User:Citizentimes/Gaza Strike

Israeli jets have attacked the Gaza Strip for a fourth day, with raids on a number of Hamas government buildings and security installations. Jeremy Bowen reports. Israel rejects Gaza truce calls Gaza wakes up to another day of air strikes Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rejected international calls for a 48-hour truce in the Gaza Strip to allow in more humanitarian aid. In the last several days, Israeli jets and attack helicopters have hit Hamas targets, including security compounds, government buildings, smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt and homes belonging to militant leaders.

Palestinian officials say 391 Palestinians have died in the Israeli air strikes; four Israelis have been killed by rockets fired from Gaza, which is under Hamas control. In particular the hospitals have been depleted and stretched to the maximum because of the closure imposed said by Iyad Nasr Red Cross spokesman in Gaza and

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, said he "would not hesitate to stop" peace talks with the Israelis "if they go against our interests and offer a support to aggression". He called the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip "barbaric and criminal aggression". "The effort to bring about a ceasefire continues. We continue to work for a ceasefire," US State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters when asked for a reaction to Israel's decision.

International appeals The Israeli air strikes began less than a week after the expiry of a six-month-long ceasefire deal with Hamas. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but has kept tight control over access in and out of Gaza and its airspace.

Amnesty International said that . "It is utterly unacceptable for Israel to continue to purposefully deprive 1.5 million people of food and other basic necessities. Such a policy cannot be justified on any security or other grounds and must end immediately," said Amnesty International. "Israel must allow international humanitarian and human rights workers immediate and safe access to Gaza." Amnesty International reiterates its call for an end to reckless and unlawful Israeli attacks against densely populated residential areas which have killed  more than 300 Palestinians since 27 December, including scores of unarmed civilians and police personnel not taking part in the hostilities, and injured several hundred others.

Amnesty Further added that International humanitarian and human rights workers, as well as journalists, have not been allowed into Gaza by the Israeli army since the beginning of November, with the exception of a few journalists who were allowed in for a couple of days earlier in December.

Israel's security cabinet met on Wednesday to discuss the proposal made by France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, for a 48-hour truce to allow for the passage of humanitarian aid into the besieged territory.

NGO's bid to help Gazans scuttled (CNN) -- An Israeli patrol boat struck a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza early Tuesday as it attempted to intercept the vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, witnesses and Israeli officials said. "Our mission was a peaceful mission to deliver medical supplies and our mission was thwarted by the Israelis -- the aggressiveness of the Israeli military," former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney said. The Free Gaza Movement, which has run the blockade six times since August to take humanitarian supplies into Gaza, said the vessel could still sail after the ramming.

Olmert said the bombardment so far was “the first of several stages approved by the security cabinet,” while deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned the offensive could turn into “weeks of combat.” WHO  urges end to hostilities in Gaza Strip “WHO reiterates its call for the immediate discontinuation of the current violence and the removal of blockades so that much-needed food, water, fuel, medicines and other humanitarian aid can reach those in need,” it said. The International Committee of the Red Cross also said in a statement that it was “extremely concerned about civilians” caught up in the hostilities. “We have nowhere to hide,” it cited a staff member who lives in Gaza as saying. Eye-witness: Morgues overflow with bodies Yaha Muheisen stops searching for his son's body for a moment to speak to me. "Whatever Israel did it will not defeat us," he says, "It will not weaken our power." Forty-year-old mother Nawal AlLad'a did not find the bodies of her two sons in the medical compound, so she left to look amid the rubble.

Protests: Hundreds in Mich., NYC, LOS protest Gaza attack DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- Israel's military strikes on the Gaza Strip prompted pro-Palestinian protests in America, with marchers denouncing the violence in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, New York City and Los Angeles. The crowd outside the embassy in Kensington, central London, carried banners   demanding justice for Palestine and were led in chants of "no justice, no peace".

The protest comes after Israel rejected calls for a 48-hour ceasefire. The protest will continue tomorrow before moving on to the Egyptian Embassy on   Friday and then on to Trafalgar Square on Saturday.

Dubai and Egypt cancel New Year's Eve festivities in solidarity with Gaza. Dubai was one of several Arab states to cancel lavish New Year's Eve   celebrations in solidarity with the people of Gaza who suffered a fifth    straight day of bombardment from Israel on Wednesday.

Obama’s silence on Gaza irks Arabs On the fourth day of Israeli air strikes in Gaza, the US President-elect has yet to take a position, though he spoke out after militants’ attacks in Mumbai and has made detailed policy statements on the US economy. “He wants to be cautious and I think he will remain cautious because the Arab-Israeli conflict is not one of his priorities,” said Hassan Nafaa, an Egyptian political scientist and secretary-general of the Arab Thought Forum in Amman. “Obama’s position is very precarious. The Jewish lobby warned against his election, so he has chosen to remain silent(on Gaza),” added Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.

Gaza children traumatised as Israeli bombs rain down We are scared... that we can die at any moment,” said 11-year-old Mohammed Ayyad, still terrified hours after a massive Israeli bombardment of Hamas government buildings next to his house in Gaza. His six-year-old brother Ahmad “peed his pants. We were all scared because the planes are in the sky all the time and we could die at any moment.” Schools in Gaza have been closed since the Israeli strikes began on Saturday and children have passed the time examining the damage caused by the raids. Near Ayyad’s home, a group of children milled around rubble that used to be Hamas government buildings. One shrugged off the danger of being outside as the Israeli warplanes continued their sorties overhead.

Robert Fisk (The Independent's award-winning Middle East correspondent) said that These are realities. The chances of war, however, may be less easier to calculate. If Israel indefinitely continues its billion dollar blitz on Gaza – and we all know who is paying for that – there will, at some stage, be an individual massacre; a school will be hit, a hospital or a pre-natal clinic or just an apartment packed with civilians.

Dawn editorial (30 December 2008) stated that The Muslim world is powerless, while there is no countervailing power to tear up the carte blanche which America has given to Israel for its massacre of the Palestinian people and for holding on to the occupied territories in violation of UN declarations and the agreements to which Israel and America are a party.

‘It is simply disgusting when the people actually being attacked in Gaza are utterly defenceless, basically starving,’ says Canadian environmentalist Ingmar Lee. ‘If there is any shame left in the international community, it should denounce Israel unanimously and insist its withdrawal from all of Palestine. What can something like this lead to? Palestinians are naturally going to react in the same way as anyone who wakes up to find themselves among splattered body parts of their children and families. They will have one single objective for the rest of their lives.’