Israeli offensive continues in Gaza

As the world's attention has been focused on Lebanon, the conflict in the Gaza Strip has quickly become obscured despite the continuing intensity of the Israeli offensive. Dozens of Israeli tanks and bulldozers backed by missile-firing drone aircraft pushed into northern Gaza on July 26, touching off a day-long battle that killed at least 23 Palestinians, including 11 militants. Medics said two girls and one an infant died when a tank shell struck a house near Jabalya. A three-year-old girl was also killed later in the day. Nearly 75 people were wounded, including a cameraman for a Palestinian television station. Israeli shells struck at a rate of one a minute throughout the afternoon, with the buildings of Beit Hanoun shaking under the sustained fire. The Israeli army said it would continue to "act with determination and employ all means at its disposal" to end Palestinian rocket attacks and rescue Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was captured by militants in late June. The day's violence ended talk of a cease-fire. "There's no talk at all about a truce anymore," said Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad militant group. Another Islamic Jihad political leader, Khader Habib, pledged to take the fight deep into Israel. He called on militants to "carry out martyrdom operations in the heart of Israeli cities." He said they would spare civilians as much as possible and focus on military targets. Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called on the world to remember the plight of the Palestinians despite the conflict in Lebanon. "This is the forgotten war," he said. "We urge the international community to intervene." On July 29, Israel bombed a suspected weapons factory in Gaza City used by Hamas. In a separate strike, Israel fired a missile into the home of a member of Hamas elsewhere in Gaza City. The house was destroyed, but there were no casualties. Israeli aircraft bombed the homes of two Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip the following day, wounding two people, witnesses said. One missile struck the house of the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, the coalition of militants said. Flying debris and glass wounded the militant's brother and sister-in-law in a neighboring house. Palestinians fired six rockets into southern Israel on Aug. 1, damaging a home, but causing no injuries. Israel responded with fire against what it said was a rocket-launching cell. But Palestinians said a teenage boy and a young woman were killed near the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, and four civilians were wounded. The Israeli army said last week that it would continue to "act with determination and employ all means at its disposal" to end the rocket attacks and rescue Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was captured by militants in June. Israeli forces have killed at least 140 Palestinians since it began its assault. About half were civilians. Many of the Israeli military's tactics have called the legitimacy and intent of their operations into question. In the past five weeks, the foreign ministry and the interior ministry in Gaza city have been smashed, prompting speculation that Israel's offensive is not only aimed at securing the release of Shalit, or bringing an end to the Qassam rocket attacks that have caused little damage and few casualties. "At first we thought they were bombing the Hamas leaders by targeting Haniyeh and Zahar," a Palestinian official said, referring to the Palestinian Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. "But when they targeted the economy ministry we decided they wanted to completely destroy the entire government." The only functioning crossing, Erez, is closed to Palestinians who are almost hermetically sealed inside the Strip. As the local economy has been strangled by donor countries, Gaza City's 1,800 municipal employees have not been paid since the beginning of April. Families are borrowing to the hilt, selling their jewelry, ignoring electricity bills and tax demands and throwing themselves on the mercy of shopkeepers. The situation has become unbearable for Gazans, says Nabil Shaath, a veteran Fatah official who is a former foreign and planning minister. In an apparent effort to minimize civilian casualties, Israel has begun calling individual Palestinian homes to warn residents of an impending airstrike. As in the past, the Israelis have dropped leaflets from planes urging residents to flee areas where militants are operating. But such warnings are often ignored. Gentle Sharif, a Palestinian policeman in Gaza City, said he was on duty last week when he received a call on his cell phone from a man who said he was from the Israeli military. "Gentle, evacuate your home immediately because we are about to bomb it," the caller said. Sharif alerted his family and neighbors, and they immediately cleared out. Thirty-five minutes after the call, a powerful bomb dropped on Sharif's home, turning it into rubble. Another Palestinian resident, Mohammed Deeb, described a similar scenario. He said the voice on the phone sounded friendly enough: "Hi, my name is Danny. I'm an officer in Israeli military intelligence. In one hour we will blow up your house." Deeb took the telephone call seriously and told his family and neighbors to get out of the building. An hour later, an Israeli helicopter fired three missiles at the four-story building in Gaza City, destroying the ground floor. Raji Serrani, the director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which has collected several examples of the tactic, described it as "psychological warfare," adding: "Since when did Israel feel the need to warn people that they were about to bomb their homes? They are simply playing with people's minds and inflicting a new panic in Gaza." The family of Ibrahim Mahmoud in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza were ordered to leave their home by an Israeli intelligence officer. The officer called back one hour later to say she had made a mistake. She ended her call to Mahmoud by telling him to "be safe." Fears that Israel will destroy homes are widespread: 900 residents of the al Nader towers, a complex of 12 apartment blocks in the north of Gaza, fled last week after 10 Israeli shells landed close to them, killing three residents. According to the PCHR, Israel had also informed Palestinian police that they planned to demolish the towers.