Bill Van Auken: Israel Calls Up 75,000 Troops as Bombing Continues in Gaza

The Israeli military boasted Friday afternoon that it had carried out more than 500 air strikes against the densely populated territory of Gaza since launching its latest offensive, dubbed Pillar of Defense. The escalating air war is unfolding amid growing signs that the Israeli government is on the brink of launching a ground invasion of Gaza that would spell a huge increase in the bloodletting. The relentless bombardment has resulted in widespread destruction and carnage, with the official death toll rising to 29 on Friday night and the number of wounded climbing to 300. Among the latest to be killed was a two year old Palestinian boy. The majority of the dead and wounded are civilians, including eight children and a pregnant woman. The Israeli government and military have incessantly declared that the strikes on Gaza are aimed solely at "terrorists" and that any civilian casualties are the fault of Hamas for "hiding" among the people. The reality, however, is that the bombs and missiles are destroying homes, schools, workplaces, government office buildings and police stations. It was confirmed Friday that the Israeli military sent text messages to at least 12,000 cell phones inside Gaza, issuing warnings to stay away from anyone connected to Hamas, which runs the government of the 25 mile long territory, or face possible death. Among the targets demolished on Friday was the civil affairs department of the Ministry of the Interior in Gaza City, which houses 70 years' worth of records of the Palestinian civil registry. Also hit were a family owned textile factory that employed 20 people and a food store. In response to the Israeli assault, Palestinian resistance groups fired rockets into Israel. Though largely ineffectual, one of them struck the Tel Aviv area Friday,while another landed near Gush Etzion, an illegal Zionist settlement near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. On Wednesday, a rocket struck an apartment house in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi, killing two Israeli women and one man. There is every indication that the first three days of terror unleashed by the Israeli state on Gaza is only the beginning. "We are going to significantly aggravate the operation," a senior official told the Israeli media.