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Israel presses on with Gaza war as death toll tops 850
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel..._war_0110.html
1/12/2009
GAZA CITY (AFP) — Israel pressed its air and ground assault on Hamas in Gaza on Sunday as the death toll in the 16-day-old war passed 850 and the Islamist movement vowed it would not negotiate a truce "under fire."
Medics in the embattled Gaza Strip said three Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by heavy Israeli tank fire and air strikes early on Sunday, some allegedly by banned white phosphorous shells that Israel denied using.
With the body count spiralling, Hamas remained defiant in the face of Egyptian-led efforts to broker a cease fire.
Top Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said the movement would not accept any truce without the withdrawal of all Israeli forces and the lifting of the blockade slapped on the territory when the Islamists seized power in 18 months ago.
"With an open mind we will work with any initiative or any resolution but only based on these demands. We will not accept negotiations on a truce under fire," he said.
A closed-door briefing was told on Saturday that Israeli troops had killed more than 550 Palestinian fighters since the operation began, a senior military official told AFP.
Army spokesman Jacob Dallal declined to confirm the number but said "several hundred" fighters, most of them from Hamas, had been killed since Israel launched its offensive on December 27.
"There is no question that the military ability of Hamas has been diminished," he said.
As fighting spilled over into the early hours of Sunday, the army was accused by Palestinian doctors of using banned white phosphorous shells against civilians, a claim denied categorically by the army.
A woman was killed and 60 people hurt in tank shelling on a village east of Khan Yunis, said Dr Yusef Abu Rish of the city's Nasser hospital.
Of those, 55 "were burned over their bodies in a way that can only be caused by white phosphorous," he told AFP.
His claim was echoed by Dr Muawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza emergency services, who said these weapons had already been used by Israel in the Gaza offensive.
Army Captain Guy Spigelman rejected the report. "We deny that we were operating in that area."
He also reiterated what a spokeswoman had said earlier, that "there is no use of white phosphorous. Everything we use is according to international law."
White phosphorus is used as a smokescreen or for incendiary devices, but can also be deployed as an anti-personnel weapon capable of causing potentially fatal burns.
Meanwhile, Hamas claimed it was repulsing the Israeli offensive, with Meshaal, the head of its powerful Syria-based politburo, accusing Israel of carrying out a "Holocaust" in Gaza.
"You have lost on the moral and humanitarian fronts ... and you have created a resistance in every house," Meshaal said in a pre-recorded statement aired on Arab satellite television.
"I can say with full confidence that on the military level the enemy has totally failed, it has not achieved anything.
"Has it stopped the rockets?" he asked of Israel's declared aim in launching the offensive.
Since the Israeli offensive began on December 27, at least 854 people have been killed, including 270 children, 93 women, and 12 paramedics, according to Palestinian medics.
Another 3,490 people have been wounded, overwhelming Gaza's beleaguered medical facilities.
Meanwhile, Hamas and other armed groups fired at least 13 rockets into Israel on Saturday, wounding four people, the army said.
Egypt has been spearheading Western-backed efforts to end the fighting. On Saturday, President Hosni Mubarak met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who urged Israel and his Hamas rivals to accept the plan "without hesitation."
A Hamas delegation was also due to hold talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.
Mubarak is calling for an immediate truce, opening Gaza's border crossings, preventing arms smuggling and a call for Palestinians to resume reconciliation talks.
Abbas stressed he wanted an international force in Gaza rather than controlling traffic on the Egyptian side of the border, as suggested by European countries.
But Meshaal said Hamas "will consider any international troops imposed on our people as an occupation force" and Hamas and other groups have said they will oppose any measure that hinders the armed "resistance."
Both Hamas and Israel have already brushed aside a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate truce in the territory.
The conflict has sparked worldwide pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including rallies in Europe that drew tens of thousands of protesters.
In London, thousands of protesters clashed with police around the Israeli embassy, while in Paris protesters shattered windows and set scooters on fire after a rally attended by more than 30,000 people.
In Tel Aviv, a few hundred Israelis gathered to call for an end to the fighting in a rally organised by the Peace Now movement.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket attacks since the operation began, as Palestinian militants have fired more than 600 rockets, some of them penetrating deeper than ever inside Israel.
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Israeli forces edge into Gaza city
http://www.reuters.com/article/world...5053R720090111
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
1/12/2009
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces edged into the Gaza Strip's most populous area on Sunday, killing at least 27 Palestinians in an offensive stepped up in defiance of international calls for a ceasefire.
Medical officials said about half of the Palestinian dead in the latest fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory were civilians.
"Israel is getting close to achieving the goals it set for itself," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet in Jerusalem, giving no timeframe for an end to the 16-day-long war.
"But patience, determination and effort are still needed to realize these goals in a manner that will change the security situation in the south," Olmert said, referring to Hamas rocket attacks that continued to hit Israeli towns.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his ruling Islamist group would not consider a ceasefire until Israel ended its air, sea and ground assault and lifted a Gaza blockade. A Hamas delegation held talks in Cairo on an Egyptian truce plan.
Israel, describing as unworkable a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire, wants a halt to rocket attacks and arrangements to ensure that Hamas cannot rearm through tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border.
An Israeli defense official was to visit Egypt on Monday to press for tougher anti-smuggling measures. German diplomatic sources said Berlin offered to send specialists next week to Egypt to discuss ways to improve border security and Cairo had responded positively.
Backed by helicopter gunships, Israeli troops and tanks pushed into eastern and southern parts of the city of Gaza, confronting Hamas militants who fired anti-armor missiles and mortar bombs.
The Palestinian death toll since Israel's offensive began on December 27 stands at 869, many of them civilians, Gaza medical officials said. Thirteen Israelis -- three civilians hit by rocket fire and 10 soldiers -- have been killed, official Israeli figures showed.
In Washington, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said in broadcast remarks he would begin the search for Middle East peace immediately on becoming president and the Gaza conflict only underscored his determination to become involved early.
New street fighting killed 10 gunmen, Palestinian medical workers said. Another three fighters and a member of the Hamas police force were killed by Israeli air strikes.
Medical officials said 13 civilians, including four members of a family, were killed by Israeli forces and that Israeli shelling of two villages south of the city of Gaza had set 15 houses on fire.
Israel's military said it attacked a mosque used to store weapons, 10 squads of gunmen, three rocket-launching sites and the house of a Hamas commander.
In Jerusalem, Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel said Hamas leaders were hiding in Gaza's foreign missions, hospitals and bunkers to elude Israeli forces. He did not name the missions.
HOMELESS
At the edge of the city of Gaza, Mahmoud Abu Hasseera surveyed the rubble of his house, in an area where Israeli tanks and infantry had battled Palestinian fighters hours earlier.
"Where should we and our children go to sleep? To the streets?" he asked. "We have no mattresses, blankets, cooking gas, food or water. Everything was destroyed."
Though Palestinian rocket salvoes into Israel have diminished, two rockets on Sunday struck Beersheba, 42 km (26 miles) from the Gaza Strip, and at least four others hit other communities, police said. There was some damage but no casualties.
Israel's deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai, suggested time was running out for the Gaza campaign now that the U.N. Security Council had weighed in with a call to stop it.
"Therefore it seems -- I'm guessing -- that we are close to a cessation of the ground operations and a cessation of the overall operations," Vilnai said on Army Radio.
Olmert convened his cabinet for a discussion expected to include a possible "third stage" of the offensive in which the military would storm into Gaza's urban areas, a politically risky move a month before Israel's national election.
Israel, the prime minister said, "must not miss out, at the last moment, on what has been achieved through an unprecedented national effort."
While Israeli commanders said whole Hamas battalions were being wiped out, Damascus-based Meshaal said Israeli forces had achieved nothing and pointed to the continued rocket fire.
Israeli actions have drawn denunciations from the Red Cross, U.N. agencies and Arab and European governments.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on Israel to stop using white-phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip, saying the chemical could severely burn people and set structures and fields on fire.
The group said white phosphorus was apparently being used to create smoke screens, describing this as "a permissible use in principle under international law."
But it also noted media photographs of air-bursting white phosphorus projectiles, which it said can spread burning wafers over an area between 125 and 250 meters (410-820 ft) in diameter, depending on the altitude of the explosion.
Israel said it uses only weapons permitted by international law. It has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
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Bill Moyers On Mideast Violence
Video
Click Here (GooTube)
January 09, 2009
http://www.pbs.org/billmoyers Bill Moyers reflects on the recent violence in the Middle East. PLEASE NOTE: This essay containins video and images of the Israeli and Palestinian casualties including children - in Gaza as well as the Pulitzer prize-winning photo of the nude Vietnamese girl running from napalm bombing. Some viewers may find the images disturbing, but they are in context and germane to the subject matter. Bill Moyers Journal airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). For more: http://www.pbs.org/billmoyers
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Israel must abide by international law
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/i...608519453.html
Izzat Abdulhadi
January 12, 2009
Witnesses tell of Israeli jets bombing apartment blocks in which children are playing. Schools, fruit markets, hospitals and universities have been targeted. Tanks fire into crowded cities such as Gaza City and Khan Younis. In one of the world's most densely populated strips of land, massive civilian casualties are inevitable.
As with Lebanon in 2006, Israel is instituting collective punishment of a people for what it sees as the crimes of a militant group. A year ago, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, warned that the people of Gaza would suffer for democratically electing the "terrorist" regime of Hamas, and instituted harsh power cuts for hospitals, light, heat and cars. Food cuts followed, and now indiscriminate bombing.
The use of collective punishment of a people is illegal under the fourth Geneva Convention. With 600 or more Palestinians killed already, 200 of whom are said to be civilian, we already have a civilian death toll equivalent to the Bali massacre. And still Israel ignores the entreaties from French and British leaders, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League, not to mention the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and others, to cease its war on Gaza.
As we have seen on the television news, phosphorus bombs, used by the Israeli Air Force in southern Lebanon to devastating effect on the bodies of ordinary Lebanese, are now in use in the crowded streets of Gaza. Terrible injuries will result. Israel continues to defy international legal standards.
It has ignored a series of United Nations resolutions over time, including one allowing the return of refugees, one requiring it to withdraw from the lands it occupied in 1967. It ignored the decision of the International Court of Justice in 2004 declaring its huge concrete wall dividing it from Palestine illegal. It continues to ignore international requirements to declare its stock of nuclear weapons and open them for inspection.
Israel argues, simplistically, that it has a "right to defend itself" against the rocket attacks of Hamas. Of course it does. But a disproportionate war against Palestinian people is not the solution.
In the first place, we must recognize the roots of this conflict, which began with the illegal military occupation of Gaza from 1967 to 2005 and the devastation this inflicted on the economy and civil society of the people of Gaza.
In 2005 Ariel Sharon ordered illegal Israeli settlers to leave Gaza but continued a blockade of the Gaza Strip. At the time, the World Bank estimated that 65 per cent of Gazans lived in poverty. Most had problems with access to education and health services, and half lived below subsistence levels and were dependent on international food aid.
Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections and, in response, the US and the EU cut off all aid to Palestine and Israel froze Gaza government access to tax revenues collected from its people. Electricity was cut, food aid slashed and all movement in and out of Gaza slowed to a trickle. The Israeli army arrested 27 Hamas MPs of the new government. It assassinated others.
The Hamas government responded with rocket attacks on the Israeli city of Sederot just across the border. The rockets were largely ineffective and killed no Israelis. Meanwhile, attacks on Palestinian civilians by Israeli fighter jets continued to climb, in one instance killing 19 (including four women and seven children).
An informal "truce" or "Hudna" was agreed between Olmert's government and Hamas. Under its terms, a cessation of the rocket attacks would ease the siege on Gaza. The rocket attacks declined dramatically but as of December last year, no end to the siege was in sight. Hamas declared it would resume rocket attacks. Israel has struck back with its terrible cruelty.
Palestine has no air force, tanks or gunships to counter such an onslaught. The tiny strip of Gaza, with its 1.5 million people, only has its human resources to resist an attack from the region's most powerful army.
It is easy to understand why Israel continues to ban foreign journalists from seeing the results of its war crimes in the Gaza Strip. And why it relies on statements such as "we have the right to defend against rockets".
Israel is not interested in abiding by international legal norms which would require it to demolish the apartheid wall, end the occupation, cease the use of illegal weapons and allow the people of Gaza the freedoms most world citizens expect.
Such actions require a mindset of peace, justice, dialogue and freedom for Palestinians in their own state.
Let's end the war, end the rocket attacks, end the siege of Gaza and begin with dialogue.
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Obama vows to tackle Middle East 'on day one'
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_...East_0111.html
1/12/2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US president-elect Barack Obama on Sunday vowed to take swift action on the Middle East peace process and Iran's nuclear ambitions but played for time to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
In an interview with ABC's This Week program broadcast Sunday, Obama defended his reluctance to speak out on Israel's bloody offensive in the Gaza Strip before he succeeds President George W. Bush on January 20.
But while he promised rapid efforts on the peace process and diplomatic engagement with Iran, Obama said it would be a "challenge" to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in his first 100 days in office.
Obama said he was building a diplomatic team so that "on day one, we have the best possible people who are going to be immediately engaged in the Middle East peace process as a whole."
The team would "be engaging with all of the actors there" so that "both Israelis and Palestinians can meet their aspirations," Obama said.
Until then, he said again that he would leave the Bush administration to speak on foreign policy but indicated some continuity to the peace process.
"I think that if you look not just at the Bush administration, but also what happened under the (Bill) Clinton administration, you are seeing the general outlines of an approach," Obama said in the interview taped Saturday.
Obama noted remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney last week that his team should carefully study the outgoing administration's peace approach before throwing it away just to make a political point.
"I think that was pretty good advice," the president-elect said. "I should know what's going on before we make judgments and that we shouldn't be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric."
Under the Bush administration, the United States has been accused by the Palestinians of siding uncritically with Israel to the detriment of the peace process overall.
Obama stood by his words of July, during a visit to Israel, when he had said: "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."
Asked by ABC if he would repeat the remark in Israel now, he said: "I think that's a basic principle of any country is that they've got to protect their citizens."
Israel indicated for the first time Sunday that an end was in sight to its war on the Palestinian group Hamas, amid some of the heaviest clashes of an offensive that has killed nearly 900 people in the Gaza Strip.
Obama meanwhile took note of a warning from former US defense secretary William Perry Thursday that he would likely face a "serious crisis" over Iran's nuclear ambitions in his first year in office.
"I think that Iran is going to be one of our biggest challenges," the president-elect said, warning a nuclear-armed Iran "could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East."
Obama promised "a new emphasis on respect and a new emphasis on being willing to talk, but also a clarity about what our bottom lines are."
"And we are in preparations for that. We anticipate that we're going to have to move swiftly in that area."
The Islamic republic has defied UN sanctions designed to halt its enrichment of uranium, insisting that its nuclear program is for civilian energy needs and has no military bent.
"And we are going to have to take a new approach. And I've outlined my belief that engagement is the place to start," Obama said.
"That the international community is going to be taking cues from us in how we want to approach Iran."
When asked about his promise to close the controversial prison at Guantanamo Bay, which still holds some 250 "war on terror" suspects, Obama said: "It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize.
He said his legal and national security advisers were working out the best approach. But Obama added emphatically that the base would be closed.
"I don't want to be ambiguous about this," he said.
"We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our constitution," he said, vowing also that his administration would not torture terror suspects.
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Israel says Gaza war nearing end as fighting rages
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel..._end_0111.html
1/12/2009
GAZA CITY (AFP) — Israel indicated for the first time on Sunday that an end was in sight to its war on Hamas, amid some of the heaviest clashes of an offensive that has killed nearly 900 people in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza's main city, sparking some of the fiercest battles yet of the 16-day-old war that Israel launched in response to rocket fire, but that has failed to completely stop the rockets.
Civilians again fell victim in Israel's offensive in the Palestinian enclave, one of the world's most densely populated places where every other person of the 1.5 million population is under 18 years of age.
Two women and four children were killed in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya, medics and witnesses said. Twelve bodies were pulled from the rubble in Tal al-Hawa including 10 fighters, according to medics.
Israeli officials suggested the Jewish state was nearing the end of its offensive, which has killed hundreds of civilians, despite having last week waved off a UN resolution calling for an immediate halt to the fighting.
"The decision of the (UN) security council doesn't give us much leeway," Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told public radio.
"Thus it would seem that we are close to ending the ground operation and ending the operation altogether."
Earlier Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the Jewish state was nearing the goals it had set for its operation, but said fighting would continue for now.
"Israel is approaching these goals, but more patience and determination are required," Olmert said at the start of the cabinet meeting.
The premier told ministers that Israel "dealt Hamas an unprecedented blow," government secretary Oved Yehezkel quoted Olmert as saying. "It will never be the same Hamas."
Hamas, however, has vowed to keep fighting and on Sunday some 17 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza by mid-afternoon, without wounding anyone.
Both Israel and Hamas last week brushed off the UN Security Council resolution that called on both sides to stop fighting, and the early Sunday hours saw Israeli troops push deep into the territory's main population centre.
Troops crept into the southern Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City, encountering roadside bombs, mortar and gunfire from Palestinian fighters, witnesses said.
The troops withdrew at daybreak, but hundreds of panicked residents fled the area, clutching small children and hastily packed bags after a sleepless night.
"We couldn't take anything with us, not even milk for the children," said Ibtisam Shamallah, 22, as she fled with her two children.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak told reporters that Israel was "examining the diplomatic channel" while continuing its offensive.
"There's no contradiction between the two," said Barak, who is due to again send senior aide Amos Gilad to Cairo in the coming days for Egyptian-led talks on ending the war.
Israeli warplanes bombed more than 60 targets throughout Gaza overnight and into morning, hitting arms depots and smuggling tunnels as well as a mosque that was allegedly used to store weapons and train fighters, the army said.
In all, at least 26 Palestinians have been killed in clashes on Sunday, medics said.
With the body count spiralling, the exiled political chief of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, remained defiant, vowing in an address televised late Saturday that the Islamists would not strike a deal on a permanent truce with Israel, a country the group is pledged to destroying.
"We will not accept a permanent truce because ... as long as there is an occupation there is a resistance," he said, adding that his group will not hold talks on a temporary truce until Israel stops its offensive.
Since the Israeli offensive began on December 27, at least 885 people have been killed, including 275 children, and another 3,620 wounded, according to Gaza medics.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket attacks since the operation began, as Palestinian militants have fired more than 600 rockets, some of them penetrating deeper than ever inside Israel.
Egypt has been spearheading Western-backed efforts to end the fighting, calling for an immediate truce, opening Gaza's border crossings, preventing arms smuggling and relaunching Palestinian reconciliation efforts.
A senior Israeli official told AFP that "Olmert believes Israel can reach an understanding with Egypt but at the moment, there is no intention to let up the pressure on Hamas."
In Washington, US president-elect Barack Obama pledged to immediately engage in Middle East peace efforts as soon as he takes office in nine days.
The conflict has sparked worldwide pro-Palestinian demonstrations, with major cities set to hold fresh protests on Sunday.
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The Warsaw Ghetto
As George Galloway said, we're not saying Israel are the Nazis, but what we are saying is that they are using Nazi tactics.
Part I
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Part II
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Part III
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Part IV
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Israel protest targets US consulate in Pakistan
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...dnH9AD95L409G3
By ASHRAF KHAN – 4 hours ago
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Security forces used tear gas and batons to repel anti-Israel protesters who tried to attack a U.S. consulate in Pakistan on Sunday, as tens of thousands in cities across Europe, the Middle East and Asia demonstrated against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.
A protest in the Belgian capital that drew 30,000 turned violent as well, with demonstrators overturning cars and smashing shop windows. And in Manila, Philippines, policemen used shields to disperse students protesting outside the U.S. Embassy.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza on Dec. 27 to stop rocket fire from the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Gaza health officials say nearly 870 Palestinians have been killed, roughly half of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis have also died.
Some 2,000 protesters in the Pakistani port city of Karachi burned U.S. flags and chanted anti-Israel slogans, and several hundred of them marched on the U.S. Consulate, senior police official Ameer Sheikh said.
"They were in a mood to attack," Sheikh said. "They were carrying bricks, stones and clubs."
A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Islamabad, Lou Fintor, said the protesters did not get close to the consulate, which was closed Sunday.
Washington provides a large amount of foreign aid to Israel as well as military and weapons assistance. Israeli military action is often perceived in the Muslim world as being financed and supported by the U.S. While Pakistan's government is a U.S. ally, anti-American sentiment is pervasive in the Muslim majority country.
In Spain, as many as 100,000 people attended rallies in Madrid and the southwestern city of Seville, urging Israel to "Stop the massacre in Gaza" and calling for peace initiatives. Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will tour the Middle East starting Monday to promote solutions to the conflict.
An estimated 2,500 Lebanese and Palestinians meanwhile protested peacefully in downtown Beirut, waving Palestinian flags and calling on the international community to intervene in the Israeli attack.
A convoy of some 15 ambulances from an Islamic medical society sounded their sirens for 20 seconds in solidarity with Gaza medics. Leftist participants set fire to a large Israeli flag, while children taking part in the protest held bloody dolls representing Palestinian children killed in Gaza.
The death of children in the Gaza assault has become an enduring theme at protests.
Children carrying effigies of bloody babies headed the march attended by thousands in Brussels, which later turned violent before police intervened with water cannons and arrested 10 protesters. Belgian lawmaker Richard Miller told Le Soir newspaper that he was hit in the face by a stone thrown by a demonstrator.
Jewish communities appeared divided on the Israeli operations. In London, thousands of people gathered at Trafalgar Square to support the action in Gaza, while anti-Israeli protesters held a counter-demonstration nearby. In Antwerp, Belgium, home to a large Hassidic Jewish community, some 800 people took part in a peaceful pro-Israel demonstration.
In a letter published in Britain's Observer newspaper Sunday, 11 leading British Jews urged Israel to end its Gaza campaign and negotiate a settlement for security reasons.
"We are concerned that rather than bringing security to Israel, a continued military offensive could strengthen extremists, destabilize the region and exacerbate tensions inside Israel with its one million Arab citizens," the letter said.
In Syria, as revolutionary songs blared from loudspeakers, demonstrators accused Arab leaders of being complicit in the Gaza assault. "Down, down with the Arab rulers, the collaborators," the crowd in Damascus shouted.
Separately, activists protesting the Israeli campaign were driving from Turkey to Syria in a convoy of 200 cars, and participants hoped Syrian protesters would join them at the border Monday, according to Nezir Dinler, an activist with the Istanbul-based Solidarity Foundation.
A few thousand people marched in largely peaceful pro-Palestinian rallies in the Italian cities of Rome, Naples and Verona. In Rome, municipal authorities were dispatched to erase graffiti — including Stars of David and swastikas — that had been scrawled on Jewish-owned stores and restaurants overnight.
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Israel sends reserves into Gaza but says end may be in sight
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_..._01112009.html
1/11/2009
Israel began pouring reservists into heavy clashes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the death toll from its war on Hamas approached 900 and officials indicated that the end may be in sight.
Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza's main city, as warplanes carried out at least 50 air strikes on the 16th day of a war launched to combat Palestinian rocket fire, which has continued despite the offensive.
Israel's Channel Two said the army had begun sending in some of the thousands of reservists called up when the war began on December 27, and an army spokesman said they would be increasingly "integrated" into combat units.
Civilians again fell victim in Israel's offensive on the impoverished and isolated Palestinian enclave, one of the world's most densely populated places where half of the 1.5 million residents are less than 18 years old.
Two women and four children were killed in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya, medics and witnesses said.
Israeli officials suggested the end may be close of its offensive, which has killed hundreds of civilians, despite having last week waved off a UN resolution calling for an immediate halt to the fighting.
"The decision of the (UN) security council doesn't give us much leeway," Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told public radio.
"Thus it would seem that we are close to ending the ground operation and ending the operation altogether."
Earlier Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the Jewish state was nearing the goals it had set for its operation, but said fighting would continue for now.
"Israel is approaching these goals, but more patience and determination are required," Olmert said at a cabinet meeting.
He told ministers that Israel "dealt Hamas an unprecedented blow," government secretary Oved Yehezkel quoted Olmert as saying. "It will never be the same Hamas."
Israeli forces have demolished some 200 smuggling tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border -- Hamas's main resupply route -- representing 66 percent of the total, according to military spokeswoman Avital Leibowich.
The army said it had blown up 20 tunnels on Sunday alone, and an Egyptian security official said shrapnel from one of the strikes wounded two Egyptian police officers and two children at the Rafah crossing into Gaza.
Hamas, however, has vowed to keep fighting, and on Sunday 19 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza, including four long-range Grad rockets, without wounding anyone.
Both Israel and Hamas last week brushed off the UN Security Council resolution that called on both sides to stop fighting.
Early on Sunday troops crept into the narrow streets of the southern Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City, encountering roadside bombs, mortar and gunfire from Palestinian fighters, witnesses said.
The troops withdrew at daybreak, but hundreds of panicked residents fled the area, clutching small children and hastily packed bags after a sleepless night.
"We couldn't take anything with us, not even milk for the children," said Ibtisam Shamallah, 22, as she fled with her two children.
Twelve bodies were later pulled from the rubble in Tal al-Hawa, including 10 fighters, according to medics. In all, at least 26 Palestinians were killed in clashes on Sunday, they said.
But the exiled political chief of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, remained defiant in an address televised late on Saturday, vowing that his group would not discuss any kind of ceasefire until the Israeli offensive stopped.
"As long as there is an occupation there is a resistance," he said.
Egypt has spearheaded Western-backed efforts to end the fighting, calling for an immediate truce, opening Gaza's border crossings, preventing arms smuggling and relaunching Palestinian reconciliation efforts.
On Sunday Cairo ramped up pressure on Israel by summoning its ambassador to demand that the Jewish state comply with the UN Security Council's call for a ceasefire and opening "humanitarian corridors" in the besieged territory.
Since the Israeli onslaught began on December 27, at least 890 people have been killed, including 275 children, and another 3,800 wounded, according to Dr Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket attacks since the operation began, as Palestinian militants have fired more than 600 rockets, some of them penetrating deeper than ever inside Israel.
The conflict has sparked worldwide pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and US President-elect Barack Obama
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Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle5488380.ece
1/12/2009
ISRAEL has sought to justify its military attacks on Gaza by stating that it amounts to an act of “self-defence” as recognised by Article 51, United Nations Charter. We categorically reject this contention.
The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence. Under international law self-defence is an act of last resort and is subject to the customary rules of proportionality and necessity.
The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire.
For 18 months Israel had imposed an unlawful blockade on the coastal strip that brought Gazan society to the brink of collapse. In the three years after Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. And yet in 2005-8, according to the UN, the Israeli army killed about 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Throughout this time the Gaza Strip remained occupied territory under international law because Israel maintained effective control over it.
Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence, not least because its assault on Gaza was unnecessary. Israel could have agreed to renew the truce with Hamas. Instead it killed 225 Palestinians on the first day of its attack. As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. In addition, the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes.
We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes. Israel has a right to take reasonable and proportionate means to protect its civilian population from such attacks. However, the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.
Ian Brownlie QC, Blackstone Chambers
Mark Muller QC, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales
Michael Mansfield QC and Joel Bennathan QC, Tooks Chambers
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, University College, London
Professor Richard Falk, Princeton University
Professor M Cherif Bassiouni, DePaul University, Chicago
Professor Christine Chinkin, LSE
Professor John B Quigley, Ohio State University
Professor Iain Scobbie and Victor Kattan, School of Oriental and African Studies
Professor Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Professor Said Mahmoudi, Stockholm University
Professor Max du Plessis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College
Professor Joshua Castellino, Middlesex University
Professor Thomas Skouteris and Professor Michael Kagan, American University of Cairo
Professor Javaid Rehman, Brunel University
Daniel Machover, Chairman, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
Dr Phoebe Okawa, Queen Mary University
John Strawson, University of East London
Dr Nisrine Abiad, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr Michael Kearney, University of York
Dr Shane Darcy, National University of Ireland, Galway
Dr Michelle Burgis, University of St Andrews
Dr Niaz Shah, University of Hull
Liz Davies, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyer
Prof Michael Lynk, The University of Western Ontario
Steve Kamlish QC and Michael Topolski QC, Tooks Chambers
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Israel battles Hamas as toll passes 900
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel...sses_0112.html
1/12/2009
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Israeli infantry units battled with Hamas fighters across Gaza on Monday as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he hoped Egyptian peace efforts could bring about a swift end to the war.
At least 19 people were reported killed in Monday's clashes, medics said, pushing the overall toll past the 900 mark in a 17-day-old conflict which has also wounded nearly 4,000 people.
Thousands of Israeli reservists also joined battle against Hamas, the Islamist movement which has continued to fire missiles into Israel throughout Operation Cast Lead, launched with the avowed intent of ending the rocket attacks.
In Egypt, which has been spearheading Western-backed efforts to end the war that has sparked widespread protests across the world, talks were due to resume between Egyptian officials and Hamas.
But Israel's pointman for Gaza truce talks, Amos Gilad, delayed a planned visit in what Israeli radio speculated was meant as a pressure tactic on Hamas.
Speaking on a trip to Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, Olmert said Israel was achieving its objectives in the conflict.
"We hope that the violence will end swiftly but in order for that to come about, two things must happen: rocket fire must stop and the terror organisations must stop rearming," he said.
"These things are not impossible and we are closer to them today than a few days ago.
"I hope that the efforts of recent days by the Egyptians will allow us to end the war," added Olmert who is to stand down after elections on February 10.
The negotiations in Cairo are based on a three-point plan that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak unveiled last week.
The plan calls for an immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, talks on opening Gaza's border crossings and taking steps to prevent arms smuggling, and relaunching Palestinian reconciliation efforts.
On Sunday, Cairo upped the pressure on Israel by summoning its ambassador to demand that the Jewish state comply with last week's UN Security Council resolution and open humanitarian corridors to relieve the besieged territory.
Both Israel and Hamas have waved off the resolution that called for an immediate end to the fighting.
Officials in Cairo said that the talks with Hamas had been positive, saying the Islamists agreed "on the importance of ... stopping the shedding of Palestinian blood as soon as possible."
Osama Hamdan, Hamas's representative in Lebanon, told Al-Jazeera television afterwards that "there was some progress on some points" of the Egyptian proposal.
"We reject parts of this proposal ... but that does not mean rejection of all the proposal."
Although it has so far ignored the UN ceasefire resolution, Israel is aware it cannot afford to remain diplomatically isolated for long, especially with Barack Obama due to enter the White House next week.
Israeli officials on Sunday suggested that what is now Israel's deadliest onslaught against Gaza could be approaching an end.
"The decision of the (UN) Security Council doesn't give us much leeway, thus it would seem that we are close to ending the ground operation and ending the operation altogether" said deputy defence Minister Matan Vilnai.
Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayad, whose remit is limited to the West Bank, said the Egyptian initiative offered the best hope of peace, putting pressure on both Israel and Hamas to respond positively.
"Not accepting the Egyptian initiative should not be an option. He who refuses, voices reservations or moves slowly on this initiative bears the responsibility of explaining themselves, especially to the people of Gaza," Fayad told a press conference in Ramallah on Monday.
"We need (a ceasefire) in order to bring about an end to the misery and catastrophic human conditions in the Gaza Strip."
Aid deliveries have been massively disrupted by the conflict, with agencies warning that residents are running out of food and even having to burn their furniture to stay warm in the bitterly-cold nights.
Since the start of the operation on December 27, at least 905 people have been killed, including at least 277 children, and another 3,950 wounded, according to Gaza medics.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket attacks since the operation began. Palestinian militants have fired nearly 700 rockets, some of them penetrating deeper than ever inside Israel.
The conflict has sparked worldwide pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and US president elect Obama said he is assembling a team of diplomats to start addressing the Middle East conflict once he is sworn in on January 20.
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* What Now? *
Anna Baltzer
1/12/2009
As Israel's invasion of the Gaza strip continues its third week with roughly 900 Palestinians killed and thousands more wounded, it is more important than ever to understand the context behind the current escalation, and then to move beyond our understanding into action.
At the bottom of this email is a piece including analysis inspired by the recent writings and research of Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi (Security General of the Palestinian National Initiative) and Phyllis Bennis (Director of the New Internationalism Project). But first you'll find-—as always, crucially—-a way to take action: WRITE!
* WRITE Now! *
In the first week of the attack on Gaza, the Washington Post ran 7-1 hawkish op-ed/editorials, the Washington Times ran 5-0 hawkish op-ed/editorials, and the Wall Street Journal ran 4-0 hawkish op-ed/editorials.
Many of us are upset by this, but we don't feel empowered to change it. But biases in mainstream media do not come out of nowhere; they are largely (though not entirely by any means) the result of active media-monitoring by media watch-dog groups that inundate media who stray from the Zionist party line.
Why can't we be as dedicated as those groups? Why aren't media being inundated by people like us who want to see the truth that is reported to the rest of the world every day? We need to be the change that we seek. We need to write media--not here and there, a couple of us, but consistently, all of us, a collective voice, demanding fair coverage.
I recently discovered the WRITE! Project (www.writetruth.org), which has a team monitoring US media and sending out alerts to peace and justice activists write in response to specific pro-Zionist articles and editorials. They provide the email address to write to, the original piece to respond to, and talking points to use. It doesn't take more than 5 minutes.
I don't personally have the time to monitor mainstream US media, but every time I get an alert I send a quick email to let the relevant media know what I think. What if all 5,000 people on this list were to do that? We could be the influence that we wish we had!
Contact the WRITE! Team to get alerts at writealert@yahoo.com
Take a minute to write after each alert.
It only works if we do it together.
* Why Now? *
Contrary to popular belief, plans for Israel's bombing and invasion of Gaza didn't begin when Hamas started firing rockets at the end of last year's ceasefire. According to the Israeli mainstream newspaper Haaretz, plans for a massive attack on the strip began more than six months ago as Israel and Hamas were negotiating the ceasefire (see "IAF strike followed months of planning" - www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050448.html). Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak reasoned that the ceasefire would give Israel time to prepare for a "showdown" as soon as it was over.
At the end of the ceasefire, Hamas put forth diplomatic initiatives aimed at extending the agreement (based on an end to both cross-border attacks and blockade of the strip), but these efforts were actually dismissed by Israel. With an end to diplomatic possibilities and the continuation of a debilitating blockade, Hamas's returning again to rocket attacks was, albeit lamentable, certainly predictable. Renewed violence, far from coming as a surprise, was presumably precisely what Israel was expecting.
So if the decision to strike Gaza in late December was calculated far in advance, why now? The timing coincided precisely with three things: elected officials' holidays in the US, a transitional period for the US administration (a lame duck president and a president-elect hesitant to say anything prematurely), and most importantly: a tight race in Israel for the next prime minister. In fact Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni, who rejected Hamas's efforts to negotiate an extension of the ceasefire, is running a tight race with the hawkish Likud party. The latter is campaigning on the claim that Livni's political party, Kadima, is too "soft" on the Palestinians, something Livni is working hard to disprove.
Official Israeli explanations mention nothing about US or Israeli political factors, focusing squarely on eradicating Palestinian violence. But if nonviolence and cooperation are Israel's conditions for returning freedom to Palestinians, why weren't those conditions enough in the past? By the end of the year 2008, more than six months since a single fatal attack on an Israeli and following long-term cooperation between the West Bank Fatah leadership and the Israeli government, settlement expansion had heavily increased in the West Bank, about 5,000 Palestinians had been newly captured and imprisoned by Israel (most of them from the West Bank), and the number of West Bank checkpoints had risen from 521 to 699. If Israel wanted to stop a rise in Hamas, why not show that it is willing to make peace with the more peaceful Palestinian leaders?
During my two weeks in the West Bank, coinciding with a time of calm in Israel, I listened to countless stories of immobility, settler attacks, torture, and humiliation. During my first night at the IWPS house, nearby settlers stoned passing cars. I visited a close friend in the nearby `Azzoun village, where settlers invade several times a week carrying large American-made semi-automatic weapons. The army's response is to declare curfew on Azzoun, forbidding villagers from leaving their home. School and work have been cancelled three times a week for the past month on orders of the army, wanting to "protect Palestinians." One wonders why the army prefers to shut down a Palestinian village rather than standing up to the Israeli settlers themselves (my colleague Hannah wrote an excellent article addressing this question: http://www.counterpunch.org/mermelstein12252008.html).
I visited the Bethlehem area where settlers routinely visit and spray-paint stars of David and anti-Arab racist slurs (which locals then paint over, until the settlers return the next time). Water and electricity in the city are consistently shut off by the Israeli army (Bethlehem has just one functioning traffic light), and enrollment at Bethlehem University hovers at 70% female given the high proportion of local men spending their youth in prison (similar to figures of African American males in the United States).
The one concession I witnessed was Israel's release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners as a gift for the Muslim "Eid Al-Adha" holiday last month. Israel continues to hold more than 7,500 Palestinians prisoner, more than 10% of them without charge. Hundreds more are arrested every month. Then, occasionally, Israel lets out a couple hundred as an act of goodwill and generosity, but somehow Palestinians don't seem to find the habit terribly generous.
I traveled to Nablus where I learned one of my friends had been killed while another, a major organizer of nonviolent civil disobedience during Israel's invasion in early 2007, was in prison. On my way, I passed a group of eleven cement factory workers who had been stopped by the army on their way to the factory and I hopped out of my cab to document the situation. After holding the group for more than two hours, the Israeli soldiers decided to let the eleven grown men go to work. Other breadwinners cannot even access the road to work anymore, like a Bethlehem family whose home I found surrounded on three sides by the Wall, their main road cut off.
Given the West Bank Fatah leadership's cooperation with Israel, one might have expected a change in the situation in the West Bank, but everywhere I visited the occupation continued as usual, sometimes enhanced. There is no reason for Palestinians—-or us—-to believe that an end to rocket attacks and suicide bombs would bring real change to Israel's continued occupation since neither has in the past. Rather, Hamas's violence provides a convenient, and unfortunate, excuse for Israel to continue what it has been doing all along: expanding and expanding, destroying any obstacle—-be it a home, an olive tree, or a boy with a rock-—in its way.
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Israel bans Arab parties from coming election
http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/...abs/index.html
By JOSEF FEDERMAN Associated Press Writer
Jan 12th, 2009 | JERUSALEM -- Israel on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month's parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country's Supreme Court.
The ruling by parliament's Central Election Committee reflected the heightened tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. Arabs have held a series of demonstrations against the offensive.
Parliament spokesman Giora Pordes said the election committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, accusing the country's Arab parties of incitement, supporting terrorist groups and refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist. Arab lawmakers have traveled to some of Israel's staunchest enemies, including Lebanon and Syria.
The 37-member committee is composed of representatives from Israel's major political parties. The measure was proposed by two ultranationalist parties but received widespread support.
The decision does not affect Arab lawmakers in predominantly Jewish parties or the country's communist party, which has a mixed list of Arab and Jewish candidates. Roughly one-fifth of Israel's 7 million citizens are Arabs. Israeli Arabs enjoy full citizenship rights, but have suffered from discrimination and poverty for decades.
Arab lawmakers Ahmed Tibi and Jamal Zahalka, political rivals who head the two Arab blocs in parliament, joined together in condemning Monday's decision.
"It was a political trial led by a group of Fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs," said Tibi.
Together, the Arab lists hold seven of the 120 seats in the Knesset, or parliament.
Tibi said he would appeal to the high court, while Zahalka said his party was still deciding how to proceed.
Pordes, the parliament spokesman, said the last party to be banned was the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach Party, a list from the 1980s that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.
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Thousands of Israeli reservists move into Gaza
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/0...move-into-gaza
1/12/2009
Thousands of Israeli reservists began moving into the Gaza Strip on Monday, signaling that Israel could be ready to escalate its campaign to silence Hamas rocket attacks and enter a new and more punishing phase of its 2-week-old war.
The military announced earlier that it had begun sending reserve units into Gaza to assist the thousands of ground forces already in the Hamas-ruled territory. The deployment of reservists, many in their late 20s and 30s, was the strongest sign that Israel was prepared to intensify its war against Gaza's Hamas rulers.
The army has called up thousands of reserves troops for its Gaza campaign, meant to halt years of Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel.
"Israel is a small country and (in) all of our battles and all the wars we've had in the past reserve soldiers are called up," Capt. Doron Spilmann, a spokesman for the Israeli military, told Associated Press Television News. "It's standard that they then begin to work hand in hand along with our permanent standing force in the air, on the ground and at sea."
Defense officials say about 5,000 reservists entered Gaza and thousands of others have been drafted.
Reservists in Gaza have been taking over areas cleared out by the regular troops, allowing those forces to push toward new targets, defense officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified operational strategy.
President Shimon Peres met with hundreds of reservists at a staging area in southern Israel as they prepared to enter Gaza.
"I don't think that Israel has ever had an army better trained, organized and sophisticated than you," he said. "I came in the name of the nation to say to you a deep thank you for your achievements so far and to wish you luck during battle."
The group he met with were a mixed bunch, some apparently in their early 30s, at least one with a gray ponytail and beard. They were wearing crisp olive battledress, obviously freshly issued, and had M-16 assault rifles slung across their shoulders.
Asked if they knew what they were getting into, one soldier one said he lost a good friend in combat during his compulsory military service 18 years ago and named his son after him.
"I know exactly what the price may be. I left three children at home, one a month-old baby girl, and I came here fully motivated to do whatever needs to be done, with full knowledge of the cost," he said. The reservist was not identified in line with military guidelines.
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Hamas eyes victory in Gaza as Israel threatens 'iron fist'
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Hamas_e..._01122009.html
1/12/2009
The defiant leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip vowed on Monday the Islamists would emerge victorious from the war in the Palestinian territory as Israeli tanks advanced on the main city.
After 17 days of conflict which have so far killed more than 900 Palestinians, Ismail Haniya made a rare televised address only hours after his Israeli counterpart threatened to hit Hamas with an "iron fist" if it did not end the rocket attacks which the war itself is designed to halt.
But while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted Operation Cast Lead was achieving its objectives, more rockets rained down on Israel, albeit without causing casualties.
Palestinian medics, meanwhile, said that at least another 25 people had been killed during the latest clashes, bringing the overall toll to 917, including 277 children. Another 4,100 have been wounded.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or by rocket attacks since the operation began on December 27.
"We are approaching victory," Haniya said in his broadcast from an undisclosed location in Gaza. "The blood which has flowed will not have flowed in vain as it will bring us victory, thanks be to God.
"I tell you that after 17 days of this foolish war, Gaza has not been broken and Gaza will not fall."
Haniya also said that the "blood of children" who have been killed in the conflict would serve as a "curse which will come back to haunt" United States President George W. Bush.
Bush has consistently blamed Hamas for the conflict, telling reporters on Monday that while he wanted to see a "sustainable ceasefire," it was up to Hamas to choose to end its rocket fire on Israel.
"I am for a sustainable ceasefire. And a definition of a sustainable ceasefire is that Hamas stops firing rockets into Israel," he said.
After Israel and Hamas both ignored a UN resolution last week calling for a truce, the focus of peace efforts turned to an Egyptian peace plan which calls for an immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, talks on opening Gaza's border crossings and taking steps to prevent arms smuggling.
Olmert said he was grateful for Cairo's efforts but said Israel's key demands were non-negotiable.
"We want to end the operation when the two conditions we have demanded are met: ending the rocket fire and stopping Hamas's rearmament. If these two conditions are met, we will end our operation in Gaza," he said in the southern town of Ashkelon which has been the target of dozens of Hamas missiles.
"Anything else will meet the iron fist of the Israeli people, who are no longer ready to tolerate the Qassams (rockets)."
An army spokesman said that close to 30 missiles had been launched from Gaza on Monday, although there were no reports of casualties.
Residents said Israeli tanks managed to punch their way to the southern rim of Gaza City, advancing several hundred metres (yards) in the neighbourhoods of Eijline, Tuffah and Zeitun where the crump of gunfire echoed constantly.
Troops also staged an incursion into the southern town of Khan Yunis where witnesses said some 35 houses were destroyed.
A military spokesman said warplanes had hit more than 25 targets, including four rocket launch sites and two cars containing Hamas fighters.
Troops also seized anti-aircraft missiles, mortar rounds and machine guns, the spokesman added.
Israeli officials on Sunday suggested that what is now Israel's deadliest onslaught against Gaza could be approaching its end.
Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, whose remit is limited to the West Bank, said the Egyptian initiative offered the best hope of peace, putting pressure on both Israel and Hamas to respond positively.
"He who refuses, voices reservations or moves slowly on this initiative bears the responsibility of explaining themselves, especially to the people of Gaza," he said.
Britain's former premier Tony Blair, now a peace envoy for the international community, said after meeting Mubarak that the elements for an immediate truce are in place and talks were "at a sensitive and delicate" stage.
Meanwhile Israel suffered another humiliating reverse at the hands of the United Nations, when the world body's Human Rights Council adopted a resolution accusing it of "grave" human rights violations against Palestinians.
The resolution setting up a fact-finding mission to investigate Israeli violations against Palestinians was passed after a split between Western countries and the others over the wording.
Attention was also focusing on the task of rebuilding Gaza after the war, with the Czech Republic, which currently holds the revolving EU presidency, saying it would convene a donor conference to address humanitarian needs.
Aid deliveries have been massively disrupted by the conflict, with agencies warning that residents are running out of food and even having to burn their furniture to stay warm in the bitterly cold nights.
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UN headquarters in Gaza hit by Israeli 'white phosphorus' shells
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5521925.ece
1/15/2009
The main UN compound in Gaza was in flames today after being struck by Israeli artillery fire, and a spokesman said that the building had been hit by shells containing the incendiary agent white phosphorus.
The attack on the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) came as Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, arrived in Israel on a peace mission and plunged Israel's relations with the world body to a new low.
Mr Ban told reporters in Tel Aviv that he had expressed "strong protest and outrage" to the Israeli Government over the shelling of the compound and was demanding an investigation. He said that Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, had told him it was "a grave mistake".
UNWRA, which looks after some four million Palestinian refugees around the region, suspended its operations in Gaza after the attack, in which it said three of its employees had been injured.
Chris Gunness, an UNRWA spokesman, said that the building had been used to shelter hundreds of people fleeing Israel’s 20-day offensive in Gaza. He said that pallets with supplies desperately needed by Palestinians in Gaza were on fire.
"What more stark symbolism do you need?" he said. "You can’t put out white phosphorus with traditional methods such as fire extinguishers. You need sand, we don’t have sand."
The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures.
The Geneva Convention of 1980 proscribes the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in civilian areas, although it can be used to create a smokescreen. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said today that all weapons used in Gaza were "within the scope of international law".
The attack on the UN compound came as Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and unleashed their heaviest shelling on its crowded neighbourhoods in three weeks of war. At least 15 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attacks, medical officials said, pushing the death toll up towards 1,100 - a level that Mr Ban described as "unbearable".
It was not clear whether the escalation signalled a new phase in the conflict. Israel has held back from all-out urban warfare in the narrow alleyways of Gaza's cities, where Hamas militants are more familiar with the lay of the land.
Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, terrifying civilians who said they had "nowhere left to hide" from the relentless shelling.
"I am telling you that Gaza is on fire, everything is under attack. We cannot begin to answer all the calls for help, it is desperate. We cannot reach the people, everyone is trapped and we do not know how to help them," said Doctor Moussa El Haddad at Shifa Hospital.
Maha El-Sheiky, 36, said she fled her home in the western suburbs of Gaza City two days ago, moving her family into a school in the centre of the city. "We thought it would be safer here. But now there is shelling everywhere. It is schools and mosques and hospitals. We don’t know what will be next," she said. "We are hiding, it is in God’s hands."
There were reports that the al-Quds hospital in the Tal El Hawa district, Gaza's second-largest, had been shelled, while more than 500 patients were being treated inside.
An explosion also blasted a tower block that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organisations, injuring a journalist working for the Abu Dhabi television channel.
Reuters journalists working at the time said it appeared the southern side of the 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower in the city centre had been struck by an Israeli missile or shell. Reuters evacuated its bureau.
Several organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, said that they were "certain" that Israel was using white phosphorus shells in Gaza. Human rights workers said that the use of phosphorus in the densely populated Gaza City could constitute a war crime.
Israel launched the offensive on December 27 in an effort to stop militant rocket fire from Gaza that has terrorised hundreds of thousands of Israelis. It says it will press ahead until it receives guarantees of a complete halt to rocket fire and an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza from neighbouring Egypt.
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Israeli army masses along Lebanon border
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id...onid=351020202
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:55:06 GMT
Israel deploys military units along the border with Lebanon amid growing concerns that the assault on Gaza was the onset of a multi-front war.
Nineteen days after the start of the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip, the Lebanese daily Al Safir reported Wednesday that southern Lebanon had witnessed the build-up of Israeli armored vehicles - tanks, military vessels and Apache helicopters - along the border.
"The Israeli army has mobilized its troops along the border from the western Lebanese village of Naqurah to the southern border village of Al Wazzani."
Citing military officials from Lebanon, the daily added that Israeli forces had also fired flares into the Lebanese territory.
While the report adds that the Lebanese army is on high alert, informed sources told Press TV's correspondent in Beirut that Hezbollah has also put its members on red alert.
Wednesday saw at least three rockets fired from the area of Habaniyeh in southern Lebanon into Israel. No casualties among the Israelis have been reported. Within minutes of the attack, Israel responded by firing eight rockets into southern Lebanon.
Following the rocket exchange, Israel sent telephone warnings to residents of southern Lebanon threatening to start a second front.
"People of Lebanon, launching rockets from southern Lebanon against innocents in northern Israel harms your own interests," one of the warnings said, according to AFP.
Israel's prime minister warned last week that no one in the region should "get the wrong impression" over Israel's determination "on any front."
"We are not afraid of any confrontation or threat. We truly hope that no one will put us to the test," Ehud Olmert said in a speech broadcast on army radio.
On the opening days of the war on Gaza, Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said the Israeli offensive would ignite a multi-front war which could lead to a US attack on Iran.
"So while our focus obviously is on Gaza right now, this could turn out to be a much larger conflict," the hawkish US official told FOXNews, adding, "We're looking at potentially a multi-front war."
Amid widespread speculation that the conflict in the Palestinian territory could spill over to other parts of the Middle East, Bolton added that there is "the possibility of the use of military force possibly by the United States, possibly by Israel," on Iran after the current war.
However, after Israel launched the ground phase of its operation last Saturday, Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese political analyst said "It looks like Israel has enough trouble as it is, and there is no way (Israel) can come out of this saying it was a success."
On December 25, two days before the start of the Israeli offensive against Gaza, Lebanese soldiers found and dismantled eight Katyusha rockets equipped with timers pointed south toward Israel.
Ever since the rocket incident, there has been an escalation of tensions on the border between Israel and Lebanon.
Lebanese president Michel Suleiman suggested Israel was responsible for the eight rockets found in southern Lebanon, saying that he fears "it is an Israeli attack to implicate Lebanon," according to the NOW Lebanon news website.
As the Palestinian casualties from Israel's Operation Cast Lead have topped 1,000 on day 19, Israel refuses to respond to international calls for a ceasefire.
Israeli Defense Minister ruled out the possibility of halting the ongoing offensive against the impoverished Strip on Tuesday.
Ehud Barak said "We heard yesterday, and respect, UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's appeal, and we are closely following the progress on the Egyptian truce initiative, but the fighting goes on and the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] continues to operate our troops."
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Palestinian Death Toll Tops 1,000 in Gaza
http://voanews.com/english/2009-01-14-voa53.cfm
By VOA News
14 January 2009
Palestinian officials say more than 1,000 people have been killed during Israel's 19-day offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The head of the United Nations children's agency, Ann Venemen said Wednesday that 300 children were among the dead. She said 1,500 others have been wounded and said the casualties were "tragic" and "unacceptable."
Israel has tightly controlled access to the Palestinian territory, so the numbers can not be independently verified. But U.N. officials have said previous estimates have been generally credible. Thirteen Israelis have died in the conflict.
Also on Wednesday, the head of the International Red Cross called the situation in Gaza "shocking." Jakob Kellengerger visited the densely-populated territory Tuesday, as well as the Israeli town of Sderot, which has been repeatedly hit by Hamas rockets. He called on both sides to differentiate between military targets and civilians.
A Palestinian man calls for help as smoke rises from a window following an explosion caused by Israeli military operations in Gaza city, 14 Jan 2009
Meanwhile, Israel bombed more Hamas targets in Gaza on Wednesday, including smuggling tunnels. Hamas launched at least a dozen rockets into southern Israel.
Israeli launched the offensive in Gaza on December 27 to halt years of Palestinian rocket attacks.
Separately, police say three rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Wednesday, landing outside the town of Kiryat Shmona. There were no reports of casualties, and no claim of responsibility. The Lebanese government denounced the rocket fire.
It was the second such attack in less than a week.
Officials say Israel fired shells into Lebanon in response.
Also Wednesday, Israeli police said militants fired a phosphorus shell from Gaza into Israel.
Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of illegally using the shells in populated areas. The phosphorus mortars create a smokescreen but also cause burns.
Israel said Wednesday that an Iranian ship carrying two thousand tons of aid to Gaza was turned back Tuesday because it violated a general maritime blockade of the territory, not because of the ships point of origin.
Iran, which does not recognize Israel, has condemned its offensive in Gaza.
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Medics: Death toll in Gaza rises to 1,017
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...t_10659501.htm
1/15/2009
GAZA, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- In spite of the good news that Hamas welcomed in Cairo an Egyptian-brokered initiative on a ceasefire, the Israeli offensive on Gaza continued on Wednesday, leaving so far 1,017 people killed.
Gaza emergency chief Mo'aweya Hassanein said on Wednesday night that the Israeli army killed on Wednesday 28 Palestinians and wounded about 80 others, adding that the death toll since Dec. 27 has hit 1,017 with more than 4,600 wounded.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Gaza-based news agency of "Ramattan" said that Hamas has accepted the Egyptian initiative of a ceasefire between the group and Israel, but Israeli warplanes continued striking several targets in the blockaded enclave.
Hassanein said that in an Israeli airstrike on a building north of Gaza City, two people were killed and 17 wounded, three of the mare members of the Palestinian firefighting department.
The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees said in a statement that two of its fighters were killed in a gun battle with Israeli soldiers east of Gaza City. The group said their attack was launched with the Islamic Jihad militants.
Local radio stations reported on Wednesday evening that IsraeliF-16 warplanes struck Gaza stadium in central Gaza City with several missiles, adding that huge explosions were heard in the city but no injuries were reported.
Medics in Rafah town in southern Gaza Strip said that six Palestinians were seriously injured in an airstrike on the town, adding that Israeli warplanes kept striking on the border route area between the town and Egypt.
Meanwhile, Hamas movement leader in Gaza Salah el-Bardaweel told reporters in Cairo on Wednesday evening that his movement has presented its views on the ceasefire offer to the Egyptian side, adding "Egypt would convey our response to Israel and we will wait for the Israeli response."
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UNICEF: 300 Children Killed in Gaza
http://voanews.com/english/2009-01-14-voa28.cfm
By VOA News
14 January 2009
The head of the United Nations children's agency says 300 children have been killed during Israel's campaign in the Gaza Strip.
UNICEF director, Ann Venemen, says more than 1,500 other children have been wounded, casualties she calls "tragic" and "unacceptable."
Separately, Palestinian medics say more than 1,000 people have been killed during the 19-day offensive.
Israel has tightly controlled access to the Palestinian territory, so the numbers cannot be independently verified. But U.N. officials have said previous estimates have been generally credible. Thirteen Israelis have died in the conflict.
In Jerusalem Wednesday, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said the situation in Gaza is shocking. Jakob Kellengerger visited the densely-populated territory Tuesday, as well as the Israeli town of Sderot, which has been repeatedly hit by Hamas rockets. He called on both sides to differentiate between military targets and civilians.
Israeli ground forces exchanged heavy fire with Hamas militants in Gaza City Wednesday, while Hamas fired several rockets into southern Israel.
There were no reports of injuries on the Israeli side. Israel says it will not end its campaign until the attacks stop.
A reporter for VOA in Gaza says aircraft bombed a cemetery and the central park today in the Palestinian territory's largest city.
Police say three rockets fired from Lebanon into northern Israel today landed outside the town of Kiryat Shmona. There were no reports of casualties, and there has been no claim of responsibility.
Officials say Israel fired shells into Lebanon in response.
The incident follows a similar rocket attack last Thursday, blamed on small Palestinian militant groups in Lebanon.
Israel said today that an Iranian ship carrying 2,000 tons of aid to Gaza was turned back Tuesday because it violated a general maritime blockade of the territory, not because of the ships point of origin.
Iran, which does not recognize Israel, has condemned its offensive in Gaza.
And international activists left Cyprus Wednesday in another bid to bring aid to the territory. An attempt earlier this week was canceled because of technical problems on board. Last month, another effort ended when a ship with the Free Gaza group collided with an Israeli naval vessel.
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Cynthia McKinney Talks About Her Experience In Gaza
Part I
Click Here (GooTube)
Part II
Click Here (GooTube)
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Is Israel Losing the Media War in Gaza?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2009011...08599187148700
1/16/2009
The arrival of Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, at the Israeli border town of Sderot on Sunday caused a minor sensation among the members of the foreign press who were camped out there. Wurzelbacher, who got his first 15 minutes of fame as a prop for John McCain during last year's U.S. election campaign, has swapped his plunger for a reporter's notebook on a mission to cover the Gaza war for the conservative website Pajamas TV. Unable to see much of the fighting himself, Wurzelbacher - who during the election campaign warned that a vote for Barack Obama was a vote for the destruction of Israel - picked a fight of his own. Turning on his new colleagues in the foreign press corps, he groused, "You should be ashamed of yourself. You should be patriotic, protect your family and children, not report like you have been doing for the past two weeks since this war has started." His complaint, it seemed, was that he was seeing too many reports of civilian casualties inside Gaza.
But the reality is that Western reporters have done little reporting from the front lines of this latest phase of the world's most reported conflict. Barred by Israel from entering Gaza even before the firing started, most foreign reporters can only get near the war zone by chasing down the occasional rocket sent by Hamas into Israel. Still, the press has once again found itself caught in a different kind of cross fire: the propaganda battle, across all media platforms, between Israel and Hamas (and the supporters of each) for international sympathy. And the reason Joe the Plumber is angry is that, despite (and perhaps also because of) Israel's overwhelming military superiority, the Jewish state is losing on the propaganda front. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)
The Israeli government's media operations are the most sophisticated in the region, and its extensively planned hasbara campaign of public advocacy swung into high gear almost as soon as the current offensive began. Israel and its advocates are stressing a broad theme to frame the conflict - rocket fire from Gaza is an existential threat from which Israel has a right to defend itself, they argue - and they are seeking to limit reporting on civilian suffering in Gaza by challenging how much time or space media outlets devote to such images and by emphasizing the great care being taken by Israeli soldiers to avoid hurting the civilians behind whom Israel's enemies are hiding.
Meanwhile, Israeli politicians and pundits are constantly on the air painting Hamas as an implacable, genocidal foe. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News, "For us to be asked to have a cease-fire with Hamas is like asking you to have a cease-fire with al-Qaeda" - despite the fact that Israel and Hamas had, in fact, agreed via Egypt to a six-month cease-fire just last June. And Israeli military spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovitch is constantly reassuring TV audiences worldwide that Israeli troops are going the extra mile to avoid collateral damage in Gaza. However, some Israeli officers speak more bluntly when their audience is domestic. ("We are very violent," the commander of the Israeli army's Élite combat engineering unit, Yahalom, told the Israeli press. "We do not balk at any means to protect the lives of our soldiers.") When Israeli forces shelled a United Nations school that left more than 40 dead, the Israeli military initially did its best to back its claim (denied by local U.N. officials) that the school was being used by militants to fire at Israeli forces by releasing video footage from 2007 showing militants fighting from the compound.
Hamas' propaganda efforts are cruder and rely on the civilian casualties inflicted by the Israelis to win international sympathy. Hamas fighters have shed their uniforms and blended into the civilian population, hiding weapons and communications systems in houses and mosques. That may have contributed to a death toll so lopsided that it speaks louder than any Israeli press officer - and weakens Hamas' political rival, the moderate Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel's decision to keep the Western press out of Gaza may also have backfired, because it's given a monopoly of coverage to the more inflammatory reporting of Arab satellite television stations such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiyya, which maintain bureaus in Gaza. And while there are many excellent Palestinian journalists working for the Western press in Gaza, there have been some examples of doctored photographs and suspicious-looking videos showing civilian suffering. Conservative blogs have singled out one video of doctors trying to resuscitate the brother of the CNN cameraman actually shooting the video, and suggested that it was really a re-enactment.
While media wars are par for the course when Israel and the Palestinians clash, this time they seem to be following the traditional media's migration to the Internet. The Israeli military spokesman's office has its own YouTube channel (it has recorded more than 1.5 million views), while Hamas is trying to counter with a website displaying its videos and images. Bloggers have joked that this is the first war to be covered by Twitter - the Israeli Foreign Ministry has in fact been conducting public debates on the social-messaging service - while hackers have been infiltrating Israeli websites and leaving anti-Israel slogans.
The more limited role of traditional media in covering this war hasn't protected it from criticism by Israelis. The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday published an article alleging world media bias against the Israeli operation in Gaza and accusing TIME magazine of leading the charge with its cover story this week.
Ultimately, of course, the perception of Israel's military campaign will be determined by events on the ground. Even then, images will play a vital role, which is why the fighters of both sides are well aware of the need to produce what they hope will be the defining picture or video clip of the war. For Israel, that might mean images of a recognizable Hamas leader killed or captured, while for Hamas, photographs of a burning tank or captured Israeli soldier would be a great prize.
As much as each side seeks to spin the war as advancing their overall vision, Israel has yet to articulate a clear, workable exit plan that will achieve the war's objectives without reoccupying Gaza. Meanwhile, Hamas can stack civilian bodies like cordwood for the cameras and proclaim the virtues of its "steadfast resistance," but it has offered the Palestinians no explanation of how this fight will advance their national goals. To many a foreign journalist, then, this war conjures an image with which Joe the Plumber will be familiar: the proverbial pig whose nature can't be disguised by any amount of lipstick.
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Rice raises 'difficulties' with Israelis over UN incident
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Rice_ra..._01152009.html
1/17/2009
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she spoke to the Israeli leadership about the "difficulties" caused by the shelling of the main UN compound in the Gaza Strip.
Rice telephoned Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni after shells triggered a fire at the warehouse for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
"We had a discussion of the difficulties that this had caused and the need to try to avoid such incidents," Rice told reporters when asked whether she had protested to the Israelis over the incident.
The Israelis told her it had been an "error," Rice added.
"I am quite sure that they are trying to avoid them but it is a difficult environment and our focus has been on what can we do to help get supplies, medical and food and water to the citizens of Gaza," she said.
She described the incident as "unfortunate."
The shelling set fire to a warehouse filled with tonnes of aid and forced the UNRWA to partially suspend operations.
Earlier, Rice's spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States is "deeply, deeply concerned" about the humanitarian situation in Gaza but had no reason to doubt that Israel is doing everything it can to protect civilians.
"It is a dire situation on the ground," McCormack said.
McCormack gave no details when pressed on what the US government was doing to prevent similar incidents.
"We have from the very beginning of this talked about our concerns that innocents not be wrapped in any of the combat and the Israelis assured us that they are taking every possible measure to avoid that," he said.
Asked if he believed the Israelis were doing everything possible, he replied: "I'm not going to try to make a judgment. They've assured us of that and I've no reason to doubt them."
He said that the only way to ultimately tackle the humanitarian problem is through a ceasefire.
Rice said Thursday that the United States is working with Israel and regional partners to establish a "durable ceasefire" but gave no details about the elements of it.
McCormack said the US government is also willing to play a role in guaranteeing that Hamas stops smuggling weapons as part of ceasefire arrangements. "Certainly we would be ready to offer assistance," he said.
The Israeli government said Livni will travel to Washington on Friday to conclude a US-Israeli agreement on measures aimed at preventing arms smuggling into Gaza.
Israeli foreign ministry director general Aharon Abramovich arrived in Washington on Thursday to prepare the agreement on "the long-term treatment of the issue of arms smuggling into Gaza," according to a senior official.
The understanding would include intelligence sharing on arms smuggling and monitoring of smuggling routes into Gaza, he said.
The Israeli offensive in Gaza has left more than 1,100 Palestinians dead since it began on December 27. The operation was launched in retaliation for a barrage of rockets fired by Palestinian militants into southern Israel from the tiny coastal enclave, which is ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas.
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Israel expected to announce Gaza ceasefire
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel...fire_0117.html
1/17/2009
Despite the absence of a ceasefire agreement, Israel appears to be on the verge of shutting down its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
"We believe that our military campaign has achieved its goals and that we are now in a situation where we can cease our military operations against Hamas," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.
Regev added that Israel reserves the right to renew Gaza violence if Hamas continues fighting.
"A Hamas official in Beirut said earlier the militants would keep fighting until Israel met their demands, mainly for an end to a crippling economic blockade," reported Reuters.
"Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged Israel to end its military operations immediately and planned to host a reconstruction conference, but he did not say when."
"After three weeks of Operation Cast Lead, we are very close to reaching the goals and securing them through diplomatic agreements," said Defense Minister Ehud Barak, during a visit to the south of the country, according to a Saturday statement from his office.
His comments came ahead of a meeting of Israel's security cabinet which is expected to approve a proposal for a unilateral ceasefire while keeping troops in Gaza for an unspecified period.
"The defense forces must continue their operation and be ready for any development," Barak said.
"Tanks and aircraft pounded Hamas positions in the Palestinian territory in the hours before the meeting in Jerusalem," reported the LA Times. "An Israeli tank shell hit a United Nations school in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, killing two brothers, age 4 and 5, and wounding 36 others who were sheltered there, U.N. officials said."
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Israel announces ceasefire in Gaza
Troops to remain deployed in Palestine
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel...Gaza_0117.html
Agence France-Presse
Published: Saturday January 17, 2009
TEL AVIV (AFP) – Israel called a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza on Saturday after a 22-day onslaught against its Islamist rulers which left more than 1,200 Palestinians dead and vast swathes of the territory in ruins.
After a meeting of his security cabinet, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was calling an immediate end to offensive operations but added that troops would stay in Gaza for the time-being with orders to return fire if attacked.
"At two o'clock in the morning (0000 GMT) we will stop fire but we will continue to be deployed in Gaza and its surroundings," Olmert said in a speech after the vote.
"We have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond," he added.
"If our enemies decide to strike and want to carry on then the Israeli army will regard itself as free to respond with force."
Although there was no immediate response from Hamas, an Islamist group which has ruled Gaza since 2007 and is sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, one of its leaders earlier vowed there would be no peace while troops remained.
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, who had been striving to broker a bilateral truce between the Israelis and Hamas, said only an unconditional ceasefire would suffice and called for all troops to leave the territory.
Mubarak and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are to co-host a summit on Gaza in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh Sunday which will also be attended by a string of European leaders, the king of Jordan and UN chief Ban ki-Moon.
In the hours before the security cabinet meeting, Israel kept lobbing shells into the densely populated urban area, while to the north in Beit Lahiya a UN-run school was set ablaze by bombs.
Two brothers, aged five and seven, were killed and another dozen people wounded in the attack, in which burning embers trailing smoke rained down on a school where some 1,600 people were sheltering, setting parts of it alight.
Ban called the fourth such attack on a UN-run school during the war as "outrageous" and demanded a thorough investigation.
During the course of the war, schools, hospitals, UN compounds and thousands of homes all came under attack with the Palestinian Authority putting the cost of damage to infrastructure to infrastructure alone is 476 million dollars
At least 1,206 Palestinians, including 410 children, have been killed since the start of Israel's deadliest-ever assault on the territory on December 27, according to Gaza medics, who said another 5,300 people have been wounded.
Those slain in the war also include 109 women, 113 elderly people, 14 paramedics, and four journalists, according to Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.
Since the start of the operation 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket strikes. The army says more than 700 rockets and mortar rounds have been fired into Israel during that period.
One of the main aims of the offensive has been to put a halt to rocket and mortar attacks but a further 23 missiles were fired from Gaza on Saturday, including seven long-range missiles.
The army said that it had carried out 70 aerial attacks against weapons smuggling tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt, Hamas's rear supply route.
The Islamists, who seized power in Gaza by driving out forces loyal to moderate Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas, continued to strike a defiant note in the build-up to ceasefire announcement.
"This unilateral ceasefire does not foresee a withdrawal" by the Israeli army, Osama Hemdan, the movement's Lebanon representative, told AFP. "As long as it remains in Gaza, resistance and confrontation will continue."
The stop to the violence came after the Jewish state won pledges from Washington and Cairo to help prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, the lesser half of the Palestinians' promised future state.
Although Egypt has not given any details about what assurances it has given Israel, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a pledge on Friday promising "enhanced US security and intelligence cooperation with regional governments on actions to prevent weapons and explosive flows to Gaza."
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After second rocket volley, Israel warns of war against Lebanon
June 2008 Israeli wargame simulated two-front war with Palestine, Lebanon
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/After_...arns_0117.html
1/17/2009
Lebanese daily newspaper al-Nahar reported Friday the Israeli government has said it will bring war to Lebanon should there be a repeat of Wednesday's three rocket volley that landed on or short of Israel's northern border.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack carried out on the 19th day of a massive Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. The Lebanese government condemned the rocket salvo, insisting it would not allow the Gaza conflict to drag it into a new war with Israel.
"This gives Israel an excuse to attack Lebanon," said Information Minister Tarek Mitri. "Someone is trying to drag Lebanon into a conflict and is moving rockets from one area to another."
The "excuse" is one for which Israel is ready. In June 2008, Israeli forces participated in a wargame which simulated simultaneous fighting in Palestine and Lebanon.
"The drill, codenamed 'Shiluv Zro'ot III' (Crossing Arms III), was the second largest of its kind since the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006," reported Jewish news magazine Haaretz.
"The exercise drilled the Israel Air Force and the Home Front Command in dealing with protocol and problem-solving missions under the simulated firing of thousands of rockets and missiles into the heart of Israel's population centers," wrote correspondent Amos Harel.
"In addition to the Northern Command, the air force and the home front command, Crossing Arms involved the IDF Military Intelligence directorate and the general staff. Unlike headquarter-level exercises from the past, Crossing Arms entailed the deployment of troops on the ground, comprising mainly reservists.
"Additionally, helicopter gunships and airplanes were sent on mock raids and evacuation missions. The aircraft did not fire live ammunition, according to army sources."
Brink of war?
"Tel Aviv had formerly notified the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) that it was about to attack the country after the rocket attacks came but it had changed its mind upon international advice," said Iranian network Press TV, which carried the al-Nahar report.
While the situation has not escalated, Israeli forces returned fire and troops have been called up to the border.
"The Israel Police initially said that the rockets had struck open areas in Kiryat Shmona, but after combing the area concluded that two of the three rockets had actually exploded inside Lebanon," reported Haaretz. "There were no reports of damage or injuries. Residents of northern Israel were instructed to go into bomb shelters."
The rockets were fired from the El-Hebbariyeh district, some two and a half miles from the border. Three more rockets which had been booby-trapped were later discovered by Lebanese and UN peacekeeping troops before being made safe.
The Lebanese government also deployed special forces commandos to the border region to try to stop any further rocket fire.
"'We don't want another war with Israel,' said Suhair Hammoud, a 36-year-old teacher,' in a Wall Street Journal report.
Immediately after the rockets landed near the Lebanese border, Israel began sending telephone warnings through south Lebanon. Agence France-Presse received one such call.
"Launching rockets from southern Lebanon against innocents in northern Israel harms your own interests ..." the wire service reported. "If you allow groups like Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah to launch rockets against innocents in northern Israel as you did before, remember what happened to you last time."
UN peacekeepers could not confirm that any rockets landed on Israeli territory, reported Jewish news Web site Ynet. However, they said, debris was found on the Lebanese side.
But there are heightened fears that extremist groups operating in Lebanon could take advantage of the situation to launch attacks on Israel and analysts have said that last week's incident was likely to have been carried out with the militia's tacit approval.
"Nothing happens in the south without Hezbollah's knowledge," said Osama Safa, head of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies.
Last week Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned that "all possibilities" were open against Israel amid its deadly offensive in Gaza.
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Israel kept out aid for Gaza
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/isr...e#contentSwap1
Jason Koutsoukis in Jerusalem
January 19, 2009
ISRAEL deliberately blocked the United Nations from building up vital food supplies in Gaza that feed a million people daily before the launch of its war against Hamas, according to a senior UN official in Jerusalem.
In a scathing critique of Israeli actions leading up to the conflict, the UN's chief humanitarian co-ordinator in Israel, the former Australian diplomat Maxwell Gaylard, accused Israel of failing to honour its commitments to open its border with Gaza during several months of truce from June 19 last year.
"The Israelis would not let us facilitate a regular and sufficient flow of supplies into the Strip," Mr Gaylard said.
The chief spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yigal Palmor, said the claims were "unqualified bullshit".
"At no time was there a shortage of food in Gaza over the past three weeks," Mr Palmor said.
Mr Gaylard, who is the UN Special Co-ordinator's Office's most senior representative in Israel, told the Herald that when Israel launched its surprise attack on Gaza on December 27, the UN's warehouses in Gaza were nearly empty, with all food and equipment sitting in nearby port facilities. "The food was in Israel but we couldn't get it in. This is before. The blockade was very tight."
As the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, halted the attacks, declaring Israel had attained its goals in the lethal assault on Gaza that has killed more than 1240 Palestinians - a third of them children - Hamas militants continued to fire rockets into Israel. Thirteen Israelis have also been killed.
A 20-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops in the south of the Strip yesterday. He died after being shot in the chest in a vehicle near the town of Khan Yunis, near the border crossing and was the first fatality since Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire.
Five Qassam rockets hit the Israeli city of Sderot yesterday, with no reported injuries, hours after Mr Olmert said the ceasefire would be maintained as long as Hamas stopped firing rockets.
He said Israel would continue to occupy Gaza and was working with several international partners including the US to prevent Hamas re-arming by putting an end to its smuggling operations.
"Hamas was hit hard," Mr Olmert said. "Both its military capabilities and its governing infrastructure." Operation Cast Lead erupted after Hamas declared it would not extend a six-month truce with Israel that had expired on December 19.
Hamas argued it had no incentive to renew the truce because conditions had not improved during the months of calm.
According to Hamas, in return for stopping the rocket fire, Israel had promised to ease its blockade of Gaza and allow the passage of more food and commercial supplies.
"I think the expectation on the Israeli side was that the rockets would stop. Well, they nearly did. I think there were 40-odd rockets fired over four months roughly," Mr Gaylard said.
Before the truce there was a monthly average of several hundred rockets and mortar shells being fired into Israel.
"The expectation on the Gazan side . . . was that more supplies would be allowed in, and it didn't happen," Mr Gaylard said.
"In fact, we noticed, I think from 19 June for the next four or five months, or up to even 19 December, less of our supplies and spare parts and items of equipment, less got in than before the 19th of June."
Mr Gaylard slammed Israel's siege policy towards Gaza, which he said had strengthened the popularity of Hamas.
"It's difficult to understand the mentality of firing these rockets . . . it is equally hard to understand why the Israelis are strangling this place,' Mr Gaylard said.
"It is to cause Hamas to fall, but my experience of the last year of going in and out of Gaza and staying there, was that it had exactly the opposite effect.
"Hamas did not keep its commitments during the truce, they maintained the rocket fire and continued to attack Israeli technicians who were sent in to Gaza to repair various facilities."
Mr Gaylard, who is also the UN's deputy special co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said it would require several billion dollars and at least five years to repair the physical damage caused by the last three weeks of fighting.
As for the long-term goal of resolving the 60-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said that had been dealt a severe setback.
Mr Gaylard urged the world to put more pressure on Israel to stop the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which he said Israel had pledged to do several times, most recently at the Annapolis Middle East Peace conference in November 2007.
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Israel-Hamas truce holds on Gaza Strip
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel...trip_0119.html
1/19/2009
GAZA CITY (AFP) - A tenuous ceasefire held Monday in Gaza, where Palestinians dug out from the rubble and Hamas put on a show of defiance vowing to fight on after the Jewish state's deadliest war on the strip.
No air strikes, rockets or fighting was reported by either side for the first time since Israel's massive assault was launched on December 27.
The guns had fallen silent around Gaza after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire from Sunday and Hamas and other militant groups called a week-long truce of their own.
On the ground, the lull saw early efforts at a return to some sort of daily life amid the desolation, AFP reporters said.
Some stores raised their metal shutters and banks opened doors. Hamas police reappeared on the streets and directed traffic at intersections.
Many people were scavenging through rubble to salvage what they could -- clothes, a television, books, tins of food.
Najette Manah, three small children in tow, clutched a box of rice that she found amid the debris of what was her home.
"We don't have homes anymore. I don't have anything anymore," she said.
However, Hamas' armed wing spat defiance at a televised media conference, saying it would rearm and demanding the Jewish state withdraw its forces from the Palestinian enclave by Sunday or face more rocket attacks.
Abu Obeida, masked spokesman for the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, echoed his leader's proclamation that the 22-day operation was a "divine victory" for Hamas.
The movement lost only 48 fighters, the spokesman said, after Israel reported killing more than 500 Hamas members during Operation Cast Lead. He also claimed Israel lost "at least 80 soldiers" in the fighting. The Jewish state listed 10 soldiers killed.
Gaza medics said more than 1,300 Palestinians have died.
Abu Obeida underlined that Hamas' own ceasefire would last only a week unless Israel fully withdrew troops from Gaza.
"We have given the Zionist enemy one week to pull out of the Gaza Strip, failing which we will pursue the resistance," he said.
"Our arsenal of rockets has not been affected and we continued to fire them during the war without interruption. We are still able to launch them and, thanks be to God, our rockets will strike other targets," in Israel.
Israel's efforts, backed by the United States and European leaders, to prevent Hamas from re-arming, would also fail, Abu Obeida said.
"Let them do what they want. Bringing in weapons for the resistance and making them is our mission and we know full well how to acquire weapons.
"What we lost during this war in terms of military capability is small and we managed to compensate for most of it even before the war ended."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad congratulated Hamas on "victory" while at an Arab summit in Kuwait City, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called for Israel to be branded a terrorist state.
"Arabs should declare an unequivocal support for the Palestinian resistance ... I call on the Arab summit to officially declare Israel as a terrorist state for the crime it did in Gaza," Assad said.
"Ceasefire does not mean the end of aggression as the invading forces are still in Gaza."
Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah opened the meeting with a call for collective Arab measures and "practical steps to stabilise the ceasefire" while Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced the donation of one billion dollars for the reconstruction of the battered Gaza Strip.
Amid the lull, Israel agreed to let nearly 200 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid into Gaza and to supply 400,000 litres of fuel to the territory, an official said.
A total of 40,000 tonnes of food and medicines had been transported into Gaza since the offensive began, military administration spokesman Major Peter Lerner said.
European leaders who had travelled to Israel after attending a summit in Egypt urged the Jewish state to follow up the ceasefire by completely withdrawing troops and opening the territory's border crossings.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a major international conference to "allow us to establish peace this year."
Israel's decision to call a unilateral ceasefire in its war on Hamas came after it won pledges from Washington and Cairo to help prevent arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip -- a task in which Europe has also pledged to help.
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Palestinian doctor's daughters killed during live Israeli TV report
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Palest...e_on_0117.html
Stephen C. Webster
Published: Saturday January 17, 2009
War is cruel. But sometimes, a story comes along that redefines what cruel really means.
Saturday morning, a Palestinian doctor who reports for Israel's channel 10 television witnessed three of his daughters killed by Israeli bombs, even as his first moments of insane panic and grief were broadcast live.
Israeli officials said shells were dropped in response to sniper fire in the area.
Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Ashi is an uncommon man. A Palestinian who works for an Israeli hospital, Dr. Ashi has been giving Israelis daily reports on the military campaign in Gaza.
"No one can get to us," he screamed in Arabic on a live phone call with a channel 10 anchor. "My God ... My God ..."
Dr. Ashi told the anchor his family had just been killed, and that he was "overwhelmed."
"My God ... My girls ..." he cried. "Shiomi ... Can't anybody help us please?"
The news anchor asked Dr. Ashi where his house is, and cameras followed as the journalist frantically tried to employ his network of contacts to send help to the doctor. Shortly thereafter, the Israeli Army allowed a Palestinian ambulance to speed to his location.
Only one of al-Ashi's daughters survived.
"Everybody in Israel knows that I was talking on television and on the radio," said Dr. Ashi. "That we are home, that we are innocent people.
"Suddenly, today, when there was hope for ceasefire, on the last day I was talking to my children ... Suddenly, they bombed us; a doctor who takes care of Israeli patients. Is that what's done? Is that peace?"
Eyewitnesses denied Israeli claims of sniper fire in the area.
"But over 90 percent of Israelis still support the war on Gaza, while hundreds of other tragedies remain just a number in a rising Palestinian death toll," reported Al Jazeera's Roza Ibragimova.
The following video was published by Al Jazeera English on Jan. 17.
Video At Source
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Gaza was demolished in three weeks. Rebuilding it will take years
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...s-1451411.html
By Patrick Cockburn in Jerusalem
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
The rebuilding of Gaza after the Israeli bombardment already faces unique problems and is likely to be the most difficult reconstruction project in the world. This is because of the sheer scale of the devastation, the economic siege of the Palestinian enclave by Israel and Egypt, and the attempt to exclude Hamas, the elected rulers of Gaza, from any role in the rebuilding.
The difficulties are all the greater because of the destruction of much of the tunnel system linking Gaza to Egypt. Israeli and European leaders talk of the tunnel system – by one estimate there are 1,100 of them – as if it was exclusively devoted to supplying weapons and ammunition to Hamas. In reality, "the tunnel economy" has been the way in which food, fuel and everything else has reached Gaza since Israel and Egypt sealed off the Strip 18 months ago, when Hamas drove out the rival Palestinian faction Fatah in 2007. Military supplies were always a very small part of Gaza's imports through the tunnels.
"Everything from Viagra to diesel entered Gaza through the tunnels," said one source. At one point before the Israeli attack, the price of petrol went down in Gaza because a pipeline had been threaded through one of the tunnels, all of which are privately dug and owned. Cooking-gas bottles are in short supply because they previously came in through tunnels that are now closed.
"I know middle-class families in Gaza cutting up their furniture to build fires so they can cook their food," said an aid official yesterday. Spare parts are desperately needed for generators.
The Palestinian tunnels and the Israeli-Egyptian border closure were two issues at the centre of the war and their future is still unresolved.
Until Gaza has continual access to the outside world, any real reconstruction will be impossible. A senior EU official said no aid would be spent rebuilding buildings and infrastructure while Hamas remained in control.
Israel says that it will have withdrawn all its troops from the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama is inaugurated today. A first priority forthe UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) will be to bring in foodstuffs and medicines and rebuild its supply system stretching from the Israeli port of Ashdod to the Gaza Strip. Then it will try to restore the electricity, water and sewage systems wrecked by Israeli bombs and shells. Amnesty International yesterday accused Israel of war crimes, saying its use of white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas of Gaza was indiscriminate and illegal.
UNRWA will probably carry out the preliminary assessment of damage and initial repairs because Israel, Egypt, the US and the Europeans are boycotting Hamas, although UNRWA is nervous of acting as a substitute government of Gaza. One Palestinian estimate suggests that the cost of rebuilding will be $1.4bn (£970m). Saudi Arabia has already pledged $1bn but promises on aid are seldom kept in full.
Rebuilding will take place in a 139-square-mile enclave that is packed with 1.5 million Palestinians, of whom 70 per cent are from refugee families expelled from Israel during the creation of the state. More than a million are already receiving UN food supplies.
The initial assessment is that 20,000 homes lived in by 120,000 people have been somewhat damaged and can be patched up so they are habitable again. The 4,000 homes that have been destroyed cannot be rebuilt because Israel is refusing to let construction materials cross the border into Gaza.
Israel, the US and their European allies are eager to prevent Hamas taking charge of reconstruction because this might add to its political standing among Palestinians. They recall that after the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006, many Lebanese at first blamed Hizbollah for provoking the assault. But Hizbollah took charge of rebuilding and Iran reportedly gave $14,000 to every family which had lost its home, money that was channelled to grateful recipients through Hizbollah.
The major potential donors for Gaza will try to get aid distributed through the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. But he is, if anything, more discredited in the eyes of Palestinians and the Arab world as an Israeli and American stooge than he was before war in Gaza. Hamas, which won the heavily-monitored Palestinian election of 2006, will not want to dilute its power but there will be international pressure on Palestinians to form a government that is acceptable to donors.
If Gaza is to be restored even to the miserable condition it was in before 27 December, then the economic siege has to be lifted. But Israeli leaders like the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, and the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak have claimed success in the war. If the blockade is raised, then Hamas will say it won the war – and the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as the next Prime Minister of Israel in the election on 10 February will become even more certain.
So were there any winners or losers?
What was Hamas's aim? Rocket attacks intended to force Israel to end blockade that has trapped 1.5m Palestinians inside Gaza Strip since Hamas takeover. Hamas also seeking recognition by West
What happened? Security arrangements are to be imposed on Hamas and no ceasefire agreement has been signed with the Islamists
Did they succeed? No.
What was Israel's aim? Gaza offensive launched to "teach Hamas a lesson". Some Israeli politicians called for overthrow of Hamas, while contenders in next month's election sought improved ratings
What happened? The majority of the estimated 20,000 Hamas fighters escaped with their lives. Hamas rockets were still being fired at the end of Israeli offensive when Israel declared unilateral ceasefire
Did they succeed? No.
What was Egypt's aim? To secure end to offensive through ceasefire agreement leading to truce, border security, reopening of crossings, Israeli troop withdrawal and Palestinian reconciliation
What happened? US negotiated separate deal with Israel on arms smuggling. Hamas set its own truce conditions and refused reconciliation with Fatah. Egyptian mediation deepened split between moderate Arab states and others
Did they succeed? No.
What was the EU's aim? To profit from power vacuum in US and play lead negotiating role. To map out road to peace and promise support for Palestinian leadership afterwards
What happened? Plethora of negotiators undermined EU credibility as did the incompetence of Czech EU presidency
Did they succeed? No.
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Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5556027.ece
1/21/2009
The Israeli military came close to acknowledging for the first time yesterday its use of white phosphorus munitions during the war in Gaza, but continued to insist that it did not breach international law.
As fresh evidence emerged of Gazan civilians being burned by phosphorus, Avital Leibovich, the army spokeswoman, said its use was “legal according to international law...All the munitions we were using were legal, like the French, American and British armies. We used munitions according to international law.
“They [Hamas] were committing war crimes by putting the civilians in the front line,” she said. “If Hamas chooses to locate training camps, command centres...in the middle of the [civilian population]...look how populated it is...naturally they are endangering the lives of civilians. Hamas is accountable for the loss of the civilians.”
Major-General Amir Eshel, the army's head of strategic planning, said that firing shells to provide a smoke screen was legal. “It is the most nonlethal kind of weapon we used. I don't see any issue with that,” he said.
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had privately admitted using phosphorus bombs, and that the Judge Advocate General's Office and Southern Command were investigating.
The Times first accused Israeli forces of using white phosphorus on January 5, but the IDF has denied the charge repeatedly. Phosphorus bombs can be used to create smoke screens, but their use as weapons of war in civilian areas is banned by the Geneva Conventions.
Yesterday reports emerged from Gaza about the killing of five members of the Halima family, when a single white phosphorus shell dropped on their house in the town of Atatra on January 3. Two others were in a coma and three were seriously wounded, according to doctors and survivors.
Salima Halima, 44, who is in Gaza City's Shifa hospital, said that the chemical burst in all directions after hitting her living room.
Nafiz Abu Shahbah, a doctor who trained in Britain and America, said he was sure white phosphorus was responsible. Her wounds at first appeared superficial “but it eats at the flesh, it digs deeper and gets to the bone...The whole body becomes toxic,” he said.
In the Jabaliya refugee camp, the Associated Press found a crater that was still producing acrid smoke days after the war ended, and in the town of Beit Lahiya a lump of white phosphorus burst into flames after some boys dug it up from beneath some sand.
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, expressed outrage at Israel's destruction of Gaza yesterday, when he became the first world leader to visit the Palestinian territory since the end of the war. “This is shocking and alarming,” he declared while visiting a UN warehouse that was still smouldering after being hit on Thursday, allegedly by white phosphorus shells. “I'm just appalled.”
Visibly angry, he condemned Israel's “excessive” use of force, and demanded that those responsible for shelling schools and other facilities run by the UN Relief and Works Agency during the 22-day offensive should be held to account. “It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack on the United Nations,” he said.
Israel has apologised for attacks on UN facilities but insisted in almost every case that Hamas fighters were using the buildings for cover.
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Last Israeli troops leave Gaza, completing pullout
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...PRq3gD95RKBU00
By AMY TEIBEL – 16 minutes ago
JERUSALEM (AP) — The last Israeli troops left the Gaza Strip before dawn Wednesday, the military said, as Israel dispatched its foreign minister to Europe in a bid to rally international support to end arms smuggling into the Hamas-ruled territory.
The timing of the troop pullout reflected Israel's hopes to defuse the crisis in still-volatile Gaza before President Barack Obama settled into the White House. The military said troops remain massed on the Israeli side of the border, poised for action if militants violated a fragile, three-day-old truce.
The troops' exit marked the end of an Israeli offensive that ravaged Gaza and left some 1,300 Palestinians dead, at least half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials and a Palestinian human rights group. Thirteen Israelis also died.
Israel launched the war to halt years of militant rocket fire on southern Israel and to stop arms smuggling that put one-eighth of the country's population within rocket range. The death toll in Gaza provoked international outrage, but in Israel, the war was widely seen as a legitimate response to militants' attacks.
The Israeli military announced Wednesday that it would investigate claims by the United Nations and human rights groups that it improperly used white phosphorous — an ingredient in weapons that inflicts horrific burns. Although the use of phosphorus weapons to mask forces is permitted by international law, Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing a war crime by using it in densely populated areas.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon left the region early Wednesday after touring Gaza and southern Israel. Ban called for an investigation into the Israeli shelling of U.N. compounds in Gaza during the fighting, which he termed "outrageous." He also called rocket attacks against Israel "appalling and unacceptable."
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was headed to Brussels on Wednesday, hoping to clinch a deal committing the European Union to contribute forces, ships and technology to anti-smuggling operations.
"She will sum up with the the EU representatives their involvement in the international handling of the problem of smuggling into the Gaza Strip," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
An EU commitment would build on a deal the U.S. signed with Israel last week promising expanded intelligence cooperation between the two countries and other U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe.
EU officials said it was too early for that, saying providing humanitarian relief and efforts to secure a lasting cease-fire were their priorities.
"The situation is fragile," Javier Solana, the EU's foreign and security chief, said ahead of the meeting.
The U.S. has promised to supply detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations in the region. The equipment and training would be used to monitor Gaza's land and sea borders.
Some EU nations, notably Germany, have promised to help Israel stop the arms smuggling. The issue will likely be debated at a regular EU foreign ministers meeting scheduled next Monday.
Most of the smuggling was carried out through tunnels underneath the 8-mile (15 kilometer) border between Egypt and Gaza. Egypt has proved unable or unwilling to halt the flow of weapons and medium-range rockets coming through the tunnels, alongside fuel and consumer goods.
During its offensive, Israel said it destroyed most of the hundreds of tunnels in repeated bombing runs by Israeli jets. But Wednesday, smuggling was under way again.
AP Television News footage showed Palestinian smugglers Wednesday filling a fuel truck with petrol that came through a cross-border tunnel from Egypt. The footage also showed workers busy clearing blocked tunnels and bulldozers carrying out other repairs.
Iran has rejected the international attempt to deny Hamas weapons. In statements reported Wednesday on the Web site of Iranian state TV, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said because Israel is so well-armed, Palestinians shouldn't be barred from obtaining weapons.
Iran is one of Hamas' main backers but denies Israel's claims that it arms the Palestinian group.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian human rights group said it had completed its count of the death toll from the Israeli operation.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said a total of 1,284 Palestinians were killed and 4,336 wounded in the 23-day war. It said 894 of the dead were civilians, including 280 children or minors ages 17 and under. It cited data collected by its field researchers and checked against information from hospitals and clinics.
The PCHR was a main source of information about dead and wounded during the war.
The Israeli military says 500 Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting. Gaza's militant groups say they lost 158 fighters.
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Obama urges Israel to open Gaza borders
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7cf745dc-e...nclick_check=1
By Daniel Dombey in Washington and Tobias Buck in Jerusalem
Published: January 22 2009 22:07 | Last updated: January 23 2009 00:04
President Barack Obama urged Israel on Thursday to open its borders with Gaza.
The plea came in a speech that signalled the new US administration’s shift from Bush-era policy on the Middle East and the world as a whole. In a high-profile address on his second day in office, just hours after he signed an executive order to close the centre at Guantánamo Bay, Mr Obama proclaimed that the US would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” in the wake of this month’s Gaza war.
“The outline for a durable ceasefire is clear: Hamas must end its rocket fire: Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza: the US and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot re-arm,” the US president said.
“As part of a lasting ceasefire, Gaza’s border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international and Palestinian Authority participating.”
Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, also announced the appointment of George Mitchell, as the US special envoy for the Arab-Israeli conflict and Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the United Nations, as representative for Afghanistan-Pakistan.
The moves signalled another shift from the foreign policy of the Bush administration, which had resisted appointing a high-profile envoy for Middle East peace.
Although Condoleezza Rice, who finished her tenure as secretary of state this week, brokered a 2005 deal to allow open border crossings to Gaza, access was often shut down, with Israel citing security concerns and Hamas launching rocket attacks. The issue is set to test the authority of the new administration as it begins to grapple with the Middle East conflict.
Before Mr Obama gave his speech, an Israeli official said there would be tough conditions for any lifting of the blockade, which he linked with the release of Gilad Shalit, a soldier held captive by Hamas since 2006.
“If the opening of the passages strengthens Hamas we will not do it,” the official said.
“We will make sure that all the [humanitarian] needs of the population will be met. But we will not be able to deal with Hamas on the other side. We will not do things that give legitimacy to Hamas.”
Under its ceasefire, Hamas has given Israel until Sunday to open the borders. Much of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed during the three-week Israeli offensive and, without building materials and other supplies, there is little hope of rebuilding the water, sewage and power networks as well as private homes and key government buildings. But many foreign donors share Israel’s concerns that the reconstruction efforts should not be led by Hamas, or enhance the group’s legitimacy.
“Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel’s security and we will always support Israel’s right to defend itself against legitimate threats,” Mr Obama said.
But in comments referring to the Gaza conflict he added: “I was deeply concerned by the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life in recent days and by the substantial suffering and humanitarian needs in Gaza. Our hearts go out to Palestinian civilians who are in need of immediate food, clean water, and basic medical care, and who’ve faced suffocating poverty for far too long.”
He called on Arab governments to “act on” the promise of a Saudi-led 2002 Arab peace initiative by supporting the Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas “taking steps towards normalising relations with Israel, and by standing up to extremism that threatens us all.”
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How IDF legal experts legitimized strikes involving Gaza civilians
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057648.html
By Yotam Feldman and Uri Blau
1/23/2009
The idea to bombard the closing ceremony of the Gaza police course was internally criticized in the Israel Defense Forces months before the attack. A military source involved in the planning of the attack, in which dozens of Hamas policemen were killed, says that while military intelligence officers were sure the operation should be carried out and pressed for its approval, the IDF's international law division and the military advocate general were undecided.
After months of the operational elements pushing for the attack's approval, the international law division headed by Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch gave the go-ahead. In spite of doubts, and also under pressure, Sharvit-Baruch and the division also legitimized the attack on Hamas government buildings and the relaxing of the rules of engagement, resulting in numerous Palestinian casualties. In the division it is also believed that the killing of civilians in a house whose residents the IDF has warned might be considered legally justified, although the IDF does not actually target civilians in this way.
Many legal experts, including former international law division head Daniel Reisner, do not accept this position. "I don't think a person on a rooftop can be incriminated just because he is standing there," he said.
One reason for the international law division's permissive positions is its desire to remain relevant and influential. Sources involved in the work of the Southern Command said that its GOC, Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant, is quite suspicious of legal experts and has a reputation of not attaching much importance to their advice. The Southern Command's legal adviser was not invited to consultations before the attack, and was compartmentalized when it came to smaller forums. It was actually during the action in Gaza that consideration for his opinions grew.
The legal addendum to Operation Cast Lead's order shows the way the IDF's legal experts legitimized the army's actions: "As much as possible and under the circumstances of the matter, the civilian population in a target area is to be warned," it states, adding "unless so doing endangers the operation or the forces."
The addendum orders commanders to be extremely cautious in the use of "incendiary weapons" (for example, phosphorus bombs), but does not prohibit their use: "Before using these weapons, the the military advocate general or international law division must be consulted on the specific case."
A source who served in the division in the past says it is "more liberal than the attorney general and the High Court petitions department." "The army knows what it wants, and pressure was certainly brought to bear when legal advisers thought that something was unacceptable or problematic," an operational military source said.
According to a senior official in the international law division, "Our goal is not to tie down the army, but to give it the tools to win in a way that is legal."
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Israel names justice minister to fight war crime charges
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...fBfa4z913S4CzQ
5 hours ago
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has put the justice minister in charge of defending Israel against charges of war crimes during its 22-day Gaza assault, a government source said Friday.
Daniel Friedman will lead an inter-ministerial team to coordinate a legal defence for civilians and the military, the source said.
Israel's military censor has already banned the publication of the identity of the unit leaders who fought against Hamas Islamists on the Gaza Strip for fear they may face war crimes charges.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded Tuesday that those responsible for bombing UN buildings in the Palestinian territory should be made accountable and accused Israel of using excessive force.
Amnesty International said it was "undeniable" that Israel had used white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas, contrary to international law, charging that this amounted to a war crime.
Eight Israeli human rights groups have called on the Israeli government to investigate given the scale of the casualties, describing the number of dead women and children as "terrifying."
Israel insists troops did their best to limit civilian casualties in a heavily-populated area and blamed Hamas for hiding behind civilians to fire rockets at southern Israel.
Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Kashan, meanwhile, was on Thursday in The Hague, where he held talks with International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an official said.
Beatrice le Fraper, a special advisor to the prosecutor, told AFP that Kasham and Moreno-Ocampo had "a long discussion ... which included allegations of crimes committed in Gaza."
Gaza medics put the death toll at 1,330 with at least 5,450 wounded. Some 65 percent of the dead were civilians, including 400 children and 100 women.
Ten Israel soldiers and three civilians died during Operation Cast Lead which ended last Sunday with a ceasefire.
UN schools and the main aid headquarters where tonnes of food was stocked were bombed.
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Israel will defend army against war charges: Olmert
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...X6rFmyuGbeM2uQ
13 hours ago
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel will grant legal protection for soldiers who fought in the three-week war in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday amid accusations of war crimes.
"The commanders and soldiers sent to Gaza need to know that they are completely safe from different tribunals and Israel will help and protect them," he said.
Olmert confirmed he had appointed Justice Minister Daniel Friedman to chair an inter-ministerial committee "to coordinate Israel's efforts to offer legal defence for anyone who took part in the operation.
"He will formulate questions and answers relating to the army's operations, which self-righteous people ... might use to sue officers and soldiers," the prime minister said.
Israel's military censor has already banned the publication of the identity of the unit leaders who fought against militants of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on the Gaza Strip for fear they may face war crimes charges.
Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said the Israeli government's move would unlikely halt war crimes probes.
"The decision is not going to prevent governments and human rights organisations around the world to really seek clear legal cases against all Israeli leaders who are responsible for the death and destruction of the Palestinian people," he told journalists.
"More efforts will be seen in the future" to bring cases to justice, he said, adding "there is no immunity against legal actions."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday demanded that those responsible for bombing UN buildings in the Palestinian territory should be made accountable and accused Israel of using excessive force.
UN schools and the main aid headquarters where tonnes of food was stocked were bombed.
Eight Israeli human rights groups have called on the Israeli government to investigate the scale of the casualties, describing the number of dead women and children as "terrifying."
Israel insists troops did their best to limit civilian casualties in a heavily-populated area and blamed Hamas for hiding behind civilians to fire rockets at southern Israel.
Gaza medics put the Palestinian death toll at 1,330 with at least another 5,450 people wounded. About 65 percent of the dead were civilians, including 437 children.
Ten Israel soldiers and three civilians died during Operation Cast Lead which ended last Sunday with a ceasefire.
Amnesty International, meanwhile, has said it was "undeniable" that Israel had used white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas, contrary to international law, charging that this amounted to a war crime.