Israeli airstrike kills Palestinian girl
A 14-year-old girl was killed today in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip.
She had gone to inspect damage caused by an earlier attack, Palestinian officials said.
The airstrike came as an Israeli human rights group accused the army of war crimes for bombing Gaza’s only power plant at the start of a major military offensive.
The B’Tselem group said the airstrike illegally targeted a civilian installation, and noted that Gaza still suffered widespread power cuts nearly three months after the bombing.
Israel launched the Gaza offensive shortly after Hamas-linked militants tunnelled into Israel on June 25, killing two soldiers and capturing a third.
The army has killed dozens of Palestinians, most of them militants, during the offensive, but the soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, remains in captivity.
In today’s airstrike, the army targeted the house of a weapons dealer in the southern town of Rafah, witnesses said. The army called the house’s owner 15 minutes before an initial airstrike and told him to clear out of the home.
Witnesses said there were no major injuries in the initial airstrike. But as children gathered to look at the rubble, a second Israeli missile landed. Hospital officials said the 14-year-old girl was killed and seven other children were wounded in the blast.
The army said the house was used as cover to dig a weapons smuggling-tunnel under the border with Egypt. Yesterday, Palestinian security forces discovered two underground tunnels along the border that they suspected were used by smugglers.
The ongoing offensive has added to the widespread hardship in the impoverished Gaza Strip, which has been hit hard by international sanctions against the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Israel struck Gaza’s electric station, which provides more than half the area’s power, at the outset of the offensive on June 28. In Wednesday’s report, the B’Tselem human rights group said the bombing had no military objective.
“B’Tselem determines that the bombing of the power plant was illegal and defined as a war crimes in international humanitarian law, as the attack was aimed at a purely civilian object,” according to the report. “There was no apparent military basis for the action and it seems that its intention was to satisfy a desire for revenge.”
The report said electricity is still cut off for half of the day in many areas of Gaza, severely hampering hospitals, and straining the water supply and sewage systems.
It noted the case of a 52-year-old Palestinian, Ahmad Thabit, who suffered a blood clot in his right arm when the power went out for seven minutes as he underwent routine dialysis treatment.
“Thabit’s troubles… derive directly from one cold, calculated decision … following the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit,” the report said. “The 1.4 million residents of the Gaza Strip, Ahmad Thabit among them … continue to suffer the bombing’s harsh effects.”
The army did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the report.
B’Tselem demanded that the Israeli government open an investigation into the bombing and cover the expenses of returning the plant back to full capacity.
With Shalit still in captivity, Israel shows no signs of ending the Gaza offensive. Israel has been working with Egyptian mediators to return Shalit in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel’s vice premier, Shimon Peres, today accused Hamas’ exiled leadership in Syria of blocking a deal. Hamas leaders in Gaza get their directives from officials in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
“The one who increases the tension in Gaza is the (Hamas) leadership in Syria,” Peres said.
“They prevent the Palestinians from releasing the prisoner, which increases the tension all the time and the focus must be on this extreme leadership in Damascus.”
Egypt recently sent a letter to Mashaal demanding that Hamas immediately release the soldier to avoid a worsening crisis in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials and Arab diplomats said.
A Hamas negotiator in Gaza, Osama al-Muzaini, said there has not been any pressure from Egypt and said Israel has been holding up the deal.
“There are no moves...Shalit will not come out except with an exchange of prisoners,” he said.
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