The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) strongly condemns the latest Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, in which Israeli troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gun ships, killed 14 Palestinians and wounded 80 in Bureij and Nussairat refugee camps in Gaza.

In the early dawn raid against refugee camps on Sunday, March 7th, 2003, Israeli forces fired indiscriminately at residential buildings in the camp. Eyewitnesses said that fierce fighting erupted after Israeli troops invaded both camps under the cover of darkness and began to search houses. At least 80 people, including 33 children, were wounded, while 14 Palestinians, four of them children, were killed during the Israeli incursion.

Palestinian medical personnel and eyewitness accounts in Bureij camp also confirmed that Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gun ships killed two 22-year-old Palestinians: Ahmad Sudini and Hazim Akil, 20-year-old Moussa Kadask and a 13-year-old Mohammad Abu Zraik. Palestinians killed at Nussairat refugee camp include: 7-year-old Mohammad Younis, 14-year-old Mohammad AlBadawi, 16-year-old Haitham AlIsawi, 18-year-old Omar AlJamal, 20-year-old Mohammad AlShatili, 22-year-old Khalid AlHazki and Ahmad Harb, 23-year-old Faris AlHawajri, 26-year-old Youssef AlSinwar and 44-year-old Hassan Zahd.

Israel’s latest assault against Palestinian residents of refugee camps in Gaza constitutes an escalation by Ariel Sharon’s radical right wing government against the Palestinian people. Israel’s policies of harsh militarism and uncompromising battering of a predominantly civilian Palestinian population amounts to a grave violation of the most basic human rights and calls for urgent action. The international community, with all its governments, institutions, and civil society, must hold the Israeli government accountable for its actions, and must not allow such dangerous and irresponsible policies to continue unchallenged.

MIFTAH calls upon the international community, specifically the representatives of the foreign governments in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to intervene, address and stop such Israeli assaults against the Palestinian people. We urge the international community to adopt a clear position against injustice and to put an end to Israel’s illegal and immoral occupation of the Palestinian territories.