PALESTINE CENTER CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION IN GAZA
For Immediate Release
Contact: Samar Assad
(202) 338-1290
Washington, D.C. (November 8, 2006) – The Palestine Center calls on the international community to immediately intervene to protect Palestinian civilians from Israel’s ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip which has lead to the death of 83 Palestinians in eight days.
Israel’s 8 November early morning shelling of a residential area in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip left 18 civilians dead and 60 injured. Palestinian medical sources, journalists and human rights organizations confirm that among those killed are 10 children and 7 women. The majority of the injured are women and children. Thirteen of the dead are from one family. The 12 missile shelling of the five homes in the Al-Kafarnah neighborhood came shortly after the Israeli army announced it had concluded its week-long incursion into Beit Hanoun.
The death toll and destruction caused by Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza since its unilateral disengagement in August 2005 provides solid grounds for the urgent need for the deployment of international forces capable of protecting Palestinian civilians.
Furthermore, the international community should immediately launch an independent investigation into the Beit Hanoun atrocity and the many other incidents of Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians.
Israel should no longer be allowed to excuse Palestinian civilian death toll as “unintentional” or “collateral damage” during so-called military operations.
The Palestine Center is the educational program of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, an independent non-profit organization based in Washington, DC. Established in 1991, the Center provides a Palestinian perspective on U.S. policy in the Middle East, with particular emphasis on Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For more information about The Palestine Center and the Fund’s cultural and humanitarian programs, visit The Jerusalem Fund.
