Israeli air force jets have bombed the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip, a significant cultural symbol for Hamas.
Warplanes also struck Hamas government offices as air raids aimed at forcing Palestinian militants to halt rocket fire into southern Israel continued.
Palestinian medics say nearly 300 people have been killed in the air raids that began on Saturday.
Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and is now calling up 6,500 army reservists.
Witnesses in Gaza said they saw six separate air strikes on the Islamic University, hitting a laboratory building, just after midnight.
The university is a centre of support for Hamas - the Islamist militant group which controls the Gaza Strip. Many of its top officials graduated from there.
A BBC journalist in Gaza said the university authorities had evacuated the campus a few days ago as they had been expecting a strike.
Israel's behaviour is nothing short of crimes against humanity. Blatant violation of human rights. The UN Security Council has called an emergency session.
28 December 2008 – The Security Council on Sunday called on Israel and the Palestinians to immediately end all violence, as Israeli airstrikes in response to rocket attacks by militants in Gaza reportedly killed 270 people and wounded more than 600 in the Strip.
“The Members of the Security Council expressed serious concern at the escalation of the situation in Gaza and called for an immediate halt to all violence,” according to a statement issued to the press following emergency closed-door talks late last night.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a similar call yesterday in a statement in which he voiced his deep alarm at the “heavy violence and bloodshed in Gaza, and the continuation of violence in southern Israel.”
In another statement issued today, Mr. Ban “deplores that violence is continuing today, and he strongly urges once again an immediate stop to all acts of violence.”
The international community needs to condemn Israel for war crimes. Now. There are no words.
2 comments:
The international community needs to condemn Israel for war crimes. Now. There are no words.
And they need to condemn the US for greenlighting everything that israel does. And such condemnation must include diplomatic and financial consequences.
I wish that the international community had the power to impose such consequences but the power disparity makes that impossible. This is one of the reasons that we need a powerful UN with intervention capabilities. But that requires cooperation and that's not a commodity in abundance.
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