- 31 juli 2010
Medics: Israeli forces injure 3 near Erez with live fire
Gaza – Ma’an – Three Gaza workers collecting stone aggregates from rubble near the Erez crossing were hit and injured in by Israeli fire in two separate incidents shortly after 9a.m. on Saturday, medics told Ma'an.
Officials said the shots were fired from watch towers near the border crossing in the northern Strip, with the number of injured by Israeli fire for the day rising to 13 following a series of air strikes and artillery fire that reportedly targeted "terrorist infrastructure."
Director of ambulance and emergency services for Gaza Strip hospitals Muawiya Hassanein said two workers collecting in the same area were targeted, in addition to a solitary worker collecting aggregates nearby.
Hassanein identified the first injured workers as 16-year-old Mahdi Hammadin, who was evacuated to the Beit Hanoun Hospital with gunshot wounds, while 25-year-old Muhammad Shalabi was evacuated to the Kamal Udwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya.
A third man was shot not long after, identified by coordinator of the Gaza Strip police medical services Adham Abu Silmiyya as 21-year-old Muhammad Hasan Sa’dallah. The officials said Muhammad was also collecting aggregates when he was shot.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said she was looking into the report.
Hamas: Airstrikes response to Arab League decision
Gaza – Ma'an – The renewal of Israeli air strikes on Gaza were a response to the Arab League’s decision to resume direct peace talks, a Hamas official said Saturday.
Ismail Radwan said negotiations can only lead to further "judaization" of Jerusalem, and Israeli crimes against Palestinian people, citing Saturday's air strikes on Gaza as an example.
An Al-Qassam Brigades fighter was killed and ten Gaza residents were injured on Saturday morning in Israeli air strikes across the Strip.
Radwan said the meeting of the Arab Peace Initiative follow-up in Cairo on Thursday, which approved direct talks with Israel subject to conditions, over-extended the Arab League’s authority, explaining that the decision to resume negotiations must be taken by Palestinians.
President Mahmoud Abbas has been under pressure from the US and Israel to resume face-to-face talks with Israel, which were broken off in 2008 when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against Gaza.
The meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cario approved direct talks, but supported Abbas’ demand for pre-conditions.
Meanwhile, Israeli media reported Friday that the recent projectile launch into Ashkelon was a bid to prevent talks between Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials.
"Though it is still unclear who was responsible for the Grad fire, it is clear that Hamas has no interest right now in escalating tension. Hamas wants to maintain the status quo in Gaza as it is. It is not frozen, and continues to arm itself, but is still deterred by the IDF and doesn't want conflict," one senior official told Israeli news site Ynet.
The Israeli army said the airstrikes on Gaza Saturday morning were in response to the projectile launch a day before.
29 oct 2012, 11:25 , Respect -
Maria 31 juli 2010
Palestinians: IDF bombs Gaza targets; 1 killed
Palestinian witnesses say Air Force jets bombed targets in Gaza City, Rafah in retaliation for Grad fire towards Ashkelon; 12 people reportedly injured in Ansar compound, formerly Yasser Arafat's HQ
Air Force jets bombed targets in the Gaza Strip Friday night, Palestinian witnesses reported. They added that the airstrikes had caused injuries and one death.
On Friday morning gunmen in the Strip fired a Grad rocket that exploded in Ashkelon, followed by two mortar shells that landed in Eshkol Regional Council.
Al-Jazeera reported that among the targets bombed were Tel al-Hawa neighborhood and the Ansar compound, both in Gaza City, as well as targets in Rafah and Deir al-Balah.
Twelve people were reportedly injured, some seriously, in the Ansar security compound, which previously served as the headquarters of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The IDF confirmed that Israel Air Force jets struck three targets in Gaza, include a terror hub in the northern Strip, a weapons factory in the central Strip and a smuggling tunnel in the south. All jets returned safely to their bases.
The IDF said Friday's attack came in response to the Grad rocket fired at Ashkelon earlier in the day, and stressed that the military would continue to operate against any element threatening the citizens of Israel and its soldiers.
"The IDF holds the Hamas terror organization solely responsible for the occurrences in the Strip and for maintaining calm there," the IDF statement said.
The Palestinians said Friday night's assault was the largest IDF strike since Operation Cast Lead.
According to the sources, the man killed in the strike was a 22-year-old Hamas operative, who was hit while in a caravan near a refugee camp in the central strip. It was unclear what Hamas was using the caravan for.
After a few months of relative calm, a Grad rocket exploded in a populated area of Ashkelon Friday morning, causing eight people to suffer shock but no physical injuries. Later two mortar shells exploded in Eshkol Regional Council, causing no injuries.
Hamas fighter killed in Israel air strikes on Gaza
Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed a Hamas fighter and wounded several other people.
Missiles struck central Gaza and Gaza City late on Friday; tunnels on the strip's southern border were also hit.
The strikes came after a rocket fired from the coastal enclave by militants earlier on Friday hit the Israeli city of Ashkelon on the Mediterranean coast.
That attack caused no casualties but damaged a building and cars in the city, 12km (7 miles) north of Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said he took the rocket attack on Ashkelon - which has a population of 125,000 - "very seriously".
The city's mayor said the attack was the most serious since Israel ended an offensive against the Gaza Strip in January 2009.
Reduced violence
Hamas - the Islamist group which controls the territory - named the dead militant as Issa Batran, 42 - a commander of the group's military wing in central Gaza and a rocket maker.
The military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said eight other Hamas supporters and three civilians were also injured in air strikes on a Hamas military training camp in Gaza City, smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border and a target outside a central Gaza refugee camp.
The group said it would avenge the killing.
Israel's military confirmed the air strikes and said they came in response to the Ashkelon attack.
Rocket fire from Gaza has reduced in the past year after Hamas reined in attacks, but sporadic fire from other militant groups continues.
Correspondents say such attacks are almost always ineffective, with rockets mostly landing in open fields.
One Thai farmer in Israel has been killed in the past year.
Dozens of Palestinians, some of them civilians, have been killed in attacks from Israel over the same period.
29 oct 2012, 11:25 , Respect -
Maria 31 juli 2010
Israel Launches Air Strike in Central Gaza
(1:11) Israel Air Strike in Central Gaza City.m4v 2 x viewed
At around 11:30 tonight, I had just returned to my apartment in Gaza City from an evening of writing at a hotel down the road.
I put my bag down on the sofa and was walking towards my room. At that moment, 5 thundering crashes roared in quick succession. The noise was so loud, it sounded as though the attack was next door. The whole building shook fairly violently, and then, a moment later, there was silence.
Instinctively, my first move was to reach for my Blackberry and Tweet the news. My second move was to head to my balcony, where I heard at least two gunshots. I couldn’t see anything, though, so I suggested to a friend of mine who is also staying in the apartment that we get out of the building. It seemed like a reasonable precaution.
As soon as we hit the street, we saw police cars, ambulances, and civilians on foot streaming towards the apparent bombsite. We hustled along with them until, 3-4 blocks from the apartment, we ran into a police checkpoint that ordinarily guards a military training center. This was at the end of Gaza City’s coastal road, along which all the fancy hotels are located.
Tonight, Hamas guards with machine guns were frantically holding the crowd at bay, screaming at people to move backward from the checkpoint.
Immediately, I tried to verify what seemed obvious: that Israeli planes had struck a target some meters behind the police checkpoint.
On the other side of the checkpoint was a substantial mound of earth. Behind that, I saw smoke billowing upward.
The attack was likely a response to a rocket that was fired from Gaza and landed in a residential area in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. There has been a general, if unspoken, understanding between Hamas and Israel since the war here last January to keep the rocket and air attacks to a minimum.
Despite that understanding, small rockets have occasionally hit small Israeli towns immediately around Gaza. And Israel, in turn, has retaliated with small-scale fire, usually directed towards the smuggling tunnels in Rafah. What was different about today, though, was that the rocket from Gaza reached the more distant and major city of Ashkelon. In turn, Israel hit the middle of Gaza City, which it hasn’t done in a year and a half.
A few minutes after I arrived at the scene of the attack, the crowd began surging towards the earth mound, trying to circumvent the gate and see the destruction. Moments later, a group of Hamas soldiers began screaming at the people to stop. One soldier fired off a round from his machine gun, and the crowd dispersed, frantically.
Ambulances tore in and out of the scene. Two fire trucks arrived too. The windows of a nearby building were shattered.
Suddenly, the Hamas soldiers began running through the crowd, shouting that the Israeli planes were coming back. The crowd scattered again, amidst cries of worry. The planes didn’t come back, so I figured that this was probably just part of Hamas’ crowd control effort.
After a while, with little new to see at the bombsite, we headed over to Shifa Hospital to check on the wounded.
By this point, my driver Hamouda had joined us. I can’t say enough good about Hamouda. At 22, he’s a smart, loyal, and caring guy. It’s clear he comes from a good family, and he’s got the upbringing and common sense to handle journalists deftly. He’s the kind of person you want working with you on a tough night.
Hamouda drove us to Shifa Hospital, where I witnessed a scene even more chaotic than the one I had just left.
At the entrance to the hospital, a handful of Hamas guards struggled and skirmished with civilians who were trying to get through the door. There was lots of yelling, and one soldier took the liberty to wield a baton, which, at one point, ended up planted in my stomach.
Ambulances pulled up to the door, and medics yelled at the press to move back as the cameras swarmed around the wounded. Sometimes the wounded limped in. Family members showed up and negotiated their way through the police cordon. At one point, a family carried a boy to the door of the hospital and dropped him as they approached the entrance.
Hamouda persuaded the police to give me a free pass at the door, so I began going in and out, checking on arriving patients and tracking down doctors, who gave me estimates of between 8 and 20 injured.
What surprised me most about the later part of the evening is how quickly the crowd dissipated. After about an hour and a half, Hamas shut down the scene of the bombsite, ordering all onlookers to leave. Meanwhile, the patients at the hospital were all behind closed doors, and the crowd began to disappear there too.
That’s all for now. I’ll post a video of some raw footage I shot in a bit.
On the evening of July 30, 2010, Israel launched an air assault against a Hamas military training facility in central Gaza City. Here is some raw footage of the aftermath.
http://alexanderthegreat.globalpost.com/2010/07/israel-launches-air-strike-in-central-gaza-city/
http://alexanderthegreat.globalpost.com/2010/07/raw-video-aftermath-of-israeli-air-strike/
29 oct 2012, 11:25 , Respect -
Maria 1 aug 2010
(0:53) israel targets Gaza Tunnels after getting Arab League's Green Light.
Israeli warplanes have attacked two tunnels in the south of Gaza strip in its second strike during the last 48 hours, the Israeli military says.
The Sunday's attack caused damage but no casualties were reported, Reuters said.
Palestinians, who have been under Israeli siege since 2007, use the tunnels to bring in goods, food and fuel into the coastal enclave.
The latest strike came after Israel on Friday fired at least four missiles into Gaza, killing a member of Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas and injuring 15 others.
Following the raid, Hamas has pledged revenge on Israel's overnight attacks, saying "these new Zionist crimes will not pass without answer."
Israeli warplanes strike in southern Gaza
GAZA // Israeli warplanes launched two pre-dawn raids on tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip on today after Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel.
The Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza linked the flare-up of violence to Arab foreign ministers’s support for the principle of direct talks with Israel, saying Palestinians were “paying the price for (their) great error.”
A spokesman for the Israeli military confirmed the strikes targeted two tunnels used to smuggle arms into Gaza.
Palestinian medics said one person had been injured in the overnight strike on the tunnels.
Late yesterday, Gaza militants fired a second rocket on Israel in two days, with the makeshift projectile exploding near Sderot, causing damage to a university building but caused no casualties.
Benjamin Ben Eliezer, an Israeli cabinet minister, told army radio that the army was “not going to sit there with its arms crossed in the face of these attacks,” but that its response would be measured.
“We do not want to set off an escalation because that is exactly what Hamas wants, which is why our response is hard but limited,” he said.
Hamas meanwhile condemned the Israeli aggression and reiterated its opposition to the relaunch of direct peace talks between the Western-backed Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Israel.
Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo last week had lent their support to the principle of talks while leaving their timing up to Mr Abbas, as international pressure mounted on the Palestinians to return to face-to-face talks.
“Our people in Gaza are paying the price for the great error and political mistake committed by the Arab Peace Initiative follow-up committee against the Palestinian people,” the Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said.
He also criticised a letter from Barack Obama, the US president, warning that Mr Abbas’s failure to return to direct talks could harm US-Palestinian relations. Palestinian officials had revealed the contents of the letter yesterday.
“The letter from Obama to Mahmud Abbas revealed the falsehood of Obama’s policies and disappointed the Palestinian people. It deliberately harms the interests of our people in favour of those of the Zionist enemy and America.”
Hamas, which is blacklisted as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, is pledged to Israel’s destruction and has adamantly opposed peace talks since they began in the early 1990s.
Israel routinely launches air strikes after rocket attacks from Gaza. The strikes rarely kill anyone, but on Friday a raid killed a senior Hamas military commander.
That strike came after a rare military-grade rocket fired from Gaza slammed into the southern Israeli port city of Ashkelon, damaging parked cars and shattering the windows of an apartment block but without wounding anyone.
Hamas vowed revenge for Friday’s raids that also wounded another eight people.
http://fwd4.me/0hk5 29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 1 aug 2010
Israeli shelling damages Islamic center
Gaza – Ma’an – An office of the Organization of Islamic Conference sustained damage from Israeli shelling of Gaza City on Saturday.
Contents of the office, for coordination of humanitarian affairs, were destroyed and windows shattered.
Many humanitarian bodies and local organizations working in Gaza have denounced the shelling, which will inhibit the office's work to help residents of Gaza.
The targeted office implemented various relief and development project to ease the suffering of Gaza's 1.6 million residents living under Israel's four-year siege.
The OIC groups demanded an end to targeting of such facilities, especially those which target areas where international organizations have offices, citing them as a further challenge to their work.
Israel's military said the shelling was in response to a rocket fired from Gaza earlier Saturday.
'Israel simulating attack on Iran'
An open source intelligence report says the Israeli military helicopter that crashed in Romania last week was simulating a military attack on Iran.
On Monday, six Israeli soldiers and a Romanian flight captain aboard a CH-53 transport helicopter were killed when the chopper crashed in a mountainous region of central Romania.
The Jerusalem-based DEBKAfile cited a military source as saying on Friday that the crash had occurred in the last stage of a joint Israeli-US-Romanian military drill simulating an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
On a straight line, the distance between Tel Aviv and Iran's nuclear facility in Nataz is 1,600 kilometers (1000 miles). The source said that the Israeli military is cooperating with counties like Romania, Greece, and Bulgaria, which have roughly the same distance with Israel.
The operations, which include risky dives into low altitudes and quick radar-evading maneuvers, are extremely hazardous, the source added.
The drills, dubbed 'Blue Sky 2010,' are underway based on Israeli allegations that Tehran is pursuing a secret military nuclear program, building a nuclear facility in deep tunnels beneath mountains with summits of above 2,000 meters.
Iranian officials reject both charges, stressing that Tehran is cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to keep its civilian nuclear program transparent.
They argue that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Iran has the right to peaceful nuclear technology.
This is while Israel -- reportedly the Middle East's sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal -- has so far defied international calls to sign the NPT.
Israeli has openly threatened to bomb Iran's nuclear installation for years. The likelihood of such an attack has significantly increased due to Tel Aviv's growing impatience with the United Nations Security Council sanctions and similar unilateral measures adopted by the US and EU, which have failed to change Tehran's stance on its peaceful nuclear issue.
Tehran says the sanctions are politically-motivated and stem from its refusal to give into 'global arrogance.'
29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 2 aug 2010
Update: Medics: Israeli airstrike injures 42 in Gaza
Gaza Ma'an The home of a senior Hamas military wing leader in the central Gaza Strip was struck by Israeli warplanes, leaving 42 civilians injured on Monday morning, medics said.
Al-Qassam Brigades leader Alla Ad-Danaf's home was the target in Deir Al-Balah, which was destroyed with five other surrounding homes by a missile from an Israeli F16 fighter jet, military medical services coordinator Adham Abu Salmiyya told Ma'an.
At least 42 civilians were injured as a result, he added, with wounds ranging from slight to moderate.
The Israeli army has denied involvement, with an Israeli military spokeswoman saying there was no army or air force activity overnight.
On Saturday morning, an Al-Qassam Brigade leader was killed in an Israeli airstrike, which the Israeli army said came in response to projectile fire.
The latest blast follows a weekend of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, with residents saying the air raids were reminiscent to Israel's Operation Cast Lead between December 2008 and January 2009.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=304370
Rights group: Silence over airstrikes spurs impunity
Bethlehem - Ma'an - Palestinian rights group Al-Mezan warned Monday that the international community’s silence over Israel’s escalation of attacks on Gaza encourages Israel to violate international law with impunity, a statement read.
The human rights center conducted field investigations of the damage caused by the weekend’s airstrikes, which killed one Palestinian and injured more than 21, and damaged 30 houses and institutions.
A series of aerial attacks overnight on Friday hit the former presidential compound east of Gaza City, while a separate attack on the central Gaza Strip killed Issa Abdul-Hadi Al-Batran, 41. Al-Batran had lost his wife and five of his children in an airstrike in January 2009 during Israel’s war on the Strip.
The same night, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the Gaza-Egypt border in Rafah.
Israel continued to launch missiles at Rafah on Sunday morning, while an aerial attack east of Khan Younis injured one civilian.
The Israeli military said the raids were in response to projectiles launched into Israel from the coastal enclave.
Monday morning, medics reported that 42 civilians were injured by a missile fired by an Israeli F16 fighter jet, however an Israeli military spokeswoman said there was no army or air force activity overnight.
Al-Mezan called for international intervention to protect the civilian population of Gaza against Israeli attacks, which residents have said are reminiscent of Operation Cast Lead.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=304498
Gaza blast wounds Palestinians
More than two dozen people were injured in Monday's blast which destroyed a Hamas leader's house
An explosion at the house of a senior Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip has wounded at least 31 people, Hamas and medical workers in the Palestinian territory have said.
The explosion early on Monday wrecked the house of Alaa al-Danaf, a field commander of the Hamas military wing, in the Deir el-Balah refugee camp in southern Gaza, Palestinian security officials said.
Later on Monday, at least five rockets were fired at the southern Israeli port city of Eilat, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
No casualties were reported there, but one or more of the rockets landed in the neighboring Jordanian city of Aqaba, wounding four, the AFP news agency reported.
Eilat witnessed its first rocket attack in five years in April when several missiles struck the resort town, which lies along the border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
After the blast in Gaza early on Monday, at least 17 people were rushed to a hospital. Unconfirmed reports say at least two people were killed.
At least one person is in critical condition, Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City.
A Hamas medical officer told Al Jazeera the explosion was caused by an Israeli rocket, but an Israeli army spokesman denied responsibility.
It was unclear if al-Danaf was killed in the blast, which occurred at a time of renewed cross-border violence between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli army.
His body was not found in the house, which was completely destroyed in the blast, Johnston said.
Houses damaged
The explosion badly damaged 12 nearby houses in the refugee camp and rescue teams were digging through the rubble for survivors.
Earlier on Sunday, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, issued a strong warning to Hamas leaders in Gaza after a weekend of missile attacks on Israeli communities.
No Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for the violence, which caused damages, but no injuries.
A Hamas commander and rocket-maker was killed in an Israeli air strike at the weekend after a rocket fired from the enclave exploded in the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Issa Batran, whose caravan was hit by a missile, was the first Hamas commander killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza since Israel wound up a three-week military offensive against the territory's Hamas rulers in January 2009.
http://fwd4.me/0hoM
Israeli strike injures 39 in Gaza
An Israeli strike on the impoverished Gaza Strip has injured 39 people, all of them civilians, witnesses say.
Israeli warplane attacked the Deir-al-Balah refugee camp, located in the center of the Gaza City, which is heavily populated, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Medical workers say at least one person is in serious condition. The raid targeted a location in central Gaza early Monday morning causing a huge explosion.
Israeli warplanes were hovering over the area where the huge explosion took place.
Israel has recently carried out dozens of similar raids killing civilians in the besieged coastal enclave.
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=137088
4 aug 2010
Rights group calls for probe into Gaza blast
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- A Palestinian rights group has called for an investigation into a blast in central Gaza that injured several civilians, a statement issued Tuesday read, saying it was likely caused by an internal explosion.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said it calls upon the Hamas-led government in Gaza to launch an inquiry into an explosion that occurred in the Deir Al-Balah refugee camp on Monday morning, which, according to its statistics, injured 58 civilians, including 13 children.
Medics told Ma'an shortly after the blast that Israeli warplanes struck Al-Qassam Brigades leader Alla Ad-Danaf's home in Deir Al-Balah, injuring at least 42 civilians. The Israeli army has denied involvement, with an Israeli military spokeswoman saying there was no army or air force activity overnight.
PCHR said after the blast, however Palestinian resistance members arrived in the area and surrounded the affected house, collecting shrapnel from an explosive device and transporting it in a car. Gaza police also arrived in the area and prevented people from reaching the house.
The center said in light of information available to it through field investigations, and according to testimonies of eyewitnesses that saw transportation of bombs from the house, "there are reasons to suspect that the explosion was coming from inside the house and occurred for no apparent reason," the center wrote.
"Internal explosion occurred in the past in houses amidst densely populated areas, because of mistakes in manufacturing, bad storage of bombs or other reasons, which caused many fatalities among civilians and destroyed houses."
A statement issued Tuesday by the Ezz Ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, read "We confirm that what happened… resulted from a Zionist security operation intended to assassinate field leaders in the [Ezz Ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades]." It further stated that "such ground targeting is part of Zionist operations."
The center further urged the Gaza government to publish the findings of its probe into the blast, noting that several similar incidents have been recorded with PCHR.
29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 2 aug 2010
Israel completes preparations for another attack on Gaza
A Hebrew-language newspaper has claimed that the Israeli Defence Forces have completed their preparations for another attack on Gaza. Yedioth Ahronoth reports that the IDF has made such preparations in the event that the situation escalates in the south of the country. Such preparations pay no heed to the negotiation process.
Although the southern front is “quiet” at the moment, sources in the IDF say that another attack on Gaza is under consideration by the Southern Command. A number of options are available if such an attack takes place.
The IDF’s claims follow the launching of a rocket from Gaza last Friday which landed in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Army officials accused an unknown armed Palestinian group of attempting to escalate tension prior to the opening of negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israeli government has decided to retaliate every time a rocket is launched. The fear is that this will push Palestinian groups to react, leading to an end of the de facto truce.
Other sources believe that Hamas is not interested in escalating the tension; on the contrary, while it is trying to rearm, Hamas does not want any confrontation with Israel. Nevertheless, Israel holds Hamas responsible for everything in Gaza, including rockets fired by smaller factions, and the Jewish state has not ruled out selective strikes against the Islamic Resistance Movement’s infrastructure.
The Israeli army claims that dozens of rockets have been fired towards Israel since January, a sharp drop on the numbers fired in previous years.
29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 2 aug 2010
Israeli settlers escalate attacks on civilians' property
29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 3 aug 2010
Lebanese, Israeli forces exchange fire
Israeli soldiers have launched several rockets targeting a Lebanese army position at the country's southern border, leaving two people wounded.
"The Israelis fired four rockets that fell near a Lebanese army position in the village of Adaysseh and the Lebanese army fired back," AFP quoted a Lebanese security official in the area as saying.
He said one Lebanese soldier and one civilian were wounded in the Tuesday incident.
An army spokesman said the clashes erupted after Israeli soldiers attempted to uproot a tree on the Lebanese side of the border. "The Israelis began to fire and we responded," he said.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports said a Lebanese soldier was kidnapped by Israeli forces.
Lebanese officials have repeatedly complained about Israel's regular violation of the country's southern border and its overflight of the Lebanese territory.
Egyptians deny that rockets were fired from Sinai toward Eilat
Security sources in Egypt have denied that the rockets fired towards Eilat in Southern Israel came from the Sinai Peninsula, saying that such an accusation was "illogical". The denial was made in response to Israeli claims that Egyptian "militants sympathetic to Hamas" were responsible.
According to the Middle East News Agency, Egypt maintains stringent security measures along the border with Israel, from Rafah in the north to Taba in the south. Such measures made it impossible for any Palestinians in Sinai to fire such rockets. The source dismissed claims that there are al-Qaeda elements in Egypt.
"The firing of rockets is always preceded by moving and fixing launch pads," said the source in MENA, "which did not happen." He added that it would have been "illogical" to move launch pads from Gaza into the Sinai in order to fire rockets.
http://fwd4.me/0iH1 29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 3 aug 2010
Police: Family attacked by settlers after car crash
29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 4 aug 2010
Medics: Airstrike kills 1 in south Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- An Israeli airstrike killed a Palestinian operative in the southern Gaza Strip early Wednesday, medical officials said.
Sharif Abdel Hadi Abbey, 22, died and two others were lightly to moderately injured by the strike on Khuza'a, east of Khan Younis, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army had no immediate comment.
The apparent army operation comes days after an Israeli airstrike killed a senior Hamas military leader, following a recent upsurge in projectile fire from Gaza into southern Israel, and hours after 42 Palestinian civilians were reported injured in an explosion at the home of a Hamas-affiliated commander.
29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 4 aug 2010
U.S.: Lebanese fire on Israeli troops was totally unjustified
U.S. State Department assigns blame for clash that left one Israeli officer, two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist dead, after Israeli disappointment with 'neutral' U.S. response the previous day.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday that the firing by Lebanese armed forces on Israeli troops near the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday, which killed one Israeli officer and seriously wounded another, was "totally unjustified and unwarranted" while calling on both sides to show restraint.
The Lebanese shooting on Tuesday prompted an Israeli response which left two Lebanese soldiers dead, as well as a Lebanese journalist.
"We don't want to see this happen again," the State Department spokesman said, echoing sentiments he had voiced the previous day. Israeli officials expressed disappointment on Tuesday with the U.S.'s "neutral" response to the shooting incident, in calling on both sides to show restraint. The U.S.'s failure to assign blame on Tuesday prompted Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren to hold talks with senior administration officials, demanding a harsher response.
Crowley did point the finger at the Lebanese army, but was careful to voice support for the Lebanese side as well, saying "we support the government of Lebanon. We support efforts by Lebanon to increase its ability to exercise its sovereignty over its entire country."
"We appreciate the work of the United Nations both to hold this meeting today, you know, to create the cease-fire yesterday. We're going to be working intensively to see that tensions along this border are eased.?"
After nightfall on Wednesday, representatives of the Israeli and Lebanese armies met with UN peacekeepers to settle the dispute over who had provoked the clash. Israeli officials have called the incident a deliberate ambush. The Lebanese have argued that Israeli soldiers had encroached on Lebanese territory.
In a statement afterward, peace force commander Maj. Gen. Alberto Asarta Cuevas said he called for restraint from all sides and avoidance of avoid any action that could serve to heighten tensions. He said UNIFIL was still investigating the clash, but preliminary findings were presented at the meeting. The statement gave no details.
UNIFIL's monthly meeting was brought forward to defuse the crisis, UNIFIL officials said.
The clash started after an Israeli soldier on a crane dangled over a fence near the border early Tuesday to trim a tree that could provide cover for infiltrators. The Israelis said they clear such underbrush at least once a week and coordinate their actions with UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force that has been in the area for more than 30 years.
This time the tree trimming was followed by gunfire from the Lebanese army, apparently aimed not at the soldier hanging over the fence, but at an observation post some 300 meters into Israeli territory, where the Israeli officers were hit.
On Wednesday the UN ruled that the tree, while across the fence, was inside Israeli territory. The UN drew the border line in 2000 after Israel withdrew its forces from south Lebanon after an 18-year occupation that followed its invasion in 1982 to fight Palestinian forces and try to install a pro-Israel government in Beirut.
"UNIFIL established ... that the trees being cut by the Israeli army are located south of the Blue Line [border] on the Israeli side," said force spokesman Lt. Naresh Bhatt.
Crowley said later "We appreciate the work of the United Nations both in the meeting today and creating the cease-fire yesterday. We're going to be working intensively to see that tensions along this border are eased."
Israel blames U.S., France for arming Lebanon
United States has given Lebanon approximately $400 million over the past year to purchase arms, despite Israel's objections.
Israel will launch a diplomatic campaign calling on the United States and France to stop their military assistance to Lebanon following Tuesday's exchange of fire on the northern border.
"Countries are providing the Lebanese army with advanced weaponry for it to fight Hezbollah, and instead the Lebanese army is using the weapons to fire on IDF soldiers," a senior official in Jerusalem said on Tuesday.
The United States has given Lebanon approximately $400 million over the past year to purchase arms, despite Israel's objections. France has also sent a great deal of weaponry to Lebanon, including advanced anti-tank missiles.
Israel is expected to ask the U.S. Congress to limit its approval of financial aid to Lebanon for arms purchases.
The United States and France issued sharply worded messages to Jerusalem and Beirut yesterday, calling for immediate de-escalation. Top White House Middle East adviser Dan Shapiro phoned Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, asking him to inform Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the administration expects him to act with restraint. A similar message was sent to Lebanon's ambassador to Washington, Antoine Shadid.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner telephoned Defense Minister Ehud Barak, asking that Israel show restraint and "check the facts surrounding the events." Barak asked Kouchner to make it clear to Lebanon that any further baiting of Israel would lead to an even harsher response. Barak called the incident a "planned provocation."
The UN Security Council held a closed-door session on Tuesday after the event. The head of the UN peacekeeping forces, Alain Le Roy, presented the council with the results of UNIFIL's initial probe of the incident. Le Roy did not blame either side for the incident, nor did he accept Israel's claim that the Lebanese troops opened fire first.
The Security Council made do with issuing a short statement at the end of the meeting, calling on both sides to show restraint.
Senior officials in Israel were angry the Security Council had not found Lebanon responsible for the incident.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel's UN envoy Gabriela Shalev wrote to the UN secretary general and the president of the Security Council, saying that Israel had coordinated its work near the border fence with UNIFIL and that the Lebanese army opened fire first, in a flagrant violation of Security Council Resolution 1701.
The deputy chief of Israel's delegation to the United Nations, Ambassador Daniel Carmon, told Haaretz that "the two attacks yesterday on an Israeli patrol were not decided on by a single soldier or local commander."
Netanyahu: Hamas responsible for rockets on Eilat; we will retaliate
PM also blames Lebanese government for violence at border, days after Grad rocket salvo killed Jordanian man in attack from Sinai.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Israeli television Wednesday that Hamas was responsible for the deadly rocket fire on Israel's and Jordan's Red Sea ports on Monday, and that Israel would retaliate.
Earlier Wednesday, Egyptian officials also confirmed that the rocket attacks, which had killed a Jordanian taxi driver in Aqaba, had been carried out by the militant Palestinian group operating from Egypt, after days of denials.
"Over recent days we've witnessed three attacks against Israel," Netanyahu said in a special announcement on Israeli television. "An attack from Gaza on Ashkelon, an attack by the Lebanese army on Israel Defense Forces troops carrying out a routine operation, and another attack from the Sinai peninsula at Eilat. I want to make very clear to Hamas and to the Lebanese government that we view them as responsible for the violent provocation against us."
"Don't test our determination to protect our citizens," the prime minister went on to say.
"Israel will retaliate for every assault. Apparently there were those who understood that, and tried to avoid taking responsibility for these crimes. Three days after our retaliatory operation in Gaza, Grad rockets were fired from Sinai at Eilat and Aqaba by a seemingly anonymous organization. Several months earlier, on April 22, similar rocket fire came from Sinai. We investigated the two incidents – it became clear beyond a doubt that Hamas' military wing in Gaza had perpetrated both attacks under disguise," Netanyahu explained.
"I want to clarify that the use of a third country's soil, one that seeks peace, in order to launch rockets at Israel, will not help Hamas escape culpability. Israel views the attacks against its citizens with extreme severity, as well as the attempt to destabilize Israel's relations with Egypt and Jordan," the prime minister continued.
"Whoever shoots at Israeli citizens, and it doesn't matter from where, we will find them and hit them hard," Netanyahu concluded.
Earlier Wednesday, an Egyptian security official said Hamas had fired seven rockets, including one which misfired and left debris near a security facility in the town of Taba.
The attackers fired Soviet-style Grad rockets of the type used by militants in Lebanon and Gaza, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The rockets hit a narrow area of the Red Coast where the Israeli and Jordanian ports are located side by side. One person was killed and four people were wounded.
Aqaba and Eilat are more than 300 kilometers from Hamas' stronghold in the Gaza Strip. However, an unnamed Egyptian source told Egypt's state MENA agency on Wednesday that "preliminary information indicates that Palestinian factions from the Gaza Strip are behind that operation."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri criticized the Egyptian claim, calling it politically motivated. "This sounds silly and does not depend on any actual reasonable evidence," he said.
MENA quoted Egyptian security sources on Monday as saying rockets could not have been fired from Sinai since the largely empty, desert region was very mountainous.
"Egytian statements are conflicting," Abu Zuhri said. "We doubt the credibility of these statements and believe they are unprofessional and politically motivated."
Earlier on Wednesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, when asked if he was convinced the rockets were fired by Hamas, told Israel Radio there could be a link.
"I do not want to say convinced, but it could be that there is a link between Hamas and this firing - perhaps not people who are part of Hamas in Gaza, perhaps a link that is a little more indirect," he said.
Egypt has not indicated where the rockets were launched from, but said it was scaling up the investigation.
"Egypt will not accept the use of its land by any party to harm Egyptian interests," the Egyptian security source said.
In 2005, rockets were fired at U.S. warships in Aqaba but missed their target and killed a Jordanian soldier on land. A group claiming links to al Qaeda said it was behind the attack.
Two years later, a Palestinian suicide bomber infiltrated through Sinai and killed three people at a bakery in Eilat, a tourist resort on Israel's southern tip which has only rarely been touched by the Middle East conflict.
Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab states to have full peace treaties with Israel. Those relations were frayed by Israel's crackdown a decade ago on a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Although Egypt had initially denied that the rockets were fired from its territory, security forces in Israel were certain that the rockets came from Sinai, as has happened in the past.
A number of terrorist groups are operating in the Sinai peninsula and are busy with smuggling arms into the Gaza Strip and efforts to penetrate into Israel.
Among the groups operating in the Sinai are those with links to Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaida and other global Jihadi groups.
A senior IDF source said yesterday that the rockets were meant to "embarrass Egypt."
Israel's long border with Egypt is relatively unguarded compared to the electric fences and advanced surveillance systems surrounding the Gaza Strip.
The presence of terrorist groups in the Sinai is one of the reasons for the serious travel warning issued by Israel's Counter Terrorism Unit against Israelis traveling to Sinai and Egypt.
Senior IDF sources stressed that in the past year there has been significant improvement in the coordination activities with the Egyptian and Jordanian armed forces, but they also note that on the Egyptian side there is still some hesitation to confront the gangs in the peninsula head on.
More 29 oct 2012, 11:26 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:27 , Respect -
Maria 5 aug 2010
Half of Israelis approve of another attack on Gaza
(3:53) ISRAEL ATTACKING A DEFENSELESS GAZA
A recent poll has revealed more than half of Israelis approve of another attack on Gaza -- despite widespread international condemnation of last year's offensive which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians.
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It was always Jeff Gafni's dream that his son Yuval would follow in his footsteps. The 67-year-old paratrooper has fought in the Israeli army most of his life. Last year his son joined him on the Gaza battlefield. Neither one of them believes it was the last time.
"There is no kind of magic to finish it. The only way is to do it the same way they did last time -- maybe deeper, and that means more causalities on both sides and maybe for a longer while," Jeff Gafni.
EXCLUSIVE...Emily Henochowicz Speaks Out:
(7:15) EXCLUSIVE...Emily Henochowicz Speaks Out on Democracy Now! 1
(10:00) DN! Emily Henochowicz Speaks Out (2) Art Student Who Lost Her Eye
Art Student Who Lost Her Eye After Being Shot by Israeli Tear Gas Canister in West Bank Protest Discusses Her Life, Her Art, and Why She Plans to Return.
Today, a Democracy Now! global broadcast exclusive interview with Emily Henochowicz. She’s the twenty-one-year-old American art student who lost her eye in May after being shot in the face by an Israeli tear gas canister at a protest against Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla that left nine people dead. "I’m not ashamed of the fact that I lost my eye. I’m proud of who I am. I believed in the cause, and that’s why I came to that demonstration on that day," Henochowicz says. "I’m not going to be the same person that I was before this happened.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/5/exclusiveemily_henochowicz_speaks_out_art_student
Nasrallah: Israel's Aggressive Hand to Be 'Cut off'
Hezbollah promises action against Israel's potential acts of aggression on Lebanon's Army, responding to the Israeli invaders' recent killing of four Lebanese.
"The Israeli hand that targets the Lebanese Army will be cut off," the Lebanese resistance movement's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday.
"…in any place where the Lebanese Army will be assaulted and there is a presence for the resistance, and it is capable, the resistance will not stand silent, or quiet or restrained," Nasrallah said in a speech transmitted via video link in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Israeli troops entered Lebanese soil, exchanging fire with Lebanon's Army.
The offensive, joined by the Israel Defense Forces and the regime's Air Force, saw the military launching rocket and suspected phosphorous bomb attacks on southern Lebanon.
Three Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist from the Beirut-based al-Akhbar newspaper and one senior Israeli Army officer were killed in the crossfire. It also resulted in injuries on both sides.
Lebanon's President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Saad Hariri as well as Iranian and Jordanian officials have also voiced their condemnation of the invasion.
The Hezbollah leader furthermore praised the Lebanese Army's bravery against the incursion, which he denounced as violation of Lebanon's sovereignty.
He said Tel Aviv has repeatedly breached the United Nations Resolution 1701, which ended Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, regretting the international bodies' refusal to probe the incidents.
About 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, were killed during the 33-Day War. The Israeli military, however, was met with Hezbollah's resistance and was eventually forced to withdraw without having achieved any of its objectives.
Nasrallah also held Israel responsible for the assassination of the country's former leader Rafik Hariri, who was killed alongside 22 other people in a massive car bombing in the capital on February 14, 2005.
"I accuse the Israeli enemy of the assassination of (former) Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and... I will prove this by unveiling sensitive information at a press conference on Monday.
http://fwd4.me/0iHC
Only we're allowed
By Gideon Levy
After Tuesday's border clash, Israel will continue to ignore UNIFIL and the Lebanese army.
Those bastards, the Lebanese, changed the rules. Scandalous. Word is, they have a brigade commander who's determined to protect his country's sovereignty. Scandalous.
The explanation here was that he's "indoctrinating his troops" - only we're allowed to do that, of course - and that this was "the spirit of the commander" and that he's "close to Hezbollah." The nerve.
And now that we've recited ad nauseum the explanations of Israel Defense Forces propaganda for what happened Tuesday at the northern border, the facts should also be looked at.
On Tuesday morning, Israel requested "coordination" with UNIFIL to carry out another "exposing" operation on the border fence. UNIFIL asked the IDF to postpone the operation, because its commander is abroad. The IDF didn't care. UNIFIL won't stop us.
At noon the tree-cutters set out. The Lebanese and UNIFIL soldiers shouted at them to stop. In Lebanon they say their soldiers also fired warning shots in the air. If they did, it didn't stop the IDF.
The tree branches were cut and blood was shed on both sides of the border. Shed in vain.
True, Israel maintains that the area across the fence is its territory, and UNIFIL officially confirmed that yesterday. But a fence is a fence: In Gaza it's enough to get near the fence for us to shoot to kill. In the West Bank the fence's route bears no resemblance to the Green Line, and still Palestinians are forbidden from crossing it.
In Lebanon we made different rules: the fence is just a fence, we're allowed to cross it and do whatever we like on the other side, sometimes in sovereign Lebanese territory. We can routinely fly in Lebanese airspace and sometimes invade as well.
This area was under Israeli occupation for 18 years, without us ever acknowledging it. It was an occupation no less brutal than the one in the territories, but whitewashed well. "The security zone," we called it. So now, as well, we can do what we like.
But suddenly there was a change. How did our analysts put it? Recently there's been "abnormal firing" at Israeli aircraft. After all, order must be maintained: We're allowed to fly in Lebanese airspace, they are not permitted to shoot.
But Tuesday's incident, which was blown out of proportion here as if it were cause for a war that only the famed Israeli "restraint" prevented, should be seen in its wider context. For months now the drums of war have been beating here again. Rat-a-tat, danger, Scuds from Syria, war in the north.
No one asks why and wherefore, it's just that summer's here, and with it our usual threats of war. But a UN report published this week held Israel fully responsible for creating this dangerous tension.
In this overheated atmosphere the IDF should have been careful when lighting its matches. UNIFIL requests a delay of an operation? The area is explosive? The work should have been postponed. Maybe the Lebanese Army is more determined now to protect its country's sovereignty - that is not only its right, but its duty - and a Lebanese commander who sees the IDF operating across the fence might give an order to shoot, even unjustifiably.
Who better than the IDF knows the pattern of shooting at any real or imagined violation? Just ask the soldiers at the separation fence or guarding Gaza. But Israel arrogantly dismissed UNIFIL's request for a delay.
It's the same arrogance behind the demand that the U.S. and France stop arming the Lebanese military. Only our military is allowed to build up arms. After years in which Israel demanded that the Lebanese Army take responsibility for what is happening in southern Lebanon, it is now doing so and we've changed our tune. Why? Because it stopped behaving like Israel's subcontractor and is starting to act like the army of a sovereign state.
And that's forbidden, of course. After the guns fall silent, the cry goes up again here to strike another "heavy blow" against Lebanon to "deter" it - maybe some more of the destruction that was inflicted on Beirut's Dahiya neighborhood.
Three Lebanese killed, including a journalist, are not enough of a response to the killing of our battalion commander. We want more. Lebanon must learn a lesson, and we will teach it.
And what about us? We don't have any lessons to learn. We'll continue to ignore UNIFIL, ignore the Lebanese Army and its new brigade commander, who has the nerve to think that his job is to protect his country's sovereignty.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/only-we-re-allowed-1.306104
UNIFIL slammed for inaction in clashes
French soldiers serving with the UNIFIL
Lebanon's Druze leader Walid Jumblatt blasts the UN forces for their "inaction" during the recent bloody clashes between the Israeli forces and the Lebanese Army.
He said he had hoped that the UNIFIL servicemen had stood by Lebanon against Israel during the Tuesday confrontation, taking issue with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, who are mandated to maintain the security of Lebanon's southern border with Israel.
The crossfire broke out after an Israeli patrol unit breached a border fence and moved into the Adeissah village in southern Lebanon, prompting light fire from the country's soldiers, the Lebanese Army said in a statement.
Confrontation subsequently erupted with the Israeli forces using machineguns and tank shells on Army bases and local residences, it noted.
Three Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and a senior Israeli officer died during the exchange of fire, the worst of its kind since Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon.
Jumblatt further recalled the UN peacekeepers' bad record during the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995. He voiced regret that the UN forces did not intervene to prevent the killing of 7,000 Muslims at the hands of the Serbs.
He, however, spoke in favor of the protection Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah was providing for the country. Hezbollah fought off the 33-day war in 2006, which killed about 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians.
"When we hear Israel urging France and the US not to provide the Lebanese Army with weapons, this is why resistance arms remain essential until the Army is fully equipped to fight the enemy's might," Jumblatt said.
Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has also said that the group would act to curb Israel's potential acts of aggression on Lebanon's Army.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=137578§ionid=351020203