Israel deepens offensive in Occupied Territories

To describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as collective punishment does not do enough to convey the scale of the crimes being perpetrated. The IDF has set out to destroy the social, economic and, indeed, political infrastructure of Gaza and is attempting the same on the West Bank. The aim of the Kadima-led coalition government is to reduce the Palestinians to conditions of utter degradation. This would serve to crush all opposition to the creation of a Greater Israel through the forcible annexation of much of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, leaving the Palestinians in a series of squalid ghettos with the IDF acting as de facto prison guards.

A UN report issued yesterday said the Israeli Army has carried out 168 air strikes and fired more than 600 shells into Gaza, with close to 120 killed as of Thursday night.

In the most ominous development so far, the IDF yesterday dropped leaflets on towns and villages throughout Gaza warning residents that anyone with an arsenal of weapons in their homes would be bombed. Military officials said the IDF was adopting a “new policy” of attacking homes in civilian areas where weapons such as homemade rockets were secretly stored.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jul2006/gaza-j21.shtml