Toll of deaths, injuries and human rights violations continues to rise under Israeli assault

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday April 09, 2003 11:45 by kokomero

Before the Iraq war began, there were widespread fears that the Israeli army would take advantage of a time when international attention was elsewhere and step up its campaign in the occupied territories. These fears seem to have been well founded given the increasing toll of deaths, injuries and human-rights violations in occupied Palestine this week as Israel takes advantage of the war in Iraq to avoid the glare of publicity on its butchery of Palestinian civilians.

Israel has killed another 3 people have been killed in a raid in the northern Gaza Strip bring the total to 10 today. The raid came hours after an air strike which killed seven and injured over 40 people in Gaza city.

Residents said two Israeli F-16 planes flew low over the city just before the air strike. A few minutes later, helicopter gunships went into action. Witnesses said a missile fired by an Israeli warplane appeared to be aimed at a car travelling thought the east of the city, but it also damaged nearby houses.

There were scenes of pandemonium as ambulances rushed casualties to hospital. The remaining dead and wounded were civilians, said doctors, including children hit by shrapnel from the second missile, which exploded after people had run into the street to see what had happened.

Ghalem Shehaiber, a 16-year-old with shrapnel in his back from the attack, told reporters in al-Shifa hospital how he was standing near by, at the Askoula circle, a landmark. "I heard two missiles fired. I rushed to the scene."

What Mr Shehaiber claims happened next is disturbing. A large crowd had gathered around the wrecked car. "After a short time, maybe two minutes, two more missiles were fired at the crowd." Mr Shehaiber and another witness, who declined to give his name, claimed that it was at this time that most of the wounded were hit.

Further news from occupied Palestine today includes an explosion in a Palestinian school in the northern West Bank wounded dozens of people.

Last week more than 1,000 Palestinian men and boys were rounded up and trucked out of the Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank at gunpoint. The Isreali army said they were only forced out to allow soldiers to search their homes, and all the men and boys were allowed to return home after three days. But the experience unnerved many Palestinians.

Complete disregard for non-combattants is a feature of Israeli tactics for instance last July, nine Palestinian children were killed when the Israeli air force dropped a one-tonne bomb into a packed area of slum housing in Gaza City in the middle of the night on a mission to assassinate Saleh Shehadeh, a leading Hamas militant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2930279.stm

http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0409/mideast.html

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=395403