Israeli Tanks Shell Gaza As Fuel and Food Blockade Tightens

Rabat – Israeli tanks are shelling Gaza across the border as Israel blocks food and fuel from entering the besieged enclave. Perched on earthen hills that look over the Israeli border wall, Israeli tanks pounded targets inside the congested Gaza Strip. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been increasing attacks on the city of two million while blocking much-needed food and fuel necessary to generate electricity from entering Gaza.

Escalating aggression

A weekend of destruction in Gaza preceded continued shelling by Israeli tanks on Monday. Tanks fired with impunity after a weekend that saw jets bombing the small but densely populated Palestinian enclave. For six consecutive nights the IDF has attacked Gaza. claiming to respond to Palestinian balloons attached to flaming material that damaged Israeli farmland.

Residents of Gaza faced another frightening night as tanks pounded the strip late Sunday. “The attack was conducted in retaliation to balloon launching from the [Palestinian] enclave toward Israeli territory and in response to riots along the border,” an IDF spokesman said. On Sunday evening IDF forces fired on a group of roughly 200 protesters that had gathered near the border and allegedly threw a grenade at the security fence.

Israel’s advanced military is increasingly using brute force against the rudimentary tools of resistance available to the Palestinians. Incendiary balloons burn farmland and Israel’s Iron Dome system intercepted two Hamas rockets.However, Israel has reported no casualties. One Israeli man was injured by debris from an intercepted missile.

Food, fuel, and medicine crisis: Gaza under siege

Israel’s public relations apparatus swiftly organized on Monday for foreign reporters to tour the damage that one intercepted rocket caused to the shed of an Israeli home. The destruction caused by the IDF’s campaign, using advanced modern weaponry on defenseless Gaza, remains conveniently hidden.

The escalating Israeli siege could undermine recent success by the strip’s health authorities in halting community transmission of the Coronavirus. When Israeli officials closed the last remaining entry point for goods, the Kerem Shalom crossing, they essentially decided to block any food, medicine, or fuel from entering Gaza.

It appears Israeli is either trying to bomb and starve Gaza into submission or purposely provoke a reaction from Hamas, which the IDF could use to further escalate its military campaign. Gazans are currently blocked from fishing off their coast. They cannot import fuel and food and the only power plant in Gaza will shut down on Tuesday, leaving Gazan homes, businesses, and hospitals without electricity.