Javier Solana toured Gaza ahead of a donor conference next week aimed at raising funds to rebuild Gaza after Israel’s devastating three-week military campaign against Hamas, which ended last month.

Separately, the European Commission said Friday it will pledge about $552 million in recovery aid to Gaza at next week’s conference in Egypt.

The Palestinian Authority is seeking $2.8 billion at the meeting to rebuild Gaza.

Meanwhile, talks on forming a unity government in Israel ended without agreement, increasing the likelihood that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will end up heading a hardline coalition, including right-wing and religious parties opposed to peace talks with the Palestinians.

Mr. Netanyahu said Friday he intends to continue peace talks, but he did not say what approach he would take.

His rival, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said after the coalition talks that the two sides had failed to agree on issues she considers fundamental. She singled out her support for the two-state solution, with Palestinian and Israeli states side-by-side.

Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud party have been tasked with forming the next Israeli government, putting him in line to recapture the prime minister’s job if he can form a coalition. Mr. Netanyahu still has five more weeks to cobble together a coalition, and has said he would prefer a broad-based deal that includes Livni’s centrist Kadima party.

The political wrangling in Tel Aviv comes as the Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have been trying to heal their own rift and re-create a Palestinian unity government, as well as a flurry of diplomacy aimed at forging a truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the EU aid to Gaza will focus on removing rubble and unexploded ordinance. It also will include assistance to children and a “cash for work” program.

On Thursday, rival Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, signed a deal in Cairo aimed at creating a national unity government.

Senior Fatah official and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said the two sides set up committees to work out details on forming a unity government, presidential and parliamentary elections, and a new security force for Gaza and the West Bank.

Meanwhile, U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell is due to meet Friday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of Fatah in the West Bank. He has no plans to meet with Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist group.

Mitchell met Thursday with Mr. Netanyahu and with Foreign Minister Livni. It is his second trip to Israel since taking office last month.

VOA News – Solana Visits Gaza as EU Promises $552 Million in Aid

The Palestinian representative to Egypt, Nabil Amr, says he’s not authorized to disclose the details about the proposals. But he says Arab ministers meeting Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates will discuss the Saudi proposals.

Egypt is leading these efforts between rival Palestinian factions — Hamas and Fatah. These efforts are key to the cease-fire and the revival of peace talks with Israel.

Saudi Arabia held a breakthrough Palestinian reconciliation meeting in 2007. It produced a unity government, which later collapsed after bloody infighting

Official: Saudi offers Palestinian proposals – International Herald Tribune

Humanitarian aid chief Louis Michel called the destruction left by Israel’s offensive “abominable”, but said Hamas bore “overwhelming responsibility”.

He said there would be no dialogue with the “terrorist” movement until it gave up violence and recognised Israel.

He also announced emergency aid for Gaza worth more than US $70m (£50m).

US President Barack Obama, meanwhile, dispatched his new Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, on his debut mission to the region having briefed him to engage “vigorously” to forge “genuine progress” in peace talks.

Sick of paying

Touring some of Gaza’s worst-hit areas of Israel’s 22-day assault which killed about 1,300 Palestinians, including 400 children, Mr Michel described the situation as “abominable, indescribable”.

“At this time we have to also recall the overwhelming responsibility of Hamas,” he said.

“I intentionally say this here – Hamas is a terrorist movement and it has to be denounced as such.”

Thirteen Israelis were killed in the conflict, and Mr Michel later visited the southern Israeli town of Sderot, the target of Palestinian militant rocket fire.

There, he called on Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza and accused both sides of violating humanitarian law.

“Please open the crossings, you have to broaden the range of products that you let in,” he urged Israel’s authorities. “We, the EU, condemn Qassam attacks and military options which target the civilian population.”

The former Belgian foreign minister insisted there would be no dialogue with Hamas, saying its use of terrorism against Israeli civilians meant it was not a legitimate resistance movement.

Some aid agencies have expressed doubts about how effective a reconstruction drive in Gaza can be without the involvement of Hamas, which controls the territory, says the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Gaza.

Announcing the extra aid, Mr Michel said people in the EU were sick of paying for the same infrastructure being destroyed over and over again in Israeli military action.

The EU is the main donor to the Palestinians, having given three billion euros since 2000, Mr Michel said.

“Every year, we spend 600 to 700m euros. Today we decided on a supplementary payment of 60m euros.”

‘Reinvigorate process’

US envoy George Mitchell is to visit Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia during a week-long tour, with European stops including Paris and London, said state department spokesman Robert Wood.

He said Mr Mitchell would meet “senior officials to discuss the peace process and the situation in Gaza”.

It remained unclear whether Mr Mitchell would travel to the Gaza Strip.

Separately, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was heading to the Middle East to join efforts to cement a permanent cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.

He said he would spend a week in the region, starting with meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Tuesday.

Israeli and Palestinian faction representatives have visited Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials since a non-negotiated ceasefire came into effect on 18 January.

Hamas wants an end of Israel’s punishing blockade of Gaza.

Israel, which will hold a general election on 10 February, wants a long-term ceasefire and curbs on Hamas rearming.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | EU envoy lays Gaza blame on Hamas

Residents near the town of Rafah fled as missiles hit tunnels through which Israel says militants smuggle arms.

The strikes came ahead of US envoy George Mitchell’s visit to promote a permanent Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Both sides declared ceasefires on 17 and 18 January to end Israel’s three-week offensive on Gaza.

The land, air and sea assault killed about 1,300 Palestinians, including 400 children. Thirteen Israelis died.

It is not clear whether there were any casualties from the airstrikes, but the latest violence is a sign of just how fragile the truce is, says the BBC’s Bethany Bell in Jerusalem.

Push for peace

Israel had responded to Tuesday’s roadside bomb – which killed one soldier and wounded three – by immediately sending troops and tanks into Gaza backed by helicopters.

Ensuing fighting around the town of Khan Younis and the Kissufim border crossing left one Palestinian dead, medical sources said.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened further strikes, saying the incursion was merely an initial reaction and that Israel’s full response was still to come, Haaretz newspaper reported on its website.

Both Mr Mitchell and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana are in the region to push for peace talks.

Mr Mitchell, newly appointed by US President Barack Obama, is to hold talks with Mr Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, although correspondents say he is not expected to meet Hamas officials.

He has already held talks in Cairo about Egypt’s mediation efforts.

Israeli and Palestinian faction representatives have visited Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials since the ceasefires came into effect.

Hamas wants an end of Israel’s punishing blockade of Gaza. Israel wants a long-term ceasefire and curbs on Hamas rearming.

During Mr Mitchell’s visit, Israelis will want to hear what ideas the US has for advancing the peace process, as well as how Washington will tackle the Iranian nuclear issue, our correspondent says. But with Israeli elections due to take place in two weeks, it is likely the US envoy will spend much of his time listening, as Mr Obama has asked him to do, our correspondent adds.

Mr Mitchell’s visit is being seen by many Israelis as a sign of US engagement, and by others as a sign of pressure.

Tunnels working

The Gaza Strip’s southern frontier is peppered with tunnels into Egypt that were pummelled by air-strikes during Israel’s offensive.

One of Israel’s stated goals was to halt the smuggling of weapons – including rockets that were being fired against Israeli towns – into the coastal enclave through the network of tunnels.

But smuggling resumed shortly after the non-negotiated cease-fires were declared.

Residents along the border say food, fuel and other goods are moving through the several dozen tunnels that are still operational.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israeli jets target Gaza tunnels

John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, called for new U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell to talk to ordinary people in Gaza as part of a “new track” in diplomacy.

U.S. President Barack Obama named Mitchell, a former U.S. Senator who helped settle the conflict in Northern Ireland, on Thursday to try to jump-start Arab-Israeli peace talks.

“My first request to the U.S. administration is talk to the ordinary people in Gaza. Come to Gaza and talk to the ordinary people — the mothers, fathers, leaders of civil society, the people who are not involved in politics,” Ging, speaking from Gaza, told reporters in Geneva.

“They are still quite shell-shocked but there is more and more anger growing.”

It is urgent to establish accountability for death and the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure through a credible mechanism which would “channel this emotion to confidence in the rule of law,” Ging said.

“The extremists here — there are more now at the end of this conflict than there were at the start, that’s the product of such conflict — are very confident in their rhetoric that there should be no expectation that justice will be delivered through the rule of law. Now we must prove that wrong,” he said.

The investigation had to examine “legitimate allegations” on both sides, as Israeli civilians had also suffered, he said.

“But it is a challenge we must succeed in achieving. Because if we don’t, then we have truly conceded to the agenda of the extremists here in Gaza,” he added.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said he expected Israel to provide urgently a full explanation of attacks on U.N. facilities in Gaza, including schools used as shelters, and said those responsible must be held accountable.

Israeli attacks killed 1,300 people and made thousands homeless in the 22-day assault which Israel said was to stop Hamas firing rockets at southern Israel. Hamas and Israel declared ceasefires on Sunday and Israel has withdrawn.

Ging, who is Irish, welcomed Mitchell’s appointment.

“An individual of his experience and ability coming now to this conflict gives me cause for more than hope, it actually gives me cause for optimism that we will move on to a new track where we will see real progress,” he said.

“What we hope will happen is that the U.S. administration will listen to the people. There has to be a rebalancing of the focus,” he said.

War boosted extremists in Gaza, says U.N. official | International | Reuters

Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have died in the operation in Gaza and from rocket strikes on southern Israel, according to the Israeli military. More than 100 soldiers have been wounded, most of them not seriously.

As Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded Gaza for a 19th day, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon once again called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

“I repeat my call for an immediate and durable cease-fire,” Ban told reporters in Cairo. “I’ve been urging in the strongest of possible terms all sides must stop fighting now. We don’t have any time to lose.”

Ban spoke Wednesday after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, his first stop in a series of direct talks aimed at brokering a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The two sides have ignored a U.N. resolution — and Ban’s earlier calls — demanding an immediate cease-fire.

The secretary-general will also travel to Jordan, Israel and Syria, but will stop short of visiting Gaza or talking directly with Hamas, which controls the area.

“I would have personally liked to visit Gaza at this time. That was in my mind, in my heart. But in view of the current situation in Gaza, I am not quite sure at this time whether I would be able to visit Gaza,” he said.

Mubarak has hosted peace talks with leaders from Israel and the Palestinian Authority and has acted as an intermediary between Hamas and Israel. Israel has designated Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, a terrorist organization and has refused to enter direct talks with the group.

Meanwhile Wednesday, al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden called for jihad to stop the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to an audio message posted on a radical Islamist Web site.

The Israel Defense Forces said its air force struck about 60 targets in Gaza overnight, including the headquarters of the Hamas-run police force in Gaza City and five rocket-launching sites. It also continued to bomb tunnels used to smuggle goods and weapons into the blockaded territory from Egypt, the military said.

On the ground, Israeli troops continued to battle Palestinian fighters in Gaza City, while Israeli warships offshore bombarded Hamas targets, the IDF said. But at least 18 rockets fired by Hamas militants fell on southern Israel from Gaza on Tuesday, the IDF said.

And early Wednesday, for the second time in a week, rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel. Three projectiles landed harmlessly in fields near the city of Kiryat Shmona, Israeli police said. Video Watch who may be responsible for the rockets »

Several Palestinian militant factions are active in southern Lebanon, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the strike.

Palestinian medical sources said the death toll in Gaza includes more than 300 children, along with 13 medics and four employees of local media outlets.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said more than 28,000 Palestinians are taking shelter at U.N. schools across the territory during the fighting.

“Our kids, 14 years and younger, they are wetting their pants of fear. They can’t control themselves any more because of the fear, because of the horror,” said Abu Majed Sultan, a refugee from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, where heavy Israeli shelling was reported on Tuesday. Video Watch Israeli pilot describe efforts to protect civilians »

He said 35 members of his family are staying at a U.N. school there, “and the older ones just slap each other — no more respect. We all need psychiatrists now to come here so we can go back normal.”

While the Israeli military has been halting its assault for a three-hour break each day over the past week, few people manage to leave their homes for food and other necessities, the ICRC said — and those who do often return home empty-handed because of food shortages and long lines.

“People who dare to go out rush to supermarkets to try to buy as much food as possible in anticipation of further and more intense fighting in the coming days,” said Antoine Grand, head of the ICRC office in Gaza. “The shelves are now almost empty, and prices are soaring.”
advertisement

Israel said more than 1,000 truckloads of humanitarian aid has been allowed to enter the territory, carrying nearly 20,000 tons of food, fuel and medical equipment.

Israel has defended the incursion as necessary to stop constant rocket fire by Hamas into southern Israel and said it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians

Palestinians say Gaza death toll now 1,010 – CNN.com

At least 40 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces struck a school run by the United Nations in Gaza, a UN official said. Israel, which struck at least 40 more Hamas targets overnight, said it responded after its soldiers were fired at from the building.

The school deaths yesterday added urgency to diplomatic efforts aimed at reaching a cease-fire as the conflict entered its 12th day. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak proposed a new initiative last night and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been lobbying throughout the region for a truce, said the casualties at the school demonstrate the urgent need to stop the fighting. “Time works against us,” he said.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backed the proposal and Mubarak’s call for peace talks in Cairo, which may begin as early as today.

“The Security Cabinet will meet this morning to discuss the future of the military effort in Gaza, as well as the diplomatic efforts,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Andy David.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, commenting during an interview with Sky News, said it may take “some days” to study the details of the cease-fire proposal.

Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency in Jerusalem, said in a phone interview he could confirm 40 dead and 45 injured, after three Israeli artillery shells hit the school in northern Gaza.

Rocket-Firing Cell

The Israeli army said in a faxed statement last night its investigations showed that “among the dead in the school were members of the military wing of the Hamas terror organization and a cell firing rockets and mortars at Israeli forces.”

The incident at the school may force the Israeli government to scale back its military offensive aimed at stopping rocket attacks by Palestinian militants on cities and towns in the country’s south.

“If it becomes the dominant story for the next 48 hours, especially in the U.S., then it will give Hamas a significant advantage,” Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, said in a telephone interview.

As during the war in Lebanon in 2006, the current fighting “is as much about images and public relations as it is about military developments,” Steinberg said.

Street Fighting

Israel’s military expanded its hold over the 40-kilometer (25-mile) long coastal territory, fighting in the streets of Gaza City in the north and Khan Yunis in the south. Israel continued its military operations through the night in Gaza, striking at least 40 targets including rocket launching sites, groups of Hamas gunmen, and tunnels used for weapons storage, the army said in an e-mailed statement.

Palestinian militants made their longest strike so far yesterday when a rocket hit the Israeli city of Gedera, 45 kilometers to the north, injuring a 3-month-old infant, police said. A Hamas spokesman said the group’s military wing has dozens of suicide bombers ready to confront Israeli troops in the streets of Gaza.

At least 35 rockets struck Israeli territory yesterday compared with 40 the day before, according to the army. That’s down from a peak of 76 on Dec. 27, the first day of the operation. As many as 3,200 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel since the start of 2008. Rocket attacks have killed four Israelis since fighting began. At least five rockets from Gaza struck Israel this morning, police said.

‘Friendly Fire’

Six Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground fighting began, the army said. One died on Jan. 4, three died and 24 were wounded by a tank shell in a “friendly fire incident” in northern Gaza on Jan. 5, and two more were killed in separate incidents yesterday, the military said in an e-mailed statement.

At least 630 Palestinians have died in the conflict and 2,600 have been wounded, said Mu’awia Hassanein, chief of emergency medical services in Gaza.

UN officials said as many as a quarter of the Palestinians killed were civilians, a figure Israel disputes as too high.

In reacting to the deaths at the school, the Israeli military accused Hamas of making “cynical use” of civilians by firing from schools.

UNRWA opened several schools as shelters for civilians whose houses in refugee camps were destroyed by Israeli forces. No classes were in session.

“Even though the blue UN flag was flying and visible, Israel targeted our school,” Adnan Abu Hasna, a UNRWA spokesman in Gaza, said in a telephone interview. UNRWA said it was “99.9” percent certain there were no militants in the school.

Mosques, Schools

Several mosques and schools have been struck since Israel began its assault on Gaza 12 days ago. Israel alleges Hamas was using the buildings to hide arms and wanted militants.

Gaza’s water and sewage systems are on the verge of collapse because of power shortages, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said yesterday. More than 530,000 people among Gaza’s population of 1.4 million are completely cut off from running water and the rest receive water only every few days, the agency said in an e-mailed statement.

Israel will open a “humanitarian corridor” into the Gaza Strip, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an e-mailed statement shortly after midnight. It said that certain “geographic areas” would be made accessible to the local population for limited periods of time during which they could “stock up.”

Humanitarian Corridor

The plan for a humanitarian corridor “in no way compromises our call for an immediate cease-fire,” said UNRWA’s Gunness.

Mubarak called for a cease-fire for a “limited period” that would allow food, fuel and medicine to enter Gaza and give time for talks on a “comprehensive and lasting” agreement to end the fighting, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.

Israel’s attack on Gaza is “genocide,” Abbas told the UN Security Council late yesterday.

Abbas left New York late yesterday for the Egyptian capital, in response to Mubarak’s invitation, according to Palestinian Authority envoy Saeb Erekat. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev said her government is “considering” the initiative.

“We invite Israelis and Palestinians to meet and discuss how not to renew the fighting, and this includes securing the borders and lifting the blockade,” Mubarak said at a news conference last night in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, after meeting with Sarkozy.

Sarkozy also met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad yesterday after holding talks the day before with Olmert and Abbas.

Syrian Influence

“I am sure that Syria has an influence; Syria should help us convince Hamas to listen to the voice of reason,” Sarkozy said yesterday at a news conference. Al-Assad said he favored a cease-fire, while describing Israel’s offensive in Gaza as a “war crime.”

Venezuela expelled Israel’s ambassador from Caracas yesterday and said the Israeli government should be tried for war crimes over the invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Israel is considering in response whether to expel Venezuela’s charge d’affaires in Tel Aviv, said the Foreign Ministry.

Last week, Israel rejected a French-proposed 48-hour truce with Hamas, saying it was seeking a permanent end to the Gaza rocket attacks.

Israeli stocks climbed yesterday for a seventh day, the longest winning streak since October 2007, following gains in European stocks and U.S. futures. The benchmark TA-25 Index of stocks has gained 12 percent since Dec. 27, when the Gaza offensive began, tracking a global rally.

Economic Blockade

The shekel fell as much as 1.46 percent to 3.8870 per dollar, and traded at 3.8844 as of 5:19 p.m. yesterday.

Israel began the campaign to halt rocket attacks after a six-month cease-fire with Hamas expired Dec. 19. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, refused to renew the truce because it said Israel hadn’t eased its economic blockade of Gaza. Militants fired 70 rockets at Israel the day before the cease-fire ended.

Bloomberg.com: Europe

It was quickly out of date, and other Post-its will soon be stacked on top.

For Israel, the tally has prompted internal debate about how to counter the threat from Hamas’s homemade rockets and those of other armed Palestinian factions.

For Hamas, the very existence of that number in an Israeli office is an achievement. As plumes of smoke rise from Gaza, it is Hamas that dominates the television news and newspaper headlines.

It is not only the publicity, but also the status conveyed on Hamas as the Palestinians’ principal resistance. Its secular rival, Fatah, sits on the sidelines, marginal to the violence unfolding in Gaza, from which Hamas effectively expelled it at gunpoint in the summer of 2007.

The questions remain: Why did Hamas end its six-month cease-fire on Dec. 19? Will it — can it — unleash suicide bombers into Israel in retaliation? And will the devastation in Gaza make Palestinians fall into line behind Hamas, as they reliably have in the past, or will Hamas lose their support as Gazans count the escalating cost in blood and destruction?

Even knowing that retaliation was certain, Hamas seemed to end the cease-fire in part because of its longstanding discipline and consistency. For years it has preached to Palestinians the rejectionist credo that Fatah negotiated with Israel and got nowhere; Hamas’s way of armed force, it argued year in and year out, was the only way.

And so it appears that Hamas turned its logic against its own cease-fire: Hamas’s supreme leader, Khaled Meshal, said on Saturday that the truce had yielded few results. If there were no specific benefits — like freed prisoners or an end to Israeli blockages on Gaza — then the option, again, was a return to violence. It may also have calculated that the rockets into Israel — 60 in one day — would restore its status among Palestinians as the champion of “resistance” against the Zionist enemy, whose soldiers and settlers are no longer in Gaza within reach of Hamas’s military wing.

A major question remains whether Hamas expected the shock-and-awe Israeli offensive that has left Gaza reeling.

The outcome, for the moment, is far from clear because neither side has yet deployed the full arsenal available to it.

Some in Gaza believe Hamas wants Israeli soldiers to enter the Gaza Strip, because it has had 18 months to smuggle weapons in through tunnels from the Sinai since it seized control of the territory from Fatah. For the last several years, after Israel’s pullout from Gaza in 2005 and its erection of a barrier around the West Bank, it has been harder to strike at Israelis.

Israel, though, is aware of the risks and will not reflexively mount a large-scale military return to Gaza.

As Israeli tanks rumbled on the outskirts of Gaza and explosions and machine-gun fire echoed through the night late on Monday, it is too early to gauge the effect the renewed violence is having on Palestinian opinion. The key issue is whether Palestinians will blame Israel for raining fire down upon them, as Hamas hopes. Or blame Hamas for provoking it, as Fatah, Israel and its Western allies hope.

Right now Palestinians are blaming Israel, loudly.

This weekend, the Palestinian newspaper Al Hayat al Jadida printed a black front page with a headline blaring: “1,000 Martyrs and Wounded in Saturday Slaughter.”

More important is whether once away from television cameras and foreign journalists, Palestinians will vote for Hamas in presidential and parliamentary elections, which could take place within a year.

At the Shuafat refugee camp on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem on Sunday, masked Palestinian youths burned tires and used slingshots to hurl stones at Israeli soldiers.

Mohammed, 13, predicted bloody Hamas reprisals. “Hamas will be the one that will bomb green Egged buses, and we will go back to the way it was,” he said, referring to the Israeli bus carrier that is often a target of suicide bombers.

Others were more doubtful. Ahmad, 14, said he supported “neither one nor the other,” complaining that Hamas and Fatah spent too much time fighting each other instead of working for Palestinian unity.

A few miles north, in Ramallah, anti-Israeli and American sentiment was high among a small crowd of protesters gathered, incongruously, beneath a Stars and Bucks Cafe. Even here, in Fatah’s heartland, people said they admired Hamas for its willingness to take on a regional superpower.

Challenged on the point that firing highly inaccurate rockets from Gaza into Israel carried a huge cost in retaliation, one 30-year-old Palestinian who refused to give his name compared the attacks to the impotent yet defiant gesture of the Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi, who became a folk hero across the Arab world for throwing his shoes at President Bush.

Mustafa Saleh, 37, said: “I am originally Fatah and my voice will always be Fatah. But Hamas is resisting and we are a nation under occupation. I support the resistance, even here in the West Bank.”

Hamas hopes such sentiments will bring it new supporters.

But as he watched the protesters go by, Mohanad Salah, 42, said that emotions would calm down. Palestinians were quite capable of wanting Hamas-style “resistance” with their hearts but peace talks with their heads, he said.

“The more military operations by Israel either here or in Gaza, the more it will make people go away from wanting agreements,” he said.

“But you should know that even after Israel carried out this operation yesterday, if today it says ‘We want a political solution, let’s reach an agreement,’ it would be completely accepted by the majority of the Palestinian people,” Mr. Salah added.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesman, Mark Regev, on Monday accused Hamas of inflicting suffering upon its fellow Palestinians. In a conference call with journalists he said the group was “holding hostage” ordinary Palestinians in Gaza just as it was a quarter of a million citizens in southern Israel.

But Hamas has in the past proved adept at deflecting such barbs. “Israel and America say no to Hamas. What do you say?” read one Hamas 2006 election banner. The Palestinians gave one answer then. Whether they give the same answer in 2009 or 2010 may depend on how the next few weeks play out.

NYTimes.com

The specter of war also may be exaggerated to reduce international pressure on Pakistan to crack down on a militant group blamed for the deadly Mumbai attacks last month, analysts said.

Regardless, even the reports of troop movements made the crisis much more serious than before and could undo most of the progress the two countries had made in peace talks since 2004.

“The situation is at this point in time far more dangerous than it was when the military was in peacetime positions,” said Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group.

The military apparently started moving troops from the country’s border with Afghanistan to positions along the Indian border in what was described widely as a defensive measure in case India attacks. The army also canceled any planned leaves and said troops had to work a public holiday Saturday.

Since the three-day siege in Mumbai a month ago, in which 171 people were killed, tensions between the neighbors have grown. India has urged Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups—especially Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is blamed for the Mumbai plot. Otherwise, India says, it will be forced to act. And Pakistan has demanded that India turn over proof that Pakistanis were involved.

The two neighbors have fought three wars since both declared independence in 1947, and came close to a fourth in late 2001 and 2002, after Pakistani militants were blamed for a deadly attack on India’s parliament. At that point, a total of a million troops were sent to the border.

At the time, Taliban-led militants took advantage of the Pakistani troops moving from the country’s border with Afghanistan to the border with India. They regrouped and started attacking U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, analysts said.

Many feared that the Taliban, much stronger now than in 2002, would take advantage of Pakistani troops moving out of the tribal areas along Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan.

“If it’s true, it’s exactly what the terrorists wanted,” said author Ahmed Rashid, who has chronicled the rise of the Taliban. “This was their game plan all along, to distract attention from the western border.”

Pakistani officials would not publicly confirm the troop movements, raising speculation that the movements may be exaggerated to deliver a message. Early Friday, U.S. intelligence and military officials told The Associated Press in Washington that they were trying to determine whether the reports of troop movements were true.

A Pakistani military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media, told the Tribune that “some troops” were being moved Friday out of the country’s tribal areas to the Indian border.

“There is a pullout, but from the areas which are snowbound and where troops are not operationally committed at this moment,” he said. When asked whether this would hurt the army’s fight against the Taliban, he answered: “Obviously.”

Some security analysts said they believe war is unlikely. “I don’t think it’s at all serious,” said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi.

He added that this new crisis could distract the international community from pressuring Pakistan to clamp down on Lashkar-e-Taiba and its front organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

In New Delhi, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters that Pakistan is trying to deflect attention by threatening war. “Instead of diverting attention from the real issue, they should concentrate on how to fight against terrorism and bring to book the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack,” he said.

U.S. and British officials have been urging both countries to use restraint since the Mumbai attacks.

Instead, the rhetoric has only gotten worse, largely for political reasons, analysts said. India’s ruling Congress Party, long considered soft on terrorism, faces an election next year. And Pakistan’s new civilian government has been accused of being too conciliatory toward India.

“You’ve had a complete U-turn by the political leadership, obviously under army instructions,” Sahni said.

Reported Pakistani troop movements to Indian border raise fears of war — chicagotribune.com

The Malaysian peacekeepers are to leave on Sunday after the Philippines government pulled out of the latest peace talks with the indigenous Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf).

The two sides have failed to agree on the mandate of the peacekeepers.

The conflict has been continuing for more than four decades, with Milf emerging in the 1970s as the main group fighting an armed struggle to protect their ancestral land from occupation.

Fighting between the two sides escalated in July with aid agencies estimating that about 600,000 people have been forced to leave their homes since August.

Many are now living on hand-outs in evacuation centres in regions neighbouring Mindanao, a southern island in the Philippines and the country’s Muslim heartland, with others leaving the area altogether.

‘Ran from home’

Nasmiya moved her five children to Manila, the mainly Christian capital, two months ago from one of the worst affected areas.

“Moving is difficult but what is more difficult is when you are in the middle of a war, you don’t know where the bullets will hit,” she told Al Jazeera.

“The military attacked very close to our home. We ran out of the house, carrying my children.

“You don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know what destination to go to avoid the war.”

Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas said: “Life is not much easier for them here. Many who flee to the cities end up jobless or selling whatever they can in markets and on the streets. The lucky ones live off relatives.

“Some say it’s not easy being Muslim [in the capital], that they face discrimination.”

Way out of conflict

Make-shift schools in Manila have become oversubscribed with evacuees from Mindanao in the last three months.

But those who organise the schools and education for parents insist that they are necessary for those exposed to the fighting, to allow them to find a permanent way out of the conflict.

“When people feel helpless, their alternative is to get back at the parties that bring them such catastrophes and this is what we are trying to avoid,” Taha Basman, from the Centre for Moderate Muslims, said.

The Mindanao conflict first flared in the 1960s when the Muslim minority – known as the Moros – took up arms.

In 1977 that organisation split with the Milf forming a breakaway group fighting for political autonomy.

This July, the Milf and the Philippines government agreed to expand the existing Muslim autonomous region but President Arroyo suspended the talks, accusing the Milf of more violence.

Al Jazeera English