zaterdag 17 januari 2009

Palestijnse vredesactivist in Gaza verliest dochters door Israelische granaat

Dit drama haalde zelfs het Nederlandse Acht Uur Journaal, met als inleiding dat een 'persoonlijk verhaal soms meer vertelt dan alle analyses en commentaren'. Deze arts is één van de vele duizenden burgerslachtoffers in de Gazastrook van de heilloze heilige oorlog die Hamas voert en de Israelische tegencampagnes in dichtbevolkt gebied. Extra tragisch omdat dit gezin zich juist inzette voor vrede en begrip tussen Joden en Arabieren.

Wat mij echter opviel is dat het de beweringen in Nederlandse media onderuit haalt, dat de Israelische media nauwelijks aandacht zouden hebben voor het Palestijnse leed in Gaza. Het is oorlog, maar de Palestijnse dokter uit Gaza werd regelmatig gevraagd op een Israelische journaal te berichten over de dramatische situatie aan zijn kant van het conflict.

Wouter

_____________

Last update - 20:46 17/01/2009

Israeli-trained Gaza doctor loses three daughters and niece to IDF tank shell
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056198.html
By The Associated Press

Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, a Palestinian doctor who trained in Israel, has been a regular fixture on Israeli television during the 21-day-old war against Hamas militants, bringing witness accounts of the medical crisis facing Gazans to Israeli living rooms.

His report Friday was drenched in grief as he sobbed through a cell phone that three of his daughters and a niece were killed by an Israel Defense Forces shell.

Abu al-Aish said he hoped his three daughters would be the last victims of the fighting in Gaza, and that their deaths would help bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

"I want to know why my daughters were harmed. This should haunt (Israeli Ehud Prime Minister) Olmert his entire life," Abu al-Aish said on Israel's Channel 10, speaking through a cell phone in Hebrew as he has throughout the war.

He added that his daughters were "armed only with love."

Gazan officials identified Al-Aish's deceased daughters as 22-year-old Bisan, 15-year-old Mayer and 14-year old Aya. His niece was identified as 14-year-old Nour Abu al-Aish.

At least two other daughters were injured, and are currently being treated at Tel Ha-Shomer Hospital in Tel Aviv.

The press conference at Tel Ha-Shomer became tense at one moment when an Israeli woman and mother of three IDF paratroopers began yelling at Abu al-Aish, demanding that he explain why there was weaponry in the house.

Throughout the war, Abu al-Aish had put a face on the Palestinian suffering, making regular reports by cell phone to Israel's Channel 10. He is a rarity among Palestinians, a Hebrew-speaker who trained in two Israeli hospitals - the Soroka hospital in Beersheba just 18 miles from Gaza, and Tel Aviv's Tel Hashomer hospital.

His tragedy prompted numerous calls of concern to the station, many from people who know him.

"We all know and love him well at Soroka, and we really hope the situation gets better," Dr. Shaul Sofer, head of the ER at Soroka who taught Abu al-Aish.

Abu al-Aish, a 55-year-old gynecologist, also is a known peace activist who was involved in promoting joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, and an academic who studied the affects of war on Gazan and Israeli children. He works at Gaza's main Shifa Hospital.

During the call-ins, Abu al-Aish often spoke of his fears for his eight children as Israeli shells punished not only the Hamas militants they were targeting but civilians who live in the crowded enclave, unable to leave. His wife reportedly died recently of cancer.

When Channel 10 called him on Friday, he answered the phone crying that his house in the northern Gaza strip town of Jebalia had been hit by Israeli shells and his daughters killed. Eighteen members of his extended family were in the house at the time.

Israeli TV said initial reports indicated that a sniper had fired from either the family's building - which friends quoted by TV said they doubted - or nearby, and the Israeli infantry responded with a tank shell.

Abu al-Aish was able to arrange the transfer of two injured daughters to Israeli hospitals - something that has been extremely rare during this conflict. The Israeli army also for the first time allowed a Palestinian ambulance to go straight to the Erez border crossing, where the injured were transferred to Israeli ambulances.

From there, they were taken by helicopter to Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv.

"Everyone knew we were home. Suddenly we were bombed. How can we talk to Olmert and (Foreign Minister) Tzipi Livni after this?" Abu al-Aish told television reporters at the border crossing.

"Suddenly, today when there was hope for a cease-fire, on the last day...I was speaking with my children, suddenly they bombed us. The doctor who treats Israeli patients."

Stroomuitval door Palestijnse raketten in Ashdod

Naar eigen bewering van de Al Qassam Brigades hebben ze sinds het Israelische offensief op 27 december begon tot gisteren 303 Qassams, 213 Grad raketten en 51 mortiergranaten op Israël afgevuurd.

(www. alqassam.ps/english/?action=showsta&sid=1303 en www. alqassam.ps/english/?action=showsta&sid=1304)

Wouter

___________

Jan 17, 2009 10:17 | Updated Jan 17, 2009 22:52
Rocket in Ashdod causes power outage
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232100165159&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
By SHELLY PAZ, YAAKOV LAPPIN AND JPOST.COM STAFF

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to fire rockets at the western Negev on Saturday evening, with a Grad-type rocket hit in Ashdod causing power outages in the south of the city.

Two Kassam rockets also hit Ashkelon, causing no casualties or damage.

On Saturday afternoon, Hamas exploited a humanitarian lull in IDF activity to fire two rockets at Beersheba. The projectiles hit in open areas, causing no injuries or damage.

Kiryat Gat was also targeted by rockets that struck open areas during the afternoon.

During the evening, officials from the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council reported hearing three explosions near a kibbutz; no injuries or damage was reported.

Throughout the day, the agricultural regional councils of Eshkol, Sdot Negev and Sha'ar Hanegev were all struck by rockets. No injuries or damage were reported.

Four mortar shells were fired at Eshkol shortly after noon. Earlier, a rocket hit outside a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev region.

Ofakim and Netivot were targeted by four rockets in the morning, with one rocket damaging a synagogue in Tifrah, near Ofakim. The building was empty due to a break in morning prayers and no one was wounded, although two people were treated for shock. Heavy damage to the structure was reported.

Gaza-belt communities released a statement on Saturday evening expressing support for Operation Cast Lead while also backing diplomatic contacts aimed at reaching a cease-fire.

"We have carried the burden of the threat of terrorism for eight years, and hold in esteem the [military] operation that has been under way over the past three weeks against the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza," the statement said.

Meanwhile, the Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba said seven-year-old Uriel Elazarov remained in critical condition. On Thursday, a piece of rocket shrapnel penetrated his skull.

The condition of a 43-year-old woman also seriously wounded in Thursday's attack has improved, hospital officials added, saying she had left the intensive care unit in moderate condition.

On Friday, Grad rockets fired from Gaza hit Kiryat Gat, wounding three people and causing heavy damage. Others were treated for shock following the attack.

Ashdod was also targeted by two Grad rockets on Friday afternoon. One rocket struck the yard of a home, wounding one man moderately and one man lightly. They were evacuated to Rehovot's Kaplan Hospital.

The second projectile hit a factory in the city, causing heavy damage but no casualties. At least one man was treated for shock.

Twenty-three rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel on Friday.

Soldiers and civilians in the South described the rockets fire over the weekend as routine.

Though Sderot seemed a ghost town on Saturday, on Friday it was flooded with people who came from across the country to show support and to do their Shabbat shopping.

"We wanted to feel the atmosphere here from up close," said Shimon Nagar, an Israeli who has been living in New York for 40 years. He arrived in Israel a few days ago, and together with two of his friends came to Sderot to demonstrate solidarity.

One of Nagar's friends, Shmuel Levy from Herzliya, described himself as a leftist, "and even a communist." He supported continuing the offensive against Hamas. "It is either peace or war. In war as in war, but peace will win eventually," Levy said, before the three friends drove to the best lookout into Gaza.

Three couples from Tel Aviv, Ness Ziona and Rishon Lezion ate felafel near the Sderot outdoor market, which remained closed on Friday. They said they has decided to do all their shopping in the town.

"This is our first time here and we decided to support the people of Sderot and the area economically and to show them our love," said Billy Shapira from Tel Aviv.

"Two of my children who are serving in the army asked me to buy things for them here, too, and that's what we did," Ariela Cohen from Rishon Lezion said.
Late on Saturday morning many soldiers and Sderot residents were hanging around the Kfar Aza Café/convenience store.

"I just came back home after three weeks in Eilat," Sderot man Pini Asido told his friends. "I thought it would be over by now, but it isn't," he said. "But don't get me wrong. I am not complaining, we have been waiting for this for eight years."

His friend Shmuel Dahan said he refused to be intimidated by the rockets. "I am glad that Hamas fired rockets at Beersheba and Ashdod, otherwise they [the government] wouldn't have started this operation at all," he said.

When asked about the civilian casualties inside Gaza, in particular children, Dahan said: "Of course it hurts. We are human. This is not an easy thing, but what do you expect us to say, that we don't want our children to have a normal life?" he asked.

Another woman at the table said that though this operation was taking a heavy toll in children's lives, "They killed more of us. They kill us all from the inside, not a few hundreds of us, but all of us who have been living under this threat for so long."

Sec.-Lt. Stav Gilad from Jerusalem, whose job is to facilitate the evacuation of wounded soldiers and damaged equipment from Gaza, hasn't been home for three weeks. On Friday, her mother, father and aunts brought her a homemade lunch.

Stav said Operation Cast Lead had entered a static phase as far as the soldiers were concerned. "This is the phase where you've had enough of it and everything becomes routine. But there is a difference between the desire to go back home and to rest a little, and the greater desire to reach this operation's main goal: to stop the rocket fire," she said.

Stav is an only child. Her mother, Ariela, who signed the documents that allow her to serve in a combat unit, said she had been worried sick. "I know she is not going inside Gaza, but she is here in the area and that causes me to lose sleep," she said.

Stav's father, Dotan Gilad, who lives in California and took a flight to visit his daughter, said that the offensive was generally accepted by Americans.

"The IDF must remove the rocket threat from over the heads of the people. The Americans think we are crazy that we allowed this to happen, they think we are wimps," he said.

Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.

Verklaring premier Olmert over eenzijdig staakt-het-vuren Gaza

Wij worden er wel eens van beticht een spreekbuis van de Israelische regering te zijn.

Bij deze.

Wouter

________________

Translation - Prime Minister's Office

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Statement
at the Press Conference on January 17, 2009

Citizens of Israel,

Exactly three weeks ago as the Sabbath ended, we sat here before you - my friend Ehud Barak, the Vice Prime Minister Tzipi Livni and myself - and detailed the considerations and goals which guided us in launching a military operation in the Gaza Strip. Today, we face you again and can say that the conditions have been created so that our targets, as defined when we launched the operation, have been fully achieved, and more so:

·        Hamas was badly stricken, both in terms of its military capabilities and in the infrastructure of its regime. Its leaders are in hiding. Many of its members have been killed. The factories in which its missiles were manufactured have been destroyed. The smuggling routes, through dozens of tunnels, have been bombed. The Hamas's capabilities for conveying weapons within the Gaza Strip have been damaged. The scope of missile fire directed at the State of Israel has been reduced. The areas from which most of the missiles were launched are under the control of IDF forces. The estimate of all the security services is that the Hamas's capabilities have been struck a heavy blow which will harm its ability to rule and its military capabilities for some time.

·        The IDF and the General Security Services have succeeded in conducting an outstanding operation, utilizing all the elements of Israel's force - on land, at sea and in the air. The military operation was characterized by determination, sophistication, courage and an impressive ability in intelligence and operations, which led to significant and numerous achievements. The current campaign proved again Israel's force and strengthened its deterrence capability vis-à-vis those who threaten us.

·        The reserves soldiers, who are the foundation for the IDF's strength, proved that the spirit of volunteerism and a willingness to sacrifice still very much exist. These forces were made ready in a thorough manner, equipped with all they needed and thus could demonstrate their professionalism and fierceness of spirit.

·        During all the days of fighting, the Israeli home front demonstrated its strength, despite hundreds of rockets and mortar shells indiscriminately fired at a population which numbers one million residents; it was the home front that created an unshakable foundation which strengthened us and gave us the ability to continue fighting. Two years of preparation on the home front proved that we learned our lessons and were properly organized. The Government and the heads of the regional local authorities under attack demonstrated the patience, endurance and that same strong spirit which allowed the political echelon to make the right decisions, knowing that the home front could withstand the consequences of those decisions.

·        As a decision-making body, the Government of Israel demonstrated unity with regard to goals, and acted professionally and in coordination to achieve those goals. The decisions were all made in a responsible and educated manner, following clarification and in-depth discussions. As an executive branch, the Government met the demands and needs of the population and the fighting forces.

·        Alongside the successes, we must also remember the fallen and those who sacrificed their lives to achieve a better reality in the South. The campaign claimed the lives of three residents of the South and ten of our soldiers. Tonight our hearts are with their families. We send our wishes for a speedy recovery to the residents of the South and to the IDF soldiers injured during the operation.

·        Today, and in large part due to the success of the military operation, the entire international community is ready to mobilize in order to achieve maximum stability, and knows that, for this to occur, the process of Hamas's strengthening must stop. To this end, we reached a number of understandings - the importance of which cannot be underestimated - which will ensure that the strengthening of Hamas will decrease. We formulated understandings with the Egyptian government with regard to a number of central issues, the realization of which will bring about a significant reduction in weapons smuggling from Iran and Syria to the Gaza Strip.

·        On Friday we signed a memorandum of understanding with the American government, in the framework of which the United States will mobilize to take the necessary steps, together with the other members of the international community, to prevent weapons smuggling by terrorists in Gaza. I wish to thank and express my great appreciation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice Prime Minister for her efforts to reach this agreement, for her contribution to the diplomatic steps and for the widespread diplomatic effort she made over the past several weeks, which were an important contribution to the international backing given to the Israeli effort against the terrorist organizations headed by Hamas.

·        Today I received a letter from the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel and the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, in which all four expressed their profound commitment to assisting in any way in order to ensure that weapons will not succeed in reaching the murderous terrorist organizations in Gaza.

I have no doubt that were it not for the determined and successful military action, we would not have reached diplomatic understandings, which together create a full picture of impressive accomplishment.

Citizens of Israel,

The Government decided to launch the operation in Gaza only after long thought and great consideration, and only after all attempts through other means to stop the firing and other acts of terror by Hamas failed. Israel, which withdrew from the Gaza Strip to the last millimeter at the end of 2005 - with no intention of returning - found itself under a barrage of missiles. Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip and began attacking the communities in the South more intensely. Hamas's methods are incomprehensible. It placed its military system in crowded residential neighborhoods, operated among a civilian population which served as a human shield and operated under the aegis of mosques, schools and hospitals, while making the Palestinian population a hostage to its terrorist activities, with the understanding that Israel - as a country with supreme values - would not act. The external Hamas leadership, which lives in comfort and quiet, continued to set extremist policies while ignoring the population's ongoing suffering and out of a conspicuous unwillingness to ease its situation.

Hamas in Gaza was built by Iran as a foundation for power, and is backed through funding, through training and through the provision of advanced weapons. Iran, which strives for regional hegemony, tried to replicate the methods used by Hizbullah in Lebanon in the Gaza Strip as well. Iran and Hamas mistook the restraint Israel exercised as weakness. They were mistaken. They were surprised.

The State of Israel has proven to them that restraint is an expression of strength which was exercised in a determined and sophisticated manner when that which we had avoided became unavoidable.

During the operation, the State of Israel demonstrated great sensitivity in exercising its force in order to avoid, as much as possible, harming the civilian population not involved in terror. In cases where there was any doubt that striking at terrorists would lead to harming an innocent civilian population - we abstained from acting. There are not many countries which would act thusly.

We have no disagreement with the residents of Gaza. We consider the Gaza Strip a part of the future Palestinian state with which we hope to live a life of good neighborliness, and we wish for the day when the vision of two states is realized.

During the operation, we made widespread and concerted efforts to see to the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population. We allowed for the transfer of equipment, food and medicine to prevent a humanitarian crisis. In addition, I appointed Minister Isaac Herzog, the Minister of Social Welfare and Social Affairs, to head up this effort, and tonight the Cabinet instructed him to invest all his efforts in preparing a comprehensive plan so that in the next few days, we will be able to provide an appropriate and comprehensive answer to the civilian population's needs in the Gaza Strip. I wish to express my great appreciation to the international organizations which acted and continue to act tirelessly to assist us in providing the Palestinian population with appropriate living conditions. Israel will continue to cooperate with them, especially in the coming days and weeks on behalf of the Gazan population.

Citizens of Israel,

Today, before the Government meeting, I spoke with the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, who presented Egypt's initiative to me, along with his request for a ceasefire. I thanked the President for Egypt's commitment to finding a solution to this crisis and for the important role it plays in the Middle East. I presented the President's statement to the Cabinet, along with the totality of our achievements in the operation, as well as the completion of the goals. The Cabinet decided to accept my proposal to declare a ceasefire.

Beginning at 2:00 a.m., Israel will cease its actions against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and will remain deployed in the Gaza Strip and its environs.

It must be remembered that Hamas is not part of the arrangements we came to. These are agreements involving many countries, and a terrorist organization like Hamas is not and need not be a part of them. If our enemies decide that the blows they have already suffered are not enough and they wish to continue fighting, Israel will be ready for that scenario and will feel free to continue responding with force.

Hamas was surprised a number of times during the past several weeks. It did not predict the State of Israel's determination or the seriousness of its intentions to bring about a change in the reality in the region. Hamas's leaders did not believe that the State of Israel would launch a military operation on such a scale on the eve of elections; it did not predict the force of the military attack and moreover - it did not predict the outcome.

Hamas still does not fully appreciate the difficult blow it received. If Hamas decides to continue its wild terrorist attacks, it may find itself surprised again by the State of Israel's determination. I do not suggest that it or any other terrorist organization test us.

This statement tonight would be incomplete if I did not mention the kidnapped soldier, Gilad Schalit. One hundred meters from here, there is a demonstration for his release, and I respect each and every one of the participants. The intensive efforts to secure Gilad's release began long before the operation, continued during it and will continue after as well. The Government of Israel is working on many levels to bring him home, and during the operation we carried out various actions to bring us closer to this goal. Due to the sensitivity of the matter, I will not go into detail. I will only say that Gilad is at the top of our agenda, and we do not need any prodding or reminding in this matter. I am hopeful tonight as well that we will soon see him in his family's embrace.

On a personal note:

For weeks I have been watching the people of Israel day and night as we make the unprecedented effort to fight for and realize our right of self-defense. I saw the brave soldiers, our dear and beloved sons; I saw their commanders and the spirit which buoyed them; I saw the residents of the South, their fierce sprit; and the leadership of the mayors who took care to provide for the needs of their residents; I also saw the actions of the Home Front Command, which quietly and efficiently coordinated the assistance campaign for the southern region; and I heard the bereaved families.

Dear families, the things you said, the pain you expressed, the fierce spirit you demonstrated - these are the foundation for the people of Israel's strength. On behalf of the entire nation, on behalf of the Government of Israel, I share your profound pain and thank you for the encouragement, the strength and the inspiration your strong stance has granted the entire nation.

I also wish to say something to the people of Gaza: even before the military operation began, and during it, I appealed to you. We do not hate you; we did not want and do not want to harm you. We wanted to defend our children, their parents, their families. We feel the pain of every Palestinian child and family member who fell victim to the cruel reality created by Hamas which transformed you into victims.

Your suffering is terrible. Your cries of pain touch each of our hearts. On behalf of the Government of Israel, I wish to convey my regret for the harming of uninvolved civilians, for the pain we caused them, for the suffering they and their families suffered as a result of the intolerable situation created by Hamas.

The understandings we reached with Egypt, the international backing of the United States and the European countries - all these do not ensure that the firing by Hamas will stop. If it completely stops - the IDF will consider withdrawing from Gaza at a time which it deems right. If not, the IDF will continue to act in defense of our residents.

This is the time to convey our appreciation and gratitude, first and foremost to you, Mr. Minister of Defense, for your work, for the tremendous effort you made, for your skill, professionalism and the understanding you demonstrated throughout he operation - thank you very much. I wish to thank the soldiers of the IDF, their commanders, the Head of the Southern Command Yoav Galant, and the Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi; to the General Security Services, its fighters and its head, Yuval Diskin; to the Mossad and its hidden fighters, headed by Meir Dagan; to the Israel Police and the emergency services, Magan David Adom and the Fire Department.

Blessed is the nation with such an army and such security and rescue services.

I wish to express my hope that tonight the first step towards a different reality, one of security and quiet for the residents of Israel, will be taken. From the bottom of my heart, I thank the people of Israel, its fighters and their commanders for the fierceness of spirit and the social solidarity they demonstrated over these past weeks.

This is the secret of our strength - it is the foundation for our power and it is the hope of our future.

Thank you.

--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

Vannacht gaat eenzijdig staakt-het-vuren Gazastrook in

Vannacht om 2 uur Israelische (1 uur Nederlandse) tijd gaat het staakt-het-vuren door Israel in, zo heeft het kabinet besloten.

Hamas heeft al aangekondigd door te gaan met raketbeschietingen tot hun eisen zijn ingewilligd. Zij willen doorvechten tot de laatste burger van Gaza lijkt het; statistisch gezien zou dat in dit tempo nog 60 jaar zijn...

Hopelijk houdt het staakt-het-vuren lang genoeg om humanitaire hulp op gang te krijgen zoals medische verzorging en voedsel- en brandstofdistributie. Een definitief einde van de gevechten durf ik niet te voorspellen, tenzij Hamas alsnog toegeeft en aan de belangen van de Palestijnen begint te denken.

Wouter

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Last update - 23:45 17/01/2009

Israel to begin unilateral Gaza cease-fire at 2 A.M.
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056178.html

Prime Minster Ehud Olmert on Saturday night announced that Israel's security cabinet has voted in favor of a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, which will come into effect at 2 A.M.

The announcement comes after three weeks of fighting in the coastal strip, as Israel launched a massive military offensive aimed at halting years of daily rocket fire on its southern communities. Palestinian sources say that more than 1,100 Gazans have been killed since the offensive began on December 27. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israel Defense Forces have been killed during that period.

The decision to launch the cease-fire was approved during a lengthy security cabinet meeting which began after sundown in Tel Aviv. Two ministers were against the move, and another abstained.

"Our fight is not with the people of Gaza," Olmert said at the Tel Aviv press conference following the cabinet meeting. "We left Gaza in 2005 with the intention of never returning," he said, referring to Israel's unilateral withdrawal of troops and settlers from the territory under former prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Olmert warned that Iran, through its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, was trying to establish its own hegemony in the region. He said that Hamas had underestimated Israel's decisiveness, had been "surprised" by the launch of the offensive, and was still not fully aware of how badly it had been damaged.

Olmert said that "if Hamas entirely ends its rocket fire on Israel, Israel will consider an IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip." If that did not occur, he said, "The IDF will continue to operate in order to protect our citizens."

Most rocket launching areas are now controlled by IDF, he said.

A strong hint at the impending cease-fire announcement came earlier Saturday, when Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel was very close to meeting the objectives of its 22-day-old offensive in Gaza.

"After three weeks of Operation Cast Lead, we are very close to reaching the goals and securing them through diplomatic agreements," Barak said during a visit to the south of the country, according to a statement from his office.

The decision means Israel has put an end to Operation Cast Lead without an agreement with Hamas, relying instead on the support of the United States and Egypt in battling arms smuggling into Gaza.

Israel's Channel 10 earlier Saturday quoted IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi as saying he is in favor of bringing the IDF Gaza operation to a close.

A government source emphasized that there has been great progress with Egypt in reaching an agreement on fighting arms smuggling. The deal would require the combined use of technological measures on the border between Gaza and Egypt, operations against smugglers in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and the use of international experts to identify smuggling tunnels on the border.

The deal would also call for cooperation between Israel and Egypt on matters relating to the Gaza Strip in which they have shared interests, without the interference of Hamas.

Egypt is at the moment considering whether to organize a summit in the near future in Cairo between Olmert, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Egypt's state-run news agency MENA reported on Saturday that Mubarak has invited French President Nicholas Sarzoky and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for talks on how to end the Gaza offensive.

The Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported that Abbas and Sarkozy are set to hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Muabark on Sunday.

The United States and Israel signed an agreement on Friday aimed at stopping the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

The deal includes measures meant to fight arms smuggling from Iran to Gaza, with the policing to take place throughout the route by which the arms reach Gaza, including patrols of the Persian Gulf, Sudan and neighboring states.

The two-and-a-half page document outlines a framework under which the United States will provide military and intelligence assets, including detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations in the region. The equipment and training would be used for monitoring Gaza's land and sea borders.

The document also calls for the U.S. to expand work with its NATO partners in the effort, particularly in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and eastern Africa, according to a text.

It also commits Washington to use relevant components of the U.S. military to assist Mideast governments in preventing weapons and explosives flows to Gaza that originate in or transit their territories.

Although signed by the Bush administration, the agreement is binding on the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama and Rice and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said both Obama and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton had been briefed on the details.

Memorandum Israel en VS tegen wapensmokkel

Dit is het akkoord dat gisteren tussen Israel en de VS is gesloten, en op grond waarvan Israel waarschijnlijk vanavond met een eenzijdig staakt het vuren in zal stemmen.

-------

אל: כל הנציגויות

דע: תפוצת הסברה

מאת: מח' מידע ואינטרנט – אגף תקשורת

הנדון: מזכר ההבנה למניעת הברחות - טקסט - 16.1.09

Memorandum of Understanding

Between

Israel and the United States Regarding

Prevention of the Supply of Arms and Related Materiel to Terrorist Groups

Israel and the United States (the "Parties"),

Recalling the steadfast commitment of the United States to Israel's security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel's capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats;

Reaffirming that such commitment is reflected in the security, military and intelligence cooperation between the United States and Israel, the Strategic Dialogue between them, and the level and kind of assistance provided by the United States to Israel;

Taking note of the efforts of Egyptian President Mubarak, particularly the recognition that securing Gaza's border is indispensable to realizing a durable and sustainable end to fighting in Gaza;

Unequivocally condemning all acts, methods, and practices of terrorism as unjustifiable, wherever and by whomever committed and whatever the motivation, in particular, the recent rocket and mortar attacks and other hostile activity perpetrated against Israel from Gaza by terrorist organizations;

Recognizing that suppression of acts of international terrorism, including denying the provision of arms and related materiel to terrorist organizations, is an essential element for the maintenance of international peace and security;

Recognizing that the acquisition and use of arms and related materiel by terrorists against Israel were the direct causes of recent hostilities;

Recognizing the threat to Israel of hostile and terrorist activity from Gaza, including weapons smuggling and the build-up of terrorist capabilities, weapons and infrastructure; and understanding that Israel, like all nations, enjoys the inherent right of self defense, including the right to defend itself against terrorism through appropriate action;

Desiring to improve bilateral, regional and multilateral efforts to prevent the provision of arms and related materiel to terrorist organizations, particularly those currently operating in the Gaza Strip, such as Hamas;

Recognizing that achieving and maintaining a durable and sustainable cessation of hostilities is dependent upon prevention of smuggling and re-supply of weapons into Gaza for Hamas, a terrorist organization, and other terrorist groups, and affirming that Gaza should not be used as a base from which Israel may be attacked;

Recognizing also that combating weapons and explosives supply to Gaza is a multi-dimensional, results-oriented effort with a regional focus and international components working in parallel, and that this is a priority of the United States' and Israel's efforts, independently and with each other, to ensure a durable and sustainable end to hostilities;

Recognizing further the crucial need for the unimpeded, safe and secure provision of humanitarian assistance to the residents of Gaza;

Intending to work with international partners to ensure the enforcement of relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions on counterterrorism in relation to terrorist activity in Gaza;

Have reached the following understandings:

1. The Parties will work cooperatively with neighbors and in parallel with others in the international community to prevent the supply of arms and related materiel to terrorist organizations that threaten either party, with a particular focus on the supply of arms, related materiel and explosives into Gaza to Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

2. The United States will work with regional and NATO partners to address the problem of the supply of arms and related materiel and weapons transfers and shipments to Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, including through the Mediterranean, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and eastern Africa, through improvements in existing arrangements or the launching of new initiatives to increase the effectiveness of those arrangements as they relate to the prevention of weapons smuggling to Gaza. Among the tools that will be pursued are:

· Enhanced U.S. security and intelligence cooperation with regional governments on actions to prevent weapons and explosives flows to Gaza that originate in or transit their territories; including through the involvement of relevant components of the U.S. Government, such as U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa Command, and U.S. Special Operations Command.

· Enhanced intelligence fusion with key international and coalition naval forces and other appropriate entities to address weapons supply to Gaza;

· Enhancement of the existing international sanctions and enforcement mechanisms against provision of material support to Hamas and other terrorist organizations, including through an international response to those states, such as Iran, who are determined to be sources of weapons and explosives supply to Gaza.

3. The United States and Israel will assist each other in these efforts through enhanced sharing of information and intelligence that would assist in identifying the origin and routing of weapons being supplied to terrorist organizations in Gaza.

4. The United States will accelerate its efforts to provide logistical and technical assistance and to train and equip regional security forces in counter-smuggling tactics, working towards augmenting its existing assistance programs.

5. The United States will consult and work with its regional partners on expanding international assistance programs to affected communities in order to provide an alternative income/employment to those formerly involved in smuggling.

6. The Parties will establish mechanisms as appropriate for military and intelligence cooperation to share intelligence information and to monitor implementation of the steps undertaken in the context of this Memorandum of Understanding and to recommend additional measures to advance the goals of this Memorandum of Understanding. In so far as military cooperation is concerned, the relevant mechanism will be the United States-Israel Joint Counterterrorism Group, the annual Military to Military discussion, and the Joint Political Military Group.

7. This Memorandum of Understanding of ongoing political commitments between the Parties will be subject to the laws and regulations of the respective parties, as applicable, including those governing the availability of funds and the sharing of information and intelligence.

This Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 16 January, 2009 at Washington, in duplicate, in the English language.

FOR ISRAEL: FOR THE UNITED STATES:

עד כאן

מח' מידע ואינטרנט – אגף תקשורת

Grootste watercrisis in Israel in 80 jaar

Een probleem waar maar weinig aandacht voor is. Ik heb al eens eerder betoogd dat Israel misschien maar geen waterzuipende landbouwproducten zoals bloemen, tomaten en parika's meer naar Europa moet exporteren, maar juist producten die weinig water nodig hebben; om de markt wat dit betreft haar werk te laten doen, moet water dus nog een stuk duurder worden. Dan zal het tevens aantrekkelijker worden om te investeren in ontziltingsinstallaties. De vele mensen in Israel die op of onder de armoedegrens leven zouden dan gecompenseerd moeten worden, of water zou boven een bepaalde hoeveelheid pas duurder moeten worden.

Ik heb eerlijk gezegd geen idee wat voor discussies hierover in Israel gaande zijn en wat voor voorstellen er zijn gedaan om iets aan de waterproblematiek te doen, want dit probleem wordt totaal overvleugeld door het conflict met de Palestijnen en Arabieren. Juist op dit vlak zou Israel haar buren, die hier in nog ernstiger mate mee kampen, echter wat te bieden kunnen hebben.

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Last update - 04:49 16/01/2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055962.html

Expert: Israel faces worst water crisis in 80 years

By Zafrir Rinat, Haaretz Correspondent

Though there are still more than two months left in the rainy season, the writing is already on the wall: Expect another dry winter that will worsen the state of Israel's water economy.

To date, most parts of the country have received only 60 to 80 percent of their normal rainfall for this time of year. The situation is particularly grave around Lake Kinneret, which is Israel's principal water source. The last time the lake was this low, six years ago, we were saved by an exceptionally rainy February that raised the water level by several meters in the space of a few weeks. The chances of that happening a second time, however, are slim. And barring such an occurrence, the lake is likely to remain so low as to virtually preclude pumping from it.

On Wednesday, Water Authority director Prof. Uri Shani told the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee that, so far, this has been the driest January since regular rainfall measurements began. "We are at the height of a water crisis whose like we haven't seen for 80 years," he warned.
The Water Authority believes the easiest way to save water is to ban watering lawns, both public and private. Shani said an order to this effect will be issued soon. The authority also intends to cut the water quota for farmers by another 100 million cubic meters. For now, however, it does not intend to forbid watering gardens, nor does it intend to initiate short-term cutoffs of the water supply to households, having concluded that this actually does little to save water.

In an effort to increase supply, the authority plans to expand drilling in areas such as the Golan Heights, the Hula Valley and the eastern Galilee. The drilling sites are slated to include nature reserves and natural parks, a proposal that has upset green organizations - not only because these sites will receive less water, but because the drilling itself, plus attendant work such as constructing access roads, could harm these sites.

Even without new drilling, some nature reserves are already suffering severe water shortages that have harmed their native flora. Lake Kinneret has been suffering ecological damage as well.

"We understand that the situation is grave and action must be taken quickly, but it is still necessary to give thought to nature and open spaces," said Itamar Ben David of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. Drilling in nature reserves, he argued, should be "a last resort."

In a discussion on how best to counter the water crisis, Shani said that the Water Administration is considering anchoring desalination boats off the coasts of Israel.

"The gap between demand and availability, as well as the condition of the aquifers being in the bad shape, suggest that the peak of the crisis is still ahead of us in 2009," Shani added.

In 2008 water allocation for farming was already at its lowest point since the establishment of the state, at 450 million cubic meters.

Committee chairman MK Ophir Pines-Paz acknowledged that "the crisis is severe, but there is no sense of crisis and no one is behaving as if it were a crisis. We expect the government to adopt a determined, aggressive police of enforcement and punishment, including criminal charges [against violators of water restriction regulations]."

Egyptische sheik erkent antisemitisme

MEMRI: Special Dispatch | No. 2190 | January 15, 2009
Egypt/Antisemitism Documentation Project

Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi Responds to MEMRI: "Yes, I Am An Antisemite"; If Not for the Arab Rulers, "We Would Devour [The Jews] With Our Teeth"; "We Are Your Enemies. Until The Day Jesus. Descends, Fighting You And Calling To Join Islam"

Recently, MEMRI TV released a clip of a speech by Sheikh Safwat Higazi that aired on Hamas Al-Aqsa TV on December 31, 2008, in which the sheikh said: "Being killed... is what we desire and hope for. It is martyrdom, by Allah... I wish I could stand among the youth of the Al-Qassam Brigades, passing them one of their missiles, wiping from their faces the dust of a missile that was launched, or crying 'Allah Akbar' along with them... Dispatch those sons of apes and pigs to the Hellfire, on the wings of the Qassam rockets... Jihad is our path... The [Jews]... deserve to be killed. They deserve to die. Destroy... everything over there"

(to view this clip, visit www.memritv.org/clip/en/1972.htm ).

According to the Lebanese Daily Star, Safwat Higazi is founder and secretary-general of Dar Al-Ansar for Islamic Affairs,(1) and in January 2008 headed a 21-vehicle relief convoy bound for Gaza with medical and food supplies and blankets but was stopped by Egyptian police.(2) On December 24, 2008, he issued a fatwa that anyone who denies the Sunna is an infidel and crazy, and must be killed.(3)

On January 4, 2009, Sheikh Higazi responded to MEMRI's releases, on Al-Nas TV

(to view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1983.htm).

De reactie van sheik Safwat Higazi op beschuldigingen van MEMRI dat hij aanzet tot haat en geweld:

Safwat Higazi: "An Israeli-American organization monitoring Arab media, called MEMRI - or rather, this is its acronym - has accused several prominent Muslim clerics and sheikhs from Arab TV channels, including Dr. Sallah Sultan and Sheikh Safwat Higazi, of incitement to the killing of the Jews and to hatred of the U.S.

[...]

"This is a great honor for us. Yes, I am an antisemite. Yes, I hate Zionism. Yes, Judgment Day will not come until we fight the Jews. These are the words of our Prophet, like it or not."[...]

"Yes, We Hate Them... If Our Rulers Let Us, We Would Catch You in the Street... [And] Devour You With Our Teeth"
"Yes, we are enemies of these people. We are enemies of all those who plunder our land and our rights, and we are enemies of the American government, and of whoever helps our enemies in the killing of our brothers. We are enemies of whoever helps our enemies - America and all the others.

"Yes, we hate them. Yes, we are hostile to them. By Allah, only our rulers prevent us from getting to you. By Allah, if they let us, we would devour you completely, and we would bite you with our teeth. We would not wait for weapons, for RPGs, or for bullets. If our rulers let us, we would catch you in the street, and we would devour you with our teeth.

"Yes, we are your enemies, and we will continue to be your enemies, until the day Jesus son of Mary descends, fighting you and calling to join Islam, the religion of the Prophet Muhammad."

________

Endnotes:
(1) http://www.traveltodayarabia.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=2743; http://viviansalama.wordpress.com/category/daily-star-egypt/
(2) Al-Masri-Al Yawm (Egypt), January 27, 2008, http://www.almasry-alyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=91472.
(3) Ahl Al-Quran International Quranic Center, http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=4642.

================

For assistance, please contact MEMRI at memri@memri.org.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.

MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.

MEMRI
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: (202) 955-9070
Fax: (202) 955-9077
www.memri.org

Waarom Israel geen vrede kan sluiten met Hamas

There is a fixed idea among some Israeli leaders that Hamas can be bombed into moderation. This is a false and dangerous notion. It is true that Hamas can be deterred militarily for a time, but tanks cannot defeat deeply felt belief.

The reverse is also true: Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness.

Deze laatste visie is vooral populair onder een grote groep Europeanen. De huidige militaire campagne zou de extremisten versterken, en gesprekken met Hamas en tegenmoet komen aan hun wensen zou de gematigden ten goede komen. Het is zeker waar dat de dood en destructie in Gaza Hamas sympathie oplevert, maar tegelijkertijd zien Palestijnen ook dat het op de Westoever onder Fatah toch beter toeven is. Bovendien komt Hamas zwaar aangeslagen uit deze strijd, en dat is dus juist een klap voor de extremisten. Macht en invloed komen in het Midden-Oosten vaak uit de loop van een geweer, zoals Hamas onder andere in haar bloedige coup in 2007 liet zien. Een verzwakt Hamas is goed voor de kansen op vrede, omdat zij zo minder goed in staat zal zijn het vredesproces te torpederen zoals zij in de jaren '90 met succes deed.

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January 14, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

Why Israel Can't Make Peace With Hamas

By JEFFREY GOLDBERG

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/opinion/14goldberg-1.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Washington

IN the summer of 2006, at a moment when Hezbollah rockets were falling virtually without pause on northern Israel, Nizar Rayyan, husband of four, father of 12, scholar of Islam and unblushing executioner, confessed to me one of his frustrations.

We were meeting in a concrete mosque in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Mr. Rayyan, who was a member of the Hamas ruling elite, and an important recruiter of suicide bombers until Israel killed him two weeks ago (along with several of his wives and children), arrived late to our meeting from parts unknown.

He was watchful for assassins even then, and when I asked him to describe his typical day, he suggested that I might be a spy for Fatah. Not the Mossad, mind you, not the C.I.A., but Fatah.

What a phantasmagorically strange conflict the Arab-Israeli war had become! Here was a Saudi-educated, anti-Shiite (but nevertheless Iranian-backed) Hamas theologian accusing a one-time Israeli Army prison official-turned-reporter of spying for Yasir Arafat's Fatah, an organization that had once been the foremost innovator of anti-Israeli terrorism but was now, in Mr. Rayyan's view, indefensibly, unforgivably moderate.

In the Palestinian civil war, Fatah, which today controls much of the West Bank and is engaged in intermittent negotiations with Israel, had become Mr. Rayyan's direst enemy, a party of apostates and quislings. "First we must deal with the Muslims who speak of a peace process and then we will deal with you," he declared.

But we spoke that day mainly about the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, that specifically concerned Jews and their diverse and apparently limitless character failings. This sort of conversation, while illuminating, can become wearying over time, at least for the Jewish participant, and so I was happy to learn that Mr. Rayyan had his own sore points.

"Hezbollah is doing very well against Israel, don't you think?" I asked. His face darkened, suggesting that he understood the implication of my question. At the time, Hamas, too, was firing rockets into Israel, though irregularly and without much effect.

"We support our brothers in the resistance," he said. But then he added, "I think each situation is different."

How so?

"They have advantages that we in Gaza don't have," he said. "They have excellent weapons. Hezbollah moves freely in Lebanon. We are trapped in the Israeli cage. So I don't like to hear the sentence, 'Hezbollah is the leader of the resistance.' It's a very annoying sentence. They are heroes to us. But we are the ones fighting in Palestine."

"And they're Shia," I said. Mr. Rayyan, who was educated by Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia, was known in Gaza as a firm defender of Sunni theology and privilege, and sometimes lectured at the Islamic University of Gaza on the danger of Shiite "infiltration."

"Yes! There are many different secret agendas," he said. "We have to be aware of this."

Hamas men across Gaza were of two minds on the subject of Hezbollah: One night, I met the members of a Hamas rocket team in the town of Beit Hanoun, on Gaza's northern border with Israel. The group's leader, who went by the name of Abu Obeidah, said that he, too, was frustrated by Hezbollah's success against Israel; he even asked if Hamas's rocket attacks that summer were featured on television in America, and seemed to deflate physically when I told him no.

"Everyone, all the media, says that Hezbollah is wonderful," he complained. "We stand with our brothers of Hezbollah, of course, but, really, look at the advantages they have. They get all the rockets they will ever need from Iran."

Hamas is not a monolith, and opinions inside the group differ about many things, including engagement with the Shiites of Hezbollah and Iran. The former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi told me shortly before he was assassinated by Israel in 2004 that it would be "uncharitable" to find fault with Iran.

"What do the Arab states do for us?" he asked. "Iran is steadfast against the Jews."

Today, there is no doubt that Rantisi's view holds sway inside the organization, and many in Hamas wish for even closer ties with Tehran, particularly over the past month as they have absorbed a battering from Israel. Even those who believe that Iran is secretly trying to bring Sunni Palestinians to Shiism acknowledge anti-Israel Shiites as ideals of resistance.

As the Gaza war moves to a cease-fire, a crucial question will inevitably arise, as it has before: Should Israel (and by extension, the United States) try to engage Hamas in a substantive and sustained manner?

It is a fair question, one worth debating, but it is unmoored from certain political and theological realities. One irresistible reality grows from Hamas's complicated, competitive relationship with Hezbollah. For Hamas, Hezbollah is not only a source of weapons and instruction, it is a mentor and role model.

Hamas's desire to best Hezbollah's achievements is natural, of course, but, more to the point, it is radicalizing. One of the reasons, among many, that Hamas felt compelled to break its cease-fire with Israel last month was to prove its potency to Muslims impressed with Hezbollah.

Another reality worth considering concerns theology. Hamas and Hezbollah emerged from very different streams of Islam: Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood; Hezbollah is an outright Iranian proxy that takes its inspiration from the radical Shiite politics of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. But the groups share a common belief that Jews are a cosmological evil, enemies of Islam since Muhammad sought refuge in Medina.

Periodically, advocates of negotiation suggest that the hostility toward Jews expressed by Hamas is somehow mutable. But in years of listening, I haven't heard much to suggest that its anti-Semitism is insincere. Like Hezbollah, Hamas believes that God is opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine. Both groups are rhetorically pitiless, though, again, Hamas sometimes appears to follow the lead of Hezbollah.

I once asked Abdel Aziz Rantisi where he learned what he called "the truth" of the Holocaust — that it didn't happen — and he referred me to books published by Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah also share the view that the solution for Palestine lies in Europe. A spokesman for Hezbollah, Hassan Izzedine, once told me that the Jews who survive the Muslim "liberation" of Palestine "can go back to Germany, or wherever they came from." He went on to argue that the Jews are a "curse to anyone who lives near them."

Nizar Rayyan expressed much the same sentiment the night we spoke in 2006. We had been discussing a passage of the Koran that suggests that God turns a group of impious Jews into apes and pigs. The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, among others, has deployed this passage in his speeches. Once, at a rally in Beirut, he said: "We shout in the face of the killers of prophets and the descendants of the apes and pigs: We hope we will not see you next year. The shout remains, 'Death to Israel!'"

Mr. Rayyan said that, technically, Mr. Nasrallah was mistaken. "Allah changed disobedient Jews into apes and pigs, it is true, but he specifically said these apes and pigs did not have the ability to reproduce," Mr. Rayyan said. "So it is not literally true that Jews today are descended from pigs and apes, but it is true that some of the ancestors of Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and it is true that Allah continually makes the Jews pay for their crimes in many different ways. They are a cursed people."

I asked him the question I always ask of Hamas leaders: Could you agree to anything more than a tactical cease-fire with Israel? I felt slightly ridiculous asking: A man who believes that God every now and again transforms Jews into pigs and apes might not be the most obvious candidate for peace talks at Camp David. Mr. Rayyan answered the question as I thought he would, saying that a long-term cease-fire would be unnecessary, because it will not take long for the forces of Islam to eradicate Israel.

The reverse is also true: Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness.

The only small chance for peace today is the same chance that existed before the Gaza invasion: The moderate Arab states, Europe, the United States and, mainly, Israel, must help Hamas's enemy, Fatah, prepare the West Bank for real freedom, and then hope that the people of Gaza, vast numbers of whom are unsympathetic to Hamas, see the West Bank as an alternative to the squalid vision of Hassan Nasrallah and Nizar Rayyan.

===============

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, is the author of "Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror."

Is Gaza beter af met een zwak Hamas of zonder Hamas?

Binnen Hamas in Gaza neemt de kritiek op het 'principiele' leiderschap in Damascus - dat ertoe had aangezet het staakt het vuren niet te verlengen - verder toe. Ondertussen heeft Meshaal in een speech op Al Jazeera de overwinning in Gaza uitgeroepen. Damascus is ver van Gaza.

The latest developments have contributed to optimism in Israel. However, those who are still toying with the idea of bringing down Hamas entirely should weigh what is best: a weakened Hamas or complete anarchy in the Strip, with no one in power to threaten or to make indirect agreements with? Gaza can still deteriorate into another Somalia.

Als Hamas geheel verslagen zou zijn kan de Palestijnse Autoriteit van Abbas terugkeren, zodat de eenheid tussen de Westoever en Gaza is hersteld en er één Palestijns leiderschap is waarmee Israel kan onderhandelen. Ook een ernstig verzwakt Hamas kan gedwongen worden om de macht weer met de PA te delen zoals voor haar illegale coup in juni 2007.

RP
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Last update - 03:14 16/01/2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056006.html
ANALYSIS / Would Gaza be better with weak Hamas or no Hamas?
By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents

In a series of blows during the past 24 hours, the most severe since the Israel Defense Forces operation began in the Gaza Strip 20 days ago, Hamas was brought very close to surrender.

It is unlikely that we will see white flags, because the group recognizes that this would have a devastating effect on its image. But the Israeli military pressure has destroyed most of the Palestinian defenses in the heart of Gaza City, a day after the group had to agree in principle to the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire a deal it is not very happy with.

At the start of the fighting, there was talk in the IDF of a Hamas division, trained and funded by Iran, ready to confront an invasion of the Gaza Strip. This division evaporated and it is doubtful whether it ever existed.
The situation as of last night was as follows: Said Sayyam and Salah Abu Shreich, two senior Hamas figures, were killed in an air strike in Jabaliya. The home of another Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Zahar, is surrounded. Infantry, armor and special forces are operating in the center of the city, very close to the Hamas "security quarter" southwest of the city, where most of the command and control centers of the group are situated.

Even in the center of the city, Hamas gunmen are opting to avoid direct encounters with the IDF. In most cases they are choosing to escape along with thousands of civilians. The Hamas announcement in Cairo two days ago began the countdown toward a cease-fire.

The head of the political-security bureau at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, delivered a positive message to Egypt regarding Cairo's cease-fire initiative. Israel's "kitchen-cabinet" still deliberated late into the night, where the Ehud Barak-Tzipi Livni alliance grew tighter in an effort to block the last minute warlike urge of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to continue the offensive.

The army sensed Hamas' weakness when units left their defensive positions in the Zeytun neighborhood. Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi approved the assault and forces reached the center of the city through the gap. On the way, the IDF killed most of the members of a unit comprising militants trained by Iran.

The latest move has is risks. The IDF is constantly concerned that a single mistake may lead to mass killing of Palestinian civilians, or a surprise attack by Hamas that may affect public opinion in Israel. This nearly happened yesterday when UNRWA facilities were hit.

On Wednesday a commando force suffered six soldiers injured when a wall collapsed on them. Another force had destroyed a tunnel and it caused the collapse nearby.

GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant ordered soldiers not to stay in multi-story buildings, fearing the explosion of booby-trapped devices that could cause many casualties.

Meanwhile it seems that at least the Hamas leadership in Gaza has began to fathom the seriousness of its position. Two Hamas leaders in the Strip, Razi Hamad and Ahmed Yusuf, accused the group's leadership in Damascus of "bringing a terrible disaster on Gaza."

The two are considered members of the pragmatic wing of the party, and charged the Damascus-based leadership with making a terrible mistake in ordering Hamas to foil the extension of the cease-fire agreement with Israel in December.

However, in Damascus it is not clear that the message has been received. Ramadan Shalah, head of the Islamic Jihad, told Al Jazeera that the Palestinians will continue their resistance in Gaza and the city will not surrender because "victory is imminent."

The head of the Hamas politburo, Khaled Meshal, who is central in the decision that led to the events in the Strip, spoke in Damascus last night of a Palestinian "victory in Gaza."

During the speech, delivered live on Al Jazeera, breaking news announced that Said Sayyam and his brother Iyad had been killed in Gaza.

The latest developments have contributed to optimism in Israel. However, those who are still toying with the idea of bringing down Hamas entirely should weigh what is best: a weakened Hamas or complete anarchy in the Strip, with no one in power to threaten or to make indirect agreements with? Gaza can still deteriorate into another Somalia.

Dit weekend eindelijk staakt-het-vuren in Gaza?

Het leek er even op dat er overeenstemming zou komen over een staakt-het-vuren met bemiddeling van Egypte. Israel overweegt nu een eenzijdig staakt-het-vuren te proberen. De internationale kritiek en druk op Israel blijft groeien, en de meeste militaire doelen lijken gehaald, afgezien van het riskante uitkammen van de binnenstad van Gaza.

Evenals eerder in Libanon is het echter niet gelukt om de Hamas raketten helemaal het zwijgen op te leggen, noch om Hamas te dwingen tot een staakt-het-vuren op Israels voorwaarden.

Hoe een eenzijdig staakt-het-vuren uit zou pakken is moeilijk in te schatten. Hamas zal ook met haar beschietingen moeten stoppen, anders is het snel weer over. Egypte zal wellicht doortastender gaan optreden tegen de wapensmokkel, en hopelijk is er nog overeenstemming te bereiken over waarnemers aan de grens, zodat meer - dringend nodige - goederen en hulpverleners naar de Gazastrook kunnen, zonder dat Hamas zich al te makkelijk kan herbewapenen.

Wouter
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Last update - 00:31 17/01/2009

Cabinet to vote Saturday on unilateral Gaza truce
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056178.html
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent, and The Associated Press

The cabinet will hold a vote on Saturday evening to decide whether to enact a unilateral cease-fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The decision would mean Israel has put an end to the three-week-long Operation Cast Lead without an agreement with Hamas, relying instead on the support of the United States and Egypt in battling arms smuggling into Gaza.

A government source emphasized that there has been great progress with Egypt in reaching an agreement on fighting arms smuggling. The deal would require the combined use of technological measures on the border between Gaza and Egypt, operations against smugglers in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and the use of international experts to identify smuggling tunnels on the border.

The deal would also call for cooperation between Israel and Egypt on matters relating to the Gaza Strip in which they have shared interests, without the interference of Hamas.

Egypt is at the moment considering whether to organize a summit in the near future between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The United States and Israel signed an agreement on Friday aimed at stopping the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

The deal includes measures meant to fight arms smuggling from Iran to Gaza, with the policing to take place throughout the route by which the arms reach Gaza, including patrols of the Persian Gulf, Sudan and neighboring states.

The two-and-a-half page document outlines a framework under which the United States will provide military and intelligence assets, including detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations in the region. The equipment and training would be used for monitoring Gaza's land and sea borders.

The document also calls for the U.S. to expand work with its NATO partners in the effort, particularly in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and eastern Africa, according to a text.

It also commits Washington to use relevant components of the U.S. military to assist Mideast governments in preventing weapons and explosives flows to Gaza that originate in or transit their territories.

Although signed by the Bush administration, the agreement is binding on the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama and Rice and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said both Obama and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton had been briefed on the details.

vrijdag 16 januari 2009

Gedode Hamas minister was hoofdrolspeler in Gaza machtsgreep 2007

Geen frisse jongen, die waarschijnlijk zelf vaker heeft verklaard dat het martelarenschap boven het leven te verkiezen is. Wel, dat heeft Israel hem nu bezorgd.

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Last update - 00:45 16/01/2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055947.html

PROFILE / Slain Hamas minister was key figure in '07 Gaza coup

By The Associated Press

Hamas Interior Minister Said Sayyam, killed in an Israeli airstrike Thursday, was one of the Islamic militant group's top five leaders in Gaza and a key figure in its violent takeover of the territory in 2007.

The 50-year-old Sayyam was in his brother's house in a Gaza City suburb when an Israeli warplane dropped a huge bomb, flattening the building and leaving a deep crater in the sandy ground. Sayyam's brother and the brother's family were also killed. Hamas TV showed footage of Sayyam's body, wrapped in a bloodied white shroud.

Sayyam was the second of Hamas' top five to be assassinated during Israel's 20-day-old offensive, aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel. The offensive has killed nearly 1,100 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, but Hamas has yet to agree to an Egyptian cease-fire offer.

A Hamas spokesman said Sayyam's death would not shake the militant group's defiance.

"Some of our leaders will fall, some of our people will fall, but the flag of resistance wont fall," said Sami Abu Zuhri.

Sayyam, who served as interior minister, did not look like a typical Hamas leader. He sported a short beard, dark turtlenecks and black sports jackets, rather than the Arab robes that some of his colleagues donned.

He was often long-winded in press conferences. When angry, he could dip into coarse, colorful Gaza slang to describe his rivals. The hardliner often insisted women cover their hair, in compliance with conservative Muslim law, before entering his office.

Born in 1959 in Gaza's Shati refugee camp, he worked as a math and science teacher at local United Nations-run schools. He joined Hamas in the 1980s, one of its earliest members. Sayyam quickly assumed leadership of the local teacher's union.

He was active in the first Palestinian intifada against Israel, which erupted in 1987. He headed a Hamas branch that hunted and killed suspected Palestinian informers for Israel.

Israeli forces detained Sayyam several times in the 1990s, and in 1992 exiled him for a year to southern Lebanon with hundreds of other Hamas leaders.

In the mid-1990s, Hamas' rival, the Fatah movement of then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, established the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, as part of interim peace deals with Israel. Sayyam was arrested by Fatah security forces during this period.

Sayyam rose through Hamas' ranks, preaching at a local mosque and ultimately becoming a chief negotiator for the militant group in dealings with Egyptian and Iranian officials, with whom he enjoyed warm relations.

He was elected to the Palestinian parliament in 2006, winning the most votes of any candidate.

After Hamas' sweeping victory in those elections, the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah intensified. Sayyam set up the Executive Force, a security apparatus that developed into Hamas' police after the militants seized Gaza in June 2007.

After the takeover, he was widely feared for cracking down on opponents. Local human rights groups frequently complained his ministry used torture to cower Fatah rivals.

In 2008, Sayyam shut down a Gaza City neighborhood close to Israel's border, after a local pro-Fatah clan living there refused to hand over suspects implicated in a car bombing that killed Hamas officials. Under Sayyam's directions, police used assault rifles, mortars and rockets, prompting clansmen to dash into Israeli territory for protection. Police sprayed gunfire behind them as they fled.

Yet Sayyam was also respected by residents for his ability to impose order in once lawless Gaza. Before Hamas seized power, gun-toting thugs ruled Gaza's streets and clans battled each other with assault rifles.

Zes gewonden door Grad raketten in Beersheba

Er is nauwelijks aandacht voor de voortgaande raketbeschietingen door Hamas, ook tijdens de dagelijkse gevechtspauze, en op het RTL nieuws werd zelfs gezegd dat er vandaag alleen schade aan gebouwen was door de raketten.

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Six wounded as Grads hit Beersheba

Jan. 15, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

A 7-year-old boy and a woman were seriously wounded and four others sustained lighter injuries in Beersheba Thursday afternoon when two Grad rockets fired by Gaza terrorists hit the city. One of the rockets scored a direct hit on a car.

Two people were moderately wounded and two were lightly hurt in the attack, and several people were treated for shock.

The army said that an IAF aircraft hit the rocket launcher that had fired on Beersheba.

Even as an Egyptian cease-fire initiative was being discussed in Cairo, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired at least 25 rockets at southern Israel on Thursday.

Earlier, a Kassam rocket landed near Ofakim, causing no casualties or damage.

In a morning volley, a Grad-type rocket also landed in the Gedera region, causing neither casualties nor damage.

Hours earlier, a Kassam rocket hit a house in Sderot, causing extensive damage to the structure and to cars parked nearby. Another rocket landed near an educational institution in the city. No casualties were reported in the attacks.

Rocket warning sirens sounded in the city seconds before impact. Sirens also sounded in Beersheba, though there were no reports of rockets landing in the city.

On Wednesday, at least 15 rockets were fired at Israel.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1231950853502&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

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Hamas minister gedood in IDF luchtaanval Gaza

Nu een staakt het vuren dichter bij komt, slaat Israel nog even extra hard toe lijkt het, om als overwinnaar uit de strijd te komen.

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Palestinians: Hamas interior minister killed in IDF Gaza air strike
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies

Last update - 18:32 15/01/2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055899.html

Palestinian sources said Thursday that an Israel Air Force strike in Gaza City has killed two of Hamas' most senior officials, including Hamas Interior Minister Said Siam.

Two other members of the Palestinian Islamist group's leadership were also killed, including Siam's brother.

Six other Hamas operatives were wounded in the air strike in the heart of the city, the sources said. The IDF Southern Command ordered the airstrike on the basis of precise intelligence provided by the Shin Bet security service.

The airstrike on Siam is apparently an attempt by Israel to deliver an image of victory in the offensive against Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces understands that Hamas' agreement in principle to the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza signals that the campaign is nearing its end.

Earlier Thursday, Israel Defense Forces troops, backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and heavy guns, thrust further into Gaza City than ever before, seeking out Hamas gunmen, and carrying out the army's most relentless shelling of the Gaza Strip in nearly three weeks of fighting.

Channel 10 television reported Thursday evening that troops were operating in the heart of the city, and had taken control of three of its neighborhoods. The television posed the question whether this could in fact be the delayed third stage of the IDF operation in Gaza.

Live video footage from a Reuters camera in central Gaza showed sustained artillery fire from the edge of the city for several hours during the day. Shells exploded in downtown areas and long machine-gun bursts echoed off Gaza's cramped housing blocks.

Much of the fighting was centered in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, where some residents fled on foot while others remained in the precarious shelter of their homes as a night-time attack stretched into the morning.

Tanks and bulldozers rolled into a neighborhood park, apparently seizing it as a kind of command center, witnesses said. Masked gunmen ran toward the areas under fire carrying bags containing unidentified objects.

Residents were seen fleeing their homes in pajamas, some wheeling elderly parents in wheelchairs. Others were stopping journalists' armored cars or ambulances pleading for someone to take them to safety.

Israeli forces have encircled the city of 500,000 people for days. Tanks have made forays towards the center to test the resistance of Hamas and other militant groups but have balked at launching all-out urban warfare in Gaza City, where Hamas militants are more familiar with the lay of the land and Israeli casualties would be liable to spiral.

IAF planes struck some 70 targets overnight, including weapons positions, rocket squads and a mosque in southern Gaza that it said served as an arsenal, the military said.

Seven Palestinians were killed overnight, medical officials said.

In an effort to keep the death toll from ballooning further, Egypt was pressing both sides to accept a 10-day truce instead of a comprehensive accord to end the conflict.

UNRWA hulp gaat door ondanks IDF treffers

Triest, en je vraagt je af waarom het leger niet van eerdere fouten leert. Dit is de derde keer dan een VN gebouw wordt geraakt. Hamas schiet bewust vanuit VN gebouwen of de directe nabijheid, maar dan mag het leger dus geen granaten - waarmee je niet zo precies kunt richten - terug vuren.

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Jan 16, 2009 0:14 | Updated Jan 16, 2009 0:30
UNRWA aid flow to go on despite IDF fire
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231950870249&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
By TOVAH LAZAROFF

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency plans to continue to operate in Gaza and to distribute humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees there, even after the IDF shelling of its large headquarters in Gaza City on Thursday, according to its spokesman Christopher Gunness.

Over the course of an hour in the late morning, seven IDF shells landed in the UNRWA compound, destroying thousands of pounds of food and tons of fuel that had been stored there and which would have been distributed today to Palestinians in need, according to the head of UNRWA's Gaza operations, John Ging.

A huge cloud of black smoke rose from the UN compound, visible across Gaza City. Flour spilled on the ground and mixed with soot, as Palestinian firefighters tried to douse the flames leaping toward the sky.

One UN worker and two Palestinian civilians who had sought refuge in the compound were wounded in the attack, Ging told The Jerusalem Post by phone from Gaza.

It was the second IDF attack on a UNRWA compound since Israel began its military operation in Gaza 20 days ago. Last week, an IDF shell hit a UNRWA school compound and killed 39 people.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who arrived in Israel on Thursday for a brief visit, sharply criticized Israel for the attack.

"Today, the UN compound in Gaza has been shelled again. I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defense minister and to the foreign minister, and demanded a full explanation," he said at a press conference in Jerusalem. "I had a telephone call with the defense minister before I began my meeting with the foreign minister. Defense Minister [Ehud] Barak said to me that it was a grave mistake and that he took it very seriously. He assured me that extra attention would be paid to the UN facilities and staff and that this should not be repeated."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the military had fired artillery shells at the UN compound after Hamas operatives opened fire from the location.

"It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad, and we apologize for it," he said. "I don't think it should have happened, and I'm very sorry."

Ging and other officials in UNRWA have strongly denied charges that Hamas gunmen fired from their compound.

"In a coordinated meeting with UNRWA this afternoon, Israeli army representatives said that the firing came from several hundred meters outside the UNRWA compound," Gunness told the Post.

Ging said there had been no Hamas gunmen in the compound. He added that UNRWA had received an apology for the attack from both Barak and Olmert.

As of Thursday night, the IDF had issued no formal statement on the matter, but its officials privately said IDF troops from the Givati Brigade had come under anti-tank fire from gunmen standing next to the compound.

The officials said the IDF had responded by firing artillery shells at the gunmen and that it appeared that one of the shells had accidentally hit a UN warehouse, setting it afire.

IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Avi Benayahu said the incident was still under investigation.

"If it becomes clear that we returned shots at the source of fire, we will say so, and if it turns out we acted by mistake, we will not hesitate to confess," he told Channel 2.

Ging said he had been in his office in the compound around 10:30 a.m. or 11 a.m. when he heard a massive explosion. He said he had already been on the phone with the IDF liaison because the compound had been subject to a lot of shrapnel.

UNRWA coordinates with the IDF to prevent such attacks, since the IDF is not suppose to hit their compounds, he said.

"That is the problem. Throughout the conflict, we have been given assurance and reassurance," which the IDF has not adhered to, he said.

On Thursday morning, an IDF shell hit a vocational training center where some 700 Palestinian civilians had fled for safety only an hour earlier.

"The shelling has been incessant, and people are beside themselves with fear," said Ging.

An hour after the vocational center was hit, six more shells hit a warehouse filled with food, as well as a workshop for cars and the fuel depot where five trucks were loaded with thousands of liters of fuel, Ging said. It took six hours to get the fire under control, said Ging, adding that the warehouse had been totaled.

He charged that a white substance that appeared to be phosphorous had come out of the shells when they exploded, and spread everywhere, making it more difficult to put out the flames.

UN workers and Palestinian firefighters, some wearing bulletproof jackets, struggled to pull bags of food from the debris after the attack.

The food was intended for UNRWA's distribution program. Even before the fighting began, UNRWA provided basic food supplies for 800,000 people in Gaza.

It now also houses 40,000 Palestinians whose homes have been destroyed in the last few weeks or who have sought safety from IDF fire in their area.

Gunness said UNRWA had been able to distribute some food on Thursday in spite of the shelling, and that it planned to continue to do so.

Still, Ging said 30 trucks had been pinned down by the fighting and were unable to pick up humanitarian aid from Gaza's borders. "What it means is that the operation on the ground is not being resupplied today," he said. "It's a major interruption in our pipeline."

Yaakov Katz and AP contributed to this report.

donderdag 15 januari 2009

Hamas terroristen verkleed als Israelische soldaten

Eén van de vele oorlogsmisdaden die Hamas begaat: zich vermommen als Israelische soldaten.

Het feit dat je de zwakkere partij bent in een conflict, betekent natuurlijk niet dat je je aan geen enkele regel meer hoeft te houden.

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Hamas War crimes: Hamas bombers posing as Israeli troops

During World War II, Nazi soldiers dressed up as American troops. This practice is illegal under international law. Since Hamas does not represent a state, they cannot formally be charged with war crimes, but this is one of many war crimes they are committing, in addition to deliberately targetting civilians and using their own civilians as human shields. (A.I.)

_______________________________

Last update - 20:44 13/01/2009
IDF Chief: Hamas bombers posing as Israeli troops in Gaza
By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent

Hamas militants have been dressing up as Israel Defense Forces soldiers in uniform in an attempt to carry out suicide bombings against Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said Tuesday.

Ashkenazi told the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee in Tel Aviv that the militants have tried to penetrate IDF battle lines and detonate their explosives next to Israeli troops.

The IDF Chief also revealed that the army had uncovered a number of tunnels dug with the intent of being used to abduct IDF soldiers.

Ashkenazi said that the Israel Air Force had managed to strike the majority of its targets in the Strip within the first four minutes of the air campaign which began Operation Cast Lead 18 days ago.

Twenty minutes after the IAF's first bombing, it also carried out raids on Gaza sites used by militants to launch Grad rockets, Qassam rockets, and mortar shells.

He added that the government had approved the operation, days before it began and before the IDF had even determined when it was going to launch the campaign. This gave the IDF the ability to begin the operation the moment they decided the conditions were right.

IDF helpt bij coördinatie hulp voor burgers in Gazastrook

Dit krijg je in het journaal, NOVA of Een Vandaag niet te zien.

Het is niet genoeg natuurlijk om de Gazanen te helpen, maar het feit dat 120 officieren zich hier mee bezighouden is bijzonder, en staat in schril contrast met alle eenzijdige berichten over hulpverleners die niet bij gewonden mochten of zelfs werden beschoten. Wat mensen maar al te graag vergeten is dat Hamas overal van probeert misbruik te maken: het steelt hulpgoederen, het verschuilt zich tussen burgers, gebruikt burgerdoelen als wapenopslagplaats, schiet tijdens de dagelijkse gevechtspauze, en zal hier ook ongetwijfeld misbruik van hebben gemaakt.

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Last update - 05:21 15/01/2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055556.html
IDF helping coordinate aid for civilians in Gaza Strip

By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent

The Israel Defense Forces is coordinating humanitarian aid for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip with international organizations.

The IDF has 120 officers, part of the District Coordination Office (DCO), attached to command outposts. They deal with special requests from Palestinians for food and medicine, the evacuation of the sick and wounded, and move civilians from areas of fighting.

The officers have contacts with UNRWA, the Red Cross and the Palestinians, who frequently call the DCO themselves, even during fighting. The officers all speak Arabic and were trained in a special school for humanitarian issues operated by the DCO.
"Sometimes we face a difficult conflict, because we're in a war zone, travel in tanks and take part in the fighting," said Captain Noam Muzrafi, the humanitarian issues officer attached to Armored Brigade 401. "At the same time our duty is to take care of the population and save lives."

Brigade 401 cut the Gaza Strip in two and is posted on the main road connecting Gaza City to the south of the Gaza Strip.

The "humanitarian" officers are authorized to permit civilians to move on the road in special cases. Commanders of the troops operating in the Gaza Strip have been equipped with maps and lists of buildings used for humanitarian purposes, so that the buildings will not be targeted by tanks or artillery.

However, according to an IDF officer, "whenever there's shooting at us, even from a building serving for humanitarian purposes, we fire back."

So far the officers have arranged some 150 evacuations of injured Palestinians to hospitals in the Strip.

Vier gewonden door brand in chemische fabriek Ashdod

Het zou mij niet verbazen als dit vuur niet helemaal toevallig zomaar is ontstaan. Wanneer raketten strategische doelen treffen maakt Israel dat niet bekend. Sowieso worden de exactle lokaties van raketinslagen niet bekend gemaakt zodat Hamas niet weet waar een raket precies is terechtgekomen. Ik heb gehoord dat er al een paar keer bijna een groot ongeluk is gebeurd naar aanleiding van raketinslagen in het industriële gebied van Ashkelon. Zo onschuldig zijn die 'kachelpijpen' zoals Israel haters als Anton van Hooff ze noemen dus niet.

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Four people hurt as fire rages at Ashdod chemical plant
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055513.html
By Yanir Yagana, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service

Four people sustained light to moderate injuries Wednesday evening after a fire broke out at an Agan chemical plant in Ashdod that houses flammable substances.
All four were taken to Kaplan hospital in Rehovot for treatment.

Employees of a nearby plant have been evacuated from the area, and rescue services personnel warned people living in the surrounding areas to stay indoors until further notice.

Entry and exit points to Ashdod, with the exception of those in the southern part of the city, have also been closed.

One eyewitness who works at a car-rental service told Channel 10 news, "I went downstairs to get a car and saw fire blazing and then an explosion, literally across the street. I ran away with the man who came to return the car. I saw something that looked like fireworks - an unpleasant sight."

Boaz Rakia, a firefighter who arrived at the scene, said the fire was exceptional both in its size and scope. He added that large numbers of firefighter crews are working to extinguish the blaze.

In August 2007, the Agan chemical plant in the Ramat Hovav industrial zone shut down one of its facilities in the wake of a chemical explosion at the plant that lightly injured nine people.

Hamas zwaar getroffen maar niet gebroken door Gaza Oorlog

Een betere analyse dan we meestal van Sander van Hoorn krijgen, of de retoriek van Mouin Rabbani op NOVA gisteravond.

In hoeverre de Palestijnse bevolking nou echt blij is met een regering die hen zo in de ellende stort en alleen zichzelf in veiligheid brengt, valt te bezien. Tijdens een oorlog is het natuurlijk altijd moeilijk om kritisch naar de eigen kant te zijn, en in Gaza heerst nou niet echt wat je noemt vrijheid van meningsuiting en demonstratie.

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Analysis: Heavy losses haven't broken the Hamas regime
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST

Jan. 14, 2009
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231866577121&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Despite the severe military blows that it has been dealt since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, there were still no signs on Tuesday that the Hamas regime was even close to collapsing.

Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip said Hamas lost several hundred of its fighters in Israeli air and ground attacks over the past 18 days. At least 2,500 Hamas gunmen were wounded during the same period, the sources told The Jerusalem Post.

But, the sources pointed out, these are only a tiny percentage of Hamas's armed wing, Izzadin Kassam, and other security organizations belonging to the Islamist movement. Altogether, Hamas is believed to have more than 25,000 militiamen and policemen in the Gaza Strip.

And Hamas is not alone on the battlefront. Dozens of Fatah gunmen belonging to the faction's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, are reportedly participating in the fighting alongside Hamas gunmen.

The Fatah group on Tuesday claimed that one of its members had launched a suicide attack against IDF soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip. The group has also claimed responsibility for firing several rockets at Israel in the past two weeks.

Hamas is also being aided by other groups such as Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Resistance Committees.

These groups have also suffered heavy losses since the beginning of the military offensive. Palestinian reporters in the Gaza Strip estimated that at least 150 gunmen belonging to these groups had been killed by the IDF.

In addition to the heavy casualties, Hamas has lost all its government installations in the Gaza Strip, including police and security facilities, military training centers and ministry buildings.

Israel has also destroyed scores of Hamas-linked charities and organizations that were providing the Palestinians with a vast network of social, economic, health and education services.

Moreover, the IDF operation has sent the entire Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip into hiding. When and if Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and senior leader Mahmoud Zahar emerge from their hiding places, they are likely to face criticism for abandoning their people during war.

The fact that Haniyeh and Zahar chose to hide out of concern for their personal safety has severely undermined their prestige.

Only days before the operation began, the two appeared in public to mock Israel's failure to respond to the rocket attacks. They also warned Israel against attacking the Gaza Strip, saying Hamas had prepared "surprises" for the IDF.

The military offensive has not only sent Haniyeh and Zahar into hiding, but has also succeeded in driving a wedge between them and their Hamas colleagues in Syria.

While the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip has been repeatedly signaling its readiness to accept an immediate cease-fire, Khaled Mashaal and other Hamas officials in Damascus believe that Hamas must continue to fight until it can claim achievements.

This schism explains the contradictory statements that have been coming from Hamas leaders over the past few days.

On the one hand, Haniyeh and his friends in the Gaza Strip are so desperate for a cease-fire that they have been sending messages to some Arab capitals to put pressure on Mashaal to accept the latest Egyptian truce proposal. On the other hand, the Iranians and Syrians are continuing to exert pressure on Mashaal not to accept the Egyptian initiative.

Among the Hamas leaders in both the Gaza Strip and Damascus, there is a growing sense of disappointment with the Syrians and Iranians for failing to come to the movement's aid during the war.

As a Hamas representative in Gaza City said on Tuesday night, "We feel that our brothers in Teheran and Damascus have betrayed us, as have the rest of the Arab and Islamic governments."

The military and political setbacks, nevertheless, have thus far failed to bring Hamas to its knees. Buoyed by the support of the Arab and Muslim street, Hamas appears determined to cling to power regardless of the heavy price.

Although Hamas has been hit hard, not a single Palestinian in the Gaza Strip has raised his voice against the movement and its leaders. Hopes that the massive IDF operation would encourage Palestinians to revolt against a weakened Hamas have not materialized.

If anything, many Palestinians agree, the Israeli offensive has actually boosted Hamas's popularity and undermined the so-called moderates in the Arab world.

Overeenkomst VS en Israel tegen wapensmokkel Gaza nabij

Het ziet er naar uit dat er binnenkort eindelijk een staakt het vuren komt, waarin de wapensmokkel wordt geregeld. Hoe de controle langs de grenzen precies geregeld gaat worden, en of en welke rol de Palestijnse Autoriteit, de EU of andere landen zoals Turkije daarin gaan spelen, is nog onduidelijk.

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Last update - 03:27 15/01/2009

U.S., Israel close in on deal to halt arms smuggling into Gaza
By Barak Ravid, Amos Harel, and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents, and Reuters
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055592.html

A memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Israel on security and intelligence cooperation aimed at countering the smuggling of arms into the Gaza Strip is being prepared and may be signed as early as Friday, Haaretz has learned.

Meanwhile, Hamas has agreed in principle to the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire but is still demanding clarifications on a number of issues, senior officials for the group said in Cairo on Wednesday.

The head of the political-security bureau in the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, will travel to Cairo today for talks on a cease-fire.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos that he wanted to bring the operation in the Gaza Strip to an end if Hamas agreed to the Egyptian proposal.

At the crux of the cooperation agreement between Israel and the U.S. is supervision to halt the smuggling of arms from Iran, through the Persian Gulf to Sudan and other countries, and finally to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The director general of the Foreign Ministry, Aharon Abramowitz, will meet with State Department officials Jeffrey Feltman and Daniel Hale in Washington today, as well as officials from the White House, Defense Department and U.S. intelligence agencies, in an effort to reach a written guarantee that the United States will act more extensively against the smuggling.

If an agreement is formulated, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will travel to Washington to sign the agreement.

Israel is asking for a number of guarantees from the Americans:

- A U.S. declaration calling on the international community to deal with the smuggling of arms from Iran to terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.

- Intelligence cooperation between Israel and the U.S. for identifying the sources of weapons, with focus on the network linking Iran, the Persian Gulf and Sudan.

- An international maritime effort along the smuggling routes to find ships carrying weapons to the Gaza Strip, possibly with the involvement of NATO.

- An American and European commitment for the transfer of technologies to Egypt that will help it uncover tunnels.

- Plans for the economic development of Rafah, with particular emphasis on the Bedouin to undercut the financial motivation for building and operating tunnels.

Amos Gilad's trip to Cairo on Thursday for meetings with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was postponed twice this week, and his going now suggests some progress has taken place in talks between Egypt and Hamas, and that Gilad will be debriefed on developments on the cease-fire proposal agreement.

Gilad also wants to confirm that Egypt is serious in its commitment to combat weapons smuggling along the Philadelphi Route into Gaza.

A top Israeli diplomatic sources said he was told by a senior Egyptian official that "we understand the problem and promise that the matter of smuggling will end." The Egyptian added, "Now we have the legitimacy to fight it, in order to prevent continued IDF activity."

The Hamas announcement that it agreed in principle to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal was followed by a further statement by Salah al-Bardawil that the group was working toward achieving the following goals: an end to Israeli aggression in Gaza; the lifting of the siege on Gaza; the reopening of Gaza's border crossings; the rehabilitation of the Strip;and a compensation for Gaza residents.

Bardawil said Hamas had generally accepted the terms of the Egyptian proposal but demanded clarifications on several clauses. He said that the Egyptian initiative is the only one Hamas was presented with.

"We're not talking about amending the proposal, since it was presented by Egyptian President [Hosni] Mubarak, but this is a proposal that includes many phrases, and each side has the right to present its opinion and interpretation of these phrases. We have voiced our stance and our interests within the framework of this general outline and the guidelines anchored in the Egyptian proposal," Bardawil said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmet Aboul Gheit said Monday evening that Hamas had accepted the Egyptian draft, which calls for immediate end to aggression on Gaza, the opening of the border crossings and the withdrawal of Israeli forces inside the Strip. He said that Hamas representatives presented their stance to Egyptian intelligence officials, and that they in turn will relay the outcome of their talks to Israel.

Mohammed Nasser, a member of Hamas' political bureau who was present in the talks, voiced reservations regarding the announcement that the Egyptian proposal was acceptable to Hamas, saying that Hamas' willingness to cooperate with Egyptian efforts did not mean that they had accepted the proposal.

"There are still clauses under discussion and we are still pushing the issue," he said.

In Israel, defense sources said yesterday that the Hamas declaration reflected a significant softening of the group's original stance.

The same sources said Hamas was responding to the pressure from the military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Israel must try to seek a quick cease-fire, said the source, and the Israel Defense Forces must try to avoid 'complications' - army talk for losses.

Hamas SMS dreigt Israelische soldaten in Gaza

Een wanhoopsdaad, zullen we maar zeggen. Eerder dreigde Hamas dat Gaza een groot kerkhof voor Israelische soldaten zou worden, en ze zullen na de vijandelijkheden ongetwijfeld de overwinning claimen, te danken aan hun heroische verzet dat voornamelijk bestond uit het afvuren van raketten vanuit tuinen en binnenplaatsen van scholen en zich ondertussen verschuilen in scholen en ziekenhuizen en het volstoppen van moskeen met wapens. Ware helden die Hamas.

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Hamas SMS: Surprises waiting for your sons

As IDF continues to hit Hamas, terror organization responds with psychological warfare. Number of Israeli citizens receive text message to their cellular phones Wednesday threatening that soldiers in Gaza will be hurt

Daniel Edelson

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3656126,00.html

After Hamas sent a text message in broken Hebrew to a number of Israeli cellular phones during the first days of Operation Cast Lead, the organization ahs now decided to try its luck in an English message.

"Come on into Gaza. A number of surprises waiting for your sons, the least of which is death. Hamas," read the SMS message received Wednesday by a number of Israelis on their cellular phones.

Attempts to call the phone number from which the message was sent, that appeared to have an British country code, was met with an automated message the number had been disconnected.

Text message sent by Hamas to Israeli civilians (Photo: Nava Inbar)

Nava Inbar, a resident of Tel Aviv, does not usually receive text message early in the morning. "When I saw that I received a message at 8:52 am, a red light already went off in my head," Nava told Ynet. "In the first second that you see it, you're mainly surprised. What? How did they reach me? After that, it's replaced by a sense of sorrow, anger, and intrusion into your privacy."

"It didn't scare me. On the contrary. If anything, it makes me want to give it to them even harder. In my opinion, it is really a pathetic move. If they tried to arouse fear, they failed in their mission," Nava added.

Kobi Jaselkofy of Ariel was mainly amused by the message. "It is completely insane. Apparently they're pretty desperate over there," he said. "What is for certain is that this isn't what's going to help them."

Yael Rubenstein of Tel Aviv at first thought the SMS was an unsuccessful promotional attempt. "I was certain it was another advertisement from some club in the city. I thought to myself that it was a really bad joke to call a club Gaza at a time like this. But then I understood that this is actually something serious.

"I wasn't scared because I knew that it wasn't directed at me personally. It's not such a big deal to get your hands on a list of telephone numbers and send out a mass message. But let's just say that I wasn't going to call back the number on the screen," Yael said.

Yael's work colleague, Liron Morris, was indeed shaken up by the text message. "It seems very legitimate to me to be scared when someone gets a hold of your telephone number and threatens you.

"This is a kind of threat, and even if you know that it isn't really directed toward you, it is still stressful, especially when my husband is currently on reserve duty," Liron explained.

About two weeks ago, Hamas sent a text message to many residents in Israel in which it warned that the Gaza offensive would provoke the firing of a massive number of rockets into Israel.

De cijfers over Palestijnse burgerdoden in Gaza

Hoewel media hier een enkele keer zeggen dat het moeilijk is betrouwbare informatie uit Gaza te krijgen, worden meestal alleen de Palestijnse cijfers wat betreft het aantal burgerdoden, vrouwen en kinderen gegeven. Palestijnse bronnen hebben in het verleden echter vaker aantallen slachtoffers sterk overdreven, bijvoorbeeld tijdens Israels herbezetting van Jenin in april 2002. De media zouden Palestijnse bronnen dan ook minstens even wantrouwend moeten bejegenen als Israelische, maar doen dat duidelijk niet.

Bij alle berichten over het hoge aantal kinderen dat is omgekomen moet ook worden bedacht dat de gemiddelde leeftijd in de Gazstrook rond de 20 jaar ligt en Hamas kinderen inzet in haar strijd tegen Israel. Veel 16 en 17jarigen zijn bovendien al volwaardig onderdeel van de Qassam brigades.

Het maakt hun dood er niet minder tragisch op.

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The Jerusalem Post
Jan 12, 2009 23:41 | Updated Jan 13, 2009 11:54
Discrepancies over number of Palestinian civilian deaths
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231774433925&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The IDF and Palestinian Ministry of Health both put the Palestinian death toll since the start of Operation Cast Lead at just over 900 as of Monday evening. Thirteen Israelis have been killed in the 17 days of conflict, 10 of them soldiers.

However, there were marked differences in the Israeli and Palestinian breakdown of the Palestinian dead. The Palestinian figures indicated that 292 children and 75 women were among the civilian dead; the UN's humanitarian coordinator, which cited these figures, did not give a figure for male civilian fatalities. The IDF, by contrast, estimated the entire Palestinian civilian death toll at some 250.

Based on intelligence and information obtained by the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration, the IDF said it had established that at least 400 of the dead were known Hamas operatives, and that it believed 250 of the remaining 500 fatalities were also Hamas operatives.

The UN Special Coordinator for MIddle East Peace in Gaza, Hayat Abu-Saleh, issued a report on Monday warning of a mounting humanitarian crisis.

Many basic food items, including food for infants and malnourished children, were no longer available, the report said, and the destruction in Gaza was jeopardizing water, sanitation and medical services. There were increasing risks of epidemic outbreaks resulting from the disruption of vaccinations, uncollected rubbish piling up in the streets and unsafe drinking water.

Waarom Israel in Gaza vecht

De kritiek op Israels operatie in Gaza neemt toe, en alom vinden weldenkende mensen dat Israel disproportioneel handelt en de vrede verder weg dan ooit bombardeert. Antwoorden op een aantal aantijgingen.

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Israel's case: Why we are fighting in Gaza

14.01. 2009
http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000654.html
Original content copyright by the author
Zionism & Israel Center http://zionism-israel.com

The constant malicious spread of disinformation about Israel's Gaza operation must be countered by a simple statement of the facts. This is what I tell people who ask. I hope you find it useful. If you do use it, or parts of it, please credit the source.

Demand an immediate cease fire - Only Hamas can stop the fire, because Hamas started it. The current operation in Gaza began because Hamas declared they would not continue the cease fire, and Hamas fired rockets on Israel.. If Israel ceases fire, Hamas will not stop firing: Hamas continues to fire rockets during the humanitarian truce that IDF observes each afternoon between 13:00 and 16:00 hours.

Demand an end to war crimes and prosecute war criminals - Hamas cannot claim the privileges and immunities of statehood and yet commit war crimes with impunity Hamas has fired over 10,000 rockets and projectiles at Israeli towns with no provocation. They have terrorized nearly a million Israeli citizens, causing dozens of casualties during the reign of terror, killing women and children for no reason. Indiscriminate targeting of civilians is a war crime. Hamas are proud that they use their own civilians as human shields. Use of human shields is a war crime. Hamas have kidnapped an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit and hold him without granting the humanitarian privileges guaranteed by international conventions. That is a war crime. Hamas dress up their soldiers as hospital personnel and as Israeli soldiers, both forbidden by international conventions.

End the humanitarian crisis in Gaza - Hamas closed the Rafah crossing and dismissed the international monitors, making it impossible to bring aid into Gaza via Rafah. Hamas confiscated Israeli humanitarian shipments for their own purposes. Cement was taken to build underground bunkers and tunnels. Hamas steal the humanitarian aid that Israel sends for Gaza civilians. They use it for their own purposes or sell it to the Gazans.

Support peace and a two state solution - Hamas declare that Jihad is the only way, and that international conferences, proposals and negotiations are a waste of time. Hamas has repeatedly declared that it would never make peace with Israel. Pro-Hamas is anti-Peace.

Fight Racism and warmongering - Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations have organized mass "peace" protests against Israel during the Gaza operation. The so-called progressive peace protesters carry posters with these messages "Nuke Israel" "I hate Juice" "We are all Hamas." Protesters shout chants such as "Hamas Hamas, Jews to the gas." Do not dignify these vicious racist mobs as peace protesters with a legitimate grievance.

General- Every Israeli regrets the loss of innocent life in Gaza, and the urgent necessity that forced us to take this step after rockets rained on Sderot and other towns for years.

Israel evacuated Gaza in 2005. There is no occupation in Gaza and Hamas is not fighting any Gaza occupation. Hamas took over Gaza by force in 2007, killing Fatah operatives and instituting an internal reign of terror. They chased the international monitors away from the Rafah crossing, forcing its closing. They fired on the Israeli controlled crossings as well as firing on Israeli towns, forcing periodic closing of the crossings for repair. Then, like the man who killed his parents and demanded mercy because he is an orphan, they proclaimed that Gaza is under siege. They kidnapped a soldier and asked for release of hundreds of terrorists as ransom.

During all this time, the international community said and did nothing. The UN, the United States, the EU did nothing to stop the rain of rocket fire in Israeli cities. In June of 2008, a truce was agreed between Hamas and Israel. Israel agreed to the truce to save lives and to stop the rain of rockets, knowing that Hamas would use the truce to expand its military capabilities. Israel refrained from responding to repeated violations of this truce.

In November of 2008 IDF discovered a tunnel that Hamas was digging into Israel, and destroyed it on November 4. This was an excuse for Hamas to step up rocket fire into Israel. On December 18, Hamas declared that it would not renew the truce unless Israel agreed to allow free flow of goods - including explosives and armaments - into Gaza. On December 24, Hamas rained about 60 projectiles on Israel. As was expected, the previous "lull," which did not include provisions for stopping the smuggling of arms, allowed Hamas to increase its military capability significantly. The small, home made Qassam rockets that fell on Sderot were replaced by Grad (Katyusha) rockets, regulation military ordinance used in war. These have a range of up to 45 KM and were used to bomb Beersheba, Ashdod and Yavne. (see Map of Hamas Rocket Range). Another truce with no provisions against smuggling will only serve to enhance Hamas capabilities.

No country subjected to a barrage of rockets such as Israel has suffered since 2005 would have acted with less force and resolve.

The high number of civilian casualties in Gaza is regrettable. It is due to Hamas operating deliberately from built up areas, using hospitals and mosques as headquarters and arms stores, forcing people to act as human shields. The low number of Israeli casualties is not due to Hamas humanitarianism. Hamas launched over 500 projectiles at Israel. Every one was potentially lethal. They destroyed automobiles and wrecked houses and classrooms. Many deaths were averted only because residents managed to find shelter. It is not the fault of Israel that we provide shelters and a warning system for our civilians and try to keep them away from military operations. Hamas can do the same.

Ami Isseroff

Original content is Copyright by the author 2009. Posted at ZioNation-Zionism and Israel Web Log, http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000654.html where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Disributed by ZNN list. Subscribe by sending a message to ZNN-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by e-mail with this notice, cite this article and link to it. Other uses by permission only.

Europa re-importeert Jodenhaat uit Arabische wereld

Adolf Hitler talking to the Palestinian leader, the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al Husseini.

De idee dat antisemitisme en antizionisme (vijandigheid tegenover de Joodse staat en ontkennen van haar bestaansrecht) vaak dicht bij elkaar liggen is niet alleen een kwestie van 'gezond verstand' en de waarneming dat op anti-Israel demonstraties zeer dikwijls ook anti-Joodse leuzen worden gescandeerd of op spandoeken staan, maar wordt ook bevestigd door onderzoek:

"A 2006 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution based on the survey in 10 European countries suggests otherwise. Yale University's Edward H. Kaplan and Charles A. Small found "that anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts the probability that an individual is anti-Semitic, with the likelihood of measured anti-Semitism increasing with the extent of anti-Israel sentiment observed."

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Europe Reimports Jew Hatred

The mythical Arab Street now reaches deep into Paris, London, Berlin and Madrid.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123180033807075069.html

By DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL

Give Giancarlo Desiderati credit for his unintellectual honesty. While most left-wing detractors of Israel claim their animosity toward the Jewish state has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, the head of a small Italian union, Flaica-Uniti-Cub, wasted no time with such sophism. Having long called for a boycott of Israeli goods, Mr. Desiderati last week made the logical next step. "Do not buy anything from businesses run by the Jewish community," his group's Web site urged Italians.

Jews around Europe are increasingly under attack since Israel decided two weeks ago to defend itself after years of rocket fire at its civilian population. There have been arson attempts on synagogues in Britain, Belgium and Germany. Police last week arrested Muslim protesters who wanted to enter the Jewish quarter in Antwerp. Several Danish schools with large Muslim student bodies say they won't enroll Jewish kids because they can't guarantee the children's safety. In France, a group of teenagers attacked a 14-year-old girl last week, calling her "dirty Jew" while kicking her.

At rallies in Germany and the Netherlands over the past two weeks, protesters shouted, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas." In Amsterdam, Socialist lawmaker Harry van Bommel and Greta Duisenberg, widow of the first European Central Bank president, marched at the front of one such "peace" demonstration. They didn't join in the background chorus calling for another Holocaust. Instead, they chanted, "Intifada, Intifada, Free Palestine." Mr. Van Bommel later insisted this wasn't a call for Jewish blood but for "civil disobedience" -- a laughable defense given that terrorists during the last intifada murdered more than 1,000 Israelis.

Most of the anti-Jewish violence and protests in Europe come from immigrants. In what may have been a Freudian recognition of the changing face of Europe, CNN two weeks ago used footage of anti-Israeli protesters in London in a report about the growing anger in the "Arab and Muslim world." The mythical Arab Street now reaches deep into Paris, London, Berlin and Madrid.

After a burning car was rammed into a gate outside a synagogue in Toulouse last week, President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a statement that was as morally confused as his judgment of Israel's Gaza offensive. Mr. Sarkozy, who condemned both Hamas terror and Israel's attempt to stop it, also blurred the distinction between the victims and perpetrators of anti-Semitism in France.

His country "will not tolerate international tensions mutating into intercommunity violence," he warned, suggesting that the violence in France comes not only from French Muslims but Jews as well. Mr. Sarkozy's comments also suggest that the fighting in Gaza is the cause for attacks on Jews in France -- that is, that the Mideast conflict is fueling anti-Semitism in Europe. It is exactly the other way around.

The rage against the Jews that is exploding in Europe has been carefully nurtured; it is not spontaneous sympathy for fellow Muslims in Gaza. How else to explain the silence when Muslims in other conflicts, from Darfur to Chechnya, are being killed?

The depth of anti-Semitic propaganda in Palestinian and other Muslim societies is one of the most underreported facts about the Middle East. It is this anti-Semitism that predisposes Muslims in Europe to attack Jews and fuels the Mideast conflict. The hatred predates Israel's creation. To illustrate this point: The Palestinian leader during World War II, Hajj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, conspired with Hitler to bring the Holocaust to Palestine. Luckily, the British stopped the German troops in Africa. The Mufti spent the war years in Berlin and was later indicted for war crimes but with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood escaped to Egypt. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas and other Islamists continue what the Mufti had helped to start: a blend of European anti-Semitism and Islam-inspired Jew hatred. The rejection of Israel's right to exist is what drives their attacks. The media, though, largely ignores Hamas's ideology and its crimes of hiding its leaders and weapons among its own civilian population, and demonizes Israel's attempt to protect its citizens.

Hamas and other Islamists are not even trying to hide their ideology. Just read the Hamas charter or check out Hamas TV, including children's programs, for a nauseating dose of murderous anti-Semitism. Last week, the French broadcasting authorities banned Hamas TV for inciting violence and hatred. Unfortunately, just like Hezbollah TV, which is also banned in Europe for its anti-Semitic and jihadi content, audiences here can still receive these programs due to Saudi Arabia's Arabsat and Egyptian satellite provider Nilesat.

The Islamist variation of Jew hatred is now being reimported to Europe. Muslims in Europe, watching Hamas and Hezbollah TV with their satellite dishes, are being fed the same diet of anti-Semitism and jihadi ideology that Palestinians and much of the Middle East consume.

This brings a unique challenge to the difficult integration of Muslims in Europe. When it comes to issues like Shariah law and terrorism, one can expect a true "clash of civilizations." There is no Western tradition that would justify "honor killings." Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, is not alien to Europe's culture -- to the contrary, the Continent once excelled at it and many still share the feeling.

A Pew study from September shows 25% of Germans and 20% of French are still affected by this virus. In Spain, 46% have unfavorable views of Jews. Is there really no connection between this statistic and the fact that the Spanish media and government are among Europe's most hostile toward the Jewish state? Is it just a coincidence that Europe's largest anti-Israel demonstration took place Sunday in Spain, with more than 100,000 protesters?

A 2006 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution based on the survey in 10 European countries suggests otherwise. Yale University's Edward H. Kaplan and Charles A. Small found "that anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts the probability that an individual is anti-Semitic, with the likelihood of measured anti-Semitism increasing with the extent of anti-Israel sentiment observed."

With little hope that the media coverage will become more balanced and the incitement of the growing Muslim community will abate, the Jews in Europe are facing uncertain times.

Mr. Schwammenthal edits the State of the Union column.

De CNN strategie van Hamas

The best outcome for purposes of producing peace would be the destruction or substantial weakening of Hamas, which rejects the two-state solution. Israel and the Palestinian Authority could then agree on a peace that would end both the Israeli occupation and the rocketing of Israeli civilians.

Het is vreemd dat de internationale gemeenschap helemaal niet uit lijkt op een nederlaag voor Hamas, in tegendeel haast. De toenemende druk op Israel speelt Hamas juist in de kaart en geeft haar de ruimte meer eisen te stellen aan een staakt het vuren. Dit terwijl juist Hamas vrede en een diplomatieke oplossing in de weg staat.

RP
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The Hamas CNN Strategy
by Alan M. Dershowitz

Don't play into the deadly, cynical ploy of Hamas and blame Israel.

As Israel persists in its military efforts -- by ground, air and sea -- to protect its citizens from deadly Hamas rockets, and as protests against Israel increase around the world, the success of the abominable Hamas double war crime strategy becomes evident. The strategy is as simple as it is cynical: provoke Israel by playing Russian roulette with its children, firing rockets at kindergartens, playgrounds and hospitals; hide behind its own civilians when firing at Israeli civilians; refuse to build bunkers for its own civilians; have the TV cameras ready to transmit every image of dead Palestinians, especially children; exaggerate the number of civilians killed by including as "children" Hamas fighters who are 16 or 17 years old and as "women," female terrorists.

Hamas itself has a name for this. They call it "the CNN strategy" (this is not to criticize CNN or any other objective news source for doing its job; it is to criticize Hamas for exploiting the freedom of press which it forbids in Gaza). The CNN strategy is working because decent people all over the world are naturally sickened by images of dead and injured children. When they see such images repeatedly flashed across TV screens, they tend to react emotionally. Rather than asking why these children are dying and who is to blame for putting them in harms way, the average viewer, regardless of their political or ideological perspective, wants to see the killing stopped. They blame those whose weapons directly caused the deaths, rather than those who provoked the violence by deliberately targeting civilians. They forget the usual rules of morality and law.

For example, when a murderer takes a hostage and fires from behind his human shield, and a policeman, in an effort to stop the shooting accidentally kills the hostage, the law of every country holds the hostage taker guilty of murder even though the policeman fired the fatal shot. The same is true of the law of war. The use of human shields, in the way Hamas uses the civilian population of Gaza, is a war crime -- as is its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians. Every human shield that is killed by Israeli self defense measures is the responsibility of Hamas, but you wouldn't know that from watching the media coverage.

The CNN strategy seems to work better, at least in some parts of the world, against Israel that it would against other nations. There are many more protests -- and fury -- directed against Israel when it inadvertently kills fewer than 100 civilians in a just war of self defense, than against Arab and Muslim nations and groups that deliberately kill far more civilians for no legitimate reason. It isn't the nature of the victims, since more Arabs and Muslim civilians are killed every day in Africa and the Mid East by Arab and Muslim governments and groups with little or no protests. (For example, on the first day of Israel's ground attack, approximately 30 Palestinians, almost all Hamas combatants, were killed. On the same day an Islamic suicide bomber blew herself up in a mosque in Iraq, killing 40 innocent Muslims. No protests. Little media coverage.)

It isn't the nature of the killings, since Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid killing civilians -- if for no other reason than that it hurts their cause -- while Hamas does everything in its power to force Israel to kill Palestinian civilians by firing its missiles from densely populated civilian areas and refusing to build shelters for its civilians. It isn't the nature of the conflict, because Israel is fighting a limited war of self defense designed to protect its own civilians from rocket attacks, while most of those killed by Arabs and Muslims are killed in genocidal and tribal warfare with no legitimate aim. The world simply doesn't seem to care when Arabs and Muslims kill large numbers of other Arabs and Muslims, but a qualitatively different standard seems to apply when the Jewish state kills even a relatively small number of Muslims and Arabs in a war of self defense.

The international community doesn't even seem to care when Palestinian children are killed by rocket fire -- unless it is from Israeli rockets. The day before the recent outbreak, Hamas fired an anti-personnel rocket at Israeli civilians but the rocket fell short of its target and killed two Palestinian girls. Yet there was virtually no coverage and absolutely no protests against these "collateral" civilian deaths. Hamas refused to allow TV cameras to show these dead Palestinian children, who were killed by their own rockets. Nor have there been protests against the cold blooded murders by Hamas and its supporters of dozens of Palestinian civilians who allegedly "collaborated" withIsrael. Indeed Hamas and Fatah have killed far more Palestinian civilians over the past several years than have the Israeli, but you wouldn't know that from the media, the United Nations or protesters who focus selectively on only those deaths caused by Israeli military actions.

The protestors who fill the streets of London, Paris and San Francisco were nowhere to be seen when hundreds of Jewish children were murdered by Palestinian terrorists over the years.

Moreover, the number of civilians killed by Israel is almost always exaggerated. First, it widely assumed that if a victim is a "child" or a "woman", he or she is necessarily a civilian. Consider the following report in Thursday's NY Times: "Hospital officials in Gaza said that of the more than 390 people killed by Israeli fighter planes since Saturday, 38 were children and 25 women." Some of these children and women were certainly civilians but others were equally certainly combatants: Hamas often uses 14, 15, 16 and 17 year olds as well as women as terrorists. Israel is entitled, under international law, to treat these children and women as the combatants they have become. Hamas cannot, out of one side of its mouth, boast that it recruits children and women to become terrorists, and then, out of the other side of its mouth, complain when Israel takes them at their word. The media should look closely and critically at the number of claimed civilian victims before accepting self-serving and self-contradictory exaggerations.

By any objective count, the number of genuinely innocent civilians killed by the Israeli Air Force in Gaza is lower than the collateral deaths caused by any nation in a comparable situation. Hamas does everything in its power to provoke Israel into killing as many Palestinian civilians as possible, in order to generate condemnation against the Jewish state. They have gone so far as firing rockets from Palestinian schoolyards and hiding their terrorists in Palestinian maternity wards. Lest there be any doubt about the willingness of Hamas to expose their families to martyrdom, remember that the Hamas terrorist leader recently killed in an Israeli air attack sent his own son to be a suicide bomber and then refused to allow his family to leave their house even after learning that he and his house had been placed on the list of military targets.

Nor is this double standard -- applied to Israel on the one hand, and Arab and Muslim nations and groups on the other hand -- limited to the current situation in Gaza. It has provided an excuse for the international community to remain silent in the face of massive human rights violations including genocides perpetrated by Arabs and Muslims around the world for years. Many of those who protest Israeli self-defense actions remain silent in the face of real genocides -- such as that in Darfur.

The reality is that the elected and de facto government of Gaza has declared war against Israel. Under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, they have committed an "armed attack" against the Jewish state. The Hamas charter calls for Israel's total destruction. Under international law, Israel is entitled to take whatever military action is necessary to repel that attack and stop the rockets. It must seek to minimize civilian deaths consistent with the legitimate military goal, and it is doing precisely that, despite Hamas efforts to maximize civilian deaths on both sides.

woensdag 14 januari 2009

Hamas verzwijgt gesneuvelde strijders in Gaza Oorlog

Ook Israel hanteert een vorm van censuur, waarbij bijvoorbeeld geen informatie wordt gegeven over het precieze verloop van gevechten en ook waar raketten van Hamas precies zijn terecht gekomen, maar dit gaat veel verder. Het belangrijkst voor de buitenwereld is dat het op deze manier lijkt alsof Israel alleen maar burgers in Gaza treft, terwijl alleen al in gevechten tussen de grondtroepen en Hamas waarschijnlijk 300 a 400 Hamasstrijders zijn omgekomen.

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Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC)

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e037.htm

January 12, 2009

Hamas hides the casualties suffered by its operatives:
Hamas's main online forum censors the publication of names
and photographs of operatives killed in Operation Cast Lead

1. On January 10, at 21:41 , all web surfers on Hamas's PALDF forum (the movement's main message board) received a message from a user nicknamed "Samed" ("He who stands firm"). He is one of the forum's moderators (the user was said to be a muraqib, Arabic for "inspector"). The message said that according to the policy of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip ("the jihadist resistance"), it was forbidden to publish photographs, names, or details of those members of the resistance (i.e., terrorist organizations) killed or injured in the fighting until the end of the "Israeli aggression" in the Gaza Strip. The moderator said that any message violating those principles would be removed from the forum. He added that they were all "soldiers of the resistance" who should avoid providing assistance to the enemy (see Appendix for the complete message and its translation).

2. The message reflects the policy of Hamas, which has refrained from publishing the names of its operatives who were killed or injured since the beginning of the ground phase of Operation Cast Lead. As part of that policy, almost no names or photographs of killed operatives have been published on PALDF in the course of the past week (unlike in the first week of the operation, in which the names and photographs of scores of killed Hamas operatives were published). It should be noted that a similar policy was followed by Hezbollah in the second Lebanon war, when it purposefully did not publish the names of killed operatives, preferring instead to bury them in secret, without media coverage, to reinforce the "divine victory" myth it sought to create.

3. It is our assessment that such a policy is designed to achieve three goals:

a) to avoid undermining the morale of Hamas operatives as a result of the death of many terrorists during the IDF's ground operations (according to IDF reports, more than 200 operatives were killed). With that in mind, and possibly owing to the difficulty of evacuating many bodies from the battlefield, it was reported that Hamas was not holding proper funerals for its fatalities.

b) to deliver to the Palestinian target audience (and to other target audiences worldwide) the message that Israel has no achievements in its ground operation and thus strengthen Hamas's status and bargaining power when the fighting comes to an end.

c) to confirm (through Al-Jazeera and other media) the false propaganda message that Israel's military operations are aimed against Gaza Strip residents and that only the civilian population is being hit by the IDF and is paying the price.

Important announcement about information and photographs about the martyrs of the resistance

"Dear brothers, according to the policy of the factions of the jihadist resistance in Gaza… we are informing you that publishing the numbers, names, photographs, and any [other] details about the martyrs [originally: shuhadaa' ] and injured members of the resistance is completely forbidden until the Israeli aggression ends with a clear victory for us and for our nation, Allah willing. Any [messages] violating this principle will be removed and a warning will be sent to the poster. Let us all be soldiers of the resistance, and if we cannot help it, the least we can do is not help the enemy [in fighting] against it".

Hamas gebruikt kinderen ter ondersteuning Palestijnse strijders

Hamas zet regelmatig kinderen in voor de strijd, bijvoorbeeld om op de uitkijk te staan of andere taken voor de strijders te vervullen. Een voordeel is, dat kinderen minder opvallen en minder snel verdacht zijn. Ook zijn in het verleden kinderen gebruikt om explosieven door checkpoints te smokkelen. Uit het volgende citaat blijkt dat Hamas ook nu kinderen inzet voor de strijd, wat een directe schending is van het internationale recht:

"[The newspaper] Kul Al-Arab called many Gaza Strip residents, to comprehend the situation of the people who are suffering for two weeks from the wild Israeli aggression...

Khaled, from A-Rimal [in Gaza], said: 'We the children, in small groups and in civilian clothes, are fulfilling missions of support for the [Hamas] Resistance fighters, by transmitting messages about the movements of the enemy forces, or by bringing them ammunition and food. We ourselves are not aware of the movements of the Resistance fighters. We see them in one place, they suddenly disappear, and then reappear somewhere else. They are like ghosts, it is very hard to find them or hurt them.'"

[Kul-Al-Arab (Israeli Arab weekly), January 9, 2009]

__________________________

Bron: Palestinian Media Watch - Hamas using children in combat support roles
PMW | King George 59 | Jerusalem | Israel
http://www.pmw.org.il

Iran waarschuwt Hamas om Egyptisch voorstel wapenstilstand niet te accepteren

De vergissing die we steeds maken, is dat we denken dat dit een conflict is tussen Israel en Hamas, een lokale Palestijnse gewapende groepering met wat in elkaar geknutselde raketten die meestal doel missen.

"The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon."

De onderhandelingen worden blijkbaar indirect ook met Iran gevoerd.

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Iran warns Hamas not to accept Egyptian truce proposal
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH - The Jerusalem Post

Jan 12, 2009 0:35 | Updated Jan 12, 2009 0:49
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424929369&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday.

The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.

His remarks came as Hamas representatives met in Cairo with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman and his aides to discuss ways of ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas representatives reiterated their opposition to a cease-fire that did not include the reopening of all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesmen said on Sunday.

The spokesmen said Hamas voiced its strong opposition to the idea of deploying an international force inside the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah.

"As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it," the Egyptian government official told the Post.

"The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon."

The official pointed out that the Iranians were applying "double standards" regarding the current conflict - on the one hand, they encouraged Iranian men to volunteer to fight alongside Hamas; on the other hand, Iran's spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, told the volunteers that they would not be permitted to join the fight against Israel.

"The Iranians never fired one bullet at Israel," he said. "But now they are trying to appear as if they are participating in the war against Israel. The leaders of Teheran don't care about the innocent civilians who are being killed in the Gaza Strip."

The Egyptian official accused Iran of "encouraging" Hamas to continue firing rockets at Israel with the hope that this would trigger a war that would divert attention from Iran's nuclear plans.

"This conflict serves the interests of the Iranians," he said. "They are satisfied because the violence in the Gaza Strip has diverted attention from their nuclear ambitions. The Iranians are also hoping to use the Palestinian issue as a 'powerful card' in future talks with the Americans.

"They want to show that they have control over Hamas and many Palestinians."

Karam Jaber, editor of the semi-official Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssef magazine, said that Hamas was caught between the Syrian anvil and the Iranian hammer. The Iranians, he said, prevented Hamas from negotiating a cease-fire with Israel, while the Syrians were blackmailing and intimidating the Hamas leaders in Damascus.

"History won't forget to mention that Hamas had inflicted death and destruction on the Palestinians," he said. "We hope that Hamas has learned the lesson and realizes that it has been fighting a war on behalf of others. We hope the Hamas leaders will realize that they are fighting a destructive war on behalf of the Iranians and Syrians." Egyptian political analyst Magdi Khalil said he shared the view of the Palestinian Authority and Egypt that Hamas was responsible for the war in the Gaza Strip. "Ever since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, they turned the area into hell," he said. "They imposed restrictions on the people there and even prevented them from performing the pilgrimage to Mecca."

The analyst said that the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service was right when he recently described Hamas as a group of gangsters. "Hamas and its masters in Damascus and Teheran want to spread chaos in Egypt," he said. "They want to solve the problem of the Gaza Strip by handing the area over to Egypt. They want to create a homeland for the Palestinians in Sinai."

He said that Hamas was not only jeopardizing Egypt's national security, but had also destroyed the Palestinians' dream of statehood. "By endorsing the Iranian agenda, Hamas has brought the Iranians to Egypt's eastern border," he said. "Hamas has also copied Hizbullah's policy of entering into pointless adventures."

Dodental in Gaza zegt niets over proportionaliteit van IDF acties

Het eeuwige vergelijken van het aantal doden aan beide kanten is dus onzinnig als je wilt beoordelen of Israels reactie proportioneel is volgens het internationaal recht, maar dat snappen bijvoorbeeld Pauw en Witteman en NOVA niet.

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Last update - 09:40 12/01/2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054563.html
Legal expert: Rising Gaza death toll doesn't mean IDF acts are disproportionate
By Ofra Edelman

The fact that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed during the operation in Gaza, compared to fewer than 20 Israelis, has nothing to do with the question of whether the operation is legal according to international law, says Prof. Yuval Shany, an expert in international law from Hebrew University's law faculty.

The relevant question, he said, is "whether the operation is proportionate to the provocation that led to it. When a single Qassam [rocket] is fired, the state cannot invade and conquer an entire country. There must be a measure of proportion between the action and the reaction. But here, we are not talking about a single Qassam, but about years of Qassams."

Israel, he continued, "is permitted to use force to the degree necessary to end the attacks against it. Therefore, it [the operation] is legal as long as it is meant to prevent the attacks."

However, Shany stressed, by law, Israel would not have the right to use force to effect regime change in the Gaza Strip. Israel would also have no right to deliberately target Palestinian civilians, even though Hamas deliberately targets Israeli civilians: One side's illegal actions do not entitle the other side to violate the law as well.

"In wartime, it is permissible to attack military targets only," Shany explained. "This means targets that make a significant contribution to the other side's war effort: Qassam launchers, Hamas fighting forces, weapons storehouses and [smuggling] tunnels."

Military targets can be struck even if civilians will very likely be hurt, as long as the harm to civilians is proportionate, he explained. This depends on factors such as the military value of the target, the extent of the harm suffered by civilians and the measures taken to minimize this harm.

Thus, with regard to two specific dilemmas faced by Israel - whether to attack mosques being used as weapons storehouses, and also hospitals where senior Hamas commanders are holed up - Shany said: "A mosque is a more acceptable target than a hospital, because with a hospital, the assumption is that the harm to civilians will be far greater." And in fact, Israel has chosen to strike mosques, but not hospitals.

However, the professor added, even a hospital does not have total immunity: Firing missiles at it would be unacceptable, but a commando force could be sent in to capture wanted Hamas men.

Regarding claims that Israel has deprived Gaza of fuel and electricity, and prevented the evacuation of the wounded, Shany said that once Israel has taken control of the Strip, it must enable the population's humanitarian needs to be met. This includes an obligation to treat the wounded and to supply food, water and electricity. "The longer the army remains in an area, the greater its obligation to supply the local population's needs becomes," he added.

Similarly, when Israel warns civilians to leave a house before an attack, it must ensure that they have somewhere to go and access to basic necessities such as food and water. Nevertheless, Shany noted, when United Nations agencies examined Israel's conduct during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, they praised its practice of dropping leaflets to warn civilians to leave before bombing, saying this reduced civilian casualties.

Shany said it would be hard for anyone to sue Israel in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, since the country being tried must consent to have the court hear the case. However, he warned, individual European countries that claim universal jurisdiction could seek to arrest and try specific Israel Defense Forces officers for alleged war crimes.

Waar waren de demonstranten toen raketten op Israel vielen?

Het is misschien niet zo vreemd dat er geen woedende demonstranten waren tegen de raketten van Hamas, maar wel dat de media er zo zelden over berichtten. Pas nadat Israel met haar militaire campagne in Gaza begon, lazen en hoorden we af en toe wat over raketaanvallen op Israelische steden en dat Israeli's 15 seconden hebben om naar de schuilkelder of de safe room te rennen. Tijdens de crisis vorig jaar, toen Israel in reactie op de continue raketaanvallen 'pinpoint operaties' uitvoerde in Gaza en ook steeds minder goederen doorliet totdat op een gegeven moment ook brandstof en essentiele goederen niet meer werden geleverd, bleef NRC slechts spreken van 'raketbeschietingen' in een bijzin, zonder ooit iets te vermelden over de impact hiervan op de bevolking. Andere media waren niet veel beter. Alle aandacht was gericht op de ellende in Gaza.

Een van de dingen die ook steeds worden genegeerd is dat het staakt het vuren het mogelijk heeft gemaakt dat Hamas zoveel raketten kon verzamelen en overal tunnels en bunkers voor zichzelf kon bouwen, waardoor het nu veel moeilijker te treffen is. Na meer dan twee weken aanvallen blijft Israel overal tunnels, huizen en moskeeën vol explosieven en raketten aantreffen. Waar komt dat spul allemaal vandaan en waar haalde Hamas het geld en de middelen vandaan om dit alles op te bouwen en te verzamelen? Deze vragen worden nooit gesteld, want de journalisten zijn alleen maar met de gewonden in Gaza bezig en de vraag of Israel fosfor bommen heeft gebruikt en op welke andere manieren het het oorlogsrecht zou schenden.

RP
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Jan 12, 2009 20:38 | Updated Jan 12, 2009 20:57
Where were the protesters when missiles were hitting Israel?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231774431930&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The deaths and maimings of civilians in Gaza is terrible and wrenching. Seen on television and in newspapers, they are driving innumerable people in many parts of the world to go into the streets to protest against Israel's attack on Hamas. The protests are fierce and angry, fuelled by tragedies like the killing of 46 people when the Israeli army shelled a school building in Jabalya refugee camp, and in the death of a family of seven.

But where were the protestors when missiles were falling on southern Israel? Had they come into the streets then and demanded that Hamas stop firing we wouldn't have the gory mess in Gaza today.

The rockets and mortars first struck on April 16, 2001. Since then, there have been more than 6,300. Last year's toll was more than 3,000.

For much of the time the rockets were primitive Qassams with small warheads. However small, they kill as effectively as any high-tech grenade launcher. The missiles have been getting deadlier: Katyushas and, more recently, Grad missiles have been reaching further into Israel, striking towns 25 miles from Gaza.

Casualties from the rockets have mercifully been light, with about 20 deaths. That is not due to any lack of trying by Hamas. Instead, it's because of air raid sirens which give people less than a minute to get into shelter. And luck: Last week a missile hit a school; catastrophe was avoided because the children had been sent home. A kindergarten was badly damaged this week; again, the children were at home.

A million people now live under threat of terror attack. Life is strained and uncertain.

THE GOVERNMENT has never been able to resolve the quandary of commanding one of the world's most modern armies and yet being powerless to halt low-tech rockets and bombs. It still hunts for a solution.

Public demands mounted for harsh action. For every rocket that lands, fire back a shell, said some; or for one rocket, one shell, for the next rocket, two shells, and so on. Obliterate Gaza, said others. Some, a minority, called for ending the siege of Gaza and greater efforts to talk to Hamas.

The government urged restraint. That became more difficult with a general election due on February 10. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, his Labour party sliding in opinion polls, put his political career on the line by refusing to let the army go in. His view was all the stronger because he was previously chief of staff and is the country's most decorated soldier for bravery. Those pressing for war did not understand what it meant, he said. He was backed by army chief General Gabi Ashkenazi and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

They feared that a massive attack would cause heavy civilian casualties and loss of soldiers' lives.

The turning point was November 4. Israel says Hamas was digging a tunnel to kidnap soldiers; it foiled the plot by killing seven militants. Hamas says this was a provocation; it started firing rockets en masse, ending the unwritten ceasefire in effect since June. Missiles had still landed during that time: only 38, but enough for Israel to say it was reason for it to interrupt the flow of food and goods into Gaza.

In the third week of December, more than 200 missiles struck. They were 200 too many. Barak and Olmert accepted they could no longer hold back. The army was ordered to put into effect plans which had already been prepared.

WHY DID the world keep silent for so many years? Could anyone really expect Israel to do nothing for evermore?

That there is much anguish and anger about Palestinian suffering while there was so little response to what Israelis were enduring raises worrying questions. Are protestors giving vent to genuine compassion for Palestinian victims, or is there something dark and ugly under the surface in singling out Israel as though there has never before been a war in which innocent civilians are tragically caught in the fire?

How else to explain the extreme condemnation of Israel? The outpouring of so much hatred and the wild abuse of language and history in accusations of "genocide," "Holocaust" and the "Warsaw Ghetto"?

An official of Unrwa, the United Nations relief agency, was on television this week with a long and passionate call to end the Israeli attack. But not a word about what led to it. Why do he and others speak as though the Israeli onslaught came out of nothing, without reason or cause? Why, too, is there silence about Hamas' firing of missiles from the heart of civilian areas?

DIPLOMATIC MOVES are underway and will, hopefully, quickly lead to a ceasefire. But Israel has made very clear that it insists that there be no more missiles whether by Hamas or its cronies and that Hamas not be allowed to smuggle in new weaponry. The ceasefire will be of little account unless the world ensures that this is done and that an effective mechanism is put in place to maintain it.

The story, of course, is much more complicated. It has to do with Israel's blockade of Gaza and its attempt, unsuccessfully, to use this to turn the people there against Hamas. It has to do with Hamas' rejection of Israel's existence and refusal to forswear violence, and its power struggle with Fatah. It has to do with Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the slow moves towards creation of an independent Palestinian state.

The future for both Israelis and Palestinians depends on resolving these issues. Ending the onslaught on Gaza and halting missiles raining on Israel are the immediate crucial steps.

------------------------------

The writer is director of Yakar's Center for Social Concern in Jerusalem. South African-born, he was deputy editor of the Rand Daily Mail when the newspaper was closed down. He has written books about Robert Sobukwe; Nelson Mandela; and the press under apartheid. He is co-editor of Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue.

dinsdag 13 januari 2009

Olmert hoopt nog op Gaza overeenkomst via Egypte

Dit klinkt niet alsof er al veel vooruitgang is geboekt in de besprekingen in Kairo, maar Israel is blijkbaar bereid om ze een serieuze kans te geven voordat het de derde fase van haar offensief start.

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Last update - 02:30 13/01/2009
Olmert seeks push in Cairo talks before Gaza op enters third stage

By Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054915.html

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday sent a message to a number of world leaders that Israel wants to see a diplomatic move through Egypt that would lead to a cessation of arms-smuggling into Gaza, before the Gaza operation enters its third phase.

Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met last night to discuss contacts with Egypt. It is still unclear when the Defense Ministry's security chief, Amos Gilad, will leave for Cairo to discuss ways to stop the smuggling with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

Snags in talks between Egypt and Hamas are reportedly behind the delay.

Emissaries from Hamas arrived last night in Cairo for cease-fire talks with Egyptian officials. They are expected to present objections to Egyptian demands but will apparently not reject the Egyptian initiative outright.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Monday that his organization would cooperate with initiatives for a cease-fire and an opening of the crossings in Gaza.

Olmert told foreign leaders that talks with the Egyptians were moving ahead, and that he was ready to give these talks a chance before deciding to expand Operation Cast Lead. Olmert told them he wanted to try to avoid an expansion, but would do so if there were no other choice and the Egyptian effort proved fruitless.

In contrast with his statements abroad, Olmert's has broadcasted a tougher message domestically. Speaking to mayors in Ashkelon on Monday, Olmert said there were two conditions for an end to the operation: a cessation of Hamas rocket fire and a cessation of smuggling and Hamas' strengthening.

The prime minister also said if smuggling continued after the end of the operation, and longer-ranger rockets came to the Gaza Strip, Israel's deterance would be compromised throughout the region.

"If these two conditions are met, we will cease the Gaza operation. Anything else will slam into Israel's iron fist. Will it take time? It will take time. We will continue for as long as it takes to remove the threat over our heads. We have reached marvelous achievements in the fighting," Olmert said. "This is the moment for the test to see who has stronger willpower, us or them."

Haniyeh, speaking on the Hamas television channel Al-Aqsa for the second time since the beginning of fighting in the Gaza Strip, pledged, "Gaza will not break - our victory over the Zionists is close."

Quoting extensively from the Koran, Haniyeh said, "We have placed our fate in the hands of Allah, what power do the sons of Zion have; Allah will yet take revenge on them."

The Hamas representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said Monday the Egyptian proposal did not meet Hamas' demands. In interviews with a number of Arab media outlets, Hamdan explained that Hamas would not agree to an international force in Gaza and to a clause calling for a cessation of "the bringing of weapons into Gaza."

Hamdan also said Hamas wanted an end to Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip, a withdrawal of Israeli forces, a lifting of the siege on Gaza and an opening of the crossings.

Egypt, however, continued to insist on the principles of its proposal from last week: An immediate cease-fire (without an Israeli withdrawal), the beginning of talks on a long-term cease-fire leading to the opening of the crossings, and the third stage - renewal of talks between Hamas and Fatah to allow the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.

The Hamas leadership is to meet today in Cairo with Suleiman and his aides.

Some 30 Palestinians were killed Monday in Gaza, bringing the total number of dead to approximately 920, with another 4,200 injured.

Hamas leiders verschuilen zich in kelder Shifa ziekenhuis Gaza

Het ultieme voorbeeld van je verschuilen achter burgers. Ironisch is dat dit gebouw indertijd door Israel is neergezet.

RP

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Last update - 03:02 12/01/2009

Sources: Hamas leaders hiding in Israel-built Shifa Hospital basement
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054569.html
By Amos Harel

Senior Hamas officials in Gaza are hiding out in a "bunker" built by Israel, intelligence officials suspect: Many are believed to be in the basements of the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City, which was refurbished during Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip.

Shifa, the coastal strip's largest hospital, was built while Gaza was under Egyptian rule, before 1967.

During the mid-1980s the building underwent massive refurbishment as part of a showcase project to improve the living conditions of residents.

Millions were invested in the project, which was overseen by Shmuel Goren, the coordinator for activities in the territories at the time.

The Israeli civil administration in the territories constructed the hospital complex's Building Number 2, which has a large cement basement that housed the hospital's laundry and various administrative services.

During a cabinet meeting a week ago, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said senior Hamas officials found refuge in the hospital basement because they know Israel would not target it, due to the patients in the upper floors. Palestinian sources told Haaretz that not all the senior Hamas leaders are hiding in one place.

Rather, they have spread out, and some are constantly changing locations. Some of the bunkers they are using were linked by tunnels Hamas built in recent years.

2 Huizen in Ashkelon getroffen tijdens gevechtspauze en de vooringenomenheid van de media

Hamas maakt misbruik van de dagelijks gevechtspauze die Israel sinds bijna een week in acht neemt, door juist dan raketten af te vuren op Israel. Toen Israel daarop een paar dagen geleden de lanceerders aanviel, stonden de correspondenten klaar om Israel ervan te betichten de zelf ingestelde gevechtspauze niet te respecteren. Ook heb ik horen zeggen dat er nog evenveel raketten op Israel vallen als toen de operatie begon, wat niet waar is. Het zijn er nu veel minder. Correspondenten zouden wat minder slordig en vooringenomen moeten zijn. Het lijkt erop dat velen van mening zijn dat:

* Israels strijd tegen Hamas niet te winnen en dus zinloos is, en daarom ook immoreel

* Israels operatie disproportioneel is, en onmiddelijk moet stoppen, los van wat Hamas doet

* De Hamas raketten weliswaar ook niet goed zijn, maar in het niet vallen bij wat Israel doet

* Israel totaal onverschillig is voor burgerdoden aan Palestijnse kant, en alles wat het daar tegenin brengt propaganda is

* Israel veel beter is in het 'verkopen' van haar kant, en wat zij zegt daarom met extra veel wantrouwen moet worden bejegend

* Het in wezen een strijd van David tegen Goliath is, en Hamas begrijpelijkerwijze verzet pleegt tegen het machtige Israel en zich niet wil laten kennen.

Kom je dergelijke vooringenomenheid of ronduit foutieve berichtgeving tegen in de media, reageer dan en maak de fout duidelijk.

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Jan 12, 2009 9:12 | Updated Jan 12, 2009 13:50
Two houses hit as Hamas rocket barrage shatters 3-hour calm
By JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424932423&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Disregarding a ceasefire which Israel voluntarily accepted for three hours in order to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, Hamas gunmen fired a Grad-type rocket at Ashkelon on Monday, damaging a house and sending seven people into shock.

Nobody sustained bodily injuries in the attack.

According to reports, the impact site was very close to a high school. Following the strike, the municipality, in conjunction with the Home Front Command, decided that the students would continue their classes underground in the bomb shelters.

Later, some fifteen minutes before the end of the humanitarian cease-fire, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket barrage on Beersheba, Ofakim, and Sderot. An empty house in Sderot sustained a direct hit.

On Monday morning, rocket-launching cells managed to break precedents, hitting for the first time the area of Kiryat Gat. The Sha'ar Hanegev region and the Eshkol region also sustained hits.

At least 15 rockets and mortar shells landed in Israel during the day. No one was wounded in any of the other attacks, and no other damage was reported.

For the past few days, the number of rocket and mortar strikes has notably decreased from what was seen at the outset of the operation on December 27. Whereas in the first few days, communities in and around the western Negev saw an average of 70 to 100 rocket strikes per day, over the past weekend less than 30 projectiles have succeeded in hitting Israel.

The IDF operation was launched after Hamas refused to extend a ceasefire agreement with Israel which expired on December 19. Israel has said that it would not cease its military activities until the Islamic group agrees to a permanent, long-term truce on the matter.

Wapens, Qassams en Katjusha raketten ontdekt in Gaza moskee

Dit is niet de eerste keer dat een moskee volgestouwd blijkt met wapens en raketten. De Gazanen die nu niet meer naar de moskee kunnen, moeten dus niet bij Israel zijn met hun kritiek maar bij hun eigen Hamas leiderschap. Dat die iets anders denkt over vrije meningstuiting en iets anders omgaat met kritiek is niet Israels schuld.

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Last update - 17:25 12/01/2009
IDF finds Hamas arms stockpile in raid on Gaza mosque
By Haaretz Service
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054778.html

The Israel Air Force on Monday bombed a mosque in southern Gaza City, on day 17 of its offensive against Hamas' infrastructure in the coastal territory.

Israeli ground forces who entered the premises following the attack found a mass stockpile of weapons, including Qassam and Katyusha rockets.

The Israel Defense Forces continued its offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip before dawn on Monday, attacking dozens of targets across the territory.

IDF ground forces - comprising infantry, tanks, combat engineers, artillery and intelligence -were assisted by aerial attacks during the overnight operations.

The IAF reported attacking 10 Hamas targets, including five armed operatives, four weapons storehouses, two smuggling tunnels dug under the house of militants, one tunnel dug under Gaza's border with Egypt and one rocket launching position.

Troops from the Golani Brigade reported a number of hits on armed gunmen during gunbattles in the northern Gaza Strip. The Givati Brigade, meanwhile, uncovered one mortar shell.

The Israel Navy accompanied the ground forces during the raids, attacking Hamas locales from the sea.

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday began deploying reservist troops to the Gaza Strip, for the first time since Israel began its offensive on the Hamas-ruled coastal territory 17 days ago.

An IDF spokesman said that despite the deployment, thousands more reservists who would comprise a new, expanded phase in the ground operation were still in training and have not been sent to battle.

Meanwhile, IDF troops late Sunday continued to surround Gaza City while the Israel Air Force launched a fierce attack on some 20 smuggling networks in the southern Gaza Strip.

Palestinian medical officials said some 60 Palestinians died in Gaza on Sunday, including 17 who succumbed to their wounds from days earlier. The IDF said some 40 militants were either wounded or killed during the army's Sunday offensive.

The location of the ground fighting, on the southwest side of the Hamas-ruled territory's biggest population center, suggested Israel was intensifying a more than two-week-old offensive. Troops had previously kept to the outskirts of urban areas in Gaza.

Goederentransport naar Gazastrook 12 januari en smokkelwaar onderschept

Hamas probeert misbruik te maken van de humanitaire hulp die Israel dagelijks doorlaat, door spullen voor zichzelf mee te smokkelen. Een paar dagen geleden werden uniformen aangetroffen, nu apparatuur om in het donker beter te zien. Dit misbruik, evenals het stelen van humanitaire hulp in Gaza, bemoeilijken de hulpverlening aan de bevolking van Gaza, maar daar hoor je de media nooit over.

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COGAT: KEREM SHALOM AND KARNI OPERATE INCREASING NUMBER OF TRUCKS TRANSFERRED TO GAZA
(Communicated by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Spokesman)

Today (Monday), 12.1.09, a total of 3129 tons of humanitarian aid including basic food commodities, medical supplies and medication were transferred to the Gaza Strip. This is the largest shipment of humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip since the military operation began. The commodities were conveyed on 120 trucks and included supplies for UNRWA, the World Food Programme, UNICEF a large Jordanian donation and goods for the private sector.

Also, due to an attempt to smuggle electronics, including night vision surveillance cameras, four trucks of supplies were turned back, and despite this cynical attempt to abuse the humanitarian platform one truck of electronic supplies intended to rehabilitate the electrical network was transferred. Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead 22,046 tons of humanitarian aid on 926 trucks have been shipped to the Gaza Strip.

For further details, please contact COGAT Spokesman Maj. Peter Lerner at 03-6977138, 050-6234053 or dov_tpsh@netvision.net.il.

maandag 12 januari 2009

VN resolutie over wapenstilstand Gaza was serieuze diplomatieke misser

Resolutie 1860 van de VN Veiligheidsraad is volgens Israel niet evenwichtig en legitimeert Hamas. De resolutie heeft nauwelijks aandacht voor het probleem van de wapensmokkel, waardoor nu een miljoen Israeli's binnen raketbereik leven, maakt geen melding van de ca. 10.000 raketten en mortiergranaten die Hamas sinds 2001 op Israel heeft afgevuurd, en eist onmiddelijke en volledige opening van de grenzen voor humanitaire hulp met slechts een vage verwijzing naar plannen om de wapensmokkel tegen te gaan. Over Gilad Shalit wordt gezwegen en men eist niet dat Hamas de macht weer met Fatah deelt zoals voor de illegale coup van juni 2007, die als een fait accomplit wordt beschouwd.

Sterker nog, het feit dat de Gazastrook nu illegaal bestuurd wordt door een organisatie die volgens zowel de EU als de VS als terroristisch wordt aangemerkt, wordt in het geheel niet genoemd. Dit is een serieuze misser van de Veiligheidsraad, die juist deze oorlog had moeten aangrijpen om een einde aan Hamas' illegale bewind in Gaza te eisen. Het is dan ook geen wonder dat Israel deze resolutie, die overigens niet bindend is, niet heeft aanvaard, maar voordat Israel dit kenbaar maakte, had Hamas hem al verworpen.

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ANALYSIS / UN Gaza truce resolution was serious diplomatic malfunction
By Aluf Benn

Haaretz, 11 January 2008
www.haaretz.com:80/hasen/spages/1054275.html

Resolution 1860 by the United Nations Security Council, which called for a cease-fire in Gaza, should be seen as an expression of the international community's discomfort about the continued fighting.

It does not dictate halting the Israeli operation nor does it demand the immediate pullout of Israel Defense Forces troops from the Strip before security arrangements are made to guarantee long-term stability.

But even if the decision bears no operative significance, it should stir concerns in Israel for three reasons. First, things are not going to get better. This is the international position, which identifies with the Palestinian suffering and ignores Gilad Shalit's fate and the suffering of the people in Israel's south.

Second, although Hamas is not mentioned in the resolution - which it has rejected - Khaled Meshal, Ismail Haniyeh and their friends have good reason to smile. Hamas' Gaza regime now enjoys the legitimacy afforded it by the Security Council, the international community's highest institution. That's because Resolution 1680 refers to a Hamas republic as a fait accompli.

The resolution does not demand that the Strip be returned to the Palestinian Authority, except in the call for a renewed settlement for the crossings, which will be based on the old agreement between Israel and the PA. Nor does the resolution call for disarming the militias and terrorist groups operating in the Gaza Strip.

Third, the process that led to the passing of the resolution points to Jerusalem's failure in handling the issue. Israel objected to having the war end in a Security Council resolution similar to the one that ended the Second Lebanon War. This is probably why Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni - who led those who oppose an agreement for fear it might legitimize Hamas - opted to stay at home instead of heading over to the UN headquarters in New York.

Israel made a similar mistake a few years ago, when it refused to appear before the International Court of Justice in the Hague when it reviewed the separation fence. And the problem with this decision is that he UN, like the justices in Hague, ruled without taking Israel's position into account.

A situation like this makes Israel dependent on the United States. But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice supported the UN Resolution and assisted with its formulation. Livni was in contact with Rice in an attempt to soften its wording.

At the last minute, at 3:30 A.M., Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also intervened with a desperate phone call to President George W. Bush, requesting that the United States veto the resolution. Bush refused, simply instructing Rice to abstain from the vote.

One doesn't need to know all the details to realize that a late-night phone call between national leaders is the result of a major malfunction in the diplomatic handling of state matters, which reveals a problem in the relationship between Israel and the United States.

If it were not for Bush's friendship, the United States would have joined the supporters of Resolution 1860.

Vallen en truuks in de Gaza Oorlog

Dit artikel geeft een goed inzicht in de stadsoorlog in Gaza, en de truuks die beide partijen gebruiken.

Een cynisch feit dat bijna nergens wordt gemeld is dat het Hamas leiderschap zich zou schuilhouden onder het Shiva ziekenhuis in Gaza. Het is misschien inderdaad de veiligste plek voor hen, maar het is volkomen immoreel om dit ziekenhuis, het personeel en de gewonden, aan gevaar bloot te stellen, ook al is de kans dat Israel ze daar aan zal vallen natuurlijk miniem. Israel stelt het leven van de eigen soldaten boven dat van de burgers in Gaza, wat misschien niet zo aardig maar wel begrijpelijk en legitiem is in een oorlog, maar Hamas stelt eveneens het leven van haar strijders boven dat van de burgers in Gaza, en dat is crimineel.

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A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/world/middleeast/11hamas.html
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: January 10, 2009

JERUSALEM — The grinding urban battle unfolding in the densely populated Gaza Strip is a war of new tactics, quick adaptation and lethal tricks.

Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the last two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs. Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership's war room is a bunker beneath Gaza's largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say.

Unwilling to take Israel's bait and come into the open, Hamas militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police have been ordered to take off their uniforms. The militants emerge from tunnels to shoot automatic weapons or antitank missiles, then disappear back inside, hoping to lure the Israeli soldiers with their fire.

In one apartment building in Zeitoun, in northern Gaza, Hamas set an inventive, deadly trap. According to an Israeli journalist embedded with Israeli troops, the militants placed a mannequin in a hallway off the building's main entrance. They hoped to draw fire from Israeli soldiers who might, through the blur of night vision goggles and split-second decisions, mistake the figure for a fighter. The mannequin was rigged to explode and bring down the building.

In an interview, the reporter, Ron Ben-Yishai, a senior military correspondent for the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, said soldiers also found a pile of weapons with a grenade launcher on top. When they moved the launcher, "they saw a detonator light up, but somehow it didn't go off."

The Israeli Army has also come prepared for a battle both sides knew was inevitable. Every soldier, Israeli officials say, is outfitted with a ceramic vest and a helmet. Every unit has dogs trained to sniff out explosives and people hidden in tunnels, as well as combat engineers trained to defuse hidden bombs.

To avoid booby traps, the Israelis say, they enter buildings by breaking through side walls, rather than going in the front. Once inside, they move from room to room, battering holes in interior walls to avoid exposure to snipers and suicide bombers dressed as civilians, with explosive belts hidden beneath winter coats.

The Israelis say they are also using new weapons, like a small-diameter smart bomb, the GBU-39, which Israel bought last fall from Washington. The bomb, which is very accurate, has a small explosive, as little as 60 to 80 pounds, to minimize collateral damage in an urban area. But it can also penetrate the earth to hit bunkers or tunnels.

And the Israelis, too, are resorting to tricks.

Israeli intelligence officers are telephoning Gazans and, in good Arabic, pretending to be sympathetic Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians or Libyans, Gazans say and Israel has confirmed. After expressing horror at the Israeli war and asking about the family, the callers ask about local conditions, whether the family supports Hamas and if there are fighters in the building or the neighborhood.

Karim Abu Shaban, 21, of Gaza City said he and his neighbors all had gotten such calls. His first caller had an Egyptian accent. "Oh, God help you, God be with you," the caller began.

"It started very supportive," Mr. Shaban said, then the questions started. The next call came in five minutes later. That caller had an Algerian accent and asked if he had reached Gaza. Mr. Shaban said he answered, "No, Tel Aviv," and hung up.

Interviews last week with senior Israeli intelligence and military officers, both active and retired, as well as with military experts and residents of Gaza itself, made it clear that the battle, waged among civilians and between enemies who had long prepared for this fight, is now a slow, nasty business of asymmetrical urban warfare. Gaza's civilians, who cannot flee because the borders are closed, are "the meat in the sandwich," as one United Nations worker said, requesting anonymity.

It is also clear that both sides are evolving tactics to the new battlefield, then adjusting them quickly.

To that end, Israeli intelligence is detaining large numbers of young Gazan men to interrogate them for local knowledge and Hamas tactics. Last week, Israel captured a hand-drawn Hamas map in a house in Al Atatra, near Beit Lahiya, which showed planned defensive positions for the neighborhood, mine and booby trap placements, including a rigged gasoline station, and directions for snipers to shoot next to a mosque. Numerous tunnels were marked.

A new Israeli weapon, meanwhile, is tailored to the Hamas tactic of asking civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb. The Israelis are countering with a missile designed, paradoxically, not to explode. They aim the missiles at empty areas of the roofs to frighten residents into leaving the buildings, a tactic called "a knock on the roof."

But the most important strategic decision the Israelis have made so far, according to senior military officers and analysts, is to approach their incursion as a war, not a police operation.

Civilians are warned by leaflets, loudspeakers and telephone calls to evacuate battle areas. But troops are instructed to protect themselves first and civilians second.

Officers say that means Israeli infantry units are going in "heavy." If they draw fire, they return it with heavy firepower. If they are told to reach an objective, they first call in artillery or airpower and use tank fire. Then they move, but only behind tanks and armored bulldozers, riding in armored personnel carriers, spending as little time in the open as possible

As the commander of the army's elite combat engineering unit, Yahalom, told the Israeli press on Wednesday: "We are very violent. We do not balk at any means to protect the lives of our soldiers." His name cannot be published under censorship rules.

"Urban warfare is the most difficult battlefield, where Hamas and Islamic Jihad have a relative advantage, with local knowledge and prepared positions," said Jonathan Fighel of Israel's International Institute for Counterterrorism. "Hamas has a doctrine; this is not a gang of Rambos," he said. "The Israeli military has to find the stitches to unpick, how to counterbalance and surprise."

Israeli troops are moving slowly and, they hope, unpredictably, trying not to stay in one place for long to entice Hamas fighters "to come out and confront them," Mr. Fighel said.

Today, he said, "the mind-set from top to bottom is fight and fight cruel; this is a war, not another pinpoint operation."

Israeli officials say that they are obeying the rules of war and trying hard not to hurt noncombatants but that Hamas is using civilians as human shields in the expectation that Israel will try to avoid killing them.

Israeli press officers call the tactics of Hamas cynical, illegal and inhumane; even Israel's critics agree that Hamas's regular use of rockets to fire at civilians in Israel, and its use of civilians as shields in Gaza, are also violations of the rules of war. Israeli military men and analysts say that its urban guerrilla tactics, including the widespread use of civilian structures and tunnels, are deliberate and come from the Iranian Army's tactical training and the lessons of the 2006 war between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hamas rocket and weapons caches, including rocket launchers, have been discovered in and under mosques, schools and civilian homes, the army says. The Israeli intelligence chief, Yuval Diskin, in a report to the Israeli cabinet, said that the Gaza-based leadership of Hamas was in underground housing beneath the No. 2 building of Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza. That allegation cannot be confirmed.

While The New York Times and some other news organizations have local or Gaza-based Palestinian correspondents, any Israeli citizen or Israeli with dual citizenship has been banned for more than two years from entering Gaza, and any foreign correspondent who did not enter the territory before a six-month cease-fire with Hamas ended last month has not been allowed in.

Israel has also managed to block cellphone bandwidth, so very few amateur cellphone photographs are getting out of Gaza.

But Israeli tactics have caused civilian casualties that have created an international uproar, both in the Arab world and the West. In one widely reported episode, 43 people died when the Israelis shelled a street next to a United Nations school in northern Jabaliya where refugees were taking shelter. The United Nations says no militants were in the school.

The Israelis said they returned fire in response to mortar shells fired at Israeli troops. Such an action is legal, but there are questions about whether the force used was proportional under the laws of war, given the danger to noncombatants.

The backlash from the school attack is another potent example of the risks in an urban-war strategy: Israel may in fact be able to dismantle Hamas's military structure even while losing the battle for world opinion and leaving Hamas politically still in charge of Gaza.

Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza.

Hamas indoctrinatie: bommen zijn waardevoller dan kinderen

Terwijl velen verontwaardigd zijn over hoeveel kinderen door Israel zijn gedood in Gaza, en we worden overvoerd met bloederige beelden van overvolle ziekenhuizen en slachtoffers die op de grond liggen te creperen na een Israelisch bombardement, zien we niet hoe Hamas kinderen inzet voor de strijd, en al jong leert dat sterven voor Allah het hoogst haalbare is.

In deze video zit een fragment van een vijfjarig meisje dat trots is op haar moeder die zich als zelfmoordterrorist opblaast in Israel, en haar voorbeeld wil volgen. Ze zingt: "Now I know what was more precious than us." Ook enkele fragmenten uit het kinderprogramma "Pioniers van Morgen", waar konijn Bunny vertelt dat hij de Joden rauw lust, en kinderen die in Hamas uniform oproepen tot Jihad en het martelarenschap, met geweren zwaaien en trainingen volgen. Het zijn beelden die in NOVA of het journaal helaas niet te zien zijn.

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IDF ontdekt gebooby-trapte school naast dierentuin Gaza

Hamas schiet bewust vanuit burgerdoelen of de nabijheid ervan op Israelische troepen of vuurt van daaruit raketten af op Israel. Explosieven en wapens worden in huizen, scholen en moskeeën opgeslagen en de brave politiemensen die Israel op de eerste dag doodde schieten 's nachts raketten af. Hamas doet bewust het onderscheid tussen burger en strijder vervagen, van burgers wordt ook verwacht en geëist dat zij 'het verzet' steunen, en dat kan niet anders dan tot veel burgerdoden aan eigen kant leiden, zoals de afgelopen week ook bleek.

RP
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[ For video klick on the Haaretz link ]

Last update - 22:37 11/01/2009

WATCH: IDF uncovers booby-trapped school next to Gaza zoo
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054533.html
By Haaertz Service

Israel Defense Forces troops this week uncovered a school in the Gaza Strip rigged by Hamas militants with a large amount of explosives.

The school, located next to a Gaza zoo, was entirely surrounded by a fuse connecting to the explosives. Inside the abandoned classrooms, IDF troops found a number of weapons.

"We are continuing to confront a mad reality of boobytrapped tunnels, boobytrapped schools," IDF spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said. "In one district of 150 houses, more than 30 were boobytrapped. Hamas boobytraps every house that residents leave."

Leibovich said residential neighborhoods in Gaza are riddled with homemade bombs and booby traps, including mannequins placed at apartment entrances to simulate militants and rigged to explode if soldiers approach.

zondag 11 januari 2009

IDF ontkent op chauffeur VN vrachtwagen te hebben geschoten

The foreign press reports were based on UN sources, who later admitted to the Post that they were not sure in which direction the truck was headed when it was hit, and could also not say with certainty that tank shells were responsible.

UNRWA haalt hieronder hard uit naar Israel, dat in eerste instantie beweerde dat vanuit de UNRWA school werd geschoten, terwijl later bleek dat dit niet vanuit de school zelf maar van achter een muurtje direct bij de school gelegen gebeurde. Intussen blijkt UNRWA zelf wel erg makkelijk Israel van zaken te beschuldigen, zonder dat het dat kan hardmaken. Omdat UNRWA (onterecht) alom als neutrale bron wordt gezien en haar versie van de zaak in tegenstelling tot die van Israel door alle media wordt overgenomen, heeft zij een extra verantwoordelijkheid wat dit betreft.

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Jan 10, 2009 18:24 | Updated Jan 10, 2009 23:33
IDF: Army didn't fire on UN truck driver
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424908570&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

By AMIR MIZROCH

The IDF was not responsible for the death of a Palestinian aid worker contracted to the UN and the wounding of two others on Thursday, the IDF Spokesman said Saturday.

"An IDF investigation has found that it was not the army who fired on a UN truck at the Erez crossing," the IDF Spokesman's Office said. The IDF is not sure who fired on the truck, and is still investigating.

"The army further wishes to point out that the Palestinian wounded were evacuated by the Red Cross to the Israeli border, where they were taken by Israeli medical personnel for treatment at Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital," the IDF told The Jerusalem Post.

The incident occurred Thursday afternoon at the Erez crossing into northern Gaza, the main entrance used by aid agencies to funnel badly needed food and medical supplies into the Strip.

Uncertainty shrouds UN driver's death
The version of events that claimed the IDF had attacked the aid convoy was widely disseminated in the global media, and it was only on Friday afternoon that the IDF posited a different theory.

On Friday, the Post reported that contrary to foreign press reports, it was not certain that an IDF tank shell hit the aid truck, and that in all probability, the aid workers were hit by Hamas gunfire.

The foreign press reports were based on UN sources, who later admitted to the Post that they were not sure in which direction the truck was headed when it was hit, and could also not say with certainty that tank shells were responsible.

Foreign press reports said the dead Palestinian and two others were hit by tank shells. A MDA medic at the scene told the Post that soldiers in the field said Hamas snipers targeted the aid workers. A Post probe revealed that the two wounded Palestinians were being treated at Barzilai for gunshot wounds.

Reacting to the IDF's assertion that it did not fire on the UN convoy last Thursday, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the UN "was careful to source its information from eyewitnesses on the ground."

Gunness added that the UN was keen to "clear the fog of war" and get to the bottom of the incident.

"We've already experienced in the past few days the IDF wobbling on versions of events, especially surrounding the incident at the UNRWA school [in Jabalya, in which at least 30 people were killed]."

Gunness was referring to an IDF video released after the attack which showed a Hamas mortar crew firing from near the school. The video was taken in late 2007 and was not directly related to this round of fighting in Gaza.

"On the one hand we have IDF spokespeople accusing UNRWA of allowing militants into its facilities, while at the same time an IDF general is telling diplomats that the army had got it wrong," Gunness said, referring to a meeting at the Defense Ministry Friday at which the army told UN officials it "deeply regretted" the latest attacks against UN workers.

"The more Israeli authorities send mixed messages and the more they wobble on their versions, the more they lose their credibility. It seems they are tying themselves into a knot. The fog of war needs to be cleared. The Jabalya school incident needs to be investigated and in other cases we need to make the facts known," Gunness added.

The targeting of UNRWA workers last week led the agency to suspend its activities regarding the collection and redistribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

In a statement issued Friday, the UN said it would resume its Gaza operations.

"In a high-level meeting at the Israeli Ministry of Defense Headquarters in Tel Aviv, the UN was informed that the incidents which led to a temporary suspension of UN staff movements are deeply regretted and do not reflect official government policy. The UN received credible assurances that the security of UN personnel, installations and humanitarian operations would be fully respected, including undertakings of improved liaison and more effective internal coordination within the IDF.

"On this basis, UN staff movements suspended yesterday will resume as soon as possible. The UN will keep the safety and security of its staff under constant review," the UN statement said.

Israel zet Egypte onder druk voor regeling tegen wapensmokkel Gaza

Defense officials have noticed heightened Iranian involvement in Hamas' activity in the Strip. It appears the group's leadership has received promises from Tehran to "fill up the warehouses," possibly even with longer-range rockets, if it continues hostilities with Israel.

We vergeten steeds dat Israel niet slechts met een regionale Palestijnse verzetsgroep in gevecht is, maar indirect ook met Iran zonder wiens hulp Hamas niet zoveel raketten en andere wapens had gehad, en dat Iran Hamasstrijders traint in guerrillataktieken. Zoals Iran in de oorlog tegen Irak honderdduizenden kinderen als kanonnenvoer de dood in joeg, zo ziet het ook het Palestijnse 'verzet' als een ultieme vorm van zelfopoffering, die uiteraard door Allah zal worden beloond.

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Last update - 03:00 11/01/2009
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054285.html
Security cabinet: Israel to continue Gaza op to pressure Egypt

By Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff, Barak Ravid and Yoav Stern

The security cabinet decided Friday to continue Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, but not expand it at this stage. In the coming days Israel will focus its military and diplomatic efforts on pressuring Egypt to work toward the Israeli and international demand to deploy an international force to combat smuggling from Egypt to Gaza.

Palestinian sources told Haaretz that Cairo demanded Saturday morning that the militant group respond to its cease-fire proposal within 48 hours. Egypt warned that if Hamas rejects its offer, Egypt would be unable to stop Israel from continuing its ground offensive.

Senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces told Haaretz that for further achievements, the army will have to expand the operation by at least 20 days and include reserve units in the fighting. A senior officer in Gaza said Hamas' capabilities were gradually eroding and that the group had lost more than 300 militants from its armed wing since the ground operation began.

Amos Gilad, the head of the Defense Ministry's political-security branch, will travel this week, most likely on Monday, for talks in Cairo with the head of the Egyptian security services. Saturday a Hamas delegation arrived in the Egyptian capital for similar talks.

A political source in Jerusalem said Gilad was instructed to address only smuggling into Gaza, and not other issues related to renewing a cease-fire with Hamas.

In Friday's cabinet meeting, Gilad told ministers that Egypt understands the need to stop smuggling, but that a program for doing so had not yet been formulated. "They are willing to sign on to deal with the issue, and we will continue talking with them until we reach a practical solution," he said.

Still, Gilad reportedly remarked recently that "the Egyptians are great at making efforts, but not at achieving results."

A high-level Israeli political source said Friday that without a solution to the smuggling including an effective supervisory system on the Egyptian border, the Gaza operation will not be brought to an end.

Israel made clear in talks with officials representing the United States, France, Germany and other countries that only a solution including an international presence on the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi route will satisfy Israel and allow it to end the offensive.

Defense officials have noticed heightened Iranian involvement in Hamas' activity in the Strip. It appears the group's leadership has received promises from Tehran to "fill up the warehouses," possibly even with longer-range rockets, if it continues hostilities with Israel.

Meanwhile, Damascus-based politburo chief Khaled Meshal Saturday rejected outright the option of allowing an international force at the Egyptian border, whether representing an Arab or any other foreign country.

Israel has "finished off the last chance and breath for settlement and negotiations," he said in a televised speech from the Syrian capital.

Also Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas, saying the Palestinian people did not want to engage in "resistance" that will destroy them. He called for an international force to be deployed to Gaza immediately to protect its residents.

Egypte weigert buitenlandse troepen aan Gaza grens

Er zijn volgens dit artikel van afgelopen vrijdag nog grote verschillen van mening over een staakt het vuren, vooral wat betreft het tegengaan van de wapensmokkel via Egypte. Omdat juist door die wapensmokkel Hamas zo'n 3.000 raketten had die een miljoen Israeli's kunnen treffen, is dit voor Israel een cruciaal punt, en het zal de operatie niet stoppen zonder garanties wat dit betreft. Het valt dus ook Egypte aan te rekenen dat er maar geen einde aan deze crisis komt, niet alleen vanwege haar weigering internationale troepen te accepteren op haar grondgebied, maar ook omdat zij het probleem de afgelopen jaren niet serieus heeft genomen en haar verklaringen de wapensmokkel aan te pakken slechts holle woorden bleken.

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EU diplomats: No truce because Egypt won't allow foreign troops on Gaza border

Last update - 16:33 09/01/2009
EU diplomats: Egypt's refusal to station foreign troops on Gaza border holding up truce
By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent, and Reuters

Egyptian efforts to broker a Gaza ceasefire appeared on Friday to have to run into trouble because of disagreements with Israel over how to secure the border to prevent Hamas from rearming, diplomats said.

Israeli and European diplomats, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said Egypt had objections to proposals for foreign forces deploying on the Egyptian side of its 15-km (9-mile) border with the Gaza Strip.

Instead of foreign troops, Cairo told Israel and the European Union, it was prepared to accept only increased international technical assistance to help its own forces combat arms smuggling through tunnels dug across the border. Israel is demanding the tunnel traffic end as part of a ceasefire deal.

"The truce talks are going nowhere at the moment," said a senior European diplomat involved in the effort. "There is a growing sense that the Egyptian-French plan is not going to work."

Jerusalem has said it will not agree to a ceasefire unless it contains regional and international commitments that will prevent Hamas from smuggling rockets into the Gaza Strip that could strike deeper into Israeli territory.

Hamas has demanded that any truce require Israel to end its blockade of the Gaza Strip and halt cross-border incursions.

That plan, announced by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after talks on Tuesday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, called for an immediate cease-fire and for subsequent talks on securing Gaza's border and reopening its border crossings.

Following talks in Cairo on Thursday with top Defense Ministry official, Amos Gilad, Israeli and European diplomats described the gap with Egypt over securing the border as wide.

"They (the Egyptians) told us they won't agree to a force on their side" of the border, known by Israel as the Philadelphi corridor, a senior Israeli official said.

"Egypt would accept far more technical assistance," the official said, but added that Israel was deeply sceptical that would be sufficient. Egyptian officials were not available for comment.

Diplomats said an international deployment on the Palestinian side of the border was unlikely because of objections from Hamas, which has yet to take a formal position on Cairo's ceasefire blueprint.

Israeli officials said their Egyptian counterparts were skeptical Hamas would accept it. Hamas, which is seeking an end to Israel's blockade on the territory, had likewise rejected the presence of international forces.

European diplomats said NATO member Turkey was one of the few countries that appeared willing to send contingents to the border if an agreement between Egypt and Israel can be reached.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has played down the need for ground forces, saying technology was the key. The bloc preferred to send "money and technology" to Egypt as part of any border mission, a senior diplomat said.

Relevant equipment may include sonar devices for picking up evidence of tunnelling and other means of geological detection.

Israel's 14-day-old assault on the Gaza Strip has included several air force sorties in which "bunker buster" bombs were dropped along Gaza's border with Egypt. The bombs send out shockwaves designed to collapse the secret passages.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg told Haaretz he is not very optimistic about the possibility for an agreement that would bring an end to the fighting.

"First of all, the Egyptians would have to accept this plan," he said.

"We cannot decide about an EU force without the consent of the Egyptians. This is nonsense. President Mubarak was quite clear in his position against such a force. We are trying to find a solution, with a clear view of respecting Egyptian sovereignty," he added.

The longer the military operation goes on, the more Israel loses in terms of European public opinion, Schwarzenberg said in an interview to Haaretz.

The Czech Republic currently holds the rotating European Union Presidency.

"I do think that each hour Israel is continuing its military operation it loses in the public opinion in Europe and this is a process which is going on very fast and endangers the friendly government around Israel and undermines the position of president Abbas. I think we have to achieve a cease fire, to achieve a settlement, today and not tomorrow," said Schwarzenberg.

The Czech minister headed a mission by the Foreign Ministers of the European troika to the region earlier this week.

De vreedzame intifada

Waarom blijft Hamas raketten afvuren op Israelische burgers? Als het zich ook maar enigzins om de burgerbevolking in Gaza zou bekommeren, was het daar allang mee opgehouden en had het staakt het vuren voortgezet zoals Israel wilde. Het feit dat Van Bommel en zovele anderen die raketbeschietingen zo goed begrijpen en zelfs tot een derde intifada oproepen is walgelijk, maar zover als Daniël Teeboom wil ik niet gaan:

Toch heb ik Harry van Bommel geen oproep horen doen tot het beëindigen van het geweld. Dat komt denk ik omdat er nu eenmaal mensen zijn die raketten wel degelijk prefereren boven een diplomatiek proces. Die het prachtig vinden als de burgerbevolking van Gaza de volle laag krijgt zodat zij zich kunnen wentelen in selectieve verontwaardiging. En ik denk dat Harry van Bommel naar die demonstratie kwam en tot een intifada opriep om deze mensen te winnen voor zijn partij, de SP. Voor zover ze al niet gewonnen zijn.

Ik geloof niet dat hij het prachtig vindt dat de burgerbevolking in Gaza zo hard wordt getroffen. Hamas ziet dat als een noodzakelijk offer in de strijd voor het vaderland en verwacht dat iedere martelaar door Allah beloond zal worden, maar zo ver is Van Bommel toch niet heen? Van Bommel vindt dat de burgers in Israel maar met de raketten moeten leven omdat zij op gestolen Palestijns land leven, en hij is denk ik voor één staat tussen de zee en de Jordaan, en daarmee ontkent hij het recht van het Joodse volk op zelfbeschikking. Hij zal van mening zijn dat alleen daarmee een einde komt aan het conflict en het onrecht de Palestijnen aangedaan. Allemaal heel fout en verwerpelijk, maar geen bewijs dat hij de burgerbevolking van Gaza graag ziet lijden.

Verder een heel sterk en lezenswaardig artikel van Daniël Teeboom.

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Letter & Geest

10 januari 2009

Daniël Teeboom

De vreedzame intifada

http://www.trouw.nl/opinie/letter-en-geest/article1940976.ece/De_vreedzame_intifada_.html

Dat Kamerlid Harry van Bommel vorige week zaterdag tot een nieuwe intifada opriep, vindt Daniël Teeboom niet zo vreemd. „Verbazingwekkend vond ik pas zijn verklaring achteraf: dat hij eigenlijk had opgeroepen tot een vreedzame intifada."

Wat ik een beetje mis in de discussie over het militaire optreden van Israël in de Gaza-strook is de vraag waar de noodzaak vandaan komt om Israëlische steden met raketten te beschieten.

Overal kan ik lezen dat het Israëlische optreden onethisch is. Dat komt, zo wordt mij verteld, omdat alle mensen in principe gelijk zijn. Om die reden mag je niet al te veel mensen van de ene partij ombrengen teneinde een handjevol levens van de andere partij te beschermen.

Nu klopt het inderdaad dat alle mensen gelijk zijn, maar voor een staat is dat niet noodzakelijkerwijs zo. Een staat heeft als eerste plicht zijn eigen burgers te beschermen, niet om rekening te houden met de vijand. Als een land deze taak niet serieus neemt, kan het net zo goed opgeheven worden.

Als ik me een Israël voorstel dat, zoals menigeen wil, niet zou reageren op de rakettenregen, maar in plaats daarvan tegen zijn bevolking zegt: „Sorry, Hamas schiet die projectielen nu eenmaal af vanuit scholen en woonwijken, daarom kunnen we niet reageren want dan komen er buitenproportioneel veel Palestijnen om, en bovendien is het best gezellig met z'n allen in de schuilkelder", dan is dat een land dat naar mijn mening geen erg lang leven beschoren is. Ik waag te betwijfelen of de bevolking van Sderot, Ashdod, Askelon en Ber Sheva zich erop verheugt om voortaan als schietschijf te dienen. Ik denk dat de mensen daar uiteindelijk hun biezen zullen pakken. Of dat ze zelf raketten in elkaar gaan knutselen om terug te schieten – dat kan natuurlijk ook.

Zou Israël onder de huidige omstandigheden niet met veel machtsvertoon om zich heen slaan, dan loopt het in het zuiden gegarandeerd mis. Trouwens, waarom zou Israël de bezetting van de Westbank willen beëindigen, als ook daar raketten vandaan kunnen komen zonder dat het land er wat aan kan of mag doen? Mocht Israël machteloos blijken om een einde te maken aan de raketbeschietingen, dan komt er nooit een oplossing en loopt de zaak nog verder uit de hand. Daarom, hoe vreselijk de oorlog in Gaza ook mag zijn, ik begrijp de Israëlische reactie.

„O ja?", hoor ik anderen zeggen. „Maar hoe zit het dan met het recht van de Palestijnen om zich te verzetten tegen de ruim veertig jaar durende bezetting?" Goed punt, denk ik dan, ware het niet dat er een aantal jaar geleden sprake was van een vredesproces dat door Hamas om zeep geholpen is. Toevallig dezelfde organisatie die in de Gazastrook zo vrolijk in de weer is met al die raketten. Om die reden denk ik dat Hamas geen recht van spreken heeft. Althans, het lijkt me een beetje raar om mensen die zich eerst met geweld verzetten tegen een vreedzame oplossing, nu te steunen in de voortzetting van hun oorlog – met als smoes dat een vreedzame oplossing niet mogelijk bleek te zijn. Behalve natuurlijk als je oorlog als gerechtvaardigd beschouwt en een diplomatieke oplossing niet.

De eerlijkheid gebiedt mij te zeggen dat ik nogal wat mensen die Hamas in deze oorlog steunen verdenk van deze opvatting. Zij misgunnen Israël zijn bestaansrecht. Een van de mensen die in aanmerking komen voor deze verdenking is het SP-Kamerlid Harry van Bommel.

Zaterdag was hij bij de anti-Israëlbetoging in Amsterdam. Wat mij verbaasde was niet zozeer zijn oproep tot een derde intifada, en zelfs niet dat hij meeliep in een demonstratie waarin driftig geroepen werd dat alle Joden aan het gas zouden moeten. Verbazingwekkend vond ik zijn verklaring achteraf. Harry van Bommel zei dat hij eigenlijk opgeroepen had tot een vreedzame intifada – hoewel iedereen weet dat de beide intifada's tot nu uiterst gewelddadig zijn verlopen en bovendien gepaard gingen met gruwelijkheden tegen de Israëlische burgerbevolking. Een vreedzame intifada is net zo'n onmogelijkheid als het bombarderen van Gaza zonder dat daarbij onschuldige mensen omkomen.

Er is niemand aan Israëlische zijde die beweert dat er in deze oorlog geen onschuldigen sterven. Iedereen, vriend of vijand, weet dat die de dupe zijn van al het geweld. Dat maakt deze situatie ook zo ellendig. Maar Harry van Bommel ontkent dat wel degelijk. De intifada waartoe hij oproept zal immers vooral tegen Israëlische burgers gericht zijn.

Kennelijk is het nogal moeilijk de notie te begrijpen dat Israël door de raketten van Hamas gedwongen wordt om op te treden. Mij lijkt het duidelijk dat de Palestijnse burgerbevolking van dat onbegrip het tragische slachtoffer is en dat Hamas dat helemaal niet erg vindt.

Met al die Palestijnse burgerdoden en Israëlische steden onder vuur, is er maar één conclusie mogelijk: dat Hamas helemaal niet de belangen van het Palestijnse volk behartigt. Er zou een onmiddellijk einde moeten komen aan de raketbeschietingen, zonder mitsen of maren. Want als Hamas raketten afschiet is dat niet alleen een misdaad tegen de Israëlische burgerbevolking, maar ook tegen de Palestijnse.

Dat zijn trouwens vaak mensen die vinden dat de Joden het land van de Palestijnen gestolen hebben en dat het hier dus gaat om een vorm van verzet. Vervolgens wijzen ze naar het verzet uit de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Dat was immers ook gericht tot een bezetter. Daarom mag je het terroriseren van Israëliërs eveneens verzet noemen. Zelf dacht ik altijd dat het verzet uit die dagen zich bezighield met het redden van mensenlevens, niet met het vernietigen ervan.

Ik begrijp de steun aan Hamas dus niet. Daarom vraag ik nogmaals: is het nodig om raketten af te vuren op Israëlische steden? Hebben de Palestijnen daar wat aan? Sterft de Palestijnse droom als dat niet gebeurt? En begin nou niet over de droom van een Groot Israël, want die is al lang geleden gestorven. Mij lijkt het de hoogste tijd dat de droom van een Groot Palestina ook een keer het loodje legt.

Afgedwaalde Israelische mortiergranaat trof VN gebouw Gaza

Wel een fout van Israel dus, ondanks een eerdere verklaring dat men op dat moment daar niet had gevochten.
Hamas, dat vanuit een nabijgelegen binnenplaats raketten op Israel afvuurde, draagt echter ook verantwoordelijkheid. Alles wijst erop dat men expres vanuit de nabijheid van scholen, moskeeën en andere burgerdoelen raketten afvuurt op Israel omdat dit een win-win situatie oplevert: schiet Israel niet dan kan men ongestoord raketten afvuren. Schiet Israel wel en er vallen burgerslachtoffers, dan wordt Israel daarom hard veroordeeld en wint Hamas als de underdog sympathie van de internationale gemeenschap. Bovendien neemt de druk op Israel toe een staakt het vuren onder voor haar ongunstige voorwaarden te accepteren.

Moest Israel afzien van het afvuren van mortiergranaten vanwege de nabijheid van het UNRWA huis, en zo de beschietingen van haar burgers onbeantwoord laten? Het is makkelijk om 'ja' te zeggen nu we weten hoeveel slachtoffers de afgedwaalde granaat heeft gemaakt. Echter de raketten die Hamas aan het afvuren was en zou hebben afgevuurd als zij niet door Israel gestopt was, hadden ook burgerslachtoffers kunnen maken. Hamas was daar duidelijk op uit, Israel wilde dat verhinderen. Het zijn moeilijke dilemma's waarin we achteraf vaak net iets te makkelijk een oordeel vellen.

Israel had overigens een preciezere raket op de Hamas strijders willen afvuren maar door een technisch mankement was dit niet mogelijk.

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Last update - 02:53 11/01/2009
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054284.html
Investigation shows errant mortar hit UN building

By Amos Harel

A preliminary investigation into the fatal shooting by the Israel Defense Forces into a United Nations building in northern Gaza on Tuesday reveals the Israeli troops firing on the building missed their targets by some 30 meters.

Hamas is claiming the mortar fire killed 42 people and left dozens wounded, but senior IDF officers say the figures are dubious and that Hamas is inflating the numbers.

The probe, which was conducted by the Paratrooper Brigade whose troops were responsible for the area, found that the army's location system to pinpoint launch sites indicated that militants had launched a Qassam rocket into Israel from within a yard adjacent to the courtyard of the UN building.

The troops had intended to launch a smart missile to take out the Palestinian launch team but a technical malfunction made this impossible, according to the probe. The commanders of the force instead decided to fire on the Qassam team with mortar shells equipped with a Global Positioning System for accurate fire.

However, the GPS element has an error margin of 30 meters and one of the three rounds fired by the paratrooper force slammed into the building owned by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA.

Two of the rounds hit the yard used to launch rockets into Israel, killing two members of Hamas' military wing who probably belonged to the squad that fired the rockets.

Nonetheless, in discussing the incident with Haaretz, some IDF officers say the force should have refrained from using mortar rounds and relied instead on more accurate fire. Military sources said the UNRWA building was marked on the maps of forces operating in the area.

Other officers said they found the death toll published by Hamas grossly exaggerated, pointing out that a week ago only three IDF soldiers were killed when a tank fired two rounds - which have a much larger impact than mortar rounds - into a building which was occupied by 50 IDF soldiers.

Officers interviewed for this article pointed out that Hezbollah resorted to similar inflation tactics after an IDF bomb landed on a UN post in Qana in southern Lebanon in 2006.