Crescent International
In a long list of war crimes, the zionist regime perpetrated another one by firing two missiles from US-supplied warplanes on a 12-storey apartment building in Gaza. There were 44 apartments in the block that came crashing down. Massive damage was caused to neighboring buildings as well.
Gaza, Crescent-online
Saturday August 23, 2014, 22:11 DST
As if the murder of nearly 1200 Palestinians in tiny Gaza Strip was not enough, the Zionist regime perpetrated another war crime. It bombed and destroyed a 12-story residential building in the center of Gaza.
The Zafer Tower, located in Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in southern Gaza City, collapsed when Israel’s US-supplied warplanes fired two missiles on Saturday (August 23).
Terrified women and children screamed as 44 families lost their homes in an instant. The Zionist regime fired two missiles within seconds of each other. The entire building came tumbling down.
A massive fireball engulfed the building as well as caused severe damage to several neighboring buildings.
Luckily there were no deaths but at least 22 people were wounded, among them 11 children and five women. Residents of neighboring buildings were also warned to evacuate before striking the buildings.
This does not lessen severity of the Zionists’ crimes. Since the official launch of their latest offensive on Gaza, nearly 2,100 Palestinians have been murdered. This includes 80 percent civilians and at least 540 children.
More than 400,000 children have also suffered severe psychological trauma because of explosions and seeing their parents killed before their eyes. They need immediate psychological help due to “catastrophic and tragic impact” of the Israeli war, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The number of people injured has surpassed 10,200. Some injuries are severe and due to lack of proper medical facilities, may not survive.
There is severe shortage of medicines and other urgently needed medical supplies. Power supply is also sporadic because Israel bombed Gaza’s only plant. Even generators cannot function properly because of lack of fuel.
On August 21, Israeli air strikes killed three senior Hamas military commanders in Rafah. The three—Mohammed Abu Shammala, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhoum, the commanders of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas—were killed in the Tel al-Sultan refugee camp in Rafah, southern Gaza.
Their presence and location was communicated to the zionists by collaborators, 18 of whom were arrested, tried and executed by Hamas for treachery.
While Israel has not been able to target many Palestinian fighters except the ones that engage the Zionist invading army in direct combat, there are still many collaborators in Gaza. It is their treachery that has led to the deaths of senior Hamas commanders.
A day prior to the attack on the three Hamas commanders, Israeli warplanes had bombed a house where they believed the chief of Ezz el-Din al-Qassem Brigade, Mohamed Dief was staying. He was not there but his wife and young daughter were killed.
The residents of Gaza demanded revenge for the killing of Dief’s wife and child. Hamas has vowed to give a fitting response to such Zionist crimes.
Meanwhile in another development, Hamas has signed on to the Palestinians’ bid to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to lodge a case against Israeli war crimes.
Whether the ICC prosecution will have the courage to launch an investigation in the face of pressure from the US and its allies is a different matter.
END
Killing unarmed Palestinians is routine for the Zionists, as is the unqualified support of Western regimes for such war crimes.
The Israelis have used the partial opening of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt as a pretext to say the Palestinians’ suffering ha...
Zionist Israel’s relentless bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip on the eve of Ramadan has killed 17 Palestinians and injured 110 others...
The month of August included the anniversaries of three important events in Islamic history, two reflecting Islam’s glory and the third th...
