BREAKING NEWS THU MAR 06,08 2:35 PM
AT LEAST 7 ISRAELIS ARE DEAD IN JERUSALEM AS THE ARAB MURDERERS ATTACKED AND OPENED FIRE ON THESE INNOCENT ISRAELIS AT A YUSHEVA SEMINARY IN JERUSALEM.
Seven killed in Jerusalem shootingsAssociated Press
guardian.co.uk, Thursday March 6 2008
Two gunmen infiltrated a rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem and opened fire, police said tonight. The gunmen and two other people were killed, officers and local reports said. Channel 10 TV said 10 people were wounded.Ambulances raced to the scene from around the city. The seminar, the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, is in the Kiryat Moshe quarter of Jerusalem. Shmuel Ben Ruby, a Jerusalem police spokesman, said one of the gunmen was wearing an explosive belt.
One or two terrorists infiltrated the Mercaz Harav seminary and opened fire in all directions, he said. One terrorist was killed in an exchange of fire, and apparently he had an explosives belt. He said students were being evacuated from the building.
Egypt holds inconclusive talks with Hamas on truce By Nidal al-Mughrabi MAR 06,08
GAZA (Reuters) - Egypt held inconclusive talks on Thursday with leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, part of a U.S.-backed push for a truce between the groups and Israel to halt a surge in violence. Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders said after the meeting they would study the Egyptian proposal but were non-committal.Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the onus was on Israel to first make a commitment to stop all forms of aggression and end its blockade of the impoverished coastal enclave.An end to rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip and suspension of Israeli raids into the Hamas-run territory would make it easier for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to continue to negotiate peace with the Jewish state.The talks were held in El Arish, an Egyptian town just south of the Gaza Strip, three days after Israel ended an offensive in northern Gaza that killed more than 120 Palestinians, about half of them identified as civilians.
Speaking in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had spoken with Egyptian leaders and expressed trust their efforts could further U.S.-backed peace talks.It is extremely important that there be an effort to bring calm there, Rice said, calling Cairo a good ally.Abbas suspended negotiations with Israel in protest at the bloodshed. Rice, who visited Israel and the occupied West Bank earlier this week, said Abbas had agreed to resume the talks.Khaled al-Batsh, a member of the Islamic Jihad delegation in the talks with Egypt, said his group would hold internal deliberations and respond to the truce proposal within days.As long as the Zionist enemy continues its aggression, we will continue acts of self-defense, Batsh said. After the meeting in El Arish, Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for several rocket attacks on southern Israel.Abu Zuhri said: There must be a real commitment by the Israeli occupation to end all forms of aggression on our people and open the (border) crossings before a response can be given.The ball is in Israel's court, he said.
Hamas has stopped short of saying any truce must include the West Bank, as demanded by Islamic Jihad.Israel tightened restrictions at Gaza's crossings after Islamist Hamas seized the territory from Abbas's Fatah faction in fighting in June. A ceasefire agreement could entail an easing of those measures.The U.N.'s top human rights body passed a resolution on Thursday condemning Israeli attacks on Gaza and accusing Israel of inflicting collective punishment against the civilian population, which is contrary to international humanitarian law. Israel called the resolution political posturing.Aid groups said in a report that Israel's blockade had created the worst humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Middle East war. It pulled out troops and settlers in 2005.A senior U.S. official in the region said the United States had told Israel it favored opening some of Gaza's border crossings to commercial as well as humanitarian supplies.
MEDIATOR
In a possible sign of movement towards a cessation of hostilities, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday that Israel would have no need to carry out attacks in Gaza if militants there stopped firing rockets across the border. Israeli and European officials regard Egypt, the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, as key to brokering a truce with Hamas and other militant groups.
Israel, the United States and the EU refuse to negotiate with Hamas, which has rejected their demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals. I hope that all Palestinian factions in Gaza will cooperate with Egypt in order to reach to a full truce, said Saeb Erekat, a member of the Palestinian team negotiating with Israel.
Violence continued to flare along the Israel-Gaza frontier.
A bomb planted by Palestinian militants killed an Israeli soldier at the Kissufim border crossing. The Islamic Jihad militant group initially claimed responsibility, but the Popular Resistance Committees later said it had carried out the attack and issued a video of a jeep being destroyed by an explosion. Militants in the Gaza Strip fired several rockets at Israel. Three houses were hit in the southern town of Sderot, moderately injuring one woman, police said. An Israeli air raid on what the military described as a rocket-launching site in the Gaza Strip killed an Islamic Jihad militant. Militant groups say the rocket salvoes are a response to Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank. (Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; additional reporting by Brenda Gazzar and Adam Entous in Jerusalem and Paul Taylor in Brussels; editing by Andrew Roche)
Egypt puts concrete wall on Gaza border By ASHRAF SWEILAM, Associated Press Writer MAR 06,08
El-ARISH, Egypt - Egypt is building a 10-foot-high concrete wall along its border with Gaza to prevent any new breaches after Palestinian militants blasted through the barrier in January to escape a blockade of their territory, an official said. The new wall replaces a mixed barbed-wire, iron and concrete barrier which was breached in several places when militants blew it open with explosives, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the media.Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded across the open border unchecked for 12 days before Egypt managed to reseal it. They snapped up food, fuel and other goods made scarce in Gaza by an Israeli closure, imposed after Hamas violently seized control of the strip in June.
Syria, Iran vow to bolster ties to confront US and Israel Thu Mar 6, 10:18 AM ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) - Regional allies Syria and Iran voiced their determination on Thursday to bolster their economic and political ties to overcome their common foes, Israel and the United States. We will continue to reinforce strategic cooperation in all sectors with our brothers in Iran because we are in the same trench, confronted to an abject and greedy enemy, Syrian Prime Minister Naji Otri said in reference to Israel and the United States.
Cooperation between Syria and Iran could serve as an example for relations between Iran and Arab countries, Otri told a news conference with Iranian First Vice President Parviz DavoudiThe Iranian official described ties between Tehran and Damascus as strategic, warm and privileged and said his country was working hard to develop ties with Syria.Davoudi also had talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on bilateral cooperation and regional developments, including the situation in the Israeli-occupied territories, state-run SANA news agency said.The United States has repeatedly accused Syria and Iran of fueling insecurity in Iraq and meddling in Lebanon's presidential crisis -- charges the two allies have firmly denied.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
ARABS - MUSLIMS STILL ACTING UP
Arabs slam Israeli war crimes in Gaza MAR 05,08
CAIRO (AFP) - Arab League foreign ministers on Wednesday denounced Israel's deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip over the past week as war crimes.At a meeting in Cairo, the ministers said they denounce the savage crimes carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza and the rest of the occupied territories ... considering them war crimes and crimes against humanity.The remarks were part of a draft statement expected to be formally endorsed by foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League.Israeli raids in the past week have killed more than 126 people in Gaza, including children and other civilians. Two Israeli soldiers and one civilian have also died over the same period.The Arab condemnation came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Wednesday to keep up military strikes on the Gaza Strip, which are aimed at stopping rocket attacks on Israel from the Hamas-ruled territory.The Israeli army operations against the Gaza Strip will continue as long as the rocket fire continues, a senior official quoted Olmert as telling a meeting of the powerful Israeli security cabinet on the situation in Gaza.
Olmert's office later issued a statement saying the Israeli government will act continuously, systematically, and over a long period ... to put and end to the rocket fire and other terror activities in Gaza.The Cairo meeting comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up a Middle East trip, during which she reiterated that the rocket fire had to stop and called on Israel -- which earned international condemnation for excessive use of force -- to spare innocent lives during its raids.The United States of course understands Israel's right to defend itself, but Israel needs to be very cognizant of the effects of its operations on innocent people, Rice said on Tuesday.
Hezbollah says it is prepared for war By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer MAR 05,08
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah is prepared for a new war with Israel but it will not start one, the militant group's deputy leader said in remarks published Wednesday. Naim Kassem warned that Israel will pay a high price in any future conflict.His comments, published in a Beirut daily close to Hezbollah, followed last month's threat by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah to retaliate with an open war against Israel for the assassination of one of his top commanders, Imad Mughniyeh.Mughniyeh was killed Feb. 12 in a car bomb in Damascus, capital of neighboring Syria. Hezbollah and Iran, its main backer, blamed his assassination on Israel, which denied any role.Asked if there will be war, Kassem said: Hezbollah cannot confirm because it does not want to initiate it. He added: The Israelis know they have to pay a high price in any war.Kassem also told Al-Akhbar daily that Hezbollah is well-prepared to face an Israeli, American and international war.He was apparently referring to the recent deployment of U.S. warships off Lebanon's Mediterranean coast, a move the U.S. has said was aimed at protecting its interesting in the region.
Rice wins promise to resume Mideast peace talks by Sylvie Lanteaume MAR 05,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday secured a promise from Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks despite discord over Israel's continuing military strikes in Gaza. I've been informed by the parties that they intend to resume the negotiations, Rice said at the end of a two-day trip aimed at mending peace efforts hobbled by a deadly Israeli blitz on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.Speaking to journalists after meeting her Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, Rice did not give a date for the resumption of talks, but said the two sides are in contact with each other how to bring this about.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas confirmed he intended to resume the talks he froze over the weekend to protest the attacks on Gaza. Israel has been insisting the talks carry on despite the strikes.The president affirms that he has the intention to restart the peace process and the negotiations to lead to the end of the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.
Earlier in the day, Abbas had said a ceasefire was a condition for the resumption of the negotiations, but Rice insisted the two were not tied.I have talked with ... president Abbas and obviously he wants calm ... but this is not a condition for the resumption of the talks, Rice said.Just hours earlier, Abbas had told reporters: The negotiations must resume, but only after a truce takes effect.
In his latest remarks he did not comment on what looked to be an about-face.The US-backed Abbas said Rice was involved in the efforts to achieve a truce, along with Egypt, which has often played the role of mediator in the Middle East.I spoke today again with Secretary of State Rice and she will send an envoy, David Welch, to Cairo where intense efforts are being deployed with a view to reaching a truce, Abbas said.Abbas has had no real power in Gaza since June, when Hamas fighters drove his forces from the territory in a week of bloody street battles.Israel made it clear it would only stop its military strikes if it were no longer targeted by near-daily rocket attacks from militants in Gaza, a tiny, isolated, and impoverished enclave that is home to 1.5 million Palestinians.If there is no Qassam fire on Israel, there will be no Israeli attacks on Gaza, said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. We do not get up in the morning and think how to attack Gaza. We want to prevent fire on Israeli civilians.Militants fired six rockets at southern Israel on Wednesday, causing no casualties or damage, the Israeli army said.Hamas has rejected Abbas's appeals for a ceasefire and blamed Israel for the recent flare-up of violence.We are in a state of self-defence. When the siege and all forms of aggression come to a stop then we will see, said spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.Violence in and around Gaza escalated sharply on February 27 after an Israeli raid killed five Hamas militants and the Islamists responded with a barrage of rocket fire on Israel, killing one civilian.
Even as Rice dined with Olmert on Tuesday -- just hours after she told Israel to take more care not to kill civilians in its military operations -- fresh raids on Gaza killed a baby girl and a senior militant. Several dozen children and other civilians were among the 125 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes over the past week. Two Israeli soldiers were killed during the same period. But Rice said she still believed it was possible to achieve George W. Bush's goal of resolving the decades-old conflict and inking a historic peace deal by the end of the US president's term in less than a year.
Rice reiterated that the rocket fire had to stop and called on Israel -- which earned international condemnation for excessive use of force -- to spare innocent lives during its raids. Washington's top diplomat also said the two sides will sit down next week with Lieutenant General William Fraser, appointed in January by US President George W. Bush to oversee the compliance with the international peace road map. The document, which calls on Israelis to freeze settlement activity in the West Bank and for Palestinians to improve security, has made little progress since it was drafted in 2003. Rice left for Brussels after a two-day trip that also took her to Cairo.
US makes show of force at sea in Mideast By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer Wed Mar 5, 10:55 AM ET
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Navy switched out warships patrolling in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, maintaining a show of strength during a period of tensions with Syria and political uncertainty in Lebanon.
Officials said it was a routine, planned deployment but it was an action sure to draw attention in the Mideast, where an announcement on U.S. presence last week caused a political stir in Lebanon.The USS Cole guided missile destroyer and support ships passed through the Suez Canal at midday Wednesday, heading from the Mediterranean Sea into the Red Sea, canal officials said. In Washington, a Navy official said the Cole had been relieved by the guided missile destroyer USS Ors and the guided missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea.
Both the canal official and navy official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of talking about ship movements.It's a sign of our commitment to stability in the region ... a stabilizing force and commitment to our allies, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Wednesday of the U.S. presence.I think it prevents miscalculations, he told Pentagon reporters.The deployment of the USS Cole had sparked criticism from Hezbollah and from pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon, who are locked in a political standoff with the pro-U.S. government. It also sparked criticism from Syria.Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has said his government did not ask for the ships and that they were not in territorial waters. Some in his coalition said they were surprised by the deployment.Syria has said the deployment threatened security in the region. Syria's foreign minister warned the U.S. it cannot impose its own solutions to the political crisis in Lebanon. Syria's foreign minister and the pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon also reminded Washington of the bloody consequences of its 1980s intervention in Lebanon.Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters last week that the deployment should not be viewed as threatening or in response to events in any single country in that volatile region.
The decision to send the ships appeared to be a not-too-subtle show of U.S. force in the region as international frustration mounts over a long political deadlock in tiny, weak Lebanon. The U.S. blames Syria for the impasse, saying Syria has never given up its ambitions to control its smaller neighbor.The presidential election in Lebanon has been delayed 15 times. It is now pushed back to March 11.National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe had called the deployment of the Cole a show of support for regional stability and said President Bush is concerned about the situation in Lebanon.Associated Press writer Salah Nasrawi in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.
Israel vows to keep up Gaza strikes Wed Mar 5, 8:52 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Wednesday to keep up military strikes against the Gaza Strip as long as rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory continues. The Israeli army operations against the Gaza Strip will continue as long as the rocket fire continues, a senior official quoted the premier as telling a meeting of the powerful security cabinet on the situation in Gaza.A statement released by Olmert's office after the meeting said that the Israeli government will act continuously, systematically, and over a long period... to put an end to the rocket fire and other terror activities in Gaza.The threat came as moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said he would resume peace talks with Israel -- which he suspended in protest of Israel's latest offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 125 people in a week -- only after a ceasefire is reached covering both Gaza and the West Bank.It also coincided with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the region during which she urged the resumption of peace talks launched last November in the United States following a seven-year hiatus.
The statement said that while Israel would work to contain Hamas, it would also advance the peace process with Abbas.Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Rice that Israel would carry out a major operation in Gaza if required.The Israeli government has a commitment to defend its citizens and although we are not keen to carry out a broad offensive, we will not be deterred from doing so, the defence ministry quoted him as saying.My duty as defence minister is to bring calm to the Negev, and so I will, he added, referring to settlements in Israel's southern desert which borders Gaza.
Government spokesman Mark Regev insisted that the Hamas authorities in Gaza bore full responsibility for the latest escalation.Our forces are not operating because we want to but because we have to. If they were not shooting at our civilian population we would not have to respond, Regev told AFP.The body of a Palestinian killed in the Israeli strikes on Gaza was found in the northern town of Jabaliya on Wednesday, medics said, bringing to 126 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the territory over the past week.Two Israeli soldiers and one civilian have also died over the same period.
Afghans protest Danish cartoons, Israel raids By Mohammad Obaid Wed Mar 5, 4:41 AM ET
PUL-I-ALAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Around five thousand Afghans staged a protest on Wednesday to condemn the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish papers, and Israeli raids on Gaza that have killed scores of Palestinians. The protest, the largest in recent days in Afghanistan, also called on the Muslim world to provide arms and funds for Palestinians against Israel and condemned plans by an anti-immigration Dutch politician to release a film on the Koran.Marching on the streets of Pul-i-Alam, the provincial capital of Logar province, the protesters included students and religious figures. They burnt Danish and Dutch flags and tore apart an effigy of Pope Benedict.Like several previous protests, the demonstrators demanded the withdrawal of Dutch and Danish troops who serve under NATO's command in Afghanistan.
The Muslims have no more tolerance. The government should sever its ties with Denmark and Holland and expel their forces from Afghanistan, said the protesters in a resolution.Those who are behind the cartoons and the film must be tried ... and if not, as in the past, we the people of Logar are ready for any campaign, it said, referring to Afghan wars against British invaders in the 19th century and the then Soviet Union in the 1980s.One group of protesters, apparently in favor of the Taliban Islamic movement leading an insurgency against the government and foreign troops, chanted: Long live the Mujahideen.Logar is to the south of Kabul. Militants from the Taliban, overthrown from power by U.S.-led troops in 2001, are active there.Afghanistan's Western-backed government has called the republication of the cartoon an attack against Islam, and one official has warned it would feed the insurgents, who are backed by al Qaeda.Several other Islamic countries have demanded the Koran film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders not be released.The controversial cartoons -- attacked for both depicting Mohammad and for what critics said were anti-Islamic messages -- were first printed in a Danish paper in 2005.They gained little initial attention but were later reprinted outside Denmark, sparking protests across the Muslim world in which dozens of people, some in Afghanistan, were killed.Danish newspapers reprinted one of the images last month in protest at what they said was a plot to murder the cartoonist who drew it. At least two Dutch papers published pictures of the Danish newspapers, with the cartoon visible.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Dutch television on Sunday he was concerned about the repercussions Wilders' plans may have for troops serving in Afghanistan and for Dutch people and businesses elsewhere in the world.The protests over Israeli policy relate to an operation in Gaza that has killed more than 120 Palestinians, which Israel said was aimed at ending rocket attacks launched at it from Gaza.(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jerry Norton)
US releases Egypt aid, seeks democratic reforms Tue Mar 4, 9:27 AM ET
CAIRO (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday that she had released 100 million dollars in aid to Egypt that had been made conditional on doing more to prevent arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip. Rice told journalists in Cairo that she had exercised her waiver right to free up the funds which the US Congress froze in January pending action on smuggling tunnels and progress with Egyptian democratic reform.I've exercised the waiver, she told a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit. We believe that this relationship with Egypt is an important one and that the waiver was the right thing to do.She made no mention of what progress Egypt had made but stressed the importance that the United States attaches to democracy and reform in Egypt and the importance that we attach to progress on those fronts.
The aid freeze created a furore in Egypt, with Abul Gheit repeatedly rejecting conditions being placed on US aid. Egypt is the second largest recipient of US aid, after Israel, receiving around two billion dollars a year.Egypt frequently announces the discovery of arms caches in the Sinai peninsula as well as tunnels used by the militants.However, the Israelis have frequently complained that Egypt is failing to do enough to stem the flow of arms into the impoverished coastal strip which has been controlled by Islamist group Hamas since June 2007.
Israel can defend itself against Iran Tue Mar 4, 7:21 AM ET
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel has the might and power to defend itself against any threat from Iran, indicating a willingness to use military force if necessary against Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Olmert spoke after Iran defiantly vowed to continue its nuclear program, despite new sanctions the U.N. imposed on Tehran on Monday for refusing to suspend uranimum enrichment, a process necessary to build an atomic bomb.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map, and there is evidence Iran bankrolls extremist anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian areas.Israel definitely sees itself threatened by Iran, Olmert said in a tour of northern Israel. Israel has the might and power to defend itself against any threat.But he quickly added, I don't think the Iranian matter is primarily Israel's responsibility. It is the responsibility of the United States and the leading countries in the international community that are convinced Iran constitutes a threat.
Israel has always said it favored a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear affair, and did not see itself taking the lead in the campaign against Tehran's efforts to achieve nuclear capabilities.On Tuesday, Olmert said the international community had to take additional steps to stop Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran insists is peaceful. He did not say what he thought those steps should be.Israel considers Iran a serious threat because of its nuclear program and its arsenal of long-range missiles, which can be fitted with nuclear warheads and are capable of striking the Jewish state.
CAIRO (AFP) - Arab League foreign ministers on Wednesday denounced Israel's deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip over the past week as war crimes.At a meeting in Cairo, the ministers said they denounce the savage crimes carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza and the rest of the occupied territories ... considering them war crimes and crimes against humanity.The remarks were part of a draft statement expected to be formally endorsed by foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League.Israeli raids in the past week have killed more than 126 people in Gaza, including children and other civilians. Two Israeli soldiers and one civilian have also died over the same period.The Arab condemnation came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Wednesday to keep up military strikes on the Gaza Strip, which are aimed at stopping rocket attacks on Israel from the Hamas-ruled territory.The Israeli army operations against the Gaza Strip will continue as long as the rocket fire continues, a senior official quoted Olmert as telling a meeting of the powerful Israeli security cabinet on the situation in Gaza.
Olmert's office later issued a statement saying the Israeli government will act continuously, systematically, and over a long period ... to put and end to the rocket fire and other terror activities in Gaza.The Cairo meeting comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up a Middle East trip, during which she reiterated that the rocket fire had to stop and called on Israel -- which earned international condemnation for excessive use of force -- to spare innocent lives during its raids.The United States of course understands Israel's right to defend itself, but Israel needs to be very cognizant of the effects of its operations on innocent people, Rice said on Tuesday.
Hezbollah says it is prepared for war By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer MAR 05,08
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah is prepared for a new war with Israel but it will not start one, the militant group's deputy leader said in remarks published Wednesday. Naim Kassem warned that Israel will pay a high price in any future conflict.His comments, published in a Beirut daily close to Hezbollah, followed last month's threat by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah to retaliate with an open war against Israel for the assassination of one of his top commanders, Imad Mughniyeh.Mughniyeh was killed Feb. 12 in a car bomb in Damascus, capital of neighboring Syria. Hezbollah and Iran, its main backer, blamed his assassination on Israel, which denied any role.Asked if there will be war, Kassem said: Hezbollah cannot confirm because it does not want to initiate it. He added: The Israelis know they have to pay a high price in any war.Kassem also told Al-Akhbar daily that Hezbollah is well-prepared to face an Israeli, American and international war.He was apparently referring to the recent deployment of U.S. warships off Lebanon's Mediterranean coast, a move the U.S. has said was aimed at protecting its interesting in the region.
Rice wins promise to resume Mideast peace talks by Sylvie Lanteaume MAR 05,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday secured a promise from Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks despite discord over Israel's continuing military strikes in Gaza. I've been informed by the parties that they intend to resume the negotiations, Rice said at the end of a two-day trip aimed at mending peace efforts hobbled by a deadly Israeli blitz on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.Speaking to journalists after meeting her Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, Rice did not give a date for the resumption of talks, but said the two sides are in contact with each other how to bring this about.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas confirmed he intended to resume the talks he froze over the weekend to protest the attacks on Gaza. Israel has been insisting the talks carry on despite the strikes.The president affirms that he has the intention to restart the peace process and the negotiations to lead to the end of the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.
Earlier in the day, Abbas had said a ceasefire was a condition for the resumption of the negotiations, but Rice insisted the two were not tied.I have talked with ... president Abbas and obviously he wants calm ... but this is not a condition for the resumption of the talks, Rice said.Just hours earlier, Abbas had told reporters: The negotiations must resume, but only after a truce takes effect.
In his latest remarks he did not comment on what looked to be an about-face.The US-backed Abbas said Rice was involved in the efforts to achieve a truce, along with Egypt, which has often played the role of mediator in the Middle East.I spoke today again with Secretary of State Rice and she will send an envoy, David Welch, to Cairo where intense efforts are being deployed with a view to reaching a truce, Abbas said.Abbas has had no real power in Gaza since June, when Hamas fighters drove his forces from the territory in a week of bloody street battles.Israel made it clear it would only stop its military strikes if it were no longer targeted by near-daily rocket attacks from militants in Gaza, a tiny, isolated, and impoverished enclave that is home to 1.5 million Palestinians.If there is no Qassam fire on Israel, there will be no Israeli attacks on Gaza, said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. We do not get up in the morning and think how to attack Gaza. We want to prevent fire on Israeli civilians.Militants fired six rockets at southern Israel on Wednesday, causing no casualties or damage, the Israeli army said.Hamas has rejected Abbas's appeals for a ceasefire and blamed Israel for the recent flare-up of violence.We are in a state of self-defence. When the siege and all forms of aggression come to a stop then we will see, said spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.Violence in and around Gaza escalated sharply on February 27 after an Israeli raid killed five Hamas militants and the Islamists responded with a barrage of rocket fire on Israel, killing one civilian.
Even as Rice dined with Olmert on Tuesday -- just hours after she told Israel to take more care not to kill civilians in its military operations -- fresh raids on Gaza killed a baby girl and a senior militant. Several dozen children and other civilians were among the 125 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes over the past week. Two Israeli soldiers were killed during the same period. But Rice said she still believed it was possible to achieve George W. Bush's goal of resolving the decades-old conflict and inking a historic peace deal by the end of the US president's term in less than a year.
Rice reiterated that the rocket fire had to stop and called on Israel -- which earned international condemnation for excessive use of force -- to spare innocent lives during its raids. Washington's top diplomat also said the two sides will sit down next week with Lieutenant General William Fraser, appointed in January by US President George W. Bush to oversee the compliance with the international peace road map. The document, which calls on Israelis to freeze settlement activity in the West Bank and for Palestinians to improve security, has made little progress since it was drafted in 2003. Rice left for Brussels after a two-day trip that also took her to Cairo.
US makes show of force at sea in Mideast By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer Wed Mar 5, 10:55 AM ET
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Navy switched out warships patrolling in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, maintaining a show of strength during a period of tensions with Syria and political uncertainty in Lebanon.
Officials said it was a routine, planned deployment but it was an action sure to draw attention in the Mideast, where an announcement on U.S. presence last week caused a political stir in Lebanon.The USS Cole guided missile destroyer and support ships passed through the Suez Canal at midday Wednesday, heading from the Mediterranean Sea into the Red Sea, canal officials said. In Washington, a Navy official said the Cole had been relieved by the guided missile destroyer USS Ors and the guided missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea.
Both the canal official and navy official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of talking about ship movements.It's a sign of our commitment to stability in the region ... a stabilizing force and commitment to our allies, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Wednesday of the U.S. presence.I think it prevents miscalculations, he told Pentagon reporters.The deployment of the USS Cole had sparked criticism from Hezbollah and from pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon, who are locked in a political standoff with the pro-U.S. government. It also sparked criticism from Syria.Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has said his government did not ask for the ships and that they were not in territorial waters. Some in his coalition said they were surprised by the deployment.Syria has said the deployment threatened security in the region. Syria's foreign minister warned the U.S. it cannot impose its own solutions to the political crisis in Lebanon. Syria's foreign minister and the pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon also reminded Washington of the bloody consequences of its 1980s intervention in Lebanon.Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters last week that the deployment should not be viewed as threatening or in response to events in any single country in that volatile region.
The decision to send the ships appeared to be a not-too-subtle show of U.S. force in the region as international frustration mounts over a long political deadlock in tiny, weak Lebanon. The U.S. blames Syria for the impasse, saying Syria has never given up its ambitions to control its smaller neighbor.The presidential election in Lebanon has been delayed 15 times. It is now pushed back to March 11.National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe had called the deployment of the Cole a show of support for regional stability and said President Bush is concerned about the situation in Lebanon.Associated Press writer Salah Nasrawi in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.
Israel vows to keep up Gaza strikes Wed Mar 5, 8:52 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Wednesday to keep up military strikes against the Gaza Strip as long as rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory continues. The Israeli army operations against the Gaza Strip will continue as long as the rocket fire continues, a senior official quoted the premier as telling a meeting of the powerful security cabinet on the situation in Gaza.A statement released by Olmert's office after the meeting said that the Israeli government will act continuously, systematically, and over a long period... to put an end to the rocket fire and other terror activities in Gaza.The threat came as moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said he would resume peace talks with Israel -- which he suspended in protest of Israel's latest offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 125 people in a week -- only after a ceasefire is reached covering both Gaza and the West Bank.It also coincided with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the region during which she urged the resumption of peace talks launched last November in the United States following a seven-year hiatus.
The statement said that while Israel would work to contain Hamas, it would also advance the peace process with Abbas.Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Rice that Israel would carry out a major operation in Gaza if required.The Israeli government has a commitment to defend its citizens and although we are not keen to carry out a broad offensive, we will not be deterred from doing so, the defence ministry quoted him as saying.My duty as defence minister is to bring calm to the Negev, and so I will, he added, referring to settlements in Israel's southern desert which borders Gaza.
Government spokesman Mark Regev insisted that the Hamas authorities in Gaza bore full responsibility for the latest escalation.Our forces are not operating because we want to but because we have to. If they were not shooting at our civilian population we would not have to respond, Regev told AFP.The body of a Palestinian killed in the Israeli strikes on Gaza was found in the northern town of Jabaliya on Wednesday, medics said, bringing to 126 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the territory over the past week.Two Israeli soldiers and one civilian have also died over the same period.
Afghans protest Danish cartoons, Israel raids By Mohammad Obaid Wed Mar 5, 4:41 AM ET
PUL-I-ALAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Around five thousand Afghans staged a protest on Wednesday to condemn the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish papers, and Israeli raids on Gaza that have killed scores of Palestinians. The protest, the largest in recent days in Afghanistan, also called on the Muslim world to provide arms and funds for Palestinians against Israel and condemned plans by an anti-immigration Dutch politician to release a film on the Koran.Marching on the streets of Pul-i-Alam, the provincial capital of Logar province, the protesters included students and religious figures. They burnt Danish and Dutch flags and tore apart an effigy of Pope Benedict.Like several previous protests, the demonstrators demanded the withdrawal of Dutch and Danish troops who serve under NATO's command in Afghanistan.
The Muslims have no more tolerance. The government should sever its ties with Denmark and Holland and expel their forces from Afghanistan, said the protesters in a resolution.Those who are behind the cartoons and the film must be tried ... and if not, as in the past, we the people of Logar are ready for any campaign, it said, referring to Afghan wars against British invaders in the 19th century and the then Soviet Union in the 1980s.One group of protesters, apparently in favor of the Taliban Islamic movement leading an insurgency against the government and foreign troops, chanted: Long live the Mujahideen.Logar is to the south of Kabul. Militants from the Taliban, overthrown from power by U.S.-led troops in 2001, are active there.Afghanistan's Western-backed government has called the republication of the cartoon an attack against Islam, and one official has warned it would feed the insurgents, who are backed by al Qaeda.Several other Islamic countries have demanded the Koran film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders not be released.The controversial cartoons -- attacked for both depicting Mohammad and for what critics said were anti-Islamic messages -- were first printed in a Danish paper in 2005.They gained little initial attention but were later reprinted outside Denmark, sparking protests across the Muslim world in which dozens of people, some in Afghanistan, were killed.Danish newspapers reprinted one of the images last month in protest at what they said was a plot to murder the cartoonist who drew it. At least two Dutch papers published pictures of the Danish newspapers, with the cartoon visible.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Dutch television on Sunday he was concerned about the repercussions Wilders' plans may have for troops serving in Afghanistan and for Dutch people and businesses elsewhere in the world.The protests over Israeli policy relate to an operation in Gaza that has killed more than 120 Palestinians, which Israel said was aimed at ending rocket attacks launched at it from Gaza.(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jerry Norton)
US releases Egypt aid, seeks democratic reforms Tue Mar 4, 9:27 AM ET
CAIRO (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday that she had released 100 million dollars in aid to Egypt that had been made conditional on doing more to prevent arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip. Rice told journalists in Cairo that she had exercised her waiver right to free up the funds which the US Congress froze in January pending action on smuggling tunnels and progress with Egyptian democratic reform.I've exercised the waiver, she told a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit. We believe that this relationship with Egypt is an important one and that the waiver was the right thing to do.She made no mention of what progress Egypt had made but stressed the importance that the United States attaches to democracy and reform in Egypt and the importance that we attach to progress on those fronts.
The aid freeze created a furore in Egypt, with Abul Gheit repeatedly rejecting conditions being placed on US aid. Egypt is the second largest recipient of US aid, after Israel, receiving around two billion dollars a year.Egypt frequently announces the discovery of arms caches in the Sinai peninsula as well as tunnels used by the militants.However, the Israelis have frequently complained that Egypt is failing to do enough to stem the flow of arms into the impoverished coastal strip which has been controlled by Islamist group Hamas since June 2007.
Israel can defend itself against Iran Tue Mar 4, 7:21 AM ET
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel has the might and power to defend itself against any threat from Iran, indicating a willingness to use military force if necessary against Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Olmert spoke after Iran defiantly vowed to continue its nuclear program, despite new sanctions the U.N. imposed on Tehran on Monday for refusing to suspend uranimum enrichment, a process necessary to build an atomic bomb.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map, and there is evidence Iran bankrolls extremist anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian areas.Israel definitely sees itself threatened by Iran, Olmert said in a tour of northern Israel. Israel has the might and power to defend itself against any threat.But he quickly added, I don't think the Iranian matter is primarily Israel's responsibility. It is the responsibility of the United States and the leading countries in the international community that are convinced Iran constitutes a threat.
Israel has always said it favored a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear affair, and did not see itself taking the lead in the campaign against Tehran's efforts to achieve nuclear capabilities.On Tuesday, Olmert said the international community had to take additional steps to stop Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran insists is peaceful. He did not say what he thought those steps should be.Israel considers Iran a serious threat because of its nuclear program and its arsenal of long-range missiles, which can be fitted with nuclear warheads and are capable of striking the Jewish state.
Monday, March 03, 2008
RICE TO THE RESCUE
THE BEST THING RICE COULD DO IS TO KEEP CLEAR OF ISRAEL AND LET ISRAEL HANDLE THE HAMAS AND ARAB - MUSLIMS WITH THEIR OWN ACTIONS INSTEAD OF PRESSURING ISRAEL TO STOP THE FIGHTING.
Rice heads to Mideast to try to save peace plan By Sue Pleming MAR 3,08
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left for the Middle East on Monday to try to salvage U.S.-sponsored peace talks derailed by Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli towns and Israel's military response in Gaza. With U.S. credibility at stake, Rice faces an uphill battle to revive peace talks suspended over the weekend by pro-Western Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Washington wants those talks to result in a peace treaty by the end of the year but that hope seems increasingly unrealistic.While Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday in response to international appeals, a senior Israeli official described it as just a two-day interval during Rice's visit.More than 100 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza offensive, which followed rocket attacks by the Islamist group Hamas on Israeli towns. The U.S. reputation as an honest peace broker is under the spotlight again because of Washington's close ties to Israel.
U.S. officials said Rice would press Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to get back to talks despite the violence in Gaza, which Hamas seized in June, but conceded the timing of her long-arranged trip made it difficult.The most important thing is to keep moving the talks along, said a U.S. official who asked not to be identified.Certainly we do want to see negotiations resume, said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. All this points out the need for there to be progress in the negotiations and ultimately have a two-state solution. That's the answer to the violence that we've seen.We regret any loss of innocent life that has occurred, and certainly hope that the actions will end in the near future, he said. Asked if he was referring to the Israeli actions, Casey said, both sides.On Wednesday, an Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket, the first such death since May.In the run-up to the Annapolis conference in November that kicked off the talks, scores of former U.S. diplomats and Middle East experts warned Rice of the dangers of cutting off Gaza and isolating Hamas, which won 2006 elections there, saying this could ultimately derail any progress made in Abbas-Olmert talks.
MISTAKE TO GO
Some experts were skeptical whether Rice, whose first stop is Egypt on Tuesday, should go at all and predicted her presence could exacerbate rather than reduce tensions.Casey said he was not aware that any consideration was given to Rice calling off her trip.I think it is a mistake for Rice to travel to the region at this time. The public in the region sees the Bush administration as partly responsible for the devastation in Gaza and her appearance on the scene will only add to the anger, said Middle East expert Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland.Telhami said any revival of the peace process would have little resonance in the region. It's hard to see what good the trip can accomplish, he said.Middle East expert Nathan Brown, said her presence would only be useful if she had something to offer, such as a cease-fire deal, and that did not appear to be the case.The reason she is going is part of a process that is not leading anywhere to begin with -- the Annapolis process, said Brown, director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.
Israel says it is acting in self-defense to curb an increasing number of rocket attacks by Hamas Islamists and has shrugged off a U.N. accusation that it used excessive force.Abbas, who spoke to Rice on Sunday, ordered the talks be suspended until the aggression stopped. In her talks with Egypt's president and foreign minister on Tuesday, Rice will be looking for answers over how Cairo can secure its border crossing with Gaza. The border was blown apart in January by Hamas, enabling hundreds of thousands of Gazans to cross over into Egypt to get goods not available because of an Israeli economic blockade. Israeli officials have said some appear to have brought back arms and components to build rockets. The border has since then been sealed, although Egypt opened it up over the weekend to let dozens of wounded Palestinians receive care in Egyptian hospitals. Rice is set to meet Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Tuesday in the West Bank and will then go to Jerusalem for talks with Israeli leaders, before leaving for Brussels on Wednesday for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
(Editing by Alan Elsner)
A Gaza Quagmire for Israel? By TIM MCGIRK/JERUSALEM MAR 3,08
Tit-for-tat clashes in Gaza may escalate into the next quagmire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before the current fighting started, Israeli officials privately scoffed that they could live with an occasional Hamas or Islamic Jihad rocket fired into their territory by the Palestinian militants in Gaza. But that changed last week when Hamas, angered at the loss of five senior commanders in an Israeli air strike, began targeting Ashkelon again, sending a dozen powerful Grad missiles into the Israeli port roughly five miles from Gaza's northern frontier. In retaliation, the Israelis stormed into northern Gaza. On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended contact with Israel, as fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants raged on for a second day, leaving nearly 70 dead and hundreds more wounded. Abbas' walk-out may doom the visit this week by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who was due to fly into the Middle East to provide impetus for peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In light of the Israeli aggression, such communication has no meaning, said Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina. Abbas had no choice, say Palestinians. Even though Gaza is ruled by Abbas' Hamas rivals, pro-Gaza demonstrations have spread throughout the West Bank towns and cities under Abbas' control, with Palestinians there clashing with Israeli riot police. Many of the slogans they shouted were against Abbas, who is seen by many Palestinians as too pro-Israeli.
The brunt of the fighting occurred on Saturday when Israelis, in an operation named Warm Winter, stormed into northern Gaza with over a thousand troops backed by 30 tanks and helicopter gunships. They advanced to the edge of Jabaliya, a crowded refugee camp, and there took fire from gunmen hiding inside the buildings. After two Israeli soldiers were shot, eyewitnesses say, the Israelis retaliated with withering fire in all directions as they struggled to evacuate the wounded soldiers, who eventually died. On the Palestinian side, medical sources say that 25 of those killed were militants, the rest civilians, including women and children. Despite the fierce Israeli assault, militants kept firing a barrage of mortars and longer-range Katyusha rockets into southern Israel.
The Israeli attack on Gaza came after an Israeli student was killed in a rocket blast, and the port city of Ashkelon, with 120,000 residents, came under attack, showing Israelis for the first time that the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad had acquired a large arsenal of accurate, longer-range rockets. One Hamas commander told TIME by telephone: It's true that we're losing lives but we'll prove to the Arab world that we have the power to stand up to Israel. The Israeli combat brigade withdrew from northern Gaza early Monday morning, even as another rocket struck Ashkelon. Nevertheless, Israeli military spokesmen said Operation Warm Winter had succeeded in clearing out most of the area used by militant rocket launchers. There could be bigger battles to come. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert waved off calls of restraint from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who equally condemned both Israel for excessive and disproportionate use of force in Gaza and the militants for their unending barrage of rockets into southern Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, We are not happy about civilians being hurt in Gaza. Hamas and those who fire rockets at Israel are responsible and they will pay the price.If anything, the Israeli assault has steeled Gazans' support for Hamas. As one housewife in Jabalya watched the injured victims of an Israeli air strike being carted into an ambulance, she shouted, Keep hitting them with rockets. Take revenge for our children. Military sources say that after the initial thrust, the cabinet is now deciding whether to pull back or go into Gaza much harder and deeper, with division-strength troop numbers, to crush Hamas' organization and leadership. This is likely to be postponed until after the U.S. Secretary of State returns home, probably empty-handed, from her talks with Olmert and Abbas. On Saturday night, Israeli warplanes bombed the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh. He and other political and military leaders have gone into hiding. They fear, with good reason, that they will be targeted by an Israeli missile strike. The two choices facing Israeli are equally unpalatable: either negotiate with Hamas, considered a terrorist organization, or try to reconquer Gaza, with its hostile 1.5 million population, and get mired in a long and bloody assault, a mini-Iraq. View this article on Time.com
Long-range rockets fired from Gaza are Iranian: Israel army
MAR 3,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Israeli army on Monday said that all the long-range rockets fired by Gaza militants against southern Israel during the latest round of violence were manufactured in arch-foe Iran. Speaking to the parliament's powerful foreign affairs and defence committee, a senior military intelligence official said that over 20 Katyusha-type rockets, also known as Grad, were fired against Israel since last Thursday.We are talking about regular Iranian-made rockets, an official quoted the intelligence official as saying.The 122-millimetre rockets have a range of about 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) and carry a large payload which caused heavy damage to buildings in the southern coastal town of Ashkelon, which bore the brunt of the Grad rocket fire.Gaza militants have in recent years fired thousands of short-range makeshift rockets and mortars against southern Israel, but have only rarely fired the longer-range Grad-type rockets.Israel believes that over 100 such rockets were smuggled into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip through its porous border with Egypt in recent months following the Hamas violent takeover of the territory, a security official has told AFP.
More than 116 Palestinians, including 22 children, were killed during the latest escalation of violence in Gaza which erupted last Wednesday and ended early Monday morning. Two Israeli soldiers and one Israeli civilian have also been killed.Israel accuses Iran of actively backing and supplying arms to Hamas.
WE WILL SEE HOW THESE ARAB MUSLIMS BRAG WHEN IN THE FUTURE GOD DESTROYS 5/6TH OF THE RUSSIA - ARAB - MUSLIMS THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL. THEN WE WILL SEE WHO WILL HAVE THE BRAGGING RIGHTS. GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL REMEMBER THIS ARAB - MUSLIMS.
Hamas claims Gaza victory as Israel pulls back By Nidal al-Mughrabi MAR 3,08
GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas declared victory after Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday following a U.S. appeal to end days of fighting that killed more than 100 Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said despite the culmination of the five-day operation, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, Israel would take further action in the Gaza Strip until cross-border rocket fire was cut significantly.The withdrawal came in time for a two-day visit, beginning on Tuesday, by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a driving force behind peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that have so far shown little progress.The blood of Gaza's children has achieved victory and occupation will be removed, Hamas's Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement.Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction in June, vowed to continue firing rockets into Israel. It launched one into the main southern city of Ashkelon shortly after the troops withdrew, wounding one person.We are not willing to show tolerance, period. We will respond, Olmert said in broadcast remarks.A senior Israeli official said, however, there would be a two-day interval for a Rice's visit.
Israel had been under pressure from its allies in Washington to halt the violence after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended U.S.-backed peace talks in protest at the bloodshed.The Palestinian Health Ministry said 116 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza offensive. About half of them were civilians, medics say.
Many of the civilian casualties came when Israeli missiles fired by helicopters, jets and unmanned drones hit buildings and homes that the army said were being used by militants.
PEACE TALKS
Speaking after the pullout, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the talks, which Washington hopes can result in a statehood deal this year, would remain frozen for now.We are working hard to reach a full calm, a full cessation of hostilities. We want to make sure that what happened will not recur, Erekat said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said talks with Rice would focus on events in Gaza and Palestinian leaders would urge her to press Israel to end military operations there.Israel and the Palestinian Authority are divided over the scope of an agreement. Abbas seeks a full peace accord that would enable him to declare a state, while Olmert says the goal is an understanding of basic principles.In remarks to reporters, Riad al-Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, called for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in the Gaza Strip and in the occupied West Bank.
Such a move did not appear likely soon. Hamas opposes an international force.Addressing his centrist Kadima party, Olmert said he hoped to continue talks with Abbas, but under no circumstances will we restrain ourselves in the face of terror from Gaza.On Wednesday, an Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket, the first such death since May. Israel's security cabinet plans to meet on Wednesday to consider the government's next move in the Gaza Strip. In Gaza City, several thousand Hamas supporters took to the streets in celebration of the withdrawal. Some snapped photographs with gunmen. The Gaza violence touched off anti-Israeli protests in the West Bank, where a Jewish settler shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian on Monday in Ramallah after coming under attack by a crowd of rock-throwers, an Israeli police spokesman said. After Israeli troops left Gaza, municipal workers began repairing roads and power lines damaged in the fighting. Some grey concrete houses were pockmarked by bullet and missile holes. In Ashkelon, residents of a penthouse apartment hit by a Katyusha rocket picked through the debris.
Hamas says it fires rockets in self-defence, and that it would stop if Israel halted all military activity in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank and ended a Gaza blockade. Israel says security concerns dictate its actions and that raids have foiled militants' plans to attack Israelis. (Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Dan Williams and Adam Entous in Jerusalem and Ari Rabinovitch in Ashkelon; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Keith Weir)
Rice heads to Mideast to try to save peace plan By Sue Pleming MAR 3,08
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left for the Middle East on Monday to try to salvage U.S.-sponsored peace talks derailed by Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli towns and Israel's military response in Gaza. With U.S. credibility at stake, Rice faces an uphill battle to revive peace talks suspended over the weekend by pro-Western Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Washington wants those talks to result in a peace treaty by the end of the year but that hope seems increasingly unrealistic.While Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday in response to international appeals, a senior Israeli official described it as just a two-day interval during Rice's visit.More than 100 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza offensive, which followed rocket attacks by the Islamist group Hamas on Israeli towns. The U.S. reputation as an honest peace broker is under the spotlight again because of Washington's close ties to Israel.
U.S. officials said Rice would press Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to get back to talks despite the violence in Gaza, which Hamas seized in June, but conceded the timing of her long-arranged trip made it difficult.The most important thing is to keep moving the talks along, said a U.S. official who asked not to be identified.Certainly we do want to see negotiations resume, said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. All this points out the need for there to be progress in the negotiations and ultimately have a two-state solution. That's the answer to the violence that we've seen.We regret any loss of innocent life that has occurred, and certainly hope that the actions will end in the near future, he said. Asked if he was referring to the Israeli actions, Casey said, both sides.On Wednesday, an Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket, the first such death since May.In the run-up to the Annapolis conference in November that kicked off the talks, scores of former U.S. diplomats and Middle East experts warned Rice of the dangers of cutting off Gaza and isolating Hamas, which won 2006 elections there, saying this could ultimately derail any progress made in Abbas-Olmert talks.
MISTAKE TO GO
Some experts were skeptical whether Rice, whose first stop is Egypt on Tuesday, should go at all and predicted her presence could exacerbate rather than reduce tensions.Casey said he was not aware that any consideration was given to Rice calling off her trip.I think it is a mistake for Rice to travel to the region at this time. The public in the region sees the Bush administration as partly responsible for the devastation in Gaza and her appearance on the scene will only add to the anger, said Middle East expert Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland.Telhami said any revival of the peace process would have little resonance in the region. It's hard to see what good the trip can accomplish, he said.Middle East expert Nathan Brown, said her presence would only be useful if she had something to offer, such as a cease-fire deal, and that did not appear to be the case.The reason she is going is part of a process that is not leading anywhere to begin with -- the Annapolis process, said Brown, director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.
Israel says it is acting in self-defense to curb an increasing number of rocket attacks by Hamas Islamists and has shrugged off a U.N. accusation that it used excessive force.Abbas, who spoke to Rice on Sunday, ordered the talks be suspended until the aggression stopped. In her talks with Egypt's president and foreign minister on Tuesday, Rice will be looking for answers over how Cairo can secure its border crossing with Gaza. The border was blown apart in January by Hamas, enabling hundreds of thousands of Gazans to cross over into Egypt to get goods not available because of an Israeli economic blockade. Israeli officials have said some appear to have brought back arms and components to build rockets. The border has since then been sealed, although Egypt opened it up over the weekend to let dozens of wounded Palestinians receive care in Egyptian hospitals. Rice is set to meet Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Tuesday in the West Bank and will then go to Jerusalem for talks with Israeli leaders, before leaving for Brussels on Wednesday for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
(Editing by Alan Elsner)
A Gaza Quagmire for Israel? By TIM MCGIRK/JERUSALEM MAR 3,08
Tit-for-tat clashes in Gaza may escalate into the next quagmire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before the current fighting started, Israeli officials privately scoffed that they could live with an occasional Hamas or Islamic Jihad rocket fired into their territory by the Palestinian militants in Gaza. But that changed last week when Hamas, angered at the loss of five senior commanders in an Israeli air strike, began targeting Ashkelon again, sending a dozen powerful Grad missiles into the Israeli port roughly five miles from Gaza's northern frontier. In retaliation, the Israelis stormed into northern Gaza. On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended contact with Israel, as fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants raged on for a second day, leaving nearly 70 dead and hundreds more wounded. Abbas' walk-out may doom the visit this week by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who was due to fly into the Middle East to provide impetus for peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In light of the Israeli aggression, such communication has no meaning, said Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina. Abbas had no choice, say Palestinians. Even though Gaza is ruled by Abbas' Hamas rivals, pro-Gaza demonstrations have spread throughout the West Bank towns and cities under Abbas' control, with Palestinians there clashing with Israeli riot police. Many of the slogans they shouted were against Abbas, who is seen by many Palestinians as too pro-Israeli.
The brunt of the fighting occurred on Saturday when Israelis, in an operation named Warm Winter, stormed into northern Gaza with over a thousand troops backed by 30 tanks and helicopter gunships. They advanced to the edge of Jabaliya, a crowded refugee camp, and there took fire from gunmen hiding inside the buildings. After two Israeli soldiers were shot, eyewitnesses say, the Israelis retaliated with withering fire in all directions as they struggled to evacuate the wounded soldiers, who eventually died. On the Palestinian side, medical sources say that 25 of those killed were militants, the rest civilians, including women and children. Despite the fierce Israeli assault, militants kept firing a barrage of mortars and longer-range Katyusha rockets into southern Israel.
The Israeli attack on Gaza came after an Israeli student was killed in a rocket blast, and the port city of Ashkelon, with 120,000 residents, came under attack, showing Israelis for the first time that the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad had acquired a large arsenal of accurate, longer-range rockets. One Hamas commander told TIME by telephone: It's true that we're losing lives but we'll prove to the Arab world that we have the power to stand up to Israel. The Israeli combat brigade withdrew from northern Gaza early Monday morning, even as another rocket struck Ashkelon. Nevertheless, Israeli military spokesmen said Operation Warm Winter had succeeded in clearing out most of the area used by militant rocket launchers. There could be bigger battles to come. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert waved off calls of restraint from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who equally condemned both Israel for excessive and disproportionate use of force in Gaza and the militants for their unending barrage of rockets into southern Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, We are not happy about civilians being hurt in Gaza. Hamas and those who fire rockets at Israel are responsible and they will pay the price.If anything, the Israeli assault has steeled Gazans' support for Hamas. As one housewife in Jabalya watched the injured victims of an Israeli air strike being carted into an ambulance, she shouted, Keep hitting them with rockets. Take revenge for our children. Military sources say that after the initial thrust, the cabinet is now deciding whether to pull back or go into Gaza much harder and deeper, with division-strength troop numbers, to crush Hamas' organization and leadership. This is likely to be postponed until after the U.S. Secretary of State returns home, probably empty-handed, from her talks with Olmert and Abbas. On Saturday night, Israeli warplanes bombed the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh. He and other political and military leaders have gone into hiding. They fear, with good reason, that they will be targeted by an Israeli missile strike. The two choices facing Israeli are equally unpalatable: either negotiate with Hamas, considered a terrorist organization, or try to reconquer Gaza, with its hostile 1.5 million population, and get mired in a long and bloody assault, a mini-Iraq. View this article on Time.com
Long-range rockets fired from Gaza are Iranian: Israel army
MAR 3,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Israeli army on Monday said that all the long-range rockets fired by Gaza militants against southern Israel during the latest round of violence were manufactured in arch-foe Iran. Speaking to the parliament's powerful foreign affairs and defence committee, a senior military intelligence official said that over 20 Katyusha-type rockets, also known as Grad, were fired against Israel since last Thursday.We are talking about regular Iranian-made rockets, an official quoted the intelligence official as saying.The 122-millimetre rockets have a range of about 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) and carry a large payload which caused heavy damage to buildings in the southern coastal town of Ashkelon, which bore the brunt of the Grad rocket fire.Gaza militants have in recent years fired thousands of short-range makeshift rockets and mortars against southern Israel, but have only rarely fired the longer-range Grad-type rockets.Israel believes that over 100 such rockets were smuggled into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip through its porous border with Egypt in recent months following the Hamas violent takeover of the territory, a security official has told AFP.
More than 116 Palestinians, including 22 children, were killed during the latest escalation of violence in Gaza which erupted last Wednesday and ended early Monday morning. Two Israeli soldiers and one Israeli civilian have also been killed.Israel accuses Iran of actively backing and supplying arms to Hamas.
WE WILL SEE HOW THESE ARAB MUSLIMS BRAG WHEN IN THE FUTURE GOD DESTROYS 5/6TH OF THE RUSSIA - ARAB - MUSLIMS THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL. THEN WE WILL SEE WHO WILL HAVE THE BRAGGING RIGHTS. GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL REMEMBER THIS ARAB - MUSLIMS.
Hamas claims Gaza victory as Israel pulls back By Nidal al-Mughrabi MAR 3,08
GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas declared victory after Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday following a U.S. appeal to end days of fighting that killed more than 100 Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said despite the culmination of the five-day operation, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, Israel would take further action in the Gaza Strip until cross-border rocket fire was cut significantly.The withdrawal came in time for a two-day visit, beginning on Tuesday, by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a driving force behind peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that have so far shown little progress.The blood of Gaza's children has achieved victory and occupation will be removed, Hamas's Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement.Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction in June, vowed to continue firing rockets into Israel. It launched one into the main southern city of Ashkelon shortly after the troops withdrew, wounding one person.We are not willing to show tolerance, period. We will respond, Olmert said in broadcast remarks.A senior Israeli official said, however, there would be a two-day interval for a Rice's visit.
Israel had been under pressure from its allies in Washington to halt the violence after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended U.S.-backed peace talks in protest at the bloodshed.The Palestinian Health Ministry said 116 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza offensive. About half of them were civilians, medics say.
Many of the civilian casualties came when Israeli missiles fired by helicopters, jets and unmanned drones hit buildings and homes that the army said were being used by militants.
PEACE TALKS
Speaking after the pullout, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the talks, which Washington hopes can result in a statehood deal this year, would remain frozen for now.We are working hard to reach a full calm, a full cessation of hostilities. We want to make sure that what happened will not recur, Erekat said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said talks with Rice would focus on events in Gaza and Palestinian leaders would urge her to press Israel to end military operations there.Israel and the Palestinian Authority are divided over the scope of an agreement. Abbas seeks a full peace accord that would enable him to declare a state, while Olmert says the goal is an understanding of basic principles.In remarks to reporters, Riad al-Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, called for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in the Gaza Strip and in the occupied West Bank.
Such a move did not appear likely soon. Hamas opposes an international force.Addressing his centrist Kadima party, Olmert said he hoped to continue talks with Abbas, but under no circumstances will we restrain ourselves in the face of terror from Gaza.On Wednesday, an Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket, the first such death since May. Israel's security cabinet plans to meet on Wednesday to consider the government's next move in the Gaza Strip. In Gaza City, several thousand Hamas supporters took to the streets in celebration of the withdrawal. Some snapped photographs with gunmen. The Gaza violence touched off anti-Israeli protests in the West Bank, where a Jewish settler shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian on Monday in Ramallah after coming under attack by a crowd of rock-throwers, an Israeli police spokesman said. After Israeli troops left Gaza, municipal workers began repairing roads and power lines damaged in the fighting. Some grey concrete houses were pockmarked by bullet and missile holes. In Ashkelon, residents of a penthouse apartment hit by a Katyusha rocket picked through the debris.
Hamas says it fires rockets in self-defence, and that it would stop if Israel halted all military activity in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank and ended a Gaza blockade. Israel says security concerns dictate its actions and that raids have foiled militants' plans to attack Israelis. (Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Dan Williams and Adam Entous in Jerusalem and Ari Rabinovitch in Ashkelon; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Keith Weir)
Saturday, March 01, 2008
61 MURDERERS KILLED BY ISRAEL
WELL SOME CERTAIN MURDERERS ARE GETTING A TASTE OF THEIR OWN MEDICINE. ISRAEL SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS 7 YEARS AGO. NOW WATCH THE ARABS - MUSLIMS GO CRY TO THE UN AND THE WORLD THAT ISRAEL IS KILLING THEM OFF, MEANWHILE THESE ARAB MURDERERS SHOOT HUNDREDS OF ROCKETS INTO ISRAEL EACH WEEK. GO ISRAEL GO GOD IS WITH USE, GET MORE OF THE LAND PROMISED USE BY GOD. AND YES AS USUAL THE MEDIA CRY WOMEN AND CHILDREN DEAD WHILE ISRAELI WOMEN AND CHILDREN DEAD GET NO MEDIA ATTENTION AT ALL. IF THESE ARAB MURDERERS WOULD LEARN AND MOVE TO IRAN OR EGYPT WERE THEY BELONG AND GET OFF ISRAELS GOD GIVIN LAND THERE WOULD BE PEACE.
Palestinians' bloodiest day as Israel kills 61 By Nidal al-Mughrabi MAR 01,08
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed 61 people in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the bloodiest day for Palestinians since an uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000. Almost half the dead were civilians, including children.Israel, which lost two soldiers, seemed ready to press home its fiercest air and ground assault since it pulled troops back to the borders of the coastal enclave in 2005. It blamed rocket attacks by the Islamist Hamas movement for provoking four days of fighting, in which 96 Palestinians have been killed.
The U.N. Security Council prepared to meet in emergency session. A U.N. official in Gaza appealed for international action to end the inhuman suffering of its 1.5 million people and said killing women and children would not help Israel.U.S. President George W. Bush sounded more supportive of his Israeli allies. While regretting all loss of life, his spokesman said: There is a clear distinction between terrorist rocket attacks that target civilians and action in self-defence.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a sworn enemy of the Islamist militant group Hamas which took control of Gaza from his forces in June, called the attack more than a holocaust.
Aides to Abbas said fighting could wreck new U.S.-backed peace talks. Israeli officials said Palestinian chief negotiator Ahmed Qurie called his Israeli counterpart, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, to call off a meeting due on Monday. But Abbas's aides said no decision to suspend the process had been taken.Bush hopes for a deal on founding a Palestinian state before he leaves office in January. Many view that as very optimistic.At least 30 of the dead were civilians, among them women and children, said Palestinian doctors who worked round the clock.Two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven wounded, the army said -- its first deaths in Gaza since October. As troops backed by tanks pushed deep into areas from where rockets are fired, they met heavy gunfire and landmines, residents said.Another 48 rockets hit Israel, wounding several people. An Israeli civilian was killed on Wednesday, the first since May.Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israel was not happy civilians were being hurt but blamed Hamas for firing rockets from built-up areas and said it would pay the price.
RICE VISIT
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to visit Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert next week. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: If Israeli aggression continues, it will bury the peace process in the rubble.A spokesman for Israel's chief negotiator said: What Israel is doing in Gaza is fighting terror and it will be continued.At least 30 gunmen were killed, medical staff and Hamas said. Among targets was the empty office of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, whom Abbas fired as his prime minister after the Islamists routed his Western-backed forces in Gaza.
Medical staff said four people living nearby were wounded.
Uncle, I don't want to die. I want my dad, a toddler screamed as doctors tried to treat burn wounds across her body in Gaza's main Shifa hospital. The girl had been in a house which the Israeli army said was used to store and make weapons. One of the dead civilians was a mother who was preparing breakfast for her children when she was hit by gunfire, relatives and medical workers said. One missile slammed into a crowd of Palestinians, killing four civilians, medics said. In Damascus, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said: I say to the Zionist leaders, if they decided to raid Gaza, they will be fought not by dozens ... but ... by 1.5 million people.
A senior U.N. official in Gaza, John Ging, appealed to world leaders to stop the fighting: Killing Palestinian women and children will not bring security to the people of Israel, said Ging. He also said Hamas's rocket fire would not achieve Palestinians' goals. Daily rocket fire for months has put Olmert under pressure from voters to act. But the government, chastened by a costly war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon in 2006, is wary of an outright invasion of the densely populated coastal region. Olmert's deputy, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, said: We need to act with all our might, but without taking steps that will hurt us more than help us -- by which I mean reoccupying Gaza.He said the main targets would be those directly involved in firing rockets and the broader Islamist leadership in Gaza. Washington has urged Israel to consider the consequences.Abbas's power is now restricted to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While he would shed few tears if Israel destroyed Hamas, he risks losing already patchy support in the West Bank if he is not seen to be speaking out against the Israeli military action. Reflecting the depth of factional rifts among Palestinians, Abbas rejected a charge by Meshaal that he was giving cover to Israel. He declared Sunday a day of national mourning.(Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, Adam Entous, Avida Landau and Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah) (Writing by Alastair Macdonald, editing by Ralph Gowling)
US urges end to violence in Mideast: White House MAR 01,08
CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) - The United States on Saturday called for an end to violence in the Israel-Palestinian conflict but said Israel had a right to defend itself, a national security spokesman said.
The United States regrets the loss of life by Israeli and Palestinian civilians. We call for an end to violence and all acts of terrorism directed against innocent civilians, said national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.There is a clear distinction between terrorist rocket attacks that target civilians and action in self-defense, he said at President George W. Bush's Texas ranch.
The comments came after Israeli forces killed 61 Palestinians in a land and air blitz in the Hamas-held Gaza Strip on Saturday, according to medics, amid warnings that the violence had buried the peace process.It was the deadliest day since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005 and one of the most lethal Israeli operations since the Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000.Israel said it was fighting to halt Palestinian rocket attacks on towns in southern Israel.Fifty-four Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza, and two others in an air strike in the south of the territory which is ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas, medics said.At least 13 civilians, seven of them women and including children, were among the dead and more than 150 people were wounded, Dr Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services, told AFP.
Johndroe said the US administration remains deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and southern Israel.The spokesman said rocket attacks on Israel were an attempt to undermine peace negotiations between the two sides.There is a political process, he said. There is a path to peace and Palestinian statehood and these terrorist rocket attacks are deliberate attacks to derail the process.
Palestinians' bloodiest day as Israel kills 61 By Nidal al-Mughrabi MAR 01,08
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed 61 people in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the bloodiest day for Palestinians since an uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000. Almost half the dead were civilians, including children.Israel, which lost two soldiers, seemed ready to press home its fiercest air and ground assault since it pulled troops back to the borders of the coastal enclave in 2005. It blamed rocket attacks by the Islamist Hamas movement for provoking four days of fighting, in which 96 Palestinians have been killed.
The U.N. Security Council prepared to meet in emergency session. A U.N. official in Gaza appealed for international action to end the inhuman suffering of its 1.5 million people and said killing women and children would not help Israel.U.S. President George W. Bush sounded more supportive of his Israeli allies. While regretting all loss of life, his spokesman said: There is a clear distinction between terrorist rocket attacks that target civilians and action in self-defence.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a sworn enemy of the Islamist militant group Hamas which took control of Gaza from his forces in June, called the attack more than a holocaust.
Aides to Abbas said fighting could wreck new U.S.-backed peace talks. Israeli officials said Palestinian chief negotiator Ahmed Qurie called his Israeli counterpart, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, to call off a meeting due on Monday. But Abbas's aides said no decision to suspend the process had been taken.Bush hopes for a deal on founding a Palestinian state before he leaves office in January. Many view that as very optimistic.At least 30 of the dead were civilians, among them women and children, said Palestinian doctors who worked round the clock.Two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven wounded, the army said -- its first deaths in Gaza since October. As troops backed by tanks pushed deep into areas from where rockets are fired, they met heavy gunfire and landmines, residents said.Another 48 rockets hit Israel, wounding several people. An Israeli civilian was killed on Wednesday, the first since May.Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israel was not happy civilians were being hurt but blamed Hamas for firing rockets from built-up areas and said it would pay the price.
RICE VISIT
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to visit Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert next week. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: If Israeli aggression continues, it will bury the peace process in the rubble.A spokesman for Israel's chief negotiator said: What Israel is doing in Gaza is fighting terror and it will be continued.At least 30 gunmen were killed, medical staff and Hamas said. Among targets was the empty office of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, whom Abbas fired as his prime minister after the Islamists routed his Western-backed forces in Gaza.
Medical staff said four people living nearby were wounded.
Uncle, I don't want to die. I want my dad, a toddler screamed as doctors tried to treat burn wounds across her body in Gaza's main Shifa hospital. The girl had been in a house which the Israeli army said was used to store and make weapons. One of the dead civilians was a mother who was preparing breakfast for her children when she was hit by gunfire, relatives and medical workers said. One missile slammed into a crowd of Palestinians, killing four civilians, medics said. In Damascus, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said: I say to the Zionist leaders, if they decided to raid Gaza, they will be fought not by dozens ... but ... by 1.5 million people.
A senior U.N. official in Gaza, John Ging, appealed to world leaders to stop the fighting: Killing Palestinian women and children will not bring security to the people of Israel, said Ging. He also said Hamas's rocket fire would not achieve Palestinians' goals. Daily rocket fire for months has put Olmert under pressure from voters to act. But the government, chastened by a costly war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon in 2006, is wary of an outright invasion of the densely populated coastal region. Olmert's deputy, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, said: We need to act with all our might, but without taking steps that will hurt us more than help us -- by which I mean reoccupying Gaza.He said the main targets would be those directly involved in firing rockets and the broader Islamist leadership in Gaza. Washington has urged Israel to consider the consequences.Abbas's power is now restricted to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While he would shed few tears if Israel destroyed Hamas, he risks losing already patchy support in the West Bank if he is not seen to be speaking out against the Israeli military action. Reflecting the depth of factional rifts among Palestinians, Abbas rejected a charge by Meshaal that he was giving cover to Israel. He declared Sunday a day of national mourning.(Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, Adam Entous, Avida Landau and Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah) (Writing by Alastair Macdonald, editing by Ralph Gowling)
US urges end to violence in Mideast: White House MAR 01,08
CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) - The United States on Saturday called for an end to violence in the Israel-Palestinian conflict but said Israel had a right to defend itself, a national security spokesman said.
The United States regrets the loss of life by Israeli and Palestinian civilians. We call for an end to violence and all acts of terrorism directed against innocent civilians, said national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.There is a clear distinction between terrorist rocket attacks that target civilians and action in self-defense, he said at President George W. Bush's Texas ranch.
The comments came after Israeli forces killed 61 Palestinians in a land and air blitz in the Hamas-held Gaza Strip on Saturday, according to medics, amid warnings that the violence had buried the peace process.It was the deadliest day since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005 and one of the most lethal Israeli operations since the Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000.Israel said it was fighting to halt Palestinian rocket attacks on towns in southern Israel.Fifty-four Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza, and two others in an air strike in the south of the territory which is ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas, medics said.At least 13 civilians, seven of them women and including children, were among the dead and more than 150 people were wounded, Dr Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services, told AFP.
Johndroe said the US administration remains deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and southern Israel.The spokesman said rocket attacks on Israel were an attempt to undermine peace negotiations between the two sides.There is a political process, he said. There is a path to peace and Palestinian statehood and these terrorist rocket attacks are deliberate attacks to derail the process.
ISRAEL WARNS GAZA
Israel warns of disaster in Gaza By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer FEB 29,08
JERUSALEM - Israel's deputy defense minister warned of disaster in the Gaza Strip after Palestinian rocket fire grew more ominous Friday with an assault on an Israeli city. Gaza's unbowed Hamas rulers promised to fight on. Meanwhile, Hamas said a 13-month-old girl and three other civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on Beit Hanoun, a northern town in Gaza where Palestinian militants often launch rockets at Israel. But local residents said a militant rocket fell short and landed in the area of the baby's house.Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio that because of the militants' attacks, Israel had no other choice but to launch a massive military operation in the Gaza Strip.As the rocket fire grows, and the range increases ... they are bringing upon themselves a greater shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in airstrikes or on the ground, Vilnai said.The Hebrew word shoah most often refers to the Holocaust but Israelis use it to describe all sorts of disasters. A spokesman for Vilnai, Eitan Ginzburg, said the deputy defense minister never intended it as a reference to the Holocaust but used the word shoah to denote a disaster.
The escalating violence comes ahead of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the region next week. It also clouds already troubled efforts by Palestinians and Israel — and backed by Washington — to reach a peace accord by year's end.The Israeli military has completed preparations for a major ground offensive and notified the government it is ready to move, defense officials said. An invasion is not expected for the next week or two, in part because the military prefers to wait for clearer weather, the officials said.Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, dismissed Vilnai's comments, saying: We are not afraid of these threats.The violence highlights Hamas' role as a possible spoiler in peace talks. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could find it difficult to negotiate with Israel if there is an invasion of Gaza, and Israel's fragile governing coalition will find it hard to make concessions while Palestinian rockets reach deeper into its territory.Hamas and Abbas' Fatah are vying for control of the Palestinian territories. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, and Abbas and Fatah control a rival government in the West Bank.Abbas called on Israel to stop all attacks in Gaza and urged Palestinian militants to halt the rocket fire. It is in the interest of the Palestinian people not to give Israel any pretext to continue its aggressions, a statement from his office said.State Department spokesman Tom Casey denounced Hamas' rocket attacks as completely unacceptable and demanded they stop. He also said the U.S. regularly urges Israel to consider the consequences of its actions and to pay careful attention to the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people.
Tony Blair, the envoy of a group of international Mideast mediators known as the Quartet, condemned the Palestinian rocket attacks and urged Israel to do everything possible to avoid killing Palestinian civilians.Israel evacuated its troops and settlers from Gaza in late 2005. Hamas militants have since fired rockets into Israel from the territory that was abandoned.On Thursday, the threat escalated when Iranian-made rockets struck Ashkelon, a city 11 miles north of Gaza.Most previous rocket attacks targeted small border communities near Gaza. With the strike on Ashkelon, with 120,000 residents, pressure increased on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to protect the Israeli heartland.Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Friday that the assaults on Ashkelon demand an Israeli retaliation. He blamed Hamas for the spike in violence and said the militant movement would suffer the consequences.The military said Gaza militants fired 19 rockets on Friday, including one that struck an Israeli house, slightly injuring one person. An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza killed a Hamas militant in the midst of an attack on Israel, Hamas said. The latest round of violence began Wednesday after Israel killed two of the militants' rocket masterminds. Thirty-two Palestinians have died in the past three days, including 15 civilians. Eight were children, the youngest a 6-month-old boy.
An Israeli man was killed in a rocket attack on Sderot on Wednesday. Israel blamed the Palestinian civilian death toll on rocket squads operating within civilian areas of Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets Friday to bury their dead and protest the Israeli attacks. Some children at the protests wore white clothes stained with red paint to signify blood. Gaza's Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had been hiding for weeks for fear Israeli aircraft would fire missiles at him, but on Friday emerged for prayers and vowed Hamas would not be intimidated. You are mistaken if you thought that targeting buildings, ministries and police stations is going to stop our work, Haniyeh said, directing his comments at Israel. We will work under trees, in tents and in the streets.
King calls for US help in Middle East By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 29, 5:57 PM ET
PRINCETON, New Jersey - Jordan's King Abdullah II warned Friday that unless a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian agreement is reached during the Bush administration's final months, the chances for a lasting Middle East peace could be set back, perhaps for decades.We are in the best possible position to resolve 60 years of conflict between Israel and Palestine, Abdullah told an audience at Princeton University. It will be two or three years before a new American president will be willing to look at the Middle East.Bush leaves office in January.Abdullah's message was similar to one he delivered to a joint session of Congress last year and is what he will likely tell Bush when he meets with him at the White House on Tuesday.Abdullah said resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more important to the future of the Middle East than any other issue, including the war in Iraq. By agreeing soon to allow a Palestinian state, he said, Israel could quickly gain diplomatic and trade relationships with 57 countries that now refuse to deal with it.Key for the Palestinians in any peace deal is Israel's return to pre-1967 borders, the right of return of refugees and their descendants, and the status of Jerusalem — all issues that have derailed peace efforts before.
Abdullah's comments came as Israel's deputy defense minister threatened a major offensive if rocket attacks on Israel continue from the Gaza Strip. Israeli armaments targeted Palestinian rocket operations in Gaza, leaving 15 wounded, including four children, according to Gaza officials.Abdullah, 46, took the throne in Jordan in 1999 after his father, King Hussein died. Like his father, he is seen as a moderate in the Middle East.On Thursday, Abdullah met with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the situation in the region.
Hezbollah slams US warship as interference in Lebanon by Rana Moussaoui Fri Feb 29, 4:21 PM ET
BEIRUT (AFP) - The pro-Syrian Hezbollah on Friday slammed Washington's dispatch of the USS Cole to waters off Lebanon as military interference, as the Western-backed government said it did not ask for the warship to be sent. The condemnation came as pro-government dailies saw sending the vessel as a clear signal to Syria, which is being blamed by the ruling majority for blocking a presidential vote in Beirut.This decision proves that it's the United States which is interfering in Lebanese affairs, and that this interference has taken on a military slant, Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan told AFP.The United States said on Thursday it had sent the guided-missile destroyer to the waters off Lebanon, which has been embroiled in a paralysing political crisis for months.The USS Cole was the target of a bombing by Al-Qaeda extremists in October 2000 in the Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17US sailors.It is a show of support for regional stability because of concern about the situation in Lebanon, a US official said on condition of anonymity, declining to say that the show of force was meant for Syria or Iran.Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, whose government is backed by the West and most Arab countries, stressed during a meeting with Arab ambassadors that Beirut did not ask for the warship and summoned a top US diplomat for clarifications.We did not ask anyone to send warships, Siniora said, adding that no US warship was in Lebanese waters.Earlier Siniora summoned US charge d'affaires Michele Sison to ask her to clarify the presence of the USS Cole in the Mediterranean, a government source told AFP.
Mrs Sison assured him that the warship was in international waters and had been dispatched to guarantee regional stability, the source added.The United States, meanwhile, shrugged off Hezbollah's criticism.On Hezbollah's concerns, I would express some of our own concerns with Hezbollah's actions. So I'll just leave it at that, White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters.Lebanese parliament speaker and opposition member Nabih Berri meanwhile said in a television interview that the dispatch of the USS Cole was aimed at giving support to Israel's military action in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.The goal is to take attention away from what is happening in Gaza. The USS Cole is here to back the Israeli plan in Gaza, where 31 Palestinians have been killed since Wednesday in Israeli air strikes, he said.Lebanon has been without a president since last November amid political feuding between the ruling parliamentary majority and the opposition, backed by Syria and Iran.The majority accuses Syria of blocking efforts to elect a new president in Lebanon, which was under Syrian military domination for 29 years until Damascus withdrew its troops in April 2005.Fears of civil strife in Lebanon have mounted over the continued deadlock and warnings of wider conflict after the February 12 assassination in Syria of top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh.Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah mourned Mughnieh in a massive public rally, threatening open war against Israel, which fought a devastating July-August 2006 war against the Shiite group.
Wars begin by an exchange of messages. The American decision is the first message to its opponents in the region saying we are here, said Wehbe Katisha, a retired Lebanese army general. Beirut has also been the scene of recent street clashes between supporters of the rival factions, prompting several Gulf nations and Western states to advise their citizens against travelling to Lebanon.
Ashkelon Katyushas Came From Iran Via Egypt
by Ezra HaLevi MAR 01,08
(IsraelNN.com) Israel’s Foreign Ministry says the Grad-type Katyusha rockets fired at Ashkelon came from Iran and may lead Israel back to Gaza.In the past 24 hours, over 15 heavy rockets were fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza against Israel’s southern port city of Ashkelon, a Foreign Ministry dispatch to journalists and diplomatic staff said. The 122 mm Grad rockets (also known as Katyushas), are a type of standard military artillery weapon produced in the former Soviet bloc and by other states deploying non-Western arms. It is manufactured to military standards, by a conventional arms industry, and is equipped with a weapons-grade high explosive fragmentation warhead.The Foreign Ministry pointed the finger at Tehran. The Grad rockets fired today were apparently smuggled into Gaza from Iran via Egypt through tunnels and the breached Rafah border fence, the dispatch stated. Israel has repeatedly warned neighboring states and the international community about the arms buildup taking place in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Today’s attacks constitute a regretful yet unequivocal proof of the veracity of Israel’s warnings.Prior to the implementation of the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria, anti-expulsion activists placed posters all around Ashkelon proclaiming that the withdrawal would herald missiles on the port city and advising resident to oppose the move or prepare for the attacks. Thursday’s missiles slammed into the campus of Barzilai Hospital, destroyed a family home in one of the city’s neighborhood, made a large crater in one of the city’s streets and stuck the municipal cemetery. The Foreign Ministry statement ended with an acknowledgement echoing the predictions of Gaza’s Jewish evictees: that Israel will have no choice but return to settle the region. Israel left the Gaza Strip over two years ago, with no intention of ever returning, the statement said. Yet, the continued escalation of Hamas terrorism emanating from Gaza, purposely targeting Israeli civilians, is liable to leave Israel with no choice.
Ashkelon Shelling Draws Record Day of IAF Air Strikes on Gaza by Ezra HaLevi MAR 01,08
(IsraelNN.com) Israel ratcheted up its air strikes in Gaza in response to another day of heavy rocket fire on Sderot and Katyusha missiles on the city of Ashkelon.At least twenty people were killed in the air strikes. PA reports say five children are among the dead but the kids were apparently involved in moving rocket launchers.
Late Thursday afternoon, an IAF air strike hit a Hamas position outside the home of Hamas PA chief Ismail Haniyeh, killing one and wounding four others. Haniyeh has gone into hiding and was not home at the time. A day earlier another air strike targeted his office.
Another IAF strike killed two Hamas terrorists – one of them a son of senior Hamas official Khalil al-Haya who oversaw a rocket-launching cell. Al-Haya visited the Gaza morgue and declared that he was proud his son had died for the cause. I thank G-d for this gift. This is the 10th member of my family to receive the honor of martyrdom, he said. An air strike Thursday night targeted terrorists in a vehicle in Khan Younis. The vehicle was marked as a PA electric company car and both terrorists inside were killed. PA reports claimed the men were mere electric company workers.In Gaza City, two Hamas terrorists, members of the group’s Executive Guard military force, were killed in a strike on a truck carrying Kassam rockets near the Shifa Hospital. PA reports claimed the truck driven by the men in military-style uniforms was just carrying beverages.Four teenagers were killed in an air strike in the Jabalya area. The young men were in an open area used for rocket-fire at the time. PA reports claim they were playing soccer.Two other air strikes killed one Hamas terrorist each in northern Gaza. Two more strikes destroyed a large weapons warehouse and a Hamas training camp facility. Thursday morning a Gaza City strike killed a Hamas terrorist and two members of the Hizbullah-backed Popular Resistance Committee.
Israeli-Arab Teenage Terrorist Arrested in Jerusalem
The Shabak (General Security Service) released for publication the recent arrest of a 17-year-old female terrorist who intended to carry out a suicide bombing on a Jewish target in Israel. The girl enjoys Israeli citizenship and free passage to all Israeli and PA-controlled areas. The girl held several meetings with leading Islamic Jihad terrorist coordinators, where she expressed her hatred of Jews and intentions to carry out a suicide bombing. Two Israeli-Arab members of Islamic Jihad from Jerusalem were arrested in the case as well.The girl’s remand was extended Thursday by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court.
JERUSALEM - Israel's deputy defense minister warned of disaster in the Gaza Strip after Palestinian rocket fire grew more ominous Friday with an assault on an Israeli city. Gaza's unbowed Hamas rulers promised to fight on. Meanwhile, Hamas said a 13-month-old girl and three other civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on Beit Hanoun, a northern town in Gaza where Palestinian militants often launch rockets at Israel. But local residents said a militant rocket fell short and landed in the area of the baby's house.Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio that because of the militants' attacks, Israel had no other choice but to launch a massive military operation in the Gaza Strip.As the rocket fire grows, and the range increases ... they are bringing upon themselves a greater shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in airstrikes or on the ground, Vilnai said.The Hebrew word shoah most often refers to the Holocaust but Israelis use it to describe all sorts of disasters. A spokesman for Vilnai, Eitan Ginzburg, said the deputy defense minister never intended it as a reference to the Holocaust but used the word shoah to denote a disaster.
The escalating violence comes ahead of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the region next week. It also clouds already troubled efforts by Palestinians and Israel — and backed by Washington — to reach a peace accord by year's end.The Israeli military has completed preparations for a major ground offensive and notified the government it is ready to move, defense officials said. An invasion is not expected for the next week or two, in part because the military prefers to wait for clearer weather, the officials said.Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, dismissed Vilnai's comments, saying: We are not afraid of these threats.The violence highlights Hamas' role as a possible spoiler in peace talks. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could find it difficult to negotiate with Israel if there is an invasion of Gaza, and Israel's fragile governing coalition will find it hard to make concessions while Palestinian rockets reach deeper into its territory.Hamas and Abbas' Fatah are vying for control of the Palestinian territories. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, and Abbas and Fatah control a rival government in the West Bank.Abbas called on Israel to stop all attacks in Gaza and urged Palestinian militants to halt the rocket fire. It is in the interest of the Palestinian people not to give Israel any pretext to continue its aggressions, a statement from his office said.State Department spokesman Tom Casey denounced Hamas' rocket attacks as completely unacceptable and demanded they stop. He also said the U.S. regularly urges Israel to consider the consequences of its actions and to pay careful attention to the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people.
Tony Blair, the envoy of a group of international Mideast mediators known as the Quartet, condemned the Palestinian rocket attacks and urged Israel to do everything possible to avoid killing Palestinian civilians.Israel evacuated its troops and settlers from Gaza in late 2005. Hamas militants have since fired rockets into Israel from the territory that was abandoned.On Thursday, the threat escalated when Iranian-made rockets struck Ashkelon, a city 11 miles north of Gaza.Most previous rocket attacks targeted small border communities near Gaza. With the strike on Ashkelon, with 120,000 residents, pressure increased on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to protect the Israeli heartland.Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Friday that the assaults on Ashkelon demand an Israeli retaliation. He blamed Hamas for the spike in violence and said the militant movement would suffer the consequences.The military said Gaza militants fired 19 rockets on Friday, including one that struck an Israeli house, slightly injuring one person. An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza killed a Hamas militant in the midst of an attack on Israel, Hamas said. The latest round of violence began Wednesday after Israel killed two of the militants' rocket masterminds. Thirty-two Palestinians have died in the past three days, including 15 civilians. Eight were children, the youngest a 6-month-old boy.
An Israeli man was killed in a rocket attack on Sderot on Wednesday. Israel blamed the Palestinian civilian death toll on rocket squads operating within civilian areas of Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets Friday to bury their dead and protest the Israeli attacks. Some children at the protests wore white clothes stained with red paint to signify blood. Gaza's Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had been hiding for weeks for fear Israeli aircraft would fire missiles at him, but on Friday emerged for prayers and vowed Hamas would not be intimidated. You are mistaken if you thought that targeting buildings, ministries and police stations is going to stop our work, Haniyeh said, directing his comments at Israel. We will work under trees, in tents and in the streets.
King calls for US help in Middle East By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 29, 5:57 PM ET
PRINCETON, New Jersey - Jordan's King Abdullah II warned Friday that unless a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian agreement is reached during the Bush administration's final months, the chances for a lasting Middle East peace could be set back, perhaps for decades.We are in the best possible position to resolve 60 years of conflict between Israel and Palestine, Abdullah told an audience at Princeton University. It will be two or three years before a new American president will be willing to look at the Middle East.Bush leaves office in January.Abdullah's message was similar to one he delivered to a joint session of Congress last year and is what he will likely tell Bush when he meets with him at the White House on Tuesday.Abdullah said resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more important to the future of the Middle East than any other issue, including the war in Iraq. By agreeing soon to allow a Palestinian state, he said, Israel could quickly gain diplomatic and trade relationships with 57 countries that now refuse to deal with it.Key for the Palestinians in any peace deal is Israel's return to pre-1967 borders, the right of return of refugees and their descendants, and the status of Jerusalem — all issues that have derailed peace efforts before.
Abdullah's comments came as Israel's deputy defense minister threatened a major offensive if rocket attacks on Israel continue from the Gaza Strip. Israeli armaments targeted Palestinian rocket operations in Gaza, leaving 15 wounded, including four children, according to Gaza officials.Abdullah, 46, took the throne in Jordan in 1999 after his father, King Hussein died. Like his father, he is seen as a moderate in the Middle East.On Thursday, Abdullah met with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the situation in the region.
Hezbollah slams US warship as interference in Lebanon by Rana Moussaoui Fri Feb 29, 4:21 PM ET
BEIRUT (AFP) - The pro-Syrian Hezbollah on Friday slammed Washington's dispatch of the USS Cole to waters off Lebanon as military interference, as the Western-backed government said it did not ask for the warship to be sent. The condemnation came as pro-government dailies saw sending the vessel as a clear signal to Syria, which is being blamed by the ruling majority for blocking a presidential vote in Beirut.This decision proves that it's the United States which is interfering in Lebanese affairs, and that this interference has taken on a military slant, Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan told AFP.The United States said on Thursday it had sent the guided-missile destroyer to the waters off Lebanon, which has been embroiled in a paralysing political crisis for months.The USS Cole was the target of a bombing by Al-Qaeda extremists in October 2000 in the Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17US sailors.It is a show of support for regional stability because of concern about the situation in Lebanon, a US official said on condition of anonymity, declining to say that the show of force was meant for Syria or Iran.Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, whose government is backed by the West and most Arab countries, stressed during a meeting with Arab ambassadors that Beirut did not ask for the warship and summoned a top US diplomat for clarifications.We did not ask anyone to send warships, Siniora said, adding that no US warship was in Lebanese waters.Earlier Siniora summoned US charge d'affaires Michele Sison to ask her to clarify the presence of the USS Cole in the Mediterranean, a government source told AFP.
Mrs Sison assured him that the warship was in international waters and had been dispatched to guarantee regional stability, the source added.The United States, meanwhile, shrugged off Hezbollah's criticism.On Hezbollah's concerns, I would express some of our own concerns with Hezbollah's actions. So I'll just leave it at that, White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters.Lebanese parliament speaker and opposition member Nabih Berri meanwhile said in a television interview that the dispatch of the USS Cole was aimed at giving support to Israel's military action in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.The goal is to take attention away from what is happening in Gaza. The USS Cole is here to back the Israeli plan in Gaza, where 31 Palestinians have been killed since Wednesday in Israeli air strikes, he said.Lebanon has been without a president since last November amid political feuding between the ruling parliamentary majority and the opposition, backed by Syria and Iran.The majority accuses Syria of blocking efforts to elect a new president in Lebanon, which was under Syrian military domination for 29 years until Damascus withdrew its troops in April 2005.Fears of civil strife in Lebanon have mounted over the continued deadlock and warnings of wider conflict after the February 12 assassination in Syria of top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh.Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah mourned Mughnieh in a massive public rally, threatening open war against Israel, which fought a devastating July-August 2006 war against the Shiite group.
Wars begin by an exchange of messages. The American decision is the first message to its opponents in the region saying we are here, said Wehbe Katisha, a retired Lebanese army general. Beirut has also been the scene of recent street clashes between supporters of the rival factions, prompting several Gulf nations and Western states to advise their citizens against travelling to Lebanon.
Ashkelon Katyushas Came From Iran Via Egypt
by Ezra HaLevi MAR 01,08
(IsraelNN.com) Israel’s Foreign Ministry says the Grad-type Katyusha rockets fired at Ashkelon came from Iran and may lead Israel back to Gaza.In the past 24 hours, over 15 heavy rockets were fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza against Israel’s southern port city of Ashkelon, a Foreign Ministry dispatch to journalists and diplomatic staff said. The 122 mm Grad rockets (also known as Katyushas), are a type of standard military artillery weapon produced in the former Soviet bloc and by other states deploying non-Western arms. It is manufactured to military standards, by a conventional arms industry, and is equipped with a weapons-grade high explosive fragmentation warhead.The Foreign Ministry pointed the finger at Tehran. The Grad rockets fired today were apparently smuggled into Gaza from Iran via Egypt through tunnels and the breached Rafah border fence, the dispatch stated. Israel has repeatedly warned neighboring states and the international community about the arms buildup taking place in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Today’s attacks constitute a regretful yet unequivocal proof of the veracity of Israel’s warnings.Prior to the implementation of the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria, anti-expulsion activists placed posters all around Ashkelon proclaiming that the withdrawal would herald missiles on the port city and advising resident to oppose the move or prepare for the attacks. Thursday’s missiles slammed into the campus of Barzilai Hospital, destroyed a family home in one of the city’s neighborhood, made a large crater in one of the city’s streets and stuck the municipal cemetery. The Foreign Ministry statement ended with an acknowledgement echoing the predictions of Gaza’s Jewish evictees: that Israel will have no choice but return to settle the region. Israel left the Gaza Strip over two years ago, with no intention of ever returning, the statement said. Yet, the continued escalation of Hamas terrorism emanating from Gaza, purposely targeting Israeli civilians, is liable to leave Israel with no choice.
Ashkelon Shelling Draws Record Day of IAF Air Strikes on Gaza by Ezra HaLevi MAR 01,08
(IsraelNN.com) Israel ratcheted up its air strikes in Gaza in response to another day of heavy rocket fire on Sderot and Katyusha missiles on the city of Ashkelon.At least twenty people were killed in the air strikes. PA reports say five children are among the dead but the kids were apparently involved in moving rocket launchers.
Late Thursday afternoon, an IAF air strike hit a Hamas position outside the home of Hamas PA chief Ismail Haniyeh, killing one and wounding four others. Haniyeh has gone into hiding and was not home at the time. A day earlier another air strike targeted his office.
Another IAF strike killed two Hamas terrorists – one of them a son of senior Hamas official Khalil al-Haya who oversaw a rocket-launching cell. Al-Haya visited the Gaza morgue and declared that he was proud his son had died for the cause. I thank G-d for this gift. This is the 10th member of my family to receive the honor of martyrdom, he said. An air strike Thursday night targeted terrorists in a vehicle in Khan Younis. The vehicle was marked as a PA electric company car and both terrorists inside were killed. PA reports claimed the men were mere electric company workers.In Gaza City, two Hamas terrorists, members of the group’s Executive Guard military force, were killed in a strike on a truck carrying Kassam rockets near the Shifa Hospital. PA reports claimed the truck driven by the men in military-style uniforms was just carrying beverages.Four teenagers were killed in an air strike in the Jabalya area. The young men were in an open area used for rocket-fire at the time. PA reports claim they were playing soccer.Two other air strikes killed one Hamas terrorist each in northern Gaza. Two more strikes destroyed a large weapons warehouse and a Hamas training camp facility. Thursday morning a Gaza City strike killed a Hamas terrorist and two members of the Hizbullah-backed Popular Resistance Committee.
Israeli-Arab Teenage Terrorist Arrested in Jerusalem
The Shabak (General Security Service) released for publication the recent arrest of a 17-year-old female terrorist who intended to carry out a suicide bombing on a Jewish target in Israel. The girl enjoys Israeli citizenship and free passage to all Israeli and PA-controlled areas. The girl held several meetings with leading Islamic Jihad terrorist coordinators, where she expressed her hatred of Jews and intentions to carry out a suicide bombing. Two Israeli-Arab members of Islamic Jihad from Jerusalem were arrested in the case as well.The girl’s remand was extended Thursday by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court.
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