Sunday, April 30, 2006

Israel shells Gaza

Israel shells Gaza, wounding seven


Israel said the shelling was in retaliation for rocket fire Posted by Picasa

29 April 2006

Aljazeera.net

Israel has shelled the northern Gaza Strip with artillery fire, wounding seven Palestinians, including two children.

Palestinian medical sources said on Saturday: "Seven civilians, including a five-year-old child and a 13-year-old boy, were wounded by artillery fire west of Bait Hanun."

Other medical sources told Aljazeera's correspondent in Gaza that only five Palestinians were wounded in the attack.

They added that the wounded had been taken to hospitals in northern provinces for treatment.

An Israeli military source had earlier said the shelling was in retaliation for rocket fire overnight on Friday, adding that four rockets coming from the area had exploded in Israeli territory but did not cause any casualties.

Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources said the wife and the mother of a wanted al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades local leader were arrested on Saturday at an Israeli checkpoint near the West Bank town of Nablus.


Gaza under intense bombardment

April 20, 2006

By Matthew Price
BBC Jerusalem


Since the start of April, Israeli forces say they have fired more than 2,000 artillery shells into the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military says this in retaliation for a growing number of rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.



Relatives mourn an eight-year-old
Gazan girl killed this week  Posted by Picasa

On a ridge just outside the Gaza Strip the dark green camouflaged weapons of the Israeli army are firing round after round. Loud booms echo across the dusty fields.

A few miles away, inside the Gaza Strip, there are tractors ploughing the fields.

Then an Israeli artillery shell whistles overhead.

There is a loud explosion as the shell hits the ground. A cloud of dust is thrown up.

The shell lands just a few metres away from a farmer. He emerges from the dust, and gets back to his work.

Israel is targeting the open areas used by Palestinian militants, but even one of the world's most modern armies makes mistakes.

Home hit

I was in Beit Lahiya a few days ago just after the latest accident.

An artillery round had crashed through the roof of a house.

"As long as calm does not prevail on the Israeli side, neither will it do so on the Palestinian side. Our operations are going to intensify."

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz


Israel said Palestinian militants had fired a rocket from the area two hours earlier. Its artillery had struck back.

One boy wept as he told me the rocket had injured members of his extended family.

"About 10 were injured", he said.

Has anyone died, I asked.

"A girl, about eight years old."

The round killed eight-year-old Hadil Ghaben - and injured her brothers and sisters.

The next day they sat at her funeral, her three-year-old sister confused, sombre, her face bandaged and scarred.

Shock

According to Palestinian medical sources, 40 Palestinians have been injured in the last week and 90 children have been treated for shock.

Hadil was the second civilian killed in seven days from the artillery bombardment.

"Children hear the alarm when the rockets are fired and they have 20 seconds to find a place to hide."

Penina Ragolsky
Israeli living near Gaza


Israel's shelling is becoming common place. On average, 150 artillery rounds a day are being fired into Gaza.

Day and night, the sound booms across the city and the surrounding areas. It echoes along the streets. Sometimes it shakes the buildings.

In one half-hour period, I counted at least 25 explosions.

Crude weapon

Israel says it is shelling Gaza because Palestinian militants are firing homemade rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli civilian targets.

As they take off, these rockets leave a trail of white smoke. They zip around randomly in the sky, before heading in the rough direction they have been aimed at.

They are makeshift and crude, but Israelis have been killed and injured by them in the past.

"One of them went straight into our house, and from the explosion she was killed," says Penina Ragolsky, of her son's girlfriend. "A lovely girl."


Israel has recently been firing 150
shells into Gaza every day  Posted by Picasa

Mrs Ragolsky lives across the front line, in a small Israeli village close to Gaza.

"Children hear the alarm [when the rockets are fired] and they have 20 seconds to find a place to hide."

Israel feels it has no option but to shell Gaza.

"As long as calm does not prevail on the Israeli side, neither will it do so on the Palestinian side," Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said this week. "Our operations are going to intensify."

There have been more than 70 Palestinian rockets fired in the last two weeks. Israel has fired more than 2,000 artillery shells at Gaza. Israel says if the Palestinian Authority won't stop the attacks, then it will.

Penina Ragolsky said the rockets come most days at the moment. "When I am out I hear the alarm and I look in the sky and I say 'where will it fall now?'"

That is what Gaza's Palestinian are also wondering.

There are many who tell you they wish the militants would stop firing at Israel, since Israel always hits back harder, and it is the civilians who suffer.

Israel hoped when it withdrew from the crowded Gaza Strip last summer, that its problems there would end.

But, for now at least, neither side is talking about backing down.

Israel forces kill Palestinian in Gaza

Israel threatens to reoccupy Gaza

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home