Yet more savagery from the IDF occupying force.
The Guardian reports:
At least 19 Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded when five Israeli shells hit a row of houses in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun this morning.
The dead and injured – including nine children, four women and six men – were sleeping when the first shell hit at around 6am local time. Many of the victims were taken to hospital in their pyjamas.
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Israeli army sources said that the army fired a volley of artillery shells at the northern Gaza Strip which missed their target, probably because of a human or technical error. Officially the army said it was still investigating the incident.
Witnesses said that the first shell hit a home, causing deaths and injuries. Residents took shelter while rescuers attempted to retrieve the bodies and care for the wounded. Many residents were sheltering in a nearby alleyway when a second shell landed, causing most of the casualties. A further five or six shells landed in the same vicinity over a period of 15 minutes, witnesses said.
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The killings follow Israel’s withdrawal from Beit Hanoun after a one-week occupation which resulted in the deaths of 52 Palestinians. During the operation, Israeli soldiers visited the houses that were hit, searched them and questioned the residents. The operation was aimed at preventing the firing of missiles at Israel, but rocket attacks have continued.
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Beit Hanoun is on the border with Israel and is overlooked by Israeli tanks and artillery batteries.
Israel has fired tens of thousands of shells into Gaza in the last year, killing dozens of civilians. In June a family of seven and another man died when a shell landed on a beach in northern Gaza.
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Israeli leaders showed little remorse for the deaths, stating that the army did not intend to kill civilians[Phew! That's ok then]. Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, described the incident as “regrettable” while Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, said that Israeli operations would continue as long as missiles were fired over the border, weapons were smuggled into Gaza and Hamas continued to provoke Israel.
Read Sami Abdel-Shafi’s comments in the Guardian on Israel’s recent policies in Gaza and their human cost.
It’s good to see that the Israelis are implementing their usual policy of pre-emptive strikes against terrorists; in this and many other instances it’s so pre-emptive that they’re killed and mutilated while they’re still children (9 children this time). As with a lot of Middle Eastern stories, it going to be instructive to examine the coverage and level of outcry in the Western media over this.
BTW, I’m planning on writing an entry explaining why I feel the issue of Palestine is important later this week in response to some criticisms I’ve had.
