IN.Reuters - Even as Israelis and Palestinians plunged deeper into conflict, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama remained silent, refusing to budge from his one-president-at-a-time mantra.

Obama takes office on Jan. 20 but has not commented on the Middle East crisis since Israel launched attacks on Gaza nine days ago. His advisers insist that only President George W. Bush can speak for America until then.

While most prominent U.S. politicians have backed Israel, critics have noted that Obama joined Bush in condemning the killing of civilians in attacks in November in Mumbai, India. They would have liked him to say something about the fate of Palestinian civilians caught in the fighting.

The president-elect also has commented on the global economic crisis and his plans to try to pull the U.S. economy out of recession.

Asked about the apparent contradiction, an Obama transition aide who asked not to be named said on Sunday: "President Bush is our nation's president until Jan. 20, and he is responsible for our nation's diplomacy with the world.

"During this transition period, we are not engaging in any action that could send confusing signals to the world about who speaks on behalf of the United States."

continues at link

PressTV, January 5

Israel's defense minister says Israeli ground forces have entered Gaza City, as attacks on the densely-populated strip continues for a tenth day.

According to local witnesses, dozens of Israeli tanks have entered the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, as exchange of fierce fire continues between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters.

"Gaza City is partially besieged and the forces have reached the ground targets we set for them," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted by Yediot Ahronot as saying at a parliament session on Monday.

[...]

At least 531 Palestinians have been killed and over 2,600 others are wounded in the Operation Cast Lead, launched December 27.

Steven Erlanger | Nablus | January 5

NYT - Fewer than 100 people showed up on Monday in the busy center of Nablus for a demonstration in solidarity with the suffering Palestinians of Gaza. There were a few Palestinian flags, and some posters that featured bombs with Jewish stars and dripping blood and demanded, “Where is the conscience of the world?” But when an organizer asked passers-by to join the rally, only a handful responded.

The lack of interest was not, for certain, lack of support for Hamas. Fury is rising here over the war in Gaza, as are support for Hamas and anger with the Palestinian Authority in this city, which has long been the beating heart of opposition to Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Many want the authority and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party, to do more to criticize Israel.

But a complicated internal struggle is also playing out here in the West Bank, separate geographically and governed by the Palestinian Authority, not, like Gaza, by Hamas. Fatah leaders are growing deeply worried over popular reaction and support for its rival, Hamas, to the point of crushing recent demonstrations.

There is also, after so many years of struggle, of Palestinian against Israeli and of Palestinian against Palestinian, no small degree of weariness with yet another deadly round. Even with the war in Gaza, there is no sign of a third intifada, or uprising, despite Hamas’s call for one.

“The people are tired,” said Jamal Fayez, who runs a modest restaurant in the city center. “They’re tired, and they’re poor. They’re tired of the conflict between Hamas and Fatah, and they’re tired from trying to earn bread to eat.”

more

“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

...feelings about this situation; you would see me for the unbalanced, radical that I am. I am incapable of a rational conversation regarding Israeli behavior towards the Palestinians. EOM.

New York Times, By Isabel Kershner & Taghreed El-Khodary, January 6

JERUSALEM — Israel said on Tuesday that four of its soldiers in Gaza were killed by shells from their own tanks — the first known “friendly fire” deaths in the 11-day-old offensive — as Israeli troops were reported to be pushing toward Khan Yunis in southern Gaza and the United Nations said one of its schools in the beleaguered territory was hit by Israeli fire.

Casualties were reported mounting on both sides as the military confrontation broadened. News reports said Israeli forces were probing deeper into southern Gaza after concentrating their initial thrust in the north of the coastal strip.

Defying Israeli and international demands, Hamas militants in Gaza fired more rockets into Israel Tuesday, one of them falling in the town of Gadera, less than 20 miles south of Tel Aviv, the Israeli Army said.

The target was the furthest north that any of the hundreds of missiles fired from Gaza has yet struck since the Israeli offensive began.

Troops enter Khan Younis as offensive continues
Israel marks worst losses with four soldiers killed

The Guardian, By Rory McCarthy, Mark Tran & Agencies, January 6

Israeli troops and tanks moved into Gaza's second largest city, Khan Younis, for the first time today supported by intensive artillery strikes as the military pledged to press on with its attack.

The heaviest fighting has been in northern Gaza, with witnesses reporting wave after wave of bombing strikes across the north of the territory accompanied by gunfire from helicopters and artillery from land and sea. Thousands of Palestinians have been ordered to leave their homes or forced to flee the fighting.

Artillery fired from naval ships in the Mediterranean killed 10 Palestinians this morning in Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian medical workers. In Shajaiyeh, east of Gaza City, Israeli troops seized control of three apartment blocks and set up gun positions on the rooftops. Residents were locked in their homes and soldiers confiscated their mobile phones, neighbours said.

In two friendly fire incidents late last night, four Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 were wounded, four seriously. Three were killed when they were accidentally hit by an Israeli tank shell. The casualties were the most serious suffered by Israeli forces since they began their ground offensive on Saturday night, and came when the tank mistakenly fired on a building where the soldiers had taken positions. A paratroops officer was also killed by Israeli fire late yesterday.

Hamas leader: Revenge for Israel's Gaza assault will be murder of Jewish children across the world

A senior Hamas leader has warned Israel that Islamists would avenge the deaths of young Palestinians in Gaza by killing Jewish children around the world.

"They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine," said Mahmoud Zahar, in a televised broadcast recorded at a secret location. "They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people." Mr Zahar, a hard-line political leader, made his first appearance since Israeli launched its offensive against his organisation.

He claimed victory for Hamas, saying it had succeeded in "destroying Israel's sense of security" with its rocket attacks.

Palestinian officials said 541 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip over the 10 days of fighting and that 90 people – mostly civilians, including 26 children – had died since Israel's ground offensive began on Saturday night.

Recent victims were said to include 13 members of a Palestinian family in an Israeli strike on their home in the Beach refugee camp.

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isn't that nice that the Israeli tell them to leave their homes for safety and then bomb the safe places, and the UN will of course do nothing

Israeli fire kills 10 near Gaza school -witnesses

GAZA, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Israeli tank fire killed at least 10 Palestinians near a U.N.-run school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, witnesses and medical officials said.

Two tank shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants. In addition to the dead, several dozen people were wounded, the officials said.

Earlier in the day, an Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians at another school administered by the United Nations in the Gaza Strip.

US News

Israel May Lose Political War Over Gaza
By SANA ABDALLAH (Middle East Times)
Published: January 06, 2009

AMMAN -- The Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip entered its 11th day on Tuesday in a war that may last longer than expected, bringing more death and destruction to the Palestinians. Yet the longer it takes for Israel to achieve its military and political objectives against Hamas and "changing the equation in this region," the higher the Israeli risks of losing a political battle that might change the equation, but against its favor.

Fierce battles between the Israeli army, backed by tanks, helicopter gunships and U.S.-made F-16 fighters, and Hamas and other Palestinian fighters continued in major cities across Gaza, raising the death toll to at least 580 Palestinians, many of them civilians and children, and 2,700 injured since Israel launched its war on Dec. 27.

While Palestinian militant groups said they have killed more than a dozen Israeli soldiers in the past three days, the Israeli army – which has slapped a blackout on media coverage – has confirmed five dead in the battles.

Medics and U.N. officials said Israeli air strikes bombed two U.N.-run schools in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Tuesday morning, killing five Palestinians. The school was sheltering 450 people from the relentless Israeli bombardment.

Eight days after a shaky six-month truce brokered by Egypt expired, Israel launched its war with massive air strikes on the narrow strip on Dec. 27, and unleashed its ground invasion Jan. 3, saying it sought to stop the Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli towns from Gaza.

The assault on the most densely-populated territory in the world has triggered massive and continuous worldwide protests against Israel, as well as anger from some of the Jewish state's usual enemy countries.

These protests have had little impact on Israel's determination to pursue the assault, as it shuns French and European Union diplomatic calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ignored visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy's call for a ceasefire, and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told visiting EU diplomats on Monday that the war is aimed at "changing the equation" in Gaza, which has been under Hamas' control since ousting the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007.

But it is the official anger and diplomatic offensives from some of its allies, especially Turkey, and its Arab "friends," such as Qatar and Jordan, which analysts say Israel should worry about.

The Turkish government, Israel's main "strategic ally" in the region and mediator in the indirect Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations, was the first to act diplomatically, making its position clear that it took the attack on Gaza personally and assuming a leading role in trying to secure a halt to the fighting.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who embarked on an unscheduled tour to Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to sell a ceasefire agreement, told the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news channel on Monday that he was "humiliated" by the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

Erdogan said that he had offered to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, during a visit to Ankara on Dec. 23, Turkey's help to secure an extension to the Egyptian-mediated truce with Hamas and to mediate in securing the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, being held in Gaza.

"Olmert promised to consult with his ministers and to respond to my offers," Erdogan said. "But instead, he went and attacked Gaza. That's why I regard this as a humiliation and expression of disrespect for Turkey."

He went further, accusing Israel of being responsible for the collapse of the Egyptian-mediated truce after its expiry because it did not fulfill its obligation in lifting the blockade on Gaza.

"We hoped that Hamas would return to the negotiations to extend the truce, but Israel provoked [the fighting] by returning to the policy of blockades, starvation and killing."

The prime minister of Turkey, whose country has witnessed some of the largest and angriest street protests against Israel in recent days, also said that Ankara intends to take Hamas' demands and relay its views to the U.N. Security Council in the negotiations over a ceasefire resolution.

Turkey – a U.S. and NATO ally – has a current seat on the Security Council, giving it considerable weight and perhaps making it the first emerging power to bring Hamas' voice to the international community and its future decisions.

Arab analysts suggest that Ankara's role has so far proven to be much stronger than those of the divided and weak Arab states collectively, as it seeks a permanent ceasefire resolution that will halt the Israeli war and stop the Palestinian rocket fire, while at the same time ending the crippling blockade that has imprisoned 1.5 million Palestinians for the past 18 months.

Commentators say that if Turkey succeeds in pushing through with this proposal at the Security Council, without the expected usual U.S. veto, Israel would have failed in eliminating Hamas in Gaza through this war.

Then, there's Qatar, a tiny gas-rich Arab Gulf emirate that hosts the U.S. military's Central Command, which has commercial and public contacts with Israel.

The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, on Sunday blasted the Israeli air and ground assault as a "war crime," and rejected any resolution that calls for a "mutual ceasefire" because this "equates the criminal with the victim, and justifies the aggression and blockade."

What diplomatic action Qatar will actually take remains to be seen, but the strong statements from its emir indicate that Israel has lost a cordial contact in the Arab Gulf region and that Hamas – which has always had ties with Qatar – has found a closer political ally in this conflict.

Jordan, the only other Arab country after Egypt that has a formal peace treaty with Israel, indicated it would reconsider its ties with the Jewish state, amid rising domestic demands to revoke the 1994 peace treaty.

And less influential Mauritania, one of the three Arab League states that has full diplomatic ties with Israel, on Monday withdrew its ambassador to Israel after massive domestic pressure.

...in the world. it is in fact the world! Act, damn it!

well maybe the house will let him add his signature to theirs../snark

Obama breaks silence on Gaza, voices concern
06 Jan 2009 18:06:10 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, breaking his silence about the Gaza war, expressed deep concern on Tuesday about the loss of civilian lives in Gaza and in Israel.

Speaking after Israeli tank shells killed at least 40 Palestinians at a U.N. school where civilians had taken shelter, Obama told reporters "the loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me."

But Obama otherwise said he would adhere to his principle that only U.S. President George W. Bush would speak for American foreign policy at this time, but said he would have plenty more to say after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Emboldened, no doubt, by Israel's successful efforts at hobbling international news agencies and world relief efforts. How many more government spokespersons will vomit the cynically packaged message - "the people of Gaza are responsible for their own brutal deaths."

Now even Canada's Steven "me too" Harper has joined the chorus.
Reuters Canada

Hamas responsible for deadly Gaza attack: Canada
Tue Jan 6, 2009 5:56pm EST

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government blamed the Palestinian militant group Hamas for the deaths of more than 40 civilians who were killed by Israeli shells on Tuesday in some of the most hard-line comments by any leading western nation on the deadly incident.

Medical officials in Gaza said the civilians had been sheltering at a United Nations school. The Israeli army accused Hamas of using the civilians as human shields and of firing mortars at its troops from inside the school.

"Hamas bears a terrible responsibility for this and for the wider deepening humanitarian tragedy," Canadian Junior Foreign Minister Peter Kent told Reuters when asked for Ottawa's reaction to the attack.

and willing to unleash its vast army, navy and airforce on a trapped and destitute civilian population.

Qassam

The Qassam rocket is a simple steel rocket filled with explosives, produced by Hamas. Three models have been used. They are all free-flying artillery rockets lacking any guidance system. Qassam rockets are named after the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of Hamas, itself named after an Islamic Mojahed Izz ad-Din al-Qassam who led a Palestinian group during the 1930s.

The aim of the Qassam rocket design appears to be ease and speed of manufacture, using common tools and components. To this end, the rockets are propelled by a solid mixture of sugar and a widely available fertilizer, potassium nitrate. The warhead is filled with smuggled or scavenged TNT and another common fertilizer, urea nitrate.

The rocket consists of a steel cylinder, containing a rectangular block of the propellant. A steel plate which forms and supports the nozzles is spot-welded to the base of the cylinder. The warhead consists of a simple metal shell surrounding the explosives, and is triggered by a fuse constructed using a simple firearm cartridge, a spring and a nail.

According to the article, 3750 of these contraptions have been hurled over the border since their first use in late 2001 resulting in the untimely deaths of 15 Israelis during the 7 years until the end of December, 2008. That's a kill ratio equal to 15 in 3750 involving an average total of 2 persons per year in a population of over 7 million souls. According to the most recently released Israeli data on mortality per 100,000, such deaths don't even rate inclusion.

One can only conclude that apparently the Israeli government has decided to go stark raving mad.

Wow. And you thought Blackwater were the experts in separating governments from tax bux. This US/Israeli outfit makes Blackwater ops look like initiatives of the local PTA.

MA 1

AFP - Rockets fired from the Gaza Strip may be a thorn in Israel's side, but the embattled territory has for decades also been a headache for Egypt, which fears once more becoming its de facto master.

"Egypt will not fall into this Israeli trap," Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak said at the start of the Jewish state's 10-day-old offensive on the Mediterranean coastal strip of 1.5 million Palestinians.

While blaming Gaza militants' rockets for provoking the Israeli onslaught, Egypt believes Israel has a secret plan to split Gaza from the occupied West Bank and leave Egypt with responsibility for the smaller Palestinian enclave.

"Egypt rejects this plan," said Mubarak, who is blamed by many for failing to completely open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza, the only one to bypass Israel.

Egypt says to do so would let Israel shrug off any responsibility for the territory, which has been at the crossroads of Egypt's relations with the Palestinian people since Israel was created in 1948...

Egypt had control of the Gaza Strip almost continuously until Israel invaded and occupied it in 1967, except for a few months during the 1956 Suez Crisis when Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt...

As if to back up Egypt's fears, former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton called on Monday for Egypt to take over the Gaza Strip and Jordan the Israeli occupied West Bank.

"Without a larger Egyptian role, Gaza will not, and perhaps cannot, achieve the minimal stability necessary for economic development," the conservative wrote in the Washington Post as the Israeli military tightened its deadly grip on the territory.
more at link

_{Yes, I can come up with a post-election signature, just... not... yet...}

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel will halt its bombardment of Gaza for three hours every day to allow residents of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory to obtain much-needed supplies, a military spokesman said Wednesday.

The announcement follows Israel's decision to open a "humanitarian corridor" into Gaza in response to mounting concerns about shortages of food, water and medicine in the territory. The military did not immediately say when the bombing halt would begin, however.

Fresh gunfire and explosions echoed across Gaza in a 12th day of Israel's military campaign against Hamas. Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships hit 30 targets in Gaza overnight, while land-based artillery and warships offshore fired at Palestinian fighters in support of Israeli ground troops, the Israel Defense Forces reported.

Israel says the campaign is aimed at halting the firing of rockets into southern Israel by Hamas, which wrested control of Gaza in 2007. Nearly 600 Palestinians, including at least 100 women and children, have been killed in Gaza since the campaign began, according to Palestinian medical sources.

more

Published: January 7, 2009

JERUSALEM: Israel's foreign ministry says it is considering expelling Venezuela's diplomats from Israel in response to the expulsion of Israel's envoys from Venezuela. The Israelis were ordered out of their Caracas embassy in protest over Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says Israel's ambassador has been informed in writing that he and his diplomatic staff must leave Venezuela within 72 hours. He says the letter did not refer to any severance of diplomatic relations.

Palmor says his office will decide later Wednesday whether to reciprocate.

school

By Akiva Eldar, Amos Harel, Amira Hass

The United Nations on Wednesday denied Israel Defense Forces claims that there were Palestinian militants in the Gaza school bombed by Israel on Tuesday ...

Two rockets fired from Lebanon hit north Israel
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Tags: israel news

At least three Katyusha rockets fired from south Lebanon exploded in northern Israel early Thursday morning, leaving two people lightly wounded and a number of others suffering from shock.

This was the first time a Katyusha fired from Lebanon struck Israeli territory since the Israel Air Force began its offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on December 27.

Residents of the western Galilee on Wednesday reported that three rockets hit their communities, with one falling near Nahariya.
Advertisement
Shlomi Regional Council head, Gabi Na'aman, told Channel 1 that local residents have been told to open their bomb shelters and that school has been canceled.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday warned that should Israel attack Lebanon, it would suffer an even greater defeat than the one he claimed it suffered in 2006.

"We are prepared for every possibility and are ready for all aggression... The Zionists will discover that the war they had in July was a walk in the park if we compare it to what we've prepared for every new aggression," Nasrallah said, referring to the Second Lebanon War.

...The Real News, featuring Phyllis Bennis. This person is very informed about Gaza/Hamas and worth a listen; there are two videos, this is the first one of two, which should be there as well. here's the link

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3058

New York Times, By Jimmy Carter, January 8

I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

at his blog:

The IDF ground force

I associated with and/or conducted liaison with The Israel Defense Force (IDF) for many years. This activity occurred as part of my regular duties as a US Army officer and later as a civilian executive of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Since my retirement from US government service I have had many occasions to visit Israel and to watch the IDF in action against various groups of Palestinians all over the West Bank. I have many friends who are retired and/or reserve members of the IDF. My observations concerning the IDF are based on that experience.

I write here of the ground force. The air force and navy are unknown to me from personal experience except that I know some of their officers from their service in joint (inter-service) assignments like general staff intelligence.

IMO, the IDF is an army built to very specifically suit Israel's individual circumstances, needs, and philosophy. It is in some ways, a singular force. It actually more closely resembles the Swiss military establishment than it does a large standing force backed by reserve units in the way that the US Army is built.

The IDF ground force is essentially a reserve or militia army that keeps most of its forces in inactive status while maintaining a handful of units on active duty as a training base and a force in being to meet short term contingencies.

In this post I am writing of the "line" of the ground forces as represented by armor, infantry, paratroop and artillery units at brigade level and below, i.e., battalion and company.
...
There are no career ground force sergeants except as technicians. Unless the system has changed very recently, the IDF ground forces typically do not have career NCOs in the LINE of the combat arms. This is a structural tradition that derives originally from the Russian tsar's army and which came to Palestine through Russian and Polish Zionist immigrants. Then this passed through the Haganah into the IDF. The IDF "line" conscripts what amount to yearly classes of recruits and selects from them more promising soldiers who are given NCO level command responsibilities as; infantry leaders, tank commanders, artillery gun captains, etc. The IDF does have career NCOs but they are typically found in jobs of a more technical nature rather than junior combat command at the squad or platoon (section) level.
...
In Beit Suhur outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian Christian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank coaxial machine guns from within a bermed up dirt fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for the fun of it. In Bethlehem a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused him some trouble. I have seen a lot of things like that. One might say that in war, s--t happens. That is true, but such behavior is indicative of an army that is not well disciplined and not a completely reliably instrument of state policy. In my travels in the west Bank in March of 2008, it was noticeable that the behavior towards Palestinian civilians of IDF troops at roadblocks was reminiscent of that of any group of post-adolescents given guns and allowed to bully the helpless in order to look tough for each other. I think the IDF would be well advised to grow some real sergeants.

All in all, I think the IDF ground forces can best be described as specialized tools that reflect 20th century Zionist socialist and nationalist ideals, and which have military traditions that are in no way reflective of those of the United States. They can also be justly said to have been been fortunate in their enemies. The Jordanians gave them a run for their money in 1948-49. Hizbullah delivered a hint of the inherent limits in such a socio-military system in 2006 and now we are seeing whatever it is that we will see at Gaza. pl

http://tinyurl.com/99zgq2

(NB: the comments section is also worth a read)

The fact that conscripts - as well as career military - have been indoctrinated with a sour and hateful anti-Arab prejudice is borne out by indiscriminate killings of children and other non-combatants, seemingly as SOP - and this since the 1948 partition, mind you, as a shockingly small number of Israeli soldiers have ever paid for what was essentially murder of Palestinians. And that the IDF believes it can willfully "take out" UN personnel, NGO relief operatives, etc., speaks volumes about their mindset and their self-proclaimed military entitlement (and, incidentally, reflecting extremely poorly upon their patron, America). As a matter of fact, in an earlier post, Lang contributes to this forum, at the National Journal:

"Is Israel a Worthwhile Ally?" National Journal

http://tinyurl.com/7dqp9w

With all parties agreeing that one MAJOR factor in the invasion of Gaza was some sort of "feel-good" recovery of "confidence", after the bloody farce of the Summer 'o6 Lebanon incursion against Hezb'ollah, Israeli politicians felt that a "corrective lesson" was needed to convince the Arabs that to mess about with Israel is to invite "shock and awe", without restraint, and without remorse. No coincidence that this "lesson" was launched in the dying days of Cheney/Bush, as the conduct of Israel and the IDF is in lockstep with what we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan by the US military, so the US is hardly in a position to remonstrate with Israel on "unnecessary civilian deaths", whatever.

BBC News

The UN's main aid agency has suspended its operations in Gaza because its staff have been hit by Israeli attacks.

The suspension would continue "until the Israeli authorities can guarantee our safety and security", the UN said.

SNIP

Unrwa's move came shortly after it said one person had been killed and two hurt when a fork-lift truck on a UN aid mission came under Israeli tank fire at Gaza's Erez crossing.

It said it was "with great regret" that it had been forced to make a difficult decision.

"We have suspended our operations in Gaza until the Israeli authorities can guarantee our safety and security," said Unrwa spokesman Chris Gunness.

"Our installations have been hit, our workers have been killed in spite of the fact that the Israeli authorities have the co-ordinates of our facilities and that all our movements are co-ordinated with the Israeli army."

BBC

SNIP

The International Committee of the Red Cross accused Israel of failing in its international obligations after its staff were met with "shocking" scenes.

One medical team found 12 bodies in a shelled house, and alongside them four very young children, too weak to stand, waiting by their dead mothers, the ICRC said.

Aid workers had been denied access to the site for days, it added.

"This is a shocking incident," Pierre Wettach, ICRC head for Israel and the Palestinian territories said in a statement.

"The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestinian Red Crescent to assist the wounded."

Correspondents say the criticism is unusually strong, coming from an agency considered to be neutral.

The Israeli army told Reuters news agency that any serious allegations would be properly investigated once a formal complaint was received.

Greenwald

(updated below)

World concern over, and opposition to, the Israeli war in Gaza is rapidly mounting:

International pressure intensified sharply on Israel on Thursday, the 13th day of its Gaza assault, after the United Nations suspended food aid deliveries, the International Committee of the Red Cross accused the Israelis of knowingly blocking assistance to the injured, and a top Vatican official defended comments in which he compared Gaza to a concentration camp.

The Israelis have deliberately made it impossible to know the full extent of the carnage and humanitarian disasters because they continue to prevent journalists from entering Gaza even in the face of a now week-old Israeli Supreme Court order compelling them to do so. According to Palestinian sources, there are now 700 dead Palestinians -- at least 200 of them children -- and well over 1,000 wounded. Those numbers are not seriously doubted by anyone. By comparison, a total of 10 Israelis have died -- 10 -- almost all of them by "friendly fire." The unusually worded Red Cross condemnation of Israel was prompted by its discovery, after finally being allowed into Gaza, of starving Palestinian children laying next to corpses, with ambulances blocked for days by the IDF. Even with the relative "restraint" Israel is excercising (the damage it could cause is obviously much greater), this is not so much of a war as it is a completely one-sided massacre.

As a result, much of the world is urging an end to the war and acting to forge a cease-fire -- except the United States. Here, blind and unequivocal support for the Israeli attack is actually increasing almost as fast as the Palestinian body count piles up. Apparently, it isn't enough that we supply the very bombs being dropped on the Palestinians and use our U.N. veto power to prevent any U.N. action to stop the war or even to urge its cessation. The U.S. Congress wants to involve the U.S. further still in Israel's war.

This afternoon, the Democratic-led U.S. Senate did just that by enacting -- via a cowardly voice vote -- a completely one-sided, non-binding resolution that expresses unequivocal support for the Israeli war, and heaps all the blame for the conflict on Hamas and none of it on Israel. Harry Reid -- who jointly sponsored the Resolution with GOP Leader Mitch McConnell -- proudly proclaimed: "When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel." On its website, AIPAC is already patting the U.S. Senate on its head for "for conveying America's unequivocal and steadfast support for Israel's right to self-defense."

MORE

fuckers

AP

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and KARIN LAUB – 1 hour ago

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tiny bodies lying side by side wrapped in white burial shrouds. The cherubic face of a dead preschooler sticking up from the rubble of her home. A man cradling a wounded boy in a chaotic emergency room after Israel shelled a U.N. school.

Children, who make up more than half of crowded Gaza's 1.4 million people, are the most defenseless victims of the war between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli army has unleashed unprecedented force in its campaign against Hamas militants, who have been taking cover among civilians.

A photo of 4-year-old Kaukab Al Dayah, just her bloodied head sticking out from the rubble of her home, covered many front pages in the Arab world Wednesday. "This is Israel," read the headline in the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. The preschooler was killed early Tuesday when an F-16 attacked her family's four-story home in Gaza City. Four adults also died.

As many as 257 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded — about a third of the total casualties since Dec. 27, according to U.N. figures released Thursday.

* Ed Pilkington in New York
* The Guardian, Friday 9 January 2009
* Article history

The US administration signalled a renewed willingness to detach itself from Israel, its main ally in the Middle East, when it backed a UN resolution yesterday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the 13-day conflict in Gaza.

There were frantic scenes of last-minute discussions over the timing of a vote, but all other issues appeared to have been agreed.

The resolution, forced through the UN system in the face of Israeli opposition, broke a deadlock in the international community's response to the crisis that risked exposing the UN to ridicule and caused a tense standoff between the US and Arab countries.

It came at the end of three days of intensive negotiations, with unanimous agreement being reached, barring what one senior western diplomat described as "twiddles" to the wording.

The draft called for an immediate end to the fighting and swift measures to ease the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution - which was expected to be passed by the security council by today at the latest - is highly significant, as it points to a sharp shift in tack from the US, Israel's most powerful ally. When discussions first began at the UN last Saturday, Washington blocked even a press statement, the weakest form of UN communication.

By Wednesday, the Bush administration had come round to the idea, proposed by Britain and France, of an official statement to be issued by the presidency of the security council, but continued to reject any talk of a formal resolution.

Then, in dramatic events on Wednesday night, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, announced a complete volte face, swinging the force of the US behind the resolution.

That astonished diplomats closely involved in the negotiations, who moved swiftly to issue a text of the resolution drafted largely by British officials.

The US U-turn signalled a fresh willingness on the part of Washington to incur the displeasure of the Israeli government, which was described by one senior western diplomat as "displeased" by the resolution.

Rice is understood to have had at least six phone calls with Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, last night during horsetrading over the precise language of the resolution.

One possible explanation for the US shift in tack maybe the desire of the Bush administration to end on a positive note - the US was keen to avoid using its veto to block an alternative resolution tabled by Libya.

There was speculation too that the incoming Obama administration may have played a part, having already made clear its desire to rebuild bridges with the Arab world.

A further factor was the rapidly mounting pressure on the US, UK and France - the three permanent members of the UN security council who have led the western response to the crisis - coming from Arab nations.

There were unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia made direct appeals to Washington, warning that unless it was seen to act there would be damaging fallout across the Arab world.

The UK foreign secretary, David Miliband, implicitly recognised the huge significance of the US coming on board. "It's not every day that that UN speaks loudly and clearly about the Middle East. It's a measure of the gravity of the situation that it has brought people together."

Miliband said the resolution had three main objectives - a call for an immediate ceasefire; the end to smuggling of illegal weapons into Gaza which were then used by Hamas to hit Israel; and the opening of crossings between Gaza and neighbouring Israel and Egypt to allow the flow of desperately needed food and water to the Palestinian population.

The last remaining hurdle in negotiations was over the timing of a vote of the full UN security council - described as a formality by diplomats with the agreement already reached, but causing residual tensions none the less.

Arab delegates were keen for the vote to take place on Thursday night, as they wished to return to their capitals with a solid result before the start of Friday prayers. An absence of any international action after so many days of bloodshed in Gaza was seen as a possibly incendiary provocation as millions of Muslims gather for their weekly religious observation.

On the other hand, the French delegation in particular was last night arguing heavily for the vote to be put off into Friday.

A senior western diplomat involved in the discussions said that the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, took the view that a delay in proceedings would apply pressure on Israel to announce its own ceasefire in advance of a vote as a way of avoiding the appearance of bowing to international pressure.

BBC
breaking news

Israeli forces shelled a house in the Gaza Strip which they had moved around 110 Palestinians into 24 hours earlier, the UN quotes witnesses as saying.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called it "one of the gravest incidents" since the beginning of the offensive.

The shelling at Zeitoun, a south-east suburb of Gaza City, on 5 January killed some 30 people, the report said.

Israel said the allegations were being investigated.

"According to several testimonies, on 4 January Israeli foot soldiers evacuated approximately 110 Palestinians into a single-residence house in Zeitun (half of whom were children) warning them to stay indoors," the OCHA report said.

"Twenty-four hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately 30."

The UN said those who survived and were able walked 2km to the main north-south road to be transported to hospital in civilian vehicles.

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Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas'

Suzanne Goldenberg | Washington D.C. | January 9

The Guardian - The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's ­doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush ­presidency's ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 ­Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.

The Guardian has spoken to three ­people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive. A tested course would be to start ­contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.

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Barack Obama sacks adviser over talks with Hamas

Tom Baldwin | Washington D.C. | May 10

The Times - One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama’s Middle East advisory council.

“I’ve never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people,” he added.

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[Comment: Write this on the back of your hands children - never be afraid to talk and never close off existing channels. One can always talk while keeping the eyes on the front sight. On a related topic, the ICG sitrep [bit dated now] is very good. And yes, I have been waiting for this, right from the time that Malley got canned. ~ 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

...early:

See that narrow grey line? That pretty roughly corresponds to the range of the early generations of Qassams. Now, given the cycle of escalation and a learning adversary, the problem's a lot thornier [though I would suggest that it's being overstated a bit on this map given how few of the longest distance systems they have].

“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

Karim Sadjapour & Bernard Gwertzman | January 8

CFR - With the current conflict between Israel and Hamas now into its second week, there's much said about Hamas's relationship with Iran. Israel and its supporters describe Hamas as almost an agent for Iran and some Iran experts, particularly in the West, deny this and say that while Iran may support Hamas rhetorically, it really doesn't have much control over it. Where is the truth as you see it?

The evidence is incredibly nebulous, and I think the confusion is due in part to Iran's own policies and rhetoric. Some days Iran likes to claim that Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are indigenous independent forces which merely receive "moral support" from Iran. Then on other days, Iran likes to brag that the road to peace in the Middle East must go through Tehran and that Iran has great leverage over these very same groups. In 2006, when Hamas came into power, and the United States and the EU cut off funding to Hamas, Iran very publicly pledged $50 million aid to Hamas, so I think the truth is somewhere in between. Hamas is certainly not an Iranian puppet; they weren't created by Iran. But at the same time, if you take Iranian rhetoric at face value, there's certainly a great deal of Iranian support for Hamas.

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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

U.S. House passes resolution in support of Israel, two Minn. reps vote 'present'

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution today supporting Israel in the current violence in the Middle East. The resolution passed 390-5 with 22 voting 'present' and 16 not voting.

Six Minnesota representatives voted for the measure. Reps. Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum voted 'present'. The U.S. Senate passed the resolution yesterday by a voice vote.

much more with links, McCollum is impressive and Bachman will give you nightmares. I guess Bush didn't want Rice to sign off at the UN before our great representatives were given a chance to kiss ass

Analysis by Kaveh Afrasiabi*

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (IPS) - Although the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli leaders have depicted the ongoing crisis in Gaza as part of a larger struggle against Iran and its "proxies", Tehran's involvement with the Palestinians is rather limited.

Despite their condemnation of Israel's actions and the waves of pro-Hamas demonstrations across Iran, its rulers have no intention of escalating the crisis, let alone becoming directly engaged.

Instead, their main intention is to utilise their regional influence in favour of an "honourable truce" that would give the Islamist group a face-saving exit from the war.

While Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has spoken favourably about martyrdom in defence of the Palestinian cause, and tens of thousands of Iranians have reportedly signed up as volunteers to fight Israel, nevertheless Tehran has made it clear that no one will be sent with the sanction of the state.

That was made abundantly clear to a group of such volunteers who had staged a sit-in at Tehran's Mehrabad airport last week. "Iran's support [for Palestinians] is moral, and, if you intend to be dispatched, you would be imposing your opinion on the government, which has its own priorities," Davoud Ahmadinejad, a kinsman of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told them.

Indeed, Iran already has its hands full with the evolving situations in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan, and the "out-of-area" Gaza crisis does not directly affect the country's core national-security interests. This is particularly so since Tehran's leaders are by and large convinced that Israel will not be able to crush Hamas to which, according to unconfirmed reports, Iran provides a relatively small amount of assistance amounting to around 25 million dollars a month.

"This conflict has a 60-year history [and is] rooted in the oppression of Palestinian people," President Ahmadinejad said during a recent press conference on the Gaza crisis in which he predicted that the Palestinian resistance "will grow stronger".

That is a view shared by many senior political figures associated with his hard-line faction, such as Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the right-wing daily, 'Kayhan', who last week predicted that Israel will soon find itself in a "quagmire in Gaza".

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari, similarly predicted a "Hamas victory" made possible by the group's discipline, resilience, and its "application of lessons learned from the resistance by Hezbollah" in its 34-day war with Israel during the summer of 2006.

Of course, not everyone among the leadership in Iran's faction-ridden politics agrees about the short- and long-term repercussions for Iran of the Gaza crisis.

"So far, the result is promising and Hamas's ability to use its anti-tank Staggers to knock out some Israeli tanks is a bad omen for the invading army," said a prominent Tehran University political science professor who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity. He added, however, that Hamas may lose militarily "in the short term" but emerge from the conflict in a strengthened position, especially vis-à-vis its rival, Fatah.

At the same time, however, there is concern that Israel may succeed in imposing a security zone inside Gaza or bisecting it into two or three isolated sectors, not unlike the increasingly fragmented West Bank. The leadership is also concerned that Egypt, if it succeeds in brokering a ceasefire, may yet emerge as a dominant factor in Gaza to Hamas's detriment, thus tilting the balanced of power there in favour of Fatah.

If that indeed is the result, according to some analysts, such as Morad Veisi, affiliated with the reformist Islamic Participation Front, the net result would be a "new alignment in the Middle East" that would pit "Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan against Iran and its allies".

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Israel Fighting Also the UN

A United Nations report that Israel ordered civilians into a building and then shelled it marks yet more evidence of widespread targeting of civilians in the Gaza assault.
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The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) originally claimed that Palestinian gunmen had been firing from inside the clearly marked UN school. To back up its claims the IDF showed footage of gunmen firing from a UN facility.

On Friday, however, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told the Israeli daily Haaretz that the army had conceded wrongdoing.
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Gunness noted that all of the footage released by the IDF of militants firing from inside the school was from 2007. "There are no up-to-date photos," Gunness said. And in 2007, he said, "we abandoned the site and only then did the militants take it over

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McClatchy, By Ahmed Abu Hamda & Dion Nissenbaum, January 9

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The U.N. high commissioner for human rights Friday called for an investigation of possible Israeli war crimes in Gaza as local residents told more gruesome tales about Israeli troops neglecting wounded civilians and the killing of unarmed Palestinians.

High Commissioner Navi Pillay noted the case of four boys who were rescued Wednesday by the International Committee of the Red Cross from the side of their dead mother in a dwelling 100 yards from an Israeli military post. The Red Cross called the incident "shocking," and Pillay told the BBC that it "had all the elements of what constitutes a war crime."

Eyewitnesses interviewed by McClatchy correspondents, along with Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, described gruesome scenes in and near Gaza City.

The best way to end the bloody occupation is to target Israel with the kind of movement that ended apartheid in South Africa

The Guardian, By Naomi Klein, January 10

It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa. In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era". The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions was born.

Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause - even among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the anti-apartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves ... This international backing must stop."

Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. But they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tool in the non-violent arsenal: surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counter-arguments.

...put an image here?????? Grrrrrrrrr.

Steven Erlanger | Jerusalem | January 10

NYT - The grinding urban battle unfolding in the densely populated Gaza Strip is a war of new tactics, quick adaptation and lethal tricks.

Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the last two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs. Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership’s war room is a bunker beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say.

Unwilling to take Israel’s bait and come into the open, Hamas militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police have been ordered to take off their uniforms. The militants emerge from tunnels to shoot automatic weapons or antitank missiles, then disappear back inside, hoping to lure the Israeli soldiers with their fire.

In one apartment building in Zeitoun, in northern Gaza, Hamas set an inventive, deadly trap. According to an Israeli journalist embedded with Israeli troops, the militants placed a mannequin in a hallway off the building’s main entrance. They hoped to draw fire from Israeli soldiers who might, through the blur of night vision goggles and split-second decisions, mistake the figure for a fighter. The mannequin was rigged to explode and bring down the building.

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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

Steven Farrell | January 10

NYT - Fifty feet underground, the tunnel looked like a giant wormhole: large enough for a man to crawl through, worn smooth by constant use and disappearing into the subterranean darkness beneath the Gaza-Egypt border.

Waist high, three feet wide and equipped with a motorized winch and electric lights, it was one of scores of Palestinian tunnels beneath the southern Gaza town of Rafah in March 2008, when a reporter visited.

Tunnels like those are now a principal focus of Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip, with bombing raids clearly audible on the other side of the eight-mile border with Egypt.

The 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza regard the tunnels as a vital lifeline to the outside world, from which they are otherwise almost completely shut off by the Israeli military’s control of land, sea and air access to the north, east and west of Gaza. To the south, Gaza has been sealed off by Egypt.

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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

The Times Of London, By Michael Evans & Sheera Frenkel, January 8

Jerusalem - Photographic evidence has emerged that proves that Israel has been using controversial white phosphorus shells during its offensive in Gaza, despite official denials by the Israel Defence Forces.

There is also evidence that the rounds have injured Palestinian civilians, causing severe burns. The use of white phosphorus against civilians is prohibited under international law.

The Times has identified stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells from high-resolution images taken of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) artillery units on the Israeli-Gaza border this week. The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made WP munition. The shell is an improved version with a more limited dispersion of the phosphorus, which ignites on contact with oxygen, and is being used by the Israeli gunners to create a smoke screen on the ground.

The rounds, which explode into a shower of burning white streaks, were first identified by The Times at the weekend when they were fired over Gaza at the start of Israel's ground offensive. Artillery experts said that the Israeli troops would be in trouble if they were banned from using WP because it is the simplest way of creating smoke to protect them from enemy fire.

Jerusalem Post January 10

SNIP

The dropping of the leaflets appeared to be partly a psychological tactic. Defense officials say they are prepared for a third stage of the offensive, in which ground troops would push much further into Gaza, but are still waiting for approval from the government.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were discussing classified information, said the army has also planned a fourth stage which calls for a full reoccupation of Gaza and toppling of Hamas.

By Tim McGirk on January 8, for Time