| | |  Americas & Beyond | January 2009 
Death Toll in Gaza Onslaught Approaches 900
 Agence France-Presse - Compiled by Daily Star
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Israel indicated for the first time on Sunday that an end was in sight to its war on the Gaza Strip, amid some of the heaviest clashes of an offensive that has killed nearly 900 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians. Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza's main city, sparking some of the fiercest battles yet of the 16-day-old war Israel launched in what it said was a response to rocket fire, but which has failed to stop the rockets.
| | A demonstrator shows her painted hand during a pro-Palestine march in front of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City January 10, 2009. Demonstrators shouted anti-Israel slogans to protest against the air strikes and the military action in the Gaza Strip. (Reuters/Henry Romero) |
Civilians again fell victim in Israel's offensive in the Palestinian enclave, one of the world's most densely populated places where every other person of the 1.5 million population is under 18 years of age.
Two women and four children were killed in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya, medics and witnesses said. Twelve bodies were pulled from the rubble in Tal al-Hawa including 10 fighters, according to medics.
Israeli officials suggested the Zionist state was nearing the end of its offensive, which has killed hundreds of civilians, despite having last week waved off a UN resolution calling for an immediate halt to the fighting.
"The decision of the [UN] Security Council doesn't give us much leeway," Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told public radio. "Thus it would seem that we are close to ending the ground operation and ending the operation altogether."
Earlier Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the Zionist state was nearing the goals it had set for its operation, but said fighting would continue for now.
"Israel is approaching these goals, but more patience and determination are required," Olmert said at the start of the cabinet meeting.
The premier told ministers that Israel "dealt Hamas an unprecedented blow," government secretary Oved Yehezkel quoted Olmert as saying. "It will never be the same Hamas."
Israeli forces have demolished some 200 smuggling tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border - Hamas' main resupply route - representing 66 percent of the total, according to military spokeswoman Avital Leibowich.
The army said it had blown up 20 tunnels on Sunday, when shrapnel from the air strikes wounded two Egyptian police officers and two children at the Rafah crossing into Gaza, a security official said.
Hamas, however, has vowed to keep fighting and on Sunday 19 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza, to little effect.
Both Israel and Hamas last week brushed off the Security Council resolution that called on both sides to stop fighting, and the early hours of Sunday saw Israeli troops push deep into the territory's main population center.
Troops crept into the southern Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City, encountering roadside bombs, mortar and gunfire from Palestinian fighters, witnesses said.
The troops withdrew at daybreak, but hundreds of panicked residents fled the area, clutching small children and hastily packed bags after a sleepless night. "We couldn't take anything with us, not even milk for the children," said Ibtisam Shamallah, 22, as she fled with her two children.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters that Israel was "examining the diplomatic channel" while continuing its offensive. "There's no contradiction between the two," said Barak, who is due to again send senior aide Amos Gilad to Cairo in the coming days for Egyptian-led talks on ending the war.
In all, at least 26 Palestinians were killed in clashes on Sunday, medics said.
But the exiled political chief of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, remained defiant, vowing in an address televised late Saturday that the Islamists would not strike a deal on a permanent truce with Israel.
"As long as there is an occupation there is a resistance," he said, adding that his group will not discuss a cease-fire until Israel stops its offensive.
Since the Israeli offensive began on December 27, at least 885 people have been killed, including 275 children, and another 3,620 wounded, according to Gaza medics.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket attacks since the operation began, as Palestinian militants have fired more than 600 rockets, some of them penetrating deeper than ever inside Israel.
Egypt has been spearheading Western-backed efforts to end the fighting, calling for an immediate truce, opening Gaza's border crossings, preventing arms smuggling and relaunching Palestinian reconciliation efforts.
In Washington, US President-elect Barack Obama pledged to immediately engage in Middle East peace efforts as soon as he takes office in nine days.
Also on Sunday, a senior Israeli military official told AFP that Israeli soldiers and civilians in the Occupied Golan Heights came under gunfire from inside Syrian territory. No one was hurt in the rare incident.
The Israeli military filed a complaint to the United Nations force monitoring the usually calm occupation zone.
"UN forces are currently conducting searches along the Syrian side of the border," the official said.
In Occupied Jerusalem, Israel's Channel Two television reported that the Zionist state has begun sending reservists into Gaza Strip to participate in operations alongside the regular army.
Israel called up thousands of reservists on December 27.
A military spokesman said reservists had already been involved in Gaza operations and were increasingly likely to be "integrated" into combat units.
In Stockholm, charities that support a hospital in Gaza said an Israeli air raid had destroyed it a day earlier.
"The clinic is totally destroyed, including its equipment and medical supplies," Christer Aakesson of the Swedish Church's international operations said of Saturday's attack in a statement. "Shortly before a missile hit the building where the clinic is located the Israeli Air Force fired a warning shot so everybody inside could flee," the statement added. "Shortly after that the army totally destroyed the building."
Until Israel's offensive, the building housed a maternity clinic which was then changed into an intensive care unit, Aakesson added.
She said there was no reason why the building should have become a target for an Israeli attack but she added: "A Hamas leader had his home in the neighborhood."
A delegation of European parliamentarians entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday to assess the impact of the deadly Israeli offensive, the head of the mission said.
The eight legislators entered through the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, European Parliament Vice President Luisa Morgantini said in an email received by AFP.
Accompanied by Italian Senator Alberto Maritati, they were to stay with the UN Relief and Works Agency and visit hospitals and camps for the displaced, the statement said. They planned to stay in Gaza until Tuesday, when they would "report back about the situation" to the European Parliament in Strasbourg and hold a news conference, said Morgantini.
Also on Sunday, an Israeli court extended for two days the detention without charge of two Iranian journalists accused of breaking censorship rules during the Gaza war.
"Although the court must weigh alternatives to [administrative] detention, in offenses regarding threats to state security, any other alternative is impractical," Judge Aaron Golds of the Petah Tikva district court said in his decision to extend the remand of the journalists detained on January 5.
The court ordered the pair remain in custody for two more days and told the police to charge them.
The journalists, identified as Mohammad Sarhan and Khader Sahin, are accused of publicizing the start of Israel's ground offensive in Gaza on January 3 before the military censor had cleared the information for publication. They were detained two days later.
All journalists in Israel must sign an agreement to abide by Israeli censorship rules in order to get government accreditation.
Administrative detention in Israel allows the authorities to hold people without charge for as long as a court extends their remand, sometimes for years. - AFP, with The Daily Star
Qatar repeats demand for Arabs to meet on crisis
Qatar on Sunday called for an emergency Arab ministerial meeting to seek ways to respond to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, state media reported.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as urging ministers to convene under the auspices of the Arab League to discuss "steps that should be taken to face the continuing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip," the Qatar News Agency said.
The official also said that the proposed meeting should discuss a report by the Arab ministerial delegation to the United Nations which was in New York last week to push for a ceasefire UN resolution.
The Security Council on Thursday adopted a resolution which demanded an "immediate, durable" ceasefire leading to the "full withdrawal" of Israeli forces from Gaza. But Israel rejected calls to stop its onslaught on the Hamas-controlled territory which has left nearly 900 Palestinians dead.
Qatar has twice called for a Arab summit since the war started on December 27.
Although Qatar does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, it has housed an Israeli trade office since 1996, the only one in the Gulf.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani ruled out the closure of the office, at least for now.
"If Arab countries decide collectively to sever relations, we will join the Arabs," Sheikh Hamad said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television. "They only want Qatar to make a sacrifice [while] they continue to deal with the Jewish state," he added in reference to Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania, which have diplomatic relations with Israel.
In Cairo on Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah pressed his rivals in Hamas to accept an Egyptian plan to end the war.
"We hope that the [Hamas delegation] will reach an agreement without hesitation," Abbas told journalists after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who floated his peace plan on Tuesday. "The situation does not allow us to lose time."
Hopes for peace are increasingly focused on Egypt's mediation efforts since both Israel and Hamas brushed off the UN resolution calling for a truce.
The Egyptian plan seeks to meet Israel's requirement of preventing weapons going to Gaza through tunnels from Egypt and Hamas' demand for a reopening of Gaza's borders to normal traffic.
Abbas stressed that he wanted an international force in Gaza rather than controlling traffic on the Egyptian side of the border, as suggested by European countries.
An Israeli defense official said Egypt's plan foresaw forces loyal to Abbas, which were kicked out by Hamas in 2007 after a power struggle following the Islamists' victory in 2006 elections, being redeployed on the Gaza side of the border alongside a bolstered Egyptian force.
Under a 2005 deal, Egypt's Rafah crossing with Gaza, the only one to bypass Israel, can only be opened to normal traffic if European Union observers and Palestinian Authority forces are at the border. But Hamas ousted forces loyal to Abbas from the Gaza Strip in June 2007 and the EU monitors subsequently left.
Israel said on Saturday that Egypt had proposed an "upgraded version" of the 2005 deal, that would see a beefed-up frontier force loyal to Abbas alongside a strengthened Egyptian border force.
Such a move would require amending the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty limiting Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula, with the Israeli defense official saying the Jewish state "would be in favor" of the proposals.
Several EU countries and Turkey have offered to send troops to the border as part of an eventual monitoring mission, but Egypt has reportedly rejected the idea of foreign forces on its borders.
A Hamas delegation from Gaza and representatives of the Syrian-based leadership arrived in Cairo on Saturday and held talks with Omar Suleiman, Egypt's pointman for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, on Sunday.
Mussa Abu Marzuk, the Damascus-based deputy head of the Hamas politburo, had said Friday that his movement wanted "clarifications" on the plan.
For his part, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting Mubarak that Berlin would send a team to Egypt in the coming days to discuss ways of offering technical help and expertise to control smuggling.
The US Army already had an engineering team supporting Egyptian tunnel-hunting forces on the border, although they have left since the Israeli offensive began.
In Algiers, visiting Iranian Vice President Hossein Dehgan said Sunday that Israel must stop its "genocide" against the people of Gaza.
Dakhane told reporters after meeting Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika that they agreed there must be a halt to the "genocide," which was the result of a "savage Israeli policy" in the Gaza Strip, the APS news agency reported.
APS said that Dakhane also discussed with the Algerian president the possibility of holding a summit on the Gaza situation, bringing together other Arab and Islamic countries.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem accused Israel of committing war crimes during and argued that the UN should put more force behind its ceasefire call.
"The Security Council should adopt a binding resolution on a ceasefire ... which also would include war crimes committed by Israel," Moallem said at a joint news conference with his Brazilian counterpart, Celso Amorim.
"Israel has committed war crimes ... killing women and children, relief workers, journalists and using white phosphorus bombs," he noted.
Moallem said he was "surprised the UN Security Council does not report such crimes... and it does not form an independent commission of inquiry" to investigate.
He said Syria, France, Turkey and Qatar were all trying "to reach a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory, a lifting of the blockade and the opening of the crossing points."
He also outlined the possibility of an international conference on rebuilding Gaza after the war ends.
Earlier, after meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Amorim called for "mobilization to put pressure on Israel to cease its aggression," the official Syrian ArabNews Agency said.
In Geneva, a senior Israeli diplomat lambasted the Swiss government in a newspaper interview after Bern lent its support to a UN draft resolution condemning human rights violations in Gaza.
Ambassador Ilan Elgar told the SonntagsZeitung he found Switzerland's support for the resolution "very problematic, because Switzerland is in this way taking sides against Israel."
Switzerland was the only Western European country to back the draft resolution, supported by 32 members of the UN Human Rights Council, condemning the "grave human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories."
The resolution tabled late Friday underlined the civilian toll, especially in Gaza, and called for "the immediate cessation of Israeli military attacks" as well as an "end to the launching of crude rockets against Israeli civilians," the latter a concession to members of the European Union. - AFP, with The Daily Star
Protesters hit streets worldwide
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators rallied in cities around the world over the weekend to call for an end to Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The two biggest protests took place in London and Paris on Saturday, with largely peaceful demonstrations in both capitals turning violent as the day wore on.
In London, angry demonstrators hurled sticks and stones at police outside the Israeli Embassy as officers in riot gear and on horseback charged the crowd to keep them away from the building in the upmarket Kensington district. Police made 24 arrests.
Veteran left-wing campaigner Tariq Ali, who had led the march, said: "The most appalling violence is happening in Gaza - a few punch-ups outside the Israeli Embassy is neither here nor there."
Organizers estimated that 100,000 people attended the London rally, which began in Hyde Park before progressing to the Israeli embassy. Police estimated the crowd at 12,000.
About 30,000 people marched through Paris, the Interior Ministry said, and more than 90,000 joined protests in more than 120 towns and cities elsewhere in France.
In the capital, thousands of French men and women of Arab origin carrying Palestinian banners joined forces with left-wing militants amid cries of "God is Greatest" and "Israel murderer." Protesters smashed a bus shelter and a telephone box in central Paris, and bottles were later thrown at riot police and shop windows smashed.
Police fired tear gas after mobs overturned motor scooters and set them on fire.
A march in the southern city of Nice descended into violence. Seven police were hurt and 11 rioters arrested as youths broke off from a 2,500-strong crowd of protesters and smashed shop windows.
Demonstrations also took place on the streets of other European cities including Athens, Berlin, Budapest, Oslo, Sarajevo and Stockholm.
In Sarajevo, peace activist Svetlana Broz told a 1,000-strong pro-Palestinian demonstration that the city knew better than others "what happens when the world remains silent at a time when innocent civilians suffer," referring to the bloody siege of the city in the 1992-95 war in the former Yugoslavia.
Police in Oslo fired tear gas after a small group among a crowd of 2,000 pelted them with stones, and up to 5,000 demonstrators gathered outside the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm to call for an end to the military campaign.
More than 6,000 people gathered for a peaceful rally in Berlin, with similar shows of support for the Palestinians in Munich and Cologne.
In western Germany, some 10,000 people, largely from the ethnic Turkish community, protested in Duisburg. Police briefly intervened when demonstrators threw snowballs at a window bearing Israeli flags.
Innsbruck in western Austria staged a peaceful protest of 3,500 people waving banners saying "Stop Israeli terror" and 7,000 protesters turned out in Bern, Switzerland.
In Athens, more than 2,000 people took part in a protest staged by left-wing groups, and thousands more demonstrated in Milan and Turin.
In Washington on Saturday several thousand protesters descended on the White House in support of Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza, and other protests took place across Canada and in the Mexican capital.
As many as 10,000 people, according to organizers, gathered from about 1:00 pm (1800 GMT) in Washington's Lafayette Park, across from the White House, chanting "free Palestine" as protest leaders and activists spoke from a podium.
"There are many young people. We feel it's one of the most important demonstrations for Palestine ever in the US," said Eugene Puryear, a coordinator of the Washington protest, which was organized by the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition.
Protesters waived Palestinian flags, wore keffiyehs - a traditional Palestinian headdress - and waived signs, some of which read "Stop the Gaza holocaust" and "Free Palestine, let Gaza live." They then led a march passing in front of the headquarters of The Washington Post newspaper to protest "its hard pro-Israeli line," Puryear said, before heading to the offices of construction equipment giant Caterpillar and military contractor Lockheed Martin, both of which are key suppliers to the Israeli armed forces.
"I came because there are innocent children dying daily in Palestine. The American people need to know the truth," said 13-year-old Razan Ali, a Palestinian-American who bused in from New York.
A dozen buses filled with protesters came from New Jersey and another seven buses drove in from New York.
Yasmina Farej, a 54-year-old who came from Brooklyn, said she had been motivated to join the protest because of "the war in Gaza; they bomb the innocent children."
Thousands more protested across several Canadian cities, calling for an "immediate ceasefire" and especially targeting conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his support of Israel.
In Montreal, some 2,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanted "Israel the assassin" and called for a ceasefire in the impoverished Gaza Strip. Some brandished dolls spattered with red paint representing children killed by the Israeli military.
Several hundred protesters also gathered in front of the US Embassy in Mexico City in opposition to what they called the "criminal aggression" in Gaza. Some protesters set shoes ablaze and hurled them against the embassy gates.
There more protests around the world on Sunday both in support of and opposed to Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip.
Thousands of students, trade unionists and politicians marched through the center of Madrid to denounce the Israeli action in Gaza and call for peace.
Protesters marched between the Plaza de Cibeles and Puerta del Sol, brandishing placards that read "Stop the genocide in Palestine" and "We are all Palestinians." Some members of the crowd wore Palestinian flags to show their solidarity with the people of Gaza, where almost 900 people have been killed since the Israeli offensive began on December 27..
In Brussels, Muslim associations, center-left politicians and pressure groups began their own rally to call for a halt to the conflict. Organizers said they estimated between 10,000 and 15,000 people would attend.
Around 4,000 people marched through the western Austrian town of Bregenz, despite the extremely cold weather, organizers said. The demonstrators, including families with children, waved Turkish, Palestinian and Arab flags, played music and carried signs with slogans like "Let Gaza live." Some wore T-shirts that said "We are all Palestinians."
Jewish groups across Europe also held rallies in support of Israel and denouncing Hamas. Thousands of British Jews rallied in central London.
Counter-demonstrators lining the side of the square chanted throughout the rally, waving placards reading "We are all Hamas. Boycott Israel," "Israeli terrorist cowards" and "End the siege - talk to Hamas."
Similar pro-Israeli demonstrations were also held in the German cities of Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich, with authorities saying altogether 2,000 people took part. Police in Marseille, southern France, said around 4,000 people marched through the city in support of Israel's right to "self-defense."
Outside of Europe, pro-Palestinian rallies were also held across Asia earlier Sunday.
In Hong Kong, more than 1,000 students and ethnic minorities took part in a protest organized on social networking website Facebook.
The group, holding placards and banners, marched from Victoria Park to the US Consulate demanding the United States stop supporting Israel's war. In Indonesia, 20,000 Muslims staged a peaceful rally Sunday in the capital, Jakarta. Protesters from the Islamic Prosperous Justice Party gathered at the national monument in Jakarta and marched through the streets.
In Pakistan, security forces used tear gas and batons to repel pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to attack the US Consulate in Karachi. - AFP, with The Daily Star |
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