Israeli missiles pound Gaza into new Dark Age in 'collective punishment'

[cali]

By Donald Macintyre in southern Gaza
Published: 29 June 2006

As a textbook example of hi-tech precision bombardment it could hardly be improved. Smoke was still rising yesterday from the scorched wreckage of the six transformers at Gaza's only power station, each destroyed by a single missile fired by an Israeli warplane some 10 hours earlier.
Had they hit the huge cylindrical diesel tank 100 metres away they would have set the whole power station alight. But the strike was clinically effective, cutting all the electricity to 700,000 Gaza consumers, threatening water supplies and depriving its public of light, cooking, broadcast news, and - a crucial issue in scorching summer temperatures - fans.

"I'm so surprised that they did this," said Dr Derar Abu Sisi, the operations manager at the Al Nusirat power station. "We have been right through the worst of the intifada but this didn't happen." It would, Dr Abu Sisi said, take a "minimum of three to six months" to restore supplies at a cost between $5m (£2.8m) and $7m. "The Geneva Convention says it is not allowed to attack infrastructure for the civilian people," he added. "You might expect that economic infrastructure could be a target in the last stages of a war. But this is not like that."

The damage to Gaza's power supply was condemned as "unacceptable and barbaric collective punishment of civilians, including women, children and old people" by the office of Mahmoud Abbas, which complained it was intensifying what it says are the difficulties he already faces in trying to secure the safe release of Gilad Shalit, the 19-year-old Israeli army corporal abducted by militants - including members of Hamas's military wing - on Sunday.

The crisis escalated yesterday as Hamas called for the prisoner swap Israel has so far refused to entertain; another faction responsible for Cpl Shalit's abduction, the Popular Resistance Committees, threatened to kill Eliahu Asheri, 18, a settler it says it is holding, if Israel does not end its military campaign in Gaza, and a third, the al-Aqsa Martyrs, claimed to have seized a 62-year-old man from the central Israeli city of Rishon Lezion.

<snip>

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1129750.ece

These actions constitute a frank breach of the Geneva Conventions. I don't see how anyone can defend collective punishment of a civilian population.

[AnOhioan]

1. Didn't you hear??

It is all the Palestinians fault....Israel is just defending herself. In fact, they should be applauded for not leveling and paving the entire Gaza Strip. :sarcasm:

[cali]

2. I must confess

I get so weary of that stock little line. It doesn't further the discourse. If I've seen it once, I've seen it a hundred times.

I don't see this as a simple conflict, and though as I indicate, I think the cutting of power and water, is a breach of the Geneva conventions, I hardly see the Palestinian powers that be as innocent victims. Hamas kidnapped a soldier from Israel. That's an act of war. It doesn't justify the Israeli use of collective punishment, but it's that act that precipitated the current crisis.

[AnOhioan]

3. I actually agree with you

It is just that this forum is filled with those who maintain that Israel is, was and always will be the 'moral" leader in this conflict. I just get frustrated with the spin and propaganda.

Truth be told...both sides have committed atrocities and everyone would be better off if that fact were admitted and discussed.

Israel clearly has the military and economic advantage in this conflict, they always have. They also consistently, in my opinion, use that advantage in ways which are not conducive to finding peace. Again, the Palestinians are not blameless but Israel needs to accept their own role in the ongoing bloodshed.


Edit for spelling

[Tom Joad]

5. "Palestinian powers" are not the only ones who need electricity,

however.

So do Palestinian hospitals, schools and many other vital institutions. This will dramitacally increase the hunger that is being experience among the Palestinian population.

You are right, this collective punishment is a war crime.

I do disagreee with what you say is the actual cause. But we should work to see that this war crime is not perpetuted in our name, with our tax dollars.

[iconoclastNYC]

6. The did level the Gaza strip

Right before they returned it they destroyed anything the Palestians couldn't pay Isreal for. The EU stepped in and gave them money to save some of the greenhouses. Much of the rest was bulldozed.

[Scorpio2001]

7. At the request of the PA

The hothouses were purchased and gifted to the Gazans by American jews. It only took one day for the Gazans to destroy them along with established markets for the products and 12,000 jobs.

The bulldozing was coordinated with the PA and most of hwat was destroyed was AT THE REQUEST of the PA.

[iconoclastNYC]

8. That's totally at odds with what i've read

[pelsar]

9. then your reading the wrong stuff....

try using haaretz, new york times, washington post etc....and you'll find a bit more factual information



http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/10/31/greenhouse_project_endangered_in_gaza/

[iconoclastNYC]

11. This was from the Nation

But thanks for arrogantly telling me about media outlets I already read.

[pelsar]

13. perhaps the link?

Right before they returned it they destroyed anything the Palestians couldn't pay Isreal for. The EU stepped in and gave them money to save some of the greenhouses. Much of the rest was bulldozed.

i beliieve this is what you wrote.....

the other major media outlets seem to disagree

[Scurrilous]

12. From the archives:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=117169&mesg_id=117250

"The theft of entire greenhouses and their equipment has put out of action around 70 acres (28 hectares) of the roughly 1,000 acres left by Jewish settlers as the basis of a Palestinian agriculture industry when Israel withdrew from Gaza last September."

According to this article, approximately 7% of the greenhouses were destroyed. The departed scorpio seemed to suggest that all the greenhouses were put out of action.

[cali]

14. That's simply not true

This is stuff that's easily researched. Here's one link.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/09/13/international/i112837D35.DTL

[kalimera]

4. Collective punishment is indeed heinous

Collective punishment is indeed heinous.

I'm reminded of an account I read regarding a British siege of a Maori stronghold in New Zealand.

Under a white flag, an emmisary from the Maori camp approached the British. He stated "If you want us to keep fighting, you'll have to give us food and water" (paraphrase)

[Poll_Blind]

10. I heard Israel hasn't launched any such attacks, that Palestinians had...

...buried hundreds if not thousands of explosives and set them off just to make Israel look bad. How will we ever be able to beat that powerful Palestinian propaganda machine?

PB