The People of Gaza Resist and Refuse Israel's Operation "Hot Winter"

Ahmad Jaradat, Alternative Information Center (AIC) : Tuesday, 04 March 2008
The Israeli military announced its redeployment and withdrew from the places in Gaza that it invaded over the last few days. The military noted that the first stage of its big military operation, dubbed “Hot Winter” was finished and that the next stages will be conducted within the framework of the same operation.

In the last five days, at least 117 Palestinians were killed and 300 injured, dozens of them seriously. Sixty percent of the dead and injured were civilians, most of them children, old men and women. Many of the civilians were killed inside their own homes as Israeli warplanes and tanks shelled neighborhoods, particularly in Jabalya and other populated areas of Gaza. Many families lost more than one member, while some lost almost everyone.

Human rights organizations found new demands for human rights about which to speak. In a press conference, human rights activist Jaber Wishah from Gaza Center for Human Rights loudly proclaimed that “we are calling for the right to bury the dead and remove the bodies from under the destroyed houses.” For five days, everything that moves has been a target of the Israeli shells: ambulances, aid officers, animals in the streets and fields and even the birds, especially the peace doves which were killed in the air and over the rooftops. Through our contacts with people in Gaza and our friends there, we know that for five days, 100,000 residents of the Jabalya Camp were unable to sleep or even rest. If such an event occurred in other places, in Europe, for example, how many organizations, experts and specialists in sociology, psychology and education would be deployed, and how much money would be devoted to examining the effects on children?

Yes, the first stage has ended, but the story is not finished. It will be continued according to the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister. Military actions and attacks will go ahead even following the redeployment.

In the last two years, Israel has dubbed the big operations in the Gaza Strip with names that contradict nature. The first operation was called Rainy Summer, the second Angry Autumn. Now it is Hot Winter. However, Gaza stands each time and refuses this change. Of course the price is extremely high, expensive and difficult to grasp. The lives of children and civilians were the price. Childhood was killed in one the most beautiful lands, the land of oranges, palms, roses and water. This important land which is the link point among great historical civilizations. It is the gateway between Africa and Asia. This land must take on the role of sending out peace to the world.

Yet the Israeli occupation wants to change this role, to deepen enmity and hatred, starting from Gaza and using the bodies of children in the streets of the most crowded place in the world.

It is not strange for an occupation power that acts against peace and justice to label its military operations with names contradicting nature. There is a relation between the occupation and those names that go against both the line of history and nature of things. This gives real hope that justice and peace will be victorious and lasting. That the occupation will be defeated.

The matter here is not one of technical power, but of justice. America was defeated in Vietnam, France in Algeria and the classical colonialism of the United Kingdom in Iraq not because of technical reasons, but because those powers fought against the justice and freedom of people.

It is ridiculous to change the nature of things. Summer is hot, winter is cold and sure, spring is green. Justice and peace will be victorious and occupation will be ended.

Oh Gaza, how much you suffered because of these military operations and how much are you going to suffer on the way to justice, victory and defeat of the occupation? It wasn’t merely a nightmare for the al-Attaya family which they can wake up from, that a rocket shelled their house. It actually happened and left people wondering why? Why the children of Gaza, who were sleeping in peace, had to say good bye to the world that they just entered, parting to the melody of rocket shells.

How many tears and bodies of children does the world need to see so that it can feel you, Gaza?