Israel widened its assault on the Gaza Strip on Wednesday night by shelling the north of the territory and dropping leaflets warning residents of a pending attack by tanks and troops, as the government seized on a crisis over an abducted soldier to take on Palestinian armed groups. It also held more than one million ordinary Palestinians responsible for 19-year-old Corporal Gilad Shilat’s continued capture and promised ”extreme action” to secure his release.
The Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, authorised a second invasion of Gaza in as many days after the seizure by troops early on Wednesday of an area in the south near the Rafah and Khan Yunis refugee camps. The army believes that Shalit is being held in the crowded warrens of the camps controlled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Residents of both camps were bracing themselves for an attack after Israeli forces moved back into the territory for the first time since Jewish settlers were pulled out last autumn.
But tanks and troops were also poised to move into northern Gaza, from where Palestinian militias have fired hundreds of rockets against Israeli towns in recent months. The air force dropped leaflets on two towns in the area on Wednesday night warning residents to stay indoors, and saying they would not be hurt if they did not resist Israeli forces.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops rounded up eight ministers and 20 lawmakers of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, Palestinian security officials said.
Some were blindfolded and handcuffed as they were arrested, the sources said.
A column of about 35 tanks, armoured vehicles and bulldozers also rolled into northern Gaza under cover of darkness early on Thursday, the day after the launch of the ground and air assault on the territory.
Israel also gave Syria a warning that it could be a target because it shelters Hamas leaders involved in Shalit’s capture. Israeli air force jets came under fire after they buzzed the home of the Syrian President, Bashar Assad.
On Wednesday night, the Israel army fired artillery shells every minute or so around two towns in northern Gaza, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, as tanks and troops waited to cross the border. Residents in towns in the line of fire rushed to stock up on food as they took on board a warning from the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, that ”we won’t hesitate to carry out extreme action to bring Gilad back to his family”.
In Rafah, people feared a repeat of a punitive Israeli offensive two years ago which left about 60 Palestinians dead and hundreds of homes destroyed in a week-long assault after 11 soldiers were killed. Merchants in Rafah’s market said sales of food had surged over the past two days.
Ibrahim Albalawi was stuffing bags of vegetables into the boot of his car. ”Last time we had to hide in the back of our house for days. It was very dangerous just to get to the toilet. There were bullets coming through the windows,” he said. ”I think they will attack again. Perhaps they will find the soldier, but if they don’t I think they will attack anyway. That’s what they do when they are angry.”
Earth barricades have been hurriedly pushed across streets in several Gaza towns, but Hamas’s militia was not to be seen after Israel held the group responsible for Shalit’s welfare.
Israel made clear that it holds ordinary Gazans responsible too, after it rocketed the main source of electricity in Gaza and blew up bridges on Wednesday. The attacks left hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s people without power and others without water.
Olmert said the destruction of Gaza’s only power station and three of its bridges was meant to pressure, not punish, ordinary Palestinians. ”Our aim is not to mete out punishment, but to apply pressure so the soldier will be freed. We want to create a new equation — freeing the abducted soldier in return for lessening the pressure on the Palestinians.”
To add to the crisis, a second Israeli was apparently abducted by the same group that took Shalit. The Popular Resistance Committees produced copies of the identity papers of a missing Jewish settler, 18-year-old Eliahu Asheri, who disappeared while hitchhiking in the West Bank, and threatened to kill him if Israel continued its assault on the Gaza Strip.
The army seized control of Gaza’s international airport on the edge of Rafah — which last saw a flight five years ago, just before the army bulldozed the runway — and secured a large area of ground. The Israelis made their presence known to the rest of Gaza before dawn as air force jets let loose powerful sonic booms which sound unnervingly like very large bombs. Many Palestinians were shaken from their beds to find they had no electricity.
Twelve hours later, workers at Gaza’s power station were still hosing down six wrecked transformers billowing smoke after each one was picked off by a single missile, leaving heaps of buckled metal.
The plant’s operations manager, Derar Abu Sisi, predicted that it would not generate again before the end of the year, raising the prospect that more than half of Gaza’s 1,4-million residents, including a large part of Gaza City, will be without power for months. ”This plant produced 60% of the strip’s electricity. Now it’s completely shut down,” he said. ”What I know about war is that economics and infrastructure is usually the last target … We’re very sorry it’s the first stage of war here. They [the Israelis] know very well the electricity sector doesn’t have weapons.”
Israeli jets hit three bridges, severing a water main to two refugee camps. Other areas were left without fresh water because there was no power to run pumps.
The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, called the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure ”collective punishment and a crime against humanity”. Human rights groups said it was in breach of the Geneva conventions which bar attacks on targets of no immediate military value and on reprisals against civilians.
The Israeli army seemed at a loss to explain the value of severing electricity to most of Gaza’s population, and destroying bridges that will take weeks or months to repair, unless it is to make civilians suffer in order to pressure the armed groups holding Shalit. ”This is part of an ongoing effort to cause disruption, it’s all part of the same effort to get the soldier released,” said a spokesperson, Captain Noah Meir. ”It’s part of measures against those who are directly involved and those not directly involved.” Asked about the impact on the civilian population, she said: ”It was something we took into consideration. You do have to understand that we have to get the soldier back.”
Meir said the Gaza bridges were attacked to prevent the soldier’s captors from moving him around the strip. However, the destruction did not stop vehicles from travelling the length of the territory on Wednesday.
Gazans have not begun to think how they are going to get through the coming weeks and months without electricity. The wrecked plant was only fully on line for three years and it will cost about £8m to buy and install new transformers.
There may be an interim solution. Israel provides about 40% of electricity in the Gaza Strip. It used to supply it all and may do so again, meaning that Israel’s electricity company could make a handsome profit from the army’s destruction. – Guardian Unlimited Â