Crescent International
If Israeli snipers are not shooting and killing unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, its air force launches missile strikes against Palestinians in their homes.
This is what the Zionist occupation regime’s forces did in the early hours of November 12.
Israeli warplanes fired a missile at a building in the Shuja‘ya neighbourhood of Eastern Gaza assassinating a senior leader of the Palestinian resistance movement, Islamic Jihad.
Bahaa’ Salim Hassan Abu al-Atta (42) and his wife Israa’ Mohammed Hassan Abu al-Atta (38), were killed during the Israeli air strike on their apartment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally authorized the attack knowing full well that it would kill civilians.
This constitutes a war crime. Unfortunately, Zionist officials, whether civilian or military, have never been constrained by such legal considerations.
The Israeli strike was so massive that it not only demolished the residential building but also threw the victims’ bodies into a nearby school run by UNRWA.
Together with Abu al-Attas and his wife, seven other people in the building were injured. Four of them were the victims’ children that included two little girls.
Abu al-Atta was a member of al-Quds Brigades’ military bureau, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement. He was in charge of its northern Gaza Strip activity.
Following this war crime, Israeli occupation forces spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the strike was a joint operation carried out in conjunction with the Zionist Security Agency Shin Bet.
He also confirmed that Netanyahu had authorized the attack. It was the first extrajudicial execution carried out by Israeli airstrikes since the 2014 Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza attack was carried out at the same time as another targeted air strike by Israeli warplanes against Islamic Jihad Political Bureau member Akram al-‘Ajoury. He resides in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
According to Islamic Jihad press release and Syrian media, al-‘Ajoury’s son was killed in the Israeli attack.
The Israeli strikes evoked great anger among the people of Gaza with Islamic Jihad vowing to retaliate for this heinous crime.
The resistance group fired a number of rockets but no deaths or injuries were reported in Israel.
Israeli warplanes and tanks, however, continued their attacks and killed five more people in the Gaza Strip. According to latest reports at least 25 people have been injured in Gaza so far.
The tiny enclave’s exit at Rafah Crossing was also closed.
The Zionist regime also imposed a blockade of the sea preventing Palestinians from fishing even in the limited area of the sea to survive.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh condemns the Zionist “aggression” against Palestinians in Gaza, which he says will “fortify the alliance of the resistance factions.”
In a statement he said: “These crimes of the occupation come at a time in which our people’s factions and forces have made advances toward restoring our national unity in order to stand together in the battle of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa, settlements and prisoners.”
Western regimes have either maintained a studied silence—what are Palestinian lives worth?—or called for “restraint”, as the European Union did.
Not one of them had the courage to call the Israel strike for what it is: a war crime, perpetrated amid chest thumping by the Zionist warmongers.
If the Palestinians retaliate, as is their right under International Law, then they are branded as “terrorists”.
Such are the ways of the Western world and their Zionist ward in Occupied Palestine.
