Another week in the prison known as Palestine

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights http://www.pchrgaza.org/
Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 33/2006 17 - 23 August 2006

• 8 Palestinians were killed by IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces]
• A woman from Rafah died from a previous wound she has sustained when IOF attacked her and her two children, who were killed in the attack.
• Two of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF.
• 26 Palestinian civilians, including 8 children and a woman, were wounded by the IOF gunfire.
• IOF launched a series of air strikes on a number of houses in the Gaza Strip.
• Two houses were destroyed in Rafah and Jabalya.
• IOF conducted 44 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and two others into the Gaza Strip.
• IOF arrested 64 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, including 5 children and 4 women.
• IOF arrested the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
• IOF raided offices of 3 charitable societies in Hebron.
• IOF razed at least 30 donums[1] of agricultural land and arrested 5 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT; IOF have imposed a tightened siege on the Gaza Strip and there have been shortages of foodstuffs and fuels; and IOF positioned at a various checkpoints in the West Bank arrested 9 Palestinian civilians, including two children.

IOF have continued to construct the Annexation Wall in the West Bank; they confiscated more areas of land in Tulkarm; they resumed the construction of a section of the Wall near "Shavi Shomron" settlement in the northern West Bank; and they used force to disperse a peaceful demonstration protesting the construction of the Wall in Bal’ein village, west of Ramallah.

Summary
As the international community has remained silent, IOF have continued to wage a full scale offensive on the Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip. During the reported period, IOF have continued their attacks on Palestinian civilians and property.

PCHR, monitoring with utmost concern the developments of this offensive, calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and United Nations, to immediately intervene to force IOF to stop this offensive and lift the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.