COSATU condemns new Israeli atrocities
The Congress of South African trade unions is horrified by the latest atrocity inflicted on the Palestine people in Gaza by the Israeli apartheid regime, when a missile demolished an entire 13-storey block of flats on Saturday 23 August 2014.
Casualties were reduced as a result of an Israeli aircraft firing a non-explosive rocket at the building as a warning to residents to get out of the flats, which Israel claimed had housed "a Hamas command centre". Even so 17 people were wounded and the members of the 44 families who lived in the block are now homeless.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered residents "to evacuate immediately from every site from which Hamas is carrying out terrorist activity. Every one of these places is a target for us."
Since the Israeli military determines which buildings it defines as Hamas bases, this amounts to a threat to demolish the entire city, and render it uninhabitable. Thousands of homes in the Gaza Strip have already been destroyed or damaged, and nearly 500,000 people have been displaced.
A few hours after the flats were demolished another Israeli air strike destroyed a cluster of 10 houses in an air strike in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, and ten people were wounded by flying debris, but with no fatalities.
The next day a mother and her four children were killed when their home was bombed in the Jabalya refugee camp, and this time no warning was given.
Another result of the bombings is that the start of the school year in Gaza has been delayed indefinitely by the Education Ministry, which means children's education will be the next casualty of war.
All these actions and threats show the Israeli government's utter contempt for the Palestinians, and for the millions of people around the world who are protesting against its genocidal assault on the people.
As Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri says, Netanyahu's warnings to Gazans to steer clear of potential targets is "a clear example of war crimes" against Gaza's civilian population.
It is becoming increasingly clear that their ultimate aim is the total destruction of Gaza as a viable community. According to a United Nations report Gaza would not be "a liveable place" by 2020 unless action was taken to improve basic services in the territory.
UN Human Rights Council official, Richard Falk, said Palestinians' right to determine their own future had been postponed and denied for a long time by adding: "With Israel's occupation, Palestinians' rights are raped repeatedly and Israel's accretion policy is eased systematically. These issues do not move peace in the Middle East forward; this recent situation should be prevented."
Palestinian health officials say 2,115 people, most of them civilians and more than 400 of them children, have been killed since 8 July 2014, when Israel launched its offensive, with its overwhelmingly superior fire-power.
On the other side only 64 Israeli soldiers and four civilians in Israel have been killed. This means that 31 Palestinians have died for every one Israeli! That statistic alone demolishes the propaganda that this is a battle between two comparable forces.
On the contrary it is, as it always has been, an onslaught by a heavily armed Israeli colonial regime against the oppressed people of Palestine whose land they robbed, and who have been forced to take refuge in Bantustans where they are routinely oppressed and murdered.
COSATU is intensifying its mobilisation for the complete boycott of companies trading with Israel and the any goods imported into Israel. The next important event, which the federation urges all its members to attend, is the picket of Woolworths in Eastgate Shopping Mall, Johannesburg, on Saturday 30th August 2014, to condemn Woolworths for their continued stocking of Israeli products.
Those taking part will meet at the Bruma Nissan parking lot between 13:30-14:00.
Statement issued by COSATU national spokesperson, Patrick Craven, August 26 2014
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
