(MPN Analysis) With close to zero media coverage, particularly any analysis that is critical of the Israeli government and its policies, Israel has continued to pound the Gaza Strip with air strikes since the beginning of this year.

In a separate report, MintPress News has documented the various human-rights abuses that Israel has unleashed on the Palestinian people in recent times, particularly in the Gaza Strip. But one would be hard pressed to find any serious media coverage of the fact that, despite the overwhelmingly harsh conditions that Israel has inflicted on the Gaza Strip, it still routinely delivers sophisticated bombs to maximize the suffering.

The United States is not a passive player in this particular conflict, which shows no signs of de-conflicting in the near future. According to Human Rights Watch, the U.S. taxpayer paid to Israel $3.1 billion in military aid in 2017 alone.

In early January of this year, Israeli airstrikes targeted a site in the Gaza Strip in a night-time raid, allegedly in response to Palestinian rocket fire. No substantive details were provided regarding who or what was targeted, and whether or not there were any casualties. In turn, the rocket fire from Palestinian territory, a significant portion of which was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, was reportedly in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.

Even Reuters acknowledged that in the course of close to four years of relative quiet from Gaza, it is Donald Trump’s Jerusalem decision that has accounted for at least one third of Gazan-based rocket attacks.

In mid-January, Israel continued its aerial bombardment of Gaza, using a combination of airstrikes and other unspecified means to reportedly destroy a tunnel stretch from the Gaza Strip and continuing into Egypt.

In mid-February, Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes on Gaza, hitting up to 18 Hamas targets right throughout the weekend. At the time, the BBC acknowledged that a rocket from Gaza struck near a house in the south of Israel but that there were no casualties. When it comes to reporting on Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, there is no such scrutiny or documentation of civilian casualties.

Airstrikes persist despite war-crimes warning

In January of this year, Israel’s National Security Council allegedly warned members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the International Criminal Court (ICC) could open an investigation at some point this year into the 2014 war on Gaza (as well as Israel’s illegal settlement constructions).

Despite this warning, Israel has continued to bombard the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, receiving little to no condemnation from the international community or the media. One needs to bear in mind that Gaza does not have an air force, does not have air defenses of its own, and in essence represents 2 million Palestinians trapped in what is widely regarded as an open-air prison, which is predicted to become uninhabitable in less than two years.

In 2014, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza led to the displacement of thousands of people. According to Human Rights Watch, there are still some 29,000 people who had lost their homes at the time and who remain displaced to this day.

A brief timeline of strikes in 2018

That being said, Gaza medics said they had retrieved the bodies of two 17-year-old Palestinians killed by Israeli tank fire during the incident, but these casualties were barely highlighted anywhere else, according to Reuters.

Furthermore, the Israeli barrage was such that Haaretz reported Israel and Gaza were looking at the “biggest flare-up” since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, which allegedly killed over 2,000 Palestinians at the time and displaced tens of thousands more.

The Jerusalem Post also warned that, according to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, a war with Hamas could take place this year if the Palestinian humanitarian situation is not improved upon. This in spite of the fact that the Post also intimated that Hamas has no will to fight against the IDF after the war in 2014.

Not long after this latter assault, Israel then conducted 10 airstrikes on Gaza’s agricultural land.

On March 18, Israeli media reported on yet another aerial bombardment in central Gaza. This time, the strike was allegedly in response to the placement of explosive devices on the border fence.

Over the past weekend, Israeli planes carried out further airstrikes in the southern Gaza strip, allegedly in response to a group of four masked Palestinians who had entered Israeli territory and attempted to destroy military equipment. Right now, the Israeli military is working on completing a security barrier, specifically designed to counter border-crossing attack tunnels that certain groups have used against IDF troops.

“The IDF will continue to thwart all attempts to harm the State of Israel and will respond severely against those who wish to harm Israeli civilians,” the IDF tweeted, adding that “Hamas is held responsible for all aggression coming from the Gaza Strip.

By Darius Shahtahmasebi / Republished with permission / MintPress News / Report a typo

This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.