- 15 aug 2011
Airstrike on Gaza kills one, injures two
Israeli warplanes have launched an airstrike on the Gaza Strip that killed one Palestinian and critically injured two others.
The attack targeted the eastern section of the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Tuesday morning, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The airstrike came a day after an Israeli Navy vessel opened fire on the northern coast of the besieged territory, wounding a Gazan fisherman.
The Israeli military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, saying the actions are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured.
Gaza has been blockaded since 2007, a situation which has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194130.html
30 oct 2012, 14:24 , Respect -
Maria 30 oct 2012, 14:24 , Respect -
Maria 16 aug 2011
Medics: Gaza teenager shot dead
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian teenager near the central Gaza Strip city of Deir Al-Balah late Tuesday, medical officials reported.
Medics said the Palestinian, who was not identified, suffered "more than 10" gunshots to the head and upper body after soldiers east of the Al-Masdar area opened fire.
Gaza health ministry official Adham Abu Salmiya told Ma’an that an ambulance crew transferred the teenager's body to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.
An Israeli military spokeswoman told Ma'an that "IDF forces opened fire at a suspect approaching the security fence. The forces identified a hit," the official said.
The teenager had approached the border east of the refugee camp of Maghazi in central Gaza, Agence France-Presse quoted Palestinian witnesses as saying.
Earlier, Abu Salmiya said Israeli airstrikes killed one man and injured seven others in the central and southern Gaza Strip, in what the army called retaliation for a rocket attack hours before.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=413703
Israel kills Palestinian teenager in Gaza
Israeli forces have shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the Gaza Strip in the latest round of aggression against the residents of the besieged enclave, Palestinian medical sources say.
The teenager, who was said to be 17 years old, was killed late on Tuesday by Israeli gunfire when he came near the border with Israel east of the refugee camp of Maghazi in the central Gaza Strip, AFP reported.
This comes as Israeli warplanes launched several airstrikes on different parts of the coastal sliver earlier on the day, killing at least one person and injuring seven others.
The Israeli forces fire systematically on Palestinians who approach the border fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel.
Israeli army has repeatedly launched ground and air attacks on Gaza since the end of the Operation Cast Lead against the strip at the turn of 2009, which claimed the lives of over 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
Tel Aviv has also imposed an all-out siege on the Gaza Strip since June 2007.
The blockade has exerted a disastrous impact on the life of some 1.5 million residents of the impoverished strip, causing unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
Gazans are being denied their basic rights, including freedom of movement, appropriate living conditions, work, health and education.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194265.html
30 oct 2012, 14:24 , Respect -
Maria 30 oct 2012, 14:24 , Respect -
Maria 16 aug 2011
IDF bombs Gaza, 1 dead
Army responds to Grad attack by bombing targets, also hits terror cell preparing to fire rockets.
The Air Force bombed four targets and a terror cell preparing to fire rockets at Israel following the Grad rocket attack on Beersheba, the IDF said before dawn on Tuesday, stressing that the strikes were retaliatory.
The army says all targets were hit, and that while carrying out the strikes, the terror cell was identified and hit just before firing the rockets in their possession
Palestinian sources in Gaza say one was killed and two others injured.
According to medical sources affiliated with Hamas, two other Palestinians were wounded during the strikes. Among them was a youth injured when a smuggling tunnel was bombed.
"The army will not tolerate any attempt at harming the citizens of Israel and IDF soldiers and will continue to act with determination and power against any agent using terror against the State of Israel. The Hamas terror organization is the address and holds the responsibility," the IDF stated.
Late Monday night a grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in open spaces outside Beersheba. No injuries or damage were reported.
Many residents rushed to shelters as a siren sounded throughout the city.
The rocket exploded as members of the Trachtenberg Committee were visiting Beersheba's social protest tent site. Protesters were forced to flee the site in order to take cover at a nearby educational center as the siren blared.
Following the explosion, Beersheba Mayor Rubik Danilovitch said he plans to ask Defense Minister Ehud Barak to redeploy an Iron Dome battery in the city.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4109355,00.html
Israel wages multiple strikes on Gaza
At least one person has been killed and five others injured after Israeli warplanes launched several airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israeli fighter jets fired several rockets at Zeitoun neighborhood to the east of Gaza City early on Tuesday. At least one person died while three others sustained serious injuries in the aerial attack, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Two other Palestinians were also wounded in two separate raids carried out by Israeli warplanes.
Israeli military aircraft carried out two further airstrikes east of Khan Yunis and against a supply tunnel near the Rafah border with Egypt. However, no one was injured in those attacks.
Israeli forces have carried out large numbers of ground and air attacks on Gaza since the end of Operation Cast Lead against the enclave in 2009.
More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the three-week Israeli land, sea and air offensive in the impoverished coastal sliver during the winter of 2008-2009. The offensive also inflicted $1.6 billion in damages to the Gazan economy.
A United Nations inquiry, led by the former South African judge Richard Goldstone, detailed what investigators have described as Israeli actions "amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," during its major offensive against the Gaza Strip.
Israel laid an economic siege on the Gaza Strip in June 2007, after Hamas took control of the enclave.
The blockade has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.
Some 1.5 million people are being denied their basic rights, including freedom of movement, and their rights to appropriate living conditions, work, health and education. Poverty and unemployment rates stand at approximately 80 percent and 60 percent, respectively, in the Gaza Strip.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194155.html
30 oct 2012, 14:24 , Respect -
Maria 16 aug 2011
Update: Medics: Airstrike injures 3 in Gaza City
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli aircraft targeted the central and southern Gaza Strip early Tuesday and injured three Palestinians, medics and witnesses said.
Medical officials at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City described the injuries as serious.
Another attack targeted Khan Younis in southern Gaza, a Ma'an correspondent reported. No injuries were reported.
An army spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Earlier, army officials said a grad rocket fired from Gaza exploded in an open area outside Beersheba, news reports said. There were no reports of injury or damage.
Also Monday, Israeli forces opened fire from a tower east of Khan Younis and injured a 20-year-old man in his leg, medical officials said. An army spokeswoman had no immediate comment.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=413450
Israeli air strikes hit Gaza Strip
One person killed and five others wounded, according to Palestinian medical sources.
One person has been killed and five others have been wounded in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian medical sources.
The first raid, early on Tuesday, targeted Zeitun, east of Gaza City and injured three men involved in firing rockets at Israel, the medical sources told the Reuters news agency. One among them later died.
The warplanes also targeted two Hamas training camps, one east of Gaza City and another west of Khan Younis city.
Two people were reported to have suffered minor injuries, according to the AFP news agency, which carried images of an injured women arriving for treatment at a Gaza City hospital.
Three Palestinian civilians, among them a boy, were injured, sources said, in a separate air strike that targeted a tunnel beneath Gaza's border with Egypt.
In a statement, the Israeli military said the raids were launched in response to the firing of a rocket from the Gaza Strip at the southern town of Beersheva.
Aircraft "targeted four targets in the Gaza Strip. Direct hits were confirmed," the statement said.
An Israeli police spokesman said a rocket had been fired at Beersheva, without causing casualties. Israeli public radio said a second rocket was also fired at the town, but it was not known where it fell.
Since last month there has been an increase in the number of rockets fired at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip followed by Israeli air force reprisal raids after several months of calm following a flare-up in April when an anti-tank missile hit an Israeli school bus, killing a teenager.
Israel responded to that attack with a series of air strikes that killed at least 19 Palestinians in the deadliest violence since Israel's devastating 22-day assault on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009.
http://fwd4.me/096L
30 oct 2012, 14:24 , Respect -
Maria 16 aug 2011
Medics: Israeli forces shot Gaza man in leg
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces shot and injured a 20-year-old Palestinian man on Monday evening in the southern Gaza Strip, medics said.
Medical officials said Hamouda Sami Al-Najjar was shot in his leg after Israeli troops opened fire from a military tower east of Khan Younis.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said she would look into the report.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=413397
30 oct 2012, 14:25 , Respect -
Maria 30 oct 2012, 14:25 , Respect -
Maria 17 aug 2011
Israeli patrol car deliberately runs over Jerusalemite, kills him
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- A Jerusalemite man was killed on Tuesday night after an Israeli border police patrol car ran him over south of the Aqsa Mosque, eyewitnesses told the PIC reporter.
They said that Amin Dabash, 30, was wearing his uniform and heading to work when the patrol vehicle rammed into him along the road between Um Toba town and Jabal Abu Ghunaim.
The witnesses said that Dabash, from Soor Baher in occupied Jerusalem, was taken to Hadassah Ein Karem hospital in critical condition and was pronounced dead one hour after his arrival.
Israeli soldiers and settlers usually drive at very high speed near Palestinian neighborhoods especially in occupied Jerusalem and often deliberately run over Palestinian pedestrians.
http://fwd4.me/09Gu
Attoun: IOA crimes in Jerusalem “racial cleansing”
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Jerusalemite MP Ahmed Attoun has denounced the hit-and-run accident in which an Israeli military vehicle ran over and killed a Palestinian man in occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Attoun said in a statement on Wednesday that the killing of Amin Dabash fell in line with the Israeli occupation authority’s constant attempt to empty Jerusalem of its indigenous people and to terrorize them.
He charged that the IOA crimes against the people in Jerusalem were part of its policy of “racial cleansing” and Judaization.
The MP expressed dismay at the Arab and international silence vis-à-vis such crimes, and called for an Arab-Islamic plan to save Jerusalem.
http://fwd4.me/09H2
IOF troops deploy in Silwan to search for weapons, find nothing
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israeli troops and special forces backed by choppers stormed the Silwan town, south of occupied Jerusalem, on Wednesday and were deployed in Batn Al-Hawa and Ein Bir Ayub suburbs, local sources said.
They said that tension ran high in the town as they feared a wave of demolition of local homes in the process.
Fakhri Abu Diab, a member of the committee defending the land of Silwan, said that Israeli soldiers occupied rooftops of Palestinian homes in Silwan and deployed large numbers of forces at the entrances to the town and inside its suburbs.
The Israeli army command claimed that the operation was meant to search for weapons but did not declare finding any.
Local sources in Bustan suburb reported that the soldiers barged into the sit-in tent pitched to protest land and property confiscation on part of the Israeli occupation authority and used hounds in searching homes in the company of intelligence elements.
http://fwd4.me/09H4
Gaza gov’t: Israeli raids intentionally heighten tensions
GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip has said that it was interested in maintaining calm in the Strip, charging Israel with deliberately escalating military attacks.
The foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday evening that it exerted strenuous efforts and reached national consensus on maintaining calm and stability in the Strip.
However, the continued Israeli raids, which focus on civilians, display that Israel was not interested in calm and was fueling tension, the statement said.
It warned that the escalation would lead to negative repercussions, urging the world community, the UN in particular, to intervene and stop the aggression on the people of the Strip.
For his part, MP Mushir Al-Masri, the spokesman for Hamas’s parliamentary bloc, held the Israeli occupation authority fully responsible for consequences of its recent military escalation.
The Israeli aerial raids on Gaza reflect the criminal mentality of the IOA leaders, adding that the Palestinian resistance was monitoring the developments on the ground and was pondering options.
http://fwd4.me/09Gy
30 oct 2012, 14:25 , Respect -
Maria 30 oct 2012, 14:25 , Respect -
Maria 18 aug 2011
Six killed in Israeli strike on Gaza
Israeli forces kill six Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip following multiple attacks in southern Israel, which Tel Aviv blames on Gaza resistance fighters.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194541.html
Israel pounds Gaza after deadly attacks near Eilat
The Israeli military has confirmed carrying out airstrikes over the Gaza Strip following a deadly series of attacks in southern Israel.
At least six people were killed in the airstrikes, Palestinian sources said.
Earlier, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israel would respond with "full force" after attacks on vehicles near Eilat that left seven dead.
Israeli officials said Gazan militants were responsible, though Gaza's Hamas government denied involvement.
Reuters news agency quoted the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a faction in Gaza that often operates separately from Hamas, as saying its head and four other members had died in the airstrikes.
Palestinian sources, also quoted by Reuters, said two people had been killed in a house in Rafah after Israeli drones - often used for airstrikes - were heard overhead.
The attacks earlier in the day near the southern Israeli city of Eilat began when gunmen opened fire on a bus.
Israeli officials said two other vehicles were then hit nearby - one by a rocket and one by an explosive device.
They said that the attacks left seven Israelis dead, and that a number of gunmen were killed in an ensuing firefight.
http://fwd4.me/09JA 30 oct 2012, 14:25 , Respect -
Maria 18 aug 2011
Hamas: No Gaza role in deadly Eilat attacks
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Hamas has denied accusations by the Israeli defense minister that Gaza was the source of attacks in southern Israel that left at least seven people dead Thursday.
Hamas leader Salah Bardawil told Ma'an radio that Israel blamed Hamas and Gaza groups in order to deflect attention from its domestic economic crisis and security failures.
Bardawil warned that Israel was preparing to attack Gaza during Ramadan, adding that resistance would be swift if this occurred.
The defense minister, Ehud Barak, said earlier in a statement that "The real source of the terror is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force and determination."
Barak also said the attack reflected a "weak Egyptian hold" on the Sinai.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=414156
Hamas: We didn't carry out southern Israel attacks, but we praise them
Senior Hamas official warns that the group and the Palestinian people will not 'stand idly by if the enemy attacks.'
The Islamist Hamas movement on Thursday welcomed a series of deadly attacks in southern Israel earlier in the day, but declined to take responsibility for them.
"I don't think Hamas is behind these attacks, but we praise them since they were against soldiers," said Ahmed Yousef, a senior member of the organization, which has been in power in Gaza since seizing control in 2007.
No Palestinian group has yet taken responsibility for the attacks.
In response to Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s claim that Gaza should be held responsible for Thursday's terror attacks, Hamas leader Salah al-Bardawil stated that his party and the Palestinian people are not afraid of “Zionist threats” and will not “stand idly by if the enemy attacks”.
Meanwhile, Hamas has called for an evacuation of the party's headquarters in Gaza, fearing an IDF military response to the terror attack.
http://fwd4.me/09Nj
Egypt says Israel killed its policemen
Egyptian Armed Forces have announced that an Israeli fighter plane has killed two Egyptian police officers near the country's Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194582.html
Southern Gaza Strip residents vacate homes for fear of IDF attacks
Palestinian sources reported that residents of the areas around Rafah and the Philadelphi route – where smuggling tunnels are located – have vacated their homes for fear of IDF attacks.
Heavy traffic of fighter planes, helicopters and umanned aerial vehicles was also reported over the Gaza Strip.
http://fwd4.me/09Kg
Erekat warns Israel against 'irresponsible' actions
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- PLO official Saeb Erekat on Thursday warned Israel against taking any "irresponsible" action in Gaza following a series of attacks along the Israel-Egypt border.
"Israel is the occupying power. Under international humanitarian law, it is responsible for the welfare and safety of the Palestinian population living under its occupation," Erekat said.
"This includes the almost two million Palestinians in Gaza. Israel stands warned of any possible aggressive action or collective punishment measures against the Palestinian population in Gaza," he said.
Erekat's remarks came as an Israeli airstrike killed six Palestinians Thursday evening in southern Gaza, hours after a series of attacks left seven Israelis dead near Eilat.
Erekat said that while the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah opposed violence "in all its forms," threats by Israel's defense minister and others to exact a devastating blow in Gaza were irresponsible.
"Our position is clear. We are against violence in all its forms. Such violence does not advance the Palestinian cause for freedom and independence," Erekat said in a statement.
"However, we will not accept for such attacks to be used a pretext for aggression."
He added that "The international community also has a responsibility towards the Palestinian people and ensuring calm; we call on them to uphold this responsibility."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=414271
Israel’s Eilat Venture
Early today, several gunmen launched an attack from across the Egyptian side of the Egypt-Israel border. Striking from the Sinai, the attackers managed to attack the Israeli coastal town of Eilat with small arms, mortars and anti-tank rockets. Although details of the attack are still sketchy at best, Israel has reported 7 fatalities and some 29 injuries and is pinpointing the source as Gaza.
But how did Israel come up with this conclusion? As soon as I heard the news I was on Twitter analysing the various feeds and checking news websites from Haaretz to Aljazeera, and even the BBC and CNN. So far as I could tell, the identities of the attackers were completely unconfirmed by anyone, nor had any group come forward to claim this quite successful attack on Israel.
The Israeli claim that the source of all this violence stems from Gaza is perhaps a vague accusation, intentionally ambiguous so as to make people instantly assume the Hamas government in power in the Strip. The source could very well be Gaza, though it is highly unlikely to be Hamas or a faction from within, but it might be a group external to the enclave who are disgusted by the continuing illegal siege of Gaza and decided to mount an attack although this is also unlikely.
What many have failed to notice, even when I bombarded them on my Twitter account, is that Israel essentially controls the Sinai in its entirety. Many may read this, particularly Egyptians, and say, “But didn’t Egypt win back the Sinai after the 1973 Yom Kippur War?”
On the surface, they did, and this is exactly the kind of PR campaign that then Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, wanted his population to believe. The facts on the ground tell a different story. At the end of the 1973 war, the Egyptian Third Army was encircled, cut off and would have been annihilated where it not more useful for the Israelis to keep them as a bargaining chip. Also, Israel threatened Cairo itself. Once the peace treaties were signed years later, Sadat received nominal control over the Sinai to increase his political credibility, and Israel got to safely withdraw costly forces from a strategic location. The price was that not even the Egyptian Army is allowed to move units into the Sinai to this day without Israel’s knowledge or permission.
Apart from scant border patrol forces, the Egyptians have no real military presence in the Sinai at all, and since ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak came into power, the Egyptian government was complicit in most Israeli activity in the region, most visibly and recently being the underground barrier to prevent the Gazan tunnel economy. How did the Israelis maintain a watch on the Sinai and Gaza without its own troops and without a major Egyptian force in the region? The answer is via the use of local Bedouin tribes, armed and paid to keep the Palestinians in check without being a major threat themselves.
Since the ousting of Mubarak and the hopeful, yet slow, onset of democracy in Egypt, the Egyptian government has distanced itself from Israel somewhat. It has opened the Rafah border crossing (though I must stress that they have not opened it completely as is frequently misunderstood in the media) and it is trying to distance itself from overtly supporting Israeli measures against Gaza without antagonising the Zionist state.
This has meant that the Bedouin’s that Israel and Egypt essentially allowed to police the Sinai expanse have not been having such a profitable time as before. As a result of this, they might have attempted to antagonise the Egyptian military government and force it into an uncomfortable situation by attacking gas lines as has occurred recently, and by also possibly perpetrating the Eilat attacks. It is also possible that Israel, who would benefit from further instability, allowed this attack to happen or even encouraged it. After all, Israeli border and aerial surveillance is extensive, and one might be forgiven if he found it hard to believe that Israel did not see a team of men armed with mortars coming.
Israel benefits in a multitude of ways. For one, Egypt is no longer a certain ally as it used to be in the days of Egypt’s despotic rule, personified in Mubarak himself. Although the Egyptian military government has not shown any overt hostile action towards Israel and is unlikely to do so, Israel knows that if real democracy takes a hold of Egypt they are unlikely to benefit from this strategically. Many Egyptians are already calling for the scrapping or revision of the peace treaty between the two countries. Now that an attack has been perpetrated from across the Egyptian Sinai border, Israel will use that as an excuse to bolster military units in the Sinai area under the guise of national security. Indeed, Israeli officials have already commented on this need.
By blaming the source of this violence on Gaza, specifically Hamas, Israel can gain some diplomatic leverage as it is concerned about what will happen this September when Palestinian statehood gets inevitably vetoed by the US. It may not be officially recognised, but this action will finally put the nightmare of the two state solution to bed, and Israel has been relying on that diplomatic card to provide them and their collaborators in the PA with credibility for decades. If the blame is laid at the door of the Palestinians, then Israel can use that as proof that the UN bid and the Eilat attack were just a Palestinian effort to derail the peace process.
Leading on from the above point, Israel will also benefit from blaming the Palestinians by increasing their military attacks on the Gaza Strip. Indeed, it may not be too difficult to surmise that Israel is keen on significantly weakening Palestinian resistance and so therefore will now use the Eilat incident as one piece of justification in building up a case for a second act on the tragedy that was Operational Cast Lead.
Israel can now justify increasing protection of its borders from an Egypt it is uncertain about, divert diplomatic attention away from the Palestinians and their right to any state whatsoever, and also it can strike at its enemies and punish the Palestinian and Gazan population collectively for not bowing to their Israeli overlord before a popular reaction in Egypt will force the government there to act. A sweet bit of icing on this cake is that it may even detract attention in domestic Israeli affairs from the so-called “J-14” protests, and refocus all that public rage back onto the Arab enemy.
All in all, it is clear to see who benefits the most from the Eilat attacks. Certainly not Hamas who has publicly denied any connection to this attack, and if they did it would stand to reason that they would be more than happy to claim it for themselves as they have done hundreds of times before to affirm themselves in their position as the only Palestinian faction who really fights Israel. Instead, the only real beneficiary seems to be the apparent victim itself; Israel.
http://fwd4.me/09K3
Israel threatens to attack Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak
Israel has accused Gaza-based resistance fighters of involvement in the shooting attacks in southern Israel, threatening to launch a new attack on the coastal sliver.
On Thursday, gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Israeli soldiers while a rocket was fired at another bus near the Red Sea resort of Eilat, near the Egyptian border.
The incident left at least six people dead and dozens more injured. The Israeli military claimed they had pursued the attackers and killed seven people in a gun battled with those involved in the attacks.
Immediately, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak claimed that the source of combined attacks was the Gaza Strip.
"This is a serious terror attack that took place in several locations," the Israeli paper Haaretz quoted Barak as saying on its website.
"The incident shows the weakening Egyptian grip on Sinai and the widening operation of terrorists there. The source of these terror acts is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force,” he went on to say.
The democratically elected Palestinian government, headed by the Gaza-based Hamas movement, strongly rejected any relation between the resistance fighters and the Thursday attacks.
"The Palestinian government denies the accusations made by Barak about the operation in Eilat and affirms that there is no relation between the Gaza Strip and what happened near Eilat," Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu told AFP.
Responding to Barak's war threat, senior Hamas member Salah al-Bardawil also stressed that the Islamic movement and the Palestinian people are not afraid of “Zionist threats” and will not “stand idly by if the enemy attacks.”
Bardawil further stated that Hamas relies on a strategy of resisting "the occupation of Palestinian lands from within, rather than from outside."
The Israeli saber-rattling comes as the blockaded Gaza Strip strives to meet its basic needs under a crippling Israeli siege, intensified since Hamas had to limit its rule to the coastal sliver in June 2007, following a coup plot by rival Fatah party.
On December 27, 2008, Israel launched a massive onslaught against Gaza and killed more than 1,400 Palestinians in 22 days of nonstop land, sea and air strikes.
The weeks-long war was tainted with UN-confirmed reports indicating the use of forbidden weaponry such as white phosphorus bombs by Israeli armed forces, among other war crimes raging from shooting unarmed civilians on the run, through the targeting of places known to hold civilians, to using Palestinian children as human shields.
Meanwhile, the governor of North Sinai, Abdel Wahab Mabruk, ruled out reports that those behind the Thursday's attacks had slipped to Egypt through underground tunnels across the border between Gaza and Egypt and challenged Israel to provide evidence that the attacks originated from Egypt.
"How does Israel know they came from Sinai? What is Israel's evidence?" he questioned.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194538.html
30 oct 2012, 14:25 , Respect -
Maria 30 oct 2012, 14:25 , Respect -
Maria 19 aug 2011
Israel launches new airstrike on Gaza
Palestinians wheel a wounded boy following an Israeli attack in Gaza City on August 19, 2011.
Israeli fighter jets have carried out yet another airstrike on the impoverished Gaza Strip following numerous air raids throughout the day.
The airstrike targeted the Zaitun neighborhood in the eastern portion of Gaza City, a Press TV correspondent reported on Friday.
No details have been reported, however, on possible casualties and damages in the attack.
Since Thursday, Israel has launched several airstrikes on the impoverished Gaza Strip as well as along the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
The airstrikes have so far killed at least 11 Palestinians and three Egyptians.
In addition, Egyptian state-owned Nile Television reported that two of its citizens had been killed by Israeli gunfire late Friday morning.
Israeli fighter jets had earlier in the day fired numerous rockets into Gaza City.
According to hospital officials in the city, a 13-year old boy was killed, and 17 of his relatives were injured.
The airstrike began on Thursday when several rockets had hit the southern parts of Gaza, killing at least seven Palestinians, including a nine-year old boy.
Moreover, three Egyptian border guards lost their lives on Thursday as an Israeli Apache gunship fired a rocket near the Rafah border-crossing.
Tel Aviv claims it has launched the attacks in response to assaults that targeted two buses and a military vehicle near the Red Sea resort of Eilat in southern Israel, which left at least eight Israelis dead and dozens of others injured.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has accused resistance groups in the impoverished coastal sliver of organizing the attacks and vowed a “full force” response against the Palestinians in the Tel Aviv-besieged territory.
However, the democratically elected government of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, in Gaza strongly dismissed the allegations and warned against any act of aggression against the enclave.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194656.html
Israel strikes central Gaza refugee camp
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli warplanes struck An-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday morning in an ongoing assault which has killed at least seven Palestinians in the coastal enclave since Thursday.
One Palestinian was lightly injured as Israeli fighter jets bombed a generator near the camp, causing a power outage across the area, said Gaza medical official Adham Abu Salmiya.
Missiles also hit a training camp of the armed wing of Hamas, the Al-Qassam Brigades, witnesses said.
The raid came hours after Israel launched airstrikes on the Az-Zaitoun neighborhood south of Gaza City causing damage but no injuries, medics said.
Just after midnight Friday, Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids targeting Gaza City, the northern towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, and Khan Younis in the south.
Gaza medical official Adham Abu Salmiya said an airstrike on a home near the former intelligence services headquarters in Gaza City killed 13-year-old Mahmoud Abu Samra and injured 18 others.
Elsewhere, Apache helicopters fired at least two missiles toward a Palestinian military site in the town of Beit Lahiya and a missile near Khan Younis landed in an open area and caused no injuries or damage.
On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike killed six Palestinians including five Popular Resistance Committee members and a two-year-old child in Rafah, near Egypt's border.
Israel says three of those Palestinians were involved in planning an attack which left eight Israelis dead near the southern resort city of Eilat on Thursday.
Following the attack, Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak said "The real source of the terror is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force and determination."
The PRC armed wing vowed to respond to what it called a "massacre" in Rafah.
A PRC spokesman, Abu Mujahed, said Israel fired the first shots Thursday and would be held responsible for "all the consequences of its crimes" in Rafah.
As the air force pounded targets across the Gaza Strip, militants there lobbed 12 rockets at towns and cities in southern Israel early on Friday, seriously injuring one person in the city of Ashdod, police and the military said.
"If terror organizations think they can harm our citizens and get away with it, they will soon learn how wrong they are," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Thursday.
"We will make them pay a price, a very heavy price."
World leaders were quick to condemn the violence, with the White House denouncing the "brutal terrorist attacks" and UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressing grave concern about an "escalation" of violence in the region.
On Thursday, militants opened fire on a bus packed with passengers heading to Eilat, then fled the scene and shortly afterwards, detonated a roadside bomb which hit a military vehicle.
Other gunmen then opened fire on a second bus and a car, and in a separate incident, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at other vehicles in the area. Eight people died in the attacks and around 26 were injured.
Following a massive manhunt for the killers and ensuing series of gunbattles into the evening, six gunmen were killed, while a seventh blew himself up, army officials said.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the attacks originated in Gaza, while another senior official told AFP the attackers had come from Gaza via the Sinai peninsula.
But Gaza's Hamas rulers issued a statement denying any involvement in the bloodshed.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=414365
‘Israel attacks aimed at distracting opp.’
(24:38) Israel attacks on Gaza-News Analysis-08-18-2011
Hours after gunmen attack military vehicles and buses Israel carried out airstrike on Gaza, Seven Palestinians’ including a young girl were killed in the airstrike in Gaza town of Rafah.
The latest attacks come as Palestinians get ready for bid for statehood at the UN general assembly.
Press TV interviews with Bill Jones from the Executive Intelligence Review, from Washington, on how the recent attacks may turn the focus away from internal problems in Israel.
What follows is the text of the interview:
Press TV: These attacks seem to put Israeli in a more favorable position, what do you think? Over all, are there more pluses for what has occurred for Israel as far as what they have to deal with internally?
Jones: Well obviously whenever we have something good happening there is always some kind of an incident or terrorist operation that blows it apart. What good was happening, the fact that there was a growing opposition for Prime Minister Netanyahu. Primarily directed at the housing issue, but more broadly this was a strong political movement objecting to everything that Netanyahu was pushing for.
Ironically this was sort of a convergence with what has been happening within the Arab countries over the last few months, which indicated at least the beginnings of some kind of an alliance between people on the ground who have been totally disgusted with the system as it now exists in the Middle East. All of a sudden you have this terrorist operation and the Israelis reacted as they did to try and destabilize the opposition on the streets.
People who have been focused on Netanyahu and his crimes and his policies now become very frighten and Netanyahu is able to use that to really create a regiment of the population, because of the fear from the outside.
In any case if we look at the issue of, in whose interest does this lie, it is quite clear that this has saved Netanyahu from a very strong opposition. Hopefully that will not die out but certainly this was a blow at it. In all of these cases whether it comes from Egypt or if it was in Gaza it is not in the interest of Hamas and certainly not in the interest of the Egyptians.
There are outside forces always wanting to manipulate the situation who for one reason or another don’t want peace in the Middle East, don’t want stability in the Middle East, they have these tentacles that are often being used and I often refer to the old British policy of divide and conquer in which these things tend to occur.
This is the way I would look at it rather than trying to find, follow on the ground where the individual terrorist came from.
Press TV: Let’s look more in terms of Egypt we know that Israel has a peace treaty with Egypt but we also know what a contested issue it has been specially with the Egyptians about how Egypt is providing low market value for the gas, does that give rise to the possibility that Israeli may lose that gas deal perhaps gives them a reason to want to claim Sinai?
Jones: It would surprise me if there were any direct government involvement in any kind of operations stemming from Sinai territory. My impression is that there were a little bit of instability among the Egyptian military that might have created a situation in Sinai where the borders are not so clear cut, or there could be operations on going within the Egyptian military someone has their own scenario trying to pull a stunt like this.
Who knows what it is. I tend to look at the bigger picture, the bigger picture is that there was a movement against the worst elements in Israeli political elites represented by Netanyahu within Israel itself, For the first time in a very very long time, that was going to create a different situation in the Middle East which I think would have converged with what has been happening in the Arab spring. Somebody wanted to blow that apart.
Another thing you should look at is that the international financial system that we now have is now imploding specially the world of London finance is being threatened at its very existence with losing all of its power; of course they always have had a role to play in the Middle East.
One of the reasons we don’t think we have peace in the Middle East is that I think Toney Blair is sitting on top of that group that is suppose to bring about peace. That is what the US has never been able to confront I think they may very well have a role in trying to blow this thing up in order to destabilize the whole situation.
There might very well be an Egyptian role in that but I doubt very much that it would be a government operation, they have enough problems to deal with they don’t know what things are going to look like within the country, I don’t think they need that chaos but somebody there might be playing some very funny games within the context of Sinai.
http://networkedblogs.com/lS1HX
Gaza rockets hit Israel after night of airstrikes
GAZA CITY (AFP) -- Gaza militants on Friday fired 12 rockets into Israel, seriously injuring one person after a night of Israeli air strikes which killed a teenager and hurt 17 other people.
Most of them caused no injuries or damage but two struck the southern coastal town of Ashdod on Friday morning, damaging a school and a synagogue and seriously wounding one person, Israeli police and the military said.
The uptick in rocket attacks came as Israeli fighter jets staged seven overnight air strikes on targets across Gaza which killed a teenager and injured 17 people, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli strikes were launched just hours after a series of deadly attacks near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat, which killed eight Israelis in an operation Israel blamed on the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).
Shortly after the attacks on a desert road, Israel attacked targets in southern Gaza, killing six -- including four top PRC militants and a two-year-old boy.
The group vowed bitter revenge and on Friday claimed responsibility for firing two Grad rockets toward the port city of Ashkelon and seven mortars at an army post near the southernmost point of the Israel-Gaza border, close to Egypt.
On Friday, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine also vowed that Israel's attacks would not pass without "punishment and revenge."
The Abu Ali Mustapha brigades called for unity and resolve in the face of the attacks in a statement received by Ma'an.
Overnight, the Israeli air force staged seven raids, hitting two training camps for the armed wing of Hamas, the Al-Qassam Brigades, as well as Palestinian security posts, medics said.
The Israeli military confirmed the raids, saying it had targeted a weapons manufacturing site, two smuggling tunnels, a "terror tunnel" and several other sites in the wake of the desert attacks and the rocket fire on southern Israel.
"The Israeli Defense Forces will not tolerate any malicious attempt to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers, and will not hesitate to respond with strength and determination to any element that uses terror against the State of Israel and until calm is restored," it said in a statement.
It also blamed the bloodshed on Gaza's Hamas rulers, who had on Thursday denied any connection to the coordinated attacks near Eilat.
"The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organisation solely responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip."
Egypt's official MENA news agency reported, meanwhile, that two Egyptian policemen were killed on Thursday when an Israeli plane fired a rocket near the border at militants it was tracking after the deadly desert attacks.
The incident took place near the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, the agency quoted a military official as saying.
"An Israeli plane was pursuing infiltrators on the other side of the border until they reached Rafah and fired at them. There were several Central Security members there and they were hit by the gunfire," the official told MENA.
State television reported that the two police conscripts were killed southwards from Rafah near Taba, roughly 12 kilometers from the Israel town of Eilat close to the site of the attacks.
The Israeli military has not immediately commented on the reports.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=414344
Israeli warplanes strike Gaza City
(1:53) Israel launches strikes on Gaza after attacks
(1:28) Israel strikes back after attacks near Egypt border 19/08/2011
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli warplanes struck the Az-Zaitoun neighborhood south of Gaza City on Friday morning, witnesses said, after seven Palestinians were killed in raids on the coastal enclave.
The daylight strike in Az-Zaitoun caused damage to a home but no casualties, medics said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said 12 projectiles had been fired from Gaza into southern Israel since midnight.
The increased rocket fire came a day after militants Israel said were from Gaza staged a coordinated series of attacks on a desert road near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat, killing eight Israelis.
An Israeli military source told Ma'an that operations were underway in southern Gaza following the series of attacks.
The country's defense minister, Ehud Barak, said earlier in a statement that "The real source of the terror is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force and determination."
Just after midnight Friday, Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids targeting Gaza City, the northern towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, and Khan Younis in the south.
Gaza medical official Adham Abu Salmiya said an airstrike on a home near the former intelligence services headquarters in Gaza City killed 13-year-old Mahmoud Abu Samra and injured 18 others.
A Palestinian was also missing in the Rafah tunnel area, medics said.
Elsewhere, Apache helicopters fired at least two missiles toward a Palestinian military site in the town of Beit Lahiya and a missile near Khan Younis landed in an open area and caused no injuries or damage.
A Ma'an correspondent described a "state of panic" across Gaza as Israel renewed bombings just hours after an airstrike killed six Palestinians in Rafah, near Egypt's border.
The airstrike hit a home belonging to Popular Resistance Committees official Khaled Shaath, who was killed instantly. His two-year-old son Malek later died of injuries sustained in the strike.
The attacks killed four others in Rafah. Among them were PRC military wing chief Abu Awad Nayrab and PRC operatives Imad Hamad, Abu Jamil Shaath and Khaled Masri, medical officials said.
Israel says three of those Palestinians were involved in planning Thursday's attacks in Eilat. Israeli forces also killed five attackers, officials said.
The PRC confirmed the deaths in a statement posted to its website and vowed to exact a bitter price for the killing of its leader and other senior cadres.
A PRC spokesman, Abu Mujahed, said Israel fired the first shots Thursday and would be held responsible for "all the consequences of its crimes" in Rafah.
The military wing of the PRC claimed responsibility for launching two rockets toward the coastal city of Ashkelon, while Israel's army said its "Iron Dome" infiltration system stopped four attacks.
Early Friday, two Israelis were injured, one seriously, when a Grad rocket fired by militants in Gaza slammed into the coastal town of Ashdod in southern Israel early on Friday, police said.
"One person was seriously wounded in the attack, and another person was lightly hurt," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP, saying two rockets had hit the town. The second caused no damage or injuries, she said.
The Israeli military confirmed the strike saying a school and a synagogue had been damaged in the attack.
"Two rockets fired at the city of Ashdod caused damage and injuries at a synagogue and school," a statement said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=414336
Gaza Under Attack | Aug 19, 2011 – in pictures
Palestinians helped carry the wounded into Al-Shifa hospital after an Israeli air strike. Fighter jets bombed Gaza overnight, killing a teenager and injuring five others, Palestinian medical sources said.
Palestinian doctors tend to the injured at Al-Shifa hospital after an overnight Israeli air strike in Gaza City killed a teenager and injured five others. Palestinian Territory.
Palestinians carry a wounded boy into Al-Shifa hospital following an Israeli air raid on Gaza City. -- Palestinians helped carry the wounded into Al-Shifa hospital after an Israeli air strike. Fighter jets bombed Gaza overnight, killing a teenager and injuring five others, Palestinian medical sources said. Palestinian Territory.
Palestinians carry a wounded woman into Al-Shifa hospital following an Israeli air raid on Gaza City. -- Palestinians helped carry the wounded into Al-Shifa hospital after an Israeli air strike. Fighter jets bombed Gaza overnight, killing a teenager and injuring five others, Palestinian medical sources said.
Wounded Palestinian men wait for treatment at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, early Friday, Aug. 19, 2011. Three blasts shook Gaza early Friday, including one that killed a 13-year-old boy, according to a Gaza hospital official. But the Israeli military did not immediately confirm reports of three more airstrikes targeting a security compound, a home and the area of the smuggling tunnels crisscrossing the Gaza-Egypt border.
A wounded Palestinian man waits for treatment at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, early Friday, Aug. 19, 2011. Three blasts shook Gaza early Friday, including one that killed a 13-year-old boy, according to a Gaza hospital official. But the Israeli military did not immediately confirm reports of three more airstrikes targeting a security compound, a home and the area of the smuggling tunnels crisscrossing the Gaza-Egypt border.
http://fwd4.me/09Nc
Israel stages new air raid in Gaza
Israeli fighter jets have carried out yet another airstrike on the impoverished Gaza Strip following numerous air raids throughout the day that left at least eight Palestinians dead and 10 others wounded.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194627.html
Renewed Israeli Strikes on Gaza Leave a child Dead and 17 injured, Death Toll Reaches Seven
13 years old Mahmoud AbuSamra (in the middle wearing glasses) was murdered by Israeli airstrikes today in Gaza
Gaza – PNN – One child was reported dead, on Friday at dawn, and 10 other civilians were injured as Israeli jetfighters targeted Gaza City. Local sources identified the child as 13-year-old Mohamed Abu Samra. The latest attack brings the death toll in Gaza since Thursday to seven.
Local sources announced that Israeli jetfighters fired a missile at a house in al-Sodaniyah area in Gaza City, the attack left one child dead and 17 other injured. Medics reported that among those injured were women and children.
On Thursday evening Israeli jetfighters attacked a house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah killing six Palestinians among them Abu Awad al Nierab, General Secretary of the Popular Resistance Committees based in Gaza.
Israel attacks comes shortly after gunmen implemented set of attack at the southern Israeli borders with Egypt near the coastal town of Eilat killing eight soldiers and injuring 30 others.
No Palestinian groups have claimed responsibility for the attack but the Israeli army blamed the Popular Resistance Committees based in Gaza.
http://fwd4.me/09NC
Israel slays 1 kid, wounds 6 in Gaza
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli airstrike in the north of the Gaza Strip on August 19, 2011.
Israeli warplanes have launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip once again, killing one Palestinian kid and injuring six others in the latest round of aggression against the besieged coastal enclave.
The new air raids were waged on northwestern Gaza early on Friday, a Press TV correspondent reported.
This comes shortly after Israeli fighter jets targeted a building in the city of Rafah in the south of Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least seven Palestinians, including a nine-year-old boy.
Meanwhile, Israeli fighter strikes claimed the lives of three Egyptian border guards near the Egyptian border town of Taba.
Tel Aviv claims it has launched the attacks in response to assaults that targeted two buses and a military vehicle near the Red Sea resort of Eilat in southern Israel, which left at least eight Israelis dead and dozens of others injured.
Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak has accused resistance groups in the impoverished coastal sliver of organizing the attacks and vowed a “full force” response against the Palestinians in the Tel Aviv-besieged territory.
However, the democratically elected government of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, in Gaza strongly dismissed the allegations and warned against any act of aggression against the enclave.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194594.html
30 oct 2012, 14:25 , Respect -
Maria 19 aug 2011
Special source: Seven Egyptian officers killed by Israeli airstrike near Rafah
CAIRO, (PIC)-- A special source informed PIC correspondent in Cairo that the number of Egyptian army officers killed by an Israeli airstrike near Rafah has risen to seven, in addition to a number of wounded.
The source that asked not to be identified said that amongst the officers killed are two Brigadiers, which prompted a prominent military official to head a special force to Sinai.
PIC correspondent also said that the revolution youth were preparing for demonstrations on Friday outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo to protest the killing of the Egyptian officers.
A leader of the revolution youth said that a march will head from Tahrir Square after Friday prayers to the Israeli embassy to protest the killing of Egyptian officers and soldiers.
Official Egyptian sources said earlier that three Egyptian soldiers were killed on Thursday evening when and Israeli aircraft fired a rocket near the Egyptian Palestinian borders close to Rafah.
http://fwd4.me/09QK
Gaza Under Attack | Aug 19, 2011 – in pictures