Agencies - More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli aggression on Gaza during the winter of 2008-2009. The offensive also inflicted $1.6 billion damage on the Gazan economy," Jennifer Loewenstein, the Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.

Loewenstein also strongly rejected allegations that Israeli armed forces have caused the least collateral damage in their operations, saying it was “one of the biggest pieces of propaganda and one of the worst lies” she has ever heard.

She pointed to the loss of more than a thousand civilian lives during the three-week Israeli land, sea and air offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip at the turn of 2009 as a clear proof of Israeli army’s brutality.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli aggression on Gaza during the winter of 2008-2009. The offensive also inflicted USD 1.6 billion damage on the Gazan economy.

Loewenstein further noted that she has been to the Gaza Strip on a number of occasions, and that she has witnessed Israeli troops shooting Palestinian children.

She added that in one example she heard an Israeli fighter jet flying over one of the most crowded neighborhoods of Gaza, dropping a bomb on an apartment building, killing 15 civilians in the summer of 2002.