Israel Missile Strike on Gaza leaves 230 Dead 400 Wounded
U.S. Defends Israels Offensive As Retaliation For Recent Missile Strikes; Other World Leaders Condemn The Fighting
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip, December 27, 2008
Video: Israel Missile Strike on Gaza leaves 230 Dead 400 Wounded
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Israeli warplanes rained more than 100 tons of bombs on security sites in Hamas-ruled Gaza Saturday and early Sunday, killing at least 230 people in one of the Mideast conflicts bloodiest assaults in decades. The government said the open-ended campaign was aimed at stopping rocket attacks that have traumatized southern Israel.
Most of the casualties were security forces, but Palestinian officials said at least 15 civilians were among the dead. More than 400 people were also wounded.
The unprecedented assault sparked protests and condemnations throughout the Arab world, and many of Israels Western allies urged restraint, though the U.S. blamed Hamas for the fighting.
President Bush was briefed on the situation in Israel and Gaza during his daily intelligence briefing, reports CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller. Mr. Bush also spoke by phone to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Middle East.
President-elect Barack Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, was also briefed and is monitoring the situation closely, CBS News correspondent Jaime Farnsworth reports.
An Obama transition aide said that Mr. Obama also spoke with Rice and was in touch with the White House.
Video | Israeli Leaders On Air Strikes (2:20)
Video | Gaza Missile Strike Uproar (1:33)
Video | U.S. Defends Israeli Strikes (1:42)
There was no end in sight to the fighting. The first round of strikes began around noon Saturday followed by successive waves of attacks that continued into the early hours Sunday.
Israel warned it might go after Hamas leaders, and militants kept pelting Israel with rockets killing at least one Israeli and wounding six.
Hundreds of Israeli infantry and armored corps troops headed for the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground invasion, military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with the CBS Evening News that if the goals of the operation will not be achieved by airstrike, we will have to consider boots on the ground.
He said those goals were To change totally the behavior of Hamas. Its a terrorist regime that keeps shelling Israel with thousands of rockets and mortar shells over our civilian population indiscriminately.
Asked if Israels response to Hamas rocket fire might be considered disproportionate, Barak told the Evening News, We are trying to avoid damage, but we have to achieve our goals.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said late Saturday that the goal was to bring about a fundamental improvement in the security situation. He added, It could take some time.
The Israeli airstrikes caused widespread panic and confusion, and black plumes of smoke billowed above the territory, ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as students were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children.
My son is gone, my son is gone, wailed Said Masri, a 57-year-old shopkeeper, as he sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, slapping his face and covering his head with dust from a bombed-out security compound nearby.
He said he had sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and could not find him. May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn, Masri moaned.
Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas. Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.
The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired some 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and 10 times that number over the past year.
There is a time for calm and there is a time for fighting, and now is the time for fighting, said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, vowing to expand the operation if necessary.
In Gaza Citys main security compound, bodies of more than a dozen uniformed Hamas police lay on the ground. Civilians rushed wounded people in cars and vans to hospitals because there werent enough ambulances to transport all the dead and wounded.
There are heads without bodies
. Theres blood in the corridors. People are weeping, women are crying, doctors are shouting, said nurse Ahmed Abdel Salaam from Shifa Hospital, Gazas main treatment center.
Military officials said aircraft released more than 100 tons of bombs in the first nine hours of fighting, focusing initially on militant training camps, rocket-manufacturing facilities and weapons warehouses that had been identified in advance.
A second wave was directed at squads who fired about 180 rockets and mortars at Israeli border communities. Palestinians said Israeli bombs destroyed a mosque early Sunday. The military called it a base for terrorist activities. Another target early Sunday was the Al Aqsa TV station used by Hamas. Its studio building was destroyed, but the station remained on the air with a mobile unit. Palestinians counted about 20 airstrikes in the first hours of Sunday.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas political leaders could soon be targeted. Hamas is a terrorist organization and nobody is immune, she declared.
The campaign was launched six weeks before national elections. Livni and Barak hope to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister, and the outgoing government has faced pressure to take tough action.
Gazas political leaders, who have been targeted in the past, went into hiding earlier this week. In a speech broadcast on local Gaza television, Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, declared his movement would not be cowed.
We are stronger, and more determined, and have more will, and we will hold onto our rights even more than before, Haniyeh said. It was not clear where he spoke.
In Damascus, Syria, Hamas top leader, Khaled Mashaal, called on Palestinians to rekindle their fight against Israel. This is the time for a third uprising, he said.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005 after crushing the second Palestinian uprising, but it has maintained control over the territorys border crossings.
Despite the overwhelming show of force, it was not clear the offensive would halt the rocket fire. Past operations have never achieved that goal.
Late Saturday, Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said 230 Palestinians were killed and more than 400 were wounded.
The lone fatality in Israel was in the town of Netivot, where a rocket killed an Israeli man. Six other people were wounded, rescue services said.
Netivot only recently become a target, and dozens of stunned residents, some weeping, gathered at the house that took the deadly rocket hit. A hole gaped in one of the walls, which was pocked with shrapnel marks.
We need to finish this once and for all and strike back hard, said next-door neighbor Avraham Chen-Chatam, 57.
Streets were nearly empty in Sderot, the Israeli border town pummeled hardest by rockets. But dozens of people congregated on a hilltop to watch the Israeli aerial attacks.
The TV images of dead and wounded Gazans inflamed Arab public opinion, and protests erupted in Arab Israeli villages, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Arab world.
The campaign embarrassed moderate Arab regimes that have encouraged Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and weakened Hamas rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007.
Abbas condemned the attacks, but fearing violence could spiral out of control, his forces also broke up protests in the West Bank.
The offensive also risked opening new fronts, including unrest that could destabilize the West Bank and ignite possible rocket attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas on northern Israel.
Britain, the EU, the Vatican, the U.N. secretary-general and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair all called for an immediate restoration of calm. The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the situation.
But the U.S., Israels closest ally, blamed Hamas. These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Brooke Anderson, chief national security spokesperson for Mr. Obama said that Obama is monitoring the situation closely but stressed that there is one president at a time, Farnsworth reported.
Still, Obama has previously given some indications of his views on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Asked by the New York Times whether Israel should negotiate with Hamas in Gaza, he replied, I dont think any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens.
In terms of negotiations with Hamas, it is very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon, he said. I think that Hamas leadership will have to make a decision at some point as to whether it is a serious political party seeking to represent the aspirations of the Palestinian people. And, as a consequence, willing to recognize Israels right to exist and renounce violence as a tool to achieve its aims.
Gazas political leaders, who have been targeted in the past, went into hiding earlier this week. In a speech broadcast on local Gaza television, Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, declared his movement would not be cowed.
We are stronger, and more determined, and have more will, and we will hold onto our rights even more than before, Haniyeh said. It was not clear where he spoke.
In Damascus, Syria, Hamas top leader, Khaled Mashaal, called on Palestinians to rekindle their fight against Israel. This is the time for a third uprising, he said.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005 after crushing the second Palestinian uprising, but it has maintained control over the territorys border crossings.
Despite the overwhelming show of force, it was not clear the offensive would halt the rocket fire. Past operations have never achieved that goal.
Late Saturday, Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said 230 Palestinians were killed and more than 400 were wounded.
The lone fatality in Israel was in the town of Netivot, where a rocket killed an Israeli man. Six other people were wounded, rescue services said.
Netivot only recently become a target, and dozens of stunned residents, some weeping, gathered at the house that took the deadly rocket hit. A hole gaped in one of the walls, which was pocked with shrapnel marks.
We need to finish this once and for all and strike back hard, said next-door neighbor Avraham Chen-Chatam, 57.
Streets were nearly empty in Sderot, the Israeli border town pummeled hardest by rockets. But dozens of people congregated on a hilltop to watch the Israeli aerial attacks.
The TV images of dead and wounded Gazans inflamed Arab public opinion, and protests erupted in Arab Israeli villages, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Arab world.
The campaign embarrassed moderate Arab regimes that have encouraged Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and weakened Hamas rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007.
Abbas condemned the attacks, but fearing violence could spiral out of control, his forces also broke up protests in the West Bank.
The offensive also risked opening new fronts, including unrest that could destabilize the West Bank and ignite possible rocket attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas on northern Israel.
Britain, the EU, the Vatican, the U.N. secretary-general and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair all called for an immediate restoration of calm. The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the situation.
But the U.S., Israels closest ally, blamed Hamas. These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Brooke Anderson, chief national security spokesperson for Mr. Obama said that Obama is monitoring the situation closely but stressed that there is one president at a time, Farnsworth reported.
Still, Obama has previously given some indications of his views on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Asked by the New York Times whether Israel should negotiate with Hamas in Gaza, he replied, I dont think any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens.
In terms of negotiations with Hamas, it is very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon, he said. I think that Hamas leadership will have to make a decision at some point as to whether it is a serious political party seeking to represent the aspirations of the Palestinian people. And, as a consequence, willing to recognize Israels right to exist and renounce violence as a tool to achieve its aims.
Source:
Haqeeqat.Org
