Sirens wailed across Gaza Stip on Sunday as the still-devastated Strip marked one year since the start of Israel’s deadliest offensive ever launched on the territory.

Events marking the anniversary began with sirens sounding at 11:20 am (0920 GMT), when the first bombs of Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead.”
Senior Hamas leader Ahmed Bahar struck a defiant tone, saying the “will of the steadfast and the resistance was victorious” at a ceremony unveiling a war memorial with the names of hundreds of Palestinians killed in the fighting.

“Gaza was steadfast and did not fall in this ugly, destructive war… And the resistance, which defended its land with honor, was not broken,” he said.
“We call on all the sons of our people to unite and to take to the trenches of the resistance to face the criminal Zionist occupation.”

Several demonstrations were to be held during the day and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya was to make a television address in the evening, with Hamas planning to stage events for 22 days, the length of the war.

On Saturday, December 27, 2008, Israeli warplanes launched simultaneous strikes on numerous Hamas targets throughout the territory of 1.5 million people, raids that killed at least 225 people in what was one of the bloodiest single days in the decades-long Israeli-Arab conflict.

The war ended 22 days later with mutual ceasefires by Israel and Hamas, with some 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 400 children, and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed. Entire neighborhoods of Gaza were flattened in the onslaught, which also wounded more than 5,500 people.

“Those were dark days. There was killing in every street and alley,” said Dr Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services, who had 16 paramedics killed as they struggled to collect the wounded.

“The time has come now for unity and peace and justice and an end to the blockade,” he said, referring to Israeli and Egyptian border closures that have sealed Gaza off from all but basic goods since Hamas won democratic elections in June 2007.

During the war, Israel committed war crimes by using US-made internationally banned weapons like Phosphorus gas. Israeli occupation troops also committed field executions of civilians holding white flags after they ordered them out of their houses.

Al Manar

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