PALESTINIAN doctors reported on Wednesday evening that five Palestinians, including a child and a woman, were killed by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip following Israel’s security cabinet decision to continue their military raids and ‘targeted killings’.
Four Palestinians were killed when Israeli ground troops backed by tanks and armoured vehicles raided the northern Gaza towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya.
Beit Hanoun had already seen 19 of its residents, mostly women and children, killed by Israeli tank shells during a previous Israeli raid.
Palestinian witnesses said that two armed men and two civilians were killed in the fighting on Wednesday.
They also said that a Palestinian woman was killed when Israel shelled an area used by rocket crews. A 14-year-old boy died in a nearby refugee camp.
The child was identified as Adham Khaled Al Sahbani, 14, from Beit Hanoun town. He was seriously injured after the Israeli occupation forces shelled several houses in the area, and died of his wounds later on at the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
In a separate attack, a Palestinian woman was killed after she was hit by shell shrapnel when the army fired artillery rockets at several houses in Abraj Al Nada area, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
The woman was identified as Asma’ Abu Marsa, 45; at least two more residents were injured in the shelling.
Moreover, Israeli occupation soldiers shot and killed on Wednesday at night a Palestinian activist near the northern West Bank town in Jenin.
Palestinian medical sources said that the activist was shot dead by an under-cover unit of the Israeli army operating in the Jenin refugee camp.
The activist was identified as Amro Al damj, 24, adding that another activist, Ahsraf Al sa’ady was injured in the attack.
Ever since the Palestinian masses elected a Hamas government they have faced daily murderous attacks by all sections of the Zionist armed forces.
These attacks have been inspired by the leaders of the US and UK governments.
They reacted to the victory of Hamas in the recent elections by imposing a financial boycott of the area to try and starve the Palestinian people into submission.
The imperialists continued with this conduct in the Lebanon, where they resisted all calls for a ceasefire by the Israeli armed forces and insisted in giving the Israelis every chance to bomb the Lebanese people and destroy Hezbollah.
Despite all of the help of the US and UK imperialists, who rushed arms and equipment to Israel so that it was able to continue with the bombardment of the Lebanon, the Israelis were defeated, a defeat that has split and divided the Israeli general staff.
The defeat of Israel in the Lebanon also raised up the whole of the Arab people and made them even more defiant.
In Beit Hanoun, hundreds of women surrounded a mosque in which a number of Palestinian fighters had been detained and despite suffering casualties themselves saw to it that all of the fighters escaped.
This defiance is now being seen throughout Gaza and Palestine. In Gaza hundreds of people have flocked to the homes of Hamas leaders and stopped the Israelis bombing them by standing on the rooftops!
Even the Arab foreign ministers have caught a particle of this defiance with their decision to break the financial boycott of Palestine.
This defiance must now spread to the Western trade unions and in particular the british trade unions.
They must immediately slam a trade boycott on Israel and refuse to handle any Israeli goods or services, and refuse to allow the transport of arms or ammunition to Israel.
They must call national demonstrations to bring millions out onto the streets demanding that Britain withdraws all troops from the Middle East and recognises the Palestinian government, and its demand for a Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, with all Jewish settlements abandoned and with Palestinians enjoying the right to return.
