Most of the following incidents in the Gaza Concentration Camp as reported by Israeli sources are about PEOPLE (not statistics).
On June 8, the Israeli army assassinated the recently appointed Palestinian head of the security forces of the Interior Ministry, Jamal Abu Samhadana, and three others.
On June 9, Israeli shells killed seven members of the same family picnicking on Beit Lahiya beach. Some 32 others were wounded, including 13 children.
On June 13, an Israeli plane fired a missile into a busy Gaza City street, killing 11 people, including two children and two medics.
On June 20, the Israeli army killed three Palestinian children and injured
15 others in Gaza with a missile attack.On June 21, the Israelis killed a 35-year old pregnant woman, her brother, and injured 11 others, including 6 children.
After the beach deaths, Hamas, the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority, broke an 18-month ceasefire and joined other militant groups in firing Kassam rockets into Israel. The Financial Times reported on June 23 that the missiles, principally targeted towards the Israel town of Sderot, have caused damage and some casualties but no fatalities in the recent barrages.
On June 24, Israeli commandos entered the Gaza Strip and kidnap two Palestinians.
On June 25, Palestinian militants at an army post at Kerem Shalom near Gaza capture an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit and kill two others.
On June 29 Israeli troops arrested dozens of Hamas ministers and parliamentarians as they stepped up their campaign to free the soldier kidnapped by militants in Gaza at the weekend.
Up to June 29, approximately 80 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza due to Israel artillery firing. There have been exactly eight Israelis killed in the last five years from the Kassam missiles. Again, we have a huge disproportion, a huge discrepancy." ('AIPAC v. Norman Finkelstein: A Debate on Israel's Assault on Gaza,' June
29, 2006Finkelstein also compared the situation with regard to hostages: "let's talk about those 9,000 Palestinians who are effectively hostages being held by Israel. 1,000 of them are administrative detainees. Administrative detainees who are being held without any charges or trial. And the other 8,000 are being held until military courts have convicted them. So if you're going to look simply at the numbers, you have one hostage on the Palestinian side (the captured Israeli soldier), and effectively you have about 9,000 on the Israeli side."
Earlier in the month, the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem, published fatality figures for June 2006 in the Occupied Territories and Israel. Forty-two Palestinians, six of them minors, were killed by Israeli armed forces. Twenty-four of the fatalities were bystanders not involved in the conflict.
"The destruction of the power station could quickly cause a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as electricity is essential to power the water system, sewage treatment, and medical services". ('Gaza: Israeli Offensive Must Limit Harm to Civilians,' June 29, 2006;
The New York Times reported July 3: "for all the pyrotechnics, the [Israeli] operation has been relatively restrained". (Ian Fisher and Steven Erlanger, 'Israel steps up Gaza raids in bid to free soldier,' New York Times, July 3, 2006)
"Relatively Restrained" - NO KIDDING!!!
In July, the Israeli military killed 163 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, 78 or (48 percent) of whom were not taking part in the hostilities when they were killed, B'Tselem claimed. According to the report, thirty-six of the fatalities were minors, and 20 were women. In the West Bank , 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in July. The number of Palestinian fatalities in July was the highest in any month since April
2002. 1,200 Palestinians were injured by the end of July.On 12 July 2006, a group of youths sought shelter from IDF bombing. Ten of the youths went and hid in a big pit. A missile fired from by an Air Force plane hit the pit, killing six of the youths, five of them minors: Mahmmuad al-'Asar, Ibrahim a-Nabahin and Ibrahim Qatush, age 15, Ahmad Abu hajaj, age
- Salah Abu Maktomah, age 17 and Hassan 'Abeid, age 18.
On 21 July 2006, a few members of the Hararah family went onto the roof of their house in the a-Sheja'iyeh neighborhood in Gaza City to watch tanks advancing toward the neighborhood. One of the tanks fired a shell at the house. It hit the staircase and killed Muhammad Hararah,, 45, the brother of the owner of the house. Almost immediately afterwards, another shell was fired at the same spot, killing the mother of the family, Sabah, 45, and two of her sons, Muamen, 16, and 'Amer, 23.
On 24 July 2006, two youngsters left their family's farm in the Beit Lahiya area after shells had fallen on the farm's land. They went by horse-drawn wagon and on the way picked up two of their family. A missile, fired by an Air Force plane, made a direct hit on the wagon, killing Khairieh al-'Attar,
58 and her grandchild Nadi al-'Attar , 11. Another member of the family, Shadi, 14 was injured. Testimony of Shadi al-'Attar. IDF also fired a shell that fell next to the a-Nada Towers , a housing project located in the northern Gaza Strip. The shelling killed three civilians, one of them a minor: Saleh Naser, 14, Sadeq Naser, 33, and S'adi Na'im, 29.Note - The term "Kassam rockets" is sometimes spelt as "Qassam rockets". When we were kids we used to make rockets like these from 4 feet of eave-trough down pipe stuffed with propellant - range about 1/2 to 1 mile or just under 2 km if one could get them to fly straight.
Fred.