Israel Air Strikes On Gaza Kill 155

Islamists Call for blood as israel hammers on

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSLS69391620090102?feedType=RSS&feedName=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."
 
Hamas orders 'day of wrath' over Israel blitz

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hamas_orders_day_of_wrath_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.
 
Gaza rockets put Israel’s nuclear plant in battle zone
Growing concern over Hamas’s new arsenal

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5430133.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.
 
Israel destroys Hamas homes, flattens Gaza mosque

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090102/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_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.
 
Israeli attack kills brothers as Hamas stages 'Day of Wrath'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israeli_attack_kills_brothers_as_Hamas_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.
 
Afghans burn Bush orangutan effigy to protest US, Israel

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Afghans_burn_Bush_orangutan_effigy_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
 
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.)

baltzeranna.thumbnail.jpg


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.
 
Civilians take brunt of 7th day of Gaza offensive

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSLS69391620090102?feedType=RSS&feedName=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.
 
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.
 
US gives Israel free reign on whether to invade Gaza

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_gives_Israel_free_reign_on_wheth_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.
 
Gaza braces for Israeli ground assault
Paper: Invasion may begin 'tonight'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Gaza_braces_for_Israeli_ground_assault_0102.html

2/2/2008

After a week of airstrikes on Hamas targets, leaving an estimated 420 dead and scores more injured, Israel is poised to launch what's said to be a "major ground offensive" into the Gaza strip.

"All along the border, Israeli tanks and troops have turned fields into makeshift camps from which to launch their offensive into Gaza," reported the Times Online. "The Government has already mobilised more than 6,000 reserve troops and has given the green light to call up almost 3,000 more.

"Artillery barrages were also being fired into the strip while aircraft dropped bombs on open ground that the army will need to cross, and where Hamas has placed mines and dug tunnels to allow its guerrillas to outflank the invaders."

The lives of four Israeli's have been claimed by rockets fired from Palestine. Early Friday, the same rockets were said to have within their potential range Israel's Dimona nuclear facility.

The same day, Hamas called for a "day of wrath" after an Israeli air strike killed Nizar Rayan, a firebrand hardliner, and several of his wives and children.

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.

"Support for Operation Cast Lead is sky high in Israel, with polls showing that almost 85 per cent of the public backing the campaign," said the Times.

"There is also majority support for expanding it into a ground campaign, despite the dangers of high casualties in an urban battlefield against highly trained and motivated guerrillas waging war on their own turf. Almost 42 per cent of Israelis wanted the army to move in, while 39 percent favoured a continued air campaign."

"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 set to begin ground war against Hamas in Gaza

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5434559.ece

2/2/2009

Israel is poised to launch a major ground offensive into Gaza tonight after allowing hundreds of foreigners living in the devastated territory to evacuate.

After a week of air strikes that have killed at least 420 Palestinians and left scores of buildings in rubble, the Israeli army was set to fling hundreds of troops and tanks into a blitz to stamp out Hamas’s military wing, The Times understands.

Despite the looming onslaught, more Hamas rockets – which have so far killed four Israelis – were fired into southern Israel today.

The Islamist group vowed that its attacks, which have lasted for years and which finally provoked the massive Israeli campaign, would not stop.

“I call on the resistance to continue pounding Jewish settlements and cities,” said Sheikh Abdelrahman al-Jamal at the funeral of a hardline Hamas political leader killed, together with his four wives and 11 children, in an Israeli air strike on his home.

“We will remain on the path of jihad until the end of days.”

The funeral was held outdoors because an earlier air raid had smashed the mosque where the service was due to take place. Israel said the building had been used to stockpile weapons.

Among the mounting Palestinian death toll today were three young brothers, aged between seven and 10, who were killed in one of the 30 or so strikes carried out by Israeli warplanes across the strip.

All along the border, Israeli tanks and troops have turned fields into makeshift camps from which to launch their offensive into Gaza. The Government has already mobilised more than 6,000 reserve troops and has given the green light to call up almost 3,000 more.

Artillery barrages were also being fired into the strip while aircraft dropped bombs on open ground that the army will need to cross, and where Hamas has placed mines and dug tunnels to allow its guerrillas to outflank the invaders.

Support for Operation Cast Lead is sky high in Israel, with polls showing that almost 85 per cent of the public backing the campaign.

There is also majority support for expanding it into a ground campaign, despite the dangers of high casualties in an urban battlefield against highly trained and motivated guerrillas waging war on their own turf. Almost 42 per cent of Israelis wanted the army to move in, while 39 percent favoured a continued air campaign.

Hamas has an estimated 15,000 fighters who have used the 18 months that they have controlled the strip to hone their skills and transform a militia into a small army. Hamas’s military wing has been waiting for a ground offensive to face the Israeli army in open combat, despite Israel’s vast military superiority.

The onslaught has provoked large anti-Israeli demonstrations around the world, with protest rallies held today in India, Indonesia, Turkey and Australia.

But Hamas’s call for a “day of wrath” in the Palestinian territories produced only a lukewarm response in the face of clampdowns by Israeli security forces.

Several thousand protesters marched through the West Bank city of Ramallah, while in East Jerusalem youths threw stones at Israeli security forces and some 50 women demonstrated outside the Friday prayers at al-Aqsa mosque.

The demonstrators directed their anger principally at their own Palestinian leaders, and heads of Arab countries whom they felt had not done enough to stop Israel’s seven-day incursion into Gaza.

“Abbas is with the Jews, not with the Arabs. If he really was supporting and working in favour of our Arab brother’s in Gaza, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Um-Mahr, a 66-year-old resident of East Jerusalem.

Akram Jwaeibis, 58, said Arab leaders today were afraid to do more than voice criticism of the Israeli government’s actions. “Most of them just talk. That is why we are waiting for Nasrallah. Or Haniyeh to do something more than talk.”

Diplomatic efforts to contain the crisis were growing after Israel’s surprise offensive in the days after Christmas caught the world off guard. “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,” said Condoleezza Rice, the outgoing US Secretary of State.

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

A high-level European delegation is due in the region at the weekend, as were Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Tony Blair, the international community’s envoy to the Middle East.
 
Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-falk/understanding-the-gaza-ca_b_154777.html

Richard Falk
1/2/2009

For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.

Israel also refused exit permits to students with foreign fellowship awards and to Gazan journalists and respected NGO representatives. At the same time, it made it increasingly difficult for journalists to enter, and I was myself expelled from Israel a couple of weeks ago when I tried to enter to carry out my UN job of monitoring respect for human rights in occupied Palestine, that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza. Clearly, prior to the current crisis, Israel used its authority to prevent credible observers from giving accurate and truthful accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that had been already documented as producing severe declines in the physical condition and mental health of the Gazan population, especially noting malnutrition among children and the absence of treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety of diseases. The Israeli attacks were directed against a society already in grave condition after a blockade maintained during the prior 18 months.

As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some facts bearing on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the American public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through an exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens. Hamas is blamed for the breakdown of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the alleged increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more clouded. There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed at what it claimed were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several Palestinians. It was at this point that rocket fire from Gaza intensified. Also, it was Hamas that on numerous public occasions called for extending the truce, with its calls never acknowledged, much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom. Beyond this, attributing all the rockets to Hamas is not convincing either. A variety of independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the Fatah-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be sending rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well confirmed that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza's governing structure it was unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted effort to do so.

What this background suggests strongly is that Israel launched its devastating attacks, starting on December 27, not simply to stop the rockets or in retaliation, but also for a series of unacknowledged reasons. It was evident for several weeks prior to the Israeli attacks that the Israeli military and political leaders were preparing the public for large-scale military operations against the Hamas. The timing of the attacks seemed prompted by a series of considerations: most of all, the interest of political contenders, the Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in demonstrating their toughness prior to national elections scheduled for February, but now possibly postponed until military operations cease. Such Israeli shows of force have been a feature of past Israeli election campaigns, and on this occasion especially, the current government was being successfully challenged by Israel's notoriously militarist politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, for its supposed failures to uphold security. Reinforcing these electoral motivations was the little concealed pressure from the Israeli military commanders to seize the opportunity in Gaza to erase the memories of their failure to destroy Hezbollah in the devastating Lebanon War of 2006 that both tarnished Israel's reputation as a military power and led to widespread international condemnation of Israel for the heavy bombardment of undefended Lebanese villages, disproportionate force, and extensive use of cluster bombs against heavily populated areas.

Respected and conservative Israeli commentators go further. For instance, the prominent historian, Benny Morris writing in the New York Times a few days ago, relates the campaign in Gaza to a deeper set of forebodings in Israel that he compares to the dark mood of the public that preceded the 1967 War when Israelis felt deeply threatened by Arab mobilizations on their borders. Morris insists that despite Israeli prosperity of recent years, and relative security, several factors have led Israel to act boldly in Gaza: the perceived continuing refusal of the Arab world to accept the existence of Israel as an established reality; the inflammatory threats voiced by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad together with Iran's supposed push to acquire nuclear weapons, the fading memory of the Holocaust combined with growing sympathy in the West with the Palestinian plight, and the radicalization of political movements on Israel's borders in the form of Hezbollah and Hamas. In effect, Morris argues that Israel is trying via the crushing of Hamas in Gaza to send a wider message to the region that it will stop at nothing to uphold its claims of sovereignty and security.

There are two conclusions that emerge: the people of Gaza are being severely victimized for reasons remote from the rockets and border security concerns, but seemingly to improve election prospects of current leaders now facing defeat, and to warn others in the region that Israel will use overwhelming force whenever its interests are at stake.

That such a human catastrophe can happen with minimal outside interference also shows the weakness of international law and the United Nations, as well as the geopolitical priorities of the important players. The passive support of the United States government for whatever Israel does is again the critical factor, as it was in 2006 when it launched its aggressive war against Lebanon. What is less evident is that the main Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, with their extreme hostility toward Hamas that is viewed as backed by Iran, their main regional rival, were also willing to stand aside while Gaza was being so brutally attacked, with some Arab diplomats even blaming the attacks on Palestinian disunity or on the refusal of Hamas to accept the leadership of Mamoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority.

The people of Gaza are victims of geopolitics at its inhumane worst: producing what Israel itself calls a 'total war' against an essentially defenseless society that lacks any defensive military capability whatsoever and is completely vulnerable to Israeli attacks mounted by F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters. What this also means is that the flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as set forth in the Geneva Conventions, is quietly set aside while the carnage continues and the bodies pile up. It additionally means that the UN is once more revealed to be impotent when its main members deprive it of the political will to protect a people subject to unlawful uses of force on a large scale. Finally, this means that the public can shriek and march all over the world, but that the killing will go on as if nothing is happening. The picture being painted day by day in Gaza is one that begs for renewed commitment to international law and the authority of the UN Charter, starting here in the United States, especially with a new leadership that promised its citizens change, including a less militarist approach to diplomatic leadership.
 
Israeli assault on Gaza enters 2nd week with no end in sight

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jhrFEfw6bwl1IbpenN2C_PFBRSiA

1 hour ago

GAZA CITY (AFP) — Israeli planes and ships pounded Gaza on Saturday as the assault on Hamas entered its second week, with the Islamists' leader promising a "black destiny" if ground troops are sent in.

Amid growing concern for the humanitarian condition in the densely-populated territory, the United States gave its close ally free rein to push on with a ground offensive, insisting that the key to a ceasefire is Israel's demand for Hamas to permanently halt rocket fire.

"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," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

"Those will be decisions made by the Israelis."

Hamas's Syrian-based chief Khaled Meshaal told Israel that "if you commit the stupidity of launching a ground offensive then a black destiny awaits you.

"You will soon find out that Gaza is the wrath of God," Meshaal said in pre-taped remarks as the death toll rose from bombing and concerns grew about the humanitarian situation in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.

President George W. Bush, meanwhile, urged all able parties to press Hamas to stop firing on Israel to facilitate a lasting ceasefire.

"The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful ceasefire that is fully respected," Bush said in his weekly Saturday radio address, the text of which was released late on Friday.

"I urge all parties to pressure Hamas to turn away from terror, and to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace."

Bush said Hamas was responsible for the latest violence and rejected a unilateral ceasefire that would allow Hamas to continue to fire on Israel.

"This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas -- a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction," Bush said.

On the ground, Israeli tanks and troops stood ready along the 60 kilometre (37 mile) border with Gaza, waiting for the government's greenlight.

Warplanes and navy ships carried out 20 strikes against targets across the Gaza overnight on Saturday, hitting homes of senior Hamas figures and several of the group's coastal posts, the army said.

Children continued to fall victim to Israel's assault on Hamas in one of the world's most densely-populated places.

On Friday, a missile fired by an Israeli jet killed three boys when it slammed into a house in southern Gaza. It was one of more than 58 fresh raids carried out on Friday.

A 12-year-old girl died of her wounds after the bombing of a house near Gaza City belonging to a member of Islamic Jihad, and two gunmen from the armed wing of Hamas were killed in Jabaliya after firing rockets, medics said.

At the same time, the armed wing of Hamas said it had repelled a patrol of Israeli special forces attempting to cross the border into Gaza.

A spokesman said the army was "not familiar with the incident," adding that no soldiers had crossed into Gaza since the beginning of the air campaign on December 27.

Since then, at least 435 people have been killed, including 66 children, and 2,150 wounded, according to Gaza medics.

The bombardment has demolished dozens of houses and heightened concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where most of the 1.5 million residents depend on foreign aid.

"The protection of civilians, the fabric of life, the future of the peace talks and of the regional peace process has been trapped between the irresponsibility of the Hamas attacks and the excessiveness of the Israeli response," Robert Serry, the UN envoy for the Middle East, told reporters in Jerusalem.

Max Gaylard, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said "there is a critical emergency in the Gaza Strip right now ... By any definition this is a humanitarian crisis and more."

Thousands of Hamas faithful attended the funeral of Nizar Rayan -- a firebrand hardliner who was killed with his four wives and 11 children on Thursday.

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

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Gaza and the occupied West Bank after Hamas called for a "day of wrath." Police fired tear gas at rock-throwing youths in annexed east Jerusalem.

With a ground offensive widely expected and no ceasefire in sight, the Israeli army opened a border crossing to allow an estimated 400 people with foreign passports to leave Gaza.

Hamas fired more than 30 rockets into Israel, but no casualties were reported.

Militants have fired more than 360 rockets into Israel over seven days, killing four people and wounding dozens more.

The offensive has sparked angry protests in the Muslim world and elsewhere across the globe and defied diplomatic efforts to broker a truce.
 
Airstrike in Gaza Reportedly Kills Senior Hamas Leader

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475525,00.html

1/3/2008

An Israeli airstrike Saturday killed a senior Hamas commander, Reuters reported.

The airstrike in Gaza killed Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, a senior leader of the armed wing of Hamas.

The Israeli army would only say it carried out a series of air attacks through the night.

In another strike Friday the Israeli Air Force bombed the house of top Hamas operative Imad Akel. The Israeli military reported hearing secondary blasts at the house, indicating the presence of a stash of weapons and explosives in the home, the Jerusalem Post reported.

On Thursday an Israeli warplane dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on the home of one of Hamas' top five decision-makers, instantly killing him and 18 others.

The airstrike on Nizar Rayan was the first that succeeded in killing a member of Hamas' highest echelon since Israel began its offensive.

Meanwhile, senior leadership in Israel has given the thumbs up for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, sources tell FOX News, though the latest developments still don't mean such action is inevitable.

A ground invasion could happen soon if international diplomacy fails to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, who have been trading cross-border fire for the past week.

Israel launched its new round of airstrikes on Gaza in response to renewed missile attacks by Hamas after the two sides' six-month cease-fire ended last month. A ground invasion of the territory has looked increasingly likely, as Israel has been bringing artillery, armor and infantry to the border.

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.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said from Damascus on Friday that his militant group was prepared for an invasion and could abduct more soldiers if Israel attempts the incursion.

"If you commit a foolish act by raiding Gaza, who knows, we may have a second or a third or a fourth Shalit," he said, according to Reuters. Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas in a cross-border raid more than two years ago.

Hamas, whose charter specifically calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, had ordered a "day of wrath" against Israel on Friday over the killing of a senior commander.

In last 48 hours, the U.S. government has helped 27 Americans get out of Gaza, and has heard no reports of any Americans being injured during the assault, according to State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid. Evacuated Americans were taken by bus to Amman, Jordan, but more Americans are believed to be in Gaza.

President Bush, in a radio address taped Friday, accused Hamas of an "act of terror" in its rocket attacks into Israel and suggested that no cease-fire would be acceptable without monitoring to halt the flow of weapons to terrorist groups.

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

The United Nations estimated Friday that around 100 civilians have been killed in Gaza in the past week, around 25 percent of the 400 estimated killed in the bombing campaign.

The Israeli military called at least some of the houses ahead of time to warn inhabitants of an impending attack. In some cases, it also fired a sound bomb to warn away civilians before flattening the homes with powerful missiles, Palestinians and Israeli defense officials said.

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

Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and many other Western nations. From 2001 through May 2008, Hamas launched more than 3,000 Qassam rockets and 2,500 mortar attacks against Israeli targets.
 
Israel assault on Gaza enters second week, ground troops ready for invasion
CNN reports Israel jets are dropping leaflets on northern Gaza, warning civilians to leave immediately

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel_assault_on_Gaza_enters_second_0103.html

1/3/2008

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli air strikes claimed a Hamas military commander and destroyed a Gaza school on Saturday as an assault on Gaza which has so far killed more than 440 Palestinians entered its second week.

Troops and tanks massed at the border remained on alert to advance into Gaza after seven days that have seen more than 750 air raids launched against Hamas leaders and military targets.

Israeli media reports said a ground offensive was imminent.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal warned Israel of a "black destiny" if it invades. But US leaders have given their key Middle East ally free rein to begin a ground operation, again blaming Hamas for sparking the new conflict.

More than 30 air raids on Saturday hit Hamas targets across the densely populated territory.

One strike killed Mohammad al-Jammal, 40, who Gaza sources said was a Hamas military commander. Israel said he was responsible "for the entire rocket launching enterprise in all of Gaza City."

Jammal's death came two days after an air raid killed top Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan.

Another raid demolished a school in northern Gaza and killed a guard there. Israel said its warplanes had targeted "a college used as a base for firing a large number of rockets."

Two people were killed when a strike hit their car in the southern city of Khan Yunis, medics said.

Militants responded with some 10 rockets and mortar rounds, lightly wounding two people in the Israeli port of Ashdod, officials said.

The Israeli strikes have so far failed in their declared aim of ending rocket fire from Gaza. Militants have fired some 500 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel over the past week, killing four people and wounding several dozen.

There is mounting international concern over the humanitarian impact of "Operation Cast Lead" which has left at least 442 Palestinians dead and 2,290 wounded. At least 75 of those killed have been children, Gaza medics said.

Maxwell Gaylard, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said on Friday "there is a critical emergency in the Gaza Strip right now. By any definition this is a humanitarian crisis and more."

About 80 percent of the 1.5 million population relies on international food aid .

But the United States has given fresh backing to Israel, insisting that the key to a truce is Israel's demand that Hamas stop firing rockets.

"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," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

In his weekly Saturday radio address, the text of which was released by the White House late on Friday, President George W. Bush called on Hamas "to turn away from terror, and to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace."

Bush blamed Hamas for the violence and rejected calls for a unilateral ceasefire that he said would allow the Islamists to continue targeting Israel with rocket and mortar fire.

Thousands of Israeli troops with tanks are waiting along the 60-kilometre (37-mile) border with Gaza for the green light from the government to advance.

Amid new diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was to meet French President counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy in Ramallah on Monday. He was then to travel to New York to appeal for a ceasefire at the UN Security Council.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday met Iran's Supreme National Security Council chief Saeed Jalili to discuss the Gaza crisis, Syria's official SANA news agency reported.

Jalili also met the exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah on Friday, a Palestinian source said.

In a televised speech on Friday night, Meshaal warned Israel: "If you commit the stupidity of launching a ground offensive then a black destiny awaits you."

The week of Israeli strikes has destroyed Hamas government buildings, the homes of senior Islamist officials, mosques, schools and other buildings said to have stored weapons, and roads and tunnels used to smuggle arms and supplies.

Israel has kept the territory virtually sealed since Hamas seized power there in June 2007 from Fatah forces loyal to the secular Abbas.
 
Former television star Roseanne Barr has denounced Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, labeling Israel a "Nazi state."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733139909&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


1/3/2009

In a post on her personal blog, which appears at her Web site, Roseanne World, the comedienne, who is Jewish, wrote on December 30 that she had planned to travel with pro-Palestinian activists on a protest boat sailing from Cyprus to Gaza.

After an encounter with an Israel Navy vessel, the boat was turned back and sailed into a Lebanese port on Tuesday.

"I said Israel will attack any boat carrying doctors and medical supplies," Barr wrote on her blog, adding that, "Israel is a NAZI state. The Jewish Soul is being tortured in Israel."

The Emmy-award winning actress, who has courted controversy in the past, also condemned Israel's counter-terror operation against Hamas, asserting that, "The destruction of the Jews in Israel has been assured with this inhuman attack on civilians in Gaza."

In her post, Barr likened Hamas to "street gangs" in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, saying that Israel's military campaign is the "equivalent to Los Angeles attacking and launching war on the people of Watts to kill 'the Bloods' and 'the Crips.'"

Barr's comments were revealed by the Newsbusters Web site, which is a project of the conservative media watchdog group, the Media Research Center.
 
Israel invades Gaza in attempt to destroy Hamas
Israel has launched a ground invasion of Gaza, sending a column of troops and tanks into the Palestinian territory to destroy Hamas rocket launchers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...invades-Gaza-in-attempt-to-destroy-Hamas.html

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 7:56PM GMT 03 Jan 2009

The incursion, which began under cover of darkness near Beit Lahiya near Gaza’s northern border, represents a significant escalation of the week-long conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“This is the second stage of our operation against Hamas infrastructure,” said an Israeli defence spokeswoman on television. “It is to control the launch sites responsible for launching thousands of rockets at civilians in Israel.

“We will stay as long as we need to stay to achieve our goals.

The sudden move followed a day of heightened air strikes, designed to decapitate the Hamas military leadership, and an artillery bombardment intended to soften up resistence on the ground.

It also came in defiance of calls from European leaders - including Gordon Brown - for Israel to scale back its violent attack on Gaza.

Mr Brown said "too many" had died already.

Television footage - in the green and black tones of night-vision equipment - showed troops and tanks rolling across the border, as tracer fire whipped overhead.

The defence spokeswoman said Israeli troops had trained for the sort of urban guerrilla warfare they are likely to encounter against Hamas.

She also said air strikes had so far destroyed about a third of the tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza - and that troops would destroy the rest.

Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert has said that tens of thousands of Israeli reservists were being called up to help with the invasion.

Open fields near the north Gazan town of Beit Hanoun were churned up by the impacts of 155 mm shells fired by M109 self-propelled howitzers before the invasion.

Artillery is often used before ground assualts to clear territory of booby traps and enemy combatants prior to a land invasion.

Israel had already renewed its attempts to decapitate the leadership of Hamas in missile strikes, killing a top military commander as it pounded targets in Gaza for the eighth day.

The cabinet deliberated late into Friday night before reaching a consensus to prolong the air campaign.

The tactics paid swift dividends with the death of Mohammed al-Jamal, 40, the most senior commander from the Hamas armed wing Izzedine al-Qassam to be killed so far. Jamal, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Zakariya, died from injuries sustained in a street side missile strike.

Israel said he was responsible for all rocket fire from central Gaza City and sources in Gaza described him as military commander for the Tel el Howa district, site of a ministerial compound heavily bombed by Israel in the first week of its campaign.

Debate between Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, Tzipi Livni, foreign minister, Ehud Barak, defence minister, and military chiefs was intense with the meeting running much longer than expected and lasting over four hours. While discussions within the Israeli war cabinet have been increasingly protracted, there have been no signs of fundamental divisions emerging.

Israel has not fired artillery into Gaza since a self-imposed moratorium following an accident in which an Israeli artillery barrage killed 18 members of the Athamneh family in Beit Hanoun two years ago.

Some witnesses saw large numbers of Israeli Merkava main battle tanks moving toward the border and the Israeli government broadcast a warning to all Israeli civilians near the border to expect an intensification of rocket fire from Gaza.

The Israeli army made no immediate comment on the artillery operation which came amid mounting speculation that Israel would send troops into Gaza.

Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting are likely to rest on persuading key decision makers to pause attacks or seek a ceasefire. Mr Brown issued his strongest comments yet on the crisis, calling for an immediate end to hostilities and declaring that "too many" had died.

"The Prime Minister has spoken again today to Prime Minister Olmert, and is pressing hard for an immediate ceasefire," a Downing Street spokesman said. "Rocket attacks from Hamas must stop, and we have called for a halt to Israeli military action in Gaza. Too many have died, and we need space to get humanitarian supplies to those who need them.

"We are working urgently with international partners to address the underlying causes of the conflict, including trafficking of arms into Gaza. Action is necessary to reopen the Gaza/ Egypt border, but in a way that does not undermine Israel's security."

The most senior Hamas military commander to die in previous attacks was Ismail Jaabari, leader of a local militia known as "Protection and God" who was killed at the outset of the attacks a week earlier.

Israel's ability to identify and target an individual Hamas moving in the open raised suspicions they were working with information provided by informers.

Jamal's killing represented another coup for Israel after an airstrike on Thursday killed Nizar Rayan, a senior Hamas political leader responsible for policy and strategy.

Pleas from aid groups, the United Nations and the European Union for an immediate ceasefire to help deal with a humanitarian crisis faced by Gaza's 1.5 million population have so far been frustrated by continuing rocket fire from the Strip. Israel showed no willingness to let up on a campaign that it believes has pushed Hamas into a corner while Hamas militants continued to fire rockets into Israel in spite of the threat of immediate targeted reprisals by Israel.

The war cabinet was briefed on an armed forces list of fresh targets that were later attacked including two houses that Israel claimed were the homes of Hamas leaders.

"The house of Hamas terror operative Ismail Renam in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, which functioned as a weaponry storage, specifically for rocket launching equipment,'' the list said. "Renam has a central role in the launching of Grad type rockets against Israel.

And in an airstrike on a mosque in the town of Beit Lahiya that was full of worshippers left at least ten Palestinians dead and dozens injured.

At least 10 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque in Jabaliya, including two brothers aged 10 and 12, they said.

"The house of Azadin Hadad, a Hamas terror operative in Gaza City, that was used to orchestrate terror activity and as a meeting place for terror operatives. Hadad is the head of the Hamas military group in eastern Gaza city.'' In another strike a car near the southern city of Khan Yunis was attacked killing two men, medics said. The identity of the victims was not immediately available.

East of the Khan Yunis refugee camp, a missile narrowly missed a car carrying militants who escaped unharmed, witnesses said.

A guard was killed when a missile struck and demolished a school in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, medics said.

The Israeli armed forces said they had targeted "a college used as a base for firing a large number of rockets."

Israel continued to bar foreign media, including the Telegraph, from reaching Gaza, failing to follow an order from the Israeli supreme court to allow in a limited number. The order came after a case brought the foreign press association in Israel.

According to an unconfirmed count 442 Palestinians and 4 Israelis have been killed since operation Cast Lead began last week.
 
Thousands in London condemn Israeli bombing of Gaza

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Thousands_in_London_condemn_Israeli_bombing_0103.html

1/3/2009

LONDON (AFP) — About 12,000 people marched through London Saturday in protest against Israel's military offensive on Gaza, police said, in a demonstration that began peacefully but ended in a string of arrests.

Many people carried red, green, white and black Palestinian flags and some chanted "Israel terrorists" and "Free, free Palestine" as they filed along the River Thames towards Trafalgar Square.

Police said about 12,000 people took part, but organisers of the Stop the War Coalition estimated the crowd at around 50,000.

Some protesters threw their shoes at the iron gates of British premier Gordon Brown's Downing Street home to express their anger at his refusal to condemn Israeli airstrikes that have killed hundreds of Palestinians.

Brown issued a statement saying he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to agree to an "immediate ceasefire", and foreign minister David Miliband repeated this call after Israeli tanks went in to Gaza later Saturday.

After the march through London, about 5,000 people gathered outside the Israeli embassy, police said, where they were confronted with hundreds of police officers in riot gear.

Police said a small number of people threw sticks at them, but the Stop the War Coalition complained of heavy handed policing. Fifteen arrests were made.

Later, when news of the Israeli ground operation broke, the coalition called for further protests outside the Israeli embassy on Sunday and all next week.

Attending the main march were veteran left-wing politician Tony Benn and former Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox, who said that both the Palestinians and Israelis were "wrong" and a total ceasefire was the only option.

Lennox said the intervention from US President George W. Bush blaming Hamas for starting the violence would only inflame the situation.

"The problem is, from my perspective, they are pouring petrol onto the fire," she told the BBC.

"They have to sit down. This is a small window of opportunity just before things kick off.

"For every one person killed in Gaza, they are creating 100 suicide bombers. It's not just about Gaza, it's about all of us."

One protester, Nadim Dimechkie, a 31-year-old British-Palestinian writer from London, said Israel had been heavy-handed in its response to the firing of Hamas rockets into Israeli territory.

"The Israeli response has been disproportionate and it is creating a lot of angry young Palestinians because you cannot force people to live in a prison. If you do, they will fight," he said.

Alexei Sayle, an actor and comedian well known to British TV audiences, also took part. He said: "As a Jew it's very moving to see so many people who are so outraged at Israel's actions.

"Israel is a democratic country that is behaving like a terrorist organisation."

Protests against Israel's campaign have been held across Britain all week, and on Saturday about 2,000 people gathered in Manchester, northwest England, a further 500 each in Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, and in Portsmouth, southeast England, as well as 300 in the western city of Bristol.
 
No word from Obama as Gaza crisis deepens

barack-obama--123088310392765000.jpg

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/No_word_from_Obama_as_Gaza_0103.html

1/3/2009

With less than three weeks until the inauguration of Barack Obama, the president-elect has stayed silent on the deepening crisis in Gaza as Israel begins a ground invasion against Hamas.

Members of Obama's transition team have only said their boss is "monitoring" the situation, where at least 460 people have already been killed in eight days of air raids.

Obama's national security spokeswoman Brooke Anderson issued a statement after the ground assault got underway, but offered no further comment on the violence in Gaza except to use a phrase repeated often by Obama and his aides:

"There is one president at a time and we intend to respect that."

Obama has spent the last several weeks pushing for an economic stimulus plan and has said that fixing the broken US economy is his top priority.

The soon-to-be president would face immense difficulty with his economic plans if he makes any move deemed "anti-Israel," according to a Friday opinion column.

"The White House will see its prime political enterprise, the economic recovery programme, immediately held hostage," according to the column.

Obama's silence is drawing criticism among Arabs who have grown skeptical that his administration will break with the Middle East policies of his predecessor.

The satellite TV network Al Jazeera contrasted footage of Obama wearing shorts and playing golf in Hawaii with scenes of the carnage in Gaza, by way of highlighting what it called "the deafening silence from the Obama team."
 
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