By Chris Marsden
28 June 2006
Israeli military forces launched a major assault on Gaza at about 2.30 a.m. Wednesday (Israel time), with missile and bomb attacks on the territory’s main power station and three bridges. Infantry and armored units began entering southern Gaza soon after the air attacks.
The destruction of the power station, which is located in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, plunged large parts of the territory, including Gaza City, into darkness. One of the bridges destroyed is a major link between the north and south of Gaza.
While Israel Defense Forces officials claim that the operation is to rescue Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian militants on Sunday, the scale of the attack on Gaza, the targeting of key infrastructure and the mobilisation of more than a hundred Israeli tanks and thousands of troops demonstrate the absurdity of these claims.
Hamas’s armed wing has claimed responsibility for the joint attack, together with other factions, on a tank at an Israeli border post on June 25. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid and Shalit was taken prisoner.
Israel is exploiting the capture of Shalit as an excuse to launch a long-planned military offensive into Gaza as part of a campaign to scuttle any return to peace talks and deliberately inflame the situation.
28 June 2006
Israeli military forces launched a major assault on Gaza at about 2.30 a.m. Wednesday (Israel time), with missile and bomb attacks on the territory’s main power station and three bridges. Infantry and armored units began entering southern Gaza soon after the air attacks.
The destruction of the power station, which is located in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, plunged large parts of the territory, including Gaza City, into darkness. One of the bridges destroyed is a major link between the north and south of Gaza.
While Israel Defense Forces officials claim that the operation is to rescue Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian militants on Sunday, the scale of the attack on Gaza, the targeting of key infrastructure and the mobilisation of more than a hundred Israeli tanks and thousands of troops demonstrate the absurdity of these claims.
Hamas’s armed wing has claimed responsibility for the joint attack, together with other factions, on a tank at an Israeli border post on June 25. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid and Shalit was taken prisoner.
Israel is exploiting the capture of Shalit as an excuse to launch a long-planned military offensive into Gaza as part of a campaign to scuttle any return to peace talks and deliberately inflame the situation.