2ND DAY ISRAEL BOMBS ARABS

NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.

PSALMS 97:3
3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.

REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)

ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die).

ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.

2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.

JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.

EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.

ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)

LUKE 17:34-37
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).

MATTHEW 24:37-51
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

MUSLIM NATIONS

EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)

EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.

JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

Israeli troops mobilize as Gaza assault widens By IBRAHIM BARZAK and KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writers DEC 28,08

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel widened its deadliest-ever air offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers Sunday, pounding smuggling tunnels and government strongholds, sending more tanks and artillery toward the Gaza border and activating thousands of reservists for a possible ground invasion.Israeli leaders said they would press ahead with the Gaza campaign, despite enraged protests across the Arab world and Syria's decision to break off indirect peace talks with the Jewish state. Israel's foreign minister said the goal was to halt Gaza rocket fire on Israel for good, but not to reoccupy the territory.With the two-day death toll nearing 300 Sunday, crowds of Gazans breached the border wall with Egypt to escape the chaos. Egyptian forces, some firing in the air, tried to push them back into Gaza and an official said one border guard was killed.Hamas, in turn, fired rockets deeper than ever into Israel, near the Israeli port city of Ashdod.Yet Hamas leaders were forced into hiding, most of the dead were from the Hamas security forces, and Israel's military intelligence chief said Hamas' ability to fire rockets had been reduced by 50 percent. Indeed, Hamas rockets fire dropped off sharply, from more than 130 on Saturday to just over 20 on Sunday. Still, Hamas continues to command some 20,000 fighters.Israel's intense bombings — some 300 air strikes since midday Saturday — wreaked unprecedented destruction in Gaza, reducing entire buildings to rubble.After nightfall, Israeli aircraft attacked a building in the Jebaliya refugee camp next to Gaza City, killing a 14-month-old baby, a man and two women, Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said. In the southern town of Rafah, Palestinian residents said a toddler and his two teenage brothers were killed in an airstrike aimed at a Hamas commander.Israeli aircraft also bombed the Islamic University and government compound in Gaza City, centers of Hamas power, and the house next to the residence of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in a Gaza City refugee camp. Haniyeh, in hiding, was not home.Shlomo Brom, a former senior Israeli military official, said it was the deadliest force ever used in decades of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Since Hamas took over Gaza (in June 2007), it has become a war between two states, and in war between states, more force is used, he said.

European leaders called on both Israel and Hamas to end the bloodshed.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads a rival government to Hamas in the West Bank, and condemned the provocations that led to this situation as well as the disproportionate use of force.
The White House was mum about the situation in Gaza on Sunday after speaking out expansively on Saturday, blaming Hamas for provoking Israel's retaliatory strikes.In the most dramatic attacks Sunday, warplanes struck dozens of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, cutting off a lifeline that had supplied Hamas with weapons and Gaza with commercial goods. The influx of goods had helped Hamas defy an 18-month blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, and was key to propping up its rule.

Sunday's blasts shook the ground several miles away and sent black smoke high into the sky. Earlier, warplanes dropped three bombs on one of Hamas' main security compounds in Gaza City, including a prison. Moments after the blasts, frantic inmates, their faces dusty and bloodied, scrambled down the rubble. One man, still half buried, raised a hand to alert rescuers.Gaza's nine hospitals were overwhelmed. Hassanain, who keeps a record for the Gaza Health Ministry, said more than 290 people were killed over two days and more than 800 wounded.The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which keeps researchers at all hospitals, said it had counted 251 dead by midday Sunday, and that among them were 20 children under the age of 16 and nine women.Across Gaza, families pitched traditional mourning tents of green tarp outside homes. Yet the rows of chairs inside these tents remained largely empty, as residents cowered indoors for fear of new Israeli strikes.Israeli leaders gave interviews to foreign television networks to try win international support. Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, speaking Arabic, spoke on Arab satellite TV stations, denouncing Hamas rule in Gaza. And Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told NBC that the assault came because Hamas, an Islamic group backed by Syria and Iran, is smuggling weapons and building a small army.In Jerusalem, Israel's Cabinet approved a callup of 6,500 reserve soldiers, raising fears of an impending ground offensive. Israel has doubled the number of troops on the Gaza border since Saturday and also deployed an artillery battery. It was not clear, though, whether the deployment was meant to pressure Hamas or whether Israel is determined to send ground troops. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was unclear when the operation would end but told his Cabinet was liable to last longer than we are able to foresee at this time.Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, after 38 years of full military occupation, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the territory to hunt militants. However, Israel has shied away from retaking the entire strip, for fear of getting bogged down in urban warfare. The diplomatic fallout, meanwhile, was swift. Syria decided to suspend indirect peace talks with Israel, begun earlier this year, and the U.N. Security Council called on both sides to halt the fighting and asked Israel to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza; 30 trucks were let in Sunday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to open its crossings for the continuous provision of humanitarian supplies. In a statement, he said one Palestinian U.N. employee, and eight trainees, were among the dead.

The prime minister of Turkey, one of the few Muslim countries to have relations with Israel, called the air assault a crime against humanity.The carnage inflamed Arab and Muslim public opinion, setting off street protests across the West Bank, in an Arab community in Israel, in several Middle Eastern cities and in Paris. Some of the protests turned violent. Israeli troops quelling a West Bank march killed one Palestinian and seriously wounded another. A crowd of anti-Israel protesters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul became a target for a suicide bomber on a bicycle. In Lebanon, police fired tear gas to stop demonstrators from reaching the Egyptian Embassy. Egypt, which has served as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians as well as between Hamas and its rival Fatah, has been criticized for joining Israel in closing its borders with Gaza. The blockade was imposed after the Hamas takeover in June 2007. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Hamas to renew its truce with Israel. The cease-fire began unraveling last month, and formally ended more than a week ago. Since then, Gaza militants had stepped up rocket fire on Israel. A Hamas leader in exile, Osama Hamdan, said the movement would not relent. We have one alternative, which is to be steadfast and resist and then we will be victorious, Hamdan said in Beirut. Also in Beirut, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah militia, said he would not abandon Hamas, but did not threaten to attack Israel. During the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006, the militia fired thousands of rockets into Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in cities and towns in Gaza rocket range, and life slowed in some of the communities. Schools in communities in a 12-mile radius from Gaza were ordered to remain closed beyond the weeklong Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which ends Monday. In the southern city of Ashkelon, home to some 120,000 people, streets were relatively busy, despite the military's recommendations against being out in the open. Several times throughout the day, however, that routine was briefly interrupted by the sounds of wailing sirens warning of an imminent attack. Pedestrians scurried for cover in buildings. After a number of rocket landed in the distance, a woman taking cover nearby briefly fainted. She refused water and food from bystanders, instead shivering in a corner, apparently in shock. Additional reporting by Aron Heller in Ashkelon, Israel. Karin Laub reported from Jerusalem.

China urges Israel to end deadly strikes in Gaza DEC 28,08

BEIJING (AFP) – China urged Israel on Monday to immediately stop military operations in the Gaza Strip that have killed more than 300 people, while calling for the Israelis and Hamas to work towards peace.The Chinese side is shocked and seriously concerned over the current military operations in Gaza that have caused a large number of deaths and injuries, Vice Premier Li Keqiang said in a statement.The world is concerned with the Mideast peace process. To use armed force to resolve differences, especially to kill and wound ordinary citizens, runs counter to these efforts.The Chinese side strongly calls on the concerned parties to immediately cease military operations and adopt realistic measures aimed at easing the tense situation in Gaza.In the statement posted on the foreign ministry's website, Li urged Israel and the Palestinians to end their dispute through negotiations, and not violence.(Both sides) need to resolve differences through dialogue, and push forward the realisation of peace and stability in the Mideast area at an early date, he said.

Although he did not specifically name Hamas, Chinese state press said Li was referring mainly to the Islamist movement when speaking about the Palestinian side.
Israeli tanks massed at the Gaza border on Monday as warplanes continued pounding Hamas targets in the densely populated enclave where raids have killed more than 300 people in two days.Hamas responded to the continuing bombardment by firing rockets the farthest yet into Israel, with one striking not far from Ashdod, Israel's second-largest port. It caused no casualties, medics said.Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said the movement reserves the right to hit back at this aggression with martyr operations, meaning suicide bombings of the sort Hamas has not carried out inside Israel since January 2005.

Israel mounts third day of Gaza raids By Nidal al-Mughrabi DEC 28,08

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli warplanes pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for a third consecutive day on Monday and prepared for a possible invasion after killing 307 Palestinians in the air raids.Israel, which stepped up the air strikes after dark on Sunday, said it launched the campaign on Saturday in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire that intensified after the Islamist Hamas group ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago.Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said the military action would go on until the population in southern Israel no longer live in terror and in fear of constant rocket barrages.(The operation could) take many days, said military spokesman Avi Benayahu.Israeli tanks were deployed on the edge of the Gaza Strip, poised to enter the densely populated coastal enclave of 1.5 million Palestinians. Olmert's cabinet approved a call-up of 6,500 reservists, a government official said.Hamas remained defiant and the group's spokesman Fawzi Barhoum urged Palestinian groups to use all available means, including martyrdom operations -- a reference to suicide bombings in Israel.World oil prices rose as much as $2 to nearly $40 a barrel on Monday as analysts said the conflict between Israel and Hamas had reminded traders of the geopolitical risk to crude supplies from the Middle East.The U.N. Security Council called for a halt to the violence, but President George W. Bush's administration, in its final weeks in office, has put the onus on Hamas to renew the truce.The Israeli offensive enraged Arabs across the Middle East, where protesters burned Israeli and U.S. flags to press for a stronger response from their leaders to the attack on Gaza. Israel, whose politicians have been under pressure to act over the rocket and mortar attacks ahead of a February 10 election, was feeling little international pressure to halt its offensive, said an Israeli official, who declined to be named.

ISRAELI STANCE ON GAZA

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who hopes to become prime minister after the February election, appeared to rule out a large-scale invasion to restore Israeli control of the blockaded territory, once dotted with Jewish settlements.Our goal is not to reoccupy Gaza Strip, she said on NBC's Meet the Press program. Asked on Fox News if Israel was out to topple Gaza's Hamas rulers, Livni said: Not now.Palestinian medical workers said among those killed on Sunday were five young sisters in northern Gaza and three young children in a house near the abandoned home of a senior Hamas militant in Rafah.Hamas said 180 of its members had been killed and that the rest of the more than 300 dead included civilians, among them 16 women and some children.Livni said Israel was targeting militants but unfortunately in a war ... sometimes also civilians pay the price.The International Red Cross said hospitals in the Gaza Strip were overwhelmed and unable to cope with the casualties.

Hamas said one Israeli air strike destroyed a laboratory building at the Islamic University in Gaza, a major cultural symbol. The Israeli army said the laboratory had been used by Hamas to develop weapons and explosives.Keeping up pressure on Hamas after bombing runs that turned Saturday into one of the bloodiest days for Palestinians in 60 years of conflict, Israeli aircraft flattened the group's main security compound in Gaza, killing at least four security men. Israel said during the first two days of the offensive Palestinian militants fired about 150 rockets and mortar bombs at the Jewish state. An Israeli man was killed on Saturday. Dozens of Gazans crossed into Egypt through holes opened in the border wall by bulldozers and explosives. An Egyptian border guard and a Palestinian youth died in a clash as Egyptian police tried to stop the influx, medics and Egyptian security said. Violence also spread to the occupied West Bank, where Israeli soldiers opened fire at stone-throwing Palestinian protesters. Palestinian medical officials said two Palestinians were killed. Forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose security units were routed in Gaza when Hamas seized control of the enclave in June 2007, shot and wounded three people at a protest. Arab citizens of Israel also held protests. (Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, Dan Williams, Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Douglas Hamilton, Adam Entous and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Wafa Amr and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Ralph Gowling)

Gaza complicates Obama's policy in Mideast By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer DEC 28,08

CRAWFORD, Texas – The deaths of hundreds of Palestinians in Israel's deadliest-ever air assault on Hamas further complicate President-elect Barack Obama's challenge to achieve a Middle East peace — something that eluded both the Bush and Clinton administrations.The Bush administration has blamed the renewed violence on the militant Islamic group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, saying it broke a cease-fire by firing rockets and mortars deep into Israeli territory. The Arab world, however, has reacted with rage to the aggressive Israeli counterattacks, which have left at least 290 Palestinians dead and more than 600 wounded.It's unclear whether Obama will be as supportive of Israel as President George W. Bush has been.David Axelrod, senior adviser to Obama, chose his words carefully Sunday, saying the president-elect would honor the important bond between the United States and Israel.

He wants to be a constructive force in helping to bring about the peace and security that both the Israelis and the Palestinians want and deserve, Axelrod said on CBS' Face the Nation. Obviously, this situation has become even more complicated in the last couple of days and weeks. As Hamas began its shelling, Israel responded. But it's something that he's committed to.Pressed about how much support Obama will offer Israel, Axelrod said: He's going to work closely with the Israelis. They're a great ally of ours, the most important ally in the region. ... But he will do so in a way that will promote the cause of peace, and work closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians on that — toward that objective.Israel had been carrying out its attack exclusively from the air, but the Israeli Cabinet has authorized the military to call up 6,500 reserve soldiers for a possible ground invasion.I'm not sure it's a good idea, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Sunday on ABC's This Week.I mean, Israel certainly has the right to self-defense, of course. Hamas has not recognized Israel's right to exist. ... But I'm hopeful that as this transition comes, as we look to January, that strong presidential leadership can make a difference here.Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, speculated that Israeli leaders synchronized their retaliatory attacks to political calendars in both Israel and the U.S. More moderate politicians running in the Feb. 10 national election needed to appear strong against Hamas, and it was perhaps better to strike before Bush left office on Jan. 20 because they weren't as sure what Obama's reaction would be.

I think Obama will be supportive of Israel, but will bring a little more skepticism to it, Alterman said. I think Obama will start from premise that Israel is an ally, but that we have to look at this fresh.The White House was mum about the situation in Gaza on Sunday after speaking out strongly on Saturday. The Bush administration condemned the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and said it held Hamas responsible for breaking a cease-fire. The U.S. implored Israel to avoid civilian casualties and asked all concerned to address the urgent humanitarian needs of innocent people in Gaza.Bush, who is staying at his Texas ranch, spoke on the phone with national security adviser Stephen Hadley to receive an update on the situation and was being kept abreast of developments throughout the day, said Gordon Johndroe, a presidential spokesman. He said Bush would receive an intelligence briefing via a secured video hookup at the ranch early Monday morning and would be briefed then on any overnight developments.According to an aide on Obama's transition team, the president-elect, who is in Hawaii, continues to closely monitor global events, including the situation in Gaza. He had an intelligence briefing Sunday and plans to talk with his incoming national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his nominee for secretary of state.The aide said Obama appreciates the information the Bush administration is sharing with him. The aide requested anonymity because the Obama team is refraining from comment, saying the U.S. has only one president at a time.When Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007, it fractured governance of the Palestinian territory. The other part, the West Bank, is controlled by moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The renewed violence increases the volatility of an already unstable area.It undoubtedly will have a very severe impact on wherever the next administration would like to go, Ed Abington, a former American diplomat who advises Abbas, said in an interview. You can't kill almost 300 Palestinians and wound 600 to 700 and not have repercussions in the region.I don't quite know where the Israelis want to end up, he added, saying that trying to bomb Hamas into submission only rekindles radicalization. Abington said Israel's retaliatory attacks weaken, not strengthen, the stature of Abbas, who is backed by the West.Alterman said, however, that if Hamas is weakened by the bombings in Gaza, Abbas' position could be emboldened. It's possible to imagine that he could emerge as some sort of broker who saves Gaza from an Israeli onslaught, Alterman said. Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel in Gaza City and Philip Elliott in Honolulu contributed to this report.

Israel air strikes spark protests worldwide DEC 28,08

LONDON, (AFP) – Demonstrators in cities around the world marched in protest against the Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip that have killed nearly 300 people in the Palestinian territory.British police made 10 arrests as a demonstration outside the Israeli embassy in London turned violent. Riot police moved in after people tore down the barriers keeping them back from the embassy.Earlier Sunday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called for an urgent ceasefire and immediate halt to all violence in Gaza .A call to urgently halt the military action also came from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who spoke to his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni.The top diplomats in Italy and Spain, Franco Frattini and Miguel Angel Moratinos, also spoke by telephone with Livni who said Israel would try to limit the suffering of the people of Gaza, the Italian foreign ministry said.French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency, told Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas by telephone of his grave concerns about the escalating violence in the region and the need for both sides to stop their aggressions.Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday denounced the violence between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza, and urged everyone involved in the tragic situation in the Middle East to strive for humanity and wisdom.The UN chief added his voice to the UN Security Council's call for an immediate end to hostilities and urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the poverty-stricken territory.UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplores that violence is continuing today, and he strongly urges once again an immediate stop to all acts of violence, his spokeswoman Michele Montas said in a statement.

While the outgoing Bush administration has blamed Hamas thugs for provoking the Israeli offensive by firing rockets into the Jewish state from Gaza, a top aide to Barack Obama was more measured, saying the president-elect is committed to achieving peace in the Middle East.Recognising the special relationship between the United States and Israel, Obama will work closely with the Israelis, David Axelrod said in an interview on CBS television.But he will do so in a way that will promote the cause of peace, and work closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians on that -- toward that objective, said Axelrod.Around European capitals, Danish police arrested a man on the fringes of a protest march in Copenhagen after he threw a petrol bomb at officers. Police said the rally drew about 700 people, though organisers put the number closer to 2,000.In Paris, about 200 people gathered on the Champs Elysees, while across the city in the northern district of Barbes, an area with a high concentration of north Africans, police said 1,300 others had joined an anti-Israel protest.In Madrid, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Israeli embassy, brandishing placards reading Israel terrorist, Stop state terrorism and No to the Palestinian holocaust.The largest single protest of about 8,000 people took place in Egypt on the streets of the southern city of Assiut. Some 4,000 protesters rallied in the capital Cairo, while a demonstration in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria drew a similar number, a security official said.

Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah urged Egyptians in their millions to take to the streets to force their government to open the country's border with Gaza, to help save Palestinians from the Israeli bombardments.Another major showing of anti-Israeli sentiment was seen in Turkey where thousands of people joined demonstrations in about a dozen Turkish cities. In Syria, protesters burned Israeli and American flags as thousands demonstrated in central Damascus. Security was tight around the US embassy, which lies some two kilometres (just over a mile) from the scene of the protest in the Syrian capital. Demonstrators also burned Israeli flags in the Jordanian capital Amman, where hundreds of people led by Islamist lawmakers gathered to demand the closure of the Israeli embassy. With Egypt, Jordan is one of only two Arab governments to have signed peace treaties with Israel. The Israeli bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza has killed more than 280 people since Saturday, the Jewish state's biggest offensive against the Palestinian territory since its capture in the 1967 Middle East war. British aid agency Oxfam warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza if the Israeli bombardments do not cease. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement: The influx of war wounded has put a tremendous strain on Gaza's already overburdened hospitals, which are in dire need of medical equipment.

Israel tanks mass near Gaza as jets again pound Hamas by Mai Yaghi DEC 28,08

GAZA CITY, (AFP) – Israeli tanks massed at the Gaza border on Monday as warplanes continued pounding Hamas targets in the densely populated enclave where raids have killed more than 300 people in two days.Dozens of tanks and personnel carriers idled at several points near the border after Israel warned it could launch a ground offensive in addition to its massive air blitz.Hamas responded to the continuing bombardment by firing rockets the farthest yet into Israel, with one striking not far from Ashdod, Israel's second-largest port, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Gaza . It caused no casualties, medics said.The Islamist movement accused Israel of committing a holocaust as the whole world watches and doesn't lift a finger to stop it.Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said the movement reserves the right to hit back at this aggression with martyr operations, meaning suicide bombings of the sort Hamas has not carried out inside Israel since January 2005.Britain, France and Russia joined the growing international chorus for a halt to the violence.Pope Benedict XVI implored the international community to do all it can to help the Israelis and Palestinians on this dead-end road... and not to give in to the perverse logic of confrontation and violence.UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon added his voice to the UN Security Council's call for an immediate end to hostilities, with his spokeswoman saying he strongly urges once again an immediate stop to all acts of violence.But Israeli Defence Minster Ehud Barak vowed to expand and deepen the bombing blitz, which was unleashed in retaliation for persistent rocket fire by militant groups.

If it's necessary to deploy ground forces to defend our citizens, we will do so, his spokesman quoted him as saying.The cabinet gave the green light to call up 6,500 reserve soldiers, a senior official told reporters after the meeting.Warplanes continued to pound the impoverished and overcrowded territory of 1.5 million people, where many streets were deserted, and schools and shops stayed shut as hundreds of funerals were held.Jets bombed a series of tunnels on Gaza's border with Egypt -- a lifeline used by Hamas to smuggle goods and weapons into the enclave, which has been virtually sealed off by Israel since the Islamists seized power in June 2007.Later on Sunday, jets targeted several metal workshops, which the Israeli army said were being used to manufacture makeshift rockets.Another strike on a mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City left four dead, including a four-year-old girl, according to the head of Gaza's emergency services Moawiya Hassanein.One woman and a man were also killed when a missile hit a family home in the neighbourhood of Zeitoun in eastern Gaza City, medics said.Aircraft also bombed Gaza City's Islamic University early on Monday, a stronghold symbol of Hamas. Fire and smoke billowed from the building which was hit by at least five missiles, according to witnesses.

And as pressure mounted within the impoverished territory, dozens of Gazans tried to break through the border into Egypt on Sunday, only to be stopped by Egyptian police firing into the air. An Egyptian policeman was killed and another wounded by shots from across the border in the divided town of Rafah, a security official and medics said, adding that the source of the fire was unclear. A Palestinian human rights group branded the Israeli pounding of Gaza one of the bloodiest days in Israel's 40-year occupation. As well as more than 300 dead, more than 600 people have been wounded, medics said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign was launched in order to regain a normal life for the citizens in the south who have suffered for many years from incessant rocket, mortar and terror attacks.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged the international community to put the blame squarely on Hamas. I expect the international community, including the entire Arab world, to send a clear message to Hamas: It is your fault. It's your responsibility. You're the one who's being condemned,she told US television network NBC.

The Israeli bombardment has sparked widespread international concern.

Egypt, which brokered a six-month truce between Israel and Hamas that expired on December 19, said it was trying to negotiate a new ceasefire. And the UN envoy to the Middle East Robert Serry called for a new truce with international backing, telling AFP in an interview that there was no military solution to the conflict. But a senior Israeli official insisted: We have our goals and our timetable, and we don't seek mediation.Israel in the meanwhile announced it would allow 100 truck-loads of humanitarian aid into Gaza on Monday but said it would maintain its crippling blockade on the impoverished territory. Israel's main ally Washington blamed Hamas thugs for provoking the offensive by firing rockets into the Jewish state from Gaza, and urged Israel to avoid causing civilian casualties. The Israeli offensive sparked protests across the world. In the occupied West Bank, two demonstrators were killed in clashes with police. Israel unleashed Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the middle of Saturday morning, with some 60 warplanes hitting more than 50 targets in just a few minutes. By Sunday, some 230 targets had been hit, the military said. Hamas has responded by firing more than 90 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel, killing one man and wounding some 20 people. The Israeli blitz came after days of spiralling violence since the expiry of the Gaza truce. It comes less than two months before snap parliamentary elections in Israel called for February 10.

A chronology of Israel's relationship with Gaza By The Associated Press The Associated Press – Sun Dec 28, 6:48 pm

June 1967: Israel captures the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip during six-day Mideast war. An Israeli census put the population at 380,000, at least half of whom were refugees from Israel. Today the population stands at about 1.5 million. The U.N. lists just over 1 million as refugees and their descendants.

• December 1987: A clash in the Jebaliya refugee camp sets off Palestinian uprising, which lasted until 1993 and claimed the lives of more than 2,000 Palestinians and 192 Israelis. The militant Islamic Hamas is formed early in the uprising.

• September 2005: Israel withdraws its troops and all of its 8,500 Jewish settlers. It retains control of Gaza's airspace, coastal waters and border crossings.

• June 2007: Hamas violently seizes control of Gaza after routing forces loyal to rival Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas.

• June 2008: Hamas and Israel reach truce to halt the cross-border rocket attacks and end Israeli offensives in Gaza.

• November 2008: Palestinians resume rocket and mortar fire into Israel after Israeli incursion.

• Dec. 19, 2008: Hamas formally declares the truce over, rocket fire on Israel intensifies.

• Dec. 27, 2008: Israel launches a fierce air offensive, killing more than 200 Palestinians in the first day.

GCC summit to go ahead as planned Sun Dec 28, 4:25 pm ET

MUSCAT (AFP) – The Gulf Cooperation Council's annual summit in Oman will go ahead and focus on the global economic crisis, although Israel's attacks on Gaza will also be discussed, the host country said on Sunday.The most appropriate reply to the events under way in the Palestinian situation would be for the Palestinian brothers to close ranks by reaching understanding and national unity, Omani Information Minister Hamad al-Rashidi said.He added: It is up to the UN Security Council to apply pressure for Israel to stop the attacks which have left nearly 290 Palestinians dead over the past two days.The GCC summit had seemed under threat when Israel launched its aerial onslaught on the Islamic Hamas movement which has controlled the Gaza Strip since ousting forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June last year.An emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers had been called for Sunday in Cairo but was eventually put off until Wednesday.Omani Foreign Minister Yussef bin Alawi told reporters that after a five-hour meeting GCC foreign ministers put the finishing touches to the agenda of the summit which is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.Ministers discussed the deplorable situation in the Gaza Strip and adopted a common position to put to Wednesday's Arab League meeting in Cairo, he said.The GCC groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which together sit on 25 percent of the world's natural gas reserves and 45 percent of global oil reserves.

EVERYBODY COMPLAINS ABOUT ISRAEL BUT WERE WERE THE COMPLAINTS WHEN 10,1200 ROCKETS AND MORTERS WERE FALLING ON ISRAEL FROM THE ARABS....GO ISRAEL ENEMIES WHO DESTROY GODS PEOPLE ISRAEL MUST BE DESTROYED FOREVER....OUT OF COMMISSION.

Gaza faces humanitarian crisis unless world stops Israel: Oxfam Sun Dec 28, 4:12 pm ET

LONDON (AFP) – Aid agency Oxfam on Sunday urged world leaders to stop Israel from launching further attacks on the Gaza Strip, saying the military action risked triggering a humanitarian crisis.The international charity said it had been forced to suspend most of its humanitarian work in the territory and said a programme that would feed 25,000 people had also been put on hold.Gazans face a humanitarian crisis unless the bombardment stops and Israel allows immediate access for aid shipments, Oxfam said.Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza depend on Oxfam and other international aid agencies for the basics of life -- clean water, food and sanitation, said John Prideaux-Brune, Oxfam Great Britain's country programme manager in Jerusalem.Gaza has been shut off from the outside world for 19 months and people there are already on the edge. There's a real risk of a humanitarian crisis unless the bombing stops now.The international community must not stand aside and allow Israeli leaders to commit massive and disproportionate violence against Gazan civilians in violation of international law.Oxfam condemns outright Hamas's rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. However they cannot justify this overwhelming military response which is killing innocent civilians.World leaders must take all necessary actions to stop attacks by all parties and must push the Israelis to continuously open all crossing points into Gaza.

Canada urges ceasefire between Israel and Hamas Sun Dec 28, 3:33 pm ET

OTTAWA (AFP) – Canada on Sunday appealed for a halt to violence in the Gaza Strip where Israel has launched a deadly air strike campaign, and urged both sides to resume efforts toward a truce.Canada is deeply concerned by the escalation of violence in Southern Israel and the Gaza Strip and by the loss of life and the suffering sustained by all sides, said Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon.Israel has a clear right to defend itself against the continued rocket attacks by Palestinian militant groups which have deliberately targeted civilians. First and foremost, those rocket attacks must stop, Cannon said.At the same time, we urge both sides to use all efforts to avoid civilian casualties and to create the conditions to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access to those in need in Gaza.In addition to calling for immediate calm, we urge renewed efforts to reach a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to remain committed to finding a comprehensive peace settlement.Since Israel launched a series of air strikes early Saturday, at least 289 people have been killed and more than 600 wounded, Palestinian medics said.Hamas has responded by firing more than 90 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel, killing one man and wounding a handful of other people.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign was launched in order to regain a normal life for the citizens in the south who have suffered for many years from incessant rocket, mortar and terror attacks.

UN Mideast envoy calls for internationally-backed Gaza truce – Sun Dec 28, 3:26 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The UN special envoy to the Middle East on Sunday called for an internationally-backed ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, saying there is no military solution to the conflict.The international community, the United Nations, the Arab League, the Security Council and also the Quartet need to promote a way forward to come back to a renewed ceasefire," Robert Serry told AFP in an interview.The Israeli air force on Sunday continued pounding the Hamas-ruled territory following one of the bloodiest single days of violence in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has left nearly 300 Palestinians dead.The spiralling violence came less than 10 days after an Egyptian-brokered six-month old truce between Israel and the Islamist rulers of Gaza ended with militants renewing rocket fire against Israel, which in turn tightened a punishing blockade on the Gaza Strip.We want the violence to stop immediately, we don't believe there is a military solution to the situation in Gaza, the United Nations envoy told AFP.I myself am in contact with my counterparts in the region and other envoys in order to coordinate the efforts to support the calls to end the violence and the renewal of a ceasefire that could lead to a more durable improvement of the situation in Gaza.He said that any future ceasefire would have to guarantee a halt to Palestinian rocket fire and the sustainable reopening of Israel's crossings with Gaza, the territory's main gateway for badly-needed supplies.It would also need to include a solution to the underlying issue of the growing internal Palestinian tension between moderate president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas, which ousted Fatah forces from Gaza in June 2007.We also have to help the Palestinian Authority play a bigger role in the solutions for Gaza... The need for Palestinian reunification in my view is bigger than ever, but from what we are seeing it is not going at the moment in that direction.

Egypt said on Sunday it was trying to negotiate a new ceasefire, but a senior Israeli official told AFP that we have our goals and our timetable and we don't seek mediation.Serry also lamented the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, where some 50 percent of the 1.5 million inhabitants depend on UN and international aid, warning of an enormous shortage in wheat and medical equipment.We have been warning the Israeli authorities of the consequences of military action in terms of our capacity to distribute aide... The situation of continued Israeli air raids and bombings is scary, he said.He nevertheless said that Israel was allowing aid into Gaza in recent days, and that on Monday 21 trucks were allowed to deliver medical supplies and wheat through the Kerem Shalom crossing.He warned that the acute shortage of medical supplies and fuel in the Gaza Strip could affect the functioning of Gaza's hospitals.The bloody Israeli offensive has sparked a wave of international calls to end the violence.The UN Security Council called for an immediate halt to all violence and urged all sides to stop immediately all military activities.In Rome, the pope said that the terrestrial homeland of Jesus cannot continue to be the witness of such bloodshed which is repeated ad infinitum.Israel's main ally Washington has blamed Hamas thugs for provoking the offensive by firing rockets into the Jewish state from Gaza, and urged Israel to avoid causing civilian casualties.

Israel's Gaza aggression has halted peace talks: Syria Sun Dec 28, 3:07 pm ET

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria have been halted due to the Jewish state's aggression in Gaza, a senior Syrian official said on Sunday.

It's the Israeli aggression in Gaza which has closed the door on all activity in the political process between Syria and Israel, the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.In May, Syria and Israel -- technically still at war since the first Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948 -- began Turkish-mediated indirect talks after direct negotiations halted eight years ago over the thorny Golan Heights issue.

Israeli tanks were massed at the Gaza border on Sunday as warplanes again pounded Hamas targets in the densely populated enclave.Since early Saturday, at least 287 people have been killed and more than 600 wounded, medics said.The peace talks had in any case been on hold since Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert first announced in July he would step down over corruption allegations.In exchange for peace Syria is demanding the return of the entire Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.But Israel has baulked at this, since it would mean returning land right down to the shores of the Sea of Galilee -- its main source of fresh water.Israel for its part is calling on Damascus to sever its ties with the current regime in Iran and stop its support for militants, namely the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas movements.Earlier this month, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that his country would eventually embark on direct peace talks with Israel, but they must be based on UN Security Council resolutions.Peace cannot be achieved through indirect negotiations alone. But if indirect talks succeed then direct negotiations will also, and peace will come naturally, Assad told reporters on December 22.Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 call on Israel to withdraw from Arab territory it captured in the 1967 war.

Jordan MPs want Israeli ambassador expelled Sun Dec 28, 2:49 pm ET

AMMAN (AFP) – Thirty Jordanian lawmakers have demanded the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador over the Jewish state's deadly air strikes on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, an MP said on Sunday.Thirty deputies signed a memorandum on Saturday condemning the Israeli aggression on Gaza and demanding that the government expel the Israeli ambassador to Jordan, Bassam Haddain, who led the initiative, told AFP.The political atmosphere in Jordan is against Israel's arrogant polices and it is growing. We expect more MPs to sign the memo today, Sunday.In the memo, the MPs in the 110-member lower house also demand that the government summon the ambassador to Israel and end all forms of normalisation in response to the Israeli massacres in Gaza, Haddain said.In an unprecedented move at the lower house, prominent MP Khalil Atiyeh, one of the signatories, stepped on an Israeli flag before burning it at a meeting as other deputies gathered around him.Jordan signed a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, becoming only the second Arab state to do so, after Egypt.King Abdullah II met Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Saturday and has been in touch with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to launch an Arab and international initiative aimed at ending the Israeli aggression, according to the royal palace.

Anti-Israeli protests across Europe By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, Associated Press Writer – Sun Dec 28, 2:17 pm ET

LONDON – Protesters turned out across Europe Sunday to demonstrate against Israel's air assault on the Gaza Strip, while European leaders called on Israel and Hamas to end the bloodshed.British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said this was a dangerous moment and called for an immediate cease-fire by both Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza.About 700 protesters descended on the Israeli embassy in London's Kensington neighborhood a day after the airstrikes on Gaza began. More than 280 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain.Police said half a dozen protesters outside the embassy in London were arrested Sunday. A scuffle between police and the protesters occurred when police tried to remove people so they could reopen a road that had been blocked off. At one point, protesters threw placards at officers.Protests in Paris were peaceful. About 1,000 demonstrators turned out in the neighborhood of Barbes, which has a large Arab population, and near the landmark Arc de Triomphe.French President Nicolas Sarkozy held telephone talks Sunday with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and condemned the provocations that led to this situation as well as the disproportionate use of force. Abbas urged Hamas to renew a truce with Israel that collapsed last week. However, Abbas has had no influence in Gaza since Hamas seized control there in June 2007.

France's foreign minister said the EU was ready to increase its humanitarian support for Gaza and resume its monitoring role at Gaza border crossings.Bernard Kouchner said in a statement Sunday that he spent the weekend on the phone with Israeli and Palestinian officials, his Egyptian counterpart, the Arab League and European foreign ministers.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Sunday that Israel launched its strike because Gaza's Hamas rulers were smuggling weapons and building up a small army.The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired more than 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and 10 times that number over the past year.The unjustified rocket fire by Hamas must stop immediately. For its part, Israel must do everything possible to avoid civilian victims, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement.Pope Benedict XVI called on the international community not to leave anything untried to help the Israelis and Palestinians exit from this dead end of violence. He is expected to visit the region in May.Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was outraged by a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the operation is likely to continue.To go and bomb these defenseless people, and to openly say that this operation will be a long-lasting one, that it will be this or that, to me, is a serious crime against humanity, Erdogan said at a meeting of his ruling Islamic-rooted party.Turkey is Israel's closest ally in the Muslim world but Erdogan said he was appalled that the attacks came as his country was helping mediate peace talks between Syria and Israel. He said the attacks were a show of disrespect toward Turkey.Hundreds of protesters demonstrated against the attacks on Gaza outside the Israeli embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Istanbul.Associated Press Writers Cecile Roux in Paris, Melissa Eddy in Berlin, Frances D'Emilio in Rome and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

GCC summit eyes common currency By TAREK EL-TABLAWY, AP Business Writer – Sun Dec 28, 10:51 am

CAIRO, Egypt – In a gathering marred by Israeli attacks on Gaza and pressured by the ailing world economy, leaders of the six Gulf Arab nations are gearing up for a summit in which they are expected to tackle head-on a long-elusive monetary union agreement.The two-day meeting, beginning Monday in the Omani capital, Muscat, has been touted as a key step in helping the Gulf Cooperation Council's six member states realize a goal of a common currency and broader economic unity. The push is made all the more relevant by the global economic crisis that has hit hard even these oil rich nations.Officials on Sunday said Israeli air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which have left over 280 Palestinians dead and sparked outrage throughout the Arab world, would not derail the meeting. But the violence would clearly factor into the summit agenda, as well as in the GCC foreign ministers meeting which precedes the main gathering.Omani Information Minister Hamed al-Rashid said the Palestinian issue is always on the minds of the GCC leaders and without doubt, the events in Gaza will be at the forefront of the upcoming meetings.While the leaders are expected to discuss the current financial meltdown, analysts and economists are watching to see what steps the officials will take to push along a plan for a GCC common currency, which is scheduled to be launched in 2010. Also important are their efforts to finalize details for the precursor to the bloc's new central bank.This meeting is quite important because they will have to outline what they're going to be doing prior to 2010, and they will also have to come out quite concretely about what is to come of that deadline, said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Saudi British Bank.

The GCC, which includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, has been discussing setting up a common currency for years but the issue has been stymied by political bickering and infighting.While progress has been slow in bringing the nations together, the global financial meltdown has injected renewed vigor into efforts to push the oil-rich members toward closer economic cooperation.GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Hamad al-Attiyah told the pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Hayat that leaders were well aware of the need to reach a joint agreement on how to tackle the financial crisis.In an interview with the English-language Oman Tribune, Bahrain's prime minister, Sheik Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa said the integration of Gulf countries has become unavoidable.At a time when the whole world is moving toward the establishment of economic blocs, it is high time that we accelerated the remaining steps for the economic integration of GCC states, he was quoted as saying.So far, each country has been taking its own steps to tackle the crisis, adopting measure ranging from cutting interest rates, injecting cash into the economy, guaranteeing deposits and lowering cash reserve requirements for banks.At times of economic crisis, you expect that there is great unity, or the attempt to be one voice instead of many voices, said Sfakianakis. The onus is on the GCC to show how they're handling this and that they are one instead of six voices.

Tumbling oil prices are also a major stimulus for embracing greater cooperation.

Crude prices have plummeted by more than 60 percent since mid-July highs of nearly $150 per barrel, straining budgets and spending in these nations, some of which rely on oil sales for up to 90 percent of their foreign revenues.Analysts and economists have said the Gulf Arab region's vast oil wealth, and the budget surpluses realized from this past year's surge in crude prices, will help cushion the countries from the worst of the economic downturn that has hammered the rest of the world.The Institute of International Finance, in a recent study, estimated that GCC countries' economic growth would slow from 5.8 percent in 2008 to 4.2 percent in 2009. The figure is markedly higher than the 0.9 percent global economic growth rate forecast by the World Bank earlier this month.Even so, the impact has been pronounced. Stock exchanges in the region have plummeted — in Dubai by as much as over 70 percent since the start the year. Saudi Arabia, the Arab world's economic powerhouse, recently unveiled a budget reflecting projections of its first deficit since 2002. In the last fiscal year, the country realized a surplus of $157 billion, largely on oil revenues. The kingdom, however, has ramped up spending, allocating more funds to infrastructure development, education and health care as it looks to diversify its economy. The summit is also being watched closely as a measure of whether the leaders in these Arab countries will act decisively or, as has happened too often in past Arab summits and gatherings, emerge with little more than an agreement to agree at a later date. Everybody is talking about the deadlines not being met, said Sfakianakis. If they move with the 2010 deadline, they will have to announce what concrete steps they will be taking.

Across Mideast, thousands protest Israeli assault By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer – Sun Dec 28, 9:50 am ET

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Crowds of thousands swept into the streets of cities around the Middle East on Sunday to denounce Israel's air assault on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.From Lebanon to Iran, Israel's adversaries used the weekend assault to marshal crowds into the streets for noisy demonstrations. And among regional allies there was also discontent: The prime minister of Turkey, one of the few Muslim countries to have relations with Israel, called the air assault a crime against humanity.

Several of Sunday's protests turned violent. A crowd of anti-Israel protesters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul became a target for a suicide bomber on a bicycle.
In Lebanon, police fired tear gas to stop dozens of demonstrators from reaching the Egyptian Embassy. Some in the crowd hurled stones at the embassy compound. It was unclear if anyone was hurt.Egypt, which has served as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians as well as between Hamas and its rival Fatah, has been criticized for joining Israel in closing its borders with Gaza. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Hamas to renew its truce with Israel: There has been a calm and we should work to restore it.France also called for the truce to be renewed and rallied European nations to use all their weight to stop the fighting between Israel and Hamas.We have entered a new spiral of despair, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told the Journal du Dimanche in an interview published Sunday. The truce must be restored.Kouchner noted that the attacks come in a context of vacancy of power in Israel and the U.S. as both countries are undergoing leadership transitions.

Europe has a role to play, Kouchner said.

In Beirut, Hamas representative Osama Hamdan told the crowd that the militant group had no choice but to fight. Gaza militants have been lobbing dozens of rockets and mortars into southern Israel since a six-month truce expired over a week ago, prompting Israel's fierce retaliation.We have one alternative which is to be steadfast and resist and then we will be victorious, Hamdan said.In the capital of neighboring Syria, more than 5,000 people marched toward the central Youssef al-Azmeh square, where they burned an Israeli and an American flag.One demonstrator carried a banner reading, The aggression against Gaza is an aggression against the whole Arab nation.Down with America, the mother of terrorism, read another.In Amman, Jordan, about 5,000 lawyers marched toward parliament to demand the Israeli ambassador's expulsion and the closure of the embassy. No for peace, yes to the rifle, they chanted.In Jordan's squalid Baqaa camp for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, protester Yassin Abu Taha, 32, blamed America and Israel for the Middle East's problems.The Israelis kill our people in Gaza and the West Bank. The Americans kill our people in Iraq. We're refugees, kicked out of our home in Tulkarem in 1967 and we're still displaced, he said, bemoaning his family's flight in the 1967 Mideast war.The U.S. Embassy in Jordan warned Americans to avoid areas of demonstrations.

Thousands of Egyptians — many of them students — demonstrated at campuses in Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere and accused President Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders of not doing enough to support the Palestinians. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said Israel should be wiped off the map, denounced the Israeli strikes. And in the normally politically placid streets of glitzy Dubai, hundreds of demonstrators — some draped in Palestinian flags — gathered at the Palestinian consulate. This is a time for the Palestinians and Arabs to unite to fight against a common enemy, said Majdei Mansour, a 30-year-old Palestinian resident of Dubai. Mansour said he has been unable to contact his family in Gaza since the latest fighting. In Iraq, where the government has also condemned the Gaza airstrikes, a suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up amid a crowd of about 1,300 demonstrators in Mosul who were protesting against Israel, killing one demonstrator and wounding 16, Iraqi police said. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack on the demonstration, which was organized by a Sunni party in sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza, who are largely fellow Sunnis. Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria; Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, and Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad contributed to this report.

ISRAEL FINALLY RETALIATES

CHANUKAH DAY 7 TODAY

LEARN ABOUT CHANUKAH
http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm
CHANUKAH DAY 1-8 SCRIPTURES
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/12/hannuka-day-1-8-scriptures.html
MACCABEES STORY
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/12/7s-and-maccabees.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/12/maccabees-story.html

The Insiders: Architects of the New World Order (Part 1 of 9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1grmqT_kOHQ&eurl=http://www.gcnlive.com/&feature=player_embedded
The Insiders: How and Why America is Being Betrayed Part 2
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BG_acaZHOEo
The Insiders: How and Why America is Being Betrayed Part 3
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GrO5objpI6c
The Insiders: How and Why America is Being Betrayed Part 4
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dNuA4dT0Z8I
The Insiders: How and Why America is Being Betrayed Part 5
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn8wqnq2Mdk
The Insiders: How and Why America is Being Betrayed Part 6
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GQx7RQPbz6g
The Insiders: How and Why America is Being Betrayed Part 7
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LlF9Z-Yk5D0
The Insiders: How and Why America is Being Betrayed Part 8
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=unx39gfdWI4
The Insiders: How and Why America is Being Betrayed Part 9
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FYNbkgl7rns

THAT 3RD TEMPLE MIGHT BE REBUILT SHORTLY IF RUSSIA WOULD TEAM UP WITH THE MUSLIMS AND MARCH TO ISRAEL FROM EZEKIEL 38+39,GOD WOULD DESTROY 5/6TH OF THEIR ARMIES AND THERE WOULD BE NO WAY TO STOP ISRAEL FROM REBUILDING THE THIRD TEMPLE BECAUSE THE MUSLIMS,RUSSIA COUNTRIES WOULD ALMOST BE ALL DESTROYED. ISRAEL IS FINALLY FIGHTING BACK AGAINST HAMAS KILLING AT LEAST 200. ALL THE MEDIA IS BLAMING ISRAEL JUST LIKE I FIGURED,MEANWHILE OVER THE LAST 8 YEARS THE ARABS SHOT 10,110 ROCKETS AND MORTARS INTO ISRAEL,THIS IS ISRAEL PROTECTING ITSELF.

Israel demolishes Hamas compounds, over 200 dead DEC 27,08
By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing more than 200 people and wounding nearly 400 in the single bloodiest day of fighting in years.Most of those killed were security men, but an unknown number of civilians were also among the dead. Hamas said all of its security installations were hit, threatened to resume suicide attacks, and sent at least 70 rockets and mortar shells crashing into Israeli border communities, according to the Israeli military. One Israeli was killed and at least six people were hurt.With so many wounded, the Palestinian death toll was likely to rise.The strikes caused widespread panic and confusion in Gaza, as black clouds of smoke rose above the territory, ruled by Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as children were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children.My son is gone, my son is gone, wailed Said Masri, a 57-year-old shopkeeper, as he sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, slapping his face and covering his head with dust from a bombed-out security compound nearby.He said he had sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and now could not find him. May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn, Masri moaned.

The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired some 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and in recent days, Israeli leaders had threatened to launch a major offensive.There is a time for calm and there is a time for fighting, and now is the time for fighting, said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, vowing to expand the operation if necessary.Asked whether Hamas political leaders might be targeted, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni declared at a news conference: Hamas is a terrorist organization and nobody is immune.The first round of airstrikes on Gaza came just before noon. More than 100 attacks took place, continuing well into the evening.Hospitals crowded with people, civilians rushing in wounded people in cars, vans and ambulances. There are heads without bodies .... There's blood in the corridors. People are weeping, women are crying, doctors are shouting, said nurse Ahmed Abdel Salaam from Shifa Hospital, Gaza's main treatment center.The offensive sparked angry protests throughout the Arab world, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Vatican, the U.N. secretary-general and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair all called for an immediate restoration of calm. The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss the situation.In Washington, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, Hamas' continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop. The United States urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza.

In Gaza City's main security compound, bodies of more than a dozen uniformed Hamas police lay on the ground. One survivor raised his index finger in a show of Muslim faith, uttering a prayer. The Gaza police chief was among those killed. One man, his face bloodied, sat dazed on the ground as a fire raged nearby.By early evening, 205 Gazans were known to be dead and 388 wounded, Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said. He did not provide figures on civilian deaths. But earlier in the day, police said about 140 Hamas security forces were killed. Some of the dead, rolled in blankets, were laid out on the floor of Gaza's main hospital for identification.Israeli military officials said more than 100 tons of bombs were dropped on Gaza by mid-afternoon. They spoke on condition of anonymity under military guidelines.Defiant Hamas leaders threatened revenge. Hamas will continue the resistance until the last drop of blood, vowed spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.Israel told its civilians near Gaza to take cover, and in the West Bank, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a bitter rivalry with Hamas, condemned Israel. Egypt summoned the Israeli ambassador to express condemnation and opened its border with Gaza to allow ambulances to drive out some of the wounded. Despite the overwhelming show of force, it was not clear whether it would halt the rocket fire. Past operations have failed to stop the attacks. One rocket struck the Israeli town of Netivot, killing an Israeli man and wounding four people, rescue services said.

Dozens of stunned residents, some of them weeping, gathered around the house that took the deadly rocket hit. A hole gaped in one of the walls, which was pocked with shrapnel marks. The crowd broke up after an alert siren went off and everyone went running. Streets were nearly empty in Sderot, the Israeli border town that has been pummeled hardest by rockets. A few cars carried panicked residents leaving town. Dozens of people congregated on a hilltop to watch the Israeli aerial attacks. Protests against the campaign erupted in Arab Israeli villages, the Abbas-ruled West Bank and across the Arab world. The most violent West Bank response came in the city of Hebron, where dozens of youths, many of them masked, hurled rocks for hours at Israeli forces, who lobbed tear gas and stun grenades in response. Officials in Bethlehem, Jesus' traditional birthplace, turned off Christmas lights and traders shuttered shops to protest the Israeli attack. Anti-Israel protests also erupted in Amman, Jordan, and in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. Israel has targeted Gaza in the past, but the number of simultaneous attacks was unprecedented.

Israel left Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, but the withdrawal did not lead to better relations with Palestinians in the territory as Israeli officials had hoped. Instead, the evacuation was followed by a sharp rise in militant attacks on Israeli border communities that on several occasions provoked harsh Israeli military reprisals.

Israel kills 205 in air assault on Gaza Strip
By Nidal al-Mughrabi DEC 27,08

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes and helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 205 people in the bloodiest one-day death toll in 60 years of conflict with the Palestinians.Militants in the Gaza Strip, who have launched dozens of rocket attacks against Israel since a truce expired just over a week ago, fired more salvoes that killed one Israeli man and wounded several others.

Both sides said they were ready to stage wider assaults, threatening to plunge the region into a crisis that could leave stalled talks over Palestinian statehood in tatters.Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, where the dead and wounded lay scattered on the ground after Israel bombed more than 40 security compounds, including two where Hamas was hosting graduation ceremonies for new recruits.At the main Gaza City graduation ceremony, uniformed bodies lay in a pile and the wounded writhed in pain. Some rescue workers beat their heads and shouted God is greatest. One badly wounded man quietly recited verses from the Koran.More than 700 Palestinians were wounded in all, medics said.Israel said the operation, dubbed Solid Lead, targeted terrorist infrastructure following days of rocket attacks on southern Israel that caused damage but few injuries. An army spokeswoman said Hamas leaders could be targeted.There is a time for calm and a time for fighting, and now the time has come to fight, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.The rocket attacks increased pressure on Israeli political leaders to act as a February 10 election approaches.The army did not set a timeframe but the mayor of Ashkelon, an Israeli city in range of Hamas's rockets, said military planners saw the operation lasting more than a week.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a leading candidate to become Israel's next prime minister, called for international support against an extremist Islamist organization ... that is being supported by Iran, Israel's arch-foe.In line with the Jewish state, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, in its final weeks in office, appeared to put the onus on Hamas to prevent a further escalation.

REACTION

Hamas' continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement that urged Israel to avoid civilian casualties but stopped short of calling for an end to the Israeli air strikes.The United Nations and the European Union, in contrast, called for an immediate halt to all violence.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Israeli air campaign was criminal and urged world powers to intervene.Egypt said it would keep trying to restore the truce between Israel and Gaza.Hamas threatened to unleash hell to avenge the dead, including possible suicide bombings inside Israel.Hamas estimated that at least 100 members of its security forces had been killed, including police chief Tawfiq Jabber and the head of Hamas's security and protection unit, along with at least 15 women and some children.Morgues across the Gaza Strip ran out of space for bodies.The Islamist group, which won a 2006 parliamentary election but was shunned by Western powers over its refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel, said all of its security compounds in the Gaza Strip were destroyed or seriously damaged.Aid groups said they feared the Israeli operation could fuel a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished coastal enclave, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, half of them dependent on food aid.Gaza hospitals said they were running out of medical supplies because of the Israeli-led blockade, increasing the chances that the death toll will rise.Palestinians staged protest rallies in Arab East Jerusalem, and in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Hebron, leading to scuffles with Israeli forces.Israeli analyst Ron Ben-Yishai said the strike was shock treatment ... aimed at securing a long-term ceasefire between Hamas and Israel on terms that are favorable to Israel.Among the buildings destroyed in the Israeli bombardment was Gaza's presidential compound, which Hamas seized in June 2007 from Abbas's secular Fatah forces after a brief civil war.Witnesses also reported heavy Israeli bombing along Gaza's border with Egypt. Palestinians use hundreds of tunnels under the border to bring in everything from goods to weapons.

The campaign followed a decision by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet to widen reprisals for cross-border Palestinian rocket attacks following the collapse of a six-month-old, Egyptian-brokered ceasefire a week ago.A five-day Israeli offensive in March killed more than 120 people, but Saturday's death toll was the highest for a single day since 1948, when the Jewish state was established.
Olmert, who will leave office after the February election, has repeatedly said Israel does not want to retake control of the Gaza Strip. Israel pulled its ground forces and settlers out of the coastal territory in 2005.After a 2006 war in Lebanon that many Israelis viewed as a failure, military action in Gaza has become a political hot potato that could affect the outcome of the election.(Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Douglas Hamilton and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Peter Millership in London, Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; Writing by Adam Entous; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Brown deeply concerned' by Gaza violence DEC 27,08

LONDON (AFP) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Saturday said he was deeply concerned by rocket attacks into Israel and retaliatory air strikes by the Jewish state, and called for restraint from both sides.I am deeply concerned by continuing missile strikes from Gaza on Israel and by Israel's response today, Brown said, reiterating statements made by the Middle East Quartet -- the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Russia -- that only peaceful means would provide a lasting solution.A spokeswoman for the British premier's Downing Street office said Brown had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and urged him to show restraint.I call on Gazan militants to cease all rocket attacks on Israel immediately. These attacks are designed to cause random destruction and to undermine the prospects of peace talks led by (Palestinian) president (Mahmud) Abbas.I understand the Israeli government's sense of obligation to its population.Israel needs to meet its humanitarian obligations, act in a way to further the long-term vision of a two-state solution, and do everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties.There is a pre-eminent need for renewal of a comprehensive settlement for the Israel-Palestine dispute in 2009.Israel blitzed Hamas targets in Gaza on Saturday with a wave of air strikes in the besieged enclave in retaliation for ongoing rocket fire, killing more than 200 Palestinians, while Hamas swiftly responded by firing rockets into the Jewish state.

Egypt slams Israeli murder in Gaza, summons ambassador DEC 27,08
by Mona Salem Mona Salem

CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt condemned as murder Israel's Saturday air raids on Gaza that killed at least 205 Palestinians, opening its Rafah border crossing with the territory to allow the wounded through for treatment.We call for an immediate end to Israeli military operations. We cannot allow these attacks to continue. We cannot permit the murder of Palestinians, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on state television.Egypt, the only Arab state along with Jordan to have signed a peace deal with Israel, summoned Ambassador Shalom Cohen to demand an end to the bombardment that has also left hundreds wounded.We summoned the Israeli ambassador and we said we refuse this aggression and we demanded an immediate end to it, foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told AFP.Abul Gheit telephoned his US, Russian and French counterparts -- Condoleezza Rice, Sergei Lavrov and Bernard Kouchner -- and urged them to call for an end to Israeli operations that should be reciprocal with Hamas, a statement said.Earlier, President Hosni Mubarak condemned the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip and blames Israel, as an occupying force, for the victims and the wounded.He ordered the Rafah crossing -- the only one bypassing Israel -- to be opened so that the wounded could be treated in Egyptian hospitals.

Dozens of wounded have already passed through, with hundreds more expected, state media reported.A security official said helicopters were being sent to Rafah to fly some of the wounded to hospitals in Cairo.Abdel Fadil Shusha, governor of North Sinai province, which adjoins Gaza, said he has sent six ambulances to the Rafah crossing.Amr Mussa, secretary general of the Cairo-based Arab League, called an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers to discuss the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.League ambassadors will meet on Saturday, and Arab foreign ministers on Sunday, the league said.Mussa also asked Libya, as a member of the United National Security Council, to organise an emergency meeting on the subject of the Israeli raids.Qatar, meanwhile, called for a summit of Arab League leaders in the coming days to discuss the Israeli aggressions and savage raids on the Gaza Strip and to adopt an Arab position on the matter, a foreign ministry spokesman said.Egypt has reinforced security on its frontier with Gaza by deploying 500 anti-riot police, a security official told AFP.On Friday, Egypt had already stepped up border security in case Gazans broke through the boundary fence and entered Egypt in their thousands, as happened in January when activists opened breaches with explosives.

Egypt mediated a six-months truce between Israel and the Islamic Hamas movement which controls the Gaza strip.Since the truce expired on December 19, Egypt has been trying to broker its renewal and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni visited Cairo for talks on Thursday. While in Egypt, Livni vowed to strike back at Hamas as a sharp escalation of violence in Gaza dashed hopes of a new truce. The spiritual guide of Egypt's Islamist opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, condemned Saturday's raids as a crime without comparison in history, adding that the world looks on and does nothing.Countering criticism that Egypt might have told Hamas Israel was not about to launch an attack, Abul Gheit said Israel told the international community and its officials told the whole world of their intentions.Abul Gheit accused Hamas of having aborted Egyptian efforts to avoid an Israeli attack on Gaza. On Thursday, he had said the government was preparing to invite Hamas and its secular rival Fatah, which rules the occupied West Bank, to Cairo to resume dialogue. Hamas boycotted reconciliation talks that were due to take place in Cairo in November, to protest the political detentions of some of its members in the West Bank by Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

UN's Ban calls for halt to Gaza violence DEC 27,08

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Saturday called for an immediate halt to violence in Gaza following Israeli air strikes that killed more than 200 Palestinians in retaliation for ongoing rocket attacks against the Jewish state.Ban is deeply alarmed by today's heavy violence and bloodshed in Gaza, and the continuation of violence in southern Israel, a spokesman for the UN secretary general said in a statement.The UN leader appeals for an immediate halt to all violence.While recognizing Israel's security concerns regarding the continued firing of rockets from Gaza, read the statement, Ban firmly reiterates Israel's obligation to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law and condemns excessive use of force leading to the killing and injuring of civilians.The UN leader also condemns the ongoing rocket attacks by Palestinian militants and is deeply distressed that repeated calls on Hamas for these attacks to end have gone unheeded.

Ban also reiterated his previous calls for humanitarian supplies to be allowed into Gaza to aid the distressed civilian population.The UN leader is making immediate contact with regional and international leaders, including Quartet principals, in an effort to bring a swift end to the violence, the statement added.The Middle East Quartet, a group aimed at helping mediate the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, is made up of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.Israel hammered Hamas targets in Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 205 people and wounding 300 in retaliation for ongoing rocket fire in one of the bloodiest days of the decades-long Middle East conflict.

Abbas in diplomatic offensive after Israel pounds Gaza DEC 27,08

RIYADH (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Saudi King Abdullah on Saturday called for an immediate halt to Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip that killed nearly 200 people, a Palestinian diplomatic source said.President Abbas and the Saudi sovereign discussed developments in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and agreed to denounce it forcefully and urge an immediate halt to it, the source told AFP by telephone from Rawdat Kharim south of Riyadh after the two leaders met.

Abbas also urged the king to intercede urgently with active international parties, especially the United States, to exert pressure on Israel to end its aggression against Gaza, the source added.The Palestinian leader also briefed the king on recent efforts to relaunch the inter-Palestinian dialogue and efforts by Egypt to bring about a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation.Abbas's secular Fatah organisation holds sway only in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after his forces were ousted from Gaza in June 2007 by the Islamist Hamas.The head of emergency services in Gaza, Moawiya Hassanein, said at least 195 Palestinians were killed across the territory in Saturday's massive Israeli air strikes.Earlier Abbas said he was in urgent contact with several states over Saturday's deadly Israeli aerial blitz that also wounded more than 300 people.We have carried out urgent contacts with numerous Arab countries and other nations to stop the cowardly aggressions and massacres in the Gaza Strip, he told AFP by telephone from Saudi Arabia.We will also contact Egypt, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations with the aim of stopping the aggression and restoring the truce, he said.A six-month Egyptian-mediated truce between Israel and Hamas expired on December 19 amid continued violations.King Abdullah of Jordan also contacted Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to launch an Arab and international initiative aimed at ending the Israeli aggression, the palace in Amman said.

The king urged a return to negotiations which are the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it said in a statement.Abdullah called in the international community to accept its legal and moral responsibility towards the Palestinian people by demanding that Israel stops its aggression against the Gaza strip.Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad in a statement also vigorously condemned the Israeli aggression in Gaza and called for its immediate end.

Blair calls for end to rocket attacks, Gaza air strikes DEC 27,08

LONDON (AFP) – Middle East envoy Tony Blair on Saturday called for an end to both rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Hamas-controlled strip, saying a new strategy was needed for Gaza.The terrible events and tragic loss of life in Gaza require, in the immediate term, the introduction of a genuine calm in which the rocket attacks aimed at killing Israeli civilians and the Israeli attacks on Gaza cease so that the suffering of the people, which is severe, can be lifted, he said.Then, as I have said many times before, we need to devise a new strategy for Gaza, which brings that territory back under the legitimate rule of the Palestinian Authority in a manner which ends their suffering and fully protects the security of Israel.Blair's comments came after Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip, which killed 195 Palestinians, while Hamas swiftly responded by firing rockets into the Jewish state.The former British prime minister has served as Middle East envoy for the quartet of the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia for more than a year.The quartet has endorsed a roadmap that calls for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside a secure Israel. It has refused to deal with Hamas, which it sees as a terrorist group bent on Israel's destruction.

Israelis near Gaza call for more strikes on Hamas-run enclave by Mehdi Lebouachera DEC 27,08

NETIVOT, Israel (AFP) – In the impoverished Israeli town of Netivot where a Palestinian rocket killed a man on Saturday, residents want the military to keep hitting the nearby Hamas-run Gaza Strip, and hit it hard.The government does not do enough, but it has to do the job. They must keep bombing Gaza until the Qassams stop, said Motti Turdjman in reference to the home-made rockets fired at southern Israel by militants in the Palestinian enclave fire on an almost daily basis.If they want calm, the people of Gaza must also give us calm, he said, shortly after a rocket killed a man in this town of 25,000 on the edge of the Negev desert.More than 200 people were killed on Saturday as Israel blitzed Hamas targets in Gaza with a wave of air strikes it said were launched in response to rocket attacks.A charred hole gaped in the side of a four-storey cement building where a rocket fired by Hamas killed a man in his 50s and wounded two women.I saw my neighbours covered in blood, wounded by glass that shattered, said Gerard Koskas, one of the building's residents. People were very stressed. Despite that we're not going to be scared. We're going to stay here because we know the army is taking care of the situation, he said.The threat of more rockets hits from Gaza, just a few minutes drive away, has not deterred Netivot residents from their conviction that more strikes against the Palestinian territory are necessary.The best protection for us is to go inside Gaza and go after them without any feelings, said Motti Assuline. We must not give them the opportunity to attack us.

Another resident of the small town, Over Almalia, wants Israel to take drastic measures. The army should send an atomic bomb and get rid of the situation there, he said angrily. If we are scared, the people in Gaza should also be scared.The town of 25,000, 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Gaza, was spared for a long while by the rocket fire that regularly hits Sderot, a city located much closer to the Palestinian territory.But Hamas has in recent years acquired military-grade Grad rockets that have a longer-range than the Qassams mostly used by the Palestinian militants.

US urges Israel avoid civilian casualties in Gaza Sat Dec 27, 8:46 am ET

WACO, Texas (AFP) – The United States urged Israel Saturday to avoid civilian casualties as it pounded Hamas targets in Gaza, but warned the Islamist movement must halt its rocket attacks if the violence is to stop.The United States urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza, US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Waco, as US President George W. Bush closed out 2008 on his Texas ranch.Hamas' continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop. Hamas must end its terrorist activities if it wishes to play a role in the future of the Palestinian people, Johndroe said in a brief statement.Israel blitzed Hamas targets in Gaza on Saturday with a wave of air strikes that killed at least 155 people in the besieged enclave in retaliation for ongoing rocket fire, officials said.An Israeli man died as Hamas swiftly responded to the air raids by firing rockets into the Jewish state.As Israel warned that the bombardment was just the beginning, Hamas told Israelis living near their Gaza stronghold to prepare the funeral shrouds.In Gaza, thick clouds of smoke billowed into the sky and mangled, bloody, charred corpses littered the pavement around Hamas security structures in the coastal strip where the bombardment sowed panic in the streets, television images showed.The deadly attacks came after days of escalating violence around the besieged coastal strip that the Islamist Hamas movement has run since June 2007, with militants firing rockets and Israel vowing a fiery response.

Hamas calls on fighters to hit back at Israel Sat Dec 27, 7:20 am ET

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Hamas on Saturday called on its fighters to hit back at Israel after massive military air strikes killed at least 140 Palestinians in its Gaza Strip stronghold.We call on all units to avenge with force against the enemy, a Hamas spokesman said in a message broadcast on the Islamists' radio, even as militants launched a series of rockets against the Jewish state from the north of the coastal strip.

ARABS KILL 2 OF THEIR OWN CHILDREN

Gaza rocket kills 2 girls, Israel lifts blockade By Nidal al-Mughrabi Nidal Al-mughrabi – Sat Dec 27, 1:18 am ET

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel eased a blockade of the Gaza Strip on Friday but militants there aimed rockets and mortars across the border, one of which misfired and killed two Palestinian girls.Israel said it was responding to numerous requests from the international community by reopening border crossings with Gaza to allow in vital truckloads of fuel and humanitarian aid.But renewed fire from Gaza-based militants --a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Islamist group Hamas to stop firing rockets or pay a heavy price -- ensured that the easing of tension was short-lived.About a dozen rockets and mortar bombs were fired from Gaza on Friday. One accidentally struck a northern Gaza house killing two Palestinian sisters, aged five and 13, and wounding a third, Palestinian medics said.No militant group claimed responsibility. Hamas police said they would investigate.An Israeli military spokesman said the Erez border crossing, the main passage for people between Israel and Gaza, was closed after two mortar bombs fell in that area.The earlier reopening was seen as potentially easing tensions that might have led to military action to end rocket attacks, though in the past Israel has allowed Gaza to resupply with vital goods before launching assaults.Palestinian workers at the crossings said fuel had arrived for Gaza's main power plant, where shortages mean periodic blackouts for many of the territory's 1.5 million residents.Raed Fattouh, coordinator of supplies, said about 100 trucks loaded with grain, humanitarian aid and goods for the private sector were due to come in to Gaza during the day, including a convoy from Egypt.

TRUCE EXPIRY

Israel also let a Palestinian man go to an Israeli hospital for treatment for an injury after a militant rocket struck his home in Gaza earlier this week, medics and officials said.Gaza, a largely impoverished coastal enclave, has been under a heightened Israeli blockade since Hamas seized control of the territory from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement in 2007.In renewed fighting since a six-month truce expired last week, at least six militants have been killed by Israeli air strikes and dozens of rockets and mortar shells from Gaza have slammed into Israel, damaging homes and causing panic.Israel's cabinet plans on Sunday to debate a decision by a security panel to hit back at Gaza militants, beginning with air strikes on Hamas targets, political sources said.Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza in 2005 and Olmert has said he does not wish to re-occupy the coastal strip. A military offensive could involve ground combat likely to result in high casualties.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni discussed the crisis on Thursday with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, which borders Gaza to the west and which brokered the truce in June. Mubarak urged restraint on both sides.At the same time, Olmert appeared on an Arabic television channel, urging Gazans to reject their Islamist rulers and stop the rocket attacks.He said it was a last-minute appeal and said he would not hesitate to use Israel's military might if they did not.(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch and Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Mark Trevelyan).

Iran to send aid ship to Gaza Fri Dec 26, 9:10 am ET

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran's Red Crescent is sending a shipment of aid to the Gaza Strip in the face of a blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory by Islamic republic's archfoe Israel, the state broadcaster reported on Friday.Despite the Zionist regime's opposition... this consignment will leave Bandar Abbas for Palestine on Saturday and will arrive in 12 days, a provincial Red Crescent director, Ahmad Navvab, was quoted as saying.The cargo contains over 2,000 tonnes of food, medicine and appliances and it will be accompanied by 12 Iranian doctors and relief workers, he said.Earlier this month, the Red Crescent said it aimed to send a 1,000-tonne shipment of grain, sugar, oil and medicine to the aid-dependent land, which has been subject to Israeli blockades and repeated raids since the Islamists of Hamas seized power in June 2007.

Violence in and around Gaza has flared since a six-month ceasefire ended on December 19 and there is widespread speculation Israeli forces are gearing up for large scale military action in the coastal strip.Israel responded to violence that erupted around Gaza in early November by tightening its blockade of the territory and blocking deliveries of humanitarian aid and other basic supplies.Tehran is a staunch supporter of Hamas but rejects allegations it is supplying arms to the movement, saying it only provides moral backing.Iran does not recognise the Jewish state and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map and called the Jewish Holocaust a myth.

UN steps up Lebanon border patrols after rockets found Fri Dec 26, 5:58 am ET

BEIRUT (AFP) – UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops have stepped up patrols along the border with Israel after rockets were discovered aimed at the Jewish state and ready to fire, a UN spokeswoman said on Friday.The UN Interim Force in Lebanon and the Lebanese army have deployed additional troops and intensified patrols and security control of the area, said UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane.UNIFIL commander Major General Claudio Graziano of Italy, is in contact with senior Lebanese and Israeli military officials, Bouziane added.On Thursday, security forces found eight Katyusha rockets in the coastal region between Naqura and Tair Harfa.The rockets were aimed at Palestine (Israel) and connected to a timer, an officer said on Friday, adding that an investigation was under way and that the rockets had been dismantled.The area where the rockets were found is a stronghold of the Shiite Hezbollah group and lies less than five kilometres (three miles) from the border.Israel and Hezbollah fought a devastating 34-day war in 2006 that killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.During the war, Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israel.The group has been accused by the Jewish state of using the time since the end of the conflict to rearm. Last month, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that Hezbollah is now three times stronger than it was in 2006.

Report: Israel set to launch limited operation in Gaza Fri Dec 26, 4:00 am ET

Israel attacks Gaza, scores killed Reuters Israel is preparing a limited military strike against Hamas, according to a new report, even as it opens the border to allow much-needed supplies into Gaza.Haaretz reports that in the face of ongoing rocket and mortar attacks into Israel by Hamas, including some 22 shells fired Thursday and Friday, the Israeli cabinet has approved a limited operation ... that will combine an air attack with some ground operations in Gaza. In statements Thursday, senior security officials were unwavering. Anyone who harms Israeli citizens and soldiers will pay the price, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, speaking at the graduation of a pilots' training course at Hazerim Air Force Base, said, We will have to use all of our might against the terror infrastructure and create a different security reality around the Gaza Strip.

Israel is planning a relatively short operation that will cause maximum damage to Hamas assets. The defense establishment says the operation would not necessarily limit itself to stopping rocket launches and that during the operation, daily massive rocket launches can be expected. Hamas might fire rockets with a range beyond the 20 kilometers it has used so far.Haaretz adds their sources said an Israeli ground operation would result in many civilian casualties, especially in the Palestinian refugee camps.The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reports that both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who was in Cairo Thursday discussing Gaza with her Egyptian counterpart, warned Hamas that Israel was prepared to act to stop the Palestinian militants' ongoing rocket attacks.

Hamas needs to understand that our aspiration to live in peace doesn't mean that Israel is going to take this kind of situation any longer, Livni said at the end of the meeting.Enough is enough. And while we are working with the pragmatic leaders, trying to change the situation on the ground in the West Bank, we cannot tolerate a situation in which Hamas continues to target Israel, Israel's citizens, and this situation is going to be changed.Her sentiments were echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who called on the people of Gaza to turn against Hamas, the Islamist political and military organization that holds de facto control of the area.

I'm telling them now it may be the last minute. I'm telling them stop it, we are stronger, Olmert said in an interview with Arabic satellite television channel al-Arabiya.There will be more blood there. Who wants it? We don't want it.The increase in Israeli military rhetoric comes soon after a six-month-long truce between Israel and Hamas ended last week. Since then, Israel has suffered an increasing number of rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the conflict is further complicated by the impending political contests in both Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel is set for an election on Feb. 10, while the term of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas –a member of Fatah, Hamas's rival – is set to expire on Jan. 9.In an editorial, The Jerusalem Post argued that the time for Israeli negotiation with Hamas had passed, and that Israel must instead attempt the methodical elimination of Hamas's leadership.As a matter of grand strategy, Israel must not tolerate a hostile entity anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Hamas cannot be allowed to metastasize into a second Hizbullah.Israel's immediate objective must be to make it impossible for Hamas to govern in Gaza. Yet the choice is not between a massive land invasion and paralysis. The proper method of fighting Hamas is a methodical elimination of its political and military command and control. Concurrently, IDF artillery need to shoot back at the sources of enemy fire. ...

Any resort to force by the IDF raises the possibility of unintended consequences. Israel's home front could be hit hard. Hizbullah could launch diversionary attacks. The Arab street in non-belligerent countries could roil. If enemy non-combatants are killed, nasty media coverage is certain.We may express regret; but we must not apologize. Whatever happens, we must be resolute: Hamas must be stopped. Another article in the Post noted, however, that Hamas said it was prepared for Israeli attempts at assassinating its leadership. An aide to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told the Post that Hamas would quickly elevate new leadership to fill any vacuum, and that Hamas is a popular movement that doesn't center on this or that leader.... Almost every member of Hamas is fit to become a leader.Despite the signals of its willingness to attack Hamas, Israel also reopened its border with Gaza to allow supplies into the territory for the first time in 10 days, reports CNN. About 80 trucks filled with commodities were expected to cross into Gaza. Among the goods were 400,000 liters of fuel and 120 tons of cooking gas. The decision to open the crossings at Kerem Shalom, Karni and Nahal Oz came after requests from international aid groups and Egypt, said Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. In addition, he said, Israel has no desire to hurt the civilian population in Gaza. Lerner said the decision to keep the crossings open would be made on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called for calm from both Hamas and Israel, reports Haaretz. Mr. Gheit also warned that renewed fighting between Israel and Hamas could imperil the process of freeing Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was kidnapped by Gaza militants in 2006. The situation has slided again to a confrontation, Gheit said. We are hoping that both parties would restrain their actions. Hence they would allow us to build and to establish that situation where by we can bring an end to the tension, then to restore the quiet and then we would work on Gilad Shalit anew.Gheit said the security situation was linked to talks regarding a prisoner swap that would entail the release of Shalit. A military operation by the IDF would be hazardous to such a process, he said. He is part of a bigger and more general problem between Hamas and Israel, Gheit said, referring to Shalit. My understanding from our own intelligence is he is okay and well treated.

Calm brings record tourism to Bethlehem By Joshua Mitnick Joshua Mitnick – Fri Dec 26,3:00 am ET

Bethlehem, West Bank – At the height of the Palestinian uprising six years ago, the only traffic in this holy city, believed to be Jesus' birthplace, were Israeli military jeeps enforcing curfew. Now, with record bus loads of Christian pilgrims filing through the Church of the Nativity and sleeping at local hotels, Bethlehem is abuzz.The revival of tourism in the West Bank is one of the few bright spots in the Palestinian economy, which was supposed to get a big boost from the Bush administration at its Middle East peace conference in the fall of 2007 in Annapolis, Md.After the Annapolis conference ... there was a relative relief in the political situation, says Palestinian tourism minister Khouloud Daibes-Abu Dayyeh. The pictures coming through the media showed at least part of Palestine as more safe and ... ready to receive tourists, he says.While tourists must pass through the Israeli security barrier at the main entrance to Bethlehem, West Bank visitors have doubled over the past year. The 1.3 million tourists expected for 2008 surpasses the pre-uprising peak nine years ago. The surge is filling hotels to capacity – an encouraging sign as chains Mövenpick and Days Inn pursue plans to open in Ramallah.

Tourism contributed to a modest 2 percent growth rate in the overall Palestinian economy this year – a figure that would have been twice as high if it weren't for the flagging economy in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a yearlong Israeli blockade.In the Beit Sahour suburb of Bethlehem, hammers can be heard from hotel construction just up the road from Shepherds' Field, the hillside believed to be the site from where the biblical Star of Bethlehem was sighted. Builders are adding to the Sahara Hotel to nearly triple its capacity to 52 rooms.Owner Majed Banoura said he would open the hotel, closed for renovations, for Christmas to accommodate overflow from Bethlehem. There is security and a sense of calm, says Mr. Banoura, who says his family's souvenir business took in a record $1 million this year. We feel the rule of law. This is what we need.The construction sector is also getting a kick-start with housing projects in and around Ramallah. And the rollout of a new Palestinian cellphone company this year marked the largest single foreign investment ever. Yet the economy has a deep hole to climb out of. Hemmed in by hundreds of Israeli military checkpoints, Palestinians have been struggling, with international donors contributing $1.75 billion to keep the government running. The private sector has been in retreat. A recent World Bank report said that the economy won't fully recover unless Israel removes more restrictions on movement and allows West Bank residents access to agricultural land.These are wonderful sparks of potential, says one Western diplomat who requested anonymity. But now the Israelis have to enable it to explode.When the Bush administration convened Israelis, Palestinians, and Middle East allies in Annapolis a year ago, boosting prosperity in the West Bank was part of a plan to encourage support for peace negotiations and the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – at the expense of Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Since then, negotiators failed to meet a deadline for a political accord set for the end of the year. The political vacuum opened up by change in Israeli and US governments has left progress on the economy in the West Bank as one of the sole bulwarks of the peace process. For Christmas Eve and morning, Israel's Tourism Ministry arranged a free shuttle to ferry pilgrims hourly between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. At the Bethlehem crossing point this week, a soldier hung a Tourism Ministry banner with holiday greetings for tourists. Israeli officials say they see Bethlehem and Jerusalem as part of the same package for tourists.In Manger Square, Montreal native Ryan Roe says he is vacationing in the region for the first time since moving to Abu Dhabi to work as an investment banker. The passage from Jerusalem to Bethlehem was unexpectedly hassle-free. We showed up at the wall and there was no one in line, he says. They didn't even check our passports. It was like zero security.Palestinians complain that they're getting only a fraction of tourism revenues because most of the visitors' time and cash is spent in Israel. And Israel has approved only about 40 of about 200 requests for entry permits for Palestinian tour guides.Moreover the tourism revival is concentrated in Bethlehem and Jericho. If in 1999 the industry was 10 percent of Palestinian gross domestic product, in 2008it accounted for only 4 percent, according to the World Bank.At a souvenir shop near Shepherds' Field, owner Linda Elias says that anywhere from 10 to 30 buses show up daily, but few tourists linger. We want this wall to go and we want our rights. But we don't want another war. We want peace, she said. I pray some people will come.

Lebanese army finds seven missiles pointed at Israel Thu Dec 25, 3:18 pm ET

BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanese security forces found seven missiles directed at Israel in southern Lebanon on Thursday, an army official said.The army has found seven missiles in the coastal region between Naqqura and Tair Harfa directed toward Israel, the official told AFP, asking not to be named.We are investigating whether they were prepared for launching or for use at a later stage. The expert is dismantling them now,the official added.The area where the missiles were found is a stronghold of the Shiite Hezbollah militant group and lies less than five kilometers (three miles) from Lebanon's border with Israel.Israel and Hezbollah fought a devastating 34-day war in the summer of 2006 which killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.During the war, Hezbollah fired over 4,000 missiles at Israel. The group has been accused by the Jewish state of using the time since the end of the conflict to rearm.Last month, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that the Shiite group is three times stronger now than it was in 2006.

Israel sentences PFLP leader to 30 years in prison by Hossam Ezzedine Hossam Ezzedine – Thu Dec 25, 2:02 pm ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – An Israeli military court on Thursday sentenced Ahmed Saadat, the leader of the leftist Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), to 30 years in prison for heading a terrorist organisation.Ahmed Saadat is guilty ... because of his position and activities within the (PFLP) terrorist movement, an Israeli army statement said.Given the status of the accused within this terrorist organisation, given the actions put in place to develop the movement's military structures and given that ... the fighters (of the organisation) were under his command, the court sentences him to 30 years in prison, the statement said.When Israeli forces seized Saadat in March 2006 in a controversial raid on a Jericho prison, he stood accused of planning the 2001 murder of far-right Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi, which was carried out by four PFLP militants.Prosecutors later decided not to pursue this case against Saadat, instead pressing the charges against four PFLP gunmen who were seized along with him in Jericho.The PFLP slammed the verdict as political.When the Israelis arrested him, they accused him of having killed Zeevi, but this accusation did not appear in the sentencing which proves that his arrest was political and was not related to security issues, PFLP member Khalida Jarar told AFP.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in a statement released in Ramallah denounced the sentence as unjust and without legal foundation.We will continue unceasingly to demand his release and the release of all our heroes still held in Israeli prisons, Abbas said.Several dozen Palestinians, meanwhile, staged a demonstration in a refugee camp near Bethlehem to protest the court's decision.Zeevi, 75 at the time of his death, was shot at a hotel in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem on October 17, 2001.Saadat and the four militants convicted of Zeevi's killing were seized during a controversial raid on Jericho prison in the West Bank in March 2006 when Israeli troops stormed the jail shortly after British guards left their posts.The PFLP claimed the killing of Zeevi after its leader Abu Ali Mustafa was assassinated by Israeli troops.Zeevi was an ultra rightwinger and supported the ideology of transfer, which would see all Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip expelled to neighbouring Arab countries.The 54-year-old Saadat is a father of four and a veteran of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada.The former university mathematics student was a popular leader in the first Palestinian uprising in 1987 and his election to the PFLP in October 2001 was seen as a boost to the leftist group's radical line.He gained a reputation as a man of the people who was much more charismatic and better tuned in to the situation on the ground than his PFLP predecessor, Abu Ali Mustafa.Mustafa was killed in an August 2001 helicopter strike on his offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah, triggering swift warnings of revenge from Saadat. Zeevi's death prompted the Palestinian Authority, under US and Israeli pressure, to arrest Saadat. Late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said that his Palestinian Authority arrested Saadat on January 15, 2002 to force him to surrender Zeevi's killers. Saadat's arrest was one of the conditions set by Israel for lifting the blockade which had stranded Arafat at his West Bank headquarters in the town of Ramallah in 2002, but was widely protested by Palestinians. While in prison, Saadat was elected to the Palestinian parliament in January 2006.

Israeli FM vows to strike back at Hamas by Samer al-Atrush Samer Al-atrush – Thu Dec 25, 11:08 am ET

CAIRO (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Thursday to strike back at the Hamas rulers of Gaza after a sharp escalation of violence in the Palestinian territory dashed hopes of a new truce.Enough is enough. The situation is going to change, Livni said in Cairo after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss the deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip since a truce expired six days ago.Unfortunately there is one address to the situation of the people in the Gaza Strip, this is Hamas, Hamas controls them, Hamas decided to target Israel, this is something that has to be stopped and this is what we're going to do, she said in English.Yesterday's escalation was unbearable, Livni said after Gaza militants hit Israel with their biggest rocket barrage in six months to avenge the killing of three fighters from the Islamist movement.Hamas needs to understand that our aspiration for peace does not mean that Israel will take this situation any longer, Livni said at a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.

Hamas's control of the Gaza Strip is not only Israel's problem... but what we are doing is an expression of the needs of the region.The situation in the Gaza Strip has become an obstacle on the way of the Palestinians toward a state, added Livni, who has vowed to topple Hamas if her Kadima party wins a general election in February.Livni has been heading the Israeli negotiating team in peace talks with the Palestinians that resumed in November last year but have failed to make any visible headway since.Abul Gheit, whose government mediated the six-month truce that expired on Friday, called for restraint in the impoverished territory that has been ruled by Hamas since it routed the rival Fatah movement in June 2007.Egypt has made clear that there should be restraint and no escalation and an alleviation of the humanitarian situation, he said, saying Israel should refrain from collective punishment.He said Egypt would continue its mediation efforts, but expressed pessimism that a new truce could be achieved.Egypt won't stop its efforts as long as the parties agree. But I do not imagine that we can convince both parties to return to the truce as long as there is such a strong confrontation between them.Israel's Maariv newspaper said the security cabinet had given the army the go-ahead to conduct expanded operations in Gaza after a meeting on Wednesday and Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned that Israel would respond to the fire.Hamas... will pay a big price, he said. We will not allow this situation to last.Hamas has vowed to step up attacks if Israel strikes Gaza, a tiny enclave sandwiched between Egypt and Israel that is home to 1.5 million largely aid-dependent Palestinians.Since Friday's expiry of the truce, Israel has threatened to launch a major offensive on Gaza, with top leaders threatening to topple Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel and the West.

In turn, Hamas -- which is sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state -- has warned it would retaliate by resuming suicide bombings inside Israel. The last such attack was in January 2005.A UN statement said UN chief Ban Ki-moon was gravely concerned" about the situation, that he condemned the rocket attacks and also called for an urgent easing of humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip. Pope Benedict XVI also urged an end to hatred and violence in the Middle East during his midnight mass Christmas homily ahead of a planned trip to the region. Israel's outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, meanwhile, called in an interview published on Thursday for residents of Gaza to stop Hamas militants from firing missiles into Israel. I say to you in a last-minute call, stop it, Olmert said in an interview with the Arab television station Al-Arabiya, according to quotes reprinted in the Israeli media.

Don't let Hamas, which is acting against the values of Islam, put you in danger, he said. Stop them. Stop your enemies and ours. Tell them to stop firing on innocent civilians.

Tourists, locals pray in Bethlehem on Christmas By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 25, 7:34 am ET

BETHLEHEM, West Bank – Bethlehem marked Christmas on Thursday with crowds of tourists joining local Palestinian Christians in Jesus' traditional birthplace, as the West Bank town basked in its once-a-year appearance in the world spotlight.The mood was upbeat, with hotel rooms fully booked and merchants reporting good business for the first time in years, as a long period of Israeli-Palestinian violence that dampened moods and tourism seemed to be easing.Light rain fell on Bethlehem on Christmas morning. Crowds of worshippers and tourists carrying umbrellas walked briskly across the plaza in front of the Church of the Nativity, built atop the grotto where Jesus is believed to have been born.Inside the dimly lit Crusader-era church, hundreds of people lined up five abreast between two rows of columns on one side, quietly waiting their turn to descend a few stone steps to the grotto.Most of the people in the ancient church on Christmas morning were Asian, with a few Europeans and Americans joining them.After ducking through the low entrance into the church, Wayne Shandera, 57, a physician from Houston looked awed by the massive presence of the old stone church. You feel in continuity with all the pilgrims through the ages who have been here, he said.

Brad Shannon, 28, a mechanic from Atlanta, said he saved money all year to make the trip to Bethlehem with three friends.I came here to see the oldest church that is still in use, he said. It's not every Christmas that you're surrounded with people from all over the world.At the nearby Church of St. Catherine, the recently installed Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, conducted his first Christmas morning service in his new role. For the Midnight Mass a few hours earlier, the church was filled on Christmas Eve with dignitaries, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and tourists who obtained tickets and passed through security checks.

Christmas morning services were more relaxed. Most of the congregants were local Palestinians, with some tourists standing in the back, listening to the Arabic-language liturgy.The outbreak of the Palestinian uprising against Israel in late 2000and the fighting that followed clouded Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem for years, battering the tourism industry that is the city's lifeline.Although holiday tourism numbers this year were still off from the tens of thousands who visited in the peak years of the late 1990s and the 2000 millennium, they were up from recent years, when just a few thousand visitors trickled in. Bethlehem officials said that over the course of the year, more than 1 million tourists visited their town, providing a much-needed boost to the local economy.Still, all is not well in Bethlehem, despite the diminished violence and the relaunch of peace talks last year between Israel and the government of Abbas.Bethlehem remains surrounded on three sides by a barrier of towering concrete slabs and electronic fences that Israel has erected. Israeli says the barrier is meant to keep out suicide attackers, but because it dips inside the West Bank, Palestinians see it as a thinly disguised land grab that strangles their economy.Emigration, meanwhile, has slashed the town's Christian population to an estimated 35 to 50 percent of its 40,000 people, down from 90 percent in the 1950s.The festivities in the West Bank town contrasted sharply with the mood in Hamas-run Gaza, 45 miles away. Militants there have been bombarding nearby Israeli communities with rockets and mortars since a truce expired a week ago, waiting to see whether Israel would act on its frequent threat to pummel them militarily.The tiny Christian community in Gaza — 400 out of a total population of 1.4 million — called off its Midnight Mass to protest Israel's blockade, imposed after the militant Islamic Hamas overran the territory last year and further tightened last month, when Gaza militants resumed rocket fire.Additional reporting by Associated Press writer Dalia Nammari in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem fills up with Christmas pilgrims By Mustafa Abu Ganeyeh – Wed Dec 24, 11:15pm ET

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Thousands of Christian pilgrims gathered in Bethlehem's Manger Square on Wednesday to celebrate Christmas under the protection of security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.About 500 security men arrived from the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Jericho to provide security for the holiday. Similar deployments have taken place across the West Bank over the past year with U.S. backing.We expect about 40,000 visitors in Bethlehem this week, said Khouloud Daibes-Abu Dayyeh, the Palestinian Authority's minister of tourism.The estimate includes Christians from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Israel and the rest of the world. About 900 from Gaza applied for Israeli permission to go to the site where Christians believe Jesus was born, but only 300 got it.It's better to spend Christmas in Bethlehem because we are close to the church. It's important to visit where Jesus was born, said 58-year-old Italian tourist Messimo Silzestri beneath a giant Christmas tree and decorations in Manger Square.While Gaza teeters on the brink of a major crisis following the end of a six-month truce between Israel and Hamas Islamists in control of the strip, a decline in violence in the West Bank has tempted back tourists who no longer fear gunbattles in the streets.Israel attributes this partly to the barrier it is building in and around the occupied West Bank. For Bethlehem, the barrier takes the form of a daunting concrete wall 4 meters (13 feet) high with watchtowers.

MUCH-NEEDED REVENUE

Tourism collapsed here when a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000. But this Christmas, the Palestinian tourism minister says, hotel occupancy is rising.The increase in security and easier movement means we have our largest numbers, and we are making great efforts to restore tourist activity, she told Reuters in Ramallah.The numbers themselves are not as important as the length of stay, she added. The direct contribution of tourism to the Palestinian economy is reckoned at about $480 million a year.Palestinians say the Israeli barrier is a major obstacle to peace that cripples trade and turns off foreign tourists.Many visitors see the wall between Jerusalem and Bethlehem as an ugly scar defiling a Christian holy site.Going to the checkpoint and the barrier is really crazy. But being here, it is totally worth it, said 20-year-old Emma Serienni who was on her first visit from the United States.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Tuesday said the Jewish state must press on with plans to complete the barrier around key parts of Jerusalem, which could be divided in a future deal to create a Palestinian state.

There is little prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the time Pope Benedict visits Bethlehem in mid-May 2009.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Jon Boyle)

Bethlehem sermon calls for peace in the Middle East by Patrick Moser – Wed Dec 24, 7:44 pm ET

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) – The Catholic leader in the Holy Land Thursday prayed for Mideast peace, telling the faithful at the traditional birthplace of Jesus the silent night of Christmas overpowers the voice of guns.Peace to Bethlehem and all the inhabitants of the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Fuad Twal said in his sermon at midnight mass in Bethlehem, just a few meters from the grotto that marks the spot where Christians believe their Prince of Peace was born in a stable.On this night, the silence of the grotto will be even louder than the voice of the cannons and submachine guns, he told pilgrims from around the world who celebrated Christmas in this Palestinian city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.His words rang out as violence escalated in the Gaza Strip where fighters of the Hamas movement that rules the besieged Palestinian enclave fired a barrage of rockets at Israel which responded with a deadly air raid.The silence of the grotto gives life to those whose voice has been suffocated by tears and who have sought refuge in silence and impotence, he told the crowd that packed the church, which included Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.The cry of the widows and the children is mixed with the noise of cannons and submachine guns, said Twal who delivered his sermon in his native Arabic and then again in French.Peace, Twal said, is the solution for all conflicts and differences. War does not produce peace, prisons do not guarantee stability.The highest of walls do not assure security, he told the faithful, many of whom had driven through a gate at the eight-metre (26-feet) high concrete wall that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem and forms part of the projected 700-kilometer West Bank separation barrier Israel says is needed for security.It was heartbreaking to see that wall, it's a blot on Israel, said Jessica Kelly, 22.

She and her boyfriend Sean Wright, 30, both said they felt torn between the joy of Christmas and the sadness at the reality of the wall.The two students from Sydney were among thousands of Christians who flocked to Bethlehem.Throughout the day, pilgrims prayed in the Church of the Nativity and the adjoining St Catherine's Church where midnight mass was celebrated.Others milled in Manger Square just outside, where Boy Scout marching bands kicked off celebrations playing hymns on bagpipes and drums.It is really very special to be in Bethlehem on the day we celebrate Christmas, it is a very emotional moment, said Eduardo Robles Gil, a Mexican priest who was on a pilgrimage with his family.Souvenir stores were doing brisk business selling nativity scenes carved in olive wood, rosaries and religious trinkets.Elsa Marie Kierkegaard, a Dane who converted to Catholicism five years ago, was taken aback by what she felt was crass commercialism.It's like one big market, she said looking at the food stands, garlands of lights, synthetic pine trees and inflatable Santas.But the visitors, returning in the largest numbers yet since the 2000 start of the second Palestinian uprising, brought a strong dose of Christmas cheer. Bethlehem welcomed over one million tourists this year, twice as many as in 2007 and the highest number since 1999, Palestinian officials said. The tourist boom is a welcome respite for the Palestinian territory, whose economic growth has been severely hurt by hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and the separation barrier that restrict movement of goods and people. In Gaza City, Roman Catholic priest Manuel Musalem celebrated midnight mass six hours early in what he called a protest against the violence and the Israeli blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory. We pray for peace and that the blockade and the siege end in the Gaza Strip, and we ask the world to help Palestinians, he said in his sermon to about 200 faithful.

ISRAELS TRUE MESSIAH KING JESUS

CHANUKAH DAY 5 TODAY

LEARN ABOUT CHANUKAH
http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm
CHANUKAH DAY 1-8 SCRIPTURES
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/12/hannuka-day-1-8-scriptures.html
MACCABEES STORY
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/12/7s-and-maccabees.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/12/maccabees-story.html

LUKE 2:25-35
25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout,(MESSIANIC JEW)waiting for the consolation (MESSIAH) of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.
26 And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.(GODS SON MESSIAH)
27 And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,(NOTICE THEIR IN THE TEMPLE HERE)
28 Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,
29 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
30 For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,(THE MESSIAH)
31 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
32 A light to lighten (REVELATION)the Gentiles, and the glory (SHEKANIAH)of thy people Israel.(INTERESTING,PROPHECY FOR THE GENTILES,AND THE CLOUD OF GOD THAT LEAD ISRAEL AS WELL AS THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE TEMPLE). THIS SHOULD BE PR0OF TO ISRAEL THAT JESUS IS THE TRUE MESSIAH.
33 And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.
34 And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
35 (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

CHRISTMAS SCRIPTURES

ISAIAH 2:1-5
1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.(DANIELS 70TH WEEK)(DANIEL 9:24)
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

TODAY WE CELEBRATE THE BIRTH OF OUR KING AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS. JESUS IS THE ULTIMATE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE. LET US PRAISE THE GOD OF ISRAEL EVERY DAY AND THANK HIM FOR SENDING HIS SON TO EARTH THAT ALL CAN BE SAVED AND LIVE ON EARTH FOREVER WITH HIM ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM.

FOR THOSE CHRISTIANS THAT FORGET JESUS WAS JEWISH THATS WHY WE ARE GRAFTED INTO ISRAEL AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL IS OUR GOD ALSO. ONE AWESOME GOD THREE DIFFERENT OFFICES: FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT. I STRESS ONCE AGAIN ONE GOD AND SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD.

MICAH 5:2-4
2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
3 Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.

ISAIAH 7:14
14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.(GOD WITH US)

ISAIAH 9:6-7
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:(1ST COMING) and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.(2ND COMING AS RULING KING FOREVER)
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

MATTHEW 1:16-25
16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.
20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

MATTHEW 2:1-23
1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,
6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.
7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.
8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.
9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.
12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
13 And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
14 When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
15 And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.
16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.
17 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,
18 In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
19 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,
20 Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.
21 And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.
22 But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:
23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

LUKE 1:26-80
26 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.
38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
39 And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;
40 And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. 41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
45 And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.
46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
54 He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;
55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.
56 And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house.
57 Now Elisabeth's full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son.
58 And her neighbours and her cousins heard how the Lord had shewed great mercy upon her; and they rejoiced with her.
59 And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father.
60 And his mother answered and said, Not so; but he shall be called John.
61 And they said unto her, There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name.
62 And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called.
63 And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, His name is John. And they marvelled all.
64 And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God.
65 And fear came on all that dwelt round about them: and all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judaea.
66 And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this be! And the hand of the Lord was with him.
67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying,
68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,
69 And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;
70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:
71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;
72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;
73 The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,
74 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear,
75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.
76 And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways;
77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
78 Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
79 To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
80 And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.

LUKE 2:1-52
1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
16 And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
17 And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
21 And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
22 And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;
23 (As it is written in the law of the LORD, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;)
24 And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.
25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.
26 And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
27 And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,
28 Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,
29 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
30 For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
31 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
32 A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
33 And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.
34 And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
35 (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
36 And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity;
37 And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.
38 And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
39 And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth. 40 And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.
41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.
42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.
43 And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
44 But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.
45 And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.
46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.
47 And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
48 And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
50 And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
51 And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.