Israel rejects truce with Hamas By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer DEC 23,07
JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister pledged Sunday to continue attacking Gaza militants, ruling out truce negotiations with Hamas amid widespread skepticism about the Islamic group's ability to halt rocket attacks. An Israeli cabinet minister, meanwhile, angered moderate Palestinians with another plan for new Jewish housing in a disputed part of Jerusalem, complicating renewed peace talks.There have been almost daily reports of truce feelers from the embattled Islamic Hamas regime in Gaza, and Israeli defense officials have said they are examining the proposals.
But at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected negotiations with Hamas because it has rebuffed international demands that it recognize Israel, renounce violence and endorse past peace accords.There is no other way to describe what is happening in the Gaza Strip except as a true war between the Israeli army and terrorist elements, Olmert told his cabinet, ruling out truce talks.The truce feelers started surfacing last week after two days of Israeli airstrikes killed 12 people, including two top commanders of the militant Islamic Jihad group. The first came through a call from Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh to an Israeli TV reporter and later, by way of Egypt, which has mediated several other past truces.Hamas has offered to persuade fellow militants in Gaza to stop their daily rocket fire if Israel halts its air and ground operations in the coastal strip.
But Israel doubts whether Hamas has either the will or the ability to force the other militants to stop firing rockets.Islamic Jihad is behind most of the rocket salvos, and on Sunday, the group again rejected a truce with Israel. By nightfall, four rockets fired from Gaza exploded in Israel, one damaging a factory near the southern city of Ashkelon, the military said.We have declared (this war) and we will continue, Olmert said at the start of the cabinet meeting, which was open to the media. This is true regarding Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all other elements.Despite their overt rejections of a formal cease-fire, Israeli officials have been saying a formal truce is unnecessary. They say if Gaza militants stop the rocket fire, Israel would have no reason to attack.Israeli officials said Defense Minister Ehud Barak will travel this week to Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak. It was unclear whether a cease-fire would be on the agenda.Also Sunday, Israel allocated $207 million over five years to develop a system, with the U.S., to shoot down missiles such as the ones fired from Gaza or during last year's war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.After Hamas overran Gaza in June, expelling forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel and Egypt closed their borders with Gaza, further worsening the critical economic situation there.In parallel, the West began promoting the rival Abbas government in the West Bank, renewing aid cut off after Hamas won a 2006 election.At Mideast conference hosted by President Bush last month in Annapolis, Md., Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace talks for the first time in seven years.
But disputes over Israeli construction in Jerusalem have harmed the atmosphere. Just before the talks restarted, Israel announced a plan to build 307 apartments in Har Homa in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed.The international community never recognized Israeli sovereignty over east Jerusalem, and Palestinians claim the area as the capital of the state they want to create. On Sunday Rafi Eitan, minister for Jerusalem affairs, confirmed that the Construction Ministry's proposed budget for 2008 includes 500 new apartments for Har Homa, as well as 240 new apartments in Maaleh Adumim, a major West Bank settlement just outside Jerusalem. Eitan told Army Radio that Israel never promised to halt construction within the municipal borders of Jerusalem. Eitan called both areas integral parts of Jerusalem. Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said he was not aware of the plan to expand Har Homa and said there was no new decision for additional construction in Maaleh Adumim. Abbas charged that the construction projects undermined new peace efforts. The negotiations are facing obstacles, Abbas told members of his Fatah Party. We can't understand these settlement activities at a time we're talking about final status negotiations.
Israel okays short-range missile defence shield DEC 23,07
JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Israeli government earmarked more than 200 million dollars (140 million euros) on Sunday for the development of an advanced defence system aimed at countering rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon. The security cabinet allocated 811 million shekels (207 million dollars, 144 million euros) towards the development and manufacture of the system over the coming five years, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the system -- dubbed The Iron Dome -- would be operational within 30 months.I hope that the first systems will be deployed near Sderot then, Barak told reporters in parliament, referring to the hard-hit town in southern Israel which comes under nearly daily rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.The defence ministry first ordered the system's development by the Israeli arms firm Rafael in February.The Iron Dome is part of a multi-layered defence system aimed at protecting Israel from both short-range missiles and rockets fired by militants in Gaza or Lebanon, and longer-range missiles in the arsenals of regional foes Iran and Syria.The Israeli army has had little success in ending the nearly daily rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which has killed 12 people in southern Israel since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000.On Sunday, a rocket fired from northern Gaza hit a factory in the town of Ashkelon, home to 120,000 people, causing damage to the factory but no casualties, the army said.
Gaza's Christians keep low Xmas profile By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer DEC 23,07
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Gaza's tiny Christian community is keeping a low profile this Christmas, traumatized by the killing of a prominent activist in the wake of Hamas' takeover of the coastal territory. Few Christmas trees are on display, churches are holding austere services and hundreds of Christians hope to travel to the moderate-controlled West Bank to celebrate the holiday in Bethlehem. Many say they don't plan on returning to Gaza.We have a very sad Christmas, said Essam Farah, acting pastor of Gaza's Baptist Church, which has canceled its annual children's party because of the grim atmosphere.About 3,000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly conservative Muslim territory of 1.5 million people. It has been virtually cut off from the world and its residents driven deeper into poverty since the June takeover by Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States.Christians and Muslims have generally had cordial relations over the years in Gaza, but that relationship has been shaky since Hamas seized control and tensions were exacerbated with the recent death of 32-year-old Rami Ayyad.
Ayyad, a member of the Baptist Church, managed Gaza's only Christian bookstore. In early October, he was found shot in the head, his body thrown on a Gaza street 10 hours after he was kidnapped from the store.He regularly received death threats from people angry about his perceived missionary work — a rarity among Gaza's Christians — and the store was firebombed six months before the kidnapping.No group claimed responsibility for the killing, and no one has openly accused Hamas of persecution. But Christians fear that the Hamas takeover, along with the lack of progress in finding Ayyad's killers, has emboldened Islamic extremists.Hamas has tried to calm jittery Christians with reassuring handshakes and official visits promising justice.Hamas will not spare any effort to find the culprits of this crime and bring them to justice, said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. He insisted the killing was not religiously motivated.At the Baptist Church on Sunday, just 10 people attended the regular weekly prayer service, down from an average of 70. There was no Christmas tree in sight.Farah said the church's full-time pastor, along with his family and 12 employees of Ayyad's store, have relocated to the West Bank, where President Mahmoud Abbas heads a pro-Western government. Farah said he prayed for forgiveness and love among Muslims and Christians.Community leaders say an unprecedented number of Christian families are already migrating from Gaza — rattled by the religious tensions and tough economic sanctions Israel imposed on the area after the Hamas takeover.While no official statistics were available, the signs of the flight are evident. Rev. Manuel Musallem, head of Gaza's Roman Catholic church, said he alone knows of seven families that sold their properties and left the area, and 15 more are preparing to do the same.Musallem blamed Israeli sanctions and excessive violence in Gaza for the flight.
In previous years we didn't see this rate of migration, Musallem said. Now, exit is not on individual basis. Whole families are leaving, selling their cars, homes and all their properties.The signs of despair are evident at Ayyad's home. Posters declaring him a martyr of Jesus hang on the walls. There is no Christmas tree this year.Ayyad's older brother, 35-year old Ibrahim, said his 6-year old son, Khedr, was nagged in school about his uncle's murder. Muslim schoolmates call him infidel.Ayyad's wife, Pauline, 29, left for Bethlehem a month ago with her two children. She said their 3-year-old son, George, has been shattered by his father's death. I tell him Papa Noel (Santa Claus) is coming to see you, and he tells me he wants Papa Rami, she said tearfully during a telephone interview. Pauline, who is seven months pregnant, said she plans to come back to Gaza for the birth. But many Christians privately said they would use their travel permits to leave Gaza for good, even if that means remaining in the West Bank as illegal residents. Israeli security officials said they were permitting 400Gaza Christians to travel through Israel to Bethlehem for Christmas. A family of four, refusing to be identified for fear their permits would be revoked, have sold their house and car and packed their bags. The wife has transferred her job to the West Bank and enrolled her son and daughter in school there. We fear what is to come, said the husband. Fouad, a distant relative of Ayyad, said he also is packing up. He said his father, a guard at a local church, was stopped recently by unknown bearded men who put a gun to his head before he was rescued by passers-by.
We don't know why it happened, the 20-year-old police officer said. We can't be sure how they (Muslims) think anymore.Those who are staying are trying to limit the risks. Nazek Surri, a Roman Catholic, walked out from Sunday's service with a Muslim-style scarf covering her head. We have to respect the atmosphere we are living in. We have to go with the trend, she said.
