While America Votes, Israel Massacres in Beit Hanoun

With international attention focused on high stakes mid-term elections in the US, Israel has taken free reign in Beit Hanoun killing more than 18 civilians and maiming 40 others last night. Major news networks yesterday reported an "end" to the Israeli "offensive" yesterday. There was no end insight, however, for thousands of Palestinians who faced a barrage of shelling from American tax-payer funded tanks that resulted in pools of blood and carnage all over the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Not surprisingly, Israel "expressed regret" and said it would investigate.

Mathew Price reports for the BBC from Beit Hanoun:

A woman just walked past me crying, being helped by some of her neighbours. Most people are shocked and uncomprehending about what happened in their street during the night.

A father of one child who was killed told me: "One missile I believe could have been a mistake, but the number of missiles that were fired, I can't believe that was a mistake." A resident who works in one of Gaza's hospitals says: "I have not seen injuries like this for a long time."

"The shrapnel severed peoples hands and arms and they were left lying on the ground," Dr Ali said. He had been sleeping in his bedroom when the shells struck the next door building. The windows of his bedroom had been blasted out and there was glass on the ground. Dr Ali tells the same story as everyone I spoke to, that there had been no anti-Israeli attacks by Palestinian militants from this area, as the Israeli military claims, before the shells struck.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Palestinians sit next to a pool of blood mixed with water in a street of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun Wednesday Nov. 8, 2006. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

A Palestinian woman carries her injured baby son into the Beit Lahia hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP/Mohammed Abed)

Dima Al Athamneh, 2, is seen in the hospital of the Gaza strip town of Beit Lahiya Wednesday Nov. 8, 2006. Israeli tank shells landed in a residential neighborhood north of the neighboring village of Beit Hanoun early Wednesday, killing at least 18 people in their sleep, including eight children, according to witnesses and hospital officials. Dima's mother was among those killed in the shelling. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

A Palestinian man mourns after losing thirteen members of his extended family, including his sons, in an Israeli shelling at Beit Hanoun town in northern Gaza Strip November 8, 2006. (REUTERS/Mohammed Salem)