Sir, – In his latest letter (July 16th), Israeli ambassador Boaz Modai makes a series of factually incorrect pronouncements. Please allow me to set the record straight.
Hamas did not “begin its present rocket offensive against Israel on June 12th, the first day of the search for three murdered Israeli teenagers” – whose murder we have condemned. Moreover Israel has failed to prove that Hamas is behind this crime.
On June 11th two people were killed in Gaza, one a 10-year-old child. Israel then invaded the West Bank, supposedly in search of the killers of the three teenagers, but in the process shot and killed 11 civilians, injured over 100 others, damaged hundreds of houses and arrested over 650 Palestinians, including 11 members of parliament.
It is perfectly clear that Israel’s current attack on the illegally besieged and completely defenceless Gaza Strip is a response to the recently formed and internationally recognised Palestinian unity government – because there is nothing that Israeli prime minister Netanyahu fears more than to negotiate with the unified Palestinian government. The murder of the three teenagers and the Hamas rockets are merely the pretexts for this massive and criminal escalation of Israeli violence.
Mr Modai shows some temerity in citing the additional protocol to the Geneva Convention’s prohibition of attacking the civilian population, especially when the highly respected NGO Defence for Children International estimates that on average one Palestinian child has been killed every three days by Israel since 2000.
MrModai is at least correct in claiming that “the difference between Israel and Hamas boils down to this: we are using bomb shelters and the Iron Dome system to protect the residents of Israel”.
The people of Gaza (1.7 million) have no bomb shelters, no Iron Dome, and indeed no air raid alarms; at present 18,000 Gazan civilians have taken refuge in UNRWA schools – and Israel has so far targeted and damaged several of these, in violation of the same Geneva Conventions cited by Mr Modai.
The international community must intervene to stop the continuation of this criminal Israeli campaign, which has so far indiscriminately targeted private houses, nursing homes, mosques and civilian infrastructure. So far over 208 Palestinians have been killed, some 20 per cent of them children. By putting peace further beyond our grasp, this does nothing in the long term to protect Israelis, for whom the end of their occupation of the state of Palestine and a just peace with their neighbours are the only guarantees of security. – Yours, etc,
AHMAD ABDELRAZEK,
Ambassador of
the State of Palestine,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.