OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, October 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Left-wing
opposition chief Yossi Sarid demanded Friday, October 18, that Israel
stop its cruel war machine after the killing by tank fire in the
southern Gaza Strip of eight Palestinian civilians, including 2 children
and 2 elderly women.
"It
is no longer possible to explain or justify how so many innocent men,
women and children" are killed by the Israeli army, Sarid said in
remarks on Israeli public radio.
"How
many times can we say 'we did not intend to', and who can still believe
these excuses?" he added, quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The
[Israeli] argument that Palestinians knowingly kill our civilians while
Israel does it without premeditation is starting to wear out," he
also said.
"When
we fire tank shells, not one but three, against homes, the results are
predictable," he concluded.
Sarid
was referring to the killing by the Israeli occupation army Thursday,
October 17, of eight Palestinians, when it blasted two houses in the
southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah with shells and heavy machine-gun
fire.
Among
the dead were a four-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, two young men
and two elderly women, Palestinian medical sources said, while a dozen
others were seriously hurt.
Israeli
army spokeswoman Captain Sharon Feingold claimed the Israeli force had
come under fire from "anti-tank missiles."
A
senior Israeli official, speaking on the night of the Israeli army’s
massacre of eight civilians, including children and elderly people,
described the Israeli occupation army as "the one in the world that
respects moral values the most. It does everything to avoid civilians
being hurt, which includes its soldiers taking risks."
For
his part, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer "expressed
regret" over the clash, adding that Israel would do
"everything possible to avoid" such cases, in remarks on
Israel's private Channel One.
But
Sarid frankly drew a parallel between deaths of Israelis in
suicide-attacks and deaths of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army.
"There
are rules concerning self-defense and we respect them, but there are
also rules for war. Soon the world will no longer see the difference
between one attack and another."
Sarid
is the head of the left-wing Meretz party, which holds 10 seats in the
120-member Knesset.
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"It
is no longer possible to explain or justify how so many innocent
men, women and children are killed by the Israeli army,"
Sarid said
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Sarid’s
criticism comes after the Israeli rights group B'Tselem said in a report
published Wednesday, October 16, that the Israeli army has killed 15
Palestinian civilians who violated the imposed curfew in West Bank
cities reoccupied since June, and 12 of the murdered were children.
"In
many cases [Israeli] soldiers fire live ammunition at civilians who are
outside their homes during curfew. Over the past four months, soldiers
have killed 15 Palestinian civilians in these circumstances. Twelve of
the dead were under the age of sixteen," B'Tselem said.
The
youngest of those killed was six, the oldest 60.
The
rights group said the army had for four months imposed a full curfew on
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, calling the
lockdown "unprecedented in scope and length ... and constituting
collective punishment, in contravention of international law."
The
group, which investigates rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian
territories, said accused Israeli soldiers of often using tear gas
against civilians "both to notify the residents of imposition of
curfew and to punish residents who were ostensibly violating
curfew."
International
aid groups and Palestinians have slammed the Israeli occupation army for
not making clear when the curfew is being lifted and reimposed, and for
frequently changing the announced curfew times.
B'Tselem
called on the army to end the curfews, cease using tear gas and
investigate incidents in which soldiers fire at Palestinian civilians.
The
report cited the killing of four Palestinians, aged six, eight, nine and
60, in Jenin on June 21, when a large number of Palestinians went out to
the market in the northern West Bank town thinking the curfew had been
lifted.
"They
went to the market to buy food. A tank that had been in the area drove
towards them and fired two shells and opened machine-gun fire. The
shooting killed four Palestinians, three of them children," the
report said.
