- 1 oct 2011
3 injured in Israeli airstrike on northern Gaza
-
Maria 3 oct 2011
Medics: Teenager shot by soldiers near Gaza City
20 jan 2012, 13:35 , Respect -
Maria 4 oct 2011
Army: Gaza rockets land in southern Israel
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- Militants in Gaza fired two rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday causing no damage or injuries, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, soldiers detonated five explosive device near the border in the central Gaza Strip, the army said in a statement.
The military said soldiers identified the devices while "performing routine activity" in the border area and detonated them with the assistance of an Israeli aircraft.
On Tuesday morning, witnesses said several military jeeps and bulldozers entered al-Qarara north of Khan Younis and started leveling agricultural land as helicopters hovered overhead firing randomly at homes.
An army spokeswoman did not confirm or deny the incident but said there had been military activity in the Gaza Strip.
http://fwd4.me/0D0w
Israeli helicopters fire on southern Gaza
UN reports alarming increase in Israeli violenc -
Maria 5 oct 2011
Rocket lands in Ashkelon as Israel bolsters forces in south
NAZARETH, (PIC)-- A rocket-propelled grenade landed Tuesday evening in the coastal city of Ashkelon in the 1948- occupied territories as Israel has decided to boost troops in the southern 1948- occupied territories.
The grenade was fired from the Gaza Strip, Israeli Radio said. It landed in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council area in the city without report of injuries or damages.
Separately, an Israeli military force encountered an explosive device during a routine exercise along the security fence in central Gaza Strip, Israeli Radio said, adding that there were no injuries or damage in the incident.
Israeli troops discovered four more explosive devices in the same area, the news outlet reported, adding that the devices have been safely detonated.
This comes as senior Israeli military personnel have decided to increase the days of service of the army’s reserve troops, as a result of the “unstable security conditions in the region”.
The army is planning on bolstering its forces in the southern 1948- occupied territories after the Eilat attack that killed seven Israelis, mostly soldiers.
The occupation army has doubled reserve troops along the border with Egypt.
http://fwd4.me/0D9A - 7 oct 2011
Official: Navy fires on Palestinian fishing boats - 10 oct 2011
Man killed in northern Gaza Strip
Army Airstrikes On Gaza - 11 oct 2011
Ten Palestinian female students hospitalized after IOF assault
20 jan 2012, 14:08 , Respect -
Maria 12 oct 2011
Israeli Soldiers Shoot, Arrest Palestinian during Confrontations in Hebron
20 jan 2012, 14:09 , Respect -
Maria 13 oct 2011
Israeli soldier 'shoots Palestinian'
19 oct 2011
Failed bomber: 'I don't regret what I did. It was an honour'
By Catrina Stewart in Jabaliya refugee camp, Gaza
Gaunt from a 21-day hunger strike, Wafa al-Bis has something of the fanatic about her. Given the chance, she says, leaning forward, she would try to blow herself up again.
This from the woman who after six years in an Israeli jail has been given another shot at life. Her mother next door is still laughing and crying with joy and relief. “I don’t regret what I did,” says a defiant Ms Bis, 27. “This is my homeland. What I did was an honour.”
She was just 21 years old when she failed to detonate a suicide vest at an Israeli checkpoint after it was spotted by soldiers. Her case gained particular notoriety for she was on her way to receive treatment at an Israeli hospital for disfiguring burns, raising suspicions that she intended to blow herself up there.
“It was my dream to be a martyr but God didn’t grant it,” she says, insisting that her target was the military, not civilians. “I wanted to kill as many Israeli soldiers as possible.”
From Jabiliya refugee camp, Ms Bis was halfway through her 12-year sentence when Israel agreed to trade 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli soldier. Latterly, she had been on hunger strike, a protest at the removal of privileges in Israeli jails.
When her mother Salma Shubeyr learned that her daughter was up for release, she could barely contain her joy. “I can’t begin to describe my happiness, I kept ululating,” she laughs.
But even after just six years apart, her daughter failed to recognise her mother as the nearly 300 freed prisoners arrived at Rafah border crossing yesterday. “I knew her, but she didn’t know me,” Mrs Shubeyr says. “Wafa fainted when I told her I was her mother. Her father picked her up, saying, ‘It’s your father’.”
Their joy is all the more intense because they have had their daughter returned to them twice, once from the brink of death, the second from jail. But if her parents have tried to guide her on a different path, they show little sign of it. “Jihad is Jihad, it’s an honourable thing,” her mother says. “I was proud of her.”
In the years since Ms Bis’ arrest, suicide attacks by Palestinians have ceased, but that is not to say there is a lack of motivation. The Palestinians are still no closer to achieving a state, and conditions in Gaza have rapidly deteriorated following a short war and four-year blockade by Israel that has crippled the economy and denied its 1.6 million inhabitants freedom of movement.
If anything, the success of the prisoner exchange, the culmination of the capture of an Israeli tankman five years ago, has reinforced the view of some Palestinians that armed resistance is the only path. “You have to know that Palestine will never be liberated through negotiations,” Ms Bis says. “This is the belief of the resistance.”
Asked if she would undertake a suicide mission again, she says: “Of course. Why not?? I would be a suicide bomber three times over if I could.”
http://fwd4.me/0fIk
Would-be bomber tells Gaza children to be like her
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA CITY (Reuters) -- A would-be suicide bomber freed by Israel in the prisoner swap told cheering schoolchildren in Gaza the day after her release Wednesday she hoped they would follow her example.
"I hope you will walk the same path we took and God willing, we will see some of you as martyrs," Wafa al-Biss told dozens of children who came to her home in the northern Gaza Strip.
Biss was traveling to Beersheba's Soroka hospital for medical treatment in 2005 when Israeli soldiers at the Erez border crossing noticed she was walking strangely. They found 10 kgs of explosives had been sewn into her underwear.
A member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group aligned with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, Biss was sentenced to a 12-year term for planning to blow herself up.
After she spoke, the children cheered and waved Palestinian flags and chanted: "We will give souls and blood to redeem the prisoners. We will give souls and blood for you, Palestine."
Biss said she had planned to blow herself up at the checkpoint but her detonator malfunctioned.
"Unfortunately, the button did not work at the last minute before I was to be martyred," Biss told Reuters.
She said she had not yet adjusted to her freedom and arose early on Wednesday for prison roll call.
"This morning I woke up in my room, wore my scarf and stood up awaiting the line-up time before I realized I was home and not in jail," she said.
Once she settles back to her routine, Biss said she plans to complete university psychology studies but added that she remained defiant in the face of Israeli warnings to act against those who return to fighting.
"We will pursue our struggle and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nentanyahu) knows that. Arrests will not deter us from our strong battles and confrontation in the face of Zionist arrogance in the land of Palestine," she said.
Biss was one of 477 Palestinians freed by Israel on Tuesday in the first stage of an exchange with Hamas that ended Gilad Shalit's five years of captivity.
Another 550 Palestinians will be freed in the second stage later this year.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=430851 20 jan 2012, 14:09 , Respect- 7 oct 2011
-
Maria 20 20 jan 2012, 14:09 , Respect -
Maria 21 20 jan 2012, 14:09 , Respect -
Maria 22 oct 2011
Israeli Soldiers Shoot at Funeral, Injure 4
PRC leader 'survives car bomb attack'
20 jan 2012, 14:09 , Respect -
Maria 23 oct 2011
Jaabari: More Israeli soldiers to be captured to free all prisoners
GAZA, (PIC)-- Ahmed Al-Jaabari, the deputy general commander of the Qassam Brigades the armed wing of Hamas, has affirmed that his armed wing would continue to plan capturing Israeli soldiers to trade them for Palestinian prisoners.
He said in a press statement on Saturday that the Qassam Brigades would not rest until all Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli occupation jails.
Jaabari, who headed the Palestinian negotiating team in the prisoners’ exchanged deal with Israel, said that the moment the first batch of Palestinian prisoners were released from jail was one of the best moments of his life.
As far as the second stage of the exchange deal was concerned, Jaabari said that Israel would not dare violate the deal especially with the presence of the Egyptian patron.
He affirmed that the second batch should include those who spent more than 20 years in jail, the sick, and the elderly internees.
Jaabari himself was imprisoned by the occupation in the early eighties and served 13 years in occupation jails for forming a Fatah resistance cell and he was moved between various prisons during that period.
It was in jail that he got to know Sheikh Salah Shehada and other Hamas prisoners and he decided to move from Fatah to Hamas.
He always says no one knows the extent of suffering of Palestinian captives in occupation jails except those who have been captives in those jails.
Before leaving prison in 1995, he promised his fellow captives that he will do everything in his power to liberate them from Zionist captivity.
http://fwd4.me/0fUq 20 jan 2012, 14:10 , Respect -
Maria 24 nov 2011
Israeli Artillery Shells Hit Arafat International Airport in Rafah
20 jan 2012, 14:10 , Respect -
Maria 25 nov 2011
IOF artillery blasts southern Gaza
Settlers injuring four including a 12-year-old boy
- 26 oct 2011
4-year-old 'critically injured' after shooting
20 jan 2012, 14:10 , Respect -
Maria 27 oct 2011
Army: Bomb targets vehicle near Bethlehem
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- An improvised explosive device detonated late Wednesday beside an Israeli army patrol near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, an army spokeswoman said.
The explosion caused light damage to the vehicle but no injuries, she said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=432798
Army: Grad rocket hits Ashdod
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A grad rocket launched from the Gaza Strip struck an open field near the southern Israeli town of Ashdod, an army spokeswoman said late Wednesday.
There were no reports of injury or damage, she said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=432797
Asil Arara, 4, Paralyzed in Four Limbs after Being Shot in Neck by Israeli Army
Medics: Palestinian injured east of Rafah
Israeli Forces Declare Area near Bethlehem Closed Military Zone
20 jan 2012, 14:10 , Respect -
Maria 28 20 jan 2012, 14:10 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2011
Gaza death toll reaches 9, rocket kills Israeli
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed four more fighters from Islamic Jihad's armed wing on Saturday evening, after an earlier airstrike on the coastal enclave killed five members from the group.
Medical spokesman in Gaza Adham Abu Salmiya said that two fighters from the al-Quds Brigades were killed in the strike on Rafah, south Gaza, while two more were killed in a separate strike.
He identified two victims as 21-year-old Sami Abu Sabt and 25-year-old Suleiman Abu Fatima, both from Rafah. Their bodies were transferred to Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in the city, he added.
The Palestinian civil defense managed to recover the bodies of two other Palestinians killed in an Israeli airstrike on western Gaza City late Saturday. They were later identified as Suheil Jundieh and Murdi Hajjaj.
Israeli media reported that a man had died from his injuries after a projectile fired from the Gaza Strip hit the southern city of Ashkelon.
More than 20 projectiles and mortar bombs hit different sites in southern Israel on Saturday, wounding two civilians and damaging buildings, Israeli police and the army said.
Islamic Jihad, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Fatah-aligned al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades separately took credit.
An Israeli army statement confirmed a direct hit on a site being used to fire projectiles into Israel.
Richard Miron, the spokesman for UN special envoy for the peace process Robert Serry, said the recent escalations "are very worrying."
Miron said in a statement received by Ma'an that "it is vital to de-escalate now, without delay. We strongly appeal for calm and an end to the violence and bloodshed."
Remarking on the Rafah deaths, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri accused Israel of a "serious escalation against our people."
Earlier, warplanes fired on southern Gaza, killing five members of Islamic Jihad's armed wing and injuring 15 others, four of them seriously, medics and security officials said.
Witnesses said two missiles hit a military site operated by the al-Quds Brigades northeast of Rafah. The attack killed Ahmad al-Sheikh Khalil, a prominent leader in the brigades.
Shortly thereafter rockets were launched toward Israeli targets, the military said. An army spokeswoman confirmed that three projectiles struck Israeli territory around 5 p.m.
President Mahmoud Abbas' office called on Israel to stop its escalation.
Nabil Abu Rudaineh, the president’s spokesman, was quoted by the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa as also calling on factions in Gaza “to avoid giving Israel a pretext to wage a new war on Gaza and to tighten the siege.”
Senior Hamas leader Ahmad Bahar on Saturday said that Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip were an attempt to "trick the resistance into a new round of escalation."
The latest round of Israeli violence was a way of compensating for the recent prisoner deal, which Bahar described as a “strategic victory for Palestinian resistance.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433504
Gaza militants call for united response to Israeli airstrike
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- The military wing of the PFLP in Gaza on Saturday called for resistance groups to unite in order to respond to an Israeli airstrike which killed five Islamic Jihad fighters earlier in the day.
The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades said factions in Gaza should retaliate "as fiercely as possible and using all means, to the (Israeli) occupation's crimes," a statement said.
A lesser-known Gaza-based faction, the al-Mujahideen Brigades, also called for Palestinian resistance groups to respond to the airstrike near Rafah, which also injured 15 people, 4 critically.
Islamic Jihad's armed wing confirmed in a statement that one of its military sites in Rafah was attacked on Saturday, and al-Quds Brigades spokesman Abu Ahmad vowed a response "in the heart of Israel."
Israel's army said the strike targeted "targeted a terrorist squad in the southern Gaza Strip that was preparing to launch long-range rockets," who it also blamed for a Wednesday rocket that landed in southern Israeli city Ashdod.
The Israeli army launched a series of airstrikes on Thursday, which locals said hit a site used by Hamas's armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433436
Factions threaten to retaliate, PA calls for restraint
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- President Mahmoud Abbas' office on Saturday called on Israel to stop its escalation against the Gaza Strip, after airstrikes left five people dead and several others injured.
Nabil Abu Rudaineh, the president’s spokesman, was quoted by the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa as calling on factions in Gaza “to avoid giving Israel a pretext to wage a new war on Gaza and to tighten the siege.”
Despite the warning, resistance factions in Gaza threatened to retaliate for the assassination of five members of the al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad's military wing, in the southern town of Rafah hours earlier.
They described the attack as "a crime aimed to spoil the joyfulness after the prisoner swap deal which secured freedom for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners sentenced to life (terms) in Israel.”
Abu Ahmad, a spokesman for the al-Quds Brigades, told Al Jazeera television that the “occupation wanted to provoke Palestinian resistance, and so our response will strike at the core of Israel.”
The remarks came after warplanes fired on southern Gaza, killing five members of Islamic Jihad's armed wing and injuring 15 others, four of them seriously, medics and security officials said.
Witnesses told Ma'an that Israeli forces fired two missiles at a military site operated by the al-Quds Brigades northeast of Rafah. The attack killed Ahmad al-Sheikh Khalil, a prominent leader in the brigades.
Shortly thereafter rockets were launched toward Israeli targets, the military said. An army spokeswoman confirmed that three projectiles struck Israeli territory around 5 p.m., lightly injuring two people.
A statement from the Al-Quds Brigades claimed responsibility, AFP reported.
The reprisal attacks apparently came after sunset when according to police seven rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, with one wounding an Israeli, one slamming into a community center and another into a residential building.
Rockets hit the city of Ashdod, 22 miles from the Gaza border and the nearby town of Gan Yavneh, police said.
"One hit Gan Yavneh ... where a person was lightly wounded," spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
Police said that four rockets landed in Ashdod, one of which hit an empty community center and another a residential building.
"It was a direct hit, but there are no immediate reports of casualties," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said of the strike on the residential building.
Another rocket fell elsewhere in southern Israel, in open ground nearer to Gaza and one was fired "in the general direction" of the city of Beersheeva, in the Negev desert, but appeared to have fallen on open ground, police said.
Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, held Israel responsible for the killing of Islamic Jihad’s fighters. “The enemy must take responsibility for the repercussions of this atrocity,” said spokesman Abu Ubaida.
In a statement, he said the “Palestinian resistance factions, namely the al-Qassam Brigades, will not stand by as martyrs' blood is shed.” He said the attack came to subvert celebrations after hundreds of long-term prisoners were freed in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was captured in a cross-border operation in 2006.
Similarly, the spokesman of the Ayman Juda Brigades, a sub-division of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Brigades, threatened that “the coming hours will see all Palestinian factions retaliating to the crime the Zionists committed against the al-Quds Brigades fighters.”
Abu Mujahid, the spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees which helped capture Shalit, also released a statement urging all Palestinian factions to respond to “the Israeli aggression.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433456
Fatah says Israel wants to start 'cycle of violence'
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- The Fatah movement in Gaza strongly condemned an Israeli airstrike which killed five Islamic Jihad fighters in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, a statement said.
The movement described the airstrike as an "assassination crime committed by Israeli occupation forces."
The Israeli government is attempting “to throw the region into a cycle of violence and systematic state terrorism against the Palestinian people," the statement added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433496
IDF Provokes New Wave of Violence in Gaza to Coincide With National Social Justice Protest
20 jan 2012, 14:10 , Respect -
Maria 30 oct 2011
Truce fails to end cross border violence
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A truce secured through Egyptian mediation early on Sunday failed to end cross border violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
The truce aimed to put an end to the violence which had killed nine Palestinian gunmen and an Israeli civilian on Saturday.
Sources close to Gaza's ruling Hamas movement and to Islamic Jihad, which was at the forefront of fierce cross-border fighting on Saturday said that Egyptian intelligence officials helped broker a ceasefire due to take hold at 6 a.m.
Three rockets were fired at Israel after the 6 a.m. deadline for the truce, an Israeli official said. Two were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile shield and another slammed into southern Israel causing no casualties or damage.
Israel's air force bombed an Islamic Jihad base in southern Gaza on Saturday afternoon, killing five senior operatives and drawing Palestinian rocket salvoes that killed an Israeli civilian.
Four more fighters from the al-Quds Brigades were killed in separate strikes.
Medical spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya identified two of them as Sami Abu Sabt, 21, and Suleiman Abu Fatima, 25, both members of Islamic Jihad's armed wing.
The Palestinian civil defense managed to recover the bodies of two other Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes late Saturday. They were later identified as Suheil Jundieh and Murdi Hajjaj.
One of some 30 rockets and mortar bombs fired at Israel killed a man in the city of Ashkelon. Two other people were wounded.
Israel kept schools shut in its southern region on Sunday as a precaution against further rocket fire, while hundreds of thousands of civilians within 40 km of Gaza were urged to stay indoors.
Richard Miron, the spokesman for UN special envoy for the peace process Robert Serry, said the recent escalations "are very worrying."
Miron said Saturday in a statement received by Ma'an that "it is vital to de-escalate now, without delay. We strongly appeal for calm and an end to the violence and bloodshed."
Islamic Jihad said a commander, Ahmed al-Sheikh Khalil, and four comrades who had overseen production of bombs and rockets were killed in Saturday's Israeli strike on the base. Two other fighters were wounded.
Islamic Jihad vowed revenge, a call echoed by smaller groups in the coastal territory.
"There is no chance of speaking about a truce now, following such a big crime against leaders of the group," Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Ahmed said on Saturday.
Islamic Jihad and two more secular factions, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Fatah-aligned al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, claimed responsibility for most of Saturday's rocket fire.
Israel demanded international intervention to stop the Palestinian attacks.
Hamas last week repatriated an Israeli soldier it seized in 2006 in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 jailed Palestinians. There were no claims of any Hamas involvement in Saturday's violence.
Commenting on the Islamic Jihad deaths, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri accused Israel of a "serious escalation against our people."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433571
Officials: Egypt secures truce to end violence
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israel and Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip will end a flare-up of violence early Sunday, Egyptian officials said as the death toll rose to 10.
The truce was secured through Cairo's mediation, informed officials said, after nine Palestinian gunmen and an Israeli civilian were killed in the cross-border violence that was sparked by an Israeli raid.
Israel's air force bombed an Islamic Jihad base in southern Gaza on Saturday afternoon, killing five senior operatives and drawing Palestinian rocket salvoes that killed an Israeli civilian.
Four more fighters from the al-Quds Brigades were killed in separate strikes.
Medical spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya identified two of them as 21-year-old Sami Abu Sabt and 25-year-old Suleiman Abu Fatima, both members of Islamic Jihad's armed wing.
Their bodies were transferred to Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in the city of Rafah, he added.
The Israeli military said the gunmen had carried out cross-border shellings. An Israeli army statement confirmed a direct hit on a site being used to fire projectiles into Israel.
Israeli media reported that a man had died from his injuries after a projectile fired from the Gaza Strip hit the southern city of Ashkelon. He had been taken to Barzilai hospital, Israel's Haaretz newspaper said.
More than 20 projectiles and mortar bombs hit different sites in southern Israel on Saturday, wounding the man who later died and another civilian, Israeli police and the army said.
Islamic Jihad, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Fatah-aligned al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades separately took credit for the cross-border projectiles.
Richard Miron, the spokesman for UN special envoy for the peace process Robert Serry, said the recent escalations "are very worrying."
Miron said in a statement received by Ma'an that "it is vital to de-escalate now, without delay. We strongly appeal for calm and an end to the violence and bloodshed."
Remarking on the Rafah attack, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri accused Israel of a "serious escalation against our people."
The attack killed five members of Islamic Jihad's armed wing and injured 15 others, four of them seriously, medics and security officials said.
Israeli forces fired two missiles at the military site operated by the al-Quds Brigades northeast of Rafah. The attack killed Ahmad al-Sheikh Khalil, a prominent leader in the brigades.
Shortly thereafter rockets were launched toward Israeli targets, the military said. An army spokeswoman confirmed that three projectiles first struck Israeli territory around 5 p.m.
President Mahmoud Abbas' office called on Israel to stop its escalation.
Nabil Abu Rudaineh, the president’s spokesman, was quoted by the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa as also calling on factions in Gaza “to avoid giving Israel a pretext to wage a new war on Gaza and to tighten the siege.”
Senior Hamas leader Ahmad Bahar on Saturday said that Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip were an attempt to "trick the resistance into a new round of escalation."
The latest round of Israeli violence was a way of compensating for the recent prisoner deal, which Bahar described as a “strategic victory for Palestinian resistance.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433546
Israeli warplanes target Gaza district
Despite Declared Ceasefire; Israel Bombards Several Areas In Gaza
Netanyahu warns of 'kill or be killed' policy on Gaza
Israel must continue targeted killing
20 jan 2012, 14:10 , Respect -
Maria 31 oct 2011
Overnight airstrike brings Gaza deaths to 12
2 more Palestinians killed in Gaza
Lieberman renews call for invading Gaza to topple Hamas
EU’s Ashton holds Islamic Jihad Responsible for Violence