ISRAELI warplanes continued with their airstrikes on Gaza on Sunday morning, hitting a factory in Rafah.
On Friday, an Israeli missile strike on Gaza killed two and wounded two more Palestinians. Another Israeli airstrike hit an open area west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
In addition to the airstrikes, Israeli forces stationed near the border also launched a number of attacks with Israeli military tanks firing shells at an open area near Deir al-Balah. Similar strikes were also reported in Beit Hanoun in the north.
Also on Saturday night, Israeli soldiers opened fire at a group of Palestinians east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, injuring two men.
In Gaza, Israeli forces now regularly open fire at farmers and other civilians if they approach large swathes of land near the border that the Israeli military has declared off-limits to Palestinians.
This ‘security buffer zone’ extends between 500 metres and 1,500 metres into the Gaza Strip, effectively turning local farms into no-go zones.
All these attacks on the Gaza Strip are part of the Israeli retaliation for the Palestinian decision to form a national unity government that includes Hamas, which the Israeli Premier Netanyahu declared was completely unacceptable.
The same kind of attacks are taking place throughout occupied Palestine including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
These attacks have been stepped up since the alleged kidnapping of three settler youth based in the extremely provocative Israeli settlement that has been established in the centre of the city of Hebron in the West Bank.
On Friday, a teenage Palestinian boy was injured during clashes south of Bethlehem between local young men and Israeli troops who raided a refugee camp and detained two men.
A 15-year-old boy in in Duheisha refugee camp was injured by shrapnel and evacuated to the public hospital in Beit Jala.
When young men clashed with the soldiers during a pre-dawn detention raid, they fired live ammunition as well as rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas canisters. Many residents choked on tear gas which Israeli troops fired heavily in the alleys of the very densely populated camp.
The soldiers eventually detained 47-year-old Nidal Naim Abu Akar and 38-year-old Shadi Issa Maali.
Separately, Israeli troops raided the al-Saff neighbourhood of Bethlehem and detained 40-year-old Walid Muhammad al-Bustanji from his home.
Israeli forces also stormed the Bethlehem-area village of Marah Rabah and detained 40-year-old Ahmad Qasim al-Sheikh.
In Ramallah district in the central West Bank, Israeli forces detained chief clerk of the Ramallah court Yahya Salah Ata from his home in the village of Deir Abu Mashal.
In addition, Israeli troops detained 22-year-old Muhammad Jamal Nasser, a student of French language at Al-Najah National University in Nablus.
Israeli forces also raided the al-Bathan area north of Nablus and detained a former Palestinian prisoner, according to Palestinian security sources.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said 18 Palestinians were detained overnight and that 12 of them were ‘Hamas operatives’.
The Israeli campaign against the national unity government, and now the search for the ‘three kidnapped Israeli youth settlers’, has led to the deaths of seven Palestinians and the arrest of nearly 600, with more than 130 Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli forces.
As well, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are on hunger strike in Israeli jails while the number of Palestinian children in Israeli jails has surpassed 250 in the wake of the ongoing military ‘search campaign’.
The trade unions in the UK, EU and US must take action to support the Palestinians. They cannot just cannot stand back and watch them being slaughtered! At the moment their silence is truly deafening! They must immediately impose a worldwide ban on all Israeli goods and services, to completely isolate Israel, and demand that the occupation is ended at once.
They must also organise mass demonstrations to demand the worldwide recognition of the national unity government as the legitimate government of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital and with all Palestinians having the right to return.
