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- February 07 :
The UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) has said that it is still waiting for the promised return of aid to the Gaza Strip it says was taken by Hamas.
Unrwa, which provides food aid for many Gazans who rely on it to survive, said that it would not consider the incident over until the aid - 200 tonnes of rice and flour - had been given back.
The agency said it had stopped importing aid into the Gaza Strip after 10 lorries loaded with humanitarian supplies were seized by Hamas members at Gaza's Kerem Shalom crossing on Friday.
Hamas, the de facto government in the Gaza Strip, said that the aid was "mistakenly" taken and that the incident would not be repeated.
A Gaza-based spokesman for the UN said that the agency had been told on Saturday afternoon that the aid would be returned later in the day.
It was the second time this week that Hamas members had seized aid supplies after 3,500 blankets and 400 food parcels were taken from an Unrwa at gunpoint on Tuesday, the UN agency said.
January 31 :
Palestinian militants fired a rocket from Gaza on Saturday that landed close to the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon without causing any damages or injury, an Israeli military spokesman said.
Israeli forces and Gaza militants are meant to be refrain from attacking each other, but the fragile cease-fire has been breached several times, making diplomatic efforts to build a lasting truce difficult.
Also Saturday, relations between Turkey and Israel continued to be tense, with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasting Israel in an interview for turning the West Bank and Gaza Strip into an "an open-air prison."
The Israeli military spokesman, who cannot be named according to army regulations, said it was the first rocket fired from Gaza since Thursday.
There was no claim of responsibility from Palestinian militant groups.
Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers stopped fighting in late January after a fierce three-week Israeli offensive meant to halt eight years of near-daily rocket fire from Gaza at southern Israel.
Nearly 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, about half of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Thirteen Israelis were also killed, three of them civilians.
Since then, Palestinian militants have fired rockets sporadically toward Israel and killed one soldier on Tuesday. Israel has conducted retaliatory strikes and pounded border tunnels it says Hamas uses to smuggle in weapons from Egypt.
Without a political agreement to anchor the cease-fire, Gaza and Israel's southern region are expected to continue to be unstable. The biggest winners in the Gaza war, however, appear to be hard-liners on both sides who are likely to continue taking uncompromising positions.
On Friday, top Gaza Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayeh emerged in public for the first time since the war began to declare victory. In Israel, leading hawk Benyamin Netanyahu is the front-runner in elections just a week away.
Hamas has ruled out a long-term cease-fire with Israel if they do not open sealed border crossings with the coastal territory. Israel is unlikely to do so while the militant group rules Gaza, and hold captive Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, seized in a cross-border raid in 2006.
President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, completed his first visit to Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Friday evening, but little substantive work can be done until Israel completes its elections.
On Saturday, Turkey's Erdogan criticized Israel for arresting leading Hamas parliamentarians and described the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "an open-air prison" in an interview with the Washington Post.
Erdogan said Israel's moves provoked Hamas. "You expect them to sit obediently?" he asked in the interview.
The Turkish Prime Minister's frank criticism has come as its relationship with Israel appears to be in a downward spiral.
On Thursday Israeli President Shimon Peres had a heated exchange with Erdogan at a panel discussion in Davos, Switzerland in which he accused the Israelis of killing children.
Later on Friday, Erdogan suggested the high Palestinian civilian death toll in Gaza during Israel's operation was intentional.
On Saturday, Erdogan said the current Israeli government "should check itself" over its war in Gaza.
"They should not exploit this issue for the upcoming elections in Israel," he said.
January 28 :
Palestinian officials said Israel suddenly decided on Wednesday to partially reopen Gaza commercial crossing points following a one-day complete closure.
Ra'ed Fatouh, Gaza crossings coordinator said in a statement "the Israeli side informed us early this morning that all Gaza border crossings are opened for dozens of trucks."
Israel decided to reopen the crossing points of Gaza to allow more humanitarian aids, fuels and daily basic needs of foods and medicines for Gaza Strip population.
Fatouh said that 110 trucks will be allowed into Gaza through Kerem Shalom crossing, including 82 trucks loaded with humanitarian aids and 36 trucks loaded with flour, fruits, agricultural equipment and diary products.
He added that another 80 trucks loaded with fodder and wheat will be allowed through Karni crossing, while the industrial fuels to operate Gaza power plant will be allowed through Nahal Oz depot.
Israel had shut down Gaza crossings with its borders shortly after Gaza militants attacked by a bomb an Israeli armored personnel carrier on Tuesday, in which one Israeli soldier was killed and three wounded.
A 22-day Israeli large-scale military assault on Gaza that ended on Jan. 18 had caused a severe humanitarian crisis in the enclave due to shortage of food and other basic needs of fuels and cooking gas.
January 24 :
All schools in the war-battered Gaza Strip reopened Saturday, a week after Israel ended a 22-day large-scale military offensive on the enclave.
Officials in the Gaza education ministry and the United Nations said that about 200,000 schoolchildren are back to their classrooms. More than 35 schools were used to shelter families who have their homes destroyed and fled it.
UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said that during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the United Nations opened 37 schools allover the Gaza Strip to shelter around 50,000 people who have their homes destroyed.
Meanwhile, Abu Hasna welcomed Israel's decision on Friday to lift the ban on the entrance of foreign aids workers to the Gaza Strip. Foreign aids workers were not allowed to enter into Gaza after Israel closed all Gaza crossings.
Aid agencies welcomed the lifting of the restrictions, but warned that the task ahead was "enormous", with vast amounts of building materials alone needed to help rebuild schools, hospitals, mosques, and homes.
Life in the Gaza Strip is gradually getting back to normal, where also stores, banks and nongovernment organizations reopened. Gaza universities have not opened yet, said officials in the Hamas-ruled ministry of education.
Dozens of Hamas police officers, wearing their blue uniform arranged the traffic in Gaza on Saturday, where dozens of workers were seen cleaning up streets and removing the rubble.
Israel's war on Gaza killed 1,330 people, at least half of them civilians, and wounded 5,450 others, Palestinian medics said on Thursday in a final toll of the offensive.
Among the dead were 437 children under 16, 110 women, 123 elderly men, 14 medics and four journalists, according to Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza medical services.
The wounded include 1,890 children and 200 people in serious condition, he said. Six hundred injured people have been transferred outside Gaza for treatment.
Israel unleashed its Operation Cast Lead on the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip on December 27 in response to rocket fire from the territory and brought it to an end last Sunday with a ceasefire.
On the Israeli side, three civilians and 10 soldiers died in combat and rocket strikes and dozens were wounded, according to official figures.
JANUARY 19 :
Israel plans to pull all of its troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated Tuesday, but only if Hamas militants hold their fire, Israeli officials said.
Thousands of troops have left Gaza since Israel declared Saturday its intention to unilaterally halt fire after a devastating, three-week Israeli onslaught. Gaza's Hamas rulers ceased fire 12 hours later. Large contingents of Israeli soldiers have kept close to the border, prepared to re-enter the territory if violence re-ignites.
A swift troop withdrawal would reduce the likelihood of clashes between militants and Israeli forces that could rupture the truce.
By getting its soldiers out before the Obama inauguration, Israel hopes to pave the way for a smooth beginning with the Obama administration and spare the incoming president the trouble of having to deal with a burning problem in Gaza from his first day, the Israeli officials said.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the plan.
Israel has been quietly concerned about possible policy changes by the incoming administration after eight years of staunch support from President George W. Bush. Obama has said Mideast peace will be a priority even as he grapples with a global economic crisis and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Israel made its troop withdrawal plan known at a dinner Sunday with European leaders who came to the region in an effort to consolidate the fragile cease-fire, the Israeli officials said.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his guests that his country had no desire to stay in Gaza, a Mediterranean strip of 1.4 million people that Israel vacated in 2005, while retaining control of its airspace, coastal waters and border crossings.
"We didn't set out to conquer Gaza. We didn't set out to control Gaza. We don't want to remain in Gaza and we intend on leaving Gaza as fast as possible," Olmert told the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic, according to the officials.
Israel also holds elections next month, and polls show Israel's wartime leaders have been strengthened by the offensive that drew overwhelming support at home even as it attracted widespread condemnation across the globe because of the high Palestinian casualties.
At least 1,259 Palestinians were killed in Israel's air and ground onslaught, more than half of them civilians, according to the United Nations, Gaza health officials and rights groups. Thirteen Israelis died, including four soldiers killed inadvertently by their own forces' fire.
In Hamas' first statement on losses it suffered during the offensive, spokesman Abu Obeida said Monday that the militant group lost 48 fighters. It was impossible to verify the figure, which is far below the hundreds of militants that Israel claims it killed.
Neither side has reported a violation of the truce since Hamas halted its fire. But the quiet remains tenuous because neither side achieved its long-term goals.
Israel won a decisive battlefield victory but did not end Hamas' rocket fire into the southern part of the country or solve the problem of smuggled arms reaching Gaza militants.
Hamas remains firmly in power in Gaza, but Palestinian casualties were steep and large swaths of the tiny seaside territory were devastated by the Israeli air and ground assault. Gaza municipal officials said an initial assessment showed some 20,000 residential and government buildings were severely damaged and another 4,000 destroyed. Some 50 of the U.N.'s 220 schools, clinics and warehouses were battered in shelling and crossfire.
Before arriving in Jerusalem, the European officials met with Arab leaders in Egypt to discuss ways to cement the truce. Delivering humanitarian aid to rebuild Gaza and opening borders blockaded by Israel emerged as key goals.
Gaza's border crossings have been sealed since Hamas violently took over the territory in 2007, deepening the already grinding poverty there and trapping the residents inside.
The gathering failed to deliver a specific plan to stanch the flow of arms into Gaza by sea and through tunnels built under the 8-mile border Gaza and Egypt share. Israel wants international monitors, but Egypt has refused to have them on its side of the border.
The truce brought relief to Gaza's citizens, who took stock of the devastation in relative safety for the first time since Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27. And it brought more trauma, as rescue workers in surgical masks ventured into what were once no-go areas and pulled 100 bodies from buildings pulverized by bombs.
"We've pulled out my nephew, but I don't know how many are still under there," Zayed Hadar said as he sifted through the rubble of his flattened home in the northern town of Jebaliya.
Despite losses suffered, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh claimed "a heavenly victory" in remarks broadcast on Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel.
Tension eased in southern Israel, even though Hamas launched nearly 20 rockets in a final salvo before announcing a cease-fire. Three Israelis were lightly wounded, while two Palestinians were killed in last-minute fighting, medics said.
In the rocket-battered Israeli town of Sderot, residents went back to their routines, after sitting out the war locked inside their homes or in safer parts of the country. One man sat on a sidewalk in the sunshine, eating a chicken sandwich.
"We want it quiet here," said 65-year-old Yoav Peled. "And if it isn't, our army is ready to continue."
30 MINUTES AGO (JANUARY 18) :
Militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza agreed Sunday to a weeklong cease-fire with Israel, after three weeks of violence that Palestinian medics say has killed more than 1,000 people and turned Gaza's streets into battlegrounds.
Sunday's announcement came about 12 hours after Israel declared its own unilateral ceasefire.
Hamas' Syrian-based deputy leader, speaking for the militant Palestinian factions, said on Syrian television that the cease-fire will give Israel time to withdraw and open all the border crossings to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
An Israeli security chief told Cabinet ministers the military operation "is not over" and that the next few days would be critical to determining whether it would resume.
The military said no one was injured by more than a dozen militant rockets that struck southern Israel ahead of the announcement from deputy Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk on Syrian television.
"We the Palestinian resistance factions declare a cease-fire from our side in Gaza and we confirm our stance that the enemy's troops must withdraw from Gaza within a week," Abou Marzouk said.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev would not say what level of violence would provoke Israel to call off the cease-fire.
"Israel's decision allows it to respond and renew fire at our enemies, the different terror organizations in the Gaza Strip, as long as they continue attacking," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the start of the weekly Cabinet session.
"This morning some of them continued their fire, provoking what we had warned of," Olmert said. "This cease-fire is fragile and we must examine it minute by minute, hour by hour."
In Gaza, people loaded vans and donkey carts with mattresses and began venturing back to their homes to see what was left standing after the punishing air and ground assault the tiny seaside territory endured. Bulldozers began shoving aside rubble in Gaza City, the territory's biggest population center, to clear a path for cars while medical workers sifting through mounds of concrete said they discovered 75 bodies. discovered dozens of bodies in the debris.
The Israeli cease-fire went into effect at 2 a.m. Sunday local time after three weeks of fighting that killed some 1,200 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian and United Nations officials. At least 13 Israelis also died, according to the government.
An official who attended the Israeli Cabinet meeting quoted internal security service chief Yuval Diskin as telling ministers that "the operation is not over."
"The next few days will make clear if we are heading toward a cease-fire or the renewal of fighting," security chief Yuval Diskin was quoted as saying. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Cabinet meetings are closed.
Israel stopped its offensive before reaching a long-term solution to the problem of arms smuggling into Gaza, one of the war's declared aims. And Israel's insistence on keeping soldiers in Gaza raised the prospect of a stalemate with the territory's rulers.
The cease-fire went into effect just days ahead of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday. Outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration welcomed Israel's decision and a summit set for later Sunday in Egypt is meant to give international backing to the truce.
Leaders of Germany, France, Spain, Britain, Italy, Turkey and the Czech Republic — which holds the rotating European Union presidency — are expected to attend along with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.
Ban welcomed the cease-fire. "Urgent humanitarian access for the people of Gaza is the immediate priority," he said, declaring that "the United Nations is ready to act."
Israel said it was not sending a representative to the meeting. Hamas, shunned internationally as a terrorist organization, was not invited. However, the group has been mediating with Egypt and any arrangement to open Gaza's blockaded borders for trade would likely need Hamas' acquiescence.
In announcing the truce late Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would withhold fire after achieving its goals and more.
"Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed," Olmert said.
If Hamas holds its fire, the military "will weigh pulling out of Gaza at a time that befits us," Olmert said. If not, Israel "will continue to act to defend our residents."
In Gaza, people began to take stock of the devastation. The Shahadeh family loaded mattresses into the trunk of a car in Gaza City, preparing to return to their home in the hard-hit northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
"I've been told that the devils have left," said Riyadh Shahadeh, referring to the Israelis. "I'm going back to see how I'm going to start again. I don't know what happened to my house. ... I am going back there with a heart full of fear because I am not sure if the area is secure or not, but I have no other option."
In the southern town of Rafah, where Israel bombed dozens of smuggling tunnels, construction worker Abdel Ibn-Taha said he was very happy about the truce. "We're tired out," he said.
Schools in southern Israel remained closed in anticipation of possible rocket fire. Shortly before the rocket volley Sunday, the head of the Parents Association in the border town of Sderot, Batya Katar, said she was disappointed that Israel did not reach an agreement directly with Hamas, which Israel shuns.
"It's an offensive that ended without achieving its aims," Katar said. "All the weapons went through Egypt. What's happened there?"
Israel apparently reasons that the two-phase truce would give it ammunition against its international critics: Should Hamas continue to attack, then Israel would be able to resume its offensive after having tried to end it.
Hamas, which rejects Israel's existence, violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007, provoking a harsh Israeli blockade that has deepened the destitution in the territory of 1.4 million Palestinians. The Israeli war did not loosen Hamas' grip on Gaza.
January 16 :
Israeli troops again pounded Gaza on Friday after killing a top Hamas leader, as the Islamists offered a conditional truce amid a diplomatic push to end the war that has killed more than 1,100 people.
Israel sent envoys to Egypt for more talks on Cairo's plan for a ceasefire and to Washington to sign an agreement on preventing arms smuggling into Gaza, its key demand for ending the offensive which is now in its 21st day.
The army locked down the occupied West Bank for 48 hours after Hamas called for a day of "wrath" against the offensive in Gaza that on Thursday saw one of its top leaders, interior minister Said Siam, killed in an air strike.
Siam is the most senior leader killed in the war, a Hamas hardliner who oversaw the creation of the movement's police force and was a key figure in the 2007 ouster from Gaza of forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
A day after Israeli raids set landmark buildings ablaze in Gaza's main city, the military pummelled the territory with some 40 air strikes against fighters, tunnels and a mosque suspected of being used as a weapons store, the army said.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
In the pre-dawn hours, Israeli tanks withdrew from the Gaza City neighbourhood of Tal Al-Hawa, where clashes the previous day levelled parts of the residential area and set a hospital ablaze.
Medics rushed into the area, the site of furious clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters that sent hundreds of terrified civilians fleeing for safety.
Many sought shelter at the Al-Quds Hospital in the neighbourhood, but the building was engulfed in flames after Hamas and Israeli troops fought pitched battles for 12 hours a few hundred metres (yards) from the medical facility.
In scenes of utter panic, patients who had been wounded could be seen struggling to get out of their beds to head outside into a cold night where clashes raged.
At least three babies in incubators and three people on life support were wheeled out of the Al-Quds hospital into the flame-lit streets.
Since Israel unleashed Operation Cast Lead on December 27, at least 1,105 Palestinians have been killed and another 5,130 wounded, according to Gaza medics. Some 600 of the victims have been civilians, including 355 children, they say.
On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and three civilians have been killed as a result of combat or rocket fire.
Israel says its offensive is intended to stop the rockets but Gaza militants have continued the fire and have now launched more than 700 rockets or mortar rounds during the assault.
On the diplomatic front, Egypt pressed on with its Western-backed efforts to broker a truce in Israel's deadliest ever offensive on Gaza.
Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad was due to return to Egypt on Friday to discuss the details of a possible ceasefire, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said.
Gilad held four hours of talks in Cairo on Thursday.
And in what was seen as a key breakthrough, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was to travel to Washington on Friday to sign a memorandum on joint efforts to halt smuggling along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Securing international guarantees on stemming arms smuggling into Gaza has been one of Israel's key demands.
The deputy head of Hamas's Damascus-based leadership in exile, Mussa Abu Marzuk, told AFP the Islamists were ready to accept a one-year renewable truce if Israel pulls its troops out of Gaza.
Hamas is awaiting Israel's response, Abu Marzuk said, adding that the offer is also conditional on Israel's lifting of the crippling blockade it has imposed on Gaza since the Islamists seized power.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon was due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah before continuing to Turkey on a regional tour aimed at securing a truce.
Israel's offensive has sparked widespread outrage across the globe and on Thursday the Jewish state was roasted during an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly.
The offensive has sparked widespread concern about a humanitarian crisis breaking out in one of the world's most densely populated places where the vast majority of the 1.5 million population depends on foreign aid.
Tonnes of aid went up in flames on Thursday after an Israeli strike hit a UN compound, setting alight a warehouse.
January 15 :
GAZA - Israeli tanks push deep into the district of Tal al-Hawwa, in the southwest corner of Gaza city, testing resistance close to the centre of Gaza, residents say.
GAZA - Israeli air strike kills three people in a house near where Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of Hamas's top figures in the Gaza Strip, lives, medics say. No suggestion Zahar injured or killed.
GAZA - Four militants killed in an air strike in the south of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical workers say.
GAZA - Five people, all from the same family, killed in an Israeli air strike, according to Palestinian medics. A separate air strike kills one and injures four in Gaza city, medics say.
GAZA - The Popular Resistance Committees militant group said two of its fighters were killed in clashes with Israeli troops east of the city of Gaza.
GAZA - Israeli navy shelling killed two medical workers in the northern Gaza Strip, medical workers said.
GAZA - An Israeli tank shell kills a Palestinian civilian in the southern Gaza Strip, medical workers said.
GAZA - Israeli air strikes targeting two motorcycles kill a 14-year-old Palestinian boy, medical workers said.
GAZA - Israeli air strike kills two gunmen in the southern Gaza Strip, medical workers said.
GAZA - The Palestinian death toll in the offensive since December 27 topped 1,018, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said. The health minister of the Hamas-run government says more than 400 of the dead are women and children.
January 14 :
The Israeli army has intensified on Wednesday morning its strikes on several targets in Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, killing four Palestinians as the Israeli offensive on the enclave continues on the 19th day.
Gaza residents said that Israeli warplanes struck on Wednesday morning a house in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza City, killing one Palestinian civilian in a next door house, where 10 other people wounded.
The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) announced in a statement sent to reporters that two of its militants were also killed in an Israeli F-16 warplanes airstrike east of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
Another Palestinian militant, a member of the Islamic Jihad's armed wing Saraya al-Quds, was killed when an Israeli warplane struck him as he was driving a motorcycle in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, local radio reported Wednesday that Israeli warplanes fired dozens of smoke bombs on central Gaza City, adding that Gaza was covered with heavy white smoke. Gaza main central park was also badly damaged.
Back to Rafah town, residents in the town said that Israeli warplanes continued on Wednesday morning launching missiles at the borderline between the town and Egypt, adding that at least 40 missiles hit the area.
Palestinians dug hundreds of tunnels under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt for smuggling goods from Egypt into the enclave which is under strict Israeli blockade.
On Tuesday, 48 Palestinians were killed, 11 of them were from the village of Khoza'a east of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, where 40 houses in the village were badly damaged.
Mo'aweya Hassanein, emergency chief said on Wednesday morning that 977 Palestinians were killed and 4500 wounded since the beginning of the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27, 2008.
January 13 :
The leader of Hamas has begun negotiations with Egypt to end the 17-day-old Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. Last January, when Israel tightened its blockades and militants ramped up their rocket attacks, Nina Shen Rastogi offered the following primer on the region.
On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into Egypt for a shopping frenzy after gunmen in the Gaza Strip destroyed part of the barrier along the border. In the past two weeks, following a rise in rocket attacks, Israel had ramped up its blockades, refusing to allow anything besides humanitarian supplies to pass into the region. Below, the Explainer tackles a few basic questions about the region.
January 12 :
JERUSALEM – Israeli troops pushed into a heavily populated area of Gaza City from the south on Sunday in fierce fighting, and Israeli officials said for the first time that they believed that the Hamas military wing was beginning to crack and that Hamas leaders inside Gaza were looking for a cease-fire.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the nation that Israel was "getting close to achieving the goals it set for itself" but that "more patience, determination and effort is still demanded."
Olmert set no time limit for combat but said that Israel "must not miss out, at the last moment, on what has been achieved through an unprecedented national effort."
Nearly 900 Palestinians and 13 Israelis have been killed since the war began Dec. 27.
The heads of army intelligence told the Israeli Cabinet, "It is the inclination within Hamas to agree to a cease-fire, given the harsh blow it received and given the absence of accomplishment on the ground," said the cabinet secretary, Oved Yehezkel.
The Israelis said this view inside Gaza was a contrast to the "unyielding stands" of the exiled Hamas leadership in Damascus, in particular Khaled Meshal, the political director. But Hamas "is not expected to wave a white flag," the intelligence chiefs said.
On Saturday, Meshal said Hamas would not consider a cease-fire until Israel ended the assault and opened all crossings into Gaza.
Israel and the U.S. are trying to secure agreement on a deal brokered by Egypt that would mean a Hamas commitment to stop all rocket firing into Israel and an Egyptian commitment to block smuggling tunnels into Gaza, to stop the resupplying of Hamas with weaponry and cash.
In return, Israel would agree to a cease-fire and the opening of its crossings into Gaza for goods and fuel and the opening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, with European Union supervision.
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister and international envoy to the Palestinians, said that "the only way this is going to stop is if there is a genuine plan to end the smuggling into Gaza and a genuine plan to open the crossings."
Blair will be in Cairo today, as will a senior Israeli Defense Ministry official, Amos Gilad. A Hamas delegation is already in Cairo.
If the Egyptian effort fails, Israeli officials said, the military is likely to go to a "third stage" of the war against Hamas in Gaza, with the reserve troops thrown into the battle. Israeli officials said Sunday that the military had started to send reserve units into Gaza for the first time.
On Sunday, fighting started before dawn in the Sheikh Ajleen neighborhood, in the southwestern edge of Gaza City, with Israeli troops moving north from Netzarim, where they had earlier cut the Gaza Strip in two.
At least 20 Palestinians died by midday, when fighting ebbed somewhat, said Palestinian hospital officials. The fighting was described as fierce and close to Al Quds Hospital in Sheikh Ajleen. Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they had ambushed the Israelis, but there was no indication that any Israeli soldiers had been hurt.
Palestinian medical workers said that another three militants were killed by airstrikes.
Israeli warplanes also bombed near the town of Rafah, where the Egypt-Gaza smuggling tunnels are.
Three rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel on Sunday morning, Israeli army radio said. Two exploded near Beersheba, wounding several people. The third hit empty land. Diskin, the Shin Bet chief, told the Cabinet that Israel had estimated that up to 200 rockets a day were being fired from Gaza once the operation started, but that the numbers fired now were in the 20s.
However, thousands of children in southern Israel returned to school Sunday for the first time in two weeks. The military said schools that have been sufficiently fortified against attack could reopen.
Sunday, it was reported that in the Israeli mortar strike near a U.N. school on Tuesday that killed as many as 43 Palestinians, two Israeli shells hit a Hamas mortar unit that had fired first, but that an errant Israeli shell hit near the school.
The army later denied the article in the newspaper Haaretz, saying its initial inquiry showed "mortars were fired from within the school" at Israeli forces nearby, "and those forces returned fire."
U.N. officials have denied that any Palestinian fighters were in the school grounds and called for an independent international investigation.
On Sunday, a senior U.N. official, Maxwell Gaylard, said that the humanitarian situation for Gaza's 1.5 million people was deteriorating.
"People are terrified, hungry, thirsty and traumatized," he said. "The civilian population is caught in the middle of this conflict," he said, and added: "This is a conflict where the civilian population has nowhere to flee."
Aidan O'Leary, deputy director in Gaza for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which deals with Palestinian refugees, said that the flow of people internally displaced by the fighting had doubled over the last few days, and that there were at least 26,000 people in U.N. centers for the displaced.
International aid groups note that civilians are unable to flee to safe places in Gaza, and are essentially trapped because the territory's exits are closed.
January 10 :
The United Nations has decided to resume aid distribution for embattled Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after receiving security assurances from Israel, the world body announced.
The news came in a joint statement late Friday by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
They said the United Nations had received "credible assurances that the security of UN personnel, installations and humanitarian operations would be fully respected.
"On this basis, UN staff movements suspended yesterday will resume as soon as possible," the two organizations said.
UNRWA suspended operations in the enclave on Thursday after a UN convoy was hit by two Israeli tank shells, killing one UN contract driver and wounding a second.
The International Committee of the Red Cross also restricted its Gaza operations after one of its vehicles was hit, apparently by Israeli fire.
At a high-level meeting Friday at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel "deeply regretted" the incidents and said they did not reflect official government policy, UN officials said.
At that meeting the UN officials also received assurances regarding their future security.
The United Nations "will keep the safety and security of its staff under constant review," the joint statement added.
Speaking by video link from Gaza, UNRWA Director of Operations John Ging said UN aid workers were "very relieved."
Hundreds of thousands of Gazans were in dire need of food, water and other essentials in the wake of Israel's two-week-old assault on the Palestinian territory.
Eighty percent of Gaza's 1.5 million population are in dire need of assistance, UN officials said.
They described the health situation as "extremely worrying", adding that hospital staff had difficulty getting to their places of work.
Most of the Gaza Strip was without power, solid sewage waste was piling up, and over 21,000 people were now sheltering in UN schools amid a shortage of blankets and other essentials, they added.
"It's very good news we've received these assurances" from Israel, UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told a briefing.
But the humanitarian situation in Gaza was "the same if not worse", he added.
Civilians were not safe anywhere in Gaza, said Holmes stressing the rising civilian toll among the 792 dead and 3,200 injured, according to Palestinian figures considered credible by the United Nations.
Meanwhile, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran visited the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border with Gaza to get first-hand information on the humanitarian challenges there.
She pledged to provide food aid to some 360,000 of the non-refugee population in Gaza, up from 250,000 at present.
Sheeran also has sent a senior WFP team to Jerusalem to urge the Israeli authorities to grant freer humanitarian access to Gaza so that the agency can respond to their immediate food needs.
"It's critical that WFP and all humanitarian workers have free and unfettered access to the people of Gaza at this difficult time," she said.
Food supplies were waiting in warehouses to be distributed to the hungry, she added.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meanwhile called Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express disappointment over Israel's defiance of a Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, his spokeswoman said.
"The Secretary General spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by phone this afternoon and expressed his disappointment that the violence is continuing on the ground in disregard of yesterday's Security Council resolution," Michele Montas said.
Late Thursday, the 15-member UN Security Council voted overwhelmingly to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza leading to a withdrawal of Israeli troops who have been pressing a two-week-old military offensive to stop rocket firing by Palestinian militants.
The United States, Israel's main ally, abstained.
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January 9 :
A day after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) approved a resolution calling for cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, Israel declared on Friday in a defiant gesture that its defense forces IDF will continue its operation in the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.
After Arab and Western foreign ministers agreed on an amended version of a Britain-drafted resolution on Thursday, the UNSC adopted the Resolution 1860 calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza "leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces." It was approved by 14 votes in favor while the United States abstained.
Despite the UNSC resolution, Israeli Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs declared on Friday that the IDF will continue its operation in Gaza.
"Israel has the right to defend its citizens and, to this end, the IDF will continue acting in order to attain the goals of the operation -- changing the security reality in southern Israel -- in accordance with the plans that were approved at the beginning of the operation," said a statement released shortly after the Friday cabinet session.
Operations will also continue to prevent the smuggling of war material into Gaza, according to the statement sent to Xinhua.
"It was also decided that the humanitarian activity being carried out by Israel for the benefit of the residents of Gaza would continue," added the statement.
Earlier on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that despite the UNSC resolution, IDF will continue operation in Gaza in order to defend Israeli citizens and will carry out the missions with which it has been assigned in the operation.
"Israel has never agreed that any outside body would determine its right to defend the security of its citizens," Olmert said in a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office following the security cabinet discussion.
The UNSC resolution was "impracticable," said Olmert, adding that Palestinian militants in Gaza continued to fire rockets into southern Israel on Friday.
"The rocket attacks this morning against residents of the south only prove that the UNSC resolution is not practical and will not be honored in actual fact by the Palestinian murder organizations," said the prime minister.
Also on Friday, hours after the UNSC passed the ceasefire resolution, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that the country will continue to act only in its own interest.
"Israel has acted, is acting, and will continue to act only according to its calculations, in the interest of the security of its citizens and its right to self defense," local news service Ynet quoted Livni as saying.
Though Israel decided to ignore the UNSC resolution and continue its operation in Gaza, it remains to be seen whether the Jewish state will expand the operation, which means Israel will possibly send tens of thousands of reserve soldiers into Gaza to deal a harsher blow to Hamas.
It is reported that the IDF has been prepared for such an extensive deployment.
Local daily Ha'aretz reported Friday on its website that Israeli diplomatic-security cabinet ordered the IDF to expand its ongoing ground incursion against Hamas targets in Gaza.
Asked whether the IDF has received the order, an IDF spokeswoman told Xinhua on the phone that "we are not commenting on that."
"We will follow plans and decisions made by the government," she said, adding that "we do not elaborate on the operational details."
For its side, the Islamic Hamas movement has vowed that the only solution to the ongoing Gaza crisis would be Israeli retreat from Gaza, ceasing aggression and lifting the blockade, Lebanon's Elnashra website reported Friday.
"The enemy has started to realize that the military operations will not achieve the goals it sought," Osama Hamdan, Hamas representative in Lebanon, was quoted as saying.
He said that Israel's continuous aggression on Gaza is due to the "incompetence of the Arab countries," stressing that some Arab regimes have been "collaborating" with Israel and will be held "accountable" for that.
The Israeli operation in Gaza, dubbed Cast Lead, entered its 14th day on Friday, with IDF proceeding to strike Hamas targets and Palestinian militants in Gaza continuing to fire rockets into Israel.
Since Jan. 3, the operation beginning on Dec. 27 entered its second phase, with the IDF launching a large-scale ground incursion into Gaza.
At least 779 Palestinians have been killed and about 3,200 wounded since the operation. On the Israeli side, 13 people have died, including four killed in rocket attacks. The other nine were soldiers killed in ground battle in Gaza.
January 8 :
Several rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel early today, the first time the Jewish state’s conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip has spread elsewhere in the region.
The rockets hit western Galilee, in northern Israel, close to the border with Lebanon, slightly injuring two people and leaving several others needing treatment for shock, police said.
At least three rockets were fired from Lebanon, an army spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. Israeli artillery bombarded southern Lebanon in response, Israel’s Channel 2 reported.
The attacks come a day after Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Islamic Hezbollah militia, warned of “all possibilities” against Israel in reaction to the Gaza conflict. Israeli forces fought a monthlong war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006.
January 6 :
Israeli soldiers and Hamas gunmen engaged in pitched battles in the Gaza Strip, as diplomatic efforts to end the 11-day conflict failed to make headway.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded by a tank shell in a “friendly fire incident” in the northern region of Gaza, the military said in an e-mailed statement today. Another soldier may also have been killed by fire from his own forces. Israel lost one soldier in fighting with Hamas Jan. 4.
A rocket shot by Palestinian militants hit the city of Gedera, 45 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Gaza, in the only reported such attack today. It is the longest a rocket has reached into Israel so far, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, and the projectile caused light shrapnel wounds to a 3-month-old baby.
Altogether, over 520 missiles have struck Israel in the past 10 days, damaging dozens of homes and wounding more than 50 people, police said. In a campaign aimed at ending the rocket attacks, Israel is expanding its hold over the coastal territory it abandoned three years ago, deploying tank columns and thousands of troops in Gaza while continuing an aerial campaign.
At least 573 Palestinians have died in the conflict, some 50 in the overnight fighting, and 2,600 are wounded, said Mu’awia Hassanein, chief of emergency medical services in Gaza. Israeli strikes today hit two schools run by the United Nations in Gaza, killing five people, Agence France-Presse cited UN officials as saying.
January 5 :
Israel struck at new Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in its attempt to rein in rocket attacks by the terrorist group. Efforts increased to find a diplomatic solution to the 10-day conflict.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives in Israel today to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, in an attempt to push for a cease-fire.
Israel two nights ago broadened what started as an aerial campaign aimed at stopping rocket attacks on its southern towns and cities into a ground operation involving thousands of troops. Israel suffered its first combat death yesterday when a soldier was killed by Hamas gunfire, the army said. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed during the conflict.
At least a dozen rockets from Gaza struck Israeli territory since last night, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, and there were no reported injuries. More than 40 rockets and mortar shells hit Israel yesterday, down from a peak of 76 on the first day of the operation on Dec. 27. Altogether, 500 missiles have struck Israel in the past nine days, damaging dozens of homes and wounding more than 50 people, police said.
As many as 3,200 rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel from the start of 2008. Rocket attacks have killed four other Israelis since fighting began.
Israel bombed a mosque it said was used to store weapons and destroyed the homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives Friday, but under international pressure, the government allowed hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports to leave besieged Gaza. Israel has been building up artillery, armor and infantry on Gaza's border in an indication the week-old air assault on Gaza's Hamas rulers could soon expand with a ground incursion.
At the same time, international calls for a cease-fire have been growing, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected in the region next week to push for a halt to the violence. Israel has so far been cool to a truce, and in a setback for diplomatic efforts, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had no plans to come to the region.
"Hamas has held the people of Gaza hostage ever since their illegal coup against the forces of President Mahmoud Abbas," she said. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Abbas' Fatah forces in 2007 and Abbas set up a rival government in the West Bank.
Rice charged Hamas "has used Gaza as a launching pad" for firing rockets into the Jewish state and that, as a result, the Palestinians in Gaza have had "a very bad daily life." She said the U.S. supports a "durable and sustainable" cease-fire, but any end to fighting would depend on the willingness of Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel.
The offensive spurred anti-Israel protests in the Middle East, the Muslim world and in parts of Europe on Friday.
Israel attacked new targets and Palestinians fired at least 30 rockets into southern Israel. But Israel still opened its border with Gaza to allow nearly 300 Palestinians with foreign passports to flee.
"There is no water, no electricity, no medicine. It's hard to survive. Gaza is destroyed," Jawaher Haggi, a 14-year-old Palestinian American, said after crossing into Israel. She said her uncle was killed in an airstrike when he tried to pick up medicine for her cancer-stricken father, who later died of his illness.
Many of the evacuees were foreign-born women married to Palestinians and their children. Spouses who did not hold foreign citizenship were not allowed out.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said most of the evacuees were Russian or Eastern European, and they were allowed to leave at the request of foreign embassies. They said the decision was not related to military plans.
Israel began the aerial campaign Dec. 27 to try to halt weeks of intensifying Palestinian rocket fire. It has dealt a heavy blow to Hamas, but failed to halt the rockets. Friday's attacks hit homes in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, wounding four Israelis, police said.
Before the airstrikes, Israel's military called some of the houses to warn of an impending attack. In some cases, it also fired a sound bomb to warn civilians before flattening the homes with missiles, Palestinians and Israeli officials said.
Israeli planes also dropped leaflets east of Gaza giving a confidential phone number and e-mail address to report locations of rocket squads. Residents stepped over the leaflets.
Israel used similar tactics during its 2006 war on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
After destroying Hamas' security compounds, Israel turned its attention to the group's leadership. Warplanes hit some 20 houses believed to belong to Hamas militants and members of other armed groups, Palestinians said.
Most of the targeted homes appeared to be empty, but one man was killed in a strike in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Separate airstrikes killed five other Palestinians — including a teenage boy east of Gaza City, and three children — two brothers and their cousin — who were playing in southern Gaza, according to Health Ministry official Moaiya Hassanain.
More than 400 Gazans have been killed and 1,700 have been wounded in the Israeli campaign, Gaza health officials said. Hamas has said about half of the dead were members of its security forces.
The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinians Territories estimated that more than 100 of the dead were civilians, many of them women and children. The U.N. also warned of a health and food crisis in Gaza, despite an increase in humanitarian shipments.
Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have died in the rocket attacks, which have reached deeper into Israel than ever before, bringing an eighth of the country's population of 7 million within rocket range.
The mosque destroyed Friday was known as a Hamas stronghold, and the army said it was used to store weapons. It also was identified with Nizar Rayan, the Hamas militant leader killed Thursday when Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on his home.
That airstrike killed 20 people, including all four of Rayan's wives and 11 of his 12 children. The strike obliterated the four-story apartment building and knocked down the walls of others around it.
Israel's military said the homes of Hamas leaders are being used to store missiles and other weapons, and the hit on Rayan's house triggered secondary explosions from the stockpile there.
Israel has targeted Hamas leaders in the past but halted the practice during a six-month truce that expired last month. Most of Hamas' leaders went into hiding at the start of the offensive.
Fear of Israeli attacks led to a sparse turnout at Friday prayers at mosques throughout Gaza, although thousands attended a memorial service for Rayan. Throngs prayed over the rubble of his home and the destroyed mosque nearby.
An imam delivered his sermon via a car loudspeaker as the bodies of Rayan and other family members were covered in green Hamas flags. Afterward, a sea of mourners marched with the bodies.
"The Palestinian resistance will not forget and will not forgive," said Hamas lawmaker Mushir Masri, calling the assassination a "serious" development. "The resistance's response will be very painful."
While keeping up the military pressure, Israel has offered a small opening for the intense diplomatic efforts, saying it would consider a halt to the fighting. But it has attached the strict condition that international monitors enforce the truce. The last truce was repeatedly violated by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire.
Israeli police stepped up security and restricted access to Friday prayers at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, barring all males under 50 from entering. The prayers ended without incident, although youths in a nearby neighborhood clashed with anti-riot police on horseback. No injuries were reported.
Jerusalem's mufti, Mohammed Hussein, said only 3,000 Palestinians attended prayers because of the restrictions, which he condemned as contradicting "the principle of freedom of worship."
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian police broke up a demonstration by about 3,000 Hamas supporters and arrested about a dozen people. Police also broke up a similar protest in nearby Qalandia. There were anti-Israel protests in Hebron, Nablus and elsewhere in the West Bank.
Thursday 1 January 2009:
Israeli warplanes today attacked government buildings in Gaza after rejecting any temporary halt to its bombing campaign amid the first signs of disagreement over strategy among Israel's leaders.
Hamas security officials said buildings housing the education and transportation ministries had been virtually destroyed. The Palestinian parliament building was also hit, they said. Gunmen in Gaza retaliated by firing a long-range rocket at the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva.
As the Israeli planes bombed targets for a sixth day, Israeli defence officials said its military offensive would continue and that Israel would insist on an end to all rocket fire.
"This is only the beginning," the Israeli deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, said on Israel's Army Radio.
"We are operating now for exactly what we have said from the start, and nothing has changed, to deal Hamas a heavy blow. It has already been wounded."
Israeli troops and tank crews have gathered in large numbers on the Gaza border ready for a new stage in the fighting. A possible invasion by Israeli forces could range from limited ground incursions to a much larger land invasion of Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Another call-up of reservists has been approved, bringing the total to 9,000.
Israel widened its buffer zone under military authority around Gaza to a radius of 25 miles after the reach of Hamas rockets extended to the town of Be'er Sheva.
A poll in the Ha'aretz newspaper showed most Israelis, 52%, favoured pursuing the attacks in Gaza, with just 20% backing calls for a ceasefire, and 19% favouring a ground offensive into the Palestinian territory. The Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said Israel must stop its attacks, lift its economic blockade of Gaza and open border crossings before any truce proposals could be considered.
In the first indication of a division over the course of the engagement since the conflict began on Saturday, the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, personally championed a continuation of the military campaign while his defence minister, Ehud Barak - Israel's most decorated soldier and a former chief of staff - proposed a 48-hour halt on Tuesday night.
"If conditions will ripen and we think there will be a diplomatic solution that will ensure a better security reality in the south, we will consider it. But at the moment, it's not there," an aide quoted Olmert as saying. "We didn't start this operation just to end it with rocket fire continuing as it did before it began. Imagine if we declare a unilateral ceasefire and a few days later rockets fall on Ashkelon. What will that do to Israel's deterrence?"
Olmert met Barak, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and his senior commanders for an apparently tense four-hour meeting on Tuesday night. A security cabinet meeting yesterday then decided against any pause in the bombing.
The French government had tried to convince the Israelis to accept the pause and to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. But Israel's leaders were keen not to repeat the experience of the 2006 Lebanon war when divisions over strategy led to recriminations and loss of confidence among the Israeli public.
Israeli jets yesterday bombed smuggling tunnels on the Egyptian border as well as a mosque in Gaza City, which the military said was used to store weapons.
Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets into southern Israel, reaching a new range of around 25 miles and hitting the city of Be'er Sheva. The rockets have killed four Israelis since Saturday. The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza rose to 393 with 1,650 wounded in five days.
Most military analysts say it is unlikely that Israel would embark on a costly full reoccupation of Gaza and not enough troops are in position for that. More likely is a series of smaller raids. However, although Israel faced little international criticism when the conflict started, pressure for a halt to the violence is growing from western governments as well as the UN and aid agencies.
Gordon Brown yesterday called for an urgent ceasefire amid the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza. "It is vital that moderation must now prevail," he said after speaking by phone to Olmert - the first time the two leaders have spoken since the crisis erupted.
Brown said: "I have talked to the prime minister of Israel and had assurances from him that there will be access for humanitarian reasons to get stocks in, to get supplies to people in Gaza and to help with the casualties."
Israel has allowed in around 100 trucks loaded with humanitarian supplies on each of the past two days, but that comes after months of severe economic blockade and big shortfalls in Gaza of food and medical supplies. The UN said it was still well short of what was needed and described the humanitarian situation in Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, as "alarming".
One Hamas spokesman in Gaza said the group was open to another ceasefire, but wanted Israel's economic blockade lifted. For more than a year Israel has prevented all imports, except limited humanitarian supplies, and prevented all exports from Gaza - in effect destroying private business.
Dubai: His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has ordered the cancellation of all New Year celebrations in Dubai on Wednesday as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
In support of the Palestinians in Gaza, who are enduring all kinds of killing, destruction and displacement by the Israeli military machinery, Shaikh Mohammad instructed all concerned authorities in Dubai to put this order in place and take necessary procedures to circulate the decision to all concerned parties.
قال تعالى
"وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُواْ لِي وَلْيُؤْمِنُواْ بِي لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ " (186)سورة البقرة
فلندع معا..
حسبنا الله ونعم الوكيل ..
حسبنا الله ونعم الوكيل
يا ذا الجلال والعزة
أنقذ المسلمين في غزة
اللهم انقذ المسلمين في غزة
اللهم كن لهم عونا ونصيرا اللهم ربنا عز جاهك وجل ثناؤك وتقسدت اسماؤك
اللهم لا يرد امرك ولا يهزم جندك سبحانك اللهم وبمحمدك
اللهم عليك باليهود الظالمين
اللهم منزل الكتاب ..مجري السحاب.. هازم الاحزاب
اهزمهم وزلزلهم
اللهم أرنا فيهم عجائب قدرتك
قتلة الرسل والانبياء وقتلة العُزَّل الأبرياء
اللهم حرر المسلمين في غزة
يا ذا الجلال والعزة
اللهم فك اسرهم واشف مريضهم واكشف كربتهم
اللهم بدل خوفهم أمنا يا ذا الجلال والعزة
اللهم أَعزّ الاسلام والمسلمين وأّذلّ الشرك والمشركين
ودمر أعداء الدين واحم حوزة الاسلام
واجمع كلمة المسلمين على الحق يا رب العالمين
اللهم أنْجِ المستضعفين في كل مكان
اللهم أَصلح أَحوال المسلمين في فلسطين وفي كل مكان
اللهم ألّف يين قلوبهم واهدهم سبل اللسلام
وأّخرجهم من الظلمات الى النور
يا ذا الجلال والاكرام والعزة
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Monday urged Arab and Muslim peoples to launch "uprisings" in support of Gaza Strip. Nasrallah, addressing a rally in south Beirut in support of Gaza, also predicted that Israel would fail in defeating Hamas. He said an Israeli incursion into Gaza would be "confronted by resistance fighters and the Israelis would start sustaining casualties.The Israeli war in Gaza, according to Nasrallah, is "not against Hamas, but against the Palestinian people." He added the United States "would not mind if an Islamist faction ruled an Arab state. What matters is the stand that this faction adopts on Israel and its readiness to succumb to America." Nasrallah urged his followers to remain on alert in case needed to confront any possible Israeli attack.
December 29,2008 :
GAZA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Israeli warplanes struck by air-to-ground rockets early on Monday several buildings into the Islamic University of Gaza, witnesses and security sources said.
The residents in Remal neighborhood in western Gaza City said they heard four huge explosions that wrecked the whole area, and white and gray pillars of smoke were seen coming out of the building.
Several buildings, which surround the Islamic University were badly damaged, said the residents, adding that another college run by the Islamic University in southern Gaza City was hit too.
Israeli drones and F16 warplanes still hover over Gaza City. The buzz of the drones and war fighters was strongly heard shortly before the four airstrikes were carried out.
The residents said that several buildings at the female campus into the Islamic University compound that include chemical labs were completely destroyed. No injuries were reported.
Shortly before midnight, two Palestinian civilians, including a child were killed and four wounded in an Israeli airstrike on northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, medics and witnesses said.
On Sunday night and on Monday predawn, the Israeli air forces intensified its airstrikes on dozens of targets belong to Hamas movement, including security installations, metal workshops and institutions.
Medics in Gaza said that more than 300 Palestinians were killed and over 1000 wounded during unprecedented intensive Israeli airstrikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip since Saturday morning.
December 28, 2008 : THERE IS A PALESTINIAN PROTEST TOMORROW AT 4 PM IN FRONT THE PALESTINIAN EMBASSY IN ABUDHABI. THE PROTEST HAS BEEN APPROVED BY THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES GOVERNMENT.
December 27, 2008 : Over 155 people are reported killed after Israel launched a series of air strikes against multiple targets in Gaza Strip.
Around 30 missiles destroyed security compounds run by the militant group Hamas in the centre of Gaza City, killing dozens and leaving many buried under the rubble.
More than 250 people have also been wounded in the attacks, said Gaza Health Ministry official Moawiya Hassanain.
The strikes came after the expiry of a truce with Hamas. Israel said they were launched in response to continued rocket fire by Palestinian militants against Israeli towns.
An Israeli military statement claimed the operation targeted “Hamas terror operatives” as well as training camps and weaponry storage warehouses.
Hamas immediately vowed to carry out revenge attacks on Israel. “Hamas will continue the resistance until the last drop of blood,” said the group’s spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, speaking on a Gaza radio station.
Israel told its civilians near Gaza to take cover, and moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for restraint.
The first round of airstrikes came just before noon, followed by several more waves of missiles. Dozens of security compounds were destroyed, claiming the life of Gaza police chief Major General Tawfiq Jaber.
The missiles struck as children were leaving school, leading to widespread confusion and panic.
Plumes of black smoke rose above Gaza City, as sirens wailed and mothers ran through the rubble searching desperately for their children.
Television footage showed Gaza City hospitals crowded with people and civilians transporting the wounded in their cars.
“We are treating people on the floor, in the corridors. We have no more space,” said one doctor at Gaza’s main Shifa Hospital.
The air strikes, the most intense Israeli attacks on Gaza in recent times, come amid rumours that a ground offensive is imminent.
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