Israeli troops enter Gaza Strip

[makapaaa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7809959.stm


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Israeli ground troops have started to enter the Gaza Strip, Israeli military officials have confirmed, a week after the offensive against Hamas began.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the intention was to take control of areas from which Palestinian militants have been firing rockets into Israel.
Witnesses say armoured vehicles crossed into northern Gaza at four separate points, supported by helicopters.
Earlier, Israel intensified air and artillery attacks on the territory. <!-- E SF -->
In one raid, at least 13 people were killed when a missile struck a crowded mosque in Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics said.
Witnesses said more than 200 people had been inside the Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque for evening prayers when it was struck.
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If you commit the stupidity of launching a ground offensive then a black destiny awaits you

Khalid Meshaal
Political leader of Hamas

<!-- S ILIN -->UK protests over Gaza air strikes
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Correspondents say Israel has accused Hamas of using mosques to hide weapons and ammunition, but this is the first time a mosque has been hit at prayer time.
Militants in Gaza meanwhile fired more rockets into southern Israel on Saturday, one of which hit the port of Ashdod, injuring two people.
Israel has carried out more than 800 strikes on the Gaza Strip since launching the offensive eight days ago, including 40 on Saturday.
The UN has warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis, and believes 25% of more than 400 Palestinians killed by Israel so far were civilians. Israel says about 80% of those killed were Hamas militants. Four Israelis have been killed by rocket fire from Gaza.
'Not war-hungry'
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the incursion had begun and said the objective was "to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations".
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Hamas leaders have warned Israel against launching a ground offensive

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"We are going to take some of the launch areas used by Hamas," Maj Avital Leibovitch told reporters.
Later, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the ground campaign against Hamas "will not be easy or short, but we are determined".
"Our aim is to force Hamas to stop its hostile activities against Israel and Israelis from Gaza, and to bring about a significant change in the situation in the southern part of Israel," he told a news conference.
"We have carefully weighed all our operations. We are not war-hungry, but we shall not allow a situation in which our towns, villages and civilians are constantly targeted by Hamas."
Mr Barak also said Israel would "keep a sensitive eye" on its northern border with Lebanon, where it fought a short but bloody war with the Shia Hezbollah movement in 2006.
"We hope the situation will remain calm. Nevertheless, we are ready and alert to face any unwanted development in that area," he added.
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The BBC's Paul Wood in Jerusalem says this is probably just the first wave of the assault, since there are said to be some 10,000 Israeli troops and hundreds of tanks massed on the border with Gaza.
The office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has also announced that the government has ordered the urgent call-up of "tens of thousands" of extra military reservists.
Just before the ground offensive began, Hamas issued a statement promising that Palestinian children would be picking over the ruins of Israeli tanks and the body parts of Israeli soldiers.
The militant group's exiled political leader, Khaled Meshaal, meanwhile warned Israel against a ground offensive, saying that a "black destiny" awaited Israeli forces if the entered Gaza.
"We will not break, we will not surrender or give in to your conditions," he said in a speech from the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Our correspondent says this promises to be a very bloody encounter.
Ceasefire calls
Tens of thousands of demonstrators meanwhile have been protesting worldwide against Israel's military operations in Gaza, calling for an immediate ceasefire.
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Organisers of the London protest said it was "just the start of the campaign"

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The biggest rally was in Paris where more than 20,000 people gathered.
About 10,000 people joined a rally in London, during which hundreds of shoes were thrown at the entrance to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's residence, echoing the protest of an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush last month.
Protests also took place in Brussels, The Hague, Amsterdam, Ankara and Cyprus. In Israel itself, tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs staged a protest against Israel's actions in the town of Sakhnin. One politician, Jamal Zahalka, said it had been the biggest demonstration by Israel's Arab minority in the past 10 years. President Bush, however, blamed the violence firmly on Hamas. <!-- E BO -->

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[makapaaa]

Israel destroys Hamas homes, flattens Gaza mosque

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and MATTI FRIEDMAN – 1 day ago
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel bombed a mosque it said was used to store weapons and destroyed the homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives Friday, but under international pressure, the government allowed hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports to leave besieged Gaza. Israel has been building up artillery, armor and infantry on Gaza's border in an indication the week-old air assault on Gaza's Hamas rulers could soon expand with a ground incursion.
At the same time, international calls for a cease-fire have been growing, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected in the region next week to push for a halt to the violence. Israel has so far been cool to a truce, and in a setback for diplomatic efforts, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had no plans to come to the region.
"Hamas has held the people of Gaza hostage ever since their illegal coup against the forces of President Mahmoud Abbas," she said. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Abbas' Fatah forces in 2007 and Abbas set up a rival government in the West Bank.
Rice charged Hamas "has used Gaza as a launching pad" for firing rockets into the Jewish state and that, as a result, the Palestinians in Gaza have had "a very bad daily life." She said the U.S. supports a "durable and sustainable" cease-fire, but any end to fighting would depend on the willingness of Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel.
The offensive spurred anti-Israel protests in the Middle East, the Muslim world and in parts of Europe on Friday.
Israel attacked new targets and Palestinians fired at least 30 rockets into southern Israel. But Israel still opened its border with Gaza to allow nearly 300 Palestinians with foreign passports to flee.
"There is no water, no electricity, no medicine. It's hard to survive. Gaza is destroyed," Jawaher Haggi, a 14-year-old Palestinian American, said after crossing into Israel. She said her uncle was killed in an airstrike when he tried to pick up medicine for her cancer-stricken father, who later died of his illness.
Many of the evacuees were foreign-born women married to Palestinians and their children. Spouses who did not hold foreign citizenship were not allowed out.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said most of the evacuees were Russian or Eastern European, and they were allowed to leave at the request of foreign embassies. They said the decision was not related to military plans.
Israel began the aerial campaign Dec. 27 to try to halt weeks of intensifying Palestinian rocket fire. It has dealt a heavy blow to Hamas, but failed to halt the rockets. Friday's attacks hit homes in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, wounding four Israelis, police said.
Before the airstrikes, Israel's military called some of the houses to warn of an impending attack. In some cases, it also fired a sound bomb to warn civilians before flattening the homes with missiles, Palestinians and Israeli officials said.
Israeli planes also dropped leaflets east of Gaza giving a confidential phone number and e-mail address to report locations of rocket squads. Residents stepped over the leaflets.
Israel used similar tactics during its 2006 war on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
After destroying Hamas' security compounds, Israel turned its attention to the group's leadership. Warplanes hit some 20 houses believed to belong to Hamas militants and members of other armed groups, Palestinians said.
Most of the targeted homes appeared to be empty, but one man was killed in a strike in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Separate airstrikes killed five other Palestinians — including a teenage boy east of Gaza City, and three children — two brothers and their cousin — who were playing in southern Gaza, according to Health Ministry official Moaiya Hassanain.
More than 400 Gazans have been killed and 1,700 have been wounded in the Israeli campaign, Gaza health officials said. Hamas has said about half of the dead were members of its security forces.
The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinians Territories estimated that more than 100 of the dead were civilians, many of them women and children. The U.N. also warned of a health and food crisis in Gaza, despite an increase in humanitarian shipments.
Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have died in the rocket attacks, which have reached deeper into Israel than ever before, bringing an eighth of the country's population of 7 million within rocket range.
The mosque destroyed Friday was known as a Hamas stronghold, and the army said it was used to store weapons. It also was identified with Nizar Rayan, the Hamas militant leader killed Thursday when Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on his home.
That airstrike killed 20 people, including all four of Rayan's wives and 11 of his 12 children. The strike obliterated the four-story apartment building and knocked down the walls of others around it.
Israel's military said the homes of Hamas leaders are being used to store missiles and other weapons, and the hit on Rayan's house triggered secondary explosions from the stockpile there.
Israel has targeted Hamas leaders in the past but halted the practice during a six-month truce that expired last month. Most of Hamas' leaders went into hiding at the start of the offensive.
Fear of Israeli attacks led to a sparse turnout at Friday prayers at mosques throughout Gaza, although thousands attended a memorial service for Rayan. Throngs prayed over the rubble of his home and the destroyed mosque nearby.
An imam delivered his sermon via a car loudspeaker as the bodies of Rayan and other family members were covered in green Hamas flags. Afterward, a sea of mourners marched with the bodies.
"The Palestinian resistance will not forget and will not forgive," said Hamas lawmaker Mushir Masri, calling the assassination a "serious" development. "The resistance's response will be very painful."
While keeping up the military pressure, Israel has offered a small opening for the intense diplomatic efforts, saying it would consider a halt to the fighting. But it has attached the strict condition that international monitors enforce the truce. The last truce was repeatedly violated by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire.
Israeli police stepped up security and restricted access to Friday prayers at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, barring all males under 50 from entering. The prayers ended without incident, although youths in a nearby neighborhood clashed with anti-riot police on horseback. No injuries were reported.
Jerusalem's mufti, Mohammed Hussein, said only 3,000 Palestinians attended prayers because of the restrictions, which he condemned as contradicting "the principle of freedom of worship."
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian police broke up a demonstration by about 3,000 Hamas supporters and arrested about a dozen people. Police also broke up a similar protest in nearby Qalandia. There were anti-Israel protests in Hebron, Nablus and elsewhere in the West Bank.
Barzak reported from Gaza City; Friedman from Jerusalem.

 

[makapaaa]

 

[The_Latest_H]

This would be known as Stalingrad, Mark II. Good luck to them trying to use only 9,000 men against a guerilla army that has not just rifles, but better shoulder-held bazookas, misslies, grenades, mortars and IEDs.

A tank would be a sitting duck for an IED, and mortar fire, especially if the tank has been disabled by an IED already and now absorbing fire from bazookas and mortars.

 

[theblackhole]

So predictable...prepared for months...churned out the media disinformation...justified the air strikes...then followed by shelling...and now the movements of ground troops into occupied and destroyed territories....again and again...when will this insanity stop?........thess massive massacres of civilians...this big neighbourhood bully with his superior military might.....this holocaust...this extermination of a tribe and a people - a country and a nation....when will this madness end???

Israel has plenty of tactics for war, but none for peace

A leadership dazzled by its own military might ignores the political reality and believes the only solutions lie in force.... Jonathan Freedland

All those involved, and most of those following the bloodshed in Gaza from afar, are sure who is in the right and who is in the wrong. They know who the innocent victims are and who are the wicked perpetrators. These certainties are held equally firmly by those who will be demonstrating in solidarity with the Palestinians in London today and those who plan to stage similar shows of support for Israel later this month.

Both sides see the conflict in moral terms. For supporters of the Palestinians, it could not be clearer. Israel is committing a war crime, killing people in their hundreds, hammering a besieged population from the sky (and soon perhaps on the ground too), claiming to aim only at Hamas but inevitably striking those civilians who get in the way.

Israel's cheerleaders are just as clear. Israel is the victim, hitting out now only belatedly and in self-defence. Its southern citizens have sat terrorised in bomb shelters, fearing the random rockets of Hamas, since 2005, longer than any society could tolerate without fighting back.

Both sides say they would have maintained the six-month ceasefire that had held - albeit imperfectly - until December 19 had the other side not broken it first. And who did break the deal first, Hamas with its rockets or Israel with its blockade? Both sides point at the other with equal vehemence, a Newtonian chain of claimed action and reaction that can stretch back to infinity.

So perhaps a more useful exercise - especially for those who long for an eventual peace with both sides living side by side - is not to ask whether the current action is legitimate, but whether it is wise.

Israel, say its spokesmen, seeks not to trigger an Iraq-style "regime change" in Gaza but simply to alter Hamas' calculus, so it concludes that hurling rockets is against its own interests. Israel hopes thereby to reassert its long-cherished deterrence, so damaged in Lebanon in 2006. Hamas will be taught a lesson, abide by an enduring ceasefire and leave Israel's southern border quiet. Israel can then get on with pursuing a pact with the Fatah-led Palestinians of the West Bank.

That sounds coherent, but does it make sense? After this first phase of the conflict, Israeli officials say yes. They boast that Hamas' command and control systems have been shattered, and that its leaders are in hiding 4m under ground.

But there are immediate questions, eerily similar to the ones that surfaced in Lebanon two years ago. How exactly does this end? If Israeli tanks go into Gaza, won't they get bogged down in the m&d and narrow streets of the refugee camps, terrain known intimately by Hamas?

And these are only the most obvious, current concerns. The grounds for questioning the wisdom of Operation Cast Lead, even from Israel's own point of view, go much deeper.

First, even if Israel gets the quiet it wants there is every reason to believe it could have got that without resorting to war. The longtime Palestinian analyst and negotiator Hussein Agha says it would have been "straightforward: if they had lifted the blockade, the rockets would have stopped".

Some diplomatic sources dispute this, arguing that Hamas actually saw an advantage in the sanctions regime: "opening up would have loosened Hamas' grip," says one. Hence the cases of Hamas firing on border crossings as they were opened. But most Palestinians insist that a relaxation of the blockade would have granted Hamas its key objective - a chance to prove it can govern effectively - and it would not have jeopardised that with rocket fire. It would have had too much to lose.

Put that to Israelis, and they admit that prospect was unpalatable too: they can't allow Hamas, a movement whose charter drips with antisemitism and calls for Israel's eradication, to gain the appearance of legitimacy. But if, as Israel insists, its chief objective is quiet in the south, then there was at least another, non-military path it could have taken - one that those who know Hamas best insist would have stopped the Qassams. Besides, any ceasefire will involve easing the blockade, so Israel will end up making those concessions anyway.

Second, if Israel hoped to break Hamas' hold on Gaza it has gone precisely the wrong way about it. Its leaders have done this many times before, repeatedly misreading the way Arab societies work. They believe that if they hit Gaza (or Lebanon) hard enough, the local population will blame Hamas (or Hezbollah) for bringing tragedy upon them. But it doesn't work like that. Instead, Gazans blame Israel - and close ranks with Hamas. "Anything which doesn't kill Hamas makes them stronger," says Agha, noting the way the organisation has been lionised in recent days across the Arab world, hailed as a defiant party of resistance, turning it into a "regional phenomenon".

Third, Israel's best hopes lie with the so-called moderate Arab leaders. But they have been badly undermined by this exercise, and none more so than the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose peace talks with Israel now look like consorting with a brutal enemy.

And this is without mentioning the fresh supply of hatred Israel has stored up against itself, creating a new generation of Gazans bent on revenge. Every child who witnessed this week's bombing is another recruit for the violence of the future.

So, yes, there may be short-term advantage for Israel's politicians, eyeing the election calendar, in hitting Hamas hard. But the senior European official who told me that this is "tactics, not strategy by the Israelis, who are expert in dealing with symptoms, not causes" is surely right. This is the act of a nation that has plenty of tactics for war - but no strategy for peace.

If it did, it would realise that Israel cannot pick the Palestinians' leaders for them, that Hamas - however repulsive its charter - is part of the Palestinian reality and will eventually have to be accommodated. Such a peace strategy would see a decision to withdraw from almost all of the West Bank and end settlement expansion, thereby making Abbas - and the peace process - credible in the eyes of his own people.

But there is no such peace strategy, only an Israeli leadership so dazzled by its own military might that it has come to believe that force is almost always the answer - and the way to avoid the toughest questions.

freedland@...

 

[3_M]

U should appluad Israel for making this move. They are risking the lives of their sons to go in and pin-point the terrorist that air bombardment cannot acomplish without incurring massive colleteral damage.

I disagree with the ground incursion. Instead Israel should just buy a dozen of B52 and carpet bomb the entire place.

 

[theblackhole]

....I disagree with the ground incursion. Instead Israel should just buy a dozen of B52 and carpet bomb the entire place.

the americans tried in vain to carpet bomb the hell out of the vietcong and the north vietnamese...and they failed miserably! evil will be defeated under whatever cover! there is always a price to be paid for evil commtted.america is no exception. israel - the god's chosen country - is no exception either.

god is truly amazing to allow such slaughter-house and massacre to be continued unabated...