Israel has been bombing Gaza for eight days straight, all as part of what Israel says is a response to incendiary balloons sent from Gaza into Israeli territory.
The night sky in Gaza has lit up in hues of red and orange every night for more than a week, with Thursday marking the eight consecutive night of Israeli airstrikes.
Despite reported efforts by Egyptian officials to mediate a cease fire, the cross-border tensions don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, with the Hamas movement releasing a statement on Friday saying it “will not hesitate to wage a battle” with Israeli forces, “if the escalation, bombardment and siege [of Gaza] continues.”
The Israeli military has maintained that the airstrikes are targeting outposts belonging to the military wing of the Hamas movement, who Israel says is responsible for “explosive and arson balloons launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel”.
Local Palestinian media has reported several instances over the past week during which Israeli airstrikes have caused damage to residential and non-Hamas affiliated structures, and in some cases, injury to civilians.
Earlier this week, Wafa news agency reported that following an airstrike on the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, a 3-year-old girl, 11-year-old boy, and a woman were hospitalized after sustaining serious injuries. “Serious damage” was also reported on homes in the area.
Another woman was hospitalized in a separate airstrike in the Beit Hanoun Area in northern Gaza.
On Sunday, Palestinian media reported that a 35-year-old Palestinian man was critically injured after an unexploded Israeli ordnance detonated in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood of the southern Gaza Strip.
“We’ve been through this countless times,” Omar Ghraieb, 33, a Palestinian journalist told Mondoweiss, referring to Israeli airstrikes and assaults on Gaza, that in the past have lasted for weeks at a time.
“But it’s harder now with a global pandemic and the whole world falling apart, no electricity and no water,” he said.
Ghraieb pointed out that even though Gazans are “used to bad things and trauma,” situations like these “never get easier.”
“It’s just too much.”
Power cuts as COVID-19 rises
The latest bombardments come at a difficult time for Gaza’s 2 million residents, who suffer from daily issues with water, electricity, rising unemployment, and most recently, the coronavirus pandemic.
While Gaza has successfully managed to keep the rate of infection of the coronavirus remarkably low, compared to the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the health ministry there just reported nine new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of new cases since Wednesday to 18.
On top of the constant threat of COVID-19 in Gaza, earlier this week, Gaza’s sole power plant shut down and halted operations, due to an Israeli ban on fuel imports into the territory.
The ban on fuel was made punitively by Israel, also in response to the incendiary balloons that Israel says are the reason for the latest round of airstrikes.
While Gazans have been suffering from power cuts and hours-long blackouts for years, residents say that things are more difficult now because of COVID-19.
“We’ve been going through daily power outages well over a decade now,” Ghraieb said. “[But] it’s tougher with the summer, a global pandemic, Israeli attacks, and just no light or internet to stay connected to the world and share the hell you are living through.”
“You feel like you are isolated, and sentenced to live through a blazing hell,” he said.
On Tuesday, the ICRC expressed concerns over the power shortages in Gaza, warning that the latest blackouts could disproportionately affect the already crumbling health sector, as eight hours of electricity a day have been cut down to merely just three to four hours.
When asked what message he had for the international community about the latest attacks on Gaza, Ghraieb told Mondoweiss that he “has no message for a world that disappointed us for decades, and saw us being prey tp Israeli abuse, occupation, apartheid anf enthic cleansing.”
“The world doesn’t care about us, and I don’t beg for justice,” Ghraieb said. “Justice will be served eventually.”
So why doesn’t Israel at least attempt to negotiate with Hamas? Peace Now examines the hasbara-myths about negotiations:
https://peacenow.org/page.php?name=tsws-the-gaza-experience-proves-that-land-for-peace-doesnt-work#.X0FEgG5FxYc
They Say: In 2005, Israel gave Gaza to the Palestinians… Rather than getting peace in return, Israel got terror: Hamas control of Gaza, Qassam rockets raining down on southern Israel, and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. The Gaza experience proves that “land for peace” doesn’t work.
We Say: Violence in Gaza and southern Israel in the aftermath of Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” doesn’t discredit the concept of exchanging land for peace. Rather, it demonstrates the foolishness of the notion that Israel can substitute unilateral actions for negotiated agreements and expect results that are beneficial to Israel..We warned that by refusing to negotiate, or even effectively coordinate, the withdrawal with then-newly elected Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas..- Israel would undermine Abbas’ credibility and deliver a public relations coup to Hamas. (and more).
Let’s not forget:
“Israel’s” strategy regarding the Gaza Strip:
The collective punishment imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel in clear violation international humanitarian law, was carefully planned by “Israel’s” government in 2004:
“‘The significance of the [then proposed] disengagement plan [from the Gaza Strip, implemented in 2005] is the freezing of the peace process,’ Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass has told Ha’aretz. ‘And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a [U.S.] presidential blessing [i.e. President George Bush] and the ratification of both houses of Congress.’ Weisglass, who was one of the initiators of the disengagement plan, was speaking in an interview with Ha’aretz for the Friday Magazine. ‘The disengagement is actually formaldehyde,’ he said. ‘It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.’ (Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process, Ha’aretz, October 6, 2004)
Israel violently responding to balloons, stones, and homemade rockets again. The definition of overkill. End the occupation and land grabs – no more balloons, stones and homemade rockets. Simple.
Totally disingenuous reporting with no mention whatsoever of rocket attacks on the Israeli border town of Sderot.
Now Israeli officials are warning of an ecological disaster in southern Israel as sewage from the Gaza Strip is being deliberately channelled across the border by Palestinians in the Strip.
The incendiary and explosive-carrying balloons are causing extensive ecological damage: burning pasture, agricultural land and nature reserves. God knows how many animals have burned to death or are starving due to the loss of their habitat. Aside from setting fire to our country the Hamas terrorists are also launching potentially lethal rockets at our civilian population. I don’t see any condemnations from the anti-Israel commenters here.
It’s also strange that the writer totally ignores the issue of the Qatari money the uncertainty over which has triggered the latest round of attacks by the Hamas terrorists.