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Thread: Israel Air Strikes On Gaza Kill 155

  1. #41
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    Islamists Call for blood as israel hammers on

    http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...edName=topNews

    By Nidal al-Mughrabi
    1/2/2009

    GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian Islamists vowed revenge against Israel on Friday for killing a senior Hamas leader and his family, and said all options including suicide bombs were now open to "strike at Zionist interests everywhere."

    On the seventh day of an offensive aimed at stopping Hamas rockets striking southern towns, Israeli warplanes struck 20 targets and Islamist fighters fired rockets at Israel's port of Ashkelon, once again dashing international hopes of a ceasefire.

    One rocket blew out windows in an apartment building. Stunned residents spilled onto the street and twisted metal window frames dangled from the building.

    In Gaza City, less than 20 km to the south, a lucky few hundred foreign passport holders boarded buses in the pre-dawn murk to quit the Strip, with the help of the International Committee off the Red Cross, their governments and Israeli compliance.

    "The situation is very bad. We are afraid for our children," said Ilona Hamdiya, a woman from Moldova married to a Palestinian. "We are very grateful to our embassy."

    They left behind 1.5 million Palestinians unable to escape the conflict, a city waking up to another day of bombs, missiles, flickering electricity, queues for bread, tape-up windows and streets littered with broken glass and debris.

    "We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity," said Hamas leader Fathi Hammad at the funeral of Nizar Rayyan, who was killed with four wives, eight children and four neighbors by an Israeli missile which hit his house on Thursday.

    Spokesman Ismail Rudwan said that "following this crime, all options are now open including martyrdom operations to deter the aggression and to strike Zionist interests everywhere."

    DAY OF PROTESTS
    Bracing for protests and retaliatory violence a day after it killed a senior Hamas leader in an air strike on his Gaza home, Israel sealed off the occupied West Bank to deny entry to most Palestinians, and deployed heavy security at checkpoints.

    A pro-Hamas website urged Palestinians to take to the streets in protest.

    A statement by Hamas spokesman Ismail Rudwan said Israel's "terrorism, massacre and holocaust will not break us and will not force us to raise a white flag ... killing begets killing and destruction begets destruction."

    Israeli air strikes killed two Palestinians in a house that Israel said concealed a tunnel and a weapons dump.

    The death toll rose to 421 as some badly wounded succumbed to their injures. A quarter of the dead were civilians, the United Nations estimates.

    Some 2,000 Palestinians have been wounded. The Gaza rockets, which have killed four Israelis in the past week, injured two people slightly in Ashkelon.

    Rayyan was the highest ranking Hamas official to be killed in the current offensive. He had called loudly for suicide bombings in Israel.

    Israeli armored forces remained massed on the Gaza frontier in preparation for a possible ground invasion, ignoring international calls for a halt to the conflict.

    Late on Thursday, Israeli war planes bombed the Jabalya mosque. Israeli security officials said it was a meeting place and command post for Hamas militants and the large number of secondary explosions after the strike indicated that rockets, missiles and other weapons had been stored there.

    Nine mosques have had been hit since it began on Saturday.

    "I will pray at home. You never know, they may bomb the mosque and destroy it on our heads," said one man buying humus from a street stand. Another was defiant: "What better than to die while kneeling before God?" he said.

    Analysts said Israeli leaders felt under pressure to act ahead of a February 10 national election, and surveys indicate the assaults may boost support for Barak and Livni, against frontrunner Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party.

    Livni says the strikes have been effective.

    "I think that even now, after a few days of operation we have achieved changes," she said on Thursday after talks in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. She rejected a proposed 48-hour respite in fighting, saying food aid was being allowed in and there was "no humanitarian crisis in the Strip."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  2. #42
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    Hamas orders 'day of wrath' over Israel blitz

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hamas_...over_0102.html

    1/2/2009

    GAZA CITY (AFP) - Israeli warplanes pounded militant targets including a mosque in Gaza on Friday as Hamas ordered a "day of wrath" against Israel over the killing of a senior commander.

    Thousands of Israeli security personnel were on alert after Hamas called for "massive marches" following the main weekly Muslim prayers, starting off from the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and from all mosques in the West Bank.

    "Police has been placed on a heightened state of alert throughout the country, just under the maximum level that is in effect in war time," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

    Thousands of officers were deployed around annexed Arab east Jerusalem alone, he said.

    The army also locked down the West Bank for 48 hours, with movement in and out of the territory prohibited except for emergencies and special cases.

    Hamas called a "day of wrath" after an Israeli air strike killed Nizar Rayan , a firebrand hardliner, and several of his wives and children. At least 422 Palestinians have now been killed in Israel's seven-day-old blitz.

    Rayan is the most senior Islamist figure killed by Israel since Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in 2004 and Hamas again warned that it could resume suicide operations against Israel for the first time since January 2005 to avenge his death.

    "After the last crime, all options are open to counter this aggression, including martyr operations against Zionist targets everywhere," Hamas official Ismail Radwan vowed after the attack.

    With tanks and troops massed for a threatened ground offensive around Gaza and no ceasefire in sight, the army allowed foreigners to leave the battered enclave.

    "The (border) crossing was specially reopened to allow foreign nationals to leave the Gaza Strip," an army spokesman told AFP, adding that more than 400 people, mostly dual nationals, were expected to cross.

    The Israeli military pounded the densely populated territory for a seventh day, carrying out some 20 strikes overnight, bombing rocket launching sites and Hamas buildings, the army said.

    Among the targets was a mosque in the northern town of Jabaliya that the military said was a "terror hub," used to stockpile weapons and as a Hamas operations centre.

    At least two people were killed in the latest raids, which targeted a house in Jabaliya, medics said.

    The Islamist movement kept firing back, sending a handful of rockets slamming into Israeli territory overnight without causing casualties.

    Israel unleashed its "Operation Cast Lead" on Hamas in Gaza on Saturday in response to persistent rocket fire from the territory, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since the Islamists seized control in June 2007.

    At least 422 Palestinians have now been killed in the offensive and a further 2,180 wounded, according to medics. At least 25 percent of those killed are civilians, according to a UN count.

    Gaza militants have fired more than 360 rockets into Israel, killing four people and wounding dozens more. Some of the rockets have reached deeper than ever inside Israeli territory, penetrating some 40 kilometres (24 miles) from the Gaza border.

    The Israeli offensive -- one of its deadliest-ever on Gaza -- has sparked angry protests in the Muslim world and defied diplomatic efforts to broker a truce.

    In the latest protests, more than 4,000 Muslims demonstrated in Sydney and hundreds of Muslims burnt Israeli flags in Indian-administered Kashmir.

    UN Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reiterated that Israel does not think the time is yet ripe for a truce after talks in Paris on Thursday with President Nicolas Sarkozy and other French leaders.

    "The question of whether it's enough or not will be the result of our assessment on a daily basis," she said.

    Peace moves were also stalled at the UN Security Council even though UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the conflict had become "a dramatic crisis."

    The civilian population in Gaza and stability throughout the Middle East "are trapped between the irresponsibility displayed in the indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas militants and the disproportionality of the continuing Israeli military operation," Ban said.

    The majority of the Israeli public is supporting the Gaza offensive, with some 95 percent of Jewish residents backing the strikes according to a survey published on Friday in the Maariv daily.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Gaza rockets put Israel’s nuclear plant in battle zone
    Growing concern over Hamas’s new arsenal

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5430133.ece

    1/2/2008

    There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona.

    Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal.

    In Beersheba, until a few days ago a sleepy desert town in southern Israel, there is little sign of the 186,000 inhabitants. Schools are closed and the streets of shuttered shops echo with the howl of sirens warning of incoming rockets.

    Israeli planes, meanwhile, began a new stage yesterday in their offensive on Gaza, killing Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas official. The one-tonne bomb in Jabaliya is also understood to have killed two of his four wives and four of his twelve children. More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in the six days of Israeli attacks.

    Despite a diplomatic mission by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, to Paris, the Israeli army continued to muster thousands of troops and scores of tanks along Gaza’s border for a possible ground offensive. Israel’s airstrikes are designed to blunt Hamas’s capacity to fire its new Grad missiles deep into its territory. The weapons are smuggled in through tunnels and by sea, replacing homemade Qassam rockets.

    Israeli officials say that Hamas has also acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles with an even longer range. Many fear that as the group acquires ever more sophisticated weaponry it is only a matter of time before the nuclear installation at Dimona, 20 miles east of Beersheba, falls within its sights. Dimona houses Israel’s only nuclear reactor and is believed to be where nuclear warheads are stored.

    “Maybe Hamas will get a big present from Iran or Hezbollah, a few good long-range missiles and they’ll use it,” said Limor Brina, 40, a jeweller who is learning the lessons of life under rocket threat: she sleeps with her clothes on and heads to a shelter whenever the siren sounds.

    Israel’s worst nightmare is that soon all its cities will be within range either of the Hezbollah Katyushas arrayed on the Lebanese border to the north or the increasingly sophisticated missiles stockpiled by Hamas to the south. Both groups have links to Israel’s archenemy Iran.

    Israel has said that its aim is to smash Hamas’s rocket-firing capability but also to topple the hardline Islamist regime that seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 after bloody street battles with its secular rivals Fatah. Until that goal is achieved, many in Beersheba are packing their bags and heading for Tel Aviv or Eilat.

    “Maybe 30 or 40 per cent of people have left the city,” said Ron Shukron, 26, running one of the few grocery shops still open. As he spoke a siren echoed through the empty streets. With only 15 seconds to take cover, he stepped under a reinforced support beam in the ceiling. Seconds later came the dull thud of a rocket exploding on the edge of town.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Israel destroys Hamas homes, flattens Gaza mosque

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090102/...l_palestinians

    By IBRAHIM BARZAK and MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writers
    1/2/2009

    GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel bombed a mosque it claimed was used to store weapons and destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives Friday, but under international pressure, the government allowed hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports to leave besieged Gaza.

    Israel has been building up artillery, armor and infantry on Gaza's border in an indication the week-old air assault against Gaza's Hamas rulers could imminently expand with a ground incursion. At the same time, however, international pressure is building for a cease-fire that would block more fighting.

    "There is no water, no electricity, no medicine. It's hard to survive. Gaza is destroyed," said Jawaher Haggi, a 14-year-old U.S. citizen who said her uncle was killed in an airstrike when he tried to pick up some medicine for her cancer-stricken father. She said her father died several days later.

    Israel launched the aerial campaign Saturday in a bid to halt weeks of intensifying Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza. It has dealt a heavy blow to Hamas, but has failed to halt the rockets. New attacks Friday struck apartment buildings in a southern Israeli city but no serious injuries were reported.

    Before the airstrikes Friday, Israel's military called at least some of the houses to warn residents of an impending attack. In some cases, it also fired a sound bomb to warn away civilians before flattening the homes with missiles, Palestinians and Israeli officials said.

    After destroying Hamas' security compounds, Israel turned its attention to the group's leadership. In airstrike after airstrike, warplanes hit some 20 houses believed to belong to Hamas militants and members of other armed groups, Palestinians said.

    They said the Israelis either warned nearby residents by phone or fired a warning missile to try to reduce civilian casualties. Israeli planes also dropped leaflets east of Gaza giving a confidential phone number and e-mail address for people to report locations of rocket squads. Residents stepped over the leaflets.

    Israel used similar tactics during its 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    Most of the targeted homes Friday belonged to activist leaders and appeared to be empty at the time, but one man was killed in a strike in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

    Separate airstrikes killed five other Palestinians — including a young teenage boy east of Gaza City and three children — two brothers and their cousin — who were playing in southern Gaza, according to Health Ministry official Moaiya Hassanain.

    More than 400 Gazans have been killed and some 1,700 have been wounded in the Israeli campaign, Gaza health officials said. The number of combatants and civilians killed is unclear, but Hamas has said around half of the dead are members of its security forces and the U.N. has said more than 60 are civilians, 34 of them children.

    Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have also died in the rocket attacks, which have reached deeper into Israel than ever before, bringing an eighth of Israel's population of 7 million within rocket range.

    The mosque destroyed Friday was known as a Hamas stronghold, and the army said it was used to store weapons. It also was identified with Nizar Rayan, the Hamas militant leader killed Thursday when Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on his home.

    That airstrike killed 20 people, including all four of Rayan's wives and 10 of his 12 children. The strike on Rayan's home obliterated the four-story apartment building and peeled off the walls of others around it, carving out a vast field of rubble.

    Israel's military said the homes of Hamas leaders are being used to store missiles and other weapons, and the hit on Rayan's house triggered secondary explosions from the stockpile there.

    Israeli defense officials said the military had called Rayan's home and fired a warning missile before destroying the building. That was impossible to confirm. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss military tactics.

    Israel has targeted Hamas leaders many times in the past, but halted the practice during a six-month truce that expired last month. Most of Hamas' leaders went into hiding at the start of Israel's offensive.

    Israel allowed about 300 Palestinians who hold passports from other countries to cross from Gaza into Israel so they could leave the country. Military liaison officer Maj. Aviad Zilberman said the Israelis had approved the requests following pleas from foreign governments.

    The Palestinians who left hold citizenship from the U.S., Russia, Turkey, Norway, Kazakhstan and other countries.

    Fear of Israeli attacks led to sparse turnout at Friday's communal prayers at mosques throughout Gaza. But thousands of people attended a memorial service for Rayan. Throngs of people prayed over the rubble of his home and the destroyed mosque nearby.

    An imam delivered his sermon over a car loudspeaker as the bodies of Rayan and other family members were covered in green Hamas flags. Explosions from Israeli airstrikes and the sound of warplanes overhead could be heard in the distance.

    Following the prayers, a sea of mourners marched with the bodies, with many people reaching out to touch and kiss them.

    "The Palestinian resistance will not forget and will not forgive," said Hamas lawmaker Mushir Masri, calling the assassination a "serious" development. "The resistance's response will be very painful."

    A rocket barrage hit the Israeli city of Ashkelon early Friday. Two rockets hit apartment buildings, lightly wounding two Israelis, police said. Sirens warning Israelis to take cover when military radar picks up an incoming rocket have helped reduce casualties in recent days.

    The military said aircraft destroyed the three rocket launchers used to fire at Ashkelon.

    While keeping up the military pressure, Israel also appears to be offering an opening for the intense diplomatic efforts, saying it would consider a halt to the fighting if international monitors were brought in to track compliance with any truce with Hamas.

    Concerned about protests, Israeli police stepped up security and restricted access to Friday prayers at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, barring all males under 50 from entering.

    Jerusalem's mufti, Mohammed Hussein, said a mere 3,000 Palestinians attended Friday's prayers because of the tough restrictions.

    "We condemn these measures, and we believe they contradict the principle of freedom of worship," Hussein said.

    Those prayers ended without incident, though in a nearby east Jerusalem neighborhood, youths clashed with anti-riot police on horseback. No injuries were reported.

    Thousands demonstrated in the West Bank in solidarity with Gazans. In Ramallah, Palestinian police loyal to Hamas' moderate rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, barred protesters from chanting pro-Hamas slogans or waving Hamas banners. Three Hamas activists were arrested.

    In Nablus, about 3,000 Hamas supporters protested, singing songs and calling for an attack against Israelis in Jerusalem.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Israeli attack kills brothers as Hamas stages 'Day of Wrath'

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel...amas_0102.html

    Agence France-Presse
    Published: Friday January 2, 2009

    GAZA CITY (AFP) - Israeli warplanes hit Gaza targets including a mosque and a house where three young brothers were killed as Hamas supporters staged angry protests against Israel's week-old offensive.

    A missile from one of 30 new Israeli raids hit a house and killed the boys, aged from seven to 10, emergency services said.

    At least 430 Palestinians have been killed and 2,250 people wounded in the raids, according to Gaza officials.

    The new strikes came as Israeli troops gathered on the Gaza border and thousands of Hamas faithful attended the funeral of Nizar Rayan , the most senior Hamas leadership victim of the offensive, who was killed with his four wives and 11 of his children in another Israeli raid on Thursday.

    Rayan and his family were wrapped in green Hamas flags for their burials, during which Hamas vowed that it would not be bowed by the killings.

    "I call on the resistance to continue pounding Jewish settlements and cities," said Sheikh Abdelrahman al-Jamal. "We will remain on the path of jihad until the end of days."

    Hamas called a "Day of Wrath" against Israel, which brought thousands of protesters out onto the streets of Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Police fired teargas at rock throwing youths in Jerusalem.

    Hamas has warned it could resume suicide attacks against Israel for the first time since January 2005 to avenge the death of Rayan, the most senior Islamist killed by Israel since Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in 2004.

    With a ground offensive widely expected and no ceasefire in sight, the Israeli army opened a border crossing to let an estimated 400 foreigners in Gaza leave the battered enclave.

    But reporters did not go into Gaza despite a Supreme Court ruling that eight foreign media should be allowed into the territory after the foreign press group objected to the government demand to choose two of the journalists.

    Seven days into the offensive, Israeli jets staged more than 30 new raids on the densely populated territory, which it said targeted rocket launching sites and Hamas buildings.

    Three young brothers -- Iyad, Mohammed and Abdelsattar al-Astal died in a raid that appeared to target a rocket launcher near their house near the city of Khan Yunis, emergency services said.

    A mosque in the northern town of Jabaliya that the military said was a "terror hub" used to stockpile weapons, was also hit.

    Long queues formed outside bakeries and other stores which only open during the rare hours when electricity is available. Aid agencies say fuel and food is also in short supply.

    Hamas fired more than 20 rockets into Israel, but no casualties were reported.

    Israel unleashed "Operation Cast Lead" on Gaza on December 27 in response to persistent rocket fire from the territory, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since Hamas seized control in June 2007.

    Gaza militants have fired more than 360 rockets into Israel over seven days, killing four people and wounding dozens more. Some rockets have reached up to 40 kilometres (24 miles) inside Israeli territory, the furthest the projectiles have struck.

    The Israeli offensive has sparked angry protests in the Muslim world and defied diplomatic efforts to broker a truce.

    Tens of thousands took to the streets of Jakarta, thousands demonstrated in Afghanistan and Turkey, some burning Israeli flags, more than 4,000 Muslims paraded in Sydney and hundreds of Muslims burnt Israeli flags in Indian-administered Kashmir.

    In Jordan police fired teargas at angry protesters to prevent them from approaching the Israeli embassy in the capital Amman after weekly Muslim Friday prayers.

    A leader of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, Bulent Gedikli, said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "deserved a pair of shoes to be thrown at him," referring to an incident last month when an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at President George W. Bush.

    Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reiterated that Israel was not yet ready for a truce after talks in Paris on Thursday with President Nicolas Sarkozy and other French leaders.

    "The question of whether it's enough or not will be the result of our assessment on a daily basis," she said.

    Peace moves were also stalled at the UN Security Council.

    Olmert, Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak held talks well into the night and planned to pursue discussions over the weekend, Olmert's office said.

    A majority of the Israeli public is supporting the Gaza offensive, with some 95 percent of Jewish residents backing the air strikes according to a survey published on Friday in the Maariv daily.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Afghans burn Bush orangutan effigy to protest US, Israel

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Afghan...y_to_0102.html

    1/2/2009

    KABUL (AFP) — Thousands of Afghans demonstrated Friday against Israel's deadly strikes on the Gaza Strip, chanting slogans against the Jewish state and its US ally, and calling for the defence of Islam.

    In the capital Kabul, up to 3,000 protesters gathered for several hours outside a key mosque where they shouted "Death to Israel", "Death to infidels" and Islamic chants such as "God is greater," an AFP reporter witnessed.

    A shot was fired at an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and at a toy orangutan with sneakers hanging from its neck meant to represent US President George W. Bush, who had shoes thrown at him in Iraq last month.

    The models were both torched as were flags of Israel, Britain and the United States.

    The protesters also chanted slogans against the United States -- a key ally of Israel -- and said the more than 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan to help the government fight a Taliban-led insurgency should leave.

    "We are here to demonstrate against Israelis who make Palestinians suffer," said 19-year-old Kabul student Mohammad Shafi. "We are here to defend Islam and the Koran."

    The demonstration was billed as a spontaneous uprising by angry Afghans. But some in the crowd said they been told by mullahs at weekly prayers to attend, and did not appear to understand the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

    In the western city of Herat, near the border with Iran, about 1,000 men and youngsters tore up an Israeli flag, torched banners and set alight a toy representing Israeli President Shimon Peres, an AFP reporter witnessed.

    They also demanded a halt to the strikes that started a week ago in retaliation for rocket attacks by the Islamist group Hamas and which have killed more than 420 Palestinians.

    "We think this is a war between Islam and infidels," local religious leader Farooq Hussaini told reporters, adding he was ready to send "mujahedeen", or religious fighters, as well as suicide attackers to support the Palestinians.

    "We have announced jihad in Herat province against those who recognise Israel as a state and support them," he said, apparently referring to the mainly Western soldiers deployed in Afghanistan to fight the insurgency.

    Several hundred people also demonstrated in the northern province of Badakhshan, provincial government spokesman Mahrouf Rasikh told AFP.

    Afghanistan, which does not recognise Israel, has also condemned the attacks in Gaza and demanded an immediate halt to the strikes.

    This video is from AFP, broadcast Jan. 2, 2008.

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


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    Gaza Massacres; The Time is Now

    (Gold9472: I met Anna at the "Not In Our Name" event this past October. She has a book out. She is ridiculously beautiful, and has a lot of good things to say.)



    Anna Baltzer
    1/2/2009

    Please, everyone, stop what you're doing. This is not just any report from Palestine, but the worst in my lifetime, the worst in 40 years. At this moment, Israel is raining bombs down on Gaza, an enclosed tiny area that is home to 1.5 million men, women, and children, most of them innocent civilians. This space is tightly sealed by Israel, which constantly denies Gazans electricity, food, medicine, and the ability to leave. Gaza is one big prison being bombed from above. The death toll is up to 428 in the past 7 days. That's more than the number of Israelis killed in the last 7 years. This is what I would call a massacre.

    Yes, more Palestinians killed in 7 days than Israelis in 7 years, and yet no comments from President Bush or President-elect Obama. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice places blame solely on Hamas for holding Gazans "hostage," as if Israel's actions were beyond judgment. Would Rice ever respond to a Palestinian attack on Israelis by blaming the Israeli government for holding its citizens hostage with their army's violence?

    I am writing you from Jordan. I arrived the day after the attacks began. The day before they began, my friend and colleague Hannah had asked me to deliver a book of poetry to her friend Summer in Gaza, hoping I'd manage to make it on a Free Gaza boat. Since then, these boats bringing unarmed witnesses to Gaza (www.freegaza.org) have been attacked in international waters, and Summer's house has been blown to pieces, her brother almost died under the rubble, and her father desperately needs an operation but the hospitals are overflowing. In every home or shop I enter in Jordan, people are huddled watching the stories unfold: a family killed in their home, a university destroyed, a pharmacy blown to pieces, countless bloody babies screaming or worse, silent.

    I wonder if people in the US are also seeing the bodies and faces or, as I fear, only some rubble and angry Gazans. The day after attacks began, Israel's largest newspaper Yediot Aharonot covered almost the entire front page with the words, "500,000 Israelis Under Attack!" In smaller font, one could learn that in addition to 1 Israeli, 225 Palestinians had also been killed. It was surreal. Consider where you are getting your news, and what is not being told to you.

    For example, the stated purpose of the attack is to drive out Hamas, i.e. to kill anyone in Hamas and scare the rest into turning against Hamas. Not only does this tactic not work (brutality fosters violence), but it clearly fits the definition of terrorism: unlawful violence intended to frighten or coerce a people or government in order to achieve a political or ideological agenda. Israel is operating as a terrorist state in the true sense of the word.

    Hamas is also a terrorist organization by this definition, so it would be easy to simplify the conflict as "an endless cycle of violence" were there no historical context. But there is a context, and there are alternatives: Let us remember that Hamas was elected after an intentional shift away from violence towards a mainstream political agenda. Hamas stopped its attacks and began offering the Palestinian people an alternative to the corruption of Fatah. Hamas was democratically elected and immediately strangled by a US-led boycott, preventing the government from functioning. Hamas continued to hold to its one-sided ceasefire (totaling almost 2 years), meanwhile the US and Israel began to train and arm the opposition government, Fatah, which they preferred. In response to plans for a coup in Gaza (anti-democratic takeover by the US-supported opposition government), Hamas secured its control (again, democratically-elected whether or not we like them) over Gaza, and continues to offer Israel an indefinite ceasefire--no more violent attacks, period--if Israel simply complies with international law. The Arab League (comprised of 22 Arab nation members) has offered the same. These offers are dismissed by Israel and silenced in the US media. Israel says it has tried everything else, but it has not tried the most obvious: complying with international law and accepting repeated offers for a peaceful resolution.

    As events unfold in Gaza neither the media nor the people are silent here in Jordan, where people refuse to go on as if nothing were happening to their brothers and sisters (sometimes literally--more than 60% of Jordan's population is Palestinian refugees). Just one day after attacks began, the king of Jordan gave blood to send to Gaza and inspired hundreds of others to do the same (meanwhile President Bush was on vacation in Texas). Spontaneous demonstrations have erupted at least twice here in the capitol today, and thousands are protesting in various major cities around the Middle East and around the world.

    Please, wherever you are, do something. Write a letter to the editor. Get a large group to inundate your congressperson at once. Protest! There are demonstrations being organized around the US. If there isn't one happening near you, then do what I would do: buy a poster-board and large marker and write something on it ("Gazans Are People Too," "Massacre in Gaza: Silence is Complicity," "Our Weapons Are Killing Palestinian Children," or anything you can think of). Go outside and stand on a busy corner with it. Force others to confront the reality. Talk to people, invite them to join you. People around the world are empowered enough to take to the streets; we have no excuse not to. The time is now.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Civilians take brunt of 7th day of Gaza offensive

    http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...edName=topNews

    By Nidal al-Mughrabi
    1/2/2009

    GAZA (Reuters) - The civilian death toll climbed in Israel's air offensive against the Gaza Strip on Friday and Palestinian Islamists vowed revenge for the killing of a senior Hamas leader and his family.

    There was no sign of a ceasefire on the seventh day of the conflict, in which at least 425 Palestinians have been killed and 2,000 wounded, but a Palestinian official told Reuters that Egypt had begun exploratory talks with Hamas to halt the bloodshed.

    The senior Palestinian official, who declined to be named and who has been close to previous talks between Egypt and Hamas, said the aim of the talks included promoting ideas that would culminate in a new truce.

    Four Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza, which strike southern cities and towns at random and cause property damage and panic among the local population.

    A United Nations agency said the civilian death toll in Gaza was over 25 percent of the total killed in the violence. A leading Palestinian human rights group put it at 40 percent.

    Of six Palestinians reported killed on Friday in more than 30 Israeli air strikes, five were civilians, local medics said.

    One missile killed three Palestinian children aged between eight and 12 as they played on a street near the town of Khan Yunis in the south of the strip. One was decapitated.

    "These injuries are not survivable injuries," said Madth Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor at Gaza's Shifa hospital who could not save a boy who had both feet blown off. "This is a murder. This is a child," he said.

    Islamist fighters earlier fired rockets at Israel's ancient port of Ashkelon, one of which blew out windows in an apartment building. Another house took a direct hit from a long-range missile later in the day, and cars were set ablaze.

    Gaza militants mourning a hardline cleric Hamas leader killed by an air strike on Thursday along with his four wives and 11 children said all options including suicide bombings were now open to "strike at Zionist interests everywhere."

    A FEW ESCAPE
    Israel's armored forces remained massed on the Gaza frontier in preparation for a possible ground invasion, despite international calls for a halt to the conflict. An Israeli naval vessel lying offshore fired at a greenhouse in southern Gaza.

    Israeli leaders were in conference on Friday evening and media reports said they were discussing an "imminent" incursion.

    The White House said on Friday that Israel must decide for itself whether to go into the Gaza Strip with ground forces, but it cautioned any actions should avoid civilian casualties and ensure the flow of humanitarian goods.

    In Gaza City, a few hundred foreign passport holders boarded buses in the pre-dawn murk to quit the Strip, with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross, their governments and Israeli compliance.

    "The situation is very bad. We are afraid for our children," said Ilona Hamdiya, a woman from Moldova married to a Palestinian. "We are very grateful to our embassy."

    They left behind 1.5 million Palestinians unable to escape the conflict, a city facing another day of bombs, missiles, flickering electricity, queues for bread, taped-up windows and streets littered with broken glass and debris.

    "We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity," said Hamas leader Fathi Hammad at the funeral of Nizar Rayyan, the cleric who was killed along with his family.

    The bearded Rayyan, who mentored suicide bombers and sent one of his sons on a "martyrdom" mission, was the highest ranking Hamas official to be killed in the current offensive. He had called loudly for bombings in Israeli cities.

    Hamas spokesman Ismail Rudwan said that "following this crime, all options are now open including martyrdom operations to deter the aggression and to strike Zionist interests everywhere ... killing begets killing and destruction begets destruction."

    PROTESTS AND CLASHES
    Bracing for protests and retaliatory violence, Israel sealed off the occupied West Bank to deny entry to most Palestinians and beefed up security at checkpoints.

    There were protests by Palestinians in West Bank cities. In Ramallah, Hamas supporters scuffled with the Fatah faction of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, taunting them as collaborators. Elsewhere, protesters stoned soldiers at checkpoints and some were wounded by rubber bullets.

    In the Jordanian capital, Amman, riot police fired teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters marching on the Israeli embassy, chanting: "No Jewish embassy on Arab land."

    Late on Thursday, Israeli warplanes bombed the Jabalya mosque. Israeli security officials said it was a meeting place and command post for Hamas militants. It said the large number of secondary explosions after the strike indicated that rockets, missiles and other weapons had been stored there.

    Nine mosques have had been hit since last Saturday.

    "I will pray at home. You never know, they may bomb the mosque and destroy it on our heads," said one man buying humus from a street stand. Another was defiant: "What better than to die while kneeling before God?" he said.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  9. #49
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    Pity the Poor Neocons

    http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/010209.html

    By Robert Parry
    January 2, 2009

    As bloody and grotesque as Israel’s pounding of Gaza has been, it marks a bitterly disappointing end for seven-plus years of neoconservative dominion over U.S. foreign policy, a period that was supposed to conclude with the dismantling of Israel’s Muslim enemies in the region.

    Contrary to those neocon plans, George W. Bush is limping toward a historical judgment as possibly “the worst President ever”; U.S. power is waning in Iraq under a “status-of-forces agreement” that is showing the Americans the door by 2011 if not earlier; and key neocon targets – Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon – have gained in regional influence.

    All the neocons have left now is to cheer the Israeli air force as it, in effect, shoots fish in a barrel, i.e. blasting away at selected Palestinian targets inside the crowded confines of Gaza, killing more than 400 people, including many children and other civilians, over the past week.

    In 2001, especially after 9/11, the neocon dreams were so much more ambitious. The neocons planned to achieve “regime change” in all Middle Eastern countries that were perceived as threats to Israel and replace them with compliant, pro-Western leaders.

    First on the list was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which was a center for Arab nationalism and an advocate for resisting Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Since Iraq was too strong – and too far from the effective reach of the Israeli military – U.S. forces would be needed to conquer Iraq.

    After that, Iraq was supposed to become the staging area for projecting American power across the region, with the governments of Iran and Syria the next targets.

    A favorite neocon joke in 2003 was whether after capturing Baghdad, U.S. forces should go east or west, to either Damascus or Tehran, with the punch line: “Real men go to Tehran.” Of course, unlike American soldiers, the neocons weren’t really going anywhere, except to the next AEI conference or a Georgetown cocktail party.

    By replacing the governments of Iran and Syria, the neocons would knock out the support structure for Israel’s two most immediate threats, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Then, with Israel – aided by some Arab allies – finishing off those two weakened militant groups, Israel could dictate terms of a final settlement to the Palestinians.

    The Palestinians would have little choice but to accept an agreement even if it deprived them of the most desirable land. Peace would be imposed on the region by a neocon Pax Americana.

    Pretty Rhetoric
    Throughout this ambitious process, the neocons wrapped their plans in pretty or high-blown rhetoric.

    There was talk about spreading “democracy” to the region (even though the neocons have never had much use for real democracy, having secured their place of power under George W. Bush after he and five Supreme Court allies overrode the will of American voters in 2000. The neocons also never objected to the plans of Bush’s political operatives to create a “permanent Republican majority” in America – a virtual one-party state – so long as the neocons kept their seat at the table.)

    Besides “democracy promotion” in the Middle East, the neocons talked about advancing “human rights,” even as their policies rained death and destruction upon countless thousands of defenseless Arabs. There was also the claim that the United States was acting in post-9/11 self-defense because Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden (even though the pair actually were bitter rivals in the Arab world).

    So there were plenty of pleasant rationales to justify the brutal strategies, so many that thoughtful analysts to this day express uncertainty over what the Bush administration’s real motivation was for invading Iraq.

    It has always been a key part of neocon PR strategy to follow Winston Churchill’s famous advice that "in wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." And for the neocons, it is always wartime, if not actual war then it’s the “war of ideas” or the “war on terror.”

    Having covered the neocons since their emergence in the early 1980s as junior partners in the Reagan Revolution, I have always been amazed at their facility for clever arguments and their willingness to demonize or marginalize anyone who disagrees with them. In essence, they are intellectual bullies who care only about achieving their political ends.

    Though Ronald Reagan “credentialed” many of the key neocons – the likes of Elliott Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Robert Kagan – he mostly kept them focused on Central America and other strategic backwaters.

    This was not good news for Central Americans – who died by the tens of thousands as the neocons concealed or downplayed the human rights crimes committed by U.S.-supported military forces in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua – but at least Reagan knew enough not to give the neocons broad control over U.S. policy in the oil-rich Middle East.

    Reagan’s key diplomats in the Middle East were more pragmatic operatives, such as James Baker and Philip Habib. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration mostly played Realpolitik games there, like helping both sides in the Iran-Iraq War to ensure that neither one got too much of an upper hand. There also was ambivalence toward the Arab-Israeli conflict.

    That changed when George W. Bush became President as a born-again Christian devoted to Israel. Especially after 9/11, Bush handed control of Middle East policy to the neocons, with officials such as Elliott Abrams holding key posts on the National Security Council, Wolfowitz at the Pentagon, and Lewis Libby serving under the powerful Vice President, Dick Cheney.

    Media Megaphone
    By then, the neocons also had gained extraordinary sway over the Washington press corps.

    In the 1980s, the neocons expanded their megaphone from relatively small-circulation magazines, like Commentary and Dissent, to more general-interest publications, such as the Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages, The New Republic and later Newsweek (where I worked in the late 1980s).

    The neocon editorialists – people like Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes – also excelled at amplifying their political message through their seats on TV news chat shows, such as “Inside Washington,” “Crossfire” and “The McLaughlin Group.”

    By the 1990s, with the emergence of right-wing talk radio and Fox News, the neocons consolidated their power in the national news media. Most notably, the Washington Post’s editorial section fell firmly under neocon domination.

    As much as the Right still uttered its ritualistic complaints about the “liberal press,” the reality was quite different. As became acutely clear in 2002 and early 2003, the neocons in the news media worked hand in glove with the Bush administration to rally public support behind the Iraq War by citing such canards as the risk of Saddam Hussein giving his WMD to al-Qaeda.

    It turned out, however, that manipulating reality inside the Washington Beltway was a lot easier than controlling it inside Iraq. Rather than happily accepting U.S. occupation, many Iraqis joined an armed resistance, tying down American troops in a bloody quagmire.

    Also, failing to find the promised caches of Iraq’s WMD and facing new skepticism about Hussein’s ties to al-Qaeda, Bush elevated “democracy” to be the prime post facto justification for the invasion. But that led to Iraqi elections in early 2005 and they installed a Shiite government with close ties to Iran.

    Similarly, U.S.-demanded elections in the Palestine territories led to victory by Hamas and its eventual takeover of Gaza. Other elections in Lebanon strengthened the position of Hezbollah.

    So, very few of the Middle East plans were working out as the neocons had airily envisioned them.

    Tied down by worsening violence in Iraq, the Bush administration issued belligerent warnings to Syria and Iran but lacked the military manpower to back up the threats.

    Another Front
    Stymied on plans to roll up Israel’s enemies via U.S.-imposed “regime change” in Iran and Syria – and thus undermine Hamas and Hezbollah – the neocons pinned their hopes on Israel’s ability to punish those two groups with military offensives in 2006 and then possibly move on to invading Syria.

    After consultations between President Bush and Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel engaged in a series of low-key tit-for-tat exchanges with Hamas and Hezbollah, which responded by capturing several Israeli soldiers (the U.S. press corps preferred the word “kidnap”). That was followed by a massive Israeli retaliation that killed more than a thousand people, including many civilians, in Lebanon.

    Inside the United States, there was a reprise of the war-drum-beating that had preceded the Iraq War. Well-placed neocons in Washington and elsewhere tried to whip the American people into a new war frenzy. Again, U.S. politicians and much of the U.S. news media fell into line.

    On July 17, 2006, New York Sen. Clinton shared the stage in a pro-Israel rally with Dan Gillerman, then Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations who had espoused anti-Arab bigotry in the past and proudly defended Israel’s violence inside Lebanon.

    Responding to international concerns that Israel was using “disproportionate” force by bombing Lebanon and killing hundreds of civilians, Gillerman said, “You’re damn right we are.” [NYT, July 18, 2006]

    In other statements, Gillerman had been even more disdainful about Muslims. At the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington on March 6, 2006, Gillerman virtually equated Muslims with terrorists.

    “While it may be true – and probably is – that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim,” Gillerman quipped to the delight of the AIPAC crowd. [Washington Post, March 7, 2006]

    Despite Gillerman’s professed uncertainty about whether “all Muslims are terrorists,” this anti-Muslim bigotry didn’t generate any noticeable protest from American politicians and pundits. It would have been hard to imagine any other ethnic or religious group being subjected to a similar smear without provoking a noisy controversy.

    Four months later, Sen. Clinton and other Democrats joined Gillerman at the New York rally to endorse Israel’s devastating military attacks on Lebanon. Clinton, who was then considered the Democratic presidential frontrunner, denounced Hezbollah and Hamas as “the new totalitarians of the 21st Century” who believe in neither human rights nor democracy, even though both groups had done well in elections.

    Clinton was joined by two Democratic congressmen who also endorsed Israel’s bombing raids on Lebanon.

    “Since when should a response to aggression and murder be proportionate?” asked Rep. Jerrold Nadler.

    “President Bush has been wrong about a lot of things,” said Rep. Anthony D. Weiner. “He’s right about this.” [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “A New War Frenzy.”]

    Turning Points
    However, as it turned out, the Israeli offensive against Lebanon – though very bloody – was generally ineffective. It may even have been counterproductive by enhancing Hezbollah’s status within Lebanon and around the Muslim world for having fought the potent Israeli military to a standstill.

    As 2006 wore on, things went from bad to worse for the neocons. Their dreams of a “permanent Republican majority” – with them in charge of U.S. foreign policy – collapsed on Nov. 7, 2006, when American voters turned both houses of Congress over to the Democrats.

    Two years later, the Republicans (and the neocons) fared even worse, also losing the White House to Barack Obama, despite a GOP and neocon smear campaign that featured Obama’s middle name “Hussein” and called him a secret Muslim.

    Also disheartening was Bush’s capitulation in accepting a timetable for U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq. The President was forced to accept a “status-of-forces agreement” with a timetable for American withdrawal – first from the cities by the end of June and from the country as a whole by the end of 2011 – and possibly earlier if the SOFA is rejected by an Iraqi referendum.

    In Washington, the neocons now are scrambling to find themselves new places of influence. Some neocon-lites are hoping to decamp inside Hillary Clinton’s State Department. However, rumors also are rife in Washington that some think tanks are lightening their ranks of neocons in order to retain some influence with the new administration.

    Ironically, one of the few remaining neocon strongholds is the Washington news media, where support for Israel’s punishing bombing campaign against Hamas in Gaza is nearly unanimous.

    For instance, the Washington Post’s op-ed page has shed even the pretense of offering a balanced picture. On New Year’s Day, the Post ran two long op-ed pieces – one by Ephraim Sneh, chairman of the Strong Israel party, and another by Robert J. Lieber, author of The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century. Both articles defended Israel’s bombing attacks in retaliation for Hamas rocket fire.

    The next day, Jan. 2, the Post offered two more columns, one by neocon stalwart Charles Krauthammer and the other by former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. Both op-eds enthusiastically endorsed Israel’s bombing campaign as morally righteous.

    “Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated,” Krauthammer wrote. “The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.”

    Gerson added, “There is no question – none – that Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza is justified.”

    Gray Areas
    Though typical of the absolutist neocon view that Israel is always right, the articles still are striking in their unwillingness to see any gray areas relating to the moral ambiguities that have surrounded the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for more than six decades.

    Not only has Israel committed its share of outrages against Palestinians (and vice versa) but the neocons of the Washington news media still refuse to acknowledge the fundamental humanity of people from the Muslim world. In the neocon view, the lives of Arabs and other Muslims are cheap and their aspirations are of even less consequence.

    The American neocons echo the stunning opinion of Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who stated on Jan. 1 that – despite the widespread carnage in Gaza – “there is no humanitarian crisis in the strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce.”

    But that is not the view of everyone. In contrast to the Washington Post editorial section’s inability to see any moral ambiguity in the Israeli bombing campaign, Richard Falk, the United Nations rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, has deemed the Israeli attacks war crimes.

    “The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war,” Falk wrote on Dec. 30. 2008.

    Among those violations, Falk cited: “Disproportionate military response. The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.

    “Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.”

    But the American neocons care little what happens to the Palestinians of Gaza. It matters not that they have been denied basic human rights for the past six decades, nor that some 1.5 million impoverished Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip with little hope for meaningful work or the ability to escape from what amounts to a giant prison.

    Similarly, the neocons feel little or no remorse for the butchery in Iraq where hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and many more have been horribly maimed as a result of the U.S. invasion that the neocons demanded and rationalized. Indeed, it is difficult not to judge the neocons to be racist in their nonchalance toward the killing of Muslims, though the neocons would bristle at the assessment.

    In many civilized societies, the intellectual and political authors of a crime against humanity as egregious as the Iraq War would be dragged from their offices in handcuffs and put on trial. In modern Washington, however, they don’t even lose their privileged spot on the Washington Post’s op-ed page.

    But perhaps we all should feel some pity for the neocons. Their grand dreams of Middle East conquest – with them as modern-day Alexanders – have been reduced to them cheering as Israeli bombs smash apart the crowded neighborhoods of Gaza.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  10. #50
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    US gives Israel free reign on whether to invade Gaza

    http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_give..._01022009.html

    1/2/2009

    The United States gave Israel free reign Friday on whether to send troops into the Gaza Strip, insisting that the key to a ceasefire is an Israeli demand for Hamas to permanently halt rocket fire.

    But the White House said it has asked Israel to try hard to avoid civilian casualties as reserves were called up for an expected ground incursion on top of a week of air strikes that has killed more than 400 Palestinians.

    "We've been in regular contact with the Israelis," White House deputy press secretary Gordon Johndroe told reporters when asked if US officials were trying to prevent a possible ground offensive.

    US officials have urged the Israelis "to be mindful that any of the actions that they're taking in Gaza avoid unnecessary civilian casualties and also to help continue with the flow of humanitarian goods," he said.

    "So I think any steps they are taking, whether it's from the air or on the ground or anything of that nature, are part and parcel of the same operation," Johndroe said.

    "Those will be decisions made by the Israelis," he said.

    "Israel has a right to defend itself from these rocket attacks, and so we'll see," Johndroe said when asked about progress toward a ceasefire.

    After briefing Bush about events in Gaza, just 18 days before he hands the White House to his successor Barack Obama, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington was pursuing diplomacy with its partners in the Middle East.

    "We are working toward a ceasefire that would not allow a re-establishment of the status quo ante where Hamas can continue to launch rockets out of Gaza," Rice told reporters outside the White House.

    "It is obvious that that ceasefire should take place as soon as possible, but we need a ceasefire that is durable and sustainable."

    Rice repeated the US stand that any ceasefire must be a "durable" one, in contrast to the previous six-month agreement that expired on December 19.

    Gordon Duguid, a State Department spokesman, added that Rice has since New Year's Day spoken to former British prime minister Tony Blair, the envoy for the Middle East quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

    She has also spoken since then to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and her counterparts David Miliband of Britain, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nayhan of the United Arab Emirates, Salah Bashir of Jordan and Ahmed Abul Gheit of Egypt, he said.

    Duguid said she also spoke Friday to Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which has assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union.

    In the last week Rice has spoken with counterparts Tzipi Livni of Israel, Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Javier Solana of the European Union and King Abdullah II of Jordan.

    Rice again pinned the blame for the violence on Hamas, the Islamist Resitance Movement that seized power in Gaza in June 2007 after ousting the US-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmud Abbas.

    Asked if she planned to travel to the Middle East to broker an end to the crisis, Rice replied: "I have no plans at this point."

    The Israeli offensive, launched a week ago on Saturday in response to a wave of rockets fired from Gaza, has killed at least 422 people and wounded more than 2,100 others.

    It has prompted denunciations from around the world, but particularly from Arab and Muslim countries.

    "Arab opinion, I hope will understand what we're trying to do. I understand that passions in the region are inflamed by the situation," Duguid said when asked if the US was concerned about Arab reaction.

    "I only can offer them our sincerest efforts to try and work with our partners to achieve a ceasefire and move on and achieve a political settlement," he said.

    He said a political dialogue was possible with Israel if Hamas renounces violence and recognizes Israel's right to exist.

    Duguid added that the United States arranged for 27 people who are US citizens and their immediate family members to leave the Gaza Strip and travel to Amman, Jordan.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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