- Perhaps suggesting a larger-scale planned offensive,
recent violent Israeli outbreaks struck Gaza, the West Bank, and Israeli/Lebanon
border, the first there since the summer 2006 war.
-
- Like Cast Lead, it was Israeli aggression - violent,
lawless and unrelenting, a scorched-earth blitzkrieg, inflicting vast destruction,
causing billions in damage, killing over 1,000 Lebanese, injuring thousands
more, and displacing around a million others (about one-fourth of the country's
four million population), including over 300,000 children fleeing north
for their lives. In the end, Hezbollah handed Israel a humiliating defeat.
Perhaps revenge is planned.
-
- On August 4, Ma'an News reported that Israeli and Lebanese
troops clashed - exchanging fire, killing four Lebanese citizens, including
three soldiers. One Israeli soldier was killed. Reports said violence erupted
after Israeli soldiers crossed the border, then tried uprooting a tree
to install a surveillance camera and equipment, a chain of events leaving
five dead. An IDF spokesman said soldiers hadn't entered Lebanon, but were
between the UN-administered Blue Line and Israel's border fence.
-
- Lebanese accounts had Israeli soldiers in the area, removing
trees to install surveillance equipment. Israel called it "routine
maintenance." Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned what he
called Israeli violation of Lebanese sovereignty. Lebanon's parliament
speaker, Nabih Berri, wants a complaint against Israel filed with the UN
Security Council. Israel may file its own in response, its Foreign Ministry
saying "Israel sees the firing on an IDF force which acted in coordination
with UNIFEL (Blue Helmets) in the border region in the last hours a blunt
violation of Security Resolution 1701."
-
- Hariri wants the UN to demand Israel implement Resolution
1701, calling for demilitarization of the area within the Blue Line where
UNIFEL troops are stationed. Throughout its history, Israel has spurned
all UN resolutions criticizing its policies and actions.
-
- On August 3, Haaretz writer Jack Khoury headlined, "(Hassan)
Nasrallah: Hezbollah will respond if Israel attacks Lebanon's army,"
saying:
-
- In a speech marking four years since the end of the 2006
war, Hezbollah's leader said:
-
- "I say honestly, that in any place where the Lebanese
army will be assaulted and there's a presence for the resistance, and it
is capable, the resistance will not stand silent, or quiet or restrained....Israel's
aggression against Lebanon has not stopped, and what happened today only
proves that. Since the ceasefire and until today, Israel has blatantly
violated (the UN Security Council resolution) more than 7,000 times, and
no one has lifted a finger, not even the Security Council."
-
- He also praised Lebanon's army and said Hezbollah was
on highest alert during the incident. "I was personally in contact
with (Hezbollah) commanders in the area, and I asked them not to act before
receiving a direct order. We announced that we would not initiate any activity
as long as we did not receive authorization from the highest command of
the Lebanese army."
-
- On August 5, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy headlined, "Only
we're allowed," saying:
-
- "After Tuesday's border clash, Israel will continue
to ignore UNIFEL and the Lebanese army....Those bastards, the Lebanese,
changed the rules. Scandalous. Word is, they have a brigade commander who's
determined to protect his country's sovereignty. Scandalous."
-
- Levy explained that in Gaza a "fence is a fence."
Getting near it is enough to get shot and killed. In the West Bank, nearly
the entire Separation Wall ignores the Green Line. Palestinians are forbidden
to cross.
-
- In Lebanon, it's different. Israel makes its own rules,
ignoring "fences," crossing the border illegally, invading Lebanese
air space, at times aggressively. Until 2000, Israeli forces occupied South
Lebanon for 18 years, its so-called "security zone." Today, all
Palestine is occupied since 1967.
-
- "We're allowed" to be there. Palestinians "aren't
allowed" to resist. "We're allowed" to enter Lebanon. "They're
forbidden" from reacting. Try it, and "Lebanon must learn a lesson,
and we will teach it. And what about us? We don't have any lessons to learn.
We'll continue to ignore UNIFEL," UN resolutions, the rule of law,
"the Lebanese Army and its new brigade commander, who has the nerve
to think that his job is to protect his country's sovereignty." Scandalous.
-
- Israeli Provocations in Gaza
-
- Six days of Israeli air strikes left several dead and
dozens wounded. In addition, IDF shellfire killed one Palestinian and wounded
two or more others. The attacks are the latest provocations occurring regularly
without warning.
-
- The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported
the air strikes, one against Hamas member 'Isa al-Batran from the al-Boreij
refugee camp, another against Gaza City's runway, targeting security vehicles
near the presidential compound. Neighboring homes and buildings were damaged.
Residents were terrified. At the same time, tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border
were attacked, ones providing essential supplies prohibited under siege.
No casualties were reported.
-
- The next day, a missile killed Izziddin al-Qassam Brigade
member 'Isa Abdul Hadi al-Batran in Central Gaza, the attack destroying
area residential structures. Earlier assassination attempts failed, the
latest taking his life, his wife and five children.
-
- Near Erez crossing with no provocation, Israeli snipers
shot three workers, collecting materials from rubble stockpiles. Israel
maintains a 67 square km Gazan agricultural area "no-go zone,"
regularly shooting Palestinians who enter, including farmers on their own
land.
-
- PCHR called the attacks "part of a series of the
Israeli war crimes committed which reflect (its) disregard for the lives
of Palestinians."
-
- On August 2, a massive explosion rocked Gaza's Deir al-Balah
refugee camp injuring 58, including 13 children and nine women, one suffering
a miscarriage as a result. It also destroyed seven houses and damaged 30
others.
-
- The Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas' armed wing) issued
an August 3 press release saying:
-
- "We confirm that what happened resulted from a Zionist
security operation intended to assassinate field leaders in the" Brigades.
-
- Eyewitnesses said bombs placed in a house belonging to
senior Hamas official Alaa al-Danaf exploded, initial reports saying Israeli
missile strikes caused it. Al-Danaf wasn't killed.
-
- On August 4, in a series of daily attacks, an Israeli
air strike killed one Palestinian and wounded another east of Khan Younis
in Gaza. Nearby residents are reminded of last winter's Cast Lead, again
seeing dead, wounded, destruction, and scattered debris, part of Israel's
campaign to traumatize them.
-
- PCHR launched a "serious and comprehensive investigation"
to determine what happened in Deir al-Balah - whether stored bombs exploded,
sabotage occurred, or other factors were involved. Israeli involvement
is always suspected, especially since days of air strikes preceded it,
regular attacks against Gazan civilians, leaving dead and wounded behind.
-
- Preceding the latest attacks, Haaretz reported rockets
fired at Israel's southern port city of Eilat. No casualties were reported.
Another struck Aqaba, Jordan, killing one civilian and wounding four others.
Israel blamed Hamas, but Jordanian security forces said they came from
Egypt's Sinai or southern Jordan, not Gaza, Hamas strongly denying involvement.
-
- Since Cast Lead ended in January 2009, Hamas maintained
a unilateral ceasefire, Israel violating theirs repeatedly, recent air
and ground attacks the latest provocations, countered by Palestinian resistance
factions (unaffiliated with Hamas), firing one or more Grad-type rockets,
hitting an area in Ashkelon, Israel. No deaths or injuries were reported.
-
- On August 1, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemned
the Israeli attacks, warned of new escalation, and asked the international
community to intervene "to ensure that civilians and their property
are protected in the occupied Palestinian territory."
-
- Regular West Bank Incursions and Repression
-
- In late July, PCHR reported the following:
-
- -- Israel continued to impose free movement restrictions
throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including access to the city;
currently 630 permanent manned and unmanned checkpoints are maintained
as well as 60 - 80 "flying" (temporary) ones erected every week;
-
- -- Separation Wall construction continues, nearly all
on confiscated Palestinian land, around 12% of the West Bank when completed;
-
- -- at least 65% of the main roads leading to 18 Palestinian
communities are closed or fully controlled by Israeli forces;
-
- -- around 500 km of restricted roads cross the West Bank;
one-third or more of the Territory, including East Jerusalem, is inaccessible
to Palestinians without very hard to get permits;
-
- -- peaceful demonstrators are regularly assaulted, injured,
arrested, and at times killed;
-
- -- in one week, Israeli forces conducted 25 incursions
into West Bank communities, and five others in Gaza; WB ones included al-Mazra'a
al-Gharbiya village near Ramallah; 'Anata village near Jerusalem; Jayous
village near Qaqlilya; the al-Fawar refugee camp near Hebron; 'Allar and
Baqa al-Sharqiya villages near Tulkarm; Dura, Ethna, Bani Na'im, Sa'ir,
Nouba, and Beit Oula villages near Hebron; the town of Salfit; al-Shawawra
village near Bethlehem; al-Zawia village near Salfit; 'Anabta and Kufor
al-Labad villages near Tulkarm; the city of Tulkarm; the city of Qalqilya;
Shwaika suburb near Tulkarm; Jalbourn and Deir Abu Da'if villages near
Jenin; and on August 5 the Al-Frahen area near Khan Younis in central Gaza
with bulldozers and tanks, firing on farmers and other civilians; no injuries
were reported;
-
- -- in all of them, excessive force was used; streets
were patrolled; homes invaded and searched; contents damaged or destroyed;
arrests made; and civilians shot; one death was reported, others wounded,
what happens regularly throughout the Territories in violation of international
law, what Israel hasn't recognized, respected, or obeyed for over six decades,
targeting protected persons and citizens they're supposed to safeguard.
-
- Why PCHR and other human rights organizations want Fourth
Geneva's High Contracting Parties (HCPs) to fulfill "their legal and
moral responsibility (to) ensure Israel's respect for Convention in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, (and) take effective steps" to demand
compliance, what must and will happen with or without HCP help, pressure
building to assure it, but not soon or easily.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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