Israel Puts More Soldiers On Gaza Border

U.N. Security Council To Host Emergency Consultations On Cease-Fire

(CBS/AP)  Israel sent more troops to the Gaza border Wednesday, rapidly moving forward with preparations for a possible ground offensive as the next stage of its military assault on the coastal territory's Hamas rulers.

Israel rebuffed calls by world leaders for a truce, and Hamas was cold to a cease-fire.

Instead, both intensified their fire. Israel bombed a mosque that it said was used to store rockets as well as vital smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border, and the Islamic militants hammered southern Israeli cities with about 60 rockets.

Not only has Israel rejected international calls for a truce, it is continuing to amass its armored ground forces on Gaza's borders for the threatened invasion that may well be the next phase of this conflict.

The Israelis say until Hamas rockets stop landing in border cities like Sederot, they won't stop bombing Hamas, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. Sederot is a frequent Hamas target, where the bus shelters are also bomb shelters.

And despite the loss of civilian life the bombing has caused, Phillips reports, the Israelis say there's another reason they think it's too soon to stop.

"Terror cannot work," said Israel's Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni. "Targeting Israel doesn't mean that they are going to get something that even can be perceived as a victory."

Victory is just what Hamas leader Ismail Haniya promised tonight in a broadcast speech, Phillips reports. It is closer, he claimed, than some people may think.

Israeli troops trudged between dozens of tanks in muddy, rain-sodden fields outside of Gaza, assembling equipment, cleaning weapons and scrubbing the insides of tank barrels. Their commanders moved forward with preparations for a ground operation, said an Israeli defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council is planning emergency consultations to discuss an Arab request for a legally binding and enforceable U.N. resolution that would ensure an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.


Egypt's U.N. Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said in a letter to the council president that the Arab Group at the U.N., which he currently chairs, was seeking an emergency session on "the continued Israeli military aggression" on instructions from Arab League foreign ministers.

Croatia's U.N. Ambassador Neven Jurica, the council president for December, scheduled emergency consultations Wednesday evening.

"Frustrated by the rejection of the ceasefire proposal, emergency Security Council consultations were called for Wednesday night, New Year’s eve," says CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk. "At the request of Libya, a Council member, and Egypt, as Chair of the Arab Group at the U.N., with the possibility of having a formal open Security Council meeting, to discuss a binding Resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza."

Diplomatic efforts by U.S., European and Middle Eastern leaders appeared to be having little effect. A French proposal for a 48-hour cease-fire to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza failed to gain traction. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the time was not ripe to consider it. A separate proposal by Turkey and Egypt, two of Israel's few allies in the Muslim world, also seemed to be attracting little serious study in Israel or Gaza, where Hamas has also dismissed talk of a truce.

With a shrinking number of targets to hit from the air and top Hamas leaders deep in hiding, a ground operation seemed all the more likely. In five days of raids, Israeli warplanes have carried out about 500 sorties against Hamas targets, and helicopters have flown hundreds more combat missions, a senior Israeli military officer said on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

The government has approved the call-up of more than 9,000 reserves. Heavy cloud cover that could encumber ground forces was expected to lift Thursday.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said the death toll was estimated to range between 320-390, and injured from 1,500-1,900.

Between 20 percent and 25 percent of the dead are either women or children, said U.N. Relief and Works Agency commissioner Karen Abu Zayd.

Hamas says some 200 uniformed members of its security forces have been killed, and the U.N. says at least 60 Palestinian civilians have died.

In Israel, three civilians and a soldier have been killed by rocket fire, which has reached deeper into Israel than ever. The sites of the missile hits have drawn curious crowds.

In the Negev desert city of Beersheba, people visited a school where a rocket made a direct hit Tuesday evening, slamming through the ceiling and showering debris on students' desks. A visitor illuminated by a shaft of light through the hole in the roof said with some astonishment, "This is my daughter's seat."

In Gaza, the sites of airstrikes have also attracted the curious and the defiant, including a Palestinian man who planted a green Hamas flag atop a mound of debris at a flattened mosque, its minaret still thrusting toward a stormy sky.

The Israeli military, which attacked it Wednesday, said it was being used as a missile storage site and that the bombs dropped on it set off secondary explosions. It was the fifth mosque hit in the campaign.

The chief of Israel's internal security services, Yuval Diskin, told a government meeting that Hamas members are hiding inside mosques, believing they'll be safe from airstrikes and using them as command centers, according to an Israeli security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to share the information.

Other militants were hiding in hospitals, some disguised as doctors and nurses, Diskin said, according to the official.

Echoing Israel's cool response to truce proposals, a senior Hamas leader with ties to its military wing said now was not the right time to call off the fight. Hamas was unhappy with the six-month truce that collapsed just before the fighting began because it didn't result in an easing of Israel's crippling blockade of Gaza.

Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu said that although Hamas leaders have been driven underground, the Gaza government was functioning and had met in the past few days.

"What our people want is clear: an immediate stop to all kinds of aggression, the end of the siege by all means, the opening of all border crossings, and international guarantees that the occupation will not renew this terrorist war again," Nunu said.

Israel's latest airstrikes have concentrated on crushing the many smuggling tunnels under Gaza's southern border with Egypt. They provide a crucial lifeline, not just for Hamas rulers, but also for bringing in food and fuel for Gaza's people.

Israel and Egypt blockaded Gaza after Hamas violently seized control of the territory in 2007 and have opened their borders only to let in limited humanitarian aid.

On Wednesday, several wounded Palestinians were taken across the Israeli and Egyptian borders for treatment, including a child bundled in blankets.

Gaza's southern smuggling zone was hit again in morning airstrikes that left vast craters over the collapsed underground passages.

Diskin, the Israeli security chief, told a Cabinet meeting that the tunnel network has been badly damaged. Israel says more than 80 tunnels were destroyed. Several hundred tunnels ran under the border before Israeli warplanes began striking.

Hamas was trying to smuggle some of its activists to Egypt through still-passable tunnels, Diskin said.

Israel fears that opening crossings would allow Hamas - which remains officially committed to Israel's destruction - to further strengthen its hold on the territory.

Moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas rival who controls only the West Bank, suggested he would not continue peace talks with Israel at any price. He said on Palestinian TV that the stalled negotiating process had become useless and was not reaching any of its goals - namely the creation of a Palestinian state.

"Negotiation is not a goal by itself; it's a tool," Abbas said. "Unless it is a tool to achieve peace ... there is no need for it to continue."

Gaza's militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel on Wednesday evening, including one in the city of Ashkelon that was caught on video. It showed a man on a sidewalk ducking for cover along a wall as the missile explodes in a cloud of smoke a few steps behind him.

The city of 120,000 people 11 miles north of Gaza has been a frequent target.

Israel's rescue service said it has responded to 250 rocket attack scenes since Saturday and treated 48 wounded, most of whom had light injuries.

School was canceled in much of Israel's south because of the rocket threat. The 18,000 students at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, southern Israel's only university, were also told to stay home.

Beersheba, 19 miles from Gaza, had never been within range of Gaza rockets, reflecting the increasing sophistication of what started out as homemade weaponry.

Now militants are firing weapons made in China and Iran that have dramatically expanded their range and put more than one-tenth of Israel's population in their sights, defense officials said.

In Gaza, two Palestinian medics were killed and two others were wounded when an Israeli missile hit next to their ambulance east of Gaza City, Palestinians said. The Israeli military said it did not know of the incident.

[rusure5]

"Israeli officials said Wednesday morning the country had decided to reject an immediate 48-hour pause in a devastating five-day offensive..."

The Israelis just can''t seem to quit killing civilians in Palestine.

Not even for two days.

[rusure5]

Re: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called leaders in the Middle East to press for a durable solution beyond any immediate truce."

That''s the same thing that Rice said when the Israelis were killing civilians in Lebanon, in 2006, as an excuse to continue the Israeli attacks on civilians.

[comeon11]

george2221....................where is our president- Bush. last time i checked, he was still the president. just stop it. why are people so divided? looking for every opportunity to jump on the other side.

[abrame]

Posted by rusure5

Terror Rockets = Blockade

No Terror rockets = No Blocade.

[abrame]

Israel needs to be stopped.

Posted by jh6379again


Terror Rockets = Blockade

No Terror rockets = No Blockade.

[abrame]

Israel needs to be stopped.

Posted by jh6379again

Our President said:

Terror Rockets = Blockade

No Terror rockets = No Blockade

[spinproof]

Israeli and Palestinian War and Politics fall on death ears while innocent children on both sides are killed and used as political pawns for the news media. The Israelis and Palestinians both S U C K in this regard! Save the children, slaughter each other but save the kids.

[rusure5]

Bombing Mosques.

Killing little girls.

The Israelis even rammed a humanitarian aid ship yesterday, loaded with doctors and medical supplies, while sailing in International waters, headed for Gaza.

The Israelis called them terrorists, which seems to suggest that a "terrorist" designation by the Israeli rulers simply refers to anyone that would dare to challenge their crimes and atrocities.

[wingnutsblow]

Three more weeks, Neocons, three more weeks.

[abrame]

Posted by rusure5

Terror Rockets = Blockade

No Terror rockets = No Blocade. 5

[abrame]

Mosques = Armories

[abrame]

Israeli navy blocks Gaza aid ship
Reports say Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tonnes of aid has docked at Egyptian port after being turned back by Israeli ship

* Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 December 2008 12.26 GMT

The al-Marwa, carrying food, blankets and powdered milk, attempted to challenge Israel''s tight economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has worsened in recent weeks.

But as the ship approached Gazan water at dawn, an Israeli naval ship ordered it to turn back. The al-Marwa headed south and has reportedly docked at al-Arish, an Egyptian port in the northern Sinai just south of Gaza.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said there was no physical contact with the ship but it was ordered back by radio. "This is a policy we have had for a long time: if somebody wants to bring in humanitarian aid they can do it through the border with Egypt or the Israeli passages into Gaza," said the spokesman, Andy David.

[rusure5]

I''m sure that the Palestinians will endure this latest act of Israeli aggression against their population.

They always do.

The Zionists seem to see every Mosque as a armory, and doctors as "terrorists".

The Israelis will fare poorly as a result of these latest war crimes against the people of Palestine. Zionists have already defeated themselves with the Nazi trapped within their own minds.

[abrame]

Posted by rusure5

Terrorisr propaganda liar.

[abrame]

"This is a policy we have had for a long time: if somebody wants to bring in humanitarian aid they can do it through the border with Egypt or the Israeli passages into Gaza," said the spokesman, Andy David.

[rusure5]

Here is an excerpt of an article describing the Israeli attack on the humanitarian relief ship, in international waters:

"AT 05.15 yesterday morning the SS Dignity, an 18m yacht carrying three doctors, three tonnes of medical aid and peace activists from Cyprus to embattled Gaza, was in international waters about 90 nautical miles from the Gaza coast when an Israeli warship attacked."

"Speaking from Lebanon, Irish national Caoimhe Butterly said the Israeli naval vessels had been tailing the Dignity for some time when one, without lights, rammed the yacht three times, damaging the hull on the port side and smashing the wheelhouse."

%u201CWe had not been expecting this so far out,%u201D she said."

%u201CWe were not prepared, some of us were not wearing life vests."

%u201CThey gave no radio warning, we were not asked to identify ourselves. [The attack] was very sudden, very aggressive."

%u201CAfter they rammed us they fired flares, spoke on the radio and threatened to shoot if we did not return to Larnaca. They said we were engaged in terrorist activity. We were afraid the boat would sink,%u201D she said."

###

As usual, the Israelis seem to attack only defenseless targets and civilians.

[rusure5]

The Israeli Zionists seem to reserve the right to terrorize people even on the open sea, claiming that people need Israel''s permission to sail in international waters.

The symptoms of Zionism are frightening to behold.

[rusure5]

Q: What''s the difference between the Somali pirates and the Israeli Navy?

A: The claims and justifications of the Somali pirates are far more believable and legitimate.

[abrame]

Posted by rusure5

Terrorisr propaganda liar.

[rusure5]

Zionists always seem to lash out blindly when they are exposed.

[abrame]

The Israelis even rammed a humanitarian aid ship yesterday, loaded with doctors and medical supplies, while sailing in International waters, headed for Gaza.

Posted by rusure5

Liar, the ship was not rammed.

rusure5 = a terrorist propaganist liar

Terror Rockets = Blockade

No Terror rockets = No Blocade.

[abrame]

Q: How can you tell if rusure5 is lying?

A: It posted something.

[rusure5]

Here is an excerpt from another article on the latest Israeli attack on a humanitarian aid ship, entitled "Israeli Navy Rams Aid Boat".

"It was like ramming a Mini (car) with a truck," Eleni Theocharous, a Cypriot lawmaker on board the boat, told Reuters."

[tommaralem]

Salam:

I would like to know how Israel chooses targets. Is it the same method used by the US in choosing who is to be detained in Guantanimo Bay or Abu Ghraib, or who is subject to Rendition?

They say they are hitting ONLY Hamas targets, based on what information? I think it is rumors and hearsay or suspicion. Just because it is suspected they hit it, without proof or evidence. What is the truth in this matter?

Ma Salama

[abrame]

But Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied that and said the patrol boat had warned the vessel not to proceed to Gaza because it is a closed military area.

Palmor said there was no response to the radio message, and the vessel then tried to out-maneuver the Israeli patrol boat, leading to the collision.

The captain and crew said their vessel was struck intentionally, Penhaul said, but Palmor called those allegations "absurd."

"There is no intention on the part of the Israeli navy to ram anybody," Palmor said.
----------------------------

If anything it sounds like the Dignity rammed the Israeli Patrol boat to try to play chicken and get to Gaza or even start an international incident.

Every day hundreds of boats are out there. Why don''t they have collisions??

Because they obey the Israeli Navy and turn back.

The Captain of the Dignity played chicken and lost.

[abrame]

The Captain of the Dignity acted like a terrorist blockade runner and lived to tell about it with a few dings to his boat. He played chicken and lost.

[rusure5]

"Mr. Bush spoke with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad from his office at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, to discuss ways to stop the violence."

If the Israelis would stop bombing civilians and ramming aid ships, that seems like a pretty good beginning at stopping the violence.

I wonder why CBS scrubbed the reference in the article about the little girls that were killed by the Israelis during this latest round of Israeli bombings?

[abrame]

If the Hamas terrorists would stop rocketing civilians and ramming Isreali naval ships, that seems like a pretty good beginning at stopping the violence.

[grandesign]

Israel needs to be stopped.
Posted by jh6379again_ at 03:26 AM : Dec 31, 2008

Israel needs to finish the job, so that all the violence created by Hamas will be stopped. If Hamas resorts to martyred Palestinians, they prove would prefer to kill their own people than negotiate peace.

[abrame]

Palestinians use church as a fighting position

"About 300 Palestinians, nearly all of them armed, have been holed up in the shrine [Church of the Nativity, "built over the site where tradition says Jesus was born and one of Christianity''s major shrines"] since Tuesday..." [Ibrahim Hazboun, Associated Press writer, 4 April 2002]

The PLO tactic is obvious. Their gunmen shoot at the Israelis. If the Israelis return the fire, they will damage one of Christianity''s holiest shrines.

[rusure5]

Re: "I would like to know how Israel chooses targets. Is it the same method used by the US in choosing who is to be detained in Guantanimo Bay or Abu Ghraib, or who is subject to Rendition?"

The Israeli method appears to be identical.

The Israelis even rammed a humanitarian aid ship, then tried to designate the doctors and surgeons on board as "terrorists".

The Israelis have cried "wolf" far too many times to be taken seriously.

[abrame]

Palestinian ambulance driver transports explosives

"Reserve soldiers at a mobile roadblock today captured a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance driver who was caught transporting an explosive belt of the type detonated by suicide bombers, Israel Radio reported." Jerusalem Post, 28 March, 2002.

[abrame]

Mar 28, 2001
Eliran Rosenberg-Zayat, 15, of Givat Shmuel and Naftali Lanzkorn, 13, of Petah Tikva were killed in a suicide bombing at the Mifgash Hashalom ("peace stop") gas station several hundred meters from an IDF roadblock near the entrance to Kalkilya, east of Kfar Saba. Four people were injured. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

What was rusure5 saying about little girls??

[rusure5]

What does 6 year old irrelevant nonsense references have do do with these latest Israeli war crimes and atrocities against the people of Palestine?

Is someone suggesting that synagogues in Tel Aviv are legitimate military targets as well?

[abrame]

Palestinian terrorists use hospitals and schools as gun emplacements

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/03/13/News/News.45068.html (source)

...Palestinian gunmen had fired from hotels, hospitals, and schools.

At one point, gunmen opened fire from the Ramallah hospital, lightly wounding a soldier, the army said, and troops returned fire. The International Committee of the Red Cross was called upon to mediate and convinced the Palestinians to remove the gunmen from the hospital, said ICRC spokesman Uri Massad.

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/03/27/LatestNews/LatestNews.46007.html (source)

[abrame]

- Assaf Avitan, 15, of Jerusalem; Michael Moshe Dahan, 21, of Jerusalem;
Israel Ya''akov Danino, 17, of Jerusalem; Yosef El-Ezra, 18, of Jerusalem; Sgt. Nir Haftzadi, 19, of Jerusalem; Yuri (Yoni) Korganov, 20, of Ma''alei Adumim; Golan Turgeman, 15, of Jerusalem; Guy Vaknin, 19, of Jerusalem; Adam Weinstein, 14, of Givon Hahadasha, and Moshe Yedid-Levy, 19, of Jerusalem were killed and about 180 injured - 17 seriously - when explosive devices were detonated by two suicide bombers close to 11:30 P.M. Saturday night on Ben Yehuda Street, the pedestrian mall in the center of Jerusalem. A car bomb exploded nearby 20 minutes later. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Ido Cohen, 17, of Jerusalem, fatally injured in the attack, died of his wounds on December 8.

[downtowner97]

Fun facts about Israel:
Israel''s poplulation is 7 million.
20% of the population of Israel is Muslim
Israel measures 50 miles across.
Israel is the size of New Jersey.
Our annual budget for aiding Israel, the largest recipient of US foreign aid is $3 billion.
US aid to Israel is $428,000 per man, woman and child per year.
Israel makes few exports. The two most notable exports from Israel are handguns and diamonds.
Protection of Israel is a hobby of Christians, though the Jewish people don''t believe in Jesus.

[grandesign]

"Most of the 364 people killed in Gaza since Saturday, according to Palestinian officials, were members of Hamas security forces, but the number included at least 64 civilians, according to U.N. figures."

I pray for the people who are killed as a consequence of others who are seeking to protect themselves from the very people who have repeated stated that they want to kill them.

[abrame]

Of course we all remember the brutal murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound elderly tourist on the hijacked Achille Lauro

[abrame]

Sudarsan Raghavan, Knight Ridder-Newspapers, 28 April 2002 "Disguised gunmen kill 4: Girl, 5, among victims of terrorists in Israeli army uniforms"

ADORA, West Bank
Palestinian terrorists dressed as Israeli soldiers slipped into a quiet Israeli settlement near Hebron Saturday morning...
The gunmen entered the home of 5-year-old Danielle Sheffi, who lived with her parents and three siblings. After they left, the little girl''s room-- decorated with a Micky Mouse doll, bed sheet, and poster-- was scattered with bullet holes and stained with blood.
Danielle died instantly.

[abrame]

Palestinians use wheelchair-bound man as cover

From Aruz 7

"At one point, Palestinians booby trapped a wheelchair and pushed its occupant into the open in hope of attracting Israeli soldiers to become victims..."

[abrame]

Now back to our regularly scheduled terrorist liars.

[rusure5]

Re: "In its Tuesday night meeting, Israel''s leadership trio stepped up preparations for a ground offensive, conducting a telephone survey among Cabinet ministers on a plan to call up an additional 2,500 reserve soldiers, if required."


Odds are that many of these young Israelis realize that this latest round of war crimes against the people of Palestine is shameful and wrong, and they will follow the lead of many honorable IDF soldiers before them, and refuse to participate in these abuses and atrocities.

I think that the chicken-hawk Zionists in the US should be sent in their place.

Wouldn''t that be funny?

[abrame]

Wouldn''t that be funny?

Posted by rusure5

Terror Rockets = Blockade

Suicide murderers = The Wall

Terrorist attacks = The Wall

[grandesign]

". . .have do do with these latest Israeli war crimes and atrocities against the people of Palestine?"
Posted by rusure5 at 04:30 AM : Dec 31, 2008

War Crimes? Atrocities? Extreme language for such a state of war between two nations. Does Palestine consider itself a nation? If it does, and it claims a practice of aggression to defeat another soverign nation, then the population contributes to the war effort. Hamas was voted into power by the people in a fair and peaceful national vote, since Palestinians believe in those principles held by Hamas.

How are most of the 400 people who died in support of Hamas'' political aims innocent civilians?

[rusure5]

What do the deaths of people years ago have to do with this latest round of Israeli war crimes?

Are you suggesting that this somehow gives the Israelis some justification or legitimacy to execute Palestinian children?

It appears that you lack any reasonable explanation for this recent Israeli behavior, so you are digging up old irrelevant claims in an effort to change the subject.

Have you run out of ideas?

[abrame]

Posted by rusure5

Terror Rockets = Blockade

Suicide murderers = The Wall

Terrorist attacks = The Wall

[rusure5]

RE: "I pray for the people who are killed as a consequence of others who are seeking to protect themselves from the very people who have repeated stated that they want to kill them."

Posted by Grandesign


I''m not sure what that means, but if you are feeling badly for these latest Israeli bombing victims, you are not alone.

Just as in Lebanon in 2006, most of the Israeli inflicted casualties will most likely turn out to be civilians.

They always do.

[abrame]

Hamas = Terrorist group

[abrame]

rusure5 = Terrorist Propaganda Machine