Gaza; 15 Palestinians Killed Due To IsraHell Bombardment In 24 Hours

NOVANEWS

Saed Bannoura

As Israel continued the bombardment of the Gaza Strip since Thursday, Palestinian medical sources in Gaza reported that the number of slain residents arrived to 15, while more than 40 others, were wounded in the last 24 hours of military escalation.

The sources stated that the Israeli Air Force fired a missile at a motorcycle driving in Ath-Thaltheen Street, in Gaza City, killing three residents, including a child. Their bodies were severely mutilated.

Adham Abu Salmiyya, spokesperson of the Higher Committee of Medical and Emergency Services in Gaza, reported that the child was only two years old, and that one woman is among the injured.

The casualties were identified as Dr. Monther Qreiqe’ and his brother Mo’taz of the Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, and a two-year-old child identified as Islam. They were transporting Islam to a local hospital as he needed urgent medical care.

Abu Salmiyya added that residents Anwar Salim and Imad Abu Abda were also killed when the Israeli Air Force bombarded their motorcycle while driving near the southern entrance of the Al Boreij Refugee camp in central Gaza. The two are among the leaders of the Islamic Jihad Movement.

The latest escalation raises the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in 24 hours since Thursday to 15 residents.

The Israeli army carried out at least 50 strikes targeting several areas in the Gaza Strip injuring 45 Palestinians, including 10 children, 8 women, and two elderly.

Local sources in Khan Younis reported that the Israeli Air Force fired on Friday evening at least one missile into Abasan Al Jadeeda; damage was reported, no injuries.

The Air Force also fired one missile at a motorcycle in Sheikh Zayed area, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, killing Samed Abed, 25, member of the Salah Ed Deen Brigades of the Popular Resistance Committees.

Also, several residents were injured, including a 15-year-old child who suffered serious injuries, when the army bombarded Hassanen factory near Al Wafa’ Hospital, east of Gaza city.

On Friday morning, one resident was killed and another was injured when the Israeli Air Force bombarded an area east of Gaza City. The resident, Mohammad Enaya, 22, was initially seriously wounded when the missile led to the amputation of his legs and arms, and died of his wounds later on.

The army also fired a missile, on Friday before noon, at a car driving near the Gaza Sea, west of Gaza City, no injuries were reported. The Israeli bombardment also caused a power blackout in the area.

List of the residents killed by the army since Thursday;

1. Abu Awad Al Nairab, Secretary General of the Salah Ed Deen Brigades.

2. Imad Hammad, Popular Resistance Committees.

3. Abu Jamil Shaath.

4. Khaled Al Masry.

5. Imad Nassr.

6. Malak Shaath, 2 years old.

7. Mahmoud Abu Samra, 13 years old.

8. Ashraf Azzam, 30.

9. Mohammad Enaya, 22.

10. Samed Abed, 25.

11. Anwar Islayyim, 21.

12. Imad Abu Abda.

13. Monther Qreiqe’, 32.

14. Islam Qreiqe; 2.

15. Mo’taz Qreiqe’.

On Friday evening, Ismail Haniyya, Prime Minister of the Hamas-led government in Gaza, contacted the Emir ot Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, and informed him of the latest situation in Gaza.

Earlier on Friday, Haniyya phoned official in Egypt, the head of the Arab League Dr. Nabil Al Arabi, and the United Nations urging them to stop the Israeli escalation, the Palestine-Info reported.

IDF Kills 14 in Gaza, Hamas Renounces Ceasefire, IDF Disagrees With Netanyahu on Responsibility for Eilat Attack

Richard Silverstein

This is exactly the sort of gift that Israeli rightists like Bibi Netanyahu love.  Faced with a mounting internal crisis in the form of the J14 movement, Palestinian rejectionists have handed him his “Get Out of Political Crisis Free” card.  Yesterday’s attack in Eilat has fueled an Israeli reaction that can be described as uncontrollable fury, which has killed 14 including three children.  Today, an Israeli drone performed heroically for the fatherland by incinerating a car (or in other reports a motorcycle) carrying a Palestinian doctor and his family to hospital seeking treatment for a sick child.  The doctor, his brother, and the doctor’s little boy were killed in the attack.  Ynet announced: Oops, we missed.  The drone was aiming for a terrorist cell traveling nearby.  WAFA says the doctor’s brother was an Al Quds commander, which would mean that the IDF is willing to kill sick 2 year old children in order to get alleged terrorists as well.

It might be fitting to ship the boy’s coffin to the prime minister’s residence and let it sit outside his door for a few days for him to think about the blood he is shedding.  Oh but I forgot, Palestinian blood is less red than Jewish blood.

Hamas has called off the ceasefire it had been honoring since the end of Operation Cast Lead in 2009.  Now, either we will have another war or somehow someone will patch things up so Israel and Palestine can continue to limp along like the cripples they are.

Egypt has pulled its ambassador in light of Israel’s killing of two Egyptian police officers yesterday on the Gaza border.  If I were Israel I’d wake up and smell the fresh coffee brewing in Cairo.  It’s no more Mr. Nice Guy in its relations with Egypt.  If you break the china you’ll pay the price unlike under Israel’s pliant friend, Mubarak.  This report says five Egyptian police were killed yesterday by Israeli fire, but earlier reports said two died.  Two deaths may be a mistake, but five begins to look like a massacre, which may explain the withdrawal of their ambassador.

Egypt is also demanding an official Israeli apology, which now makes two Muslim countries insisting Israel apologize for killing their citizens.  Before you know it every country in the region may want one!  The Foreign Ministry may want to save time and effort by preparing a formal ‘Apology template’ in which they leave blank spaces to fill in the particular details of the atrocity for which Israel is apologizing.

Lia Tarachansky has exposed a potentially very important disagreement among senior Israeli officials about who is responsible for the attack.  Bibi Netanyahu very specifically blamed the Popular Resistance Committees for the attack.  But in her interview with IDF spokesperson Avital Leibowitz, the latter refuses to say that the PRC is responsible.  In fact, she says specifically that she “isn’t prime minister Netanyahu,” implicitly rejecting her boss’ claim.  I think this is a major break in the story.  It appears that Israel wanted to assassinate the leadership of PRC and took advantage of the terror attack to do so, all the while lying in implicating the group in the attack.  All that Leibowitz will say on tape is that someone from Gaza is responsible, which is a little like saying that someone from Saudi Arabia was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Unlike the Palestinian news agency Maan, Israeli media can’t seem to acknowledge readily Palestinians were killed today in Gaza.  The Haaretz main headline is Rockets Hit Ashdod in Southern Israel and Ynet’s is Rocket Salvo Hits South.  Only in the fourth paragraph of this story do you learn the IDF has killed 15 Palestinians.

Finally, Pres. Obama–is anyone home?  Where is Dan Shapiro, your ambassador to Israel?  Are you going to celebrate the birth pangs of democracy as Condi Rice did during the Lebanon War?  Or are you going to do something before the Israeli landlord truly goes insane (baal ha-bayit hishtageah)?  Oh, why waste my breath.  Obama is simply going to continue the same limp policy he’s always followed regarding Israel.