While the world’s media has focused attention on Israel’s four-week offensive in Lebanon, a no less ferocious assault is also underway in Gaza. The Palestinian territory’s 1.4 million residents have been subjected to an unrelenting Israeli military offensive, as well as an air, land, and sea blockade which threatens a humanitarian catastrophe.

Seizing upon the pretext of the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants on June 25, the Israeli military has mounted a six-week campaign aimed at annihilating the West Bank and Gaza’s entire social, economic, and political infrastructure.

According to figures published in last Saturday’s Haaretz, Israeli ground forces have fired 12,000 artillery shells into Gaza in the past five weeks. This is an average of more than 300 shells a day. In addition, at least 220 aerial strikes take place each day. Israeli ground forces, including infantry, tanks, and bulldozers have launched regular incursions into the area. This firepower is concentrated on one of the world’s most densely populated areas, which is seven times smaller than Rhode Island, the smallest US state.

In the latest bombardment, Israeli forces have launched a sustained operation in Rafah in south Gaza over the past five days. Tanks and soldiers have taken over the area, conducting house-to-house searches, and destroying greenhouses and farmlands. Eight Palestinians were killed Saturday. At least three of these were civilians—including an eight-year-old boy—who were bombed as they fled Israeli gunfire.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/gaza-a07.shtml

My name is Usama Abu el-Sheikh, and I am from Tabaria, Palestine. I am of course a refugee and have never been to my hometown in Palestine though I learned about it from my grandparents and I read some books about it. I have never been to Tabaria, but I am Tabarian, and will remain so, as I am from Shatila too and will remain so. Although I always dreamt of corresponding with my country and my hometown to see if I still have relatives there, I was unable to because there is no mail between Lebanon and the State of Israel. Ironically, only the missiles of Hizbullah can be sent to Israel. We are not allowed to return, but the missiles go where we cannot. But how can you send love to Tabaria with a missile?

I am nineteen now, and I grew up in Shatila camp. As a child I wanted to be many things, sometimes a doctor, other times an engineer or a journalist. As a child, you know, I could dream whatever I wanted to and I wanted to be many things. As I was growing up though, my dreams started to be hit by my reality, by my being a refugee in Lebanon where we have no civil rights. Being the oldest son of a widowed mother with seven children and no one to care for after the death of my dad when I was just seven years old, I lived a real struggle inside. My father's words as he was on his death bed asking me to "care for the family" are words that keep echoing in my head. I got to be the "man of the household" without choosing it, without knowing it. As a child, it was ok, but as I was getting to be a teenager, I wanted always to fulfill this responsibility, always. I was not able to stand the fact that I'm not fulfilling my responsibility as the head of the household. My mum, like all Palestinian mothers, wanted me to get my education. For her it was the way to help the family out, because the identity "educated" is kind of a compensation of our lost identity as Palestinians -- not lost in terms of our own feelings but in terms of how the world deals with us. It was hard to focus though, especially because I couldn't see a future. How could I be a doctor in a country where we have no rights? So I left school, and now I work in a telephone calling shop in the camp.

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http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5423.shtml