Some of the victims were demonstrators. Some were children in their homes, trying to get away from the gas seeping under the door. Some were old men walking down the street. One of the victims was a thirteen year-old boy, playing in a schoolyard when a gas canister enveloped him in a cloud of poisonous smoke.
Just six days after the landslide election of Ariel Sharon, February 12, 2001 was a violent day in occupied Palestine. In the war-ravaged neighborhoods of Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a barrage of collective punishment after soldiers were shot at by Palestinian gunmen.
US officials recently announced the somewhat jarring news that Israeli security forces will be training American soldiers in the techniques of urban warfare. Apparently Israel’s illegal thirty-five year occupation of Palestine has enabled it to perfect tactics that our troops will need in a ‘possible’ war on Iraq.
