The Gaza War

A list of articles covering this unfortunate end to 2008 and beginning to 2009 in the Gaza strip.

6 months later, has the world forgotten? – A brief look at Gaza and Gazans 6 months removed from the invasion. The author speaks with a number of Gazans about what it did to their lives; examines the Fatah/Hamas split and the increasing “Islamization” of Gaza by Hamas; and concludes that Gaza is missing support from the rest of the world and that the Palestinians there are exhausted and losing motivation to look for improvement.

Israeli Troops Told to ‘Shoot First’ -  Discusses the approach taken to civilians during the War and then details the words battle as the IDF tries to deny claims from its own soldiers regarding its tactics. A Christian Science Monitor article on the same topic focuses a bit more on the soldiers’ claims.

Israel hits UN Relief compound – Just one of the many sights that Israel fired on that should not have been touched (beyond the fact that the invasion itself was seemingly illegal), this after the Israelis had been provided with the GPS coordinates of all UN facilities in Gaza. This “soft” target hit list also includes some hospitals and schools.

Casualties

“Amnesty International concluded that an overall figure of some 1,400[Palestinian] fatalities is accurate and that, in addition to some 300 children, 115 women and 85 men aged over 50, some 200 men aged less than 50 were unarmed civilians who took no part in the hostilities.” 13 Israeli’s are believed to have been killed, which includes 4 soldiers killed by friendly fire.

The World Health Organization lost 16 people and the UN Relief Agency lost 5.

It would be unfair not to mention the rocket attacks by Hamas and Palestinian militants into Israel, which have been significant, as an illegal action. Also significant though is the low number of Israeli deaths (8 people in 2008) as a result of these rocket attacks. The IDF named these attacks as a major factor in the invasion. Rocket attacks intensified during the Offensive, included new cities in Israel not previously targeted, and rocket attacks have continued intermittently since Israel’s withdrawal.