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Thread: Israel Air Strikes On Gaza Kill 155

  1. #141
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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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  2. #142
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    Cynthia McKinney Talks About Her Experience In Gaza

    Part I
    Click Here (GooTube)

    Part II
    Click Here (GooTube)
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  3. #143
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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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  4. #144
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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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  5. #145
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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."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  6. #146
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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."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  7. #147
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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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  8. #148
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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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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