Israel Air Strikes On Gaza Kill 155

Israel presses on with Gaza war as death toll tops 850

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel_presses_on_with_Gaza_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.

Israeli forces edge into Gaza city

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5053R720090111

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.

Bill Moyers On Mideast Violence

Video
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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

Israel must abide by international law

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/...ternational-law/2009/01/11/1231608519453.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.

Obama vows to tackle Middle East 'on day one'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_vows_to_tackle_Middle_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.

Israel says Gaza war nearing end as fighting rages

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel_says_Gaza_war_nearing_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.

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/article/ALeqM5h_spSjn_nNjUPox9jhhVCKsdnH9AD95L409G3

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.

Israel sends reserves into Gaza but says end may be in sight

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_sends_reserves_into_Gaza_but_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

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5488380.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

Israel battles Hamas as toll passes 900

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel_battles_Hamas_as_toll_passes_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.


* 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 [email protected]

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.


Israel bans Arab parties from coming election

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2009/01/12/D95LNB200_ml_israel_arabs/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.

Thousands of Israeli reservists move into Gaza

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/01/12/2302298-thousands-of-israeli-reservists-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.

Hamas eyes victory in Gaza as Israel threatens 'iron fist'

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Hamas_eyes_victory_in_Gaza_as_Israe_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.

UN headquarters in Gaza hit by Israeli 'white phosphorus' shells

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5521925.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.

Israeli army masses along Lebanon border

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=82287&sectionid=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."

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.

Medics: Death toll in Gaza rises to 1,017

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/15/content_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."