Alwaght | News & Analysis Website

Alwaght-A year has passed after the Israeli regime launched one of the most brutal wars on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, deepening the suffering of 1.8 million people who were already suffering from a crippling blockade imposed by the regime for eight consecutive years.

On July 7, 2014, the Israeli regime launched a colossal ground, air, and naval assault on the Gaza Strip, the tiny Palestinian coastal enclave Israel controls. This was the third, and to date the worst, such assault waged by Israel against Gaza since 2008. It was an outrageous act of premeditated aggression to which the Israeli regime gave the Orwellian name “Operation Protective Edge.
For its part, Palestinian resistance responded by firing a heavy barrage of rockets towards the occupied territories areas and carried out unprecedented operations against Israeli military targets.

During the 51-day aggression, 50 Palestinian families in Gaza were entirely wiped out according to human rights statistics. In the course of fifty-one dark days, nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed including 530 children and 302 women, while 145 Palestinian families lost three or more of their members.
About 11,000 Gaza Palestinians were injured, maimed, or permanently disfigured. Israeli bombardment destroyed or severely damaged 18,000 housing units, displacing nearly 20,000 Palestinian families comprised of about 108,000 men, women, and children. It also flattened about 17,000 hectares of crops, and decimated the agricultural infrastructure that sustains life: irrigations systems, animal farms, and greenhouses.
According to sources, 62 mosques were totally destroyed and 109 others were partially damaged. The criminal Israeli regime did not even spare the dead as 10 Muslim cemeteries and one Christian cemetery were bombed.
This relentless pummeling was directed at a population still recovering from the two preceding Israeli attacks—Operation “Cast Lead” in 2008–2009, and Operation “Pillar of Cloud” in 2012—and reeling from an illegal and debilitating seven-year-long siege and blockade that shattered livelihoods and deliberately impoverished the residents.
Recently A United Nations report noted that the Israeli regime committed war crimes  and used huge firepower during last year's Gaza war.

The Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict announced it had received "credible allegations" that war crimes were committed during the Israeli war on the Palestinian territory.
The UN report further denounced the “huge firepower” used in Gaza, saying Israel launched more than 6,000 airstrikes and fired 50,000 artillery shells on the besieged enclave.
The report is expected to serve as a road map for the inquiry into possible war crimes already underway by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, ICC.

A senior official from the Palestine Liberation Organization said the report reinforces Palestinians resolve to take Israeli war criminals to The Hague based ICC. Meanwhile The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a recent report called on the international community to rev up measures for the reconstruction of the besieged Gaza Strip and to boost economy in the blockaded Palestinian territory as well as the occupied West Bank.
The report released on mid-May evaluated the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip, which suffered a deadly Israeli onslaught last summer, saying that the rebuilding process "is moving far more slowly than expected."
IMF highlighted the colossal size of destruction in the besieged Gaza Strip because of the Israeli aggression, estimating the economic cost of the 50-day Israeli war on the blockaded territory at USD 4 billion.
Elsewhere an NGO says the majority of the children living in those areas in the Gaza Strip that were hit the hardest during the 2014 Israeli war on the sliver are still showing signs of severe emotional distress.
The international non-governmental organization (NGO) Save the Children announced in its latest assessment on Monday that up to 89% of parents in the areas impacted by Israeli bombardments reported that their children still suffer consistent feelings of fear.
The NGO also said that more than 70% of Palestinian children living in the areas surveyed said they worried about another war.
The Israeli regime continues to defy the international community due to the unflinching support it gets from some western countries especially the US. As the world marks International Quds Day, the plight of Palestinians in Gaza will be top on the agenda.
In efforts to liberate the occupied Quds and Palestine in general from the clutches of the Israeli regime, in August 1979, the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, declared the last Friday of the fasting Holy Month of Ramadan as the International Quds Day. This year, the International Quds Day falls on Friday, July 10.