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Thread: Israel Air Strikes On Gaza Kill 155

  1. #21
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    That's my President for you.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  2. #22
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    Israel rejects truce appeals as Gaza blitz continues

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...fW4Ta7i2dt_Ldg

    4 hours ago

    GAZA CITY (AFP) — Israel rejected world appeals for a truce on Tuesday and warned its deadly assault on Gaza could last for weeks as warplanes pummelled Hamas positions for a fourth day and tanks massed on the border.

    Despite the devastating aerial pounding that has now killed at least 363 people, Hamas militants continued to fight back, firing deadly rockets deep inside Israeli territory.

    Children again fell victim to Israel's "all-out war" on the Islamist Hamas movement, with two sisters dying when a missile slammed into their donkey cart in the northern town of Beit Hanun.

    In Gaza City, residents picked through rubble and broken glass after a night in which Israel hammered the overcrowded territory with some 40 strikes targeting Hamas buildings, training camps and rocket launchers.

    Despite repeated pleas by UN chief Ban Ki-moon for a stop to the "unacceptable" violence that has sparked outrage in the Muslim world and protests in many countries, Israel waved aside calls for a truce.

    "There is no reason that we would accept a ceasefire at this stage," Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told AFP.

    "If there is a ceasefire, that will allow Hamas to regain strength, recover from the shock and prepare an even stronger attack against Israel," he said.

    With tanks and personnel massed on the Gaza border, Israel said infantry was ready to join what it warned would be a prolonged offensive.

    Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the bombardment so far was "the first of several stages approved by the security cabinet," while Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned the offensive -- one of Israel's deadliest ever against Gaza -- could last weeks.

    "We are ready for a prolonged conflict and for weeks of combat," Vilnai said.

    An army spokeswoman said that "the ground forces are ready," adding that "for the moment we are only hitting from the air and the sea."

    Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who has described the bombardment as an "all-out war" against Hamas, has repeatedly warned that he is ready to send ground troops into Gaza .

    The four days of intensive bombardment, which have killed several senior Hamas officials and reduced many of the group's structures in Gaza to rubble, has failed to stop rocket fire from the territory.

    Three Israelis -- two civilians and one soldier -- were killed on Monday by rockets fired from Gaza, with one reaching the deepest yet inside Israel and slamming into the southern port city of Ashdod, more than 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the border.

    Hamas has warned it might also launch suicide attacks inside Israel for the first time since January 2005.

    Since Israel unleashed its massive aerial attack on Saturday following persistent rocket fire from Gaza, at least 363 Palestinians, including 39 children, have been killed and 1,720 wounded, according to Gaza medics.

    Palestinian militants have fired more than 250 rockets, killing four people inside Israel and wounding around two dozen more.

    Rebuffing Arab appeals, Israel's main ally Washington has given the offensive strong support but said it was working behind the scenes to forge a truce.

    "The United States understands that Israel needs to take actions to defend itself," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was reaching out by telephone to key world leaders and diplomats to find a lasting way to end the violence, officials said.

    At the United Nations, Ban said he was "deeply alarmed by the current escalation of violence in and around Gaza. This is unacceptable.

    "Both Israel and Hamas must halt their acts of violence and... a ceasefire must be declared immediately."

    EU foreign ministers were set to meet in Paris on Tuesday to discuss how they can work to help ease the crisis in Gaza.

    There was growing concern about the humanitarian situation in the aid-dependent territory of 1.5 million which Israel has virtually sealed off since Hamas seized power in June last year.

    The Israeli military opened the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow more than 100 trucks filled with humanitarian aid to enter Gaza on Tuesday, a military spokesman said. On Monday, dozens of trucks were allowed to pass through.

    Israel's offensive followed days of rising violence after a tenuous six-month truce in and around Gaza ended on December 19. It also comes ahead of early parliamentary elections in Israel called for February 10.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  3. #23
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    Cynthia McKinney aboard relief boat rammed by Israeli naval vessel

    http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/...oat/index.html

    Gaza relief boat damaged in encounter with Israeli vessel


    • Story Highlights
    • Israeli naval vessel, boat with medical volunteers collide in Mediterranean
    • Boat's crew contends naval vessel rammed it intentionally
    • Israel denies intentionally hitting boat carrying journalists, medical supplies
    • Damaged boat arrives safely at Lebanese port after incident
    (CNN) -- An Israeli patrol boat struck a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza early Tuesday as it attempted to intercept the vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, witnesses and Israeli officials said.

    CNN Correspondent Karl Penhaul was aboard the 60-foot, Gibraltar-registered pleasure boat Dignity when the contact occurred. When the boat later docked in the Lebanese port city of Tyre, severe damage was visible to the forward port side of the boat, and the front left window and part of the roof had collapsed.

    The Dignity was carrying 16 passengers and crew who were trying to reach Gaza through an Israeli blockade of the territory.

    The captain of the Dignity said the Israelis broadcast a radio message accusing the vessel of being involved in terrorist activity. But Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied that and said the radio message simply warned the vessel not to proceed to Gaza because it is a closed military area.

    Palmor said there was no response to the radio message, and the vessel then tried to out-maneuver the Israeli patrol boat, leading to the collision. Watch Penhaul describe the boat damage »

    Penhaul said at least two Israeli patrol boats had shadowed the Dignity for about half an hour before the collision, moving around the vessel on all sides. One of the patrol boats then shined its spotlight on the Dignity while the other, with its lights off, "very severely rammed" the boat.

    The captain of the Dignity told Penhaul he received no prior warning. Only after the collision did the Israelis come on the radio to say they struck the boat because they believed it was involved in terrorist activities. Watch the chaos in Gaza and Israel »

    The captain and crew said their vessel was struck intentionally, Penhaul said, but Palmor called those allegations "absurd."

    "There is no intention on the part of the Israeli navy to ram anybody," Palmor said.

    The incident occurred in international waters about 90 miles off Gaza. Israel controls the waters off Gaza's coast and routinely blocks ships from coming into the Palestinian territory as part of an ongoing blockade that also applies to the Israel-Gaza border. Human rights groups have expressed concern about the blockade on Gaza, which has restricted the delivery of emergency aid and fuel supplies.

    The collision was so severe, Penhaul said, that the passengers were ordered to put on their life vests and be ready to get in lifeboats. The Dignity began taking on water but the crew managed to pump it out of the hull long enough for the boat to reach shore.

    Palmor said the vessel refused assistance after the incident.

    The boat was carrying boxes of relief supplies, volunteers and journalists to Gaza, the Palestinian territory now subject to an intense Israeli bombing campaign. Among the passengers were physicians from Britain, Germany and Cyprus and several human rights activists, including former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

    "I would call it ramming. Let's just call it as it is," McKinney said. "Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front and one on the side. Watch Cynthia McKinney discuss the collision »

    "Our mission was a peaceful mission, but our mission was thwarted by the Israelis, the aggressiveness of the Israeli military."

    Israel launched airstrikes against Gaza on Saturday in what Defense Minister Ehud Barak called an "all-out war" against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has ruled the territory since 2007.

    The Palestinian death toll has topped 375, most of them Hamas militants, Palestinian medical sources said Tuesday. At least 60 civilians have been killed in Gaza, U.N. officials said.

    Hamas has responded with volleys of rocket fire aimed at southern Israeli towns, which have left six Israelis dead -- five of them civilians.

    Hamas has vowed to defend Gaza in the face of what it calls continued Israeli aggression. Each side blames the other for violating an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, which formally expired December 19 but had been weakening for months.

  4. #24
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    Israeli Gunboats Came out of the Darkness and Rammed us Three Times

    http://freegaza.org/index.php?module...af8b1534783da3

    For more information, please contact:

    (Gaza) Ewa Jasiewicz, +972 598 700 497 / freelance@mailworks.org

    (Cyprus) Lubna Masarwa +357 99 081 767 / lubnna@gmail.com

    (Lebanon) Caoimhe Butterley +961 70 875 727 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk

    http://www.FreeGaza.org

    (Lebanon, Tuesday 30 December) - Today the Free Gaza ship "Dignity" carefully made its way to safe harbor in Tyre, Lebanon's southern-most port city, after receiving serious structural damage when Israeli warships rammed its bow and the port side. Waiting to greet the passengers and crew were thousands of Lebanese who came out to show their solidarity with this attempt to deliver volunteer doctors and desperately needed medical supplies to war-ravaged Gaza. The Lebanese government has pledged to provide a forensic analysis of what happened in the dark morning, when Israel rammed the civilian ship in international waters, and put the people on board in danger of losing their lives.

    The Dignity, on a mission of mercy to besieged Gaza, was attacked by the Israeli Navy at approximately 6am (UST) in international waters, roughly 90 miles off the coast of Gaza. Several Israeli warships surrounded the small, human rights boat, firing live ammunition around it, then intentionally ramming it three times. According to ship's captain Denis Healy, the Israeli attack came, ""without any warning, or any provocation."

    Caoimhe Butterly, an organizer with the Free Gaza Movement, stated that, "The gunboats gave us no warning. They came up out of the darkness firing flares and flashing huge flood lights into our faces. We were so shocked that at first we didn't react. We knew we were well within international waters and supposedly safe from attack. They rammed us three times, hitting the side of the boat hard. We began taking on water and, for a few minutes, we all feared for our lives. After they rammed us, they started screaming at us as we were frantically getting the life boats ready and putting on our life jackets. They kept yelling that if we didn't turn back they would shoot us."

    Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate, was traveling to Gaza aboard the Dignity in order to assess the impact of Israel's military onslaught against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. According to McKinney, "Israeli patrol boats...tracked us for about 30 minutes...and then all of a sudden they rammed us approximately three times, twice in the front and once in the side...the Israelis indicated that [they felt] we were involved in terrorist activities."

    The Dignity departed from Larnaca Port in Cyprus at 7pm (UST) on Monday 29 December with a cargo of over 3 tons of desperately needed medical supplies donated to Gaza by the people of Cyprus. Three surgeons were also aboard, traveling to Gaza to volunteer in overwhelmed hospitals and clinics. The ship was searched by Cypriot Port authorities prior to departure, and its passenger list was made public.

    Israel's deplorable attack on the unarmed Dignity is a violation of both international maritime law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which states that "the high seas should be reserved for peaceful purposes."

    Delivering doctors and urgently needed medical supplies to civilians is a just such a "peaceful purpose." Deliberately ramming a mercy ship and endangering its passengers is an act of terrorism.

    CALL the Israeli Government and demand that it immediately STOP attacking the civilian population of Gaza and STOP using violence to prevent human rights and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people.

    Mark Regev in the Prime Minister's office at:
    +972 2670 5354 or +972 5 0620 3264
    mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

    Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence at:
    +972 3697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
    mediasar@mod.gov.il

    Major Liebovitz from the Israeli Navy at:
    + 972 5 781 86248
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  5. #25
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    How Hypocrisy on 'Terrorism' Kills

    http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/123008.html

    By Robert Parry
    December 30, 2008

    Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism, has launched massive airstrikes against targets in Gaza using high-tech weapons produced by the United States, a country that often has aided and abetted terrorism by its client military forces, such as Chile’s Operation Condor and the Nicaraguan contras, and even today harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner.

    Yet, with that moral ambiguity excluded from the debate, the justification for the Israeli attacks, which have killed at least 364 people, is the righteous fight against “terrorism,” since Gaza is ruled by the militant Palestinian group, Hamas.

    Hamas rose to power in January 2006 through Palestinian elections, which ironically the Bush administration had demanded. However, after Hamas won a parliamentary majority, Israel and the United States denounced the outcome because they deem Hamas a “terrorist organization.”

    Hamas then wrested control of Gaza from Fatah, a rival group that once was considered “terrorist” but is now viewed as a U.S.-Israeli partner, so it has been cleansed of the “terrorist” label.

    Unwilling to negotiate seriously with Hamas because of its acts of terrorism – which have included firing indiscriminate short-range missiles into southern Israel – the United States and Israel sat back as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza worsened, with 1.5 million impoverished Palestinians packed into what amounts to a giant open-air prison.

    When Hamas ended a temporary cease-fire on Dec. 19 because of a lack of progress in those negotiations and began lobbing its little missiles into Israel once more, the Israeli government reacted on Saturday with its lethal “shock and awe” firepower – even though no Israelis had been killed by the post-cease-fire missiles launched from Gaza. [Since Saturday, four Israelis have died in more intensive Hamas missile attacks.]

    Israel claimed that its smart bombs targeted sites related to the Hamas security forces, including a school for police cadets and even regular policemen walking down the street. But it soon became clear that Israel was taking an expansive view of what was part of the Hamas military infrastructure, with Israeli bombs taking out a television station and a university building as well as killing a significant number of civilians.

    As the slaughter continued on Monday, Israeli officials confided to Western journalists that the war plan was to destroy the vast support network of social and other programs that undergird Hamas’s political clout.

    “There are many aspects of Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel,” a senior Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post.

    “Hamas’s civilian infrastructure is a very, very sensitive target,” added Matti Steinberg, a former top adviser to Israel’s domestic security service. “If you want to put pressure on them, this is how.” [Washington Post, Dec. 30, 2008]

    Since the classic definition of “terrorism” is the use of violence against civilians to achieve a political goal, Israel would seem to be inviting an objective analysis that it has chosen its own terrorist path. But it is clearly counting on the U.S. news media to continue wearing the blinders that effectively limit condemnations about terrorism to people and groups that are regarded as Washington’s enemies.

    Whose Terrorism?
    As a Washington-based reporter for the Associated Press in the 1980s, I once questioned the seeming bias that the U.S.-based wire service applied to its use of the word “terrorist.” A senior AP executive responded to my concerns with a quip. “Terrorist is the word that follows Arab,” he said.

    Though meant as a lighthearted riposte, the comment clearly had a great deal of truth to it. It was easy to attach “terrorist” to any Arab attack – even against a military target such the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 after the Reagan administration had joined hostilities against Muslim forces. But it was understood that different rules applied when the terrorism was coming from “our side.”

    Then, no American reporter with any sense of career survival would think of injecting the word “terrorist” whatever the justification.

    Even historical references to acts of terrorism – such as the brutal practice by American revolutionaries in the 1770s of “tar and feathering” civilians considered sympathetic to the British Crown or the extermination of American Indian tribes – were seen as somehow diluting the moral righteousness against today’s Islamic terrorists and in favor of George W. Bush's "war on terror."

    Gone, too, from the historical narrative was the fact that militant Zionists employed terrorism as part of their campaign to establish Israel as a Jewish state. The terrorism included killings of British officials who were administering Palestine under an international mandate as well as Palestinians who were driven violently from their land so it could be claimed by Jewish settlers.

    One of the most famous of those terrorist attacks was the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where British officials were staying. The attack, which killed 91 people including local residents, was carried out by the Irgun, a terrorist group run by Menachem Begin who later founded the Likud Party and rose to be Israel’s prime minister.

    Another veteran of the campaign of Zionist terrorism was Yitzhak Shamir, who also became a Likud leader and eventually prime minister.

    In the early 1990s, as I was waiting to interview Shamir at his Tel Aviv office, I was approached by one of his young female assistants who was dressed in a gray and blue smock with a head covering in the traditional Hebrew style.

    As we were chatting, she smiled and said in a lilting voice, “Prime Minister Shamir, he was a terrorist, you know.” I responded with a chuckle, “yes, I’m aware of the prime minister’s biography.”

    Blind Spot
    To maintain one’s moral purity in denouncing acts of terror by U.S. enemies, one also needs a large blind spot for recent U.S. history, which implicates U.S. leaders repeatedly in tolerance or acts of terrorism.

    For instance, in 1973, after a bloody U.S.-backed coup overthrew the leftist Chilean government, the new regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet joined with other South American dictatorships to sponsor an international terrorist organization called Operation Condor which assassinated political dissidents around the world.

    Operation Condor mounted one of its most audacious actions on the streets of Washington in 1976, when Pinochet’s regime recruited Cuban-American terrorists to detonate a car bomb that killed Chile’s former foreign minister Orlando Letelier and an American co-worker, Ronni Moffitt. The Chilean government's role immediately was covered up by the CIA, then headed by George H.W. Bush. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

    Only weeks later, a Venezuela-based team of right-wing Cubans – under the direction of Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles – blew a Cubana Airliner out of the sky, killing 73 people. Bosch and Posada, a former CIA operative, were co-founders of CORU, which was described by the FBI as “an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization.”

    Though the U.S. government soon learned of the role of Bosch and Posada in the Cubana airline attack – and the two men spent some time in a Venezuelan jail – both Bosch and Posada since have enjoyed the protection of the U.S. government and particularly the Bush Family.

    Rebuffing international demands that Bosch and Posada be held accountable for their crimes, the Bushes – George H.W., George W. and Jeb – have all had a hand in making sure these unrepentant terrorists get to live out their golden years in the safety and comfort of the United States.

    In the 1980s, Posada even crossed over into another U.S.-backed terrorist organization, the Nicaraguan contras. After escaping from Venezuela, he was put to work in 1985 by Oliver North’s contra-support operation run out of Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council.

    The Nicaraguan contras were, in effect, a narco-terrorist organization that partially funded its operations with proceeds from cocaine trafficking, a secret that the Reagan administration worked hard to conceal along with the contras’ record of murder, torture, rape and other crimes in Nicaragua. [See Parry’s Lost History.]

    President Reagan joined, too, in fierce PR campaigns to discredit human rights investigators who documented massive atrocities by U.S. allies in Central America in the 1980s – not only the contras, but also the state terrorism of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan security forces, which engaged in wholesale slaughters in villages considered sympathetic to leftist insurgents.

    Generally, the major U.S. news outlets treaded very carefully when allegations arose about terrorism by “our side.”

    When some brave journalists, like New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner, wrote about politically motivated killings of civilians in Central America, they faced organized retaliation by right-wing advocacy groups which often succeeded in damaging or destroying the reporters’ careers.

    Double Standards
    Eventually, the American press corps developed an engrained sense of the double standards. Moral outrage could be expressed when acts of terrorism were committed by U.S. enemies, while studied silence – or nuanced concern – would be in order when the crimes were by U.S. allies.

    So, while the U.S. news media had no doubt that the 9/11 terrorist attacks justified invading Afghanistan, there was very little U.S. media criticism when President Bush inflicted his “shock and awe” assault on Iraq, a war that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.

    Though many Muslims and others around the world have denounced Bush’s Iraq invasion as “state terrorism,” such a charge would be considered far outside the mainstream in the United States. Instead, Iraqi insurgents are often labeled “terrorists” when they attack U.S. troops inside Iraq. The word “terrorist” has become, in effect, a geopolitical curse word.

    Despite the long and bloody history of U.S.-Israeli participation in terrorism, the U.S. news media continues its paradigm of pitting the U.S.-Israeli “good guys” against the Islamic “bad guys.” One side has the moral high ground and the other is in the moral gutter. [For more on the U.S. media’s one-sided approach, see the analysis by Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher.]

    Any attempt to cite the larger, more ambiguous and more troubling picture draws accusations from defenders of U.S.-Israeli actions, especially the neoconservatives, of what they call “moral equivalence” or “anti-Semitism.”

    Yet it is now clear that acquiescence to a double standard on terrorism is not just a violation of journalistic ethics or an act of political cowardice; it is complicity in mass murder. Without the double standard, it is hard to envision how the bloodbaths – in Iraq (since 2003), in Lebanon (in 2006) and in Gaza (today) – would be possible.

    Hypocrisy over the word “terrorism” is not an innocent dispute over semantics; it kills.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Israel weighs 48-hour halt to Gaza air campaign

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081230/...l_palestinians

    By IBRAHIM BARZAK and JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writers
    12/30/2008

    GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel, under international pressure, is considering a 48-hour halt to its punishing four-day air campaign on Hamas targets in Gaza to see if Palestinian militants will stop their rocket attacks on southern Israel, Israeli officials said Tuesday. Any offer would be coupled with a threat to send in ground troops if the rocket fire continues.

    Prime Minister Ehud Olmert discussed the proposal — floated by France's foreign minister — and other possible next steps with his foreign and defense ministers, Israeli officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to make the information public.

    President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called leaders in the Middle East to press for a durable solution beyond any immediate truce.

    And members of the Quartet of world powers trying to promote Mideast peace concluded a conference call with an appeal for an immediate cease-fire. The Quartet powers are the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

    The European Union itself late Tuesday also urged an immediate truce and for Israel to reopen borders to allow vital supplies to reach Gazans. The Paris statement by the 27-member bloc avoided blaming either side for the current fighting.

    In its Tuesday night meeting, Israel's leadership trio stepped up preparations for a ground offensive, conducting a telephone survey among Cabinet ministers on a plan to call up an additional 2,500 reserve soldiers, if required. Earlier this week, the Cabinet authorized a callup of 6,700 soldiers.

    After the four-hour meeting, Olmert's office issued a statement early Wednesday saying no details of the discussion would be made public because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

    And even amid talk of a truce, Israeli warplanes continued to unload bombs on targets in Gaza. Powerful airstrikes caused Gaza City's high-rise apartment buildings to sway and showered streets with broken glass and pulverized concrete. Israel's ground forces on Gaza's border also used artillery for the first time.

    Hamas kept up its rocket barrages, which have killed four Israelis since the weekend, and sent many more in running for bomb shelters — some of them in cities under threat of attack for the first time, as the range of the rockets grows.

    A medium-range rocket hit the city of Beersheba for the first time ever, zooming 28 miles deep into Israel and slamming into an empty kindergarten. A second rocket landed in an open area near the desert city, Israel's fifth-largest. The military said later it successfully struck the group that launched those rockets.

    A pattern of daytime lulls and nighttime spikes in rocket fire appeared to be emerging as militants found safer launch cover in darkness.

    Four days into a campaign that has killed 374 Palestinians and prompted Arab and international condemnation, a diplomatic push to end the fighting gathered pace.

    In two phone calls to Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday and Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner appealed to him to consider a truce to allow time for humanitarian relief supplies to enter the beleaguered Gaza Strip, two senior officials in Barak's office said.

    Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was expected to travel Thursday to Paris for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has put his growing international stature to use in other conflict zones, most recently to help halt fighting between Russia and Georgia in August.

    Israeli media reported that Sarkozy would also travel to Jerusalem Monday for talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

    A Hamas spokesman said any halt to militant rocket and mortar fire would require an end to Israel's crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip. "If they halt the aggression and the blockade, then Hamas will study these suggestions," said Mushir Masri.

    Any cease-fire between Israel and Hamas would face questions about its long-term viability. In the past, Hamas has been unable or unwilling to rein in all the militants, some of which belong to different factions. Israel has angered the Palestinians by continuing to target its leaders and by maintaining a blockade of the Gaza Strip.

    "It's certainly difficult for Hamas because, having witnessed the losses that they have just suffered on large scale, their credibility is on the line and they're not going to easily agree to a cease-fire that goes back to the conditions that prevailed before, after all these losses," said Shibley Telhami, professor of political science at the University of Maryland and senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. "So, we're likely to see more bloodshed, and I think that is where we are in a way, events on the ground are going to dictate."

    Israel's military, meanwhile, pressed on, sending warplanes to strike a Gaza government complex that includes the ministries of interior, foreign affairs and justice. Bombs ripped the tops and sides from buildings that had already been evacuated and left fires blazing in upper floors.

    It was the largest government target hit so far and involved the largest number of bombs dropped in a single strike — at least 16 in all.

    The airstrikes have sent the people of densely populated Gaza on a zigzagging desperate search for safer ground — hard to find with no way out of the blockaded territory.

    "I don't know what's safe anymore," said university student Rasha Khaldeh of Gaza City. She fled her home, fearing Israel would target her Hamas neighbors, then had to leave her uncle's house because of nearby shelling. She listens intently for the approach of pilotless Israeli drones.

    After nightfall, Israel destroyed 40 tunnels under the sealed Gaza-Egypt border in another attempt to cut the vital lifeline that supplies Gaza with both commercial goods and weapons for Hamas and other militant groups.

    Israel's military said it hit 31 targets on Tuesday, including a Cabinet building, rocket-launching sites, and places were missiles were being built. Some of the hits on sites with weapons stockpiles triggered secondary explosions.

    The question still hanging over the Israeli operation is how it can halt rocket fire. Israel has never found a military solution to the barrage of missiles. The "Iron Dome," a system to guard against short-range missiles, will take years to build.

    Beyond delivering Hamas a deep blow and protecting border communities, the assault's broader objectives remained cloudy. Israeli President Shimon Peres acknowledged the challenge, saying the operation was unavoidable but more difficult than many people anticipated.

    "War against terrorists is harder in some aspects than fighting armies," Peres said.

    Hamas also said it would take more to cripple it.

    A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, Abu Obeida, said the group remained strong, and he vowed to fight on as long as Israel continues its airstrikes. He noted that even while under heavy airstrikes, militants had fired rockets that reached Israeli towns farther from Gaza than ever. "Rockets will be on your daily agenda," he said in a message to Israelis.

    And if there's a ground invasion, he promised worse: "If you enter Gaza, the children will collect your flesh and the remains of your tanks which will be spread out through the streets."

    The offensive came shortly after a rocky, six-month truce expired.

    Emad Falluji, a former Hamas leader working at a Gaza-based think tank, said he believes Hamas had wanted to renew the truce but felt humiliated by Israel's decision to maintain a tight blockade on Gaza.

    "Israel didn't want to give Hamas anything in return for the cease-fire, which was effectively free," he said.

    Egypt, which has been blockading Gaza from its southern end, has come under pressure from the rest of the Arab world to reopen its border with the territory because of the Israeli campaign. Egypt has pried open the border to let in some of Gaza's wounded and to allow some humanitarian supplies into the territory. But it quickly sealed the border when Gazans tried to push through forcefully.

    In a televised speech Tuesday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak responded to critics, including the leader of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, who have accused him of collaborating with Israel.

    "We tell anybody who seeks political profits on the account of the Palestinian people: The Palestinian blood is not cheap," he said, describing such comments as "exploiting the blood of the Palestinians."

    Mubarak said his country would not throw open the border crossing unless Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — a Hamas rival — regains control of the border post. Mubarak has been rattled by the presence of a neighboring Islamic ministate in Gaza, fearing it would fuel more Islamic dissidence in Egypt.

    Most of the Palestinians killed since Saturday were members of Hamas security forces but the number included at least 64 civilians, according to U.N. figures. Among those killed were two sisters, Haya and Lama Hamdan, ages 4 and 12, who died in an airstrike on a rocket squad in northern Gaza on Tuesday.

    Throughout the offensive, Israel's military has released video taken by hovering drone aircraft showing its missiles and bombs hurtling into Gaza targets, including one on Tuesday that sent about a half-dozen bombs simultaneously into a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border.

    During brief lulls between airstrikes, Gazans tentatively ventured into the streets to buy goods and collect belongings from homes they had abandoned after Israel's aerial onslaught began Saturday.

    The campaign has brought a new reality to southern Israel, too, where one-tenth of the country's population of 7 million has suddenly found itself within rocket range.

    "It's very scary," said Yaacov Pardida, a 55-year-old resident of Ashdod, southern Israel's largest city, which was hit Monday. "I never imagined that this could happen, that they could reach us here."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  8. #28
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    Thousands of protestors demand end to Israeli raids in Gaza

    http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Thousan..._12302008.html

    12/30/2008

    Thousands of people demanded an end to Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip in a protest Tuesday outside the US State Department in Washington.

    Protestors carrying red-white-green-and-black Palestinian flags and wearing black-and-white checkered head scarves chanted slogans like "Stop the Killing, Stop the War, Stop the Genocide of Palestinians."

    Some of them also held aloft banners that read "Stop US Aid to Israel" and "Free, Free Palestine."

    An AFP reporter said there initially appeared to be around 200 protestors, but a larger crowd returned to the State Department later in the evening following a march to the White House.

    A police officer told AFP he estimated the later crowd at around 2,500 protesters, while organizers said the number was closer to 5,000 people. Police said the demonstration passed off peacefully.

    Mahdi Bray, executive director for the Muslim American Society (MAS) Freedom group, said seven busloads of people came in from Raleigh, North Carolina in addition to crowds from the Washington DC area.

    Bray said he wanted Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace but criticized US foreign policy.

    "The United States has not been an honest broker" in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Bray told AFP. "The Bush administration has been the worst," he said.

    Activists said the protest was organized by a number of Palestinian support groups.

    Among other groups organizing the protest was the National Council of Arabs, Bray said.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  9. #29
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    US Joins International Call for Immediate Gaza Cease-fire

    http://voanews.com/english/2008-12-30-voa48.cfm

    By David Gollust
    State Deparment
    30 December 2008

    The United States has joined other powers in the international Middle East Quartet in urging an immediate Gaza Strip cease-fire. The Quartet - the United States, Russia, the European Union and United Nations - discussed the crisis on Tuesday in a ministerial-level telephone conference call.

    The Bush administration had resisted joining calls for an immediate cease-fire, with officials saying they did not want a hasty agreement that would bring about a repeat of the previous truce that Hamas frequently violated and which fell apart earlier this month.

    But officials here say U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined her Quartet partners in the immediate cease-fire appeal because the four powers also stipulated that it be "fully respected" by both Hamas and Israel.

    The telephone conference involving Rice, U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, European Union chief diplomat Javier Solana, Quartet envoy Tony Blair, and others, highlighted a day of intense diplomacy aimed at restoring peace to Gaza.

    A State Department spokesman said the Quartet members called on all parties to address the serious humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza, and take necessary measures to insure the continuous provision of humanitarian supplies.

    They also agreed on the urgent need for Israelis and Palestinians to continue on the road to peace and agreed to remain in close touch, though the spokesman said there were no immediate plans for a face-to-face Quartet meeting.

    Earlier in Crawford, Texas, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said a ceasefire in name only - that breaks down in hours or days - serves no one's interest.

    "We have got to get a commitment from Hamas that they would respect any crease-fire and make it lasting and durable," said Johndroe. "And so, until we can get that assurance - not the United States, but until Israel can get that assurance from Hamas - then we're not going to have a cease-fire that is worth the paper it's written on."

    Johndroe said President Bush, who is spending the holidays at home in Texas, got a video briefing on the Gaza situation from his national security team Tuesday and spoke by telephone with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the two top leaders of the Palestinian Authority - President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

    Prime Minister Fayyad thanked Mr. Bush for an $85 million commitment of new U.S. humanitarian aid to Palestinians announced earlier in the day.

    Although it rejects dealings with Hamas, which is listed by the State Department as a terrorist group, the United States has continued providing food, medicine and other supplies to Gaza Palestinians through the United Nations and other third parties.

    Johndroe said Mr. Bush expressed appreciation to President Mubarak for Egypt's leadership and positive role in the current crisis. Egypt has contacts with both Hamas and Israel, and helped broker the previous six-month truce which expired earlier this month and which Hamas refused to renew.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  10. #30
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    Gaza relief boat carrying Cynthia McKinney rammed by Israelis

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Cynthi...aeli_1230.html

    David Edwards and Muriel Kane
    Published: Tuesday December 30, 2008

    An Israeli patrol boat intercepted a yacht carrying three tons of medical supplies to Gaza in international waters early on Tuesday as it attempted to run an Israeli blockade. According to those on board, the patrol boat accused the relief vessel of being involved in terrorist activity and then deliberately rammed it, forcing it to return to port in Lebanon.

    Among the yacht's 16 passengers were doctors, journalists, and human rights activists, including former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA). McKinney spoke to CNN from Lebanon, telling John Roberts, "Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front and once on the side."

    McKinney described as "outright disinformation" a statement by the Israeli Foreign Ministry which called the charge that the ramming was deliberate "absurd." According to the Israeli spokesman, the boat was struck as it attempted to outmaneuver the Israeli vessel.

    The Free Gaza movement, which sponsored the relief mission, explained in a press release, "This is the sixth boat that the Free Gaza movement has sent ... in a symbolic effort to end the seige of Gaza. These are small boats, and they do not cross into Israeli waters at all. This Israeli attack on the boat, which occurred in international waters, cannot be described as 'self defense' by any stretch of delusional imagination."

    "Our mission was a peaceful mission to deliver medical supplies," McKinney told CNN, "and our mission was thwarted by the Israelis -- the aggressiveness of the Israeli military."

    McKinney then appealed to President-elect Obama to "say something, please, about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced right now by the people of Gaza." She referred to Martin Luther King's description of the United States as "the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet" and noted that "the weapons that are being used by Israel are weapons that are being supplied by the United States."

    McKinney has been known for her opposition to Israeli policies, which is blamed in part for her loss of her Congressional seat. According to the Washington Post, "In 2002, two Democrats in Congress with records of voting against Israel's interests -- Reps. Earl Hilliard of Alabama and Cynthia McKinney of Georgia -- faced primary opponents who received substantial support from Jewish donors. A majority of AIPAC board members gave to either McKinney's challenger or Hilliard's or both. Hilliard and McKinney lost."

    The full CNN story can be read here.

    This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast Dec. 30, 2008.

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


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