Home > Palestinian fury at bloody Israeli strike on Gaza camp

Palestinian fury at bloody Israeli strike on Gaza camp

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 9 September 2004
7 comments

By Eric Silver in Jerusalem and Sa’id Ghazali in Gaza

Thousands of Palestinians marched in angry protest yesterday to the funerals of 14 Hamas militants killed overnight on Monday when Israeli helicopters rocketed a training field in Shadaiyeh, one of the most crowded and impoverished districts of Gaza City.

It was the bloodiest carnage in Gaza since May, when 31 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers died in a week of heavy fighting.

Doctors at Shifa hospital had difficulty identifying five of yesterday’s dead, whose bodies had been ripped apart by the explosions. Dr Akram Abu Hasira, the medical director, said five of the 26 wounded were in intensive care and six in the operating theatre.

Led by masked men brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles, mourners bore the bodies, wrapped in black and green Islamic flags, to the cemetery through an avenue of burning tyres. "Allah is great," they chanted. "The response," a Hamas leaflet threatened, "will be swift and like an earthquake". The helicopters struck soon after midnight a week after two Hamas suicide bombers killed 16 bus passengers in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba. Captain Jacob Dallal, a military spokesman, said: "We will attack Hamas wherever and whenever we can. This is war. They’re blowing up our buses in Beersheba; we’re going to attack their terror bases."

The army claimed the target, a football pitch named after the assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was used for training terrorists to plant and activate explosive devices, to launch rocket-propelled grenades and homemade rockets and to infiltrate Israeli settlements and military bases.

"We have every right to attack such a base," Captain Dallal insisted. "The people there were all terrorists."

Sami Abu Zuhrei, a Hamas spokesman, was undeterred. "We will continue our struggle," he vowed. "This massacre will not weaken the resistance. We cannot stand by and not react to the crimes of the Israeli occupation."

Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian Prime Minister, said any act of revenge by Hamas would be justified.

Although the Islamic militants at first claimed the field was being used for a "military scout camp", almost all of the dead and wounded were bearded men in their twenties wearing camouflage fatigues.

Samer Ahmad, 29, was sitting with two friends outside his house, which overlooks the field, at the time of the attack. "About 50 uniformed men came after evening prayers and stayed until after midnight," he said. "They were marching and doing military training.

"I saw a light and a big explosion. It was so powerful that I felt a pain in my chest. The helicopters fired five or six missiles altogether. I saw a man with blood all over his face and one arm blown off. I moved his body, but he was already dead."

In Shifa hospital, Abu Ramadan was being treated for a broken neck, broken arms and legs. He was unable to speak. His brother, who declined to give his name, said Abu Ramadan had been hit by the first missile and flung about 12 metres.

Earlier this week, Israeli bulldozers began flattening the ground for a southern stretch of its controversial separation barrier. Last week’s bombers had infiltrated Beersheba from the West Bank town of Hebron in an area where the planned fence had yet to be built.

Shaul Mofaz, the Defence Minister, said the barrier would be erected closer to the pre-1967 border than originally intended. Israel would try to comply with a ruling by its own Supreme Court that the route must balance Israeli security with Palestinian human rights. A new route for the northern fence is due to be published this month, which is expected to leave many West Bank Jewish settlements outside.

* Five Palestine football players were refused permission by Israel to travel to Qatar for today’s World Cup Asian zone qualifier against Uzbekistan, a Palestine soccer official has said. "We have a serious problem here," said Tayseer Barakat, director for international affairs at the Palestine Football Association (PFA). "With the match being tomorrow, they have given up hope." Palestine are having to play their "home" games in Qatar for security reasons.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=559275

Forum posts

  • I strongly condem the Palestinian Authority, especially the Prime Minister for his support to the Terriot act of Hamas. I like Isreal to use more strong force against the Hamas and destroy them from their very home before they have a chance to strike. They are simply inhuman and barbaric.

    Hardcore Isreal supporter from the Pacific....

    • Condemn the terrorist Sharon, a war criminal with blood and genocide on his hands. Let the Palestinian freedom fighters have access to weapons to protect their families and property from the zionist terrorists. Let the children of palenstine replace the stones with grenades and watch Israeli terror tanks and bulldozers blow up at every corner of their threatened streets.

  • Isreal is willing to negotiate and reach settlement to terror, however Palestines are not doing enough. It will all stop as soon as Palestinians says; "All right no more suicide bombers and we want independence and freedom". Those simple words will simply solve the blood shed and peace will be experience forever in the Middleeast. PLEASE PALESTINIAN TRY THIS OUT AND SEE WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT... Best of luck Palestine and Live forever Isreal the Choosen ones....

    • Let the Palestinians fight to free their country from the neo-nazi jews. The illegal immigrant zionist will have to live in fear every day of their miserable lives. Until they return to their Eastern European homelands where their forefathers migrated from. GO BACK HOME or live in fear of loosing your guts blown to smitherins in the next cafe or bus your sorry butts manage to board.

      Long live the intifada!

    • Israel continues to refuse to implement UNSCRs 232 and 338, which means that it is in contravention of International Law. Hence, resistance of the continued occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands is legitimate. If one chooses to call such legitimate resistance, terrorism, then the label cannot delegitimize terrorism.

      Labels do not necessarily reflect the actions as they reflect one point of view. Terrorism is just a label that Israel and its client-crony, the USA, have recently chosen to attach to freedom fighters and resistance movements all over the Globe so that they can justify their aggressive and confrontational actions against the people of the world. One has to remember that Israel’s own war of independence was viewed as terrorism by the whole world in 1948. Now that same label is being attached to the Palestinian peoples’ actions against the illegal occupation of their homeland, in the same manner and for the same reasons, namely to achieve an independent Palestinian state.

      Clearly, after 56 years of continued Isareli occupation, this label is coming unstuck. Slowly, but surely.

    • The citizens of the United States do not get the truth, so we do not focus on the terrible plight of the Palestinians and what Israel has done to them by continued occupation.

      Americans would not approve of the 12 Billion dollars being given to Israel by the taxpayers of this nation if there was any truth in the media. The newspapers and television tells us how Israel is our biggest supporter in that part of the world. Who wouldn’t support a government that gives you 12 billion dollars each and every year???? This money is used to destroy lives of Palestinians, and give Israeli people homes on confiscated land. The displaced Palestinians are left with nothing. They have taken their water sources as well, and now are engaged in walling off the Palestinian refugee camps forcing further missery on them. This only makes them fight back the only way they can which is to suicide bomb cafes and bus stops, etc. in Israel.

      Until the American people all learn the truth and demand that their tax money is not given to the murderous government of Israel, this blood bath will continue into our children’s, grandchildren’s, and greatgrandchildren’s lives if we don’t destroy the planet with nuclear war...

    • Yes its true, God chose Israel to murder the people of Palestine and steal their land...we all know what a bloody bastard God is he loves murders and theives and sits back in his cushy chair to watch the carnage created by his chosen people. To make certain that they have the advantage he (God) is gifting Israel with all the money and weapons of mass destruction that American taxpayers can provide aren’t we lucky??