"Israel" Defies Gaza Truce, Shoots Woman

Source: Alalam.ir, 01-07-2008

GAZA STRIP, July 1--A Palestinian woman has been shot and wounded by an ‘Israeli' army fire east of Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources said on Tuesday.

The incident happened at a time when the ‘Israeli' occupying regime shut the crossings with the Gaza Strip again on Tuesday in what it called a response to a rocket attack a day earlier.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas official, denied any rockets had been launched on Monday from the territory, which is under the control of the resistance movement.

In fresh violence, ‘Israeli' troops guarding the Sufa crossing into the southern Gaza Strip shot and wounded a Palestinian woman, Palestinian medical officials said.

An ‘Israeli' military spokesman claimed that the army was not aware of a shooting incident in the area.

"All the crossings are closed, except for the Erez crossing, which is open for humanitarian use only," said Shlomo Dror, an ‘Israeli' War Ministry spokesman.

"We had given an order to increase the number of trucks from 60 to 90 per day, but the other side continues to fire," he said, referring to goods that were to have been transferred to the Gaza Strip.

He gave no timeframe for reopening Gaza crossings.

An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire between ‘Israel' and Hamas went into effect on June 19. Abu Zuhri said all Palestinian factions were committed to what he termed "calm".

‘Israel' had previously shut the crossings on June 25 after Islamic Jihad launched a rocket attack against the Zionists as a response to the killing by ‘Israeli' troops of one of its leaders in the occupied West Bank.

The West Bank is not covered by the ceasefire, but Islamic Jihad had put ‘Israel' on notice that it might react violently to raids in the territory.

An ‘Israeli' human rights group said on Tuesday that the occupied West Bank faces grave water shortages largely as a result of "discriminatory" ‘Israeli' policies.

"The shortage will have serious repercussions on the economy and the health of tens of thousands of Palestinians," the B'Tselem group said in a statement.

"The chronic water shortage results in large part from ‘Israel's' discriminatory policy in distributing the joint water resources in the West Bank, and the limits it places on the Palestinian Authority's ability to drill new wells," it said.

The accumulated effects of a series of dry years will make the shortages even worse in coming months.

Per capita water consumption in the West Bank stands at 66 liters (just over 17 gallons) a day, about two-thirds less than the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization.

Per capita water consumption by ‘Israelis' is 3.5 times that of Palestinians, B'Tselem said.