August 20, 2011
Last night, 19 August, more than a dozen Israeli air strikes hit the Gaza Strip, bringing the total killed since Thursday to 15 and approximately 50 injured. Among the killed are three children, ages two, five and 13.
On Friday night an Israeli warplane hit a civilian car, killing a family of three, including a Gazan doctor and his five-year old son.
Islam Qreqi, 5-years-old, killed in an Israeli strike on his family's car.
Israel has also attacked two refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, killing two in the Bureij camp and injuring one in An-Nuseirat camp, both located in the central Gaza Strip.
The spokesperson for Emergency in Gaza, Adham Abu Salmiya told media that Israel is using new kinds of weapons in its most recent attack on the confined coastal enclave. Doctors are reporting that they have seen an increase in amputations and new kinds of injuries.
Maha Elbanna, a Palestinian-American journalist based in Gaza City, told The Palestine Monitor in a phone interview that the images of the wounded are particularly gruesome.
"There is a picture of a teenage girl with shrapnel cuts in her face that are very deep, like I’ve never seen before. I have seen shrapnel wounds before and these are very strange," Elbanna said.
On Saturday morning, while speaking to The Palestine Monitor, Elbanna said she could hear F16’s flying overhead.
"There is so much damage across Gaza—in the north, south and in Gaza City," said Elbanna, who also works for the Palestinian Medical Relief Society.
"When I came into the office this morning, most of the building was broken."
Israel’s most recent onslaught came after eight Israelis were killed in an attack in the south of Israel. The Israeli Ministry of Defense, mirrored closely by Israeli media reports, was quick to claim the source of the attacks was the Gaza Strip. However, as of yet, no evidence has emerged to support this claim.
"So far there is no evidence that anyone in Gaza is responsible for what happened," Elbanna stressed.
Neither Hamas or the Popular Resistance Committees have claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attacks. Five members of the PRC’s have been murdered in the last two days.
While Israel is claiming to be targeting military bases, its victims are largely civilian.
"This is a campaign that is turning into a massacre and civilian areas are targeted," Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, the Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, said.
Spokesperson Abu Salmiya said that Israeli missiles struck a concrete factory, gravely injuring two civilians.
Dr. Barghouthi and doctors from PMRS in the Gaza Strip call upon the international community to demand that Israel cease its indiscriminate attack on the people of Gaza.
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