Israel Bombs Gaza for Eighth Day in a Row
Gaza, MINA – For the eighth day in a row, Israeli warplanes early Friday morning bombed several sites across the besieged Gaza Strip, according to WAFA correspondent.
He said that Israeli warplane fired three missiles at a site to the west of Gaza city, causing heavy destruction to the site and the neighboring houses and causing fires to break out.
The warplanes also targeted a site to the northwest of Beit Lahia town in the northern coastal enclave with two missiles, causing major damage to the site as well as to nearby property.
Meanwhile, Israeli used the artillery against farmlands to the east of Gaza city.
Late Thursday, Israeli combat helicopters targeted a site to the west of Khan Younes city in the southern enclave with at least six missiles.
The airstrikes and artillery shelling resulted in material damage. No human casualties were reported though.
The latest attacks follows eight days of heightened tensions, during which Israel closed the Karem Abu Salem goods crossing with the strip, shut down the coastal fishing zone, and halted the supply of fuel, forcing Gaza’s sole power plant to stop operating.
Israel claims the attacks and other punitive measures came in retaliation for the flying of incendiary balloons from Gaza into bordering Israeli sites.
Fourteen years following the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, Israel has not actually disengaged from Gaza; it still maintains control of its land borders, access to the sea and airspace.
Two million Palestinians live the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to a punishing and crippling Israeli blockade for 12 years and repeated onslaughts that have heavily damaged much of the enclave’s infrastructure.
Gaza’s 2-million population remains under “remote control” occupation and a strict siege, which has destroyed the local economy, strangled Palestinian livelihoods, plunged them into unprecedented rates of unemployment and poverty, and cut off from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and the wider world.
Gaza remains occupied territory, having no control over its borders, territorial waters or airspace. Meanwhile, Israel upholds very few of its responsibilities as the occupying power, failing to provide for the basic needs of Palestinian civilians living in the territory.
Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee from lands inside what is now Israel. That government forbids them from exercising their right to return as enshrined in international law because they are not Jews.(T/R3/RE1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
