Counterpunch, March 11, 2008
By ED O'LOUGHLIN
Gaza
SAFA ABU SEIF, 12, was fatally wounded as she stood in an upstairs room of her home in the Gaza City district of Jabaliya 10 days ago.
She was one of 27 children identified by United Nations staff among the 107 Palestinians who were killed in five days last week. Another 25 dead, including five women, were identified as unarmed non-combatants. The status of 13 more dead victims could not be determined. At least three of the children were reportedly shot in their homes by Israeli small arms or sniper fire.
A Palestinian gunman killed eight Israeli students on Thursday before he was killed himself. An Israeli soldier was also killed that day. Two Israeli soldiers died in action in the early stages of a three-day incursion into Jabaliya, and an Israeli civilian was killed by Palestinian rocket fire on the first day of the surge in violence.
Asked by the Herald to comment on allegations that its troops had killed children in the area, the Israeli Defence Force blamed the violence on terrorist groups who exploited Palestinian civilians as human shields while firing rockets intended to harm Israeli civilians.
"IDF operations in the Gaza Strip are aimed solely at the Hamas terror infrastructure, armed terrorists and rocket launchers," its statement said.
A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Civil Administration - Israel's military government for the occupied territories - had received no complaints about shootings of civilians, and no investigation was underway.
Yet the family of the Palestinian television journalist Mahmoud Al Adjrami said that when Safa was struck Israeli troops were occupying their house, 90 metres across a stretch of open space from the window she was struck through.
They say the invading soldiers smashed up their tile floor to get sand to fill sand-bags for firing positions in first-floor windows facing the Abu Seif house. The discarded sand, together with the smashed door and tiles, spent bullet cases and heaps of Israeli ration boxes and discarded snack wrappers, were still in the house a day after the troops withdrew.
It is standard Israeli military procedure during tank raids to take over civilian homes as snipers' nests and hideouts, holding the occupants at gunpoint. According to the testimonies of victims and from Israeli soldiers themselves, this process can frequently involve theft, vandalism and violence against unarmed civilians.
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