GAZA CITY, 7 July 2006 — Israeli tanks moved deeper into Gaza Strip and its forces killed at least 21 Palestinians yesterday in the bloodiest day since the Jewish state invaded Gaza on June 28 over a soldier’s capture. During yesterday’s operation, one Israeli soldier was also killed and five were injured.
In Geneva, the United Nations Human Rights Council agreed to send a fact-finding mission to the Palestinian territories to report back urgently on rights violations by Israel.
The 47-member forum adopted a resolution put forward by the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference that demanded a halt to Israel’s “extensive military operations” against Palestinians.
The decision, announced by Council Chairman Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, was taken on a majority vote at the end of a two-day special session.
“It (the Council) decides to dispatch an urgent fact-finding mission... on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories,” the resolution read.
The vote was 29 delegations in favor, 11 against, with five abstentions and two delegations absent for the vote.
Those who voted against the resolution were Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Britain.
The abstaining members were Cameroon, Mexico, Nigeria, Republic of Korea and Switzerland.
The 29 countries which voted in favor of the resolution were Algeria, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay and Zambia.
John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the territories, will head the fact-finding team.
The Council vote also condemned Israeli action and called for the release of Palestinian officials and civilians arrested during the offensive.
Throughout the day, Israeli aircraft targeted Palestinians with missile strikes, while Israeli tanks took up positions between tightly packed homes. Apache helicopters hovered overhead, firing flares and machine guns to support ground forces engaged in fierce skirmishes with Palestinian fighters.
Israel said it decided to step up the offensive, launched last week in response to the capture of the Israeli soldier, after Hamas activists fired two upgraded rockets into the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. No one was hurt, but the rockets were the first to reach the city of 110,000, infuriating Israeli leaders.
In the worst incident, nine Palestinians were killed, including two Hamas activists, and at least 24 wounded in an Israeli bombardment on the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, medics said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, whose Hamas-led government has been directly targeted in the offensive, slammed the assault as “collective punishment” on his people and demanded international intervention.
The massive predawn land and air assault on Gaza sent terrified residents scurrying from their homes with babies and belongings. “We woke up and the tanks were right there. There were fighters in our garden. We had to flee to protect the children,” said one father, fleeing a Beit Lahiya neighborhood with his wife and four children. In northern Gaza, ground forces, armored vehicles and sappers advanced up to five km in a bid to expand a unilaterally declared security zone aimed at preventing rocket attacks on Israel.
The Palestinian death toll is the highest in a single day since Israeli forces killed 16 people in October 2004 in a raid on a Khan Younis refugee camp.
Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that although Israel quit Gaza last year after 38 years of occupation, “no one should see that as a guarantee that we cannot reach territory in which we feel we have no choice but to operate.”
“We have no intention of sinking into the Gaza swamp,” he added.
Twenty-seven Hamas ministers and MPs appeared before Israeli military tribunals yesterday to be remanded further in custody after being arrested last week in a massive West Bank sweep.
Local Government Minister Issa Al-Jaabari, Employment Minister Mohammed Barghouti and Jerusalem Affairs Minister Khaled Abu Arafeh, along with six lawmakers appeared before a court in Ofer, near the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Finance Minister Omar Abdelrazeq, Planning Minister Samir Abou Eisheh, Prisoner Affairs Minister Wasfi Kabha and Social Affairs Minister Fakhri Turkman, together with 10 MPs, appeared before another tribunal in Salem.
The mayors of the West Bank towns of Qalailya and Jenin appeared before the same tribunal.
On Wednesday, the military tribunal in Ofer remanded Religious Affairs Minister Nayef Rajub and four MPs in custody for a further five days.
Sixty-four members of Hamas, including a third of the Cabinet and 26 MPs, were arrested in a massive Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank on June 29.
The father of the captured Israeli soldier appealed to the government to swap Palestinian prisoners for his son and back down on its refusal to negotiate with his captors.
Fighters linked to Hamas captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, on June 25 after tunneling through from Gaza to southern Israel and attacking a military post just over the border.
His captors have demanded that Israel release 1,500 of the 9,000 Palestinian prisoners it holds, but Israel has refused, demanding unconditional freedom for its soldier.
Noam Shalit said he did not expect the Palestinians to give up his son for nothing.
“Everything has a price. I don’t think there will be any sort of move to free Gilad without a price,” the elder Shalit told Army Radio in his first comments on the government’s handling of the affair. “That’s not the way it works in the Middle East.”
There has been no sign of life from the soldier since he was seized, but he is presumed to be in Gaza.
— Additional input from agencies
