In a brazen attempt to sugar coat Israel's flagrant violations of the Geneva Convention, specifically Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which is intended to protect civilians, the corporate media continues to spin the situation in the Gaza Strip.

"Israel Steps Up Raids in Bid to Free Soldier," headlines the New York Times, reporting that "Israeli aircraft intensified their attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza."

In fact, the Israelis are inflicting relentless collective punishment on the Palestinians, as B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, documents.

"During its operation in the Gaza Strip following the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, Israeli air force jets have carried out low-altitude sorties over the Gaza Strip in which they intentionally cause powerful sonic booms," explains B'Tselem. "The sole purpose of these sorties is to prevent the residents from sleeping and to create an ongoing sense of fear and anxiety. Regarding the sonic booms, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that, 'thousands of residents in southern Israel live in fear and discomfort, so I gave instructions that nobody will sleep at night in the meantime in Gaza.' The clear intention of the practice is to pressure the Palestinian Authority and the armed Palestinian organizations by harming the entire civilian population."

No mention of this in the Israel-friendly New York Times, or the Washington Post for that matter. Of course, we shouldn't expect the New York Times to report this, as they have functioned obediently as a propaganda tool for the neocons, who are joined at the hip with the Likudites in Israel and have the unwavering support of millions of Stepfordized Christian Zionists who believe the Palestinians must be ethnically cleansed in order that they may realize their delusional and selfish pretribulationist rapture.

"Children, in particular, suffer from the sonic booms. In the past, the Gaza Community Mental Health Center reported that the supersonic sorties caused fear among many children, which led to a loss of concentration, loss of appetite, bedwetting, and other disorders. The Center also reported that sonic booms caused headaches, stomach aches, shortness of breath, and other physical effects that appeared among both children and adults.... The use of sonic booms flagrantly breaches a number of provisions of international humanitarian law. The most significant provision is the prohibition on collective punishment. Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which is intended to protect civilians in time of war, categorically states that 'Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.' The article also states that, 'Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.' Air force supersonic sorties also breach the principle of distinction, a central pillar of humanitarian law, which forbids the warring sides to direct their attacks against civilians."

The Palestine Media Center (PMC) writes the following: "Using the release of the Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit as pretext, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his occupation forces to reoccupy Gaza Strip, terrorize Palestinian civilians with sonic booms, thin them to starvation, disrupt traffic, electricity supply, and access to water, bomb soccer fields, schools, TV stations, cultural centers and charities, vandalize hospitals, and kidnap mafia-like cabinet ministers, mayors and parliamentarians, revoke Palestinian residency in Jerusalem, and bomb the offices of prime and interior ministers." PMC, filling in where the disgusting Israel-friendly corporate media has left off, notes specific incidents:

IOF warplanes bombed the soccer field of the Islamic University in Gaza late Wednesday after destroying the only power plant in the strip early in the day, plunging Gaza Strip into darkness and depriving about one million Palestinians from electricity for months to come, hitting very hard not only households but also hospitals and schools.

Water supplies were also cut early Wednesday by bombing water pipelines, after destroying three bridges linking the south and north of the Gaza Strip.

Al-Arqam school, a cultural center and a charity in Gaza city were bombed to rubble by the IOF warplanes.

The IOF also damaged the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children's facilities in Gaza City. When IOF warplanes caused massive sonic booms and nearby explosions in air strikes, the Palestinian NGO's building windows shattered. As a result, several deaf vocational trainees were injured from the shattered glass.

According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights six power transformers were destroyed, which provide an estimated 45 per cent of the electricity in Gaza for approximately half the population.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Gaza Electrical Distribution Company estimates it will take nine months to procure replacement transformers.

The Coastal Municipalities Water Utility manages the 132 water wells in Gaza, which is powered by GEDCO. Since back-up generators are needed to keep water flowing, there is concern about the financial and physical stability of using back-up generators because the IOF closed off the energy pipeline into Gaza.

Destroying critical civilian infrastructure, targeting facilities for the deaf, pitching hospitals and charities into the dark, creating a massive refugee situation-it is all in a day's work for the neocons and their Likudite masters, from Gaza and the West Bank to the whole of Iraq.

"I take personal responsibility for what is happening in Gaza. I want no one to sleep at night in Gaza," declared Olmert, who should also take responsibility for the fact Palestinians on life support and other critical health care systems will now die; he should take responsibility for all the miscarriages and mental problems caused by sonic boom warfare; he should take responsibility for terrorizing hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians, the vast majority who have nothing to do with the capture of IOF soldier Shalit, who is a prisoner of war.

Ehud Olmert, claiming responsibility for crimes against humanity, should face a tribunal immediately.

But then, as Olmert's predecessor, the scurrilous terrorist leader (of Irgun) Menachem Begin, told Israel's mafia, otherwise known as the Knesset, the Palestinians "are beasts walking on two legs."

As such, according to the Israelis and their neocon co-conspirators, the Palestinians do not deserve hospitals, charities, clean water (or any water at all, as there is no electricity to drive well pumps), food, or even a night's rest. The Fourth Geneva Convention applies to humans, not beasts on two legs.

Obviously, as well, the New York Times believes the Palestinians are beasts, although as "liberals," they would not state such outright, as the leader of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, Menachem Begin did.

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