The Israelis launched ‘Operation Summer Rain’ overnight in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip, with the primary mission of finding the captured soldier, Shalit. They began house-to-house searches in the area, and bulldozers moved in to clear the way of mines and bombs. The IDF moved into the area, taking up strategic positions at the now nonfunctional Gaza International Aiport in the south-eastern corner of Gaza. The Israelis scoured the Gaza–Israeli border for more tunnel entrances like the ones used to adjuct Shalit, and an IDF spokesman said, ‘We will stay here as long as necessary until we return with the kidnapped IDF soldier’.
In an effort to have some bargaining power, the Israeli military detained more than 64 Hamas officials and parliamentary officials in overnight raids across the West Bank. The detained ministers included Finance Minister Omar Abdel Razeq, Social Affairs Minister Fakhri Torokma, Prisoners’ Affairs Minister, Wasfi Kabha and Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Nasser Shair.
The Israeli airforce staged mock air raids over Gaza, causing sonic booms that caused mass panic among the civilians. They also dropped leaflets urging the residents to avoid moving around in the area because of impending military activity. Nervous civilians stockpiled batteries and candles, as well as food and water, expecting the worst. In southern Gaza, at the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which had been closed since the capture of Shalit, militants blew a large hole in the border wall. Palestinian security forces immediately formed a human cordon to stop people from pushing their way through the gap, and a curfew was imposed to further restrict the movements of the inhabitants.
Aiming attacks at civilian objects is forbidden under International Humanitarian law and is considered to be a war crime. The bombing of the Gaza Strip power plant was purely a civilian structure, and it did nothing whatsoever to hamper Palestinian attacks on the Israeli territory. Under international law the Israelis are responsible for the lives and welfare for those people who live on the Gaza Strip, and it is now up to the government of Israel to put things right.
Over 120 Palestinians have been killed in extrajudicial executions, including more than 30 innocent bystanders, four of whom were children. In September and October 2005, four Palestinian schoolchildren were shot dead by the Israeli army either in their classrooms or walking to school in the Gaza Strip. Raghda Adnan al-Assar and Ghadeer Jaber Mukhaymar, aged ten and nine, were shot dead while they were sitting at their desks in the UN Khan Yunis refugee camp. On 5 October, Israeli soldiers killed 13-year-old Iman al-Hams near her school in Rafab. Witnesses reported that a commander repeatedly shot at the schoolgirl from close range, even though it was obvious she was a child who was obviously scared to death. Although the commander was charge with illegal use of his weapon, he was not charged with either murder or manslaughter.
On 22 March, Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a 68-year-old paraplegic who was bound to a wheelchair, was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike as he left a mosque in Gaza City. Seven other Palestinians were killed in the attack and at least 17 more were injured. His successor, Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi, was also assassinated on 17 April.
When Israelis opened fire on a nonviolent demonstration on 19 May, eight people were killed, including three schoolchildren, 10-year-old Walid Naji Abu Qamar, 11-year-old Mubarak Salim al-Hashash and 13-year-old Mahmoud Tariq Mansour. Many other unarmed demonstrators were wounded in the attack.
Palestinians have constantly been used as human shields during Israeli military operations, compelling them to risk their lives, despite the fact that this practice was banned by the Israeli High Court. In April 2005, Israeli soldiers forced 13-year-old Muhammed Badwan onto the bonnet of their jeep, tying him to the front windshield. They used him as a human shield to discourage Palestinian demonstrators from throwing stones at them during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Biddu.
In May 2005, the Israeli army destroyed approximately 300 homes and severely damged 270 other buildings in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. This left about 4,000 people without homes. When the IDF arrived with their bulldozers, many people were trapped inside their homes and they had to drill holes in the back walls in order to escape. Thousands of residents fled in fear, and UN schools were used as temporarily shelters to house the refugees. Israeli officials claimed the mass destruction was intended to further widen the ‘no-go’ area along the Egyptian border and to uncover illegal tunnels used to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip.
Following the death of two Israeli children in October 2005, the IDF launched a major attack on the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. This attack destroyed over 200 homes and buildings, and it also resulted in severely damaged roads and other vital infrastructures.
Of course human rights violations are not just restricted to the Israeli army, Palestian armed groups have also killed 67 Israeli citizens, eight of which were children. The majority of these attacks were claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is an offshoot of Fatah, and by the the armed wing of Hamas.
Until the Israelis and the Palestinians respect the law of human rights, there will be no peace or settlement in the area of the Occupied Territories. Even in the overwhelming majority of the thousands of cases of unlawful killings and other grave human rights violations, no thorough investigations have been carried out. As the growing tension between Israel and Palestine continues to mount, there is an ever-growing concern for the safety of the civilian population. Instead of improving, the situation looks as if it will deteriorate further in the light of the end of the fragile ceasefire, adding to the already deteriorating health and humanitarian conditions in Gaza and the West Bank.
Sabra And Shatila Massacres
Sabra and Shatila were two refugee camps on the outskirts of Muslim Western Beirut. The camps were established when a large number of Palestinians sought refuge from Israel during the 1967 Six Day War against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The issues leading up to the massacres, which the UN General Assembly condemned as an act of genocide, have been many years in the making and are extremely complex.
To put it as simply as possible, the Sabra and Shatila massacres were the outcome of an alliance between Israel and the Lebanese Phalangists. The Phalangists were a Christian political party and militia, who attracted Christian youths from the mountains north-east of Beirut as well as students from Beirut itself. At the start of the Lebanese Civil War, the Phalangists cooperated with Syria, but after 1982, Israel became their most important ally. In their long-standing war against Palestinian nationalism and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Israel were pleased to have the support of the Phalangists. Even though it was Israel who was responsible for the mass exodus of Palestinians, the hostility felt by the Israelis and the Phalangists against the Palestinians, led to them forming a secret alliance. Under the terms of this alliance, the Israelis supplied the Phalangists with money, arms and equipment to help them fight the PLO in Lebanon.