Civilians in sights Excerpted from Morning Star

WASHINGTON has urged Israel to show 'restraint' in its rampage through the Gaza Strip, but it does nothing to put real pressure on its regional surrogate.

In fact, its restraint calls simply emphasise hypocrisy of the White House, since US occupation forces in Iraq are engaged in a terrorist bloodbath similar to that which the Israelis are perpetrating against the Palestinians.

Over 70 Palestinians have been killed in the first six days of the onslaught on Gaza, many of them children and people uninvolved in armed resistance.

The death toll in Fallujah and Samarra can only be guessed at, given the proclivity of the occupiers to use the same 'pinpoint' bombing and rocketing used by the Israelis to target their opponents.

And the fact that US Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated that Washington has 'no interest' in counting Iraqi deaths further compounds the difficulties.

In Gaza, as in Iraq, the resistance is based in overcrowded poor areas, where the use of tanks, helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers is guaranteed to produce civilian casualties.

Israel, as ever, claims self-defence and points to the two children killed by a rocket in the Israeli border town of Sderot.

Civilians, especially children, should not be targeted in any conflict, but Palestinian children have been killed in far greater numbers because of Israel's disregard for civilian casualties.

While fatalities caused by Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli towns are rare, the deaths of children at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces is an everyday occurrence, so much so that many Palestinians assume that children are deliberately targeted as a form of Israeli state terror.

As Jabaliya deputy mayor Isa Dhahir has said, 'An army that is equipped with state-of-the-art technology can easily distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

'An army that can strike and assassinate a person driving in a small car through a crowded street can easily distinguish children and women from resistance fighters.'

Israel's ongoing massacre in Gaza, together with demolition of houses and destruction of farms and orchards, is intended to dishearten Palestinians and break the will of the resistance.

Such acts fit in with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's lifelong record of terrorism against Palestinian civilian targets, which will not be halted by George W. Bush's weasel words on restraint.

The Arab League is calling on Arab governments to appeal to the United Nations security council or general assembly 'to halt Israel's continued war of extermination against the Palestinian people' and to urge respect for international law on the rights of people living under military occupation.

The US veto will protect Israel from the consequences of its war crimes, which makes it incumbent on the European Union, Israel's major trading partner, to decide if its words on human rights are more than simply words.

Only a comprehensive boycott, such as that imposed on apartheid South Africa, can force Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

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Statement by the Political Bureau of the Israeli Communist Party (CPI) OCTOBER, 3 2004 STOP WAR CRIMES!

The Way To Achieve Security Is By Termination of The Occupation!

The CPI denunciates Sharon's government, which has aggravated the bloody war against the Palestinian People, especially against the Palestinian inhabitants in the Gaza Strip. During the month of September, the Israeli Army killed some 100 Palestinian inhabitants and is now continuing

In its killing pursuit, demolishing of houses and performing arrests.

The CPI objects killing of Israel and Palestinian civilians alike. But regards as sheer hypocrisy on behalf of Sharon's government and Israeli Army the exploitation of the death of civilians, among them two babies, in the town of Sderot to justify the renewal of occupation of parts of Gaza Strip and the killing of tens of Palestinians, among them pupils in their school classes.

The shooting without distinction of Israeli tanks and helicopters of whatever Sharon calls 'The Disengagement Plan.' It is impossible to disconnect.

The killing and the destruction in Gaza Strip were already defined by Israeli Army spokesmen as an 'advanced payment of the evacuation.'

The intimidation attack, waged by the Israeli Army in preparation for the 'Disengagement' teaches us once more that when Sharon speaks of 'Evacuation,' he is preparing more war crimes' aiming at elimination the aspiration of the Palestinian People to stop living under occupation and achieve their national independence alongside Israel.

CPI calls upon all peace lovers, Jews and Arabs, to denounce the crimes of occupation and to demand the immediate pullout of the Israeli Army from all parts of the Gaza Strip, being under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

CPI emphasizes once more, that security and peace can be achieved only by putting an end to Israeli occupation, evacuation of all Israeli settlements' establishing an Palestinian independent state alongside Israel, establishing two Capitals in Jerusalem, and solving the Refugees' question according to UN resolutions.

Stop War Crimes!

Two States, Israel and Palestine! The Way to Peace and Security.