The military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement known as the Al-Quds Brigades says that Tel Aviv is mulling over another round of attacks on the Gaza Strip.
"The ongoing status quo has led the military arm of Islamic Jihad to infer Israel was planning an imminent but unspecified incursion in the coming days or weeks," a spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigades, Abu Ahmad, was quoted as saying by Ma’an news agency.
The Gazans are still struggling with the aftermath of the Operation Cast Lead, which resulted in the death of over 1,500 Palestinians and the injury of about 5,450 people in the impoverished coastal sliver.
With USD 1.6 billion damage inflicted upon Gaza’s economy during three weeks of relentless Israeli bombardment this January, the Palestinians in the strip are striving hard to survive under a siege preventing any import or export. The carnage has left 44 percent of the population in the war-wreaked enclave unemployed.
Meanwhile, a United Nations inquiry led by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone detailed what investigators called Israeli actions "amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," during Tel Aviv’s winter offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The 575-page report by Goldstone and three other investigators asserts seven incidents, in which Palestinian civilians were shot while leaving their homes, trying to run for safety or waving white flags.
According to the report, Israel has targeted a mosque at prayer time, killing 15 people, and has shelled a Gaza City house where soldiers had forced Palestinian civilians to assemble. These attacks constituted war crimes, the report says.
The probe also found that Israel violated international humanitarian law in many different manners. Dozens of Palestinian policemen were killed at the start of the Gaza onslaught when Israel bombed their stations. The security agents were not involved in hostilities and should have been treated as civilians.
Palestinians, in addition, were forced to walk ahead of the Israeli soldiers, providing human shields for the troops, who were searching civilian neighborhoods.
(Press TV)
