The Israeli assault has received Washington’s support.

The attacks so far have focused on key civilian infrastructure in the densely populated area, home to 1.3 million Palestinians. Israeli air strikes destroyed the only power plant in the territory, and Tel Aviv cut off the only fuel pipeline into Gaza. About half of the residents are without electricity. The majority of Gaza’s water wells rely on electrical pumps.

According to a United Nations report, Israeli air force jets have been flying at supersonic speeds low over Gaza City at around 4 a.m. daily since the assault began, setting off sonic booms that break windows and terrorize the population. Three key bridges linking northern and southern Gaza have been destroyed by aerial bombing and all roads, border outposts, and ports have been sealed.

Tel Aviv has used the capture of its soldier to put pressure on Hamas to recognize Israel. After elections in January, Hamas replaced Fatah—the party led by the late Yasir Arafat that ran the PNA since it was established in 1994—as the ruling force in the PNA.

Since the invasion was launched June 27, Israeli forces have arrested 60 members of Hamas. The air force has bombed the Interior Ministry building and the offices of PNA prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, who is also a leader of Hamas, as well as the offices of Fatah in Gaza. Four other Hamas officials were evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem, including Khaled Abu Arafa, the PNA’s minister of Jerusalem Affairs.

The White House has issued a statement demanding the release of the captured Israeli soldier, tacitly endorsing the Israeli military assault. “The initial goal should be freeing the Israeli soldier. That is key to ending the crisis,” U.S. president George Bush told the prime minister of Turkey in a telephone message July 1, according to U.S. National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones, quoted in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

“We do not recognize the Hamas government,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow two days later. While citing U.S. and Israeli government “concern” for the conditions faced by the Palestinian population, he said, “it is the responsibility of Hamas to return the Israeli soldier. That’s how it all got started.”

European Union president Matti Vanhanen, Finland’s prime minister, also called for the immediate release of the Israeli soldier. Vanhanen added that the Israeli military operation should be halted and the arrested PNA officials freed.

The forces holding the soldier have reportedly set as a condition for his release that Tel Aviv free 1,000 of the 8,000 Palestinians estimated to be held in Israeli jails.

“I would like to tell the whole world to focus on our 8,000 prisoners and not just this one,” Ashraf al-Moghaari, 31, an employee of the Palestinian parliament, told the Washington Post.

The invasion of Palestinian territory came after a month in which Israeli attacks in Gaza had increased substantially.

According to a UN report, in the month of June alone the Israeli Air Force assassinated at least 10 Palestinians whom Tel Aviv accused of armed attacks on Israeli targets. A total of 43 Palestinians, the majority of them bystanders, were killed in these attacks, compared to two Israeli soldiers killed in the June 25 raid in which the soldier was taken prisoner.

While more than 200 homemade rockets were fired by Palestinians at targets in Israel in June prior to the invasion, nearly 650 artillery salvos and 33 air strikes were conducted by the Israeli military against Palestinian targets in Gaza during the same period. That does not include some 1,500 artillery rounds fired into Gaza since the beginning of the current invasion.  
 
 
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