Israel To Gazans: Brace For More
Israeli forces on Saturday pounded dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip and dropped leaflets warning of an escalation in attacks, as southern Israel came under more Palestinian rocket fire.
As Week Three of the Gaza conflict begins, neither Israel nor Hamas has what it wants yet and, despite the misery, neither side is ready to quit. Meanwhile, Egypt hosted talks aimed at ending the violence.
Not only has Israel rejected the United Nations' call for a cease-fire, its answer was one of the most intense bombardments of the campaign. Israeli artillery units opened up with a vengeance, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips, while troops edged closer to Gaza City on Saturday.
Southern Israel came under renewed rocket fire.
Hamas also announced today that it was rejecting the deployment of international observers in the Gaza Strip, as called for in the latest U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolution. CBS News' George Baghdadi reports that the militant group said the resolution fell short of meeting the "national interests."
In the day's bloodiest incident, an Israeli tank shell landed outside a home in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, killing nine people as they sat outside in their garden. Separately, a woman was killed by an Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Rafah.
The Israeli military said more than 15 militants were killed in heavy fighting Saturday with its ground forces inside Gaza. Its aircraft attacked more than 40 targets throughout Gaza, striking 10 rocket-launching sites, weapons-storage facilities, smuggling tunnels, an anti-aircraft missile launcher and gunmen. Flames and smoke could be seen rising into the sky over Gaza City.
Israel has come under international criticism for the rising number of civilians killed in the fighting. Paramedics said the nine casualties were from the same clan and included two children and two women.
"Residents brought them to the hospital in a civilian car, they put them all in the trunk because their bodies were mangled," said hospital administrator Adham Hakim. "We identified them a little after separating their bodies in the morgue."
The Israeli army had no immediate comment, but has repeatedly accused Hamas militants of using residential areas for cover. Earlier this week, an Israeli attack outside a U.N. school killed nearly 40 people. Both Israel and Palestinian witnesses said militants carried out an attack from the area moments earlier.
Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 to halt years of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel. A week later, ground troops moved in, with artillery and tank fire that has contributed to a surge in civilian casualties.
Palestinian medical officials say more than 800 Palestinians have been killed, roughly half of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis have been killed - four of them by militant rockets, the rest in battle in Gaza. Five soldiers were lightly wounded in Saturday's fighting.
Both Israel and Hamas have ignored a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire that would lead to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Israel says it will not stop firing until Hamas, the militant groups which controls Gaza, stops firing rockets back.
But the Hamas rockets (albeit fewer of them) continue to fly. Neither side will admit defeat, and neither side has the conditions to claim victory.
"Is it really logical to expect Israel to hold both hands behind our back and do nothing?" said Israeli spokesman Mark Regev. "We will act to protect our people."
Gaza is full of stories, impossible to confirm, of families being herded into houses and then shot at. The Israelis vehemently deny these accounts, but they contribute to the growing bitterness and hatred which fuels this conflict, and which all but drowns out the attempts at finding a diplomatic solution.
Israel dismissed the Security Council resolution passed Thursday as impractical, while Hamas (whose government in Gaza is not recognized internationally) is angry it was not consulted about the diplomatic efforts.
"Both have responded to the resolution in the same way, in total disrespect," Riad Malki said at U.N. headquarters in New York. He said the Security Council should enforce its resolution, perhaps by levying sanctions.
Phillips notes one bit of good news (if you can call it that): The U.N. says it will resume its humanitarian aid deliveries in Gaza; it had suspended them after one of its drivers was killed by Israeli tank fire. Israel admits that was a mistake which it deeply regrets, and the U.N. says it now has assurances its people will be safe - or as safe as they can be in a war zone.
Hamas Rejects International Observers In Gaza
Syria-based Palestinian militant groups including Hamas on Saturday rejected deploying international observers or troops in Gaza.
A statement issued by the groups after a meeting attended by Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal also rejected any security arrangement that "infringes on the right of resistance against Israeli occupation."
The statement reiterated Hamas' demands including an immediate halt to Israeli attacks, full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, lifting the siege and opening all border crossings. It said these demands serve as the "foundation for any initiatives or suggestions for a solution."
The statement comes hours after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas, which controls Gaza, to reach an agreement to end the fighting.
Abbas, who was in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on a truce to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip, now in its 15th day, said the Egyptian proposal, put forward earlier this week by President Hosni Mubarak at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, is the only way forward.
"If any party does not accept it (the truce), regrettably it will be the one bearing the responsibility, and if Israel doesn't want to accept, it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood," Abbas said.
Israeli Forces Edge Closer To Gaza City
Some of the heaviest fighting Saturday occurred on the strategic coastal road north of Gaza City, Palestinian security officials said. Israeli forces moved to within about 1 mile of the city before pulling back slightly.
In a possible sign of progress for the military, no rockets were fired into Israel overnight, a sharp drop from the dozens of projectiles that were launched in the early days of the offensive.
Israeli military officials cautioned against reading too much into the lull, and by Saturday morning, 10 rockets had landed in Israel, the army said. One struck an apartment building in the southern city of Ashkelon, lightly wounding two people and causing extensive damage to the structure.
The offensive has caused extensive damage throughout Gaza, fueling fears of an impending humanitarian crisis. The United Nations estimates two-thirds of Gaza's 1.4 million people are without electricity, and half don't have running water.
The Israeli military said it would halt the fire in Gaza for three hours on Saturday to allow the territory's besieged residents to leave their homes and stock up on supplies. Medics use the lull to rescue casualties in areas of fighting, and aid groups also rush through food distribution.
It is the third time in recent days that Israel has suspended its offensive to allow aid groups to work. But the groups say three hours isn't enough time. Salam Kanaan of Save the Children said in previous lulls, for instance, the agency distributed food to 9,500 people - far short of the 150,000 people it serves.
U.N. official Adnan Abu Hasna said the Palestinian refugee agency would distribute aid to about 40,000 people, half of them holed up in U.N. schools that have been transformed into shelters.
All deliveries were coming from existing supplies already in Gaza. U.N. officials said a halt on aid shipments into Gaza through Israeli-controlled border crossings remained in effect. The ban was imposed Thursday after a U.N. truck driver was shot and killed by Israel. It was unclear when the deliveries will resume.
"As each day goes by, and for each moment that the cease-fire demanded by the Security Council is not observed, the crisis continues," said U.N. spokesman Chris Gunness.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by phone on Friday and told the prime minister that he was disappointed the violence was continuing in disregard of the resolution, according to Ban's office.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it is difficult to protect civilians in a place as densely populated as Gaza - an area just 25 miles long and roughly six miles wide.
"It's also an area in which Hamas participates in activities like human shields and using buildings that are not designated as military buildings to hide their fighters," she told reporters.
63 Injured During Anti-Israel Protest In Algiers
More than 60 people were injured when a march supporting Gaza's Palestinians turned violent, including a journalist left in a coma, officials said Saturday.
Hocine Ben Rabii, a reporter with the Arab daily An-Nahar, was struck on the head, knocked out and left bleeding in downtown Algiers for an hour before being taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery, his editor, Anis Rahmani, said in a telephone interview.
A state of emergency that has been enforced in Algiers since 1992, when an Islamic insurgency began, bans demonstrations.
Friday's violence began when some young protesters tried to march toward the U.S. or Egyptian embassies through the upscale El Biar neighborhood and clashed with riot police.
The Interior Ministry said the demonstration was "infiltrated by troublemakers" who looted some shops, damaged cars and destroyed bus stops and other public facilities.