Gaza continues to be terrorized

by Zaid Aleem

According to CNN, as Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets across the West Bank and abroad, Israeli airplanes continued to pound Gaza, while rocket firing into Israel resumed after a brief pause.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of people gathered in places across the West Bank, including Ramallah and Hebron, after a number of Palestinian parties, including Hamas terrorists in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank, called for major protests.
“The first priority for the Palestinian political leadership now is to have Israel stop its crimes and massacres against our people in Gaza,” Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee in Ramallah, told CNN on Tuesday.

Israel imposed a partial closure on the West Bank on Tuesday, an Israeli security source told CNN, with only men older than 45 and Palestinian construction workers with work permits allowed to enter Israel.

Israeli airstrikes lasted all night and into Tuesday. On Tuesday, Israeli jets targeted nine missile launch locations in Gaza, as well as a tunnel system in northern Gaza, numerous Hamas leaders’ homes, and an anti-tank unit in Gaza City, according to the Israeli Defense Forces.

In the latest wave of violence, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health reported 217 deaths, including 63 minors, and 1,500 injuries.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 58,000 people are internally displaced, with many of them taking refuge in dozens of schools.

Israel briefly allowed trucks carrying international aid into Gaza for the first time since the conflict began last week, but Israeli authorities halted the entrance of aid trucks in response to mortar fire at two border cross crossings.

Monday night and early Tuesday morning had brought a brief respite in southern Israel from militants’ rockets. The Israel Defense Forces did not report any warning sirens overnight, the first time in a week Israel went a night without rocket fire from Gaza.