The IOF has escalated its acts of murder and violence against the civilian population and their properties in the Gaza Strip.
On 17 February 2008, the IOF killed four people during incursions and air attacks in Rafah.
One of the victims was a police man, 28-year-old Ibrahim Salman Hussein Sabbah.
He suffered from shrapnel wounds all over his body and died immediately.
Three others were injured in the same attack.
At approximately 10:30am, on 17 February 2008, an IOF drone fired a missile that landed near the UNRWA clinic on Be'r Sahy Street in Al Shouka village in eastern Rafah.
As a result, 33-year-old Abed As Salam Mohammed Salama Abu Susein, a member of the national security forces, and 23-year-old Nasser Ali Abd Al Razek Abu Shabab were killed.
At approximately 10:40am the same day, the IOF opened fire at 24-year-old Abd Al Karim Mohammed Hassan Al Ghalban during an incursion east of the Rafah crossing.
While he was near his home in Al Shouka village he was shot in the chest and died.
According to Al Mezan's preliminary investigations, at approximately 8:50pm, on 15 February 2008, a massive explosion in a residential house took place in Block 7 of Al Bureij refugee camp, located in central Gaza Strip.
The house belongs to 41-year-old Attallah Ayman Ahmed Fayed.
The blast resulted in the killing of eight people, including one woman and one child, namely: 41-year-old Ayman Atallah Fayed; 37-year-old Marwa Azzam Fayed, his wife; 12-year-old Basma Ayman Fayed, his daughter; 17-year-old Ali Ayman Fayed, his son; 5-year-old Ayoub Ayman Fayed; his son; 17-year-old Zakaria Nabil Al Kafafy; 16-year-old Talal Salah Abu Oun; and 24-year-old Atallah Samir Ismail, while he was walking in the street.
The explosion in Al Bureij also caused the injury of 57 people, including twenty children and twenty-two women.
Two of them were reported to have sustained serious injury.
The explosion also destroyed six residential houses completely.
Sixty other homes were damaged severely, and tens of others received minor damages.
According to preliminary investigations and other information given in statements by IOF ministers and military officials, it is believed that the IOF are responsible for this terrible incident.
The most important fact in this incident is the scope of the damage, which recalls the crime that occurred in the Ad Darraj neighborhood.
On 22 July 2002, the IOF shelled Ad Darraj and killed16 persons and destroyed eight houses completely.
The shelling also caused damage to nearby residential homes.
The only difference between these two crimes is that the IOF admitted their responsibility for Ad Darraj.
The IOF Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, at that time, described it as one of their greatest successes.
It is not the first time that the IOF denied responsibility for their offenses, and in fact, they tried to get out of dozens of similar crimes previously.
On 9 June 2006, they shelled Beit Lahiya beach, during which seven members of the Ghalia family were killed.
It should be noted that the official statements made by the IOF admit their intention to continue their escalation of aggression on the Gaza Strip.
Among them, the Israeli Minister of the Interior, Meir Sheetrit, declared on 10 February 2008, that the IOF is able to exterminate an entire neighborhood in the Gaza Strip.
He pointed out that their forces have done so in a southern suburb of Beirut.
This statement was made just five days prior to the Bureij shelling.
Beside the statements made by the Israeli Defense Minister, it was reported that Israeli intelligence agencies will carry out operations secretly.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights renews its repeated demands for the international community to uphold their moral duty and responsibility to protect Gazans, especially in relation to the Fourth Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War.
Al Mezan warns the international community of the consequences of the IOF's widespread destruction of densely populated areas.
Statements of IOF military leaders reinforce the Center's fears, in which they declared to wipe out residential areas entirely, despite the consequential deaths of thousands of civilian victims.
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