Israel attacks Gaza, threatens more to come

Israel threatened a large scale military operation against Gaza Friday, the morning after it launched six raids against Strip.The raids, which injured three children, were in response to Palestinian rocket fire across the border.

Reuters

“If this rocket fire does not stop, it seems we will have to raise our activity and step up our actions against Hamas,” said Israel’s deputy prime-minister Silvan Shalom.

“We won’t allow frightened children to again be raised in bomb shelters and so, in the end, it will force us to launch another military operation.”

Witnesses say two F16 fighters destroyed a small dairy factory in the Sabra district of Gaza City overnight, while another hit a workshop in a refugee camp in central Gaza.

Children aged two, four and 11 were injured by flying glass in the dairy attack.

Three more missiles targeted an area west of Khan Yunis, with two hitting a guard post of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades.

According to the Israeli army, the raids hit two weapons manufacturing sites and two weapons storage facilities. Nearly 20 rockets have been fired into Israel in the past month.

“All Palestinians are asking, pleading, looking for is a rule of law for international humanitarian law and human rights,” Raji Surani, the director of the Palestinian center for human rights in Gaza City, told RFI. “Israel is targeting civilians and settlements are warcrimes in international law.”

 
He added that the worst is yet to come. “The government that launched the war was to the left of this very right wing government led by Netanyahu.”