GAZA CITY, 1 March 2008 — Tens of thousands of Gazans yesterday protested against the Israeli raids that have killed more than 30 Palestinians, as Israel mulled a major ground operation to stop rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory.
The demonstrators, in response to Hamas calls, poured into the streets throughout the impoverished and isolated territory to denounce Israel’s airstrikes whose victims have included several children.
“They’ve killed my right to childhood,” read a sign held by a child, his face painted red and dressed in a white funeral shroud, who attended the largest rally in the northern town of Jabaliya.
A senior Hamas official earlier told worshippers at a Gaza City mosque that the coastal strip that the Islamists who have ruled for more than eight months faced war. “Gaza today faces a real war, a crazy war led by the enemy against our people,” said Ismail Haniyeh, the premier in a Hamas-led government which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fired after the Islamists seized control of Gaza.
Haniyeh lashed out at the US administration, which he claimed backs the Israeli attacks by portraying them as “legitimate self-defense.” He also accused the Arab world of “encouraging the Israeli aggression” through its silence.
In Israel, A senior Israeli defense official said that Palestinians firing rockets would bring upon themselves what he termed a “shoah,” the Hebrew word for holocaust or disaster.
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio earlier that “the more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger ‘shoah’ because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.” Vilnai’s spokesman said: “Mr. Vilnai was meaning ‘disaster’. He did not mean to make any allusion to the genocide.”
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Vilnai’s remarks were proof that the Palestinians were faced with “new Nazis.” Haniyeh said: “This is a proof of Israel’s preplanned aggressive intentions against our people. They want the world to condemn what they call the Holocaust and now they are threatening our people with a holocaust.”
Vilnai told army radio that “we will not shy away from any action” to halt the near-daily rocket fire from Gaza. “By intensifying the rocket fire and extending their reach they are bringing on to themselves a worse catastrophe as we will use all means to defend ourselves,” Vilnai warned. “Hamas leaders know this, but they are irresponsible,” said Vilnai.
A Palestinian civilian died in Gaza yesterday of injuries received in an Israeli strike the previous day, bringing to 31 the number of people killed in the raids since early Wednesday, including six children, medics said.
