Israeli jets bombard Gaza Strip

An Israeli F16 fighter jet (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/167083.html

Israeli warplanes have once again targeted the Gaza Strip by bombarding two sites in the coastal enclave, Palestinian sources say.

Israeli jets early Saturday bombed two training camps in the southern town of Khan Yunis and the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, AFP reported.

There are no immediate reports of casualties.

The Israeli military refused to comment on the move as Tel Aviv escalated its ground and air strikes on the besieged territory, killing civilians and destroying property.

On Thursday, an Israeli unmanned plane reportedly launched a missile attack on the southern Gaza Strip, inflicting injuries on six Palestinians.

The drone strike hit a vehicle that was travelling in the southern city of Rafah along the coastal sliver's border with Egypt.

It followed several aerial assaults across the besieged enclave, which was reported to have caused no casualties.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel's F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters carried out multiple airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.

In June 2007, Israel and Egypt placed the territory under siege and imposed an unprecedented blockade on nearly all movement and supplies in and out of the coastal strip.

Poverty, unemployment, lack of medicine and medical equipment are the main issues in the Gaza Strip, while most Palestinian children are physically stunted from malnutrition.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of a humanitarian crisis for Gaza's 1.5 million residents.

Human rights groups have also criticized the international community for its silence on the siege on Gaza and the 22-day Israeli war in December 2008 that shattered the stagnant economy of the territory.

The offensives killed more than 1,400 Gazans and inflicted a damage of above $1.6 billion on the territory's economy.

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.

Israel destroys tents, wells in WB

Israeli bulldozers destroying tents and wells near the West Bank city of al-Khalil on February 22, 2011

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166600.html

Israeli troops have demolished 12 tents and two wells, including one from the Roman era, near the West Bank city of al-Khalil, witnesses say.

The incident happened on Tuesday near al-Khalil's Sussiya village where Azmi Shiyuki, a village official, said one of the wells dated back to the Roman era, AFP reported.

The United Nations has repeatedly condemned Israel for defying international calls to halt its demolition and settlement construction activities.

On February 1, the United Nations Organization for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs condemned Israel's demolition of cisterns and wells.

"It is difficult to understand the reasoning behind the destruction of basic rain water collection systems, some of them very old, which serve marginalized rural and herder Palestinian communities where water is already scarce and where drought is an ever-present threat," said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory.

He added that such deliberate demolitions in the occupied territories are also in contravention of Israel's obligations under the international law.

In October 2010, Oscar Fernandez Taranco, the assistant UN secretary general for political affairs, criticized Israel for jeopardizing efforts to resolve the impasse in talks with the Palestinian Authority.

“We have a brief and crucial window to overcome the current impasse. The UN secretary general continues to believe that if the door to peace closes, it will be very hard to reopen,” Taranco told the UN Security Council.

Israel has been persistently proceeding with the demolition of Palestinian structures and construction of its settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

'Israel's days of occupation numbered'

Palestinians wave an Egyptian flag in jubilation after receiving the news of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/164824.html

As Egyptians rejoice at the ouster of their president, Tel Aviv worries a new government could jeopardize its 32-year-old peace treaty with Cairo and threaten its occupation of Palestinian land, a report says.

Israel is openly concerned that if the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power, the 1979 Camp David treaty will be abolished and could also create an Egypt that is antithetical to Tel Aviv regime.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's fall from power has deprived Israel of its only reliable ally in the Middle East and has crystallized a debate among top Israeli officials over the Egyptian government's reluctance to pursue peace with its adversaries, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Mubarak, for the past four years, helped Israel to impose a crippling siege on the occupied Palestinian territory, keeping Gaza's 1.4 million population trapped in the sliver strip.

In a stern warning to Israel on February 3, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, Assam el-Erian, told Israel's Channel 10 television that “Tel Aviv has nothing to fear but its own crimes."

Another worry for Israel, according to analysts, is that with the downfall of Mubarak and his Vice President Omar Suleiman, the days of Israeli occupation in Palestinian territories are numbered.

Suleiman himself was in constant contact with Israeli leaders to maintain a quiet occupation of the country. That is why Palestinians, as well as some Israelis who opposed occupation, are celebrating with the Egyptian people.