More deaths and maiming of Palestinians amid latest “ceasefire”
By
Jean Shaoul
11 August 2018
Israeli military forces killed two Palestinian paramedics and wounded at least 307 more, 131 of whom needed hospital treatment, during protests Friday in the Gaza Strip.
The protests were held under the banner of the Great March of Return, as they have been over the last four months demanding the Palestinians’ right of return to their homes in Israel from which they or their families were driven out during the 1948-49 and 1967 wars.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health named the two people who were killed as Abdullah al-Qatiti, 26, and Saeed Aloul, 55. It brings to more than 160 the number of Gazans killed since March 30. Tens of thousands more have been injured.
The killings came just hours after Israeli attacks on the besieged Palestinian enclave stopped late Thursday night. This was widely described as a de facto ceasefire between the Hamas-led authorities in Gaza and Israel, with an official Israeli statement issued that “quiet will be met with quiet.”
However, as well as the killing and maiming of protesters yesterday an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank attacked what was described as a Hamas position in the northern Gaza Strip. A senior Israeli diplomatic official insisted on the national news bulletin Hadashot that Hamas’s statement that Jerusalem had agreed to a truce was a lie. A senior defense official was cited by the Times of Israelstating that the army did not see the confrontation as over, implying that the IDF “did not see itself obligated to a truce.”
According to Channel 10 news, the IDF was considering a short sharp operation on Gaza City to exert the maximum pressure on the Hamas leadership.
This is the fourth such “ceasefire” and comes…