Israelis kill Hamas interior minister Said Siam

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, January 16th 2009

BY MATTHEW KALMAN
DAILY NEWS WRITER

JERUSALEM - Israel notched a huge psychological victory Thursday by assassinating the Hamas interior minister - the most senior terror leader to die since the Gaza blitz began three weeks ago.

Israel also shelled the main United Nations compound in Gaza, setting fire to its fuel depot and sparking an inferno that sent huge plumes of black smoke billowing over Gaza City and destroyed millions of dollars of humanitarian supplies.

About 700 Palestinian civilians were taking shelter in the building, but there were only a handful of injuries.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was in Jerusalem to meet with Israeli officials, called it an "outrage," and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the strike "indefensible."

Ban later told reporters that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had apologized, calling the attack on the UN "a grave mistake" that was being taken "very seriously."

Even as truce talks were progressing in Cairo, Hamas vowed revenge for the death of Hamas No. 3 Said Siam, killed in a missile strike on his brother's house.

"The blood of Said Siam will be a curse on the Zionist entity," Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal told Al Jazeera.

Siam, a former science professor, became one of Hamas' most hard-line ideologues.

He was the commander of the feared Hamas Executive Force, the black-uniformed paramilitary service that led the Hamas coup against Fatah in June 2007, killing 400 Palestinians in the rival faction.

Israeli officials were confident Siam's death would be a stunning blow to Hamas morale. That's because the strike was based on precise intelligence of Siam's movements, showing that the highest levels of Hamas have been penetrated by Israeli intelligence.

In Cairo, Hamas appeared more isolated than ever after Syrian leader Bashar Assad - its protector and host in Damascus - threw his weight behind a ceasefire plan that would include ending Hamas rocket fire into Israel.

Israel denies using bombs that cause deep burns

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Jerusalem - Sabah Abu Halimah's tears trickled down her discolored cheeks. The skin on her upper chest and neck were pockmarked with black spots and fingers poking out from between heavy bandages looked raw.

As Abu Halimah lay in a bed at Gaza's Shifa Hospital on Tuesday, she described how a "ball of fire" engulfed her house in the northern Gaza village of Beit Lahiya. Abu Halimah said her extended family of 18 people were cowering in the living room when rockets fell.

"I was breastfeeding my baby girl when suddenly something exploded, and I heard my son calling 'Mom, fire!' I tried to stand up but the blast seemed to hit my head, which felt like it was on fire. I think I must have fainted," she said. "When I woke up and looked across the room, I saw the blackened bodies of my husband and my teenage son like pieces of charcoal. Both their heads were severed completely from their bodies. Even their blood wasn't red, it was black. And my baby daughter was dead."

Down the corridor, Basel El-Assali was comforting his 16-year-old son, Mahmoud, who had severe burns to his face and chest, caused when a fire bomb with "yellow light and white smoke" hit their home in Jebaliya north of Gaza.

"I saw a huge ball of fire falling from the sky which became other smaller balls with the white smoke," he said. "My other son was outside the house. He couldn't get close to help his brother because the fire was burning him and the smoke was choking him."

Doctors at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said they had never seen such burn cases before.

"These are very strange types of injuries and burns. We don't know the type of weapons used which cause these injuries," said Nafaz Abu Shaaban, the hospital's head of plastic surgery for the past 20 years. "The cases we received in the last few days are not usual burns. It's severe, massive burns, very deep burns. The site of the injury continues to produce smoke and burning for a long time, even after dressing," he said.

Shaaban said a visiting doctor who knows about such burn injuries "told us that this might be from the use of white phosphorous bombs."

"From my experience, these are deep burns as a result of the white phosphorous, which causes damage to the skin, muscles and the blood vessels," said Mohammed El-Abbade, a plastic surgery specialist from Jordan.

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of illegally using white phosphorus shells in its conflict with Hamas.

"Human Rights Watch has analyzed photographs taken by the media on the Israel-Gaza border showing Israeli artillery units handling fused WP artillery shells, as well as video of air bursts over Gaza followed by tendrils of smoke and flame that are highly indicative of WP use," the organization said in a statement. "The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza's high population density, among the highest in the world."

But Israel has rejected such charges.

On Tuesday, Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi denied the Israeli military is doing anything illegal.

"The Israel Defense Forces act only in accordance with what is permitted by international law and does not use white phosphorous," Ashkenazi told the Israeli Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Tel Aviv.

Israeli officials also point out that it is Hamas fighters who are acting illegally by launching rocket attacks on Israeli towns rather than specific military targets.

The controversy over white phosphorous shells

Under international law, white phosphorous shells can be legally used to illuminate large areas at night or provide cover for advancing ground troops by creating a smokescreen.

When fired, fragments of phosphorous, sometimes known as "shake and bake," burst into flames on contact with air, causing fires, destroying buildings and burning those who come in contact with its napalm-like agents.

According to Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, such incendiary weapons are prohibited against "any military objective located within a concentration of civilians." Some human rights groups are pushing to ban the shells by re-classifying them as a chemical weapon.

Neither the United States nor Israel is a signatory to Protocol III.

Israel has admitted using white phosphorus during its 34-day war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, while the United States reportedly used the shells in Iraq during the battle for the city of Fallujah in 2004.

Chronicle Foreign Service correspondent Matthew Kalman reported from Jerusalem and freelance reporter Ahmed Abu Hamda contributed from Gaza City.

U.S., Israel in ceasefire spat

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, January 14th 2009

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Khateb/AP

An Israeli airstrike as seen in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The friendship between Jerusalem and Washington came under unusual strain Tuesday after Israel's prime minister bragged of ordering President Bush around - and a red-faced State Department slapped him down.

As Israeli troops tightened their hold on Gaza City, fighting block by block amid signs Hamas might be closer to surrender, a behind-the-scenes battle was raging in diplomatic corridors.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bragged Monday that he made Bush order Secretary of State Rice to abstain from a UN ceasefire resolution she had worked hard to help draft.

"I said, 'Get me President Bush on the phone,'" Olmert said. "They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care: 'I need to talk to him now.' They got him off the podium ... I told him, 'You can't vote in favor.'"

Olmert crowed that Rice was "left pretty shamed."

Rice spokesman Sean McCormack said that Olmert's account was "just 100% totally completely not true" and suggested the Israeli government might want to correct the record.

McCormack said Rice never supported the resolution.

When reporters asked why she spent three days working on a resolution she didn't support, McCormack accused them of "flagellum equus mortuus" - Latin for beating a dead horse.

A transcript of Bush's 27-minute speech at a Philadelphia school Thursday shows no interruption.

Meanwhile in Gaza, there were signs that Hamas was begining to cave.

At talks in Cairo, there were reports that Hamas would agree to Turkish troops patrolling the Hamas smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border - a key condition set by Israel for a ceasefire.

Much was made of the "frightened" demeanor of Ismail Haniya, Hamas' Gaza political leader, in a video where he said, "Hamas will cooperate with any initiative that will bring about an end to the aggression ... We will react to any such initiative positively."

More than 950 Palestinians have been killed since Operation Cast Lead began Dec. 27. The Israeli Defense Forces says about half were known Hamas operatives.

"Hamas has been badly hit, in terms of losses in manpower including some top commanders, and also in terms of property, infrastructure, weapons caches and staging areas," said Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the IDF's top general.

He also said Hamas suicide bombers were dressing in IDF uniforms and that Hamas was forcing Palestinian civilians to act as human shields.

Two fathers separated by war, united in grief

(Blog: January 13, 2009)

By Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM - Ella Abukasis was a popular, fun-loving, 17-year-old schoolgirl from Sderot in southern Israel who doted on her 10-year-old brother Tamir. On January 15, 2005, she was walking Tamir home from the local youth club when the "Colour Red" sirens began began booming across the town, giving them 15 seconds to take cover from an incoming Qassam rocket fired from Gaza.

Ever since the Hamas reign of terror began, Ella had looked after the little boy, sleeping alongside him and taking him everywhere. But on this Saturday afternoon there was nowhere to hide. Ella lay her brother down next to a wall and shielded his body with her own.

Seconds later, a Qassam rocket slammed into the street beside them, sending shards of jagged metal and debris scorching through the air.

Tamir escaped with relatively minor injuries, shielded by his guardian angel, but Ella took the full force of the blast.

She was rushed to hospital in a coma. Three days later, doctors declared Ella brain-dead and she was disconnected from life-support. She never regained consciousness.

Tamir was released from hospital the day his sister died, but neither he nor his parents have recovered from the senseless loss of their wonderful girl.

"He still has shrapnel lodged in his head and psychologically he has been scarred for life," said their father Yonatan, 50, the only member of the family who can bring himself to talk about the tragedy.

"Every time there is a boom of another rocket, he can't take it. He can't sleep. His childhood has been stolen from him. Only when he goes away from Sderot can he relax. At home every sudden noise makes him re-live that terrible nightmare," said Abukasis.

Since 2001, 3,984 rockets and 3,943 mortar shells have been launched at Israel from Gaza, many of them at the sleepy lower-middle-class town of Sderot just across the border. It has now reduced to a ghost town.

Egypt brokered a truce that took effect last June, but the Palestinians still fired 223 rockets and 139 mortar shells from the Hamas-controlled enclave.

"I wish people around the world would understand that people have been dying in this town while Hamas fires without restraint. I don't think they get it. If all those people in London went out to demonstrate support for Hamas, they just don't understand the hell we have been going through for eight years. I'd like to invite all those demonstrators to come here and see the conditions we are living under," said Abukasis.

"It's a nightmare. There is nothing worse than feeling unsafe in your own home. All the time we sit and wait for the next rocket. We cannot lead a normal life. We cannot take the kids out to play. We can hardly leave the house at all. Every day, we are living on the edge," he said.

Abukasis and his surviving family still live in the same house, where the memory of Ella hangs heavy in the air. They have opened a youth center in the town dedicated to her memory.

"We will stay here. Hamas has only one thought – to drive us out, but they won't succeed," he said.

Abukasis believes that Israel had no choice but to invade Gaza, after Hamas refused to renew the six-month truce.

"I support it," he said. "You cannot allow this quasi-state to subject its neighbours to the point where we are living in fear every day. We cannot let a bunch of terrorists control our lives and tell us when we can go to school or work, or when we can go out.

"It's a shame the Israeli army didn't act sooner. It would have saved many lives on both sides.

"I hope we don't stop half way and withdraw based on some promise from Hamas. These people cannot be trusted. If they still have their missiles at the end of this, they will only attack us again. We must see this through to the end. We must put an end to Hamas and destroy all their weapons," he said.

At a house in Gaza City, Mohammed Darabeh was mourning the death of his wife Mojod and wondering about the fate of his five young daughters. She was killed and the girls aged 4 to 12 were injured when an Israeli shell exploded next to their ramshackle house in Beit Lahiya, scene of intense fighting all week.

"We had taken cover in one room of our house. I went to the next room to bring some water and there was a huge explosion. I think a bomb fell next to the house and shrapnel ripped through the walls. They are only thin. Mojod was killed instantly and the girls were all taken to hospital," Darabeh said, his mood switching between disbelief and fury as relatives came to offer their condolences.

"Why did this happen? What did she do? What did we do? There were no fighters. No-one was shooting from there. I received no warning, and even if I did, how could I leave with my family through the middle of the fighting? We have nowhere to go," he said.

"The Israelis want to drive us out of our house, to drive us from our homeland," he said. "They took our land, now they want more. They want to throw us into the sea. But we will never leave. We will stay and our resistance will win. We will not move from here even if they kill us."

But a few miles away in Sderot, Yonatan Abukasis said the people of Gaza had no-one to blame but themselves.

"I know they are suffering now on the other side, but they brought this on themselves. They have to take responsibility. I didn't elect Hamas, they did. They attacked us. They killed my daughter and no-one paid them back. Now, finally, we have to defend ourselves. They must understand that anyone who threatens us, who kills our children, is in danger.

"If they want to live normal lives, good lives, all they have to do is stop firing. We don't want to fight them," he said.

Israel threatens Gaza with "iron fist" as Hamas rejects truce

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, January 13th 2009

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Israel massed more troops Monday and threatened to pound Gaza with an "iron fist" if its security demands are not met, but Hamas rejected any truce and declared, "Gaza will not break."

Palestinian civilians caught in the middle continued to suffer and die. The latest death toll was 911 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

"We want to end this," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said. "If [Hamas stops firing rockets and closes its smuggling tunnels] we will end our military operation. Anything else will be met with the iron fist of the Israeli people."

As fresh Israeli reservists began pouring into Gaza, along with reports of tough urban warfare in Gaza City, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh vowed to continue fighting.

"Gaza will not break - our victory over the Zionists is near," he said in a videotaped statement.

Israel charged that the Hamas leadership had holed up in a bomb-proof basement under the central Shifa Hospital - a facility, ironically, fortified by Israel when it was refurbished during the occupation of the 1980s.

"Shifa Hospital has long ago ceased to be just a hospital," Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said on Army radio.

"It is somewhat of an open secret that Hamas commanders walk around the hospital, in some instances wearing doctor's robes," Dichter said.

The charge, which has not been substantiated by the foreign reporters crowding the hospital, raised fears that the most crucial facility in Gaza City might become a target.

Hamas fired at least 14 rockets into Israel, including 10 during the three-hour daily ceasefire Israel called to allow aid to be distributed. There were no injuries.

Ezzadin Abu El-Aish, a Palestinian doctor who used to work in Israel, cowered in his house on the outskirts of Gaza City listening to heavy street fighting.

"After all the shooting we heard last night, I thought I wouldn't be getting up this morning," he said.

Israel hints at end of Gaza operations

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, January 12th 2009

BY MATTHEW KALMAN Jerusalem and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Israeli leaders hinted Sunday the Gaza assault might soon wind down, even as thousands of fresh reservists joined the battle and infantry units pushed toward the crowded heart of Gaza City.

"It would seem that we are close to ending the ground operation - and ending the operation altogether," Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said.

"Israel is nearing the goals that it set for itself," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

"However, further patience, determination and effort are necessary."

Olmert has said the aim of Operation Cast Lead, which has killed 878 Palestinians and 12 Israelis in 16 days, was to halt the shower of Hamas rockets fired into Israel.

Officials have said they do not plan to reoccupy Gaza or wipe out Hamas, but have contingency plans ready to do just that.

At least two dozen Hamas rockets fell on Israeli towns Sunday, including one that landed near a kindergarten in Ashdod and another that landed in the backyard of a house in Sderot.

There were no injuries.

The Gaza City skyline was blotted with plumes of black smoke as Israeli soldiers, backed by hovering helicopter gunships, advanced toward the city center from the southwest, the east and the north.

Thousands of reservists were massing on the border, including commandos versed in close-quarter urban combat.

Israeli war planes continued to bombard targets up and down the 20-mile-long strip. They said they were hitting explosives tunnels, underground missile launchers and hidden weapons caches.

Israel's military intelligence chief, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, said a split was emerging between Hamas leaders in Damascus, who want to keep fighting, and Hamas leaders in Gaza, who were considering compromise.

"Hamas is crying, 'Stop.' They are dying to respond to the blow they received and recover from their lack of operative successes in the field. On the other hand, they don't want to wave the white flag," Yadlin said.

"The Hamas leadership in Damascus is isolated. Their leadership in Gaza is paralyzed. Their military wing is evasive," he added.

Meanwhile, the United Nations resumed food deliveries after receiving assurances from the Israeli Army there would be no repeat of two attacks on UN trucks last week.

Filippo Grandi, an official with the UN refugee agency, said most ordinary Palestinians in Gaza didn't have a political agenda but they were becoming "terrified, starving, thirsty and traumatized, more desperate and more angry."

http://matthewkalman.blogspot.com/

Analysis: Indirect talks for Gaza cease-fire

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sunday, January 11, 2009

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Jerusalem -- Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian representatives are meeting in Cairo this weekend to explore an Egyptian-French cease-fire proposal to end Israel's invasion of Gaza.

As the Palestinian death toll spiraled beyond 800 and Israeli leaflets dropped on Gaza warned of an escalation in attacks that have now entered a third week, the two sides seemed far apart on ending the violence. Both sides continued to ignore a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Operation Cast Lead "will stop when the conditions that are essential for Israel's security are met. First and foremost, all terrorist operations against us must stop. The strengthening of the terrorist organizations via the smuggling of war materiel from Egypt into Gaza must also stop."

In the Syrian city of Damascus, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said Israel should "pull out first, let the aggression stop first, let the crossings open and then people can look into the issue of calm."

As negotiators attempt to bridge the wide gulf, the two sides are hampered by their refusal to talk to each other directly. Hamas does not recognize the existence of Israel, usually referring to it as "the Zionist entity," and has called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Israel refuses to recognize or address the group directly. Instead of meeting face to face to hammer out their differences, past negotiations have been conducted through Egyptian intermediaries.

Hamas official Ayman Taha was expected to sit in a downtown Cairo hotel this weekend while Israeli official Amos Gilad sat in the office of Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, according to an Israeli negotiator with knowledge of previous Israel-Hamas talks. Egyptian officials presented proposals to each side, then shuttled between the two locations with their answers. "There is no negotiating table, no meeting space. There are no direct negotiations whatsoever," said Moty Cristal of NEST Consulting, an Israeli expert in crisis management.

It may be a cumbersome way of stopping the fighting, but there seems to be little choice.

Israel's current negotiating partner, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is no longer recognized by Hamas since his term formally ended Friday. Abbas, who participated in the Cairo talks Saturday, has been without much influence over Gaza since his Fatah forces were ousted from the territory by Hamas in 2007.

"Those with whom Israel talk cannot deliver, and those who can deliver, Israel doesn't want to talk with," said Cristal.

Hamas-Israeli relations have not always been so distant. In fact, Israel played a key role in the formation of Hamas by encouraging Sheikh Ahmed Yassin - the group's co-founder - to establish Hamas as a Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza in the late 1980s as a rival to Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization.

"It was exactly the same mistake that the U.S. made when they encouraged the development of the Taliban to counter the Soviets in Afghanistan," said Reuven Berko, a former adviser on Arab affairs to the Israeli military in Gaza."

While Israel has made its cease-fire conditions clear - no more attacks, no more arms smuggling - Hamas' demands seem shortsighted at best. They seek the opening of all border crossings, the continuation of arms shipments and the right to continue their resistance by launching rocket attacks at Israel. For some, the Hamas refusal to compromise even at the cost of mass death and destruction for their people has transformed them into heroes; for others, it has made them objects of contempt.

"Regardless of the outcome of Israel's barbaric Operation Cast Lead, one thing is certain: It is high time for Hamas to step down as keeper of Gaza," wrote commentator Sultan Al-Qassemi in the Beirut Daily Star. "By any standards, Hamas has failed. It has failed in peace, it has failed in governance, and it is failing in war."

Central to the success of the cease-fire talks is Egypt. While deploring the Israeli campaign, the regime of President Hosni Mubarak has said that Hamas must share the burden for the Gaza catastrophe. Israel hopes Egyptian pressure will modify Hamas' hard-line stance.

Worst may be yet to come, Israel warns Gazans in leaflets as it pummels rocket launch sites

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, January 11th 2009

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and TRACY CONNOR in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Lemmer/Getty

Smoke billows following an air strike by the Israeli air force against a target in Gaza.

Amra/AP

A Palestinian boy injured in an Israeli army operation is carried into the emergency room at Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Renewed calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip were drowned out Saturday by heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas - and warnings of a "new phase" in the offensive.

As the battle entered its third week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged both sides to immediately end the violence or face a "waterfall of blood."

But Khaled Mashaal, a top Hamas leader, suggested there would never be peace in Gaza, calling Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip a "holocaust" in a fiery speech broadcast on the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera.

Israel and Hamas observed a three-hour lull in fighting Saturday so United Nations workers could deliver humanitarian aid. During the break, Israeli warplanes dropped thousands of leaflets on the Gaza Strip, informing residents that the offensive was far from over.

"In the near future, the [Israeli Defense Force] will continue to attack tunnels, arms caches and terror activities with greater intensity all across the strip," the flyers said in Arabic.

The ominous flyers instructed residents to stay away from targets during this "new phase in the war on terror."

Israeli tanks were heard moving near the central Gaza border early today as Israeli artillery pounded the area, indicating the possibility of a larger operation.

Hamas security officials said fierce battles were in progress in eastern Gaza City and northern Gaza. More than 800 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombing on Dec. 27 to end Hamas' rocket launches across the border. Troops invaded a week later.

Hamas and its allied fighters claim 45 Israel soldiers have been killed - 10 of them Saturday - but Israel denied the report.

As Hamas fired 15 rockets Saturday, the Israeli army claimed it had hit 70 targets - including missile launchers, booby-trapped tunnels and "armed terror operatives."

One of the dead was Amir Mansi, described by Israel as the commander of Hamas' rocket-launching program in Gaza City.

"Mansi was spotted firing a rocket in the Jabel Rise area during a ground force operation today," an army spokesman said.

"The forces opened fire, killing Mansi and injuring two additional terror operatives."

International efforts to end the violence have been frustrated. Representatives of Hamas and Israel have gone to Egypt for talks.

After a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Abbas called for them to accept a truce.

"If any party does not accept it [the truce], regrettably it will be the one bearing the responsibility," he said.

"And if Israel doesn't want to accept, it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood."

Hamas, which seized control of Gaza from Abbas' Fatah Party 18 months ago, had rejected a French-Egyptian plan for peace - but seemed to crack open the door Saturday.

The "priority is the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza and the removal of the siege" - conditions already rejected by Israel, said Ayman Taha, a member of the Hamas delegation.

Israel proceeds with Gaza offensive despite U.N. vote; Hamas continues rocket attacks

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, January 10th

By MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and CORKY SIEMASZKO in New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Israeli Defence Forces, courtesy of Getty

Israeli paratroopers operate against Hamas militants in the Gaza strip on Jan. 8, 2009. Israel is intensifying its wide-scale ground assault despite a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire.

Butt out!

That was the terse response from Israel's prime minister Friday to United Nations demands that he end the Gaza invasion.

"The State of Israel has never agreed that any outside body would determine its right to defend the security of its citizens," Ehud Olmert said in a statement.

The Israeli Defense Force "will continue operations in order to defend Israeli citizens and will carry out the missions with which it has been assigned in the operation," Olmert said.

He capped his statement by saying Hamas' renewed rocket attacks against Israel were proof that a UN Security Council resolution aimed at securing a ceasefire "is not practical and will not be honored in actual fact by the Palestinian murder organizations."

That tough talk was cheered in New York, where Assemblyman Dov Hikind urged the Israelis to keep on fighting.

"A ceasefire at this point would prove disastrous," the Brooklyn Democrat said. "All of Israel's efforts to eradicate Hamas strongholds and achieve security for its citizens would be for naught."

No casualties were reported from Hamas' latest aerial assaults, but its leaders vowed to keep launching rockets.

"We stress that the military wing, with the help of Allah, has not been damaged," declared Abu Obaida, the masked spokesman for the Hamas Qassam Brigades.

Still, the Palestinian death toll from the 14-day old invasion was 788 and climbing fast with more than 3,000 wounded.

Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have also been killed since the invasion began Dec.27.

The Security Council resolution that Olmert rejected called for a "full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."

It also expressed "grave concern" at the growing humanitarian crisis and heavy civilian casualties. And it called for the opening of safe corridors to allow badly needed aid into Gaza.

Secretary of State Rice supported the resolution but abstained from the 14-0 vote on Thursday "to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation."

The Egyptians have been trying to work out a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a radical Palestinian organization bent on destroying the Jewish state.

Hamas' top honchos managed to slip across the border into Egypt Friday, most likely via the underground tunnels that the terrorists use to smuggle in weapons - a network Israeli bombers have been trying to smash.

Meanwhile, the Israelis continued to bomb Gaza, killing 23 more Palestinians and reducing a five-story building in northern Gaza to rubble.

Hamas said seven people, including a baby, were killed in that attack - a claim that could not be immediately corroborated.

Meanwhile, UN aid deliveries to Gaza were put on hold for a second straight day because of safety concerns.

Deliveries were halted after Israeli tank fire killed a UN driver, and a Red Cross worker was wounded by Israeli soldiers. More than half of the 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza rely on the UN for food and water.

The Israelis insist they are doing everything they can to make sure Palestinian civilians don't starve. They have also accused Hamas of using their own people as human shields.

Gaza truce collapses; UN cuts off aid to beleagured area as rockets from Lebanon hit Israel

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, January 9th 2009

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Zayat/Getty

Italian U.N. peacekeepers search an area in Southern Lebanon where rockets attacks are believed to have orginated...

Kaminsky/AP

...and which hit this retirement home in Northern Israel Thursday.

The Gaza war escalated today when Hamas rejected truce talks, someone started firing rockets at Israel from Lebanon and the Red Cross took an unusual slap at the Jewish state for leaving starving children clinging to their mother's corpses.

The United Nations halted all aid deliveries to the besieged Palestinians, after its staff came under fire from the Israel Defense Forces. The driver of a marked UN truck was killed by tank fire at the Erez Border Crossing a day after a UN shelter was bombarded in the bloodiest incident of the war.

"We've been coordinating with them and yet our staff continue to be hit and killed," said UN spokesman spokesman Chris Gunness.

Three rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon, sparking fears that Hezbollah had opened a second war front. But Hezbollah denied it was responsible, Israel seemed to agree, based on the type of rocket fired, and the Lebanese government quickly condemned the strikes.

Israeli Minister Rafi Eitan played down the strikes.

"I think these are isolated incidents. We expected this," he said.

One hit a nursing home but the elderly residents escaped because they were having breakfast on the ground floor.

The IDF shelled the areas in southern Lebanon from which Katyusha rockets were fired.

In Damascus, Hamas flatly rejected a Franco-Egyptian truce proposal that was backed by Washington and "welcomed" but not yet endorsed by Israel.

Hamas said it had the right to "resist" Israel and rejected calls for it to disarm.

Senior Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal told Syrian TV that the militant group would never surrender and vowed to fight house to house against the Israeli military in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Operation Cast Lead will continue until Israel had wiped out Hamas' ability to threaten a million residents of southern Israel with rocket fire and terror attacks.

"We are not there yet and the Israel Defence Forces haven't been asked yet to do whatever it takes get to this point. This decision is still ahead of us,"Olmert told army officers near the front line.

Moawya Hasanin, head of the emergency department in the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza, said the Palestinian death toll had reached 763 since the start of the Israeli assault.

He said there were more than 3,000 injured, including 375 critical cases in urgent need of specialist medical care.

Israeli military sources said at least 130 of the dead were armed Hamas fighters killed in battles with the invading forces, and many more of the victims were Hamas operatives.

As many as 200 children are among the dead.

One Israeli soldier was killed as Israeli troops, aircraft and tanks continued their push towards the main population centres of Gaza.

More than 30 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. One hit an evacuated school in Ashkelon.

Along the Egyptian border, Israeli warplanes destroyed a dozen houses which they said served as cover for tunnels used to smuggle weapons and explosives into Gaza under the border.

The bombardment was halted again today for a three-hour period to allow people to go out for to look for food and medicine.

During the lull, three dozen bodies were found in the rubble of city buildings.

The Red Cross, which usually takes great pains to remain neutral in conflicts, lambasted Israel for breaching humanitarian law after discovering four emaciated children who had spent four days trapped in the rubble of three shelled Gaza City homes with dead bodies.

Pierre Wettach of the International Committee of the Red Cross called it "shocking."

"The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded," he said, adding that soldiers barred medics from going to the site to help the wounded.

Rescuers found "four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own," the Red Cross said. "In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."

Israel's ambassador in Geneva, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, denied his country was failing in its humanitarian obligations.

"Once the military activity was over, then it was possible for humanitarian teams to evacuate the wounded," he told The Associated Press.

In al-Atatra, north of Gaza City, Israeli paratroopers discovered what they said was a color-coded map of Hamas booby-traps in the area.

Chief IDF Intelligence Officer Brigadier-General Yuval Halamish said Hamas had divided the neighborhood into a number of areas distinguished by landmarks such as mosques, gas stations, and fuel depots.

"You can see that the neighborhood was divided into three areas of fighting, according to colour, and inside the terrorists spread out a number of posts, planted explosive devices, and posted sharpshooters," he said.

"Hamas makes cynical use of civilian homes, the entrances of which were booby-trapped in order to hurt IDF soldiers."

Explosive devices were also planted near gas stations despite the immediate danger to civilians, Halamish added.

He said the layout had been thoroughly planned in preparation for a ground operation.

Palestinians get 3-hour reprieve from war hell

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, January 8th 2009

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Buimovitch/Getty

Israeli armored personnel carriers resume fire on the border with Gaza.

Khatib/Getty

A ball of fire rises into the night sky following an Israeli air strike in Rafah near the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt on Jan. 7, 2009.

The guns of Gaza fell quiet Wednesday when Israel gave besieged Palestinians a three-hour "humanitarian" bombing lull to look for food and water before resuming the air strikes.

Hopes for a more permanent truce flickered to life with the announcement that Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority will meet for talks today in Cairo.

Hamas was considering a U.S.-backed plan okayed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

In southern Gaza, Israel Defense Forces jets dropped leaflets urging thousands of civilians to flee their homes immediately ahead of a new bombardment of tunnels along the Egyptian border.

"Because Hamas uses your houses to hide and smuggle military weapons, the IDF will attack the area," the flyer warned.

About 29 Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the air strikes, which continued into the morning, with officials also reporting clashes between Israeli armored forces and Hamas militants in southern Gaza.

The Palestinians have nowhere to run. "There is no safe space in the Gaza Strip - no safe haven, no bomb shelters and the borders are closed - making this one of the rare conflicts where civilians have no place to flee," said Maxwell Gaylard, the United Nations humanitarian chief for the Palestinian territories.

About 5,000 people huddled in two UN schools transformed into shelters as the strikes began. On Tuesday, Israeli tanks fired on a UN school in Jabaliya, killing 43 refugees taking shelter there. Israel claimed Hamas militants had fired on them from the school. A UN spokesman said, "Following an initial investigation, we are 99.9% sure that there were no militants or militant activities in the school."

Palestinian health officials said the death toll from Operation Cast Lead had risen to more than 700, with 219 of the dead children and 89 women. Ten Israeli soldiers have died in the 12-day campaign. The IDF said Wednesday four of them were killed by "friendly fire" from IDF tanks.

Meanwhile, Hamas fired 20 rockets Wednesday, wounding two Israelis.

As the 1 p.m. start time for the ceasefire approached, about 80 trucks rumbled out from UN warehouses to distribute food, medical supplies and fuel.

The Red Cross restocked the central Shifa Hospital in Gaza City with anesthetics, bandages and basic medicine.

Briefly, the battered streets came alive. Ashraf al-Issawi, a father of eight standing in a long bread line in Gaza City, said it was the first time he had ventured more than a few yards from his apartment for days.

"We have run out of rice and cooking gas. I have to buy bread or we will have nothing to eat," he said.

International leaders working to end the fighting hoped the lull - which Israel promised would happen for three hours every other day - was the first step toward a permanent ceasefire.

Ties to Hamas Raise Questions About the Role of Bombed University in Gaza

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Wednesday, January 7, 2009

By MATTHEW KALMAN

Jerusalem

Israel's bombing last week of three buildings at the Islamic University of Gaza has provoked outrage among many academics.

Israeli officials and security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insist that the university, which makes no secret of its close ties to Hamas, also serves as an operational center for the Hamas terrorist wing, the Qassam Brigades, making it a legitimate military target. (Mr. Abbas leads the Fatah movement, which has had its own struggles with Hamas in recent years.)

But students and lecturers flatly deny that the university is involved in military activities, arguing that it turns out 3,000 graduates each year from its 10 schools, including those in engineering and Islamic law.

While the university has acquired an international reputation in some fields and even produced Fulbright scholars, its close ties with Hamas complicate its pure academic status. Some faculty members, including one who was killed by Israeli forces last week, publicly acknowledge their activities in the Qassam Brigades. Attacks by Israel on other civilian targets last week in Gaza, including mosques, were based on intelligence linking them to weapons—reports that proved to be accurate.

On December 29, Israeli aircraft attacked the university's campus in Gaza City with at least six bombs, destroying a science-laboratory block and severely damaging a classroom building for women (The Chronicle, December 29, 2008). There were no casualties because the campus had already been evacuated. Early the following day, warplanes returned and destroyed another classroom building.

Buildings on the nearby campuses of Al-Quds University and Al-Aqsa University were also damaged in airstrikes last week, but those damages appeared to have resulted from attacks on adjacent targets, not from direct strikes.

Israel has defended its attacks as designed to protect its citizens from rockets fired from Gaza. An Israeli army spokeswoman said last week the Islamic University housed laboratories that were used to develop weapons for Hamas, as well as weapons-storage facilities. "The development of these weapons took place under the auspices of senior lecturers who are activists in Hamas," the spokeswoman said.

But lecturers on the campus disputed those allegations.

Zohair Abu Shaban, an engineering graduate and a junior lecturer at the university, said that in his five years as a student there, he had "never, ever witnessed anything from the mentioned accusation."

Mr. Abu Shaban, whose Fulbright scholarship was suspended last year, in part because of his affiliation with the university, said he had never even heard of a weapons-research center there.

Close Ties to Hamas Leadership

The Islamic University was established in 1978 by the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in 2004. It has emerged as a training ground for the political and spiritual leadership of Hamas.

Many Hamas leaders who are also academics have taught or worked at the university. They include the group's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, and the late Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, also assassinated by Israel in 2004. Sixteen of the Hamas members who were elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006 teach at the university.

Neither faculty members nor students, some of whom are Christian, are required to swear affiliation to Hamas. But one journalism graduate told the Arab-media Web site Menassat.com last June that she felt discriminated against because she had refused to join an Islamic association that offered certain academic "incentives" to its members.

"They have a better share of everything, including the scholarships and loans granted to students who are unable to afford their tuition fees," she said. The university's affiliation with Hamas is "a known fact," she said, adding that "many Hamas leaders teach or are employed there."

But others say the university's affiliation with Hamas does not mean that it is directly involved in military activities.

Ahmad Albur'y, who teaches English at the university, said he was "shocked" by last week's bombing.

"Where are the corpses of Hamas people at the shelled university?" he demanded. "Where are the weapons that Israel claims have been stockpiled in the university? If Israel is right about its claims, why does it prevent foreign journalists from entering Gaza under this situation?"

"It seems to me that what Israel is doing is systematic war that aims at destroying the Palestinian people and all their institutions," he said.

Reporters in Gaza who tried to enter the campus's wrecked buildings on behalf of The Chronicle were turned back by armed Hamas guards posted there to prevent looting.

Targeted Before

This is not the first time that the Islamic University has been accused of aiding Hamas militarily.

In February 2007, at the height of tension between Hamas and Fatah, troops loyal to Mr. Abbas stormed the university and confiscated weapons and ammunition. Palestinian TV showed footage of dozens of grenade launchers, rockets, and assault rifles, as well as thousands of bullets, that Fatah officials said were found inside the university (The Chronicle, February 5, 2007).

In May 2007, the university became a key military stronghold as Hamas prepared to seize power from Mr. Abbas in Gaza. Hamas militiamen fired rockets and automatic weapons from the campus at forces loyal to Mr. Abbas.

In 2007, Abu Abdullah, described as a Hamas military leader, told the WorldNetDaily, a conservative Web site, that the Islamic University was regularly used by Hamas to support "resistance activities."

"It is no secret that we utilize all tools at our disposal, including our fighters at Islamic University, in preparations to fight the Zionists," he said.

At least one prominent member of the university's faculty was a Hamas terrorist. Last week an Israeli bombing raid killed Nizar Rayyan, an Islamic-law professor, along with his four wives and seven of his children. Sheikh Rayyan was a senior commander of the Qassam Brigades who served as a mentor to suicide bombers and sent his own son on a suicide mission in 2001.

Gaza attack could prompt Israel to pull out

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Jerusalem - Middle East observers felt a sense of deja vu Tuesday as Israeli tank shells slammed into a U.N. school near Gaza City, killing at least 30 Palestinians who had taken refuge there from the war raging around their homes.

In 1982, a massacre carried out by a Christian militia group at the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps killed hundreds of Palestinians; the camps had been under Israeli control. In 1996, there were 118 people killed at a U.N. compound by Israeli artillery in the town of Qana, and in 2006, an Israeli air strike killed 56 in an apartment complex in the same town. All three events spelled the beginning of the end of Israeli campaigns into Lebanon.

Until now, the international community - including Egypt - has given Israel a long leash to strike a heavy blow against Hamas. But with the shelling of the U.N. school in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya on Tuesday, the clock might start ticking for Israel to withdraw its troops.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry, which branded the deaths "a heartrending tragedy," said it would continue with the offensive until Hamas stopped launching rockets on its southern towns and agreed not to restock its weapons. At least 15 rockets were fired into Israel on Tuesday, including one that injured a baby in the town of Gedera, about 25 miles northeast of Gaza, the farthest north a Hamas rocket has reached.

The Foreign Ministry also said it had good reason for targeting the school.

"Initial investigations indicate that Hamas terrorists fired mortar bombs from the area of the school towards Israeli forces, who returned fire towards the source of the shooting. The Israeli return fire landed outside the school, yet a series of explosions followed, indicating the probable presence of munitions and explosives in the building."

The Israeli army also accused Hamas of "cynically" using civilians as human shields. Intelligence reports indicated the dead included Imad Abu Askar and Hasan Abu Askar, "two known Hamas mortar crewmen," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Two neighborhood residents who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety, confirmed the Israeli account, telling the Associated Press that a group of militants fired mortar rounds from a street near the school, then fled into a crowd of people in the streets.

But such justification might not be enough to silence the growing chorus of international disapproval as civilian deaths rise.

Dr. Bassam Abu Warda, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told reporters that 36 people were killed in the strike on the school. The United Nations confirmed that 30 were killed and 55 injured by tank shells.

At least 70 Palestinians were killed Tuesday, and more than 600 have died since Israel sent ground forces into Gaza on Saturday, according to U.N. and Palestinian officials. The United Nations says about 25 percent of the victims were civilians. Ten Israelis have died, including a soldier who was shot Tuesday.

A predictable clash

In Jerusalem, Western diplomats said privately Tuesday it was predictable that Hamas would draw Israeli army fire toward civilian targets and that Israel would oblige them.

"A ground invasion was expected and, in some Hamas quarters, hoped for," said the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based organization engaged in conflict resolution, in a position paper published this week. "The Islamist movement hopes to reap political benefit from material losses. It knows it is no military match for Israel, but it can claim victory by withstanding the unprecedented onslaught."

Shlomo Brom, the former head of the strategic planning division of the Israeli army, said minimizing civilian casualties requires "a combination of excellent intelligence, very accurate weapons systems and very good planning that takes into account collateral damage. Mistakes are bound to happen, and they will happen in this war."

Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, said the strike against the U.N. school and ensuing diplomatic pressure it could create were not only foreseen but discussed in advance by Israeli policymakers.

"There were many meetings on how to deal with this before the fighting started. It happens every time. The effect this time very much depends on how the story plays out in the next 24 hours," said Steinberg. "If organizations like Amnesty (International) and Human Rights Watch give this issue much greater visibility as they have in the past, the pressure on Israel will build and it will have some impact, but if it's strictly Palestinian claims it won't have much effect."

But international pressure is mounting.

Egyptian proposal

A cease-fire initiative won support from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on rival sides to follow up.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday the initiative seeks an immediate cease-fire by Israel and Palestinian factions for a specific period to allow secure corridors for delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza and to give Egypt time to continue efforts to reach a permanent cease-fire.

Egypt is inviting Israeli and Palestinian sides for urgent meetings to resolve issues underlying the fighting, including securing Gaza's borders and reopening all crossings, Mubarak said.

The deaths at the school could shake Israel's broad national consensus in favor of the war, as did the Qana air strike in 2006, which included 32 children among the 56 killed.

"It is clear that should a misfired bomb kill and injure dozens of civilians, including women and children, the U.N. would be the first to condemn Israel and accuse it of committing war crimes," Israeli military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai said last week. "This could also end the operation prematurely."

Meanwhile, some other observers fear both sides will continue to make the same errors as in past conflicts.

"Because this drama has played out before, there are lessons that ought to have been learned," said James Zogby, a pollster and president of the Washington-based Arab-American Institute. "But, sadly, have not."

Israeli airstrikes hit schools in Gaza City

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated Tuesday, January 6th 2009, 9:30 PM

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Moussa/AP

Relatives of a Palestinian killed in a United Nations school after an Israeli air strike mourn at the school in Gaza Tuesday.

Israeli tanks on a United Nations-run school in Gaza where Palestinian refugees were taking cover on Tuesday, killing at least 42 civilians and adding urgency to a new U.S.-backed effort to end the war.

It was one of four Israeli attacks on UN facilities and the deadliest single attack of the 12-day-old offensive.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called it "the darkest moment yet for the Middle East."

The Israeli Army said the strike on the Fakhoura School in the Jabalya refugee camp was justified because Hamas terrorists were firing rockets from inside the school.

Israel is considering "submitting an official complaint" to the UN against Hamas for using the school as cover, said David Saranga of the Israeli Consulate in New York.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called attacking a UN-sponsored place of refuge "totally unacceptable." He said it was "equally unacceptable" for militants to endanger civilians.

John Ging, an Irishman who is the top UN official in Gaza, said 350 people had taken shelter in the school, which was clearly marked with a UN flag. He said its coordinates were given to the Israeli Army to avoid just such a tragedy.

"There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized," Ging said.

Shrapnel ripped into the crowd and demolished the building.

More than 630 Palestinians have been killed in the current conflict, nearly a third of them children, Gaza health officials said.

Five Israeli soldiers were killed Tuesday, bringing the Israeli toll to 10.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak emerged from talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy with a truce proposal that received a quick thumbs up from Ban, Secretary of State Rice and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Mubarak proposed an immediate halt to Israeli attacks and Hamas rocket fire, to be followed by talks on long-term border arrangements.

Hamas has said it would consider a ceasefire if Israel lifts the blockade strangling the Gaza Strip, but Israel says it cannot allow smuggled weapons to keep flowing into the territory.

Israel announced it would allow a temporary "humanitarian corridor" into the Gaza Strip to distribute badly needed food and medicine.

As ferocious fighting was reported across the Gaza Strip, Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri emerged from hiding to score some propaganda points off the dead.

He told Gazans to blame President-elect Barack Obama for their pain. "These air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office," Zawahiri said in a Web video.

Obama, who has been silent on Gaza because he says America has only one President at a time, promised that "after Jan. 20, I am going to have plenty to say about the issue."

Analysis: Fatah, Hamas face internal divisions

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Jerusalem - The Israeli assault on Gaza has deepened the tensions between Hamas and the ruling Fatah party of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. But the attack also has revealed fractures within each party, divisions that complicate efforts to negotiate a cease-fire.

On Monday, Hamas' political leadership in Damascus, Syria, dispatched delegates to talks in Cairo - even as its leaders in Gaza goaded Israeli forces deeper into their territory and vowed victory and vengeance.

Inside Fatah, Abbas headed for the U.N. Security Council to urge a cease-fire resolution - even as his likely replacement, imprisoned Fatah firebrand Marwan Barghouti, urged Palestinians to join Hamas in its resistance.

Some observers believe that the military assault will make Hamas more amenable to a long-term cease-fire while a weakened Fatah will have no choice but to accept a peace deal more favorable to Israel.

The hatred between Fatah and Hamas boiled over as the first Israeli jets began their bombardment of Gaza on Dec. 27. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal called for a "third intifada" - a military one against the Israeli occupation and a peaceful one to overthrow Fatah in the West Bank. Hamas leaders branded Abbas a "collaborator" and accused him of feeding intelligence to the Israeli army.

Abbas hit back by blaming Hamas for inviting the Israeli assault by unilaterally ending a fragile six-month cease-fire.

"We have warned of this grave danger," Abbas said last week. "We talked to them and we told them, 'Please, we ask you, do not end the truce. Let the truce continue and not stop.' "

Many West Bank Palestinians, while still hating Israel, have developed a special loathing for Hamas. They recall the 400 Fatah supporters murdered in Hamas' bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip in summer 2007. At a rehabilitation center in Ramallah, dozens of young men are trying to rebuild their lives after being brutally tortured and maimed by Hamas fighters.

But the Fatah distaste for Hamas has been tempered by the scenes from Gaza. While Abbas has denounced Israel's "barbaric aggression" and called for a cease-fire, increasing numbers of Fatah leaders have broken ranks and given their support to Hamas. Barghouti - Abbas' most likely replacement as president when his term expires on Friday - on Sunday threw his considerable moral weight behind Hamas.

"Fatah and its men are an integral part of this battle and in confronting the aggression," Barghouti said in a message from an Israeli prison where he is serving five life terms for murder arising from terror attacks during the recent intifada.

Barghouti urged all Palestinian factions to put aside their differences and unite in resisting the Israelis in Gaza.

"The Israeli aggression is directed against all the Palestinians and their cause," he said. "This is the time to join forces in combatting the Israeli occupation."

Ziyad Abu Ein, the Fatah deputy minister of prisoners' affairs, called on Hamas to return all the weapons they seized in the June 2007 Gaza coup so Fatah supporters - including U.S.-trained security personnel - could join the fight. "We have over 70,000 men in Gaza, including the former security forces, who can help repel the Israeli aggression," he said.

Mohammad Yaghi, a fellow of the Washington Institute focusing on Palestinian politics, said Hamas "seeks to drive a wedge into an already divided Fatah. It has urged Fatah radicals to join the battle against Israel, insisting that its problems with Fatah are limited to Abbas and his authority, not the general movement. Some members of Fatah are clearly sympathetic to Hamas and any confrontation with Israel."

But Hamas leaders, clearly surprised by the ferocity of the Israeli assault, have their own problems. There have been tensions for some time between the Damascus-based leadership under political chief Mashaal and the hard-line Gaza leadership headed by Mahmoud Zahar, who has long sought the replacement of Mashaal's protege, Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh. In late 2007, supporters of Haniyeh and Zahar clashed in the Shati refugee camp and in Dir El Balah.

Two weeks ago, Zahar pointedly rebuked Mashaal for announcing the end of the cease-fire before the move was approved by leaders in Gaza.

Internal Hamas documents published by the Haaretz newspaper in October revealed deep divisions between Gaza and Damascus over policy toward Egypt and the make-up of Hamas' secret governing shura council, where the Gazans want to increase their representation from 34 to 51 percent.

"We have certain indications that the political level of Hamas headquartered in Damascus realizes that the more the fighting goes on, the more the risk for them of losing everything they have created over 21 years of their existence," said former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, pointing to the Hamas decision to join talks in Egypt today as a sign that they were becoming weakened and split.

Israel tightens grip on Gaza City

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, January 6th

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem, ERICA SILVERMAN in Ramallah, West Bank and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Balilty/AP

President Shimon Peres visits a wounded Israeli soldier on Monday.

MCT

Hamas leaders emerged from their bunkers on Monday to offer only defiance and new threats as Israeli helicopters and tanks killed a growing number of Palestinian civilians.

"The enemy is flustered, the enemy has failed. It cannot hurt us. All it does is kill innocent women and children," Hamas paramilitary wing spokesman Abu Obaida said proudly.

On Day 10 of the Gaza war, the second full day of ground operations, Israeli troops and tanks surrounding Gaza City began to squeeze.

They broadcast radio warnings telling people to move toward the center of the city for their safety.

But there was no safety.

As F-16s swooped overhead firing missiles into buildings, the city's 400,000 residents were suffering - or dying.

At least 14 children were killed, raising the Palestinian death toll from the 10-day onslaught to 540 - about a third of them civilians, the UN said.

Eleven members of Salah Samouni's family, including five small children, died when their apartment building suddenly became rubble.

Thirteen members of another family, including three toddlers, were killed by shells in the mourning tent where they were watching over the body of a paramedic killed in northern Gaza.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the offensive would stop only when Israel had won "peace and tranquility" for citizens living in range of Hamas rockets.

"Hamas has sustained a very heavy blow from us, but we have yet to achieve our objective and therefore the operation continues," he said.

The Israeli Army said "many dozens" of militants have been killed or wounded.

A senior Hamas political leader outside Gaza told the Daily News he thought Hamas would agree to a ceasefire if the border crossings were reopened.

"The government in Gaza is completely paralyzed," he said.

In Gaza City, Israeli commandos went block by block, seeking out houses marked by intelligence as shielding Hamas missiles and explosives.

Under one house, soldiers chased Hamas fighters who fled into a warren of underground tunnels.

Israel said its forces sustained five wounded, bringing the Israeli military casualties to 53 wounded and one dead.

Despite the onslaught, more than 20 Hamas rockets were launched at Israel, hitting towns up to 25 miles away.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, the most powerful Hamas figure inside Gaza, broke his 10-day silence, reading a statement on video from an underground bunker.

Israel, he said, "has hardly touched the Hamas forces. Victory is coming, God willing."

At the overwhelmed Palestinian hospitals, where generator fuel is about to run out, victory was low on the list of concerns.

"Whoever comes with a head, we check his pulse. If there's no pulse, he's straight to the morgue. If there's no head, well, goodbye," said Raed Arini, an official at chaotic Shifa Hospital.

The carnage had some Palestinians wishing for Hamas' demise.

"I am counting the days until Hamas is finished, it will be a holiday," said Hashem, a Gaza pharmacist holed up in an apartment with his mother and two sisters.

Others were becoming radicalized.

"I used to criticize the rockets," said Abu Othman, waiting for bread to feed his seven children.

"Now I want to see buses blown up in Israel."

Thousands of Israeli troops move deeper into Gaza, surrounding biggest city in close combat

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, January 5th 2009

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Guez/Getty

Israeli soldiers clean their cannon as they keep their position in the Israeli side of Israel-Gaza border on Sunday.

Thousands of Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships began to surround Gaza City on Sunday in the first full day of the ground war against Hamas militants.

"Hamas needs a real and serious lesson. They are now getting it," said Israeli President Shimon Peres. "They are now beginning to feel the weight of their mistakes."

As the ground invasion got underway, Israeli forces effectively split the narrow Gaza Strip in two, halting any north-south flow of refugees or weapons.

One Israeli soldier was killed in a firefight and up to 70 Palestinians died, officials said.

At least 512 Palestinians have been killed since Operation Cast Lead began Dec. 27 - more than 100 of them civilians. Three Israeli civilians and two soldiers have died.

As Hamas fired 30 rockets into southern Israel and nearly 1 million Israelis stayed near bomb shelters, witnesses said Israeli armored columns were advancing on Gaza City from the north, south and east.

In the city, families cowered in their apartments, the buildings shaking from explosions that sent booms and flashes ripping across the sky.

In northern Gaza, there were reports of heavy street fighting as Israeli forces captured positions in Beit Hanoun, Zeitoun and Beit Lahiya and advanced into the crowded alleyways of the Jabalya refugee camp just north of Gaza City. "Most of the resistance that we faced was from mortar shells - not from serious Hamas fighters face to face," a senior Israeli officer told reporters.

Another armed column moved into position near Rafah on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, leveling a disused airport.

Israeli Navy gunships pounded targets along the shoreline, and three senior Hamas commanders were reported killed when Israeli helicopter gunships targeted their vehicles with missiles.

Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Hamas' paramilitary Qassem Brigades, denied reports that 30 of the dead were Hamas fighters, branding it an example of "the enemy's psychological warfare."

Israel also denied Hamas claims it captured two soldiers. The reports could not be verified because journalists were denied access to Gaza despite an Israeli High Court order.

Israel confiscated all its soldiers' cell phones so they couldn't divulge their movements.

Israeli soldiers captured the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV channel and broadcast messages telling Hamas leaders to surrender.

Other Arab TV channels broadcast gruesome photos of dead Palestinian children, fueling pro-Palestinian protests in New York; Athens; London; Kabul, Afghanistan, and the West Bank.

U.S. Secretary of State Rice canceled a visit to China to monitor the Mideast. Her designated successor, Hillary Clinton, kept a low profile.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas headed to New York to beg the UN Security Council for help. The United States is blocking a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is set to arrive in Israel today to try to broker a truce.

Appearing on ABC, Peres rejected the idea, saying Israel won't cease fire while Hamas keeps firing rockets into Israel.

"We don't intend neither to occupy Gaza nor to crush Hamas, but to crush terror," Peres said.

Palestinian diplomat Saeb Erakat said military crackdowns never bring peace.

"It does not work in south Lebanon. It does not work in Iraq. It does not work in Afghanistan. It will not work in Gaza," he said, predicting instead the result will be "weakening moderates and strengthening extremists."

Lebanon lurks in shadow: Israel, Hamas say they learned lessons from 2006 war

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, January 5th

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Hana/AP
Smoke, caused by explosions during an Israeli operation, rise over Gaza City on Sunday.

The specter of Israel's ill-fated 2006 war on Hezbollah hangs heavy over Gaza, with both sides hoping to profit from lessons learned in Lebanon.

Israeli infantry units, who were so poorly prepared for urban combat two years ago, have been training in a $30 million mock Gaza City at the Tze'elim army base east of the real Gaza Strip.

Built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and funded largely by the U.S., the fake city covers 7.4 square miles and consists of 1,100 basic modules that can be arranged to represent market squares, public buildings and mosques. Israeli soldiers play the part of Arab civilians and militants, with all the shooting done by paintball.This time, Israel will not underestimate the enemy, leaders promise

Meanwhile, Hamas has taken note of where Hezbollah fighters had the edge in 2006.

Since taking over the Gaza Strip in 2007 from the Palestinian Authority, which was committed to disarming the militants, Hamas has been free to build a sprawling network of tunnels - the kind Hezbollah pioneered - to hide in and launch remote ambushes. Hamas also is believed to have built a vast armory of smuggled weapons.

"The Zionist enemy is advancing toward the trap we have prepared for them," said the Qassem Brigades, Hamas' military wing.

This time, Israel is better prepared to deal with the tunnels, however, including employing new sonar, radar and other sensors deployed in unmanned drones and in helicopters.

Analysts say bitter memories of 2006 are driving Israel in another way: A main objective of the Gaza war is to wipe out memories of failures in Lebanon.

"Israel believes its deterrence was lost in that war, and Israel's current campaign against Hamas should be seen as an effort to regain that deterrence," said David Makovsky, director of the Washington Institute's Project on the Middle East Peace Process. "Military officials believe that if Hamas feared Israel, they would not be firing rockets."

The 34-day Lebanon campaign was marred by hasty decisions and unrealistic expectations. War plans were abandoned at the last minute; the bombastic goals of the operation were impossible to fulfill; the command structure was faulty and troops were under-trained and ill-equipped.

"Things are being done in a much more orderly way," cabinet minister Isaac Herzog said.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the Gaza operation is so far "identical" to Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon.

"It is the same choices, the same battle, the same conspiracies. And God-willing, there will be the same outcome," he said.

ANALYSIS: Israel limits its goals in hope of avoiding repeat of ill-fated Lebanon war

DAILY MAIL.COM
4th January 2009

By Matthew Kalman

The Israeli cabinet decision to launch a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip was taken over the objection of two senior ministers and dominated by the memory of Israel's failure to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon two years ago.

Mindful of the bitter recriminations that followed the ill-fated Lebanon war of 2006, Israel has set very limited objectives for phase two of 'Operation Cast Lead' in Gaza and left itself considerable room for diplomatic manouevring.

Israeli Deputy Premier Haim Ramon and Industry Minister Eli Yishai demanded that the invasion should seek to topple the regime of Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip from President Mahmoud Abbas's forces in a bloody coup in June 2007 in which 400 people were brutally murdered.

Israeli infantry soldiers take up positions on the border before entering the Gaza Strip

But, aware of the exaggerated targets it set in Lebanon – and failed to achieve - the Israeli cabinet decide instead to seek more modest aims.

'The objective of this phase of the operation is to intensify the heavy blow already dealt to Hamas and to take control of the area from where most of the rocket attacks against Israel originate, in order to reduce those rocket attacks,' said Brigadier-General Avi Benayahu, the Israel army spokesman.

'Stage two of Operation Cast Lead has been launched to support our central goals which are to deal a heavy blow to the Hamas terror organisation, to strengthen Israel's deterrence, and to create a better security situation for those living around the Gaza Strip that will be maintained for the long term,' he said.

'Reducing' the rocket attacks and dealing a 'heavy blow' to Hamas are a long way from a promise to stop the attacks completely and put an end to Hamas.

A Jordanian demonstrator shouts anti-Israeli slogans and holds a picture of late Hamas leader Nizar Rayan

Israel appears to be seeking to weaken the Hamas regime and is hinting that an occasional missile breaking an eventual ceasefire will not be a deal-breaker.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has managed to marginalise the voices led by ministers Ramon and Yishai for Israel to re-occupy Gaza and depose Hamas.

By setting limited aims for the operation, Olmert has avoided many of the pitfalls that plagued the 34-day war against Hezbollah which ended with at least 1,110 people killed in Lebanon and 157 Isarelis dead.

Israeli army spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovitch made that crystal clear. 'We have no intention of conquering the Gaza Strip,' she said.

An Israeli man rides a motorcycle near Kibbutz Kfar Azza during a visit to show solidarity with Israeli troops stationed on the Israel-Gaza border

The Israeli army is far better trained for this operation than it was for the fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The infantry, parachute and armoured divisions who crossed into Gaza on Saturday night have been training in urban warfare at a specially-built mock Gaza town at an Israeli army base in the Negev desert.

Israel's intelligence is also much improved compared to 2006, when Israeli special forces commandos were staggered to discover that Hezbollah was a well-trained, disciplined army and not the rag-bag of part-time gunmen they believed it to be.

The decision to invade is still a high risk gamble for the Israeli cabinet as the government faces elections in litte over five weeks.

PM Olmert, embroiled in a corruption scandal, is stepping down from any leadership role but Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni - leader of the centrist Kadima party - and defence minister Ehud Barak, the Labour party chief, will have been greatly heartened by opinion polls showing the Israeli strategy has huge popular support - for now.

However, if Israeli soldiers start coming home in body bags and the offensive continues for days or weeks with no clear victory in sight they know that their jobs will be very much on the line as well as a likely hammering for their parties at the polls on February 10th.

Analysis: Israel fighting ghost of Lebanon

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sunday, January 4, 2009

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Jerusalem - As Israel rolled its forces across the border into Gaza and began its ground war on Saturday, Hamas leaders scornfully said the Israelis were playing right into their hands.

"The Zionist enemy is advancing toward the trap we have prepared for them," Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing, boasted in a statement.

"Gaza will be your cemetery, and you have no choice but to end the aggression and lift the blockade," added Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan.

The derision contained in those taunts may reflect false bravado. But it also underscores a central issue underlying the Gaza conflict and Israel's position: The Jewish state has lost a large measure of its capacity to intimidate and control its regional enemies, a new vulnerability that dates back to the stalemate with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia in 2006.

"Israel believes its deterrence was lost in that war, and Israel's current campaign against Hamas should be seen as an effort to regain that deterrence. Israeli military officials believe that if Hamas feared Israel, they would not be firing rockets at Israeli towns," said David Makovsky, director of the Washington Institute's Project on the Middle East Peace Process.

"The legacy of Israel's inconclusive 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006 hovers over Israel's current military operations in Gaza," he said.

Even Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah mocked Israel in recent days, telling Palestinians they are experiencing a rerun of his group's monthlong conflict with Israel, offering them an analysis of Israel's battle plan and strategy for victory.

"What is happening today in Gaza is not similar but identical to what happened in July of 2006," Nasrallah said in a speech last week. "It is the same choices, the same battle, the same conspiracies, and God willing there will be the same outcome."

Nasrallah said Israel is trying to establish a foothold in Gaza, just as it did in Lebanon, to be used as a bargaining chip if the U.N. Security Council finally intervenes.

To judge from their public statements after the ground operation began on Saturday, Hamas has yet to be deterred after a week of air strikes that have wreaked havoc in Gaza, killing more than 480 people and injuring an estimated 2,750 - most of them Hamas members and their families.

Since the air attacks began, Hamas militants have bombarded southern Israel with more than 400 rockets - including dozens that extended deeper into Israel than ever before, according to the Israeli military.

For its part, Israel has yet to clearly express what it expects to achieve by sending in thousands of ground troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships.

Addressing reporters in a televised briefing Saturday night, Israeli Defense Minster Ehud Barak put the aims of "Operation Cast Lead" in simple but vague terms.

"The aim is to stop hostile activity from Gaza against the citizens of Israel and to bring about a fundamental change in the situation in the south," Barak said. "We seek peace. We have gritted our teeth for a long time. But the time has come to do what needs to be done. To give our citizens what is appropriate for every citizen in the world, peace and quiet, and to remove as far as possible the threat for the foreseeable future."

However, Amnon Abramovitch, one of Israel's leading military analysts, said he sees no clear strategy after studying the comments of four senior Cabinet members.

"Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak talk about an 'arrangement' (with Hamas). Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni talks about 'a severe blow' (to Hamas) but without any arrangement. Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon talks about toppling Hamas. There are nuances within the Israeli Cabinet," said Abramovitch. "In all modesty, I don't know what to tell you about how it will end."

Khaled Hroub, author of "Hamas: A Beginner's Guide," told Al-Jazeera television that any Israeli incursion into Gaza is doomed to failure.

"I can't see any success, strategically speaking, on the side of the Israeli aggression. That is because Israel declared that their one main objective is to disarm Hamas and stop rockets from being launched from the Gaza Strip," he said. "Even after one month of this aggression, if one single rocket is launched from the Gaza Strip, this means the whole Israeli strategy has failed."

Hroub noted that Hamas is well entrenched in the Gaza Strip, hiding weapons and supplies in a network of tunnels, and would be a formidable enemy in close-combat fighting on its own territory.

Away from the bluster of Israeli politicians, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu gave perhaps the most concrete answer when explaining the ground invasion.

"The objective of this phase is to intensify the heavy blow already dealt to Hamas and to take control of the area from where most of the rocket attacks against Israel originate," said Benayahu. "Stage two of Operation Cast Lead has been launched to support our central goals, which are to deal a heavy blow to the Hamas terror organization, to strengthen Israel's deterrence, and to create a better security situation for those living around the Gaza Strip that will be maintained for the long term."

With that in mind, the huge force amassed at the border may not be a sign that Israel intends to reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip, or even topple Hamas from power. It may simply be a strategy chosen by the new Israeli army chief, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, to carry out a limited operation with a simple objective: seize rocket-launching sites and wait for Hamas to agree to a new cease-fire, perhaps under international supervision.

Benayahu even said Israel might be willing to accept a "reduction" in rockets being fired at its cities instead of a total cessation. In that way, Israel might prevent Gaza from becoming a reprise of its battle with Hezbollah.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Israel fells key Hamas strongman, escalating conflict; says it's ready for ground invasion

BY MATTHEW KALMAN IN JERUSALEM AND HELEN KENNEDY IN NEW YORK
Daily News Writers

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, January 2nd 2009

Katib/Getty
Palestinians search for bodies in the rubble of the destroyed house of Hamas senior leader Nizar Rayan after an Israeli missiles strike.

As Israel prepared a "short term" invasion of the Gaza Strip Thursday, a top Hamas terror leader sacrificed himself - and at least four of his children - in a vain attempt to protect a weapons cache beneath his home.

Nizar Rayyan, 49, a law professor at the Islamic University in Gaza and a prominent leader of the Hamas terrorist wing, died when Israeli jets fired three missiles into his four-story apartment building north of Gaza City.

Also killed were at least two of his four wives. There were unconfirmed reports that as many as all four wives and nine of his 12 kids died when the building was vaporized.

The Israeli Army said it phoned Rayyan minutes before the attack, urging him to evacuate before the building was bombed, but he refused.

Rayyan was the most senior Hamas figure killed in five years and the first to die in Israel's six-day-old bombardment of Gaza, aimed at toppling the Hamas government. "We are trying to hit everybody who is a leader of the organization," said Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon.

Rayyan was well-known, appearing on news videos wearing battle fatigues and brandishing a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, riding with heavily armed and masked members of the Qassam Brigades, the terrorist wing of Hamas. In October 2001, he sent his son on a suicide mission that killed two Israelis. Most Hamas leaders went into hiding, but not the defiant Rayyan.

"Many secondary explosions were identified as a result of the attack, thus proving that the house was used for storing weaponry," said an Israeli army spokesman.

Hamas said Israel would pay a "heavy price" for his death. The burly Rayyan was last seen Wednesday delivering a fiery sermon at a local mosque.

"Our only language with the Jew is through the gun," he declared, calling for a renewal of suicide bombings and vowing to kidnap any Israeli ground forces who dared to enter Gaza.

Rayyan was one of the architects of the bloody Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 in which 400 Palestinians loyal to the rival Fatah party were killed and dozens more maimed and tortured.

The death of Rayyan and his family brought the Palestinian death toll of "Operation Cast Lead" to about 420 in six days. Four Israelis have died.

Thousands of Israeli troops stood ready at the border, poised to begin a ground invasion.

Israeli military chiefs planned "a major, but relatively short-term, ground offensive," according to the Israeli Haaretz daily. Israeli TV reported an Israeli hospital near the Gaza border was evacuated to ready for the possibility of troop casualties.

Israel will allow 443 foreigners in Gaza to leave today.

"We did not declare war on Gaza's residents, but we will deal with Hamas with an iron fist," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

"We have no interest in a lengthy war and we do not seek to expand the conflict. We want calm and a normal existence for the residents of [southern Israel]. We want children to grow up there with sense of security, rather than with fear and nightmares."

Egypt's foreign minister called on Hamas to stop rocket fire, criticizing the militants for giving Israel an excuse to attack.

Hamas vows to 'fight to last breath'

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, January 1st, 2009

BY ERICA SILVERMAN in Gaza City, MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem, and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Hams/Getty

A Palestinian youth hold copies of the Koran that he found amid the debris of a mosque in Gaza City on December 31, 2008.

Thousands of Israeli troops massed on the border with the Gaza Strip Wednesday night after Israel rejected calls for a temporary truce in its Chanukah war on Hamas.

As Hamas vowed to fight "until the last breath," ordinary Palestinian citizens in Gaza City - where there is no power or water - braced for an invasion. Bread lines and funeral marches were the only signs of life in the normally crowded streets.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe sent waves of dread through Gaza when he signaled that Washington won't try to stop Israel.

"A ground offensive - it's a term that encompasses a lot of things," Johndroe said at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex. "I think it is just part and parcel of the overall operation that Israel is undertaking to rid Hamas of its ability to fire rockets into Israel."

On the fifth day of "Operation Cast Lead," Israel's security cabinet rejected any ceasefire as the body count in Gaza climbed near 400, 50 of them children, and Hamas rockets continued to land inside Israel. Four Israelis have been killed since Saturday.

"Israel will not agree to exist beside a terror strip," said Israeli President Shimon Peres, explaining why international pleas for a humanitarian ceasefire went unheeded.

"We have to protect our children," he said. "Hamas left us no choice."

Heavy cloud cover and a driving rain hampered the warplanes, so Israeli warships took up the bombardment of Gaza from the sea. The weather is supposed to clear today.

A total of 9,000 reservists have been called up this week, and Israeli pols have been hinting at a ground invasion.

"We in Hamas are ready for all scenarios and we will fight until the last breath," senior official Mushir al-Masri told the French Press Agency. "We have prepared surprises for them."

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, unscathed when his office was bombed Wednesday, said militants will keep firing rockets until the air strikes stop and Israel lifts the blockade that began strangling the Gaza Strip in 2007.

The head of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, taunted Israel for hesitating on the border.

"What is happening in Gaza is a victory, despite all the pure blood being spilled," Nasrallah said.

If a ground invasion goes ahead, Gaza's already-strained medical services will collapse, health care officials warned.

The operation Israel calls "all out war on Hamas" began Saturday during the festive Jewish winter holiday and is named for a Chanukah poem about "a dreidel cast of solid lead."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, "Israel has shown restraint for years. She gave the truce a chance; we told ourselves 'let's try it,' but Hamas violated the truce."

Israel's supreme court ordered the military to allow journalists into Gaza to report on the air strikes. Israel has restricted reporters from entering Gaza for months.

Israeli jets leveled a Gaza City mosque that was allegedly being used to hide a cache of Hamas rockets and missiles.