Israel Lets Some Foreigners Leave Gaza
JERUSALEM — Israeli warplanes pounded Hamas targets in Gaza for a seventh day on Friday while Israel allowed hundreds of foreigners, many of them married to Palestinians, to leave the enclave, raising fears there that Israel was planning to escalate its week-old campaign.
Tensions spread to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where Palestinian anger at reports of civilian casualties in Gaza seemed to be translating into at least a temporary increase in popular sympathy for Hamas.
Israel has vowed to press its offensive until there is no more rocket fire out of Gaza; its troops and tanks remained along the border, poised for a possible ground invasion.
The United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East, Robert Serry, told reporters on Friday that he was deeply worried that Israel would decide to move into Gaza.
“We are gravely concerned about that prospect because that would just mean another cycle of violence and a further escalation of the conflict,” he said. “This must stop. With Israeli tanks on Gaza’s border, it is absolutely imperative now that we find an immediate and lasting way out to avoid an even deeper and deadlier conflict.”
Israeli analysts and experts have said that any ground operation should be brief but powerful.
Alex Fishman, the military analyst of the popular daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot, wrote Friday, “Since the name of the game is killing and destruction, the ground operation has to be quick, with a lot of firepower at friction points with Hamas.” He added, “The goal is to exact a high price in the early stages of the ground operation and to end it quickly.”
Palestinian militants continued to launch salvos of rockets at southern Israel on Friday, with several hitting the coastal city of Ashkelon, lightly injuring two Israeli women there.
Israeli air and naval forces pummeled more bases of Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza. The military said it hit the houses of several Hamas militants that also served as weapons depots as well as tunnels used for weapons smuggling and missile launching sites. Warplanes also bombed a mosque in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. The military said that Hamas was using the mosque as a terrorist base and that it was storing rockets there.
It was the mosque where Nizar Rayyan, the senior Hamas militant leader killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday, used to preach. Mr. Rayyan’s four wives, at least nine of his children and several neighbors were also killed when his home was bombed.
About 2,000 Gazans turned out for the funeral in Jabaliya on Friday. Speakers called for revenge as Israeli fighter jets swooped threateningly overhead.
With Hamas calling for Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to make Friday a “day of wrath,” a few thousand turned out in Ramallah, the administrative headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. In Israeli-controlled East Jerusalem, the police came out in force to prevent disturbances after noon prayers. Small riots broke out in some Arab neighborhoods around the city, but most were quickly dispersed. And in Hebron, protesters clashed with the Palestinian police, leaving at least 10 injured.
In Gaza, local residents went out to pray at mosques and to shop for essentials, but did not linger. Medical officials in Gaza said 430 Palestinians had been killed and some 2,200 wounded since the Israeli campaign began last Saturday. The casualty figures include many Hamas security personnel members, but the United Nations has estimated that a quarter of those killed were civilians.
Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have been killed in rocket attacks in the past week, as Hamas deployed its more advanced, longer-range projectiles capable of hitting Israeli cities more than 20 miles away.
Hundreds of spouses of Palestinians, including women from Russia, Romania, Ukraine and Western Europe, left Gaza on Friday with the help of diplomats from their countries.
Alla Semaks, a 34-year-old Ukrainian married to a Palestinian, and her four children were among around 300 people who came in buses to the Erez checkpoint in northern Gaza to cross into Israel. Her husband, Mohammed Atawneh, 36, was not leaving because he had only Palestinian identity papers, she said in a telephone interview.
“I want to come back when the situation allows it,” she said. “I have nothing in Ukraine. My children are very afraid for their father. We fear there will be an Israeli ground offensive.”
This is going to be a long conflict, rather than a short one. No doubt, Israel has no intention of making the same mistakes it made a couple of years ago in Lebanon, and it will be very methodical about wiping Hamas out. I don’t think people realize that this is no feint. Israel is obviously fed up with Hamas’ incessant rocket attacks, even during that ridiculous cease-fire. The people Gaza who do not support Hamas need to get out of the way. Heed the leaflets that Israel is dropping. They’re not bluffing.
History will remember the plight of the Palestinians as the new holocaust and the world stood silent.
Proportionally, in US population terms, imagine 50,000 people dying in the world trade center. Imagine over 100,000 injured. Gaza has 1.5 million Palestinians with 460 deaths and 2,000+ injured. I see that mass punishment is alive and well. I hear people say, but they hide amongst the civilian population. Where will they go? Gaza is not a country with free borders. It is a concentration camp whose borders are tightly controlled by Israel. They have had a full embargo for 2 years because of Israel’s anger with the democratically elected, UN observed elections bringing in Hamas. A 2 year embargo! No medicines, little food. In America you have the right to bear arms and if someone is caught on your property you have the right to shoot. Israel is still in active occupation of Palestinian land. ACTIVE meaning settlers are swallowing more and more of it daily. Set aside the brain washing of the Arab = Muslim = Terrorist = Hamas equation that has been continuously fed to you. Replace the word Palestinian with American and the word Israeli with Great Britain and set the clock back….people have the right to defend their land, their people and live freely. Israel cannot be in contradiction to several UN security council resolutions, flaunt international law, torture, kill and occupy without having those living in their homes defend their property. A dog would do the same…what about fellow humans? Wake up people….now is the time to register where you stand on this issue because History will out the truth. This is not a ‘debate’ with problems on ‘both sides’. This is a current human tragedy that you are being lied about daily. Thank Goodness for the internet and free information, I ask all of you to search you tube videos for ‘occupation 101′ or other videos by Palestinians in the territories. Hear it from them, we do not need Israelis nor CNN to be our spokespeople, we have a voice…look it up if you dare and educate yourselves so that when your children ask you years from now ‘how could you let this happen?’ you will have an answer.
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