Robert Fisk: The self delusion that plagues both sides in this bloody conflict

Israel has never won a war in a built-up city, that's why threats of 'war to the bitter end' are nonsense

Wednesday, 31 December 2008

During the second Palestinian "intifada", I was sitting in the offices of Hizbollah's Al-Manar television station in Beirut, watching news footage of a militiaman's funeral in Gaza. The television showed hordes of Hamas and PLO gunmen firing thousands of rounds of ammunition into the air to honour their latest "martyr"; and I noticed, just next to me, a Lebanese Hizbollah member – who had taken part in many attacks against the Israelis in what had been Israel's occupation zone in southern Lebanon – shaking his head.

What was he thinking, I asked? "Hamas try to stand up to the Israelis," he replied. "But..." And here he cast his eyes to the ceiling. "They waste bullets. They fire all these bullets into the sky. They should use them to shoot at Israelis."

His point, of course, was that Hamas lacked discipline, the kind of iron, ruthless discipline and security that Hizbollah forged in Lebanon and which the Israeli army was at last forced to acknowledge in southern Lebanon in 2006. Guns are weapons, not playthings for funerals. And Gaza is not southern Lebanon. It would be as well for both sides in this latest bloodbath in Gaza to remember this. Hamas is not Hizbollah. Jerusalem is not Beirut. And Israeli soldiers cannot take revenge for their 2006 defeat in Lebanon by attacking Hamas in Gaza – not even to help Ms Livni in the Israeli elections.

Not that Hizbollah won the "divine victory" it claimed two years ago. Driving the roads of southern Lebanon as the Israelis smashed the country's infrastructure, killed more than a thousand Lebanese – almost all of them civilians – and razed dozens of villages, it didn't feel like a Hizbollah "victory" to me, theological or otherwise. But the Israelis didn't win and the Hizbollah were able to deploy thousands of long-range rockets as well as a missile which set an Israeli warship on fire and almost sank it. Hamas have nothing to match that kind of armoury.

Nor do they have the self-discipline to fight like an army. Hizbollah in Lebanon has managed to purge its region of informers. Hamas – like all the other Palestinian outfits – is infected with spies, some working for the Palestinian Authority, others for the Israelis. Israel has successively murdered one Hamas leader after another – "targeted killing", of course, is their polite phrase – and they couldn't do that without, as the police would say, "inside help". Hizbollah's previous secretary general, Sayed Abbas Moussawi, was assassinated near Jibchit by a missile-firing Israeli helicopter more than a decade ago but the movement hasn't suffered a leader's murder in Lebanon since then. In the 34-day war of 2006, Hizbollah lost about 200 of its men. Hamas lost almost that many in the first day of Israel's air attacks in Gaza – which doesn't say much for Hamas' military precautions.

Israel, however – always swift to announce its imminent destruction of "terrorism" – has never won a war in a built-up city, be it Beirut or Gaza, since its capture of Jerusalem in 1967. And it's important to remember that the Israeli army, famous in song and legend for its supposed "purity of arms" and "elite" units, has proved itself to be a pretty third-rate army over recent years. Not since the 1973 Middle East conflict – 35 years ago – has it won a war. Its 1978 invasion of Lebanon was a failure, its 1982 invasion ended in disaster, propelling Arafat from Beirut but allowing its vicious Phalangist allies into the Sabra and Chatila camps where they committed mass murder. In neither the 1993 bombardment of Lebanon nor the 1996 bombardment of Lebanon – which fizzled out after the massacre of refugees at Qana – nor the 2006 war was its performance anything more than amateur. Indeed, if it wasn't for the fact Arab armies are even more of a rabble than the Israelis, the Israeli state would be genuinely under threat from its neighbours.

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Air strikes in Gaza follow series of operations dating back to 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian elections

* Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 December 2008 12.56 GMT
* Article history

Israel's four-day bombing campaign in Gaza is the latest in a series of military operations dating back to 2006, when Hamas won the Palestinian elections.

All have had the publicly stated aim of stopping rocket fire into southern Israeli towns. They have claimed hundreds of Palestinian lives.

At the same time, Israel has imposed tighter and tighter economic restrictions, which now amount to a blockade of the Gaza Strip under which only limited humanitarian supplies are allowed in.

Yet these measures have so far failed to halt militant rockets.

As soon as the Hamas-dominated parliament was sworn in, Israel froze contacts with what it called the "terrorist" Palestinian Authority and blocked the transfer of tax and customs receipts, worth about $50m a month.

Israel said Hamas should renounce violence, recognise Israel's right to exist and accept previous peace agreements. It began regular closures of the Karni crossing, the main commercial goods terminal between Israel and Gaza.

Soon the EU – the largest single donor to the Palestinians – and later the rest of the international community suspended all direct aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Over several weeks, the Israeli military fired artillery rounds into Gaza and bombed buildings, killing several Palestinians. Israel said it was trying to stop militant rockets attacks. In late June 2006, after an Israeli soldier was captured by Palestinian militants and taken into Gaza, the military launched a major operation, sending in troops and bombing bridges, buildings, roads and Gaza's sole power plant.

After two months of bombing and ground raids, the Israeli operation – codenamed Summer Rain – had killed at least 240 Palestinians. At least half were civilians, including 48 children.

In November 2006 Israel mounted a six-day ground invasion of the town of Beit Hanoun, in an area of northern Gaza frequently used by militants launching rockets. The raid, codenamed Autumn Clouds, killed at least 50 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier.

The day after the Israeli military withdrew, another 18 Palestinians, all from the same family in Beit Hanoun, were killed when their house was hit by a volley of Israeli artillery shells.

Late the same month, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was finally established, running for nearly six months until Hamas started firing rockets again. Israel restarted its air strikes on Gaza and threatened to kill Hamas leaders.

After Hamas seized full control of Gaza in late June 2007, following a near civil war with its rival Fatah, Israel stepped up its air raids. On a single day in June, 12 Palestinians were killed in what an Israeli minister called "preventive measures" against rocket attacks from Gaza.

At the same time, Israel tightened its economic blockade, reducing the flow of goods into Gaza to a bare minimum, stopping all exports and placing severe limits on those Palestinians it allowed to leave Gaza through Israel. By September it had declared Gaza a "hostile territory" as militant rocket attacks and Israeli military raids continued.

A new round of US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians began at a summit in Annapolis, in the US, in November 2007 – but the conflict in Gaza continued. Militants fired rockets into southern Israel and the Israeli military staged small-scale incursions and air strikes, killing dozens of Palestinians, both civilians and militants.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said his military was fighting a "true war" against militant groups in Gaza and ruled out the possibility of another ceasefire.

In January this year, Israel launched an incursion into al-Zaitoun, east of Gaza City – in a single day killing at least 18 Palestinians, including the son of Gaza's most powerful Hamas leader.

On the same day, a volunteer farmer from Ecuador was killed by a Palestinian sniper while working at a communal farm across the boundary in Israel. It was the heaviest day of fighting in Gaza for more than a year.

Israel then tightened its restrictions on deliveries into Gaza, including fuel, forcing the power plant to shut down for several days. In late January, crowds of thousands of desperate Palestinians forced their way over the border wall out of Gaza and into Egypt.

Israeli air strikes continued after Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in which an Israeli woman and 11 others were injured in the Israeli city of Dimona. It marked the first return to suicide bombings in Israel by Hamas for more than three years.

In late February the Israeli military mounted another major operation in Gaza, this time sending troops into the eastern town of Jabaliya. In the space of five days around 120 Palestinians were killed, at least half of them civilians. Three Israelis died.

But the raid failed to halt the rocket fire, and in the weeks afterwards there were other clashes in Gaza and near the border, killing six Israelis, four of them soldiers, and dozens of Palestinians, among them a Reuters television cameraman and, in a separate incident, a mother and her four children.

Eventually, after much mediation by Egypt, a ceasefire between Israel and militants in Gaza was again established in June. It ran until November, when it began to break down with violations on both sides, and collapsed in mid-December to bring the latest Israeli bombing campaign of Gaza, codenamed Cast Lead, which has so far killed at least 360 Palestinians.

In the past eight years, the militant rockets and mortars fired from Gaza that have become such a powerful issue for the Israeli government have killed 20 people inside Israel. Three of those were killed on Monday, including a soldier, and one died on Saturday when the bombing first started.

Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories

January 2006: Israel fires artillery rounds into Gaza and bombs buildings after Hamas wins Palestinian elections

June 2006: Operation Summer Rain follows the capture of an Israeli soldier. A total of 240 Palestinians are killed in two months of bombing and ground raids

November 2006: Operation Autumn Clouds, a six-day ground invasion of Beit Hanoun, results in at least 50 Palestinian deaths. Another 18 from one family are killed in artillery shelling

June 2007: Israel steps up air raids after Hamas seizes control of Gaza

January 2008: A total of 18 Palestinians are killed in one day in an Israeli incursion into al-Zaytoun

February 2008: Israeli troops go into Jabaliya; around 120 Palestinians are killed in five days

December 2008: Operation Cast Lead is launched. At least 360 Palestinians are killed in the first four days

Israeli troops dance as they await the order for a Gaza war

In a muddy field overlooking the smoke-blackened Gaza Strip skyline, young soldiers from an Israeli tank unit linked arms with euphoric civilians in energetic dance in anticipation of a possible ground invasion of Gaza. Huge speakers blasting religious songs fed the emotion as civilians cheered troops who'd take part in any ground invasion.

The tunnel network now destroyed, or at least severely damaged, was a legitimate target. Especially the tunnel(s) leading into Israel appear to have been significant provocateurs in this conflict, although its unclear whether they could be considered a breach of the peace treaty in and of themselves. (That the tunnels leading into Egypt have lasted so long was frankly a bit surprise to me.) The talk about the truce being broken by Israel, in any case, seems at least slightly biased. Indeed, it's unclear whether Hamas even considered the truce in force any longer after Dec. 19.

Civilian casualties (reportedly around 1/6) in these attacks, while horrifying and deeply saddening, clearly demonstrate Israel's familiarity with the surroundings. And no, the morbidity of such an appraisal does not escape me.

By MIDDLE EAST TIMES
Published: December 31, 2008

Hamas sowed the wind: Now they are reaping the whirlwind. The United States and Israel are doing so as well.

The Israeli incursion into Gaza continues with no end in sight. Yet the Israelis have a tiger by the tail. However many Hamas cadres they kill, they incursion can only succeed if they mange to either destroy the Hamas armed forces and government in Gaza or force them to flee, as Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization forces escaped from Beirut in 1982.

To achieve that end, the Israeli leaders will have to order their ground forces to invade Gaza in full force and take significant casualties, as well as defying diplomatic pressure and outrage from most of the world, apart from the Bush administration in the United States.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was the most successful commando leader in Israeli history. He may well have the nerve and determination to send in his army and take heavy casualties. But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert badly bungled strategic direction of Israel's disastrous 20006 mini-war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 and his foreign minister, Tzipi Livni is entirely untested in any major crisis: It appears extremely doubtful if they will have the nerve to order such an operation and then follow it through, regardless of costs, until it has achieved its purpose.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza, and any invasion or occupation cannot be a permanent solution either. It is doubtful whether the Israeli public, much as it supports the current air attacks in retaliation for continual Qassam rocket bombardments of Israeli towns, would support a renewed occupation of Gaza with the inevitable casualties from guerrilla attacks that would follow.

Above all, the timetables of U.S. constitutional government have imposed a remorseless time limit on the Israeli operation U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is scheduled to take the oath of office on Jan. 20. Obama and his designated secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, have made clear that a revived, credible Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a major item on their agenda. They can be expected to put very serious pressure on Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza and cease its retaliatory air strikes as soon as they take power. Therefore Olmert and his armed forces have less than three weeks to achieve their goals.

Egypt and other Arab nations appear to have tacitly approved the Israeli air strikes. It is notable that Egypt has sealed its border with Gaza. Mainstream Arab states are understandably wary of Hamas, first because its extreme jihadist ideology targets them as well as Israel. And second because Hamas' only major state supporter is Iran. However, if Hamas forces manage to survive the Israeli air strikes or any ground attack, or can withstand Israeli military operations for any period of time, a powerful groundswell of support for them is likely to develop across the region that Arab leaders will not be able to ignore.

The situation therefore, remains rife with uncertainty and peril. Complacent silence in Washington is not the answer.

Palestinians are at fault for not unifying behind Fatah.

Ironic, now that Fatah has unified behind Hamas.

01 Jan 2009 13:53:32 GMT
Source: Reuters

* Israeli air strike kills senior Hamas leader

* Israel rejects calls for immediate Gaza ceasefire

* Hamas says attacks must stop before truce

* Palestinian deathtoll tops 400

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Israel killed a senior Hamas leader in an air attack on his home on Thursday, striking its first deadly blow against the top ranks of the Islamist group in a Gaza offensive that has claimed more than 400 Palestinian lives.

Nizar Rayan, widely regarded as one of Hamas's most hardline political leaders, had advocated renewing suicide bombings inside Israel. Hamas police said another six Palestinians, including members of Rayan's family, were killed in the bombing.

Many Hamas leaders are in hiding, anticipating assassination attempts by Israel, whose military confirmed the air strike. Hamas Radio said Rayan rejected Hamas advice to leave his house.

A lecturer at Gaza's Islamist University, Rayan, 49, had mentored suicide bombers and would sometimes go on patrol with Hamas fighters. Hamas said Israel would pay a "heavy price" for his death, which was confirmed by medical officials.

Hours before the killing, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was fighting Hamas with an "iron fist", his words backed by a series of air strikes in the Gaza Strip but challenged by rockets that have killed four people in southern Israel.

Israeli forces remained poised on the Gaza frontier in preparation for a possible ground invasion as international calls for an immediate ceasefire mounted.

Shortly after Olmert spoke to mayors in southern Israel, footage of a multi-storey building damaged in an attack and a rubble-strewn street filled Israeli television screens.

This time, the scene was the not the battered Gaza Strip, rather a tree-lined street in Ashdod, a major Israeli port city, where a Hamas rocket had torn into the eighth floor of a residential building.

No one was hurt but several residents were treated for shock, officials said. Some 20 rockets hit elsewhere in southern Israel, causing no casualties.

On the sixth days of hostilities, Israeli aircraft and naval forces attacked about 20 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, including a government complex, the Israeli military said.

Palestinian medical officials said three civilians were killed in those air strikes and 100 people wounded.

"I very much hope we will succeed in achieving our goals quickly," Olmert said, repeating Israel's declared aim of ending rocket attacks in the Gaza Strip and giving no precise timeframe for the offensive that began on Saturday.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper said the Israeli army had recommended a a major but short-term ground offensive into the densely populated enclave.

Diplomats said the deadliest conflict in the Gaza Strip in four decades could get even bloodier after days of air strikes that have killed at least 407 Palestinians, about a quarter of whom, U.N. figures showed, were civilians, and wounded more than 1,700

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I remember puzzling my brain over this one during the dreary hours of guard duty in the Very Bad Old days in South Africa...

Why so few mortar attacks?

Follow this link to remind yourself of the basic facts of mortars...

http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/Weapons/Mortarsandguns/Mortars%20&%20Infantry%20Guns.htm

An average crew could put a dozen bombs in the air inside of a minute. Multiply that by six crews in a typical Battalion, and you have over seventy rounds of ammunition impacting on the same target area in sixty seconds. The effect is too awful to contemplate on men caught in open ground. Against a machine gun just lying flat provided some defence, but against mortar bombs the only chance was to dig in, deep. Even then, that high angle could deliver a round right into a dugout. A well drilled crew could fire around 30 bombs in a minute, though due to the barrel overheating this rate of fire could not be sustained for long.

The success of a mortar strike would bring almost instant retaliation. Once a firing position was located it could be targeted for 'counter battery fire'. Here again the mortar had an advantage. It could be broken down into its three parts and spirited away by Jeep, cart, horse or man in seconds. Depending on the range, as the first bomb in a series landed, the last one may just have been fired. That meant the crew could have disassembled their weapon shortly after the last round hit and be gone.

So why the hell wasn't it raining mortars bombs? Not that it never did, but at supposedly the peak of bit war the rate was "it happened once a couple of years ago".

Start to see why I was puzzled?

When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission came out we found...

* The ANC had a directive to _not_ attack civilian targets and had an emphasis on mobilizing and politicizing its own population rather than generally attacking whites.

Most such attacks were either rogue units, other political groupings, or...

* Were False flag ops conducted by the apartheid era SADF itself.

Now the Israeli's are whinging like mad about Rocket attacks.

Why the hell rockets? Those things leave a nice light/smoke trail saying "Terrs Here! Surround / attack / counter attack this spot here."

So tell me why are Hamas supposedly using an expensive heavy technology that leaves a clear smoke trail back to them, when a cheapy World War I era weapon system would be more effective, less hazardous, higher rate of fire, and probably can be bought in firesale lots from surplus stores world wide.

There is only ever one enemy, and that is the military. It doesn't matter which side they purport to be on.

Unless I missed something, the McClatchy article fails to note that, years before the 2006 Gaza elections, Israel had nurtured fundamentalist Muslim groups as a counterweight to the secular nationalist PLO. It was these groups, just like those we nurtured in Afghanistan against the Russians, that evolved into Hamas.

In addition, the frequently cited claim that Hamas unilaterally ejected Fatah after the elections also overlooks the evidence that, in collusion with Fatah, the US covertly funded a local warlord, Muhammed Dahlan, to attack Hamas and destabilize its administration, thus contributing to Hamas' violent response. Most importantly, as I've noted earlier, Hamas' offer in May of 2006 to recognize Israel was roundly ignored. This is not to exonerate Hamas, only to add some balance to the mainstream story line.

AP, January 2

Israel bombed a mosque it claimed was used to store weapons and destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives today, 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 against Gaza's Hamas rulers could soon expand with a ground incursion.

International calls for a cease-fire have been growing, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected in the region next week. Israel has so far been cool to a truce, and in a setback for diplomatic efforts, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington she had no plans to come to the region.

BBC

Israel mounts fresh attacks as international ceasefire efforts gather pace

The Guardian, By Matthew Weaver, January 3

George Bush today blamed the continuing violence in Gaza on Hamas terrorism and offered no criticism of Israel in his first comments since Israeli air strikes began a week ago.

The US president condemned Hamas's campaign of rocket attacks on Israel as an "act of terror" and said no peace deal would be acceptable unless the flow of smuggled weapons to terrorist groups was monitored and stopped.

"This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction," he said.

Bush said Hamas ended the latest ceasefire on 19 December and "soon unleashed a barrage of rockets and mortars that deliberately targeted innocent Israelis, an act of terror that is opposed by the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, President [Mahmoud] Abbas".

PA (via The Independent), By Tom Rayner, January 3

Thousands of protesters voiced their anger at the bombing of Gaza today in a series of rallies across the UK.

The protesters - including the singer Annie Lennox and Respect MP George Galloway - marched along the Embankment in London to Trafalgar Square to call for an immediate end to the Israeli attacks.

The demonstration in the capital was the biggest of at least 18 organised across the country.

LAT, By Richard Boudreaux & Ashraf Khalil, January 3

Ramallah, West Bank, and Jerusalem -- Israel's week-old assault on the Gaza Strip has widened the rift between Palestinians who back the search by moderate leaders for a peace accord with the Jewish state and those drawn to Hamas' call for armed struggle.

The breach was on display Friday in the West Bank as the territory's U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority leadership, striving to contain rising anger over the death toll in Hamas-ruled Gaza, sent police to put down pro-Hamas demonstrations.

Thousands enraged by the bloodshed have joined protests in West Bank cities. One in Ramallah after Friday prayers turned into a shouting match between about 2,000 marchers with green Hamas flags and 500 others with the yellow banners of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

Though condemning the assault as "criminal," Abbas has insisted that Hamas is responsible because it ended a truce with Israel two weeks ago. Hamas, in turn, has branded him an Israeli collaborator.

New York Times, By Ray Rivera, January 3

Anger over the Israeli assault on Gaza spilled into Times Square on Saturday, as hundreds of protesters condemned the attacks in a demonstration that stretched four blocks and clogged much of the city’s central tourist district for several hours.

The protest came as Israeli troops began a ground incursion into the Hamas-controlled territory in what officials described as an effort to end Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel. The land campaign followed eight days of Israeli airstrikes that have killed more than 430 Palestinians, many of them civilians.

News of the escalation came midway through the demonstration and cast a pall over the crowd as it was announced over loudspeakers and crept across the news tickers nearby. But many protesters said they were not surprised, and some sounded a defiant note.

“As organized as the Palestinian community is here in the United States, we already knew this was going to happen, and I think the Palestinian people in Gaza have expected it,” said Linda Sarsour, 28, a Palestinian-American social worker from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, home to one of the country’s oldest Arab communities. “Now it’s time for Israel to come in and face the people on the ground. It’s all-out war now, and we’ll see what happens.”

Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel, and its supporters hold a funeral for a slain leader. Thousands of Israeli troops remain massed on the Gaza border.

LAT, By Ashraf Khalil and Rushdi abu Alouf, January 3

Gaza City and Jerusalem -- Israeli airstrikes Friday killed at least eight Palestinians in the Gaza Strip amid mounting speculation that a long-threatened land invasion of the coastal territory would begin soon.

As warplanes swooped overhead, supporters of the militant group Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for 18 months, laid to rest one of the movement's senior spiritual and military leaders, an advocate of suicide bombings, in a public funeral.

Hamas and other factions continued rocket launches toward southern Israeli towns, striking several buildings but causing only minor injuries. Gazan militants have extended their rocket range deeper into the Jewish state, killing three civilians and one soldier during the last week.

In the same period, Israeli attacks have killed more than 420 Palestinians, including more than 60 civilians, and injured an estimated 2,000, according to local medical sources.

WSJ, By Charles Levinson & Margaret Coker, January 3

JERUSALEM -- Israeli aircraft and gunboats bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for an eighth day on Saturday as Palestinians braced for the start of a feared ground offensive.

Over two dozen missiles pounded largely deserted fields on Gaza's periphery, suggesting an attempt to destroy the network of tunnels and mine fields which constitute Hamas' first line of defense against an Israeli ground assault.

They also targeted the last standing bridge connecting northern and southern Gaza, and offshore gunboats offshore fired on vehicles traveling along Gaza's north-south coastal highway, another sign that the Israelis may be trying to halt the movement of weapons, supplies and militants ahead of a ground invasion.

A top Hamas commander in Gaza, Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, was also killed in one of the early morning strikes.

Israeli tanks, artillery and infantrymen stood poised at the ready on Gaza's borders, awaiting orders to attack, but Israel's leaders appear to be wary of launching a potentially lengthy and bloody ground offensive with national elections one month away.

Israeli ground troops enter Gaza
Posted: 04 January 2009 0244 hrs

AFP
JERUSALEM - Israeli ground troops have entered the Gaza Strip, an army spokesman told AFP on Saturday a week after the Jewish state launched its massive offensive on Hamas targets in the enclave.

"I can confirm that Israeli troops have gone in," she said.

Witnesses inside Gaza Strip said soldiers had entered the territory in the north.

Gaza - One year ago.

(Alternatively, Google "Warsaw Ghetto")

Gaza embargo puts hope on life support

Hospitals, transportation systems and businesses have been plunged into desperation.

"We have about 30% of the fuel in stock for Gaza's 12 hospitals and 52 primary health care centers," said Health Ministry spokesperson Khaled Radee.

Health care employees have been unable to travel to work due to the lack of fuel, Radee said, while vaccinations, medications, cultures and medical equipment have been destroyed due to the power outages.

"The unstable electricity damages our equipment - ventilators, incubators, even our refrigerators," said Dr. Majed Mohammed, who heads the intensive care unit at Al-Nasser Children's Hospital.

Mohammed said only half of his beds have functioning equipment.

Mohammed said he's tried to transfer severe cases to Israel, including 11-month-old Roan Diab, who is dying of renal failure and needs dialysis, but her transfer was denied.

"I prefer war [with Israel]," Mohammed said. "Rapid killing is better than this slow death."

Unfixable equipment and the lack of fuel has also plagued water pumps and the sewage system, including the main wastewater treatment plant serving 400,000 residents that recently dumped raw sewage through Gaza City streets.

The Israeli High Court of Justice recently rejected a petition filed by human rights groups describing the embargo and move to cut fuel supplies to Gaza as "collective punishment" and illegal under international law.

The Stroop Report - The Warsaw Ghetto Is No More

American School In Gaza bombed today, according to Juan Cole and others.

Also the Islamic University in Gaza leveled on Saturday.

Of course, as per the newly minted Israeli information directorate, it turns out all schools, universities, mosques, hospitals and public buildings are merely false fronts for weapons manufacturing or storage, as are any private homes inadvertently hit by missiles. At least that's what we hear from an endless parade of carefully tutored "explainers".

In the "fog of war', especially the well orchestrated fog of a one-sided "war" a heightened cynicism about event reportage is advisable, especially when the aggressors ban journalists from the field. BBC News

Protests against the Israeli offensive in Gaza became heated last night when up to 5,000 people gathered outside the country's London embassy.

..... The London protest was one of 18 that took place across the UK yesterday. There were also rallies in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Athens and several Asian cities.

The protest march at the Israeli embassy in Athens turned violent as demonstrators threw stones and fire bombs at riot police, and officers retaliated with tear gas and stun grenades. Hundreds of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, with up to 10,000, largely Israeli Arabs, taking to the streets in the northern town of Sakhnin.

In London too, the crowds kept pouring in, a mix of ages, colours, and creeds. Even a group of Orthodox Jews had braved possible hostility and broken the Sabbath to join the protest alongside anti-war campaigners, Muslim groups and ordinary citizens.

Housing officer Derek Perry, 60, and his sculptor friend Maria Smith, 47, from West Norwood, were nursing cups of coffee in cold hands. "I just wanted to be here," said Perry. "You have to make a stand," said Smith.

A group of young men from Leicester were selling copies of Palestinian football strips. "We're nearly sold out and we brought a good 100 or more - it's all for charity," said a delighted Irshad Patel, 23, bartering furiously.

The podium around Nelson's Column had been barricaded off and speakers lined up to make an address. Peace campaigner Bianca Jagger looked down towards Parliament. "I made my speech too soon; I should have waited for them to arrive," she said.

Singer Annie Lennox was there too. Formerly married to an Israeli, she told the Observer: "This is not about political sides any more, this is a sincere and earnest yearning for peace. One and a half million people are trapped inside Gaza; what will the outcome be of a ground war? The world will never be safe again."

Others found the protest upsetting. Rabbi Dr Sidney Brichto, senior vice-president of Liberal Judaism, a federation of liberal synagogues, said: "The demonstration was easy to organise because most of the demonstrators want more than a ceasefire. Most of these people want the end of Israel. Hamas are able to plug into latent anti-semitism in the West. It breaks my heart."

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.
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The conflict in the Gaza Strip is already having an impact on the political landscape in Israel ahead of parliamentary polls in February.

Tel Aviv - While war between Israel and Hamas reverberates from Gaza City to southern Israel and to Arab capitals, the fallout will also be felt within the Israeli Knesset.

The fighting is already affecting Israeli public opinion ahead of the Feb. 10 parliamentary vote: Before the offensive began polls showed conservative opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party leading. But now, the hawks are losing ground and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader of the center-left Labor Party, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of centrist Kadima are gaining.

But while it's too early to tell which politician will emerge from the high-stakes Gaza conflict with the upper hand, Israel finds itself once again at a moment of transition as a mix of war and politics promises change for the Jewish state.
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_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

KHALED ABU TOAMEH | January 4

Jerusalem Post - 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.

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[Comment: The latest from ICG (predates the invasion) is worth reading in this context - link. ~ JPD]

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Amos Harel & Avi Issacharoff | January 4

Haaretz - On Saturday night, one week after the start of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, the ground operation began. The Israel Defense Forces started deploying combat units to surround Hamas' main power base. The goal is not to chase after and destroy every last rocket launcher, but rather to break the Hamas' resistance and force it to agree to a long-term cease-fire whose terms are more reasonable from Israel's perspective.

Rocket fire into Israel continued apace with the Gaza offensive, but IDF officials believe this time progress can be made at the front before the extent of the casualties in the south begins to resemble that of the Second Lebanon War. At the same time, there is a growing risk that Hezbollah or its satellites will try to open a second front along the Lebanese border.

The final decision on the ground operation came Friday afternoon in a meeting of the security cabinet with military leaders, in the IDF's underground situation room in Tel Aviv. Senior IDF officials reported that the Air Force was nearing the end of its "target bank" and that a ground operation must be launched immediately if the overall operational goals were to be met.

The army believes the incursion into Gaza will do significant damage to Hamas' standing army and at the same time give Hamas leaders a palpable sense that their rule is in danger. The ground invasion will also accelerate the diplomatic stopwatch. A delegation from the European Union "troika" (Germany, France, Great Britain) will reach Gaza on Sunday, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected on Monday. Translated into military terminology that means the IDF has less than a week to make genuine progress in Gaza.

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“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass