Abbas pleads with UN for Gaza help

Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas

January 07, 2009

PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas has pressed the UN Security Council to call for an "immediate and full cessation of Israeli aggression" in the Gaza Strip and for the lifting of the "suffocating siege" of the territory.

“I call on the council to take the first necessary step to save my people in Gaza: a resolution calling for an immediate full cessation of Israeli aggression,” he told the 15-member body in New York on the 11th day of an Israeli military invasion that has claimed 660 Palestinian lives in Gaza, including about 200 children, local medics say.

Israeli troops kept up their assault on Hamas fighters in Gaza today as diplomats sought to persuade Israel to end its action.

And Barack Obama finally broke his silence on the issue, saying: "The loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me."

An air strike killed a Palestinian gunman and wounded three in Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood, where some of the heaviest fighting has occurred since Israeli troops invaded the crowded coastal strip on Saturday, medics said.

Clashes were continuing in Zeitun, and there were reports of air strikes on the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah.

The latest fighting follows Israeli strikes yesterday on three UN-run schools that killed at least 48 people, taking the civilian death toll even higher and prompting growing calls for an immediate ceasefire.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply dismayed” by the strikes on the schools and called them “totally unacceptable”.

While the UN Security Council discussed the crisis in New York, Egypt's president and veteran Middle East peace mediator, Hosni Mubarak, was pushing for an immediate ceasefire.

He called on Israel and the Palestinians to discuss security on the Egypt-Gaza border, following talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Egypt “invites the Israelis and Palestinians for an urgent meeting to reach arrangements and guarantees that would not allow the repeat of the current escalation,” Mr Mubarak said.

Such guarantees would include “securing the borders and ... opening of the border crossings and lifting the siege,” he said.

Mr Mubarak also said he proposed an immediate ceasefire that would allow aid to enter the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian-Israeli talks.

Mr Sarkozy, who began a whirlwind tour of the region on Monday, said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about Mr Mubarak's initiative and that “he will react soon”.

“I have very precise elements that allow me to say that an Israeli delegation will meet an Egyptian delegation to discuss the matter of security,” he said.

Mr Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the UN Security Council presidency, said a resolution on Gaza would “complicate” the task of achieving peace.

A Hamas delegation is already in Cairo to discuss a ceasefire.

Egypt brokered a six-month truce that ended on December 19. Hamas refused to renew the deal, accusing Israel of reneging on it by not relaxing the crippling blockade of Gaza it first imposed when the Islamists seized control of the territory in 2007.

Mr Olmert earlier said the “terrorist” rocket attacks and weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza must end before Israel halts its offensive on the Palestinian territory.

Mr Ban said he would travel to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories next week.

Protests against Israel have spiralled worldwide, and Al-Qa'ida deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to attack Israeli and Western targets in revenge for the offensive.

Israel has denied there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but Mr Olmert's office announced today that the Jewish state would open a “humanitarian corridor” into the territory.

“This involves opening up geographical areas for limited periods of time during which the population will be able to receive the aid and stock up,” his office said.

International Committee of the Red Cross operations director Pierre Kraehenbuehl said earlier that “there is no doubt in my mind that we are dealing with a full-blown and major crisis in humanitarian terms. The situation for the people in Gaza is extreme and traumatic.”

Source: The Australian from Agence France-Presse

Hamas terror: every Jewish child now a target

John Lyons, Middle East correspondent | January 07, 2009

HAMAS leader Mahmoud Zahar has warned that Jewish children are now legitimate targets, in a bloodcurdling precursor to tanks rolling into the Islamic militant stronghold of Khan Younis yesterday.

Zahar's threat of retaliation, in his first comments since the Israeli campaign began 11 days ago, came before tanks, firing cannons and machineguns and supported by helicopter gunships, moved into the city in the southern Gaza Strip.

The pre-dawn operation to open a third front came a day after troops and Hamas militants fought pitched battles in Gaza City, in the north - where four Israelis were killed by tankfire in two friendly-fire cases, and on the edges of the Deir al-Balah and Bureij refugee camps in the centre.

"They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine," said Zahar, in a video recorded from his hiding place in Syria and broadcast on Hamas's al-Aqsa television. "They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people."

The warning, delivered late on Monday, suggested a new round of suicide bombings inside and even outside Israel to avenge the deaths of at least 159 Palestinian children, killed since the campaign to take out Hamas rocket teams began with airstrikes on December 27. Defence Minister Ehud Barak said last night that the strip had been cut in half and that Gaza City had been surrounded.

The death toll on both sides rose as diplomatic initiatives failed to make progress on halting the fighting in the enclave of 1.5million people.

The incursion into Khan Younis's eastern district of Abassan al-Kabira was the first time Israeli ground forces had entered the city since they poured into the territory on Saturday night. The armoured force was met in Khan Younis by return fire from Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. Artillery and airstrikes hit two UN schools in Khan Younis and Gaza City, one crowded with refugees, killing at least five people - bringing the Palestinian death toll since the campaign began to more than 580, of which the UN says a quarter are civilians.

In other pre-dawn clashes yesterday, fighting raged in the north around Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya, near Gaza City. In the eastern Gaza City district of Zeitun, a three-storey house belonging to a Hamas member with 30 people inside was destroyed by an airstrike. At least 12 people - seven of them children - were killed. They were all related.

Despite the relentless air, ground and naval assault on their stronghold launched to stop rockets, a defiant Hamas continued to fire into Israel.

One projectile travelled 45km, the deepest yet inside the Jewish state, lightly wounding a baby. Three others landed elsewhere without causing injuries.
Israel yesterday rejected separate ceasefire initiatives from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the European Union, saying the 11-day offensive in Gaza was an act of self-defence that would end only when Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel.

Before a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mr Sarkozy said: "We in Europe want a ceasefire as quickly as possible, and that everyone understands that time is running against peace. The guns must fallsilent."

Mr Olmert told Mr Sarkozy: "The results of the operation must be ... that Hamas must not only stop firing but must no longer be able to fire. We cannot accept a compromise that will allow Hamas to fire in two months against Israeli towns."

President Shimon Peres was more blunt to the EU delegation. "Europe must open its eyes," he said. "We are not in the business of public relations or improving our image. We are fighting against terror and we have every right to defend our citizens."

The heaviest fighting so far occurred as Israeli troops clashed with Hamas fighters in the Shejaiya district of Gaza City.

Palestinian medical officials say at least 110 people have died since the ground assault began, while Israel says it has killed 130 Hamas fighters.

The Israeli army said three soldiers from the elite Golani Brigade were killed and 24 wounded in northern Gaza when their position was accidentally hit by Israeli tank fire. The brigade commander, Colonel Avi Peled, was lightly injured. The army said a paratroop officer was killed in northern Gaza, indicating he may have been killed by friendly fire.

"The details of the event are still being investigated; however, it is suspected that a tank shell was mistakenly fired at the force," it said in a statement.

The death brought to five the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the army poured ground troops into the Hamas stronghold on Saturday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said people were dying because ambulances could not reach them amid the fighting.

A foreign doctor at a Gaza hospital, Mads Gilbert, challenged Israel's claim that Hamas fighters were being targeted, saying that by his count 801 children had been injured or killed. Dr Gilbert told the BBC last night: "The numbers are contradictory to everything Israel says. This is the worst man-made disaster for the time I can think (of)."

Mr Sarkozy had a blunt message for both sides: Israel could not allow the humanitarian situation to go on and Hamas's firing of rockets on civilians in southern Israel was "unforgiveable".

Source: The Australian

Israel escalates offensive into Gaza cities

By Adel Zaanoun | January 06, 2009

ISRAELI tanks and helicopter gunships went blazing into towns across the Gaza Strip attacking Hamas targets and searching for its leaders as the war death toll passed 580.
Troops fought Islamist militants around the back alleys of Gaza's main city in the heaviest fighting of the 11-day-old offensive to halt Hamas rocket attacks on Israel.

Black smoke covered the districts of Gaza City and the edges of Deir al-Balah and al-Bureij where heavy fighting raged.

Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships also rolled into the southern town of Khan Yunis before dawn, to be met by return fire from Hamas and its allies, witnesses said.

Israeli strikes hit two UN-run schools, one crowded with refugees, killing at least five Palestinians, medics and UN officials said.

Two people were killed when an artillery shell slammed into a school in Khan Yunis and three people were killed in an air strike on a school in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, they said.

In the face of the Israeli assault, about 12 Hamas rockets were fired over the border, one reaching 45km inside Israeli territory, the deepest yet, lightly wounding a baby, the army said.

Three civilians and one soldier have been killed by rocket fire inside Israel since the offensive was launched.

Source: The Australian

Hamas moves on Fatah 'collaborators'

By Khaled Abu Toameh

The Hamas government has placed dozens of Fatah members under house arrest out of fear that they might exploit the current IDF operation to regain control of the Gaza Strip.

The move came amid reports that the Fatah leadership in the West Bank has instructed its followers to be ready to assume power over the Gaza Strip when and if Israel's military operation results in the removal of Hamas rule.

Fatah officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas militiamen had been assaulting many Fatah activists since the beginning of the operation last Saturday. They said at least 75 activists were shot in the legs while others had their hands broken.

Wisam Abu Jalhoum, a Fatah activist from the Jabalya refugee camp, was shot in the legs by Hamas militiamen for allegedly expressing joy over the IDF air strikes on Hamas targets.

"Hamas is very nervous, because they feel that their end is nearing," a senior Fatah official said. "They have been waging a brutal campaign against Fatah members in the Gaza Strip."

Meanwhile, sources close to Hamas revealed over the weekend that the movement had "executed" more than 35 Palestinians who were suspected of collaborating with Israel and were being held in various Hamas security installations.

The sources quoted Hamas officials as saying that the decision to kill the suspected collaborators was taken out of fear that Israel might try to rescue them during a ground offensive. The officials claimed that at least half of the victims were killed by relatives of Palestinian militiamen who were killed as a result of information passed on to Israel by the "collaborators."

Justifying the latest crackdown on Fatah, a Hamas official in Gaza City said that his government had received information according to which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had instructed his loyalists in the Strip to start moving toward undermining Hamas.

"We will kill them all if they try to help Israel bring down our government," the official said. "We will hang Mahmoud Abbas and [former Fatah security chief] Muhammad Dahlan in the public square if they try to enter the Gaza Strip aboard Israeli tanks."

The Hamas official said that his security forces had launched a massive "preemptive" campaign aimed at thwarting Fatah's attempts to "spread anarchy and chaos." He confirmed that many Fatah operatives had been shot in the legs over the past few days by Hamas "to make sure that they don't help Israel."

Fahmi Za'arir, a Fatah spokesman in the West Bank, accused Hamas of "executing" a number of Fatah detainees. He said the Fatah leadership knew of at least two Fatah men who were shot dead by Hamas after being released from prison. He named them as Nasser Muhana and Saher al-Silawi.

Za'arir said that several Fatah members who attended funerals of victims of the IAF strikes were severely beaten by Hamas militiamen who accused them of collaboration with Israel.

It was "shameful" that Hamas was directing its weapons and energies against its own people instead of fighting against Israel, the spokesman said.

The decision to place Fatah operatives under house arrest was issued by the much-feared "Internal Security Apparatus," which reports to the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in Gaza.

The order, which was delivered to the Fatah activists on Thursday, reads: "You are forbidden from leaving your home for 48 hours unless you want to attend Friday prayers. Anyone who violates the order will be punished."

Source: Jerusalem Post
H/T: Gateway Pundit

Israel Alone

January 3rd, 2009 | Roger L. Simon

I am writing this moments after the announcement of the Israel Defense Force that they have invaded Gaza. The first thing that struck me is that, for now at least, it is not Mark Steyn’s prescient America Alone. It is Israel Alone!

Not that they don’t appear to have secret friends like the Egyptians, who think Hamas is cracked, and the Saudis, who oppose anything connected to the Iranian mullahs (again like Hamas). But secret friends are fickle and therefore prey to the Arab Street, the EU and other forces that despise Israel for various reasons, conscious and unconscious. Even that great, good friend the US may be evanescent. Undoubtedly, George W. Bush supports Israel - arguably more than any other American president - but Barack Obama? We just don’t know. There are conflicting signs.

So it is Israel Alone, fighting the good fight against religious totalitarianism, misogyny, homophobia, global Sharia… I could go on, but Israel’s enemies are not going to believe me anyway. They have their brains filtered through Annie Lennox - like taking you College Boards on LSD. The singer is leading anti-Israel marches through London. [Didn't Lennox once have a bad divorce from an Israeli guy?-ed. I didn't know that. Perhaps the New York Times will check it out for us.]

But what’s interesting about these marches - and the demonstrations inside Israel by Arab Israelis - is that they are not all that well attended, barely in the tens of thousands. Many of us old Vietnam protestors remembers hundreds of thousands. Does that mean something? Most certainly they will build, but how much? And what does this mean? Do Israel’s enemies - some of them anyway - suffer from moral confusion? How does a liberal or a leftist justify supporting a regime of religious fanatics whose ideology, when examined, is in complete contra-distinction to everything they claim they stand for?

Well, we wouldn’t want to fry Annie Lennox’s synapses and give the poor greying rocker a nervous breakdown. Nor would we want to trouble her with the fact that the IDF major who gave the briefing to Skye News linked above - Avital Leibovich - is a woman. For all we know, she’s shacking up with Annie’s ex-husband. [You are nasty.-ed. Hey, this is war.]

So for now this is Israel Alone, without Nicolas Sarkozy, Javier Solana, Bernard Kouchner, Ban Kai Moon, Amnesty International and the rest of the global bien pensants who claim to have their (and humanity’s) best interests at heart. None of them has yet to present a decent moral argument in favor of Hamas or come close to explaining what they would do if a neighboring country was firing missiles into their back yard. Somehow that latter problem is never addressed.
Perhaps Annie Lennox can explain.

UPDATE: Here’s another approach to the situation, from PJM commenter LennyB, I thought worth highlighting.

MORE: Well, Contre nous de la tyrannie... Our good friends the oh-so-progressive French, who gave us Drancy, are condemning the Israeli incursion (and the Hamas rockets - for “equivalency” bien sur). Sarkozy is turning out to be quite the prize schmuck. Nevertheless, as of now, the IDF seems to be doing very well without him.

BETTER NEWS: The Czechs, now replacing the reactionary French at the helm of the EU, see things more clearly. “Why am I one of the few that have expressed understanding for Israel? … I am enjoying the luxury of telling the truth,” Schwarzenberg told the daily.

Source: Pajamas Media