Israeli troops mobilize as Gaza assault widens

Monday 29th December, 08:10 AM JST

GAZA CITY —

Israel widened its deadliest-ever air offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers Sunday, pounding smuggling tunnels and a central prison, sending more tanks and artillery toward the Gaza border and approving a reserves callup 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. Israeli aircraft also bombed the Islamic University and government compound in Gaza City, centers of Hamas power. Witnesses saw fire and smoke at the university, counting six separate airstrikes there just after midnight.

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.

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 on urban warfare.

Military experts said Israel would need at least 10,000 soldiers for a full-scale invasion.

The diplomatic fallout, meanwhile, was swift.

Syria decided to suspend indirect peace talks with Israel, begun earlier this year. “Israel’s aggression closes all the doors” to any move toward a settlement in the region, Syria said.

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. 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 immediately 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 have stepped up rocket fire on Israel, prompting the latest offensive.

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.

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.”

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.

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Latest 15 of 54 Total Comments Show All

Helter_Skelter at 04:00 PM JST - 29th December

If Israel does/did give such lands back, will/would that end the conflict?

Of course not. The Muslim Arabs have sought the destruction of Israel since its creation by the UN in 1948. It's about ridding the Middle East of the "Infidel". Giving back land Israel won in defensive wars isn't going to make a difference. The Muslim Arabs have 600 times the amount of land as Israel. Where are the Muslim Arabs to help their "Palestinian" brothers? Is the propaganda just too good to help them?
shiuu at 04:06 PM JST - 29th December

itcher:

Israel is bombing the Gaza Egypt border and making sure Egypt does not open up the border. It is an Israeli occupation so it is Israel which control the border with Egypt. Egypt is not occupying Gaza.

Neither is Israel. It evicted all the Jews from Gaza in 2005.

By the way, as the article points out, Egypt closed its border with Gaza after Hamas took power in June 2007. So, unless Israel's been bombing it continuously since then, your point about Israel forcing Egypt to keep the border closed makes no sense.

From the article:

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 immediately after the Hamas takeover in June 2007.
shams at 04:15 PM JST - 29th December

>

If Israel does/did give such lands back, will/would that end the conflict?

I believe that this will end the conflict. Eygpt and Jordan are examples
mael at 06:18 PM JST - 29th December

So the International Parasites are building up to an occupation of the Gaza. This will be interesting.

The US-supplied "Israel" is going to get another whipping once they stop their heroic bombing and straffing of a defenseless people in an area (they think and hope) is out of supplies.

I mean come on people! What more evidence does on need to see who the terrorists really are? The Zionist West and those who have a 2nd home in "Israel" of course.

Ah well! Once the IDF tries to occupy the Gaza we'll have another 'Lebanon' where the "Israelis" get another rude awakening.

This is a fratricidal war. If only the "Zionists" didn't control politics in the West they'd be left to their own devices and have to compromise using diplomacy rather than the usual Jewish fare of genocide.

The ol' powder-keg is getting a few sparks on it again. I hope it blows. The real terrorists shall be known by their actions. (Oy vey).
Badsey at 06:20 PM JST - 29th December

lesson on terrorism: Never give into it. Israel has made many concessions and it has gotten nowhere.
USARonin at 06:23 PM JST - 29th December

Heh, heh... Yes, Mael, history shows time and time again how the Israelis are a bunch of nancy boys who're always gettin' their butts handed to them by all of those peace-lovin' Arab entities.
SuperLib at 07:04 PM JST - 29th December

There is hate in both sides, however as I said look at the numbers, check how many children were killed from both sides and you can understand what I mean.

That argument sounds good but doesn't hold much water. The militants are firing a bunch of badly made rockets into Israel at random. Israel is forced to pinpoint specific targets in heavily populated areas. The numbers in no way prove how kind/brutal the other side is.

If Hamas and Israel switched weapons, do you think Hamas would be killing more or fewer innocents than Israel is? I think the answer to that question gives you better evidence as to the mindset of each side. The militants attack to the extent that they can and are only limited by the sophistication of their weapons. It has nothing to do with being kind of reasonable. If they could kill more they would...a lot more. People expect Israel to carry Hamas for a few rounds until they have the capability to kill just as many Jews which is absurd.
SuperLib at 07:09 PM JST - 29th December

Compare what Israel does to Palestinians and what Palestinians do to other Palestinians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleofGaza_(2007)

"After the re-ignition of the Fatah-Hamas conflict on June 10, Hamas militants seized several Fatah members and threw one of them, Mohammed Sweirki, an officer in the elite Palestinian Presidential Guard, off the top of the tallest building in Gaza, a 15-story apartment building. In retaliation, Fatah militants attacked and killed the imam of the city's largest mosque, Mohammed al-Rifati. They also opened fire on the home of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. Just before midnight, a Hamas militant was thrown off a 12-story building."

"Human Rights Watch accused both sides with violations of international humanitarian law, in some cases amounting to war crimes.[15] The accusations include the targeting and killing of civilians, public executions of political opponents and captives, throwing prisoners off high-rise apartment buildings, fighting in hospitals, and shooting from a jeep marked with "TV" insignias.[14] The International Committee of the Red Cross has denounced attacks in and around two hospitals in the northern part of the Gaza strip."

It's time for the world to finally expose what the militants do to the Palestinian people. For whatever reason it's been kept under the rug for far too long.
USARonin at 07:16 PM JST - 29th December

Muslims also use "ambulances" and "weddin' parties" to move weapons and explosives into and out of Gaza, as well as tryin' to get them through Israeli checkpoints within Israel. It's a trick that never get old for the bad guys but of couse the Israelis are on to it.

One guy was upset because the Israelis were hinderin' Muslim ambulances.

No kiddin'. So would I.
BlackFlag at 07:28 PM JST - 29th December

well shucks pard'ner that'd get me a mite riled too, mebbe riled enough to roun' me up a posse an' fill them varmints full o' holes
USARonin at 07:29 PM JST - 29th December

If I can see daylight through 'em, then we're off to a good start.
bobbafett at 07:39 PM JST - 29th December

How can people claim that the Palestinians are innocent when it was them that voted Hamas into power? Do you think that the Palestinian people thought that Hamas would send flowers and doves to Israel? Hell no, they knew exactly how Hamas would approach the "peace process". Zero peace ever under any circumstances. So now they what they voted for. Hamas erupts into violence and Israel responds within its means. I feel bad for the kids but when you have parents who dress them up as martyrs etc, you kind of lose heart for the plight of the Palestinians.
Sarge at 07:42 PM JST - 29th December

Hey, Mael, what do you think of Bobbafett's post?
bobbafett at 10:29 PM JST - 29th December

Sarge old Buddy,

Mael has nothing to say because the truth hurts. and in regards to the awesome arsenal of Israel compared to the quassim rocket power of the Hamas boys....People who line in glasshouses should not throw stones.
WilliB at 12:36 PM JST - 2nd January

Nandakamanda:

" 1. What lands are we talking about? Is this 100% clear to all concerned? 2. If Israel does/did give such lands back, will/would that end the conflict? "

We are talking about all of Israel. Read the Hamas charter! And yes, it would end the conflict. It would also end existance of the state of Israel.