Last update - 07:52 14/01/2009

By Aluf Benn, Amos Harel, Anshel Pfeffer and Avi Issacharoff

haaretz

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is promoting a week-long "humanitarian cease-fire" in the Gaza Strip. In contrast, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert believes the military operation still has not achieved its goals.

Olmert is delaying a meeting with senior ministers in an effort to allow the military operations in Gaza to continue.

On Tuesday, Olmert did not meet with his "troika" - Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, both of whom support a cease-fire. On Wednesday, he will not convene the political-security cabinet to discuss whether the operations should go on.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces continued advancing from the northern Gaza Strip toward Gaza City. It is also concentrating forces to potentially deepen the ground offensive.

In northern Gaza, an officer was seriously injured by an improvised bomb. Two other soldiers suffered light to moderate injuries.

In Tuesday's fighting, the IDF killed at least 50 Palestinians, putting the total body count from the 18 days of Operation Cast Lead at 970. Many of the dead are civilians.

The IDF also destroyed a tunnel built by Hamas close to the fence, near Nahal Oz.

The head of the political-security bureau at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, has postponed a visit to Cairo for talks on a cease-fire, and will probably depart for Egypt only on Wednesday.

Responding to a call by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for an immediate cease-fire, Barak said on Tuesday, "We respect the request of the UN Secretary General and are following developments with the Egyptian initiative. However, the fighting is continuing."

A senior political source explained on Tuesday that even though Olmert holds a minority view in the troika, he holds the power because he decides when cabinet meetings will be held, and sets the agenda. The troika is a monitoring and coordinating body, and lacks the authority to broaden or end IDF operations. This can be done only by a cabinet vote.

Barak believes Operation Cast Lead has achieved its main objectives, first and foremost bolstering Israel's deterrent power. He does not believe continuing the offensive will bring further gains, but rather only operational complications and casualties.

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Israel has lost..again

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers

ALONG THE ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER — When Israeli soldiers saw a suspected suicide bomber riding a bike towards them, they moved quickly. As the man ducked into a building for safety, Israeli soldiers said they used a bulldozer to bring the walls down on top of him.

When armed Palestinians popped out of a tunnel and tried to attack, Israeli troops said they used tank fire and a bulldozer to decimate the militants.

In fight after fight and neighborhood after neighborhood, Israeli soldiers are bringing more aggressive tactics to the Gaza Strip battlefields.

In interviews earlier in the week with embedded pool reporters and Wednesday with a McClatchy reporter along the Gaza Strip border, Israeli troops said a freer military hand has given them a decisive edge over outgunned Palestinian militants in the 19-day-old conflict. They also said they were surprised by the relatively light resistance from Hamas fighters.

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what idiots!!! and overkill. They have killed an est 300 Hamas fighters out of 20,000 and over 700 civilians and they think they have won something. Did it occur to them that their might be innocent people within the walls they bring down? Yes and they don't care. They have lost their souls, but it will play well in the voting booths

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

and now bombing media outlets

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

...get away with the butchery. Israel and America are like the Devil's tag team. COL.

lots of condemnation coming from around the world but no statement from the US yet..that I have seen, but I'm SURE the US will regret to hear about it..

Minister condemns Israel as shells hit UN HQ

A minister said today that there was "absolutely no excuse" for the Israeli shelling of the United Nations Works and Relief Agency in Gaza.

The compound has been serving as a shelter for hundreds of people fleeing Israel's offensive in the region.

Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown said at question time: "We utterly condemn what has happened today to the UNWRA headquarters in Gaza City. There is absolutely no excuse for it and it reminds me all too well of a similar attack in 2006 on a UN observation post in Lebanon.

"This does nobody any credit and our sympathies go to the families of these victims like all the victims of this conflict."

Liberal Democrat Baroness Northover had asked whether he agreed that "Israel's actions are utterly disproportionate and completely counter-productive to its long-term interests".

The minister added: "With over 1,000 people now dead in Gaza, many of them civilians and children, the urgent need for a diplomatic solution is clear.

"A robust and immediate ceasefire is the only way the current situation in Gaza can be addressed."

Asked by Tory Lord Sheikh for his response to a statement in The Times yesterday from Jews for Justice in Palestine signed by nearly 600 leading Jews, Lord Malloch-Brown said: "I feel very, very happy to be living in the UK this time.

"I was living in the US when this last happened where everybody took much more predictable positions and were not willing to look at the conflict itself and see that however strong a supporter of the state of Israel one is, and I include myself in those numbers, it does not justify this kind of attack and in fact sets back Israel's situation in the world."

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

CARE halts aid distribution in "Occupied Palestinian Territories"

“This is the first day CARE has been forced to totally suspend activities in Gaza,” said Martha Myers, CARE International’s Country Director for West Bank and Gaza. “This is a tragic situation – desperately needed supplies are ready to be distributed today, but we cannot reach the people in need because of the bombing. Last week, our staff had to flee a food distribution because of the bombing. Yesterday, while our workers were packing the medical supplies for today’s distributions, bombs fell near the warehouse and our staff had to drop and run. This is not humanitarian access.”

Thursday morning CARE staff in Gaza also reported that the Al Quds hospital, which CARE has been supporting with medical supplies, had been bombed and was on fire.

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why so few dead Hamas? This is from Iranian PRESSTV but sounds plausable:

On Thursday, Israeli tanks and troops advanced to within 2 km of Gaza City, where they met fierce Palestinian resistance.

The Palestinians, who have the upper hand in knowing the battleground, have prevented Israeli military troops and convoys from further advancement.

The resistance fighters reportedly use sophisticated underground tunnels to cut around Israeli troops, while Palestinian snipers target Israelis from unexpected vantage points.

Israel shells hospital, UN compound

Israeli forces have shelled a hospital and UN compound as they continue to pound Gaza City while pushing deeper into densely-populated neighbourhoods.

Thousands of fear-stricken Gazans fled the advancing Israeli trooops on Thursday, but observers said there was nowhere safe for them to take refuge in the territory that is under relentless Israeli attack.

Officials said that a building of the UN relief agency in Gaza had been hit by Israeli shells and set ablaze.

"They are phosphorus fires so they are extremely difficult to put out because if you put water on it, it will just generate toxic fumes and do nothing to stop the burning," John Ging, the director of UN relief operations, said.

"This is going to burn down the entire warehouse ... thousands and thousands of tonnes of food, medical supplies and other emergency assistance are there."

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said he was "outraged" by the attack on the UN compound and demanded an explanation as he met Israeli officials in Tel Aviv.

Intense shelling

About 500 people were inside the hospital in Tal al-Hawa when it came under attack. Many had taken shelter in the hope of escaping the onslaught.

"The last hit was on the Red Crescent's operations building and destroyed the pharmacy. There's a hole in the roof and a fire is still burning," Sharon Locke, a hospital volunteer, said.

A building housing a number of international media organisations and several housing blocks were also reportedly hit on Thursday.

Israel also hit smuggling tunnels from Egypt into the southern Rafah area of Gaza.

"They used bombs that went deep into the tunnels and shook the whole Rafah refugee camp. The land trembled beneath our feet," Bassam Abdallah, a local Palestinian cameraman, said.

One of Israel's stated objectives is to stop the smuggling of weapons across the border to Palestinian fighters.

The tunnels are also used to bring in basic supplies for the territory which has been suffering under an Israeli blockade.

At least 1,054 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its assault on the Gaza Strip on December 27, medics said.

More than 4,800 people have been injured in the violence.

'Unbearable' toll

Ban told a news conference in Tel Aviv that the death toll was "unbearable".

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

Amos Harel | January 15

Haaretz - Palestinian sources said Thursday that an Israel Air Force strike in Gaza City has killed three of Hamas' most senior officials: the group's Interior Minister, Said Siam, the head of its security apparatus, Salah Abu Shreh, and the head of its military wing, Mahmoud Watfah.

The IAF strike was on the house of Siam's brother, who was also killed. Palestinian medical officials confirmed the house was attacked, but there was no word from Hamas on Siam's fate.

Siam was the effective founder of the Hamas-led police force. He pushed for Hamas' bloody 2006 coup in Gaza, during which it ousted the rival Fatah faction from power. Siam was the number three behind Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud Zahar, and was seen by many as the most extreme of the triumvirate.

Six other Hamas operatives were wounded in the air strike in the heart of Gaza City, the sources said. The IDF Southern Command ordered the airstrike on the basis of precise intelligence provided by the Shin Bet security service.

The airstrike on Siam was apparently an attempt by Israel to deliver an image of victory in the offensive against Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces understands that Hamas' agreement in principle to the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza signals that the campaign is nearing its end.

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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

Barak Ravid, Amos Haral & Avi Issacharoff | January 15

Haaretz - Egypt television reported on Thursday that Israel has agreed in principle to a Gaza truce plan, but has some clarifications that have yet to be reviewed by Hamas.

Senior defense official Amos Gilad on Thursday returned from the truce talks in Egypt and was to brief Defense Minister Barak, prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on his meetings with Egyptian Intelligence head Omar Suleiman.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday updated U.S. Secretary of State Rice on the situation in Gaza and said Israel is interested in utilizing the Egyptian channel to bring about a cease-fire and an end to weapons smuggling in order to end the operation, said a statement from the office.

Rice said that the U.S. would be willing to assist in solving the smuggling issue and sign a memorandum of understanding with Israel on the subject, it said.

Hamas on Wednesday agreed in principle to the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire but is still demanding clarifications on a number of issues, senior officials for the group said in Cairo.

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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

Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff

Haaretz - ...
The Egyptian proposal is mostly bad for Hamas. It doesn't let the organization bring the Palestinian public any political achievement that would justify the blood that has been spilled, and even forces on it the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, in the form of its renewed presence at the Rafah crossing (as a condition for its reopening).

Once the cease-fire is reached, the IDF will withdraw from the positions it captured in Gaza, and only then will the two sides begin to discuss the opening of border crossings and removal of the blockade, which was the reason Hamas gave for waging war. The most that Cairo is offering is a timetable for the opening of the crossing points, and even that depends on negotiations due to begin after the cease-fire is reached, and it's tough to know how or when they will end. more at link

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

The Israelis can not be stopped. Not with peace talks. Not with treaties. Not with tears. Not with the blood of innocents. The only possibility could be in the long term, in the highly unlikely event that the US stop supplying it with weaponry/aka 'foreign aid'.

The only question now is, when the 1.5 million Gazans are dead, who will the Israelis target next?

(Easy answer for those who have been paying attention.)

Fares Akram is The Independent's reporter in Gaza

"The Independent" btw is making hay while the sun shines:

Independent website to show Al Jazeera news

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

(cross-posted on thread IV)

UN headquarters in Gaza hit by Israeli 'white phosphorus' shells

The main UN compound in Gaza was left in flames today after being struck by Israeli artillery fire, and a spokesman said that the building had been hit by shells containing the incendiary agent white phosphorus.

The attack on the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) came as Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, arrived in Israel on a peace mission and plunged Israel's relations with the world body to a new low.

Mr Ban expressed his "strong protest and outrage" at the shelling and demanded an investigation, only to be told by apologetic Israeli leaders that their forces had been returning fire from within the UN compound.

"The Israeli forces were attacked from there and their response was severe," Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, told the UN chief, according to a statement released by his office.
...
Chris Gunness, a UNRWA spokesman, said that the building had been used to shelter hundreds of people fleeing Israel’s 20-day offensive in Gaza. He said that pallets with supplies desperately needed by Palestinians in Gaza were on fire.

"What more stark symbolism do you need?" he said. "You can’t put out white phosphorus with traditional methods such as fire extinguishers. You need sand, we don’t have sand."

The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures.

The Geneva Convention of 1980 proscribes the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in civilian areas, although it can be used to create a smokescreen. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said today that all weapons used in Gaza were "within the scope of international law".
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5521925.ece

Also...

Rights group: Israel uses incendiary bombs in Gaza

JERUSALEM – Human Rights Watch said Sunday that Israel's military has fired artillery shells with the incendiary agent white phosphorus into Gaza and a doctor there said the chemical was suspected in the case of 10 burn victims who had skin peeling off their faces and bodies.

Researchers in Israel from the rights group witnessed hours of artillery bombardments that sent trails of burning smoke indicating white phosphorus over the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. But they could not confirm injuries on the ground because they have been barred from entering the territory.

The chief doctor at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza said he treated several victims there with serious burns that might have been caused by phosphorus. He said, however, that he did not have the resources or expertise to say with certainty what caused the injuries.

The substance can cause serious burns if it touches the skin and can spark fires on the ground, the rights group said in a written statement calling on Israel not to use it in crowded areas of Gaza.

Military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich refused to comment directly on whether Israel was using phosphorus, but said the army was "using its munitions in accordance with international law."

Israel used white phosphorus in its 34-day war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. The U.S. military in Iraq used the incendiary during a November 2004 operation against insurgents in the city of Fallujah.
(note: several reports surfaced at the time of the US attacks on Fallujah, wherein unusual burn patterns were seen on dozens of residents following artillery barrages; "heavy white smoke" was correlated with shelling, according to victims and witnesses)
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White phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon, and militaries are permitted under laws of warfare to use it in artillery shells, bombs and rockets to create smoke screens to hide troop movements as well as bright bursts in the air to illuminate battlefields at night.

Israel is not party to a convention regulating its use. Under customary laws of war, however, Israel would be expected to take all feasible precautions to minimize the impact of white phosphorus on civilians, Human Rights Watch said.

"What we're saying is the use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas like a refugee camp is showing that the Israelis are not taking all feasible precautions," said Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst for the rights group. "It's just an unnecessary risk to the civilian population, not only in the potential for wounds but also for burning homes and infrastructure."
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http://tinyurl.com/ayrxv3

Whatever one wishes to say about "authorised use" of a weapon not generally proscribed in warfare, white phosphorus, used against buildings, and those inside these buildings

can be considered contrary to the laws of war, as what appears to many observers as deliberate targeting with white phosphorus munitions cannot be waved away as inconsequential or accidental, regardless of what the intended or permitted utility of white phosphorus in the field of combat commonly is taken. Jesuitical sophistry can't convince those subjected to direct contact with burning phosphorus that the IDF is "obeying international law."

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_{“les Etats-unis, c’est le seul pays à être passé de la préhistoire à la décadence sans jamais connaitre la civilisation…”...Georges Clemenceau}

Ship's journey delayed amid fears cargo would be used in Gaza

* David Pallister
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 January 2009 15.50 GMT
* Article history

The Pentagon has suspended the delivery of a shipload of munitions to Israel after international concern that it could be used by Israeli forces in Gaza.

The German-owned cargo vessel, Wehr Elbe, under charter by the US Military Sea­lift Command, is currently in Greek waters with its transponder tracking turned off to prevent its location being identified.

Amnesty International has written to the foreign secretary, David Miliband, asking him to make "urgent approaches to the US, German and Greek governments to prevent this, or any pending or future shipments of weaponry until it can be verified that they will not be transferred to the Israeli Defence Forces or other parties to the conflict in Gaza.

"We urge you to ensure that no EU member state will allow their ports or other facilities to be used to transit these or any other weapons to any of the parties to this conflict."

The Wehr Elbe, owned by the Hamburg company Oskar Wehr, arrived outside the Greek port of Astakos on 1 January, where it was due to transfer its 1,000 containers to another vessel for delivery to Ashdod in Israel.

But after a two week stand-off, amid local protests in Greece, it moved out into the Mediterranean two days ago and disappeared off tracking websites.

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

really? what have they accomplished? Is Hamas really damaged or deterred?

RPT-ANALYSIS-Israel focused on war aims in Gaza
16 Jan 2009 09:14:14 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

JERUSALEM, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The world might be transfixed by scenes of destruction in Gaza, but this cuts little ice with Israelis, grimly focused on achieving their war aims.

Some, such as restoring Israel's military deterrence and badly damaging Hamas's armed capacity, have already been achieved, Israeli analysts and officials say.

Others, such as stopping Hamas rocket fire into Israel and preventing the Islamist movement from rearming via tunnels bored under Gaza's border with Egypt, are still incomplete.

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

John Lyons, Middle East correspondent | January 17, 2009
Article from: The Australian

AS with many others involved in the war between Israel and Gaza, Saeb Erekat's future after the war is in doubt. His title, to begin with, has become a contradiction in terms - chief negotiator for the Palestinians in the peace process.

Which Palestinians? What peace process? How can anyone now have a title that implies Palestinians have a single position, even if there was a peace process going on?

As with all wars, the one between Israel and Gaza will come to an end, but what then?

After the war the landscape is likely to look different and there are likely to be recriminations on both sides. The militant Palestinian party Hamas and Israel are almost certain to claim victory, whatever the outcome. In the bluntest way to judge a war - the number killed - the Palestinians have been slaughtered. About 1000 Palestinians, many of them children, have been killed and more than 4000 injured. Much of the infrastructure of the already-poor Gaza Strip has been destroyed.

Israel's toll on the battlefield is 13, but it would argue that it has been taking a toll for the past eight years from rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel where about one million Israelis have had to live with the prospect that when the siren sounds they have 15 seconds to find a bomb shelter.

But Israel has taken a different toll, one that is difficult to calculate, a pounding to its international reputation. It seems to have lost, at least for the moment, any friends or potential friends it had in the region. Initially, there was some sympathy for Israel. Egypt, for instance, came out quickly and criticised Hamas for its relentless campaign of firing rockets at civilian targets in southern Israel.

During the first phase of the war, the air strikes against Hamas targets that began on December 27 after Hamas broke a ceasefire, Israel clearly had the upper hand.

Egypt openly criticised Hamas, essentially saying its members had brought it upon themselves. Other Arab countries such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia stayed mute. Even Syria, home to some exiled Hamas leaders, held back from any strong condemnation.

Israelis were stunned - delighted - by how little support Hamas had in the region. But the ground invasion changed all that. As hundreds of civilians were killed, the mood changed dramatically against Israel. The sympathy that Israel had to do something against the rocket attacks on its own civilians gave way to anger in the Arab world as pictures of dead children have been broadcast through the region day after day for 19 days.

Despite that change in sentiment, leadership on the Palestinian side is now in tatters. So deep are the animosities between the two key Palestinian factions - Hamas, which runs Gaza, and Fatah, which runs the West Bank - that they have not even been able to bring themselves to sit together in Cairo to discuss a common position on how to stop their people being killed.

Any hope for the peace process that had been going on, slowly, awkwardly, but going on, behind the scenes for the past few years has collapsed under the weight of the war. As Erekat said, despairingly, in an interview this week on BBC TV: "I'm the most disadvantaged negotiator in history."

He lamented the divisions in the Palestinian leadership. "The internal Palestinian problem is really harming us." Erekat sounded a warning for what it had done for moderates among Palestinians. "They (Hamas) are weakening the moderates," he said. "As moderates, I think we are the hardest hit."

more, very even handed

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

By The Associated Press
Tags: Hamas, Gaza, Israel News

Israel said Friday it hoped it was close to winding up the offensive it launched three weeks ago in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, and that it might make a decision as early as this weekend.

"I hope we are entering the end game and that our goal of sustained and durable quiet in the south (of Israel) is about to be attained," government spokesman Mark Regev said.

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

PressTV, January 16

Israeli ground troops have been forced to retreat to the outskirts of Gaza City after facing strong resistance from the Palestinian fighters.

The development came on Friday, after two days of intensified clashes between the Israeli army and the Palestinian resistance fighters.

On Thursday, the fighting killed at least 23 people and left the southern district of Tel el-Hawa in Gaza City severely damaged, DPA reported. Home to 400,000 people, Gaza City witnessed one of its worst days of fighting since Israel launched a ground invasion on January 3 following a week of nonstop air raids.

On the 21st day of Tel Aviv's offensive against Gaza, six Palestinians, including three children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes and tank fire -- bringing the total Palestinian death toll in the Gaza offensive to at least 1,133.

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_{They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.}

AFP

Will someone tell me what is the point of signing this "memorandum of understanding" now- except to compel the incoming administration to support Israeli preemptive strikes should Hamas be accused of rearming?

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

from aljazeera here

The Arab League distinguishes itself by its irrelevance, yet again.

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

thing can not go back, what more proof is there that Israel never had a plan. They thought shock and awe would scare the Palestinians, it did, but it also strengthened them. Talk about losing face, I wonder how the Israeli voters would take it.

JERUSALEM, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Israeli leaders are leaning towards declaring a unilateral halt to their three-week-old Gaza war instead of agreeing a formal, Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas, Israeli officials said on Friday.

Does the shift mean that indirect talks in Cairo are dead, or is it a pressure tactic?

* Some Israeli officials worry the Egyptian-mediated talks and the passage of a U.N. ceasefire resolution were undermining key war objectives: to weaken, isolate and intimidate Hamas. Advocates of a unilateral approach say this would deprive Hamas of political gains from a negotiated truce deal that would likely require the Jewish state to keep Gaza's border crossings open, one of Hamas's main demands.

* In the absence of a formal ceasefire, Israel and Egypt would retain control over the border crossings. They could also use Gaza's eventual reconstruction to try to re-establish Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's authority there. Hamas drove pro-Abbas forces from Gaza in June 2007. Hamas's refusal to let Abbas's forces return to the crossings was a major sticking point in the Egyptian ceasefire talks.

* Hamas remains a force, but Israeli intelligence officials believe the military offensive, in which more than 1,150 Palestinians have been killed, has weakened the group and reduced its stockpile of rockets. Israeli bombing has destroyed smuggling tunnels that Hamas could use to rearm. Israel hopes Gaza militants will think twice before resuming cross-border rocket fire for fear of triggering another Israeli onslaught.

* Israel was always wary that a binding ceasefire agreement would include international monitors. A unilateral withdrawal would give the Israeli military a freer hand -- an advantage, advocates say, given that the current military campaign aims to weaken, rather than topple, Hamas's government in Gaza. * Of course, the talk of a unilateral decision could merely be a negotiating ploy meant to increase pressure on Hamas to agree to an open-ended ceasefire and to letting Abbas's forces return to the border crossings.

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

I am impressed! He's doing the Birthright trip and asking everyone a ton of questions. It is really quite cool.
http://dankravetz.blogspot.com/
--
Hongpong.com

grains of salt and all -although you can expect the US to block as much as possible

Jakarta News.Net
Friday 16th January, 2009

The Israeli government is preparing defenses for a “wave of international lawsuits” expected over its offensive in Gaza.

The government believes Israeli army officers and soldiers will be sued over actions in the 21-day old offensive which began on December 27.

A number of human rights organizations, and the International Red Cross, have already indicated they are looking at breaches of international law. The whole question of the legality of the Gaza War is also being examined.

Amnesty International has written to the United Nations Security Council calling for the establishment of full accountability for crimes committed in the Gaza conflict and for deployment of human rights monitors.

In the letter, Amnesty says it wants the Security Council to “take firm action to ensure full accountability for war crimes and other serious abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the Israeli army to establish a task force comprising operational, intelligence, and legal experts, to assemble information, documentation, and footage of military operations during the offensive, which will assist in the defence of officers against legal actions expected to be filed by a number of international bodies.

The task forced named “Incrimination Team” is presently examining all footage taken by the Israeli army of the Gaza operation since it began.

Israeli Attorney General Menahem Mazuz warned the government earlier this week a “wave of international lawsuits” was expected.

"We need to be prepared for the potential lawsuits that will be filed against senior officers," a defense official told The Jerusalem Post. "The team will review the footage and intelligence information and formulate arguments that can be used to defend against claims that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza." The footage collected by the team was filmed by regular combat soldiers who received special training on how to film and document military operations under combat conditions.

What will hamper legal actions brought on by international groups is that virtually the only footage and documentation of the violence in Gaza will be that produced by the Israeli army. Israel has banned the entry of journalists, TV camera crews, and photographers from Gaza, a decision that preceded the commencement of the offensive. The Israel High Court has ruled the ban illegal and ordered the government and army to allow news media to enter the Strip. The court order has not been complied with.

Israel is accused of bombing schools, including some run by the United Nations, mosques, government buildings, and homes. Hundreds of civilians, including women and children have been killed by bombs, artillery shelling and tank fire. Israel has also staged a blockade of the Strip for eighteen months which has restricted the provision of food, medical supplies, water, oil, and other commodities. Much of the area has been without electricity for several months. The blockade has plunged Gaza into a depression.

A major incident under investigation is the bombing of a UN-run school which killed 43 people, most of them children who had been directed to the school for shelter. The Israeli army claimed it was responding to rocket fire coming from within the school grounds. The army produced footage to validate its claims after the UN denied there were militants operating within the school compound. The Israeli army, when challenged, admitted the footage was fifteen months old and in that case the school had been evacuated before being taken over by militants.

In another serious case the Israeli army is accused of rounding up around 400 people and designating a school for them to take shelter. They were warned not to move from the building. A day later the building was bombed by Isreali warplanes and scores were killed or wounded.

There is similar serious concern over the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Hamas into civilian areas in southern Israel. Three civilians have been killed by the attacks since December 27.

Amnesty International has urged all parties to the conflict, as well as the international community, to ensure a “thorough, independent and impartial investigation” is established without delay into abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law, and to ensure “full accountability.”

“These include Israeli attacks that have been directed at civilians or civilian buildings in the Gaza Strip, or which are disproportionate, and Palestinian armed groups' indiscriminate rocket attacks into civilian population centres in southern Israel,” an Amnesty statement released this week said.

“Where appropriate, states must be ready to initiate criminal investigations and carry out prosecutions before their own courts if the evidence warrants it.”

“The Israeli army’s attacks are often disproportionate and have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians,” said the Amnesty statement. “Attacks are also directed at civilians and civilian buildings.”

“Most of the civilian population in Gaza has no access to the humanitarian aid on which they depend,” said Amnesty. "They have nowhere to go for safety, while hospitals are overstretched and lacking basic necessities.”

“Meanwhile, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups persist in firing indiscriminate rockets into Israel.”

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

'We are creating suicide bombers from the sons of the dead'

* Chris McGreal in Tel Aviv
* The Guardian, Saturday 17 January 2009
* Article history

The call came at 11pm on a Saturday. Yitzchak Ben Mocha's mobile flashed up "unidentified number" but he knew who it was. A recorded voice ordered him to report for duty at eight the next morning. As he packed his uniform he wondered if he was heading to prison. The 25-year-old paratrooper was about to tell his commanders that not only would he refuse to join Israel's war in Gaza but would not serve in any capacity that helped perpetuate the conflict.

He reported for duty and was ordered to erect tents for combat soldiers.

"I told my officer, I am not going to do this. The next morning I was sent home. They told me they'd call me again if there was need. They have not called yet. In the past the army used to put refuseniks in jail for weeks. When they were released, sometimes they would be arrested again and this would go on for months.

"But now it seems the army doesn't want to admit publicly there are refuseniks. [It] is embarrassed. It would go against the image of the whole army and country united behind this war."

The Israeli military has told the press there is so much support for the assault on Gaza that more soldiers have turned up to fight than have been called up for what the local media is characterising as a "righteous war". Ben Mocha says that obscures the increasing number of Israeli men of fighting age, almost all of whom are military reservists, who are refusing to serve the occupation.

One resisters' organisation, Courage to Refuse, published a newspaper advert condemning the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians and calling on soldiers to refuse to fight in Gaza. "The brutal, unprecedented violence in Gaza is shocking. The false hope that this kind of violence will bring security to Israelis is all the more dangerous. We cannot stand aside while hundreds of civilians are being butchered by the IDF [Israel Defence Force]," it said.

But it is not clear how many have refused to go to Gaza, because the army is sending people home, quietly. So far, only one reservist has been jailed for refusing to fight. No'em Levna, a first lieutenant in the Israeli army, was sent to a military prison for 14 days. "Killing innocent civilians cannot be justified," he said. "Nothing justifies this kind of killing. It is Israeli arrogance based on logic. It's saying, 'if we hit more, everything will be okay'. But the hatred and anger we are planting in Gaza will rebound on us."

Ben Mocha is hardly a pacifist or anti-Israeli. He grew up in a Jewish orthodox family, attended a religious school, and served full-time in one of Israel's elite combat parachute units.

He says he joined the Israeli army believing he would be fighting "terror organisations". He found himself suppressing Palestinian aspirations for freedom and putting down protests of Palestinian farmers "against the incontinent theft of their lands". He also saw abuses, such as Israeli troops sending Palestinian women and children into houses to ensure they were not booby-trapped, and using civilians as human shields.

"I am not a pacifist. I recognise the necessity of Israel to have a strong defensive army but I'm no longer going to play a part in 40 years of occupation. I told the army I will report for training so that I can always be ready to defend Israel, but attacking Gaza and perpetuating occupation is not defending Israel."

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

Tragic Palestinian war drama unfolds on Israeli tv (News Feature)
Middle East Features

By Shabtai Gold Jan 16, 2009, 18:55 GMT

Tel Aviv - A Palestinian doctor from Gaza who was a regular guest on Israeli television Friday called a reporter who had interviewed him many times, screaming frantically that his house had just been bombed by the military.

'My girls, oh god, they've killed my girls,' cried Ezz al-Din Abu al-Aish, the doctor, as the Israeli reporter held his mobile phone to the microphone during a live broadcast.

Abu al-Aish's home in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, had just been hit by a shell, fired by Israeli soldiers.

The doctor works as a gynecologist at both hospitals in Gaza as well as the Tel Hashomer medical center in Israel and speaks fluent Hebrew, making him an ideal guest for the television.

'I hope anyone who can hear us, the military, the red cross, can get there,' the emotional reporter, Shlomi Eldar said, announcing the exact location of the doctor's home, hoping help would arrive quickly.

Eldar then went off-camera to call his numerous contacts in Israel and try and get the family assistance.

Medical teams have reported extreme limitations on their movement during the ongoing Israeli military campaign.

Three girls of the doctor's eight children died in the attack, two others were injured as was he, and they were taken to hospitals in Israel.

The doctor had become a mainstay on Channel 10, giving daily updates to Eldar and other reporters on the unfolding Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, and adding his own moderate political message.

Archive footage from last week, broadcast again after the bombing, showed the doctor condemning both the Israeli military's hard-handed actions in Gaza, as well as Palestinian rocket fire at southern Israel.

The Israeli military told the channel that the shell that hit the house was in response to rockets fired from the home.

'They fired hugs and love and peace, nothing else was fired,' the doctor said about his deceased daughters in later phone interview with the channel.

'Why did they kill them, they were just girls?' Abu al-Aish repeated over and over again to the reporters, on the prime-time Friday night broadcast, considered the most important news show of the week.

The doctor's brother was also killed as were two nephews in the bombing. His wife had died of cancer three years ago.

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

Congress is woefully out of step on the issue of Israel's invasion of Gaza.

Israel's bombings and incursions have killed more than 1,100 Palestinians, hundreds of them women and children. Meanwhile, nine Israeli soldiers have died and Hamas rockets have killed four Israeli civilians.

But this disproportionate response by Israel has received overwhelming support in Congress.

On Jan. 8, the Senate passed its resolution by unanimous consent, vigorously endorsing Israel's actions and blaming only Hamas.

The following day, the House of Representatives passed its own version of the resolution by a margin of 390 in favor to 5 against, with 22 voting "present" (presumably to register discomfort with the measure without voting "no"). This resolution, astonishingly, even blamed Hamas for all the Palestinian deaths.

This lopsided vote in Congress does not reflect U.S. public opinion, however. While polls continue to indicate a strong commitment among the American people to Israel's right to live in peace and security, there appears to be far less support for providing Israel with a blank check, such as defending Israeli violations of international humanitarian law. In contrast to the near-unanimous support by Democrats on Capitol Hill, a recent Rasmussen poll shows that Democratic voters, by a more than two to one margin, oppose Israel's disproportionate attack.

Why, then, is Congress so far behind American public opinion? And why are congressional Democrats ignoring their own voter base? It is not just the influence of the hard-line American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and others in the self- appointed "pro-Israel lobby." It is also because most elected officials have failed to recognize the dramatic shift in attitudes among ordinary Americans, particularly younger voters, who believe that, just as Israel should not be unfairly singled out for criticism, Israel should not be singled out as somehow exempt from international norms of behavior.

This growing opposition to unconditional U.S. support for Israel's massive assault comes not from any sympathy for the extremists of Hamas or from opposition to Israel's right to self- defense. It comes from the liberal mainstream of peace groups, human rights organizations, churches and the young activists who helped elect Barack Obama in November.

It also includes a growing number of American Jews who recognize that the large-scale killing of Palestinian civilians does not make Israel safer.

Few Democrats on Capitol Hill seem to be aware of this shift among the broad progressive populace and how non-representative of their core constituency they are on this issue.

Similarly, many of these younger progressive voters who support a more balanced policy toward Israel and Palestine probably don't realize just how far to the right many of their otherwise-liberal senators and representatives are.

This combination is probably why Congress continues to get away with supporting Israeli aggression. The problem may be less the power of AIPAC than the failure of the larger number of more moderate voices to mobilize comparable pressure on Congress.

The time to mobilize that pressure is now.
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don't think it's exactly the message Israel wanted to send. On the other hand, I thought rockets were Hamas' reaction to the increasing difficulty of suicide bombings.

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"A unilateral ceasefire from the side of Israel would be a blow to Hamas, a political defeat," Ali Hassan, a Gaza resident, said.

"Israel could claim they entered the heart of Gaza, destroyed the places, killed Seyyam and can come again any time," he said, referring to Hamas security chief Saeed Seyyam, who died in an Israeli air strike on Thursday.

Others, though, were not convinced, saying Hamas should instead try to strike an open-ended ceasefire with Israel.

"That way they can claim it is not permanent and can break it once they have the ability to," said Aziz, a taxi driver. "Hamas has made a point. Hamas has not been broken, they are continuing to fire rockets when they want and where they want. But they need to think wisely of the gains and the losses."

"Rockets must end. What did we gain from them?" said Lama, a secretary for a Gaza company, who would not give her full name.

"Now Hamas is negotiating a truce. They were given an offer to renew it in December but they refused. Now after thousands of casualties, how does Hamas explain that?" she asked.

For Hamas, the ability to fire rockets up to 40 km (24 miles) into Israel was a progression in tactics from the suicide attacks that were a hallmark of the early part of the second intifada (uprising) against Israel that began in 2000.

But given the amount of death and destruction Israel has wrought on Hamas and Gaza as a result of the rockets, even those who initially backed the tactic are now questioning it.

"I have always been a supporter of rockets and all forms of resistance," said Aziz, the taxi driver. "But maybe Hamas needs to renew martyrdom operations instead," he said, referring to suicide attacks.

"Rockets -- I think this issue needs to be stopped for sometime and restudied," Hassan said. "Once we have a missile that can reach the heart of Tel Aviv and blow up a building, maybe they can resume fire.

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

Media Eyeless in Gaza at Key Moment
By Jim Lobe and Ali Gharib

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (IPS) - Consumed by coverage of the Nov. 4 presidential election, U.S. mainstream media ignored a key Israeli military attack on a Hamas target that some Palestinians claim marked the effective end of the ceasefire between the two sides and set the stage for the current round of bloodletting.

While the major U.S. news wire Associated Press (AP) reported that the attack, in which six members of Hamas's military wing were killed by Israeli ground forces, threatened the ceasefire, its report was carried by only a handful of small newspapers around the country.

The Nov 4 raid -- and the escalation that followed -- also went unreported by the major U.S. network and cable television new programmes, according to a search of the Nexis database for all English-language news coverage between Nov. 4 and 7.

But the military action, which was followed up by an aerial attack that killed at least one other Palestinian, appears to have dealt a fatal blow to the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire that had taken effect Jun. 19 and largely held for some four and a half months.

In retaliation for the attack, Hamas launched some 35 Qassam rockets into Israeli territory Nov. 5 which, in turn, provoked Israel to severely tighten its then-17-month-old economic siege of the Palestinian territory.

"While neither side ever completely respected the ceasefire terms, the Israeli raid was far and away the biggest violation," said Stephen Zunes, an expert on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at the University of San Francisco.

"It was a huge, huge provocation, and it now appears to me that it was actually intended to get Hamas to break off the ceasefire," he added.

When Israel launched its current military offensive against Hamas-controlled Gaza Dec. 27, most major U.S. media outlets -- and particularly television and newspaper commentators -- blamed Hamas for breaking the ceasefire by continuing rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli territory and refusing to extend the ceasefire on its current terms beyond its formal Dec. 19 expiration.

"Israel's air offensive against the Gaza Strip yesterday should not have been a surprise for anyone who has been following the mounting hostilities in the region," said the lead editorial in the Washington Post the day after Israel began its massive air assault, "least of all the Hamas movement, which invited the conflict by ending a six-month-old ceasefire and launching scores of rockets and mortar shells at Israel during the last 10 days."

This explanation of events corresponded to a major Israeli public-relations effort that placed top government officials on U.S. network and cable news programmes. In an appearance on NBC's widely viewed Sunday morning talk show 'Meet the Press', as the military offensive got underway, for example, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, also a candidate for prime minister in the Feb. 10 elections, set forth her government's basic narrative.

"About a half a year ago, according to the Egyptian Initiative, we decided to enter a kind of a truce and not to attack Gaza Strip," Livni said. "Hamas violated, on a daily basis, this truce. They targeted Israel, and we didn't answer."

But that narrative omitted any mention of the critical Nov. 4 raid, and no Palestinian guest, such as Mustafa Barghouti, an independent Palestinian lawmaker and human rights activist from Ramallah, appeared on the programme to rebut her claim.

In an interview on CNN two days later, on Dec. 31, however, Barghouti charged that Livni's version of events was "incorrect". He accused Israel of breaking the truce and pointed directly to the Nov. 4 operation in Gaza as the catalysing incident.

"Two months before (Dec. 19), Israel started attacking Rafah, started attacking Hamas..." he declared, adding that Israel's failure to lift its commercial embargo against Gaza also violated the Palestinian understanding of the original truce terms.

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"(T)hat Nov. 4 raid, in very real sense, hardly exists in the mainstream media's collective memory," said Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)'s activism director Peter Hart, noting that Israel may have been aware that the election would drown out coverage of its raid.

"It does not take much effort to go back and find it, but reporting contextual information that would undermine Israel's rationale for these attacks is not exactly the kind of thing the U.S. corporate media do very often. The fact that there are only a handful of exceptions is telling -- the dominant narrative in the press is unsurprisingly one that supports the Israeli position."

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_{"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau}

from Al-Rahed , the general manager of Al -Arabiya television, also the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly magazine, Al Majalla:

When I say that not everything that you see is innocent, it is difficult for me to elaborate and recount the evidence, because the details are both painful and unbelievable, more than they are disgraceful. And so now we see the disputes surrounding the convening of an Arab summit which has become clear for all to see; everybody wants a summit [to take place], everybody wants to host this summit, everybody wants to hold the microphone in their hands, everybody wants to appear as the savior. This explains, in brief, the propaganda battles that are currently raging at the highest levels in our region.

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

January 17

Haaretz - Prime Minster Ehud Olmert on Saturday night announced that Israel's security cabinet has voted in favor of a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, which will come into effect at 2 A.M.

The announcement comes after three weeks of fighting in the coastal strip, as Israel launched a massive military offensive aimed at halting years of daily rocket fire on its southern communities. Palestinian sources say that more than 1,100 Gazans have been killed since the offensive began on December 27. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israel Defense Forces have been killed during that period.

The decision to launch the cease-fire was approved during a lengthy security cabinet meeting which began after sundown in Tel Aviv. Two ministers were against the move, and another abstained.

"Our fight is not with the people of Gaza," Olmert said at the Tel Aviv press conference following the cabinet meeting. "We left Gaza in 2005 with the intention of never returning," he said, referring to Israel's unilateral withdrawal of troops and settlers from the territory under former prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Olmert warned that Iran, through its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, was trying to establish its own hegemony in the region. He said that Hamas had underestimated Israel's decisiveness, had been "surprised" by the launch of the offensive, and was still not fully aware of how badly it had been damaged.

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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

Amos Harel & Avi Issacharoff | January 17

Haaretz - At the end of the third week of the Gaza war, the mighty military steamroller unleashed on Gaza appears to have secured its first significant achievement. On Wednesday evening, Hamas signaled that it was about to fold, declaring its willingness in principle to accept the Egyptian cease-fire initiative. But the war could still prove to be long, ugly and exhausting. Israel, however, now stands a good chance of concluding the present round of fighting in Gaza (no one doubts that there will be another round in the future) in a position that allows for a relative improvement in the security situation in the south, at least for the coming months.

With the wisdom of hindsight, one could of course argue that, right from the start, this was a mismatch. A modern army, armed to the teeth with the most advanced weaponry, which had trained for two years for its mission, versus a few thousand terrorists and guerillas who chose to retreat from any place where a serious clash occurred. Even within Gaza, it sometimes seemed as though luck was working overtime in favor or the Israel Defense Forces: Although many dozens of soldiers were wounded in various incidents, most incurred only light injuries (this time, unlike in the last war, all were equipped with proper ceramic vests). As of Thursday afternoon, the number of IDF soldiers killed in battle stood at 10.

The purpose of Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad's trip to Cairo Thursday was to explore, together with the Egyptians, whether a deal could be struck soon that would bring about renewed, full quiet in the Gaza Strip. If Hamas is truly ready to make the concessions required of it by the Egyptian initiative, Israel will apparently consent to a quick cease-fire. This week, the discussion among the political echelon and the defense establishment focused on the question of whether the operation's achievements were likely to multiply with further IDF advances, or whether the army's remaining in the field was gradually eroding the achievements gained so far. Then came Hamas' partial declaration of surrender two days ago in Cairo, potentially solving Israel's dilemma.

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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 Independent

Friday, February 06, 2009
DOHA/GAZA STRIP/ EL-ARISH, Egypt: Al-Jazeera TV reporter Salam Khadr aboard the Lebanese fraternity ship on Thursday reported that Israeli naval troops stormed the ship, which is carrying humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, and physically attacked the passengers.

The reporter said, before losing contact with her, that three Israeli soldiers climbed on board the ship and pointed their weapons at the passengers, noting that the break-in took place in the Gaza territorial waters.

The same reporter had confirmed earlier that two Israeli navy boats approached very closely the Lebanese ship and threatened to shell it along with all the passengers aboard if they tried to reach the Gaza port.

The Lebanese ship had left the Cypriot port of Larnaca coming from Lebanon boarding eight activists including former Greek Catholic Archbishop Monsignor Hilarion Capucci, who left al-Quds in the 1970s after serving time in an Israeli jail for membership in the Palestine Liberation Organisation. New TV reports said that the Israeli warships commandeered the Lebanese ship to the Israeli Ashdod port to interrogate the passengers.