UN must take immediate action against Israel’s crimes on Gazans: Activist

Israeli warplanes, and assassination drones continue pounding the Gaza Strip for a third consecutive day.

A drone attack killed a 14-year-old Palestinian in Gaza’s Zaitoun neighborhood while another lost his life in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah. The attack targeted a man on a motorcycle near the Egyptian border.

At least nine people have been killed in the attacks on the besieged territory since Monday. There seems no end in sight to Tel Aviv’s ground and air assaults. Israel also refuses to lift a crippling blockade on the 1.5 million people living in the tiny enclave.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Joe Catron, an International Solidarity activist in Gaza, to further explore the issue. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: More Palestinians are dying in the Israeli attacks while the international community, especially the UN, has remained silent. Tell our viewers what is the situation like in the Gaza Strip as it is facing a 6-year siege, on top of these Israeli attacks?

Catron: As you know, nine Palestinians have been killed again by Israeli aggression over the last three days. I have not been able to keep track of the injuries.

I know they are in the dozens, I believe, and the Israeli attacks keep coming. It is worth keeping in mind that this was another round of unprovoked aggression by the Israelis.

They launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and when inevitable resistance came, they cried victim and attempted to pass themselves off as the grieved parties and unfortunately, much of the international community, including the United Nations and the global media, is playing along with this.

Press TV: As a peace activist, what do you expect the United Nations to do about the situation?

Catron: The United Nations should take action to enforce its, for starters, the many resolutions it has already passed demanding Israeli recognition of Palestinian human rights and international law.

In a case like this, where Israeli crimes are ongoing on an hourly basis, it should take immediate steps to prevent Israel from accessing the means of its crimes, military hardware and the equipment that it uses to murder Palestinians.

Press TV: Right now these attacks started, we saw earlier, from Israel and then as you say, Hamas was retaliating against them, saying that it is going to resist these attacks; it is not going to allow Israel to continue with them and now this is becoming a tit for tat response.

Do you see things as they are going to escalate from this stage on? And how is this going to affect the situation for Gaza?

Catron: It depends entirely upon the Israeli regime. The pattern we see repeatedly here is that a ceasefire will be reached and Israel will inevitably violate it.

This is something we have seen time and time again and whether it will be repeated now depends largely upon the pressure Israel faces from the rest of the world, I believe.

Press TV: So do you think that there is this intention from the side of Israel, from the actions that we are seeing it is taking, to launch another war on the Gaza Strip?

Catron: It is very difficult to say. I do not know that Israel has the political will right now for another Cast Lead-type ground incursion.

They are certainly much more isolated politically now than they were in 2008 by developments in Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. But their ongoing escalating pattern of aggression against the Gaza Strip is certainly troubling.