Three Israeli Strikes Kill Three in Gaza

[dusty64]

23 minutes ago


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli helicopters and warplanes launched three airstrikes at Gaza City neighborhoods Monday, killing two Hamas members and a bystander and wounding 23 other Palestinians on the street, including at least four children.


AP Photo


Reuters
Slideshow: Mideast Conflict




The missiles destroyed what the military called a Hamas rocket factory.


The flurry of strikes, all within a period of four hours, took place after Palestinian militants fired a barrage of homemade rockets into southern Israel from Gaza on Sunday. Such attacks — including Sunday's, rarely cause casualties, but they often provoke a strong response from Israel. Also Sunday, a Palestinian ambush in the West Bank killed three Israeli soldiers and wounded a fourth.


In Israel's first airstrike, warplanes attacked a house under construction in the Sajaiya neighborhood of Gaza City where the army said the militant group Hamas was making small rockets. Doctors at Shifa hospital in Gaza said that 11 people were wounded, including four children, one of them 2 years old, and a 70-year-old woman.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20031020/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians

[Aidoneus]

1. another--'Back-To-Back Israeli Strikes Kill Three'

the particular timing is incredible, right when school kids were trying to cross the busy street..

Back-To-Back Israeli Strikes Kill Three
Monday October 20, 2003 11:46 AM
By IBRAHIM BARZAK
Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Unleashing two air strikes in less than three hours Monday, Israel killed two Hamas members and a bystander and destroyed a suspected rocket factory run by the Islamic militant group.

At least 23 people, including four children and a 70-year-old woman, were wounded in the attacks, Palestinian hospital officials said.

--snip--

The pickup had stopped at a traffic light near a gas station, on a busy street crowded with schoolchildren, when the missiles hit the front of the vehicle. A kindergarten and an elementary school had just let out students for the day.

``Schoolchildren were trying to cross the road (at the time),'' said bus driver Ahmed Sobeh, who was driving behind the pickup at the time. ``I saw a person in the car being evacuated and his body was completely burned. I also saw a teenager on the side of the street covered with blood but he was alive.''

A Palestinian motorist also was killed in the attack. Palestinian hospital officials said 12 bystanders were wounded, four of them in serious condition.

--snip--

Hamas has fired dozens of Qassams, with a range of about six miles, at Israeli border towns and settlements in Gaza. On Sunday, at least eight rockets were fired into Israel, causing no injuries.

Doctors at Shifa hospital in Gaza said that 11 people were wounded in the first air strike, including four children, one of them 2 years old. A 70-year-old woman was in critical condition, they said.

--snip--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3285945,00.html

[psychopomp]

2. Grotesque retaliation

for a stupid "attack." What is the point of lobbing these highly inaccurate missiles into Israeli territory, anyway, if not to provoke a response?¡¡¡¡Hamas may have just as well as used the missiles on Gaza and have skipped the middleman.

[Aidoneus]

3. a gesture of resistance at best

The argument that the Israeli gov't gives is that they have to carry out these kinds of "incursions" in order to stop "terrorism"; firing off the Qassam rockets after these Israeli assaults is a message that such actions will only provoke more attacks, rather than stop them.

To date nobody is usually harmed or much damaged by these (much less hit for that matter, as "Qassam rockets" and "aim" don't exactly belong in the same sentence in the same sense that Israeli rockets fired into a crowded street do), so I think they are a better gesture than some of the other methods.

[psychopomp]

4. A gesture of futility

I understand the message that is intended but this is just shooting yourself in the foot, or, more accurately, your mother in the chest. It doesn't look like Hamas knows how to fight for the Palestinians. Time for an armistice.

[Julien Sorel]

5. Out of curiosity, what do you think would happen

if the Palestinians quit all resistance?

By the way, while I agree with your statement, 'Time for an armistice,' I think you'll find the resistance to it comes from the ISrali side more than the Palestginians' side.

[Aidoneus]

6. "futile" is sitting back and expecting Israelis to lay off on their own

they particularly learned that through the mass beatings and detentions of the previous intifada--passivity is not on the menu, however that reflects itself in actions.

These put internal pressure on the Israeli gov't on the propaganda front, the most important battlefield in any modern conflict.

As far as killing people in the Gaza Open-Air Prison goes, that happens routinely with or without any provocation from their end.

[psychopomp]

7. The propaganda value of "rocket"

In the case of the Israeli govt is quite dear when the news outlets can say the military attack on a busy street in Gaza was in response to Hamas-originated Qassam rocket attacks on Israeli territory. It ups the ante in the conflict by providing the patena of technological sophistication on the armed threat of Palestine, giving an appearance of near-equality in terms of ability to harm innocent people. In actual fact these rockets are of limited value only as weapons of completely random violence.

Speaking to the open-air prison the Palestinians live in and how they can effectively resist, I do not have a clue. I have never been there nor have I heard any first-hand accounts of how things are or came to be; how can I tell them how to sort it out? It only saddens me to see Hamas act so stupidly--obviously it is not going to take much to get the IDF in Gaza with all of its deadliest force.