Israeli fire injures 13 Palestinians

A number of Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza on Wednesday

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166680.html

At least thirteen Palestinians, including children, have been injured in two separate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, medics say.

The incident took place during a brief incursion by Israeli forces into eastern Gaza City on Wednesday, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Eleven Palestinians were injured after an Israeli tank shell hit eastern part of the Gaza City.

The incident came shortly after a number of Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled into the Palestinian territory in an apparent effort to destroy agricultural lands along the occupied border zone.

Three members of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, and three children are among the injured.

"Three of our fighters were injured while firing two mortar shells towards Israeli tanks which were operating inside the (Gaza) border," a statement released by the group said.

Some of the injured are reported to be in critical condition, Gaza emergency services Chief Adham Abu Selmeya said, adding that they had been taken to the city's Shifa hospital.

Separately, two Palestinian workers were shot and injured by Israeli gunfire as they were collecting cement particles left behind from the houses that were destroyed in north of the town of Beit Lahiya near the border during the Israeli war on Gaza at the turn of 2009.

Due to a crippling Israeli blockade, Palestinians living in Gaza have no other choice but to obtain the required material for construction work from other buildings that have been destroyed in Israeli attacks.

Since March 2010, more than one hundred Palestinians have been shot by Israeli soldiers while collecting construction material.

Israel laid an economic siege on the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after Hamas took control of the enclave.

The Israeli-imposed blockade has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.

Some 1.5 million people are being denied their basic rights, including freedom of movement, and their rights to appropriate living conditions, work, health and education. Poverty and unemployment rates stand at approximately 80 percent and 60 percent, respectively, in the Gaza Strip.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the three-week Israeli land, sea and air offensive in the impoverished coastal sliver during the winter of 2008-2009. The offensive also inflicted $ 1.6 billion damage to the Gazan economy.

A United Nations inquiry led by the former South African judge, Richard Goldstone, detailed what investigators called Israeli actions "amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," during Israel's offensive against the Gaza Strip.