Army Bombards Several Areas In Gaza

Thursday February 24, 2011 02:16 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies

Only two hours after the Israeli Air Force bombarded Gaza killing one fighter and wounding sixteen residents, an F-16 Israeli fighter jet fired at least one missile at an agricultural facility north of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

The shelling led to excessive damage to property but caused no human casualties, local sources reported.
The army also bombarded another area south of Gaza City also causing damage but no injuries.
Furthermore, the Israeli Air Force fired a missile at fighters of the Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, wounding two of them.
A Wednesday morning attack on Al Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, led to the death of one fighter of the Al Quds Brigades.
Eleven Palestinians were also injured when the Israeli army bombarded Malka Junction in Gaza City, two of the wounded are in serious conditions.

Fighter Killed By Army Fire In Gaza

Thursday February 24, 2011 01:51 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies

The Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, reported that one of its fighters died of wounds suffered during clashes with Israeli forces invading Gaza City on Wednesday morning.

The Brigades stated that the fighter, Adel Jundiyya, 25, was seriously injured when the army bombarded an area east of Gaza City, and died of his wounds during evening hours, the Palestinian Information Center reported.

It added that fighters exchanged fire with undercover forces of the Israeli army during an invasion that followed the shelling.

Also on Wednesday, eleven Palestinians were injured when the army bombarded Malka Junction, east of Gaza City; two of the wounded are in serious conditions.

Gaza’s health ministry said those killed were Palestinian fishermen working with their nets on the shore [EPA]

Israeli soldiers have killed three Palestinian fishermen along the Gaza-Israeli border, Palestinian medics have said.

Gaza’s ministry of health said on Thursday that the men were killed overnight in the north of Gaza, near Beit Lahiya, while they were working with their nets on the shore.

The medics said that the victims were shot by Israeli forces before dawn.

But the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in a statement said the men were “militants”.

“Overnight, an IDF force identified a number of Palestinian militants approaching the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip, in an attempt to plant explosive devices.

“Thwarting the attempt, the force fired at the militants, hitting three of them,” the statement said.

Residents said they had heard gunfire in the area.

Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for the Hamas-run emergency services, told AFP news agency that the men died after being hit by a tank shell and machine gun fire in an area called Al-Waha which lies close to both the shore and the northern border with Israel.

Abu Selmiya identified the men as Jihad Khalaf, 20, Talaat al-Awagh, 25 and Ashraf al-Kteifan, 29.

Increased tensions

Israel often carries out strikes against Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Increased tensions over the Gaza border have raised concerns about a new Israeli invasion of the coastal enclave like the devastating 22-day offensive which began at the end of December 2008.

Fourteen hundred Palestinians were killed in the operation, more than half of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis, 10 of them soldiers, also died.

Overcoming Israel’s attempts to discredit protest
Ismail Patel, The Electronic Intifada, 15 February 2011

Instead of addressing human rights concerns, Israel seeks to delegitimize those leveling the charges. (ActiveStills)

In recent months, Israel’s tactics to discredit legitimate protestors have become increasingly Orwellian as it steps up its campaign against human rights activists within the country and abroad, especially in the United Kingdom.

Human rights groups in Israel will now face scrutiny following the formation of a government-approved parliamentary committee to investigate Israeli organizations which criticize Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Thus, instead of tackling legitimate human rights concerns, Israel seeks to delegitimize those leveling the charges, despite the masses of evidence to support their claims.

Israel is also promoting and consolidating the Zionist narrative in the UK, using intimidation and guilt against those challenging Israel’s occupation, human rights abuses and its expansionist aspirations.

Two leading Israeli organizations with close links to the government, the Reut Institute and the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, both warned recently that London was becoming a center for anti-Israel activity culminating, they claim, in a rise of anti-Semitism because British Muslim-led organizations are being given free rein.

Reut boasts on its website that is seeks “to provide real-time, long-term strategic decision-support to Israeli leaders and decision-makers,” hardly making it an independent observer. It published a report on London in November titled “Building a Political Firewall against the Assault on Israel’s Legitimacy,” which claimed that London is the “Mecca of Delegitimization” and a key player in all major recent “delegitimization” campaigns concerning Israel (download the full report [PDF]).

“Delegitimization” is the term coined by the Reut Institute last year to describe a whole variety of activities by Palestinian and solidarity activists who call for Israel to end its occupation, abide by international law and respect the human rights of all Palestinians wherever they are.

Reut’s report on London was followed by another from the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs which spared virtually no organization in London connected to the anti-war movement from the accusation of being “delegitimizers.”

Common to both of these reports was the labeling of British Muslim organizations as “Islamist,” drawing on their ancestral and religious links to imply they had ties with Iran, Hizballah and Hamas, and thus present an existential threat to the democratic West. By drawing such spurious links, Israel and its apologists hope to demonize British citizens, shore up political support for Israel and score easy political gains by appealing to Islamophobia and fear.

This spin has been quickly picked up by Israel’s acolytes in the UK media. On 29 December 2010, The Times reported the ludicrous and baseless accusations by the Israeli defense ministry that the London-based Palestine Return Centre was involved in “terror-related activities” and served as a front for Hamas (James Hider, “City condemned as ‘hub of hubs’“).

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph a few days earlier,
Andrew Gilligan bemoaned that the Charity Commission, the UK’s charity watchdog, has lost its bite when it concluded that it “found no evidence of irregular or improper use of the Charity’s funds” in reference to separate accusations made in the Telegraph against another British Charity — Muslim Aid.

Thus, by failing to follow Israel’s lead and implicate innocent charities like Muslim Aid in supporting terrorist networks in Palestine, Gilligan, rather like Israel, chose to demonize those who fail to toe the line. We should take pride in the fact that the Charities Commission acts independently, rather than succumbing to political pressure to withdraw charitable status.

While the fear of “Islamism” is being pumped in the veins of one arm of the nation, the other arm is being injected with the false idea that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. That is a point contested by, among others, many British Jewish individuals and organizations who stand in solidarity with Palestinians in calling for an end to Israel’s occupation and other human rights abuses.

Resorting to accusing Israel’s critics of “anti-Semitism” is an old tactic that is being revived with new zeal in an attempt to intimidate into silence those calling for an end to Israel’s impunity and exceptionalism.

What Zionists fail to understand is that the Free Palestine movement has permeated across all sections of British society and religious affiliation is incidental. Israel’s divide-and-rule tactics have not succeeded in breaking the will of a brutalized Palestinian population, and they will not work against the solidarity movement in the UK either.

While continuing to build illegal colonies on Palestinian land; evicting Palestinians from Jerusalem; subjugating millions through routine, brutal violence and killing; and corraling Palestinians in elaborate systems of movement control, such as the illegal West Bank wall and the blockade of Gaza, Israel insists that it always be presented as peaceful, reasonable, humane, compassionate and magnanimous. These virtues are extolled and celebrated in Judaism, as in many other religions, but they are not ones that have ever been practiced by Israel toward Palestinians.

There is no doubt that at present Israel has the sympathy of the UK government. But the public is more and more aware of the realities and it is doubtful that the Zionist offensive can silence British people’s sense of justice and intimidate and blackmail us into thinking that by criticizing Israel’s practices and calling for justice for all, we are attacking Judaism.

The British sense of justice will overcome attempts by the Zionist lobby of equating anti-Semitism with illegal Zionist occupation and practices in West Bank and Gaza Strip. These tactics are intended to divide people from each other and to sow sectarianism and fear. We mustn’t allow them to succeed.

Ismail Patel is Chair of UK based NGO Friends of Al-Aqsa, and author of several books including Palestine: Beginner’s Guide and Medina to Jerusalem: Encounters with the Byzantine Empire.