ISRAELI ELECTIONS TOMORROW

Ex UN-envoy to head probe of Israel's Gaza attacks Mon Feb 9, 6:53 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Former UN envoy Ian Martin is to head a five-member panel that will probe last month's Israeli attacks on UN facilities in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian UN observer Ryad Mansour said Monday.Mansour told reporters that UN chief Ban Ki-moon informed the UN Security Council Monday that Martin, a former UN envoy to Nepal who earlier served as secretary general of Amnesty International, would lead the commission.Ban informed the 15-member UN Security Council during closed-door consultations that the panel would be composed of four individuals and a member of the (UN) secretariat and would be headed by Ian Martin, the Palestinian observer said.Mansour described Ban's move as a positive and responsive development, a step in the right direction of investigating crimes committed by Israel.Ban last month demanded a full explanation from Israel after its forces struck several UN facilities in Gaza, including a compound of the UN agency providing aid for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), and UN-run schools, during a 22-day military onslaught to stop rocket firing by Palestinian militants.The Israeli offensive killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and left some 5,400 wounded and 14,000 homes razed.On the Israeli side, three civilians and 10 soldiers were killed in combat and by rocket fire.Martin, a Briton with some 30 years of experience in the field of human rights, served as secretary general of Amnesty International from 1986 to 1992.He later served as UN special envoy to East Timor and more recently to Nepal.

Gaza militant dies in border clash on election eve By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer – Mon Feb 9, 2:40 pm ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli aircraft struck two targets in the Gaza Strip and a militant died in a clash with troops on the border Monday, as an official of the moderate Palestinian government accused Hamas of trying to boost hawkish candidates in Israel's election.The violence a day before the vote came while Egyptian mediators continued their effort to cement a long-term cease-fire between Hamas and Israel after the three weeks of intense fighting that wracked the coastal territory last month.Israel's military said the two airstrikes early in the day targeted militants positions and were a response to rocket fire from Gaza aimed at southern Israel on Sunday.The military also said soldiers spotted an armed militant trying to sneak into Israel from Gaza overnight and opened fire, after which a bomb belt the man was wearing detonated. The militant group Islamic Jihad said that one of its fighters had been killed, but blamed an airstrike.Riad Malki, foreign minister in the moderate Palestinian government based in the West Bank, charged that Gaza's Hamas rulers were firing rockets into Israel in hopes of influencing Tuesday national election.He said Hamas didn't want to see a pro-peace government elected in Israel because it would pursue a political deal with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Islamic militant group wants instability in the region, Malki said during a visit to Poland.Abbas' government is very much worried that the rocket attacks might really push Israeli public opinion and the voters to vote for an anti-peace government, Malki told reporters in Warsaw.

Citing security concerns, Israel imposed a closure on the West Bank during the voting, banning Palestinians from entering Israel. A military statement said exceptions would be made for humanitarian cases. Gaza Palestinians are banned from Israel under a long-standing order.The violence coincided with stepped-up efforts to strengthen the shaky cease-fire that ended Israel's devastating offensive. Israel unilaterally ended its offensive Jan. 18 and Hamas announced its own cease-fire the same day, but clashes have continued.In talks being mediated by Egypt, Hamas is seeking to get Gaza's blockaded border crossings open, while Israel wants an end to arms smuggling into the territory and the return of a soldier captured in June 2006.

A delegation of Hamas leaders from Gaza was in Damascus, Syria, on Monday to consult with the Islamic movement's exiled leadership and was expected to travel to Cairo later in the day.Because Israel and Egypt have blockaded Gaza since Hamas gunmen seized control of the territory in June 2007, most Gazans depend on U.N. food and other aid.U.N. shipments were cut off last week after Hamas officials took thousands of U.N. blankets, food parcels and tons of rice and flour. On Monday, John Ging, head of U.N. relief operations in Gaza, said Hamas officials returned the cargo and U.N. officials had lifted its freeze.The United Nations is under pressure to show international donors that it is independent of Hamas as it seeks funding to rebuild the territory since the cease-fire. The United States, Israel and the European Union consider Hamas to be a terrorist group.

Tens of thousands rally for PLO in West Bank
Mon Feb 9, 9:32 AM

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied in support of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on Monday as its West Bank leaders railed against the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza.Demonstrators filled the streets in the centre of the West Bank town of Ramallah, the political headquarters of Palestinian president and PLO chairman Mahmud Abbas, whose forces were driven from Gaza by Hamas in June 2007.Demonstrators carried Palestinian flags and portraits of Abbas and his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, as PLO leaders slammed Hamas's call for a new organisation to lead the Palestinian struggle.The great masses have come to Ramallah today because of their deep convictions regarding the necessity of preserving the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, Tayeb Abdelrahim, a senior Palestinian Authority official close to Abbas, said in a speech.He then launched into a criticism of Hamas, referring to fascist powers that sought to hijack the history of the Palestinian struggle and who were shackled to foreign and regional agendas.Hamas and their plots will end up in the dustbin of history, he said.Hamas's exiled political chief Khaled Meshaal has called for an alternative to the PLO that would include Hamas and the radical Islamic Jihad group.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation in its current form does not represent any more a point of reference for the Palestinians, Meshaal said last month, calling it a centre of division for the Palestinian household.The PLO, recognised internationally as the sole representative of the Palestinian cause since 1974, has held formal peace talks with Israel since 1993 in pursuit of a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict.Hamas and Abbas's Fatah party -- the most powerful group within the PLO -- have been deeply divided since the takeover of Gaza, a rift that has widened since Israel's three-week offensive against the enclave last month.

Abdelrahim ridiculed Hamas's declaration of victory in the conflict that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, accusing the Islamist group of targeting its Palestinian rivals during the fighting.The victory was for the steadfastness of our people, amongst whom (Hamas) were hiding, he said.They did not emerge until the aggression had come to a temporary halt. They came out to open fire on our fighters from every faction of the PLO, only to then return to their holes underground.

Abbas ready to cooperate with any new Israeli government Mon Feb 9, 8:51 am ET

WARSAW (AFP) – Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas said Monday in Warsaw he was ready to cooperate with any new Israeli government that emerges from Tuesday's general election.But he added that the Palestinians expected Israel to stop building new settlements in the occupied territories.I don't know who will win the elections, but we will cooperate with any new Israeli government emerging from the elections on the basis of the bilateral accords and the international resolutions which have been adopted up to this point, Abbas said at a joint press conference with Poland's President Lech Kaczynski.We also expect that the new Israeli government will stop installing new settlements. If the new government does not do this, I don't know what will become of the peace process, Abbas said in Arabic, speaking through an interpreter.I call on Israel to meet its obligations, otherwise the entire world will be frustrated that peace is not coming and that violence and terrorism are knocking at our door -- it is the only alternative to peace.

For his part Kaczynski called on Israel for moderation.

Poland has and wants good and friendly relations with Israel but we are also calling on Israel to exercise moderation, Kaczynski said.Abbas also said he was hopeful the new US administration of President Barack Obama could ease the Middle East crisis which has recently seen more than 1,300 deaths in Gaza.He said he has spoken personally with Obama and expressed optimism about his dispatching negotiator George Mitchell to the region.He (Obama) understands that peace in the Middle East is fundamental to the security of the United States, Abbas said.Speaking earlier in Warsaw, Palestinian Authority foreign minister Riad Al-Malki said recent Hamas rocket attacks on Israel ahead of its general election Tuesday showed Hamas wants to undermine peace efforts in the region.Hamas does not want a peace government in Israel to be elected in order to pursue political negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, said Al-Malki about the rival Islamist movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip.The landing of the two rockets yesterday (Sunday) is a way to interfere in the outcome of the Israeli elections, he said at a joint press conference with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.That is why we are worried that such attacks might really interfere negatively during the outcome and might really push Israeli public opinion and the voters to vote for an anti-peace government, he said.

Gaza smugglers say Egypt tightening tunnel trade by Joseph Krauss FEB 8,09

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AFP) – In the dunes of rubble along the Gaza border work crews are excavating scores of bombed tunnels, but smugglers say Egyptian forces on the other side are gradually choking off their trade.The Egyptians have deployed everywhere on the other side and they have set up cameras. We haven't been able to bring anything in since Thursday, said Abu Mohammed, a Gaza tunnel owner who declined to give his real name.The bombed border area a few metres from his house resembles a vast mining camp, with scores of crews repairing the tunnels -- many using earthmovers. No one expects the new security measures to last for long.The thriving tunnel trade survived Israel's three-week onslaught last month and most diggers expect the tunnels will remain as long as Israel and Egypt refuse to open the border crossings of the Hamas-ruled enclave.Abu Mohammed's tunnel was still intact after the war, and he said that until Thursday he was bringing in 15 tonnes of goods each day, a shipment worth around 12,000 dollars (9,400 euros).They forced the tunnels on us with the siege. How else are we supposed to feed our families? How else are we supposed to get fuel and cement? he said.Israel and Egypt have sealed the Gaza Strip off from all but vital humanitarian aid since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in June 2007.Since then the tunnels beneath the 14-kilometre (eight-mile) border -- which were mostly used for smuggling weapons before Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005 -- have become a mainstay of the local economy.

Israel accuses Hamas of using the tunnels to bring in advanced weapons supplied by Iran, but smugglers say with the exception of a few secret Hamas-run tunnels the passages are used only for food and basic goods.Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza side of the Rafah border during the offensive and the military said it destroyed 60 to 70 percent of the tunnels.Israeli forces have struck the tunnels on several occasions since the war ended on January 18 -- but to little effect, according to smugglers.Abu Mahmud, another tunnel owner, said the diggers receive tip-offs from people in Egypt before each strike. Everyone knows when it is going to happen. We all leave the area,he said.Of greater concern to the smugglers are developments on the other side of the border, where Egyptian forces have redoubled efforts to combat the tunnels.As Egypt has tried in recent weeks to mediate a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas its security forces have fanned out along the border and installed alarms and surveillance cameras.In the last week Egyptian forces have blown up 15 tunnels and placed large rocks over several others, an Egyptian security official in Rafah told AFP.Egypt is building a high-tech security system with US assistance aimed at halting arms smuggling -- a key Israeli demand in the current truce talks.

The United States has pledged 25 million euros (32 million dollars) in detection equipment to unearth smuggling tunnels, and US army engineers have been providing technical assistance on the ground.Abu Mohammed suspects the heightened Egyptian efforts are aimed at pressuring Hamas into accepting a truce. If Hamas agrees to the truce the Egyptians will turn a blind eye. If not there could be problems, he said.

In the meantime, hundreds of diggers are working to rebuild the network. The Egyptians are using everything they have, said Abu Anna as he watches a group of boys hoisting buckets of dirt out of one of the shafts. But I don't think they are serious. They cannot close all the tunnels, he said. We were operating tunnels when the Jews were right here, where we are standing. Only the (Hamas-run) government could stop the tunnels.Hamas police patrol the tunnels, forbidding the import of drugs and weapons and collecting an annual tax of 2,500 dollars (2,000 euros) per tunnel, according to tunnel owners. The tunnels remain lucrative, however, providing jobs, money, and goods to thousands of people on both sides of the border town of Rafah. In the Al-Nijma market in the centre of Rafah vendors hawk stoves, microwaves, generators, and washing machines, many still coated in dirt from the underground passage. The prices have crept up since the end of the war, Abu Dawud says from behind a table lined with boxes of Egyptian-made cookies and crisps.

There have been less goods in the last two or three days. The prices are going to go up because the tunnel owners are afraid. They know their tunnels could be closed at any time.Abu Haithem, another vendor, said washing machines fetching 480 shekels (120dollars) before the war are now going for 570 shekels (140 dollars). But he says he is not concerned about the future of the underground pipeline. We will always figure out a way. If the Egyptians set up cameras we will just dig the tunnels another kilometre past them.