In heavily populated Palestinian areas, such as in the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers move from building to building by knocking holes through the walls of apartment complexes and offices.

In the past months, Israeli government ministers have become increasingly belligerent in their threats to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. What began with growing calls for the illegal collective punishment of Gazan residents by cutting fuel supplies down to a trickle—a threat now implemented by Israel—has shifted into direct threats of assassination, indiscriminate bombardment and the wiping out of entire Gaza neighborhoods. On Israeli radio last month, Eli Moyal, the Mayor of Sderot, whose city has carried the brunt of Palestinian Qassam rocket attacks, was asked by interviewer Razi Barkai what he would do if he was Defense Minister. Moyal replied: 

"I would kidnap [Hamas leader Ismail] Haniyah, I would kidnap or kill the other leaders, I would bomb neighborhoods, etc."

Barkai: "And if you do all that and the next day are bombed with another 100 Qassams, what then?"

Moyal: "We did it in Lebanon in 2006; we wiped out a whole neighborhood, the Dachya, including tall buildings, sometimes with people in it, and—what can you do? It worked! We have had nearly two years of quiet from Lebanon since then."

Higher up the ladder in the Israeli government, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit of the ruling Kadima Party stated explicitly that: "The heads of Hamas must pay the price. Hamas doesn't understand any other language; the problem is we are talking to them in English instead of in Arabic.  They only understand [the language of force]. The situation at present doesn't make sense; every other country faced with rockets on its citizens would go in and destroy the area.  We should warn the [Arabs in Gaza] in advance, give them a day's notice, and then wipe out a neighborhood. We should also hit their leaders, regardless of who or what they are.”

The AIC Unreservedly Denounces Israeli Mass Killings of Palestinians in Gaza, and Calls on the International Community to Intervene and Force Israel to Halt its Actions and Abide by International Law

Destruction during Israel's recent attacks in the Gaza Strip.

The Alternative Information Center (AIC) unreservedly denounces Israel’s killing of over 140 Palestinians in Gaza since last Wednesday and calls on the international community to intervene immediately to halt what Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai has dubbed a ‘holocaust’ that Israel will unleash on Gaza residents.

Over the past weeks, Israel has rebuffed at least two offers of a cease-fire by the Hamas leadership in Gaza, proving that the goal of Israel is not actually to halt the Qassam rocket attacks on Sderot. Israeli Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, openly stated today that a primary goal of these murderous attacks on the Gaza Strip is to “weaken the Hamas rule, in the right circumstances even bring it down,” not mentioning that Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people.

However, Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are not occurring in isolation, but in fact are part of a wider circle of American-led violence in the entire Middle East region, violence intended to secure US political and economic domination in the region. Additionally, these Israeli aggressions are being cynically used by the unpopular Olmert-led government as a panacea to forestall a collapse of the ruling coalition, specifically, the threats of the Shas political party to quit the coalition.

A residential building bombed during Israel's ongoing attacks in the Gaza Strip.

We, the undersigned civil society organizations in Jerusalem, condemn the Israeli military aggression in the form of genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.  We appeal to you, the International Committee of the Red Cross, as guardians of the Geneva Conventions, that states mainly, the protection of civilians in times of occupation.  The failure to protect, as is your responsibility, will undoubtedly further exacerbate the beginning of a Holocaust, as publicly stated by the Israeli war criminal, Matan Vilnai, on February 29, 2008. 

Since Wednesday, February 27, 2008, over 100 Palestinians, of which one third were children, have been brutally murdered by the Israeli occupation military forces.  The atrocities continue as we write this statement to you, and the world community watches in silence.

In light of the continuing massacres in Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank, we demand the High Contracting Parties, in particular Member States of the European Union, to fulfill their legal obligations under common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions and Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.  We call upon the Member States and the International Committee of the Red Cross to take the necessary measures to prosecute those responsible for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and to ensure that Israel, as an occupier, abide by the international humanitarian law and its legal obligations.

Destroyed car and buildings from Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

Statement

At approximately 10:30pm on Wednesday 27 February, an Israeli air strike hit the Ministry of Interior building in Gaza City. The attack also destroyed the head office of Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) in Gaza, and killed Mohammad Nasser al-Borey, a 6-month-old baby who was in his family home inside a United Nations school compound. The offices the al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights had vacated last month fearing such an attack have also been damaged. Over 30 civilians were injured in this specific attack.

The PMRS head office was housing the main PMRS clinic in the Gaza Strip, including its main pharmacy, a mobile clinic, a loan centre for persons with disabilities and all administrative offices. The mobile clinic, all the medicine supplies and most of the equipment have been destroyed. The building itself is badly damaged and cannot be used again without extensive repairs.

This bombardment is part of ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip: over the last 24 hours, there have been over 15 people killed (including at least three children) over 30 people injured (including several children) in over 25 Israeli air strikes and artillery strikes. One of the artillery strikes hit a crowd of children playing football near a wedding hall in the Jabalia refugee camp, killing two children and injuring five.