day.

Hours later, as part of her 3-day visit to the Middle East, US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, arrived in Ramallah urging the resumption of peace talks suspended days earlier by the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas in protest over the large civilian death toll. As Rice met Prime Minister Olmert for dinner, the clashes and shelling in Gaza injured 8 militants and 3 civilians while a ricocheting bullet killed a 1 month old baby.

In talks with both sides, Rice exerted little pressure on Israel to end its deadly onslaught. While she urged caution on the Israeli side, her focus in discussions with Palestinian negotiators Ahmed Qurei and Sa'ab Erakat was to secure Abbas' unconditional agreement to resume negotiations initiated by the Annapolis Conference late last year. Since post-Annapolis talks began, 323 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.

While Palestinian rocket attacks have been largely subdued since March 3, an attack by a lone gunman on a Rabbanical seminary in Jerusalem - which is associated with the illegal settler movement in the West Bank - on March 7 killed 8 Israeli students. Prior to this, Palestinian rocket attacks had killed one Israeli soldier and two civilians since late February. Israel refuses to end its offensive while threatened by rocket attacks; in the last 7 years, Palestinian rockets have killed 14 Israelis. According to Geoffery Binder, a legal expert in international humanitarian law, "What we're dealing with here is a few rockets coming from presumably one small corner of Gaza. And the response is the blockade and the destruction of hundreds of lives and the impoverishment of the whole area."

Further fuelling Palestinian frustration, Olmert recently authorised the illegal construction of 750 new homes in Givat Zeev in the Occupied West Bank. Currently, more than 280,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in the West Bank; this does not include settlers who live in over 100 outposts constructed by Israelis without certification from the Israeli Government.

Approximately 200,000 illegal settlers live in Occupied East Jerusalem. All settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories are illegal under international law.

According to the head of the Israeli group, Peace Now, "This is a scandalous decision that will affect the negotiations with the Palestinians…This government, which has pledged to dismantle settlements, has done nothing but reinforce them."

Meanwhile, Gaza remains enmeshed between conflict and siege. Due to Israel's devastating blockade, Gaza is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis since Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, according to a recent report by 8 British NGOs, including Amnesty International, Oxfam and Save the Children.

According to the March report, severe food shortages, extreme limitations on movement, and the collapse of healthcare, sewage and water systems have made everyday life a wretched misery for Gaza's 1.4 million people.

The embargo has crippled the Gaza's economy leaving unemployment sky high and 1.1 million people in Gaza dependent on food aid. While decades of sanctions and occupation have caused a "long pattern of deterioration," due to the tightening of the Israeli blockade in recent months, Gaza is on the verge of a "humanitarian implosion."

The report warns that the entire infrastructure of Gaza is in meltdown. Without sufficient fuel for sewage treatment, streets in Gaza have become open flooding sewers, hazarding the health of ordinary Gazans. Failing water systems limit access to clean drinking water.

Daily power cuts of 8-12 hours have made hospitals dysfunctional. Moreover, 18 percent of Gazans requiring medical treatment outside of Gaza have been refused exit permits. According to medical sources, 107 Palestinian patients have died because access to hospital treatment outside Israel has been denied.

Director of the UN Relief and Works Agency, John Ging, warns that further military action in Gaza would be catastrophic for a humanitarian situation already in crisis. "The whole situation is in a state of collapse, whether its water, sanitation or just medical services…If there's a further military offensive, it will just add or compound an already desperate situation."

(Source: Muslim News, London)