The Jewish community in Jamaica is supporting the govern-ment of Israel's heaviest bom-bardment of the Gaza Strip in decades.

The air strikes, which started on Saturday and continued yesterday, rank among the deadliest attacks by Israel on Gaza with more than 300 persons, including civi-lians, killed. The Israeli government has been targeting infrastructure critical to militant group Hamas. According to the BBC, a top Israeli army official has said that no Hamas building will be left after the attacks.

Ainsley Henriques, honorary secretary of the United Congregation of Israelites in Jamaica, in defending his motherland's move, said the Israelis were just defending their citizens.

"It is a simple situation, because Hamas did not want to continue the truce and have been firing rockets into Israel," he said. "Half a million Israeli citizens have been subject to rockets being fired. I got an email from a friend in a village over there and he said that he had to be huddled in his house, as it was like the World War II blitz in London by B1 bombs," he said.

Heavy opposition

Across the world, however, there has been heavy opposition to Israel's latest move, with protests across the Arab world and in Europe. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for an immediate ceasefire and, while recognising Israel's right to defend itself, has condemned its "excessive use of force".

Secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, also expressed his "absolute rejection" of the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, and called for the restoration of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

"The killing of hundreds of innocent people this weekend can never be justified, not even on the pretext of reprisals," Insulza said in a press release yesterday.

However, Henriques said the world needed to wake up and reprimand Hamas, as he believed that if Hamas ended its rocket attacks, Israel would end its offensive against them.

"The whole thing is becoming a sad joke. Why isn't the world asking Hamas to behave? If you have 70, 80 rockets coming into your country every day, that is definitely excessive force. " he said.

Henriques also called on civilians in Gaza and across the world to stand up to terrorists who use their residences as bases to launch attacks.