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No U.S. Condemnation Of Latest Israeli Atrocity
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| A Palestinian child cries as he recovers a homemade toy from the rubble of his house destroyed by Israeli army tanks and bulldozers |
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States has so far offered no condemnation of Israel’s razing of dozens of Palestinian refugee homes in the Gaza Strip Thursday.
At a U.S. State Department press briefing Thursday, January 10, spokesman Richard Boucher indicated that no official statement of condemnation of the Israeli action had been given, although he reiterated the U.S. position denouncing house demolitions in general.
"First and foremost, it's important to remember the responsibility of Chairman Arafat to take action against violence," Boucher began. "At the same time, we've always said that we don't think demolitions contribute to restoration of calm or an end to violence… and that remains our position on this particular situation."
When asked if the Israelis had been specifically notified of this position, he said, "The Israelis are quite aware of our position on demolitions, and I'm sure in any conversations that we had about the matter we would state that position."
In an act equally condemned by the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli opposition, a dozen Israeli tanks and bulldozers razed 73 houses in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah early Thursday, Rafah's governor said, leaving at least 123 families homeless in a cold rain shower, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the Israeli raid as a "serious crime" meant to derail the peace process, according to a report by the Washington Post.
Leader of the left-wing Israeli Meretz party, Yossi Sarid, said such actions would only bring more bloodshed. He described "the destruction of homes of Palestinian refugees" as "unjustifiable" in a statement received by AFP.
Meanwhile, Sarid, whose party has 10 deputies in the 120-seat parliament, said he would call upon Defense Minister, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, to explain the action before the house's foreign affairs and defense committee.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian group, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders), voiced fears over the medical consequences for Palestinian refugees left homeless.
"Medecins Sans Frontieres condemns this act of mass destruction of homes of innocent civilians in this winter period and fears the medical and psychological consequences for the families affected," its Gaza offices said in a statement.
It said the organization was trying to help 200 residents of a district of Rafah refugee camp "overcome this catastrophe" and that the Palestinian Authority itself did not have the means to re-house those left homeless.
Rafah's governor, Sufian al-Agha, said some Palestinian women and children had been treated for shock and cold after the operation, calling the district a "disaster zone."
"We are hoping international organizations will do something," he said. "I am surprised there has been no international stand against the Israeli practices here." He added that Israel had also destroyed some Palestinian fishing boats and motors on the Gaza coast.
The governor said there had been no firing in the area since Arafat called for an end to Israeli attacks on December 16.
"I was surprised the Israelis bulldozed these houses. There was no shooting for three weeks," he told AFP.
Meanwhile, newly homeless residents of Rafah, far away from the issuing of statements by foreign bodies, huddled under the winter rain as an Israeli flag fluttered inside the buffer zone straddling Rafah and the Egyptian border.
Homeless women sat shivering in the cold mud, AFP said in a report, trying to light a fire with soggy splinters of wood in a field of craters where their houses stood until Israeli bulldozers began to move in overnight.
People panicked, telling each other to leave the wasteland, afraid the Israelis might shoot from a sentry post on the border's no-man's-land which abuts their homes in "Block O" of Rafah's refugee camp.
The women yelled about their destroyed lives and looked over the wire-mesh border fence to the lush green date trees on the Egyptian side, a contrast to the green tile and concrete slabs beneath their feet.
In an attempt to justify the Israeli atrocity, an Israeli army spokesman claimed the buildings destroyed had allegedly provided cover for gunmen attacking army posts and provided a blind for weapons allegedly smuggled from Egypt across the border.
But the soiled bed sheets, an orange plastic baby chair, a bent bicycle frame and a bedpost tell another story.
"You are standing on my home," one Palestinian woman cried.
Some women dug in puddles of mud for their identification cards, while streams of water rushed past jagged stones, metal pipes and bashed-in white washing machines.
Others hauled out garbage bags of clothing, as children shoved each other off mounds of rocks.
Teenagers carried axes and rusty cleavers to chop wood for fires from the splintered furniture.
Abdul Ghanim, 33, pointed to his house's remains - one roofless room was still erect. Some houses had their front walls torn away, leaving them with the eerie look of a Hollywood soundstage hit by a hurricane.
"If we stayed in our house, my kids would be dead," said Ghanim, who recalled the metal din of the tanks and bulldozers approaching before he whisked his wife and four children away.
His daughter Miriam, eight, fidgeted with a pink plastic ring on her finger and said, "We were very scared. There was shooting. My father picked me up and took me out."
The family shivered in the street during the night, before Miriam headed for her final exams in history class, the last day before winter vacation.
Abdul Ghanem's cousin, Ibrahim Ghanem, bundled himself in blankets on the wet floor of a home. He had crawled on his knees through a hole in the wall that joined his home to his neighbor's, made in case of such an emergency.
"If that hole wasn't there, I would have died," he said, his nose and cheeks red from the cold.
Another camp resident, Baha Abu Libdeh, 31, made homeless along with his wife and six children, was quoted in a Washington Post article as saying that Israel's "retaliation" would only create more hatred.
"What danger does my house pose to the Israeli security?" Abu Libdeh asked. "I became homeless today, and my children will remember one thing about the state of Israel. It is the enemy."
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