Israel's 'Autumn Clouds' kill 63 Palestinians

At least 19 Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded when five Israeli shells hit a row of houses in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun on the morning of Nov. 8, just one day after Israel halted a bloody week-long military incursion into the town. The dead and injured–including nine children, four women and six men–were sleeping when the first shell hit at around 6am. It was the deadliest single Israeli strike killing civilians since the second Palestinian Intifada (uprising) erupted six years ago amid a deadlock in peace negotiations. In response to the attack, Hamas called for attacks on the US and ended a truce with Israel that has been in place since the militant group came to power. "America is offering political, financial and logistic cover for the Zionist occupation crimes, and it is responsible for the Beit Hanoun massacre. Therefore, the people and the nation all over the globe are required to teach the American enemy tough lessons," Hamas said in a statement sent to the Associated Press. In all, 63 Palestinians have died and over 100 have been wounded during the Israeli operation dubbed "Operation Autumn Clouds." Israel says the Beit Hanoun, which has borne the brunt of "Operation Autumn Clouds," has become a launchpad for rocket fire into Israel. Israeli military engineering units dug a trench 2 meters wide and 1 meter deep around Beit Hanoun, an overcrowded town of 43,000 people, to isolate the area during the incursion. Israel's offensive is also aimed at securing the release of an Israeli soldier captured in a cross-border raid on June 25. Palestinian foreign minister Mahmud Zahar warned on Nov. 4 that the life of the conscript could be endangered by the operation. The incursion, the latest in more than a dozen offensives in Beit Hanoun in recent years, has become the biggest assault in Gaza since June. Israeli special forces first entered the town of Beit Hanoun in the early hours of Nov. 1 and at least six Palestinian gunmen and one Israeli soldier died in that first skirmish. On Nov. 2, in the midst of the incursion in Beit Hanoun, Israeli troops issued a call through loudspeakers for all men in the town between the age of 16 and 45 to present themselves for questioning. Over 4,000 men in the town were detained and questioned, with over 100 still being held. At the same time, a group of armed Palestinian fighters from several militant factions took up positions inside a mosque and fought gun battles overnight with Israeli troops and tanks. With the siege continuing overnight, local Palestinian radio called on women, both inside Beit Hanoun and outside, to march on the town center to help the gunmen leave the mosque. The Israeli army was accused of opening fire on crowds of unarmed, veiled women marching to the mosque, leaving two dead and a dozen injured. "There were about 30 women in our group, all in the main street. We were moving into the town and passing by the Israeli tanks. We carried two white flags," said Elham Hamad, 48. "They didn't ask us to stop and then suddenly we saw them shooting at us," she said. "I was hit but there were no ambulances. We were calling for them but there was nothing," said Elham Hamad, 48. Israel insisted that its soldiers had used only sniper fire to pick off Palestinian gunmen using the women as human shields to escape from a mosque where they had been trapped. The Israeli version was rejected by witnesses and Palestinian victims who said that they had come under direct fire from heavy machine-guns mounted on Israeli tanks in the town of Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza. One of the women suffered such severe facial injuries that medical authorities struggled to identify her. "Look at my left foot," shrieked another, Asma Hamed, 23, from a bed at the Alawda Hospital. "I was shot from a tank only a 100 meters away and the bullet broke the bones in my foot." Her sister-in-law Taghrid Hamad, 20, was hit in the leg and almost died from loss of blood. She was in intensive care last night in Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza. A much larger group of around 500 women, all veiled and unarmed, gathered from other towns in Gaza and tried to approach Beit Hanoun. A local cameraman filming events was hit in the chest by a bullet and taken to hospital where his condition was described as critical. The Israeli army said that as many as 3,000 women reached the mosque in a number of groups, allowing the gunmen to escape. By the time Israeli troops entered the building it was empty. On Nov. 3 two brothers, aged 25 and 26, and a 16-year-old boy were killed in an afternoon helicopter raid in Jabaliya. The armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement said the brothers belonged to the faction. Also on Nov. 3, two volunteer paramedics with the Palestinian ambulance service, both 17, were killed in an Israeli missile strike in the town of Beit Lahiya, next to Beit Hanoun. The International Red Cross harshly criticized Israel, saying the paramedics and their vehicle were clearly marked. "The ICRC is appalled by this failure to protect personnel engaged in emergency medical duties," a statement released on Nov. 5 said. A crowd of around 100 paramedics marched through Gaza City on Nov. 5 to protest against the deaths. During the brief respite in the assult on Nov. 4, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, delivered water, food and other basic aid to the town, as its Gaza director John Ging called the situation there "desperate." "Death, destruction and despair are the terms to describe the situation," Ging told reporters. "The situation is very grim. The civilian population is living in a very difficult situation. There is shortage of food, of water, there is destruction and devastation everywhere.... The entire population is now living in fear, it's extremely dangerous." Among the dead in Beit Hanoun on Nov. 4 was a girl aged 12, shot in the head by an Israeli sniper. Beit Hanoun residents warned of a burgeoning humanitarian crisis. "We have electricity, but no drinking water," said one 28-year-old woman, who declined to be identified because of the military presence in town. She said there were shortages of staples like milk and diapers and residents were being forced to share food. She also said tanks were visible from her home, and her husband was taken away by Israeli troops for questioning. "I don't know what's happened to him," she said. The latest Gaza offensive has brought international criticism. "The right of all states to defend themselves does not justify disproportionate use of violence or actions which are contrary to international humanitarian law," said a statement from the Finnish president of the EU. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and her French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy also expressed concern. "We deeply regret the deaths of civilians on both sides of the conflict and would like to remind all parties of their obligation under international humanitarian law to avoid civilian casualties," said Beckett. "I call on all the parties to show restraint and above all to avoid an escalation of violence," Douste-Blazy told reporters. In a weekend statement, the EU called on both Israel and the Palestinians to halt the violence because of the casualties, but aimed its sharpest barb at Israel. While Britain, France and the United Nations called for restraint and avoiding further civilian casualties, Israel's most powerful ally the United States blamed the violence on Palestinian militants, saying the Jewish state was defending itself. In Jerusalem, the newest member of the Isreali cabinet, Avigdor Lieberman, sparked criticism when he said Arabs in Israel should lose their citizenship so that Israel could become as "homogeneous" a Jewish state as possible. Lieberman, a far-right politician born in Moldova, was brought in to shore up Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's weak coalition but has provoked concern with his outspoken views. "The source of the conflict here is not territory, it is not occupation, it is not settlers," he told Israel's Army Radio. "It is a clash between two people and two religions. Anywhere in the world where there are two peoples and two religions, whether it's the former Yugoslavia or the Caucasus region in Russia or in Northern Ireland, there is conflict." He argues that Arab villages in Israel should be transferred to the West Bank and residents stripped of Israeli citizenship. Arabs who stayed in Israel should be made to take a loyalty test. Israel's Arabs make up a fifth of the population. "The answer is exchanges of land and populations and making a homogeneous, Jewish country as much as possible," he said. "I don't know why the Palestinians deserve a country that is clean of Jews... and we are becoming a binational country, where 20 percent of the population are minorities. If we want to keep this a Jewish, Zionist country, there is no other solution."