In Gaza, A Race Between War And Diplomacy

200 Civilians, 20 Children Reported Dead From Israeli Assault As Diplomats Push For Cease-Fire

(CBS/AP)  Israel's expanding ground and air offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers took a heavy civilian toll Monday, including three young brothers reported killed by a crashing shell and wounded who filled hospital corridors.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic wheels have begun to creak into action, but they're not making much headway, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. Diplomats and European leaders raced around the region in search of a cease-fire, but with Palestinian rocket fire continuing, Israel said it won't stop its crippling 10-day assault until "peace and tranquility" are achieved in southern Israeli towns in the line of fire.

The operation's ground phase, which began Saturday with a withering round of artillery fire, was going according to plan, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu told Israeli TV. Israeli forces were sweeping through Palestinian rocket launching locations near the border and the militants were suffering many casualties, he said.

In an interview at the Israel-Gaza border, Israeli military analyst Alon Ben-David told Phillips that the objectives of the operation include a sustainable cease-fire, thwarting smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, and "involvement of the Palestinian authorities in the Rafah crossing."

However, Ben-David cautioned that "we are not close" to the political goals.

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World Watch Blog: Israel "Not Close" To Achieving Objectives, Analyst Says

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No militant casualties were seen Monday by an Associated Press reporter at Shifa Hospital, the Gaza Strip's largest. Instead, the hospital was overwhelmed with civilians. Bodies were two to a morgue drawer, and the wounded were being treated in hallways because beds were full.

Gaza health officials reported more than 550 Palestinian dead and about 2,500 wounded since Israel began the campaign 10 days ago, including 200 civilians. U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told reporters in New York on Monday that U.N. officials believe at least 500 people have been killed in the fighting and that as many as 25 percent are civilians.

At least 20 Palestinian children were killed during the day, said Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a health official. Most confirmed deaths have been civilians.

The three young brothers from the Samouni family died in an attack on a town outside Gaza City, a Gaza health official said.

The voices from within Gaza have become more desperate, reports Phillips.

"We don't have enough food, we don't have enough water," said freelance journalist Sameh Habeeb as bombs rained down near him.

Five Israelis have been killed during the offensive, including a soldier in the ground operation. Heavy Israeli casualties could undermine what has so far been overwhelming public support for the operation.

The three brothers, reportedly killed in an artillery strike Monday, were carried to a cemetery in an emotional funeral. One of them, Issa Samouni, 3, was wrapped in a white cloth, showing only his pale, yellow face. A man delicately placed him in a dark grave cut into the earth.

In one of the first major gunbattles of the ground campaign, Israeli troops and Hamas militants clashed at close quarters on the outskirts of the crowded Gaza City neighborhood of Shajaiyeh, Israeli defense officials said.

Troops seized control of three six-story buildings on the outskirts, climbing to rooftop gun and observation positions. Residents were locked in their rooms and soldiers took away their cell phones, a neighbor said, quoting a relative who called before his phone was seized.

"The army is there, firing in all directions," said Mohammed Salmai, a 29-year-old truck driver. "All we can do is take clothes to each other to keep ourselves warm and pray to God that if we die, someone will find our bodies under the rubble."

Fighter jets attacked houses, weapons storage sites, a pair of mosques and smuggling tunnels, as they have since the start of the offensive Dec. 27. Israel has attacked several mosques during the campaign, saying they were used to store weapons.

In another strategic move, Israeli forces seized a main highway in Gaza, slicing the territory in two.

Details also emerged of an attempt by Hamas fighters to capture Israeli soldiers hours after the ground operation began. As infantrymen advanced up a strategic hill before dawn Sunday, militants emerged from a tunnel and tried to drag two Israeli infantrymen inside, according to Israeli defense officials.

The Israelis fought off the attempt, but one soldier was killed in an ensuing firefight. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident had not been made public.

Hamas already holds one Israeli soldier, captured in June 2006, and another would be an important bargaining chip.

Israeli forces detained 80 Palestinians - some of them suspected Hamas members - and transferred several to Israel for questioning, said military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information.

The Gaza City area was rocked by shelling from both sides as gunboats in the sea and artillery and tanks closing in from the east unloaded thunderous fire.

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Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert is working alongside Palestinian surgeons in Gaza's largest hospital, in Shifa. In a telephone interview yesterday, he recounted the harrowing conditions and said anyone trying to depict this as a "clean war," was simply "a liar". Click here to hear Gilbert's account.

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After dark, the shelling reached deeper into residential areas. Fireballs lit up the horizon to the east, setting off blazes on the ground and silhouetting Gaza's tall buildings. Tracer fire ripped across the skyline.

The State Department said the U.S. was pressing for a cease-fire that would include a halt to rocket attacks and an arrangement for reopening crossing points on the border with Israel, said spokesman Sean McCormack. A third element would address the tunnels into Gaza from Egypt through which Hamas has smuggled materials and arms.

President George W. Bush emphasized "Israel's desire to protect itself."

"The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas," he said.

The deputy head of Hamas' politburo in Syria, Moussa Abu Marzouk, rejected the U.S. proposal, telling the AP the U.S. plan seeks to impose "a de facto situation" and encourages Israel to continue its attacks on Gaza.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who unsuccessfully proposed a two-day truce last week, met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost control of Gaza to Hamas in June 2007.

Europe "wants a cease-fire as quickly as possible," Sarkozy said after meeting Abbas, urging Israel to halt the offensive, while blaming Hamas for acting "irresponsibly and unpardonably."

A European Union delegation met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

"The EU insists on a cease-fire at the earliest possible moment," said Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which took over the EU's presidency last week from France. Rocket attacks on Israel also must stop, Schwarzenberg told a news conference with Livni.

The EU brought no truce proposals of its own because the cease-fire "must be concluded by the involved parties," he added.

The new Arab proposal at the U.N., which is still being formulated, calls for a cease-fire, an immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops, the opening of crossing points, monitoring mechanisms and a U.N. international peacekeeping force to be created for Gaza to protect the civilian population - but no mention was made about rocket attacks against Israel, reports CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.

As the bruising campaign ended its 10th day, Hamas pummeled southern Israel with more than 30 rockets and promised to wait for Israeli soldiers "in every street and every alleyway."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the offensive would go on until Israel achieved "peace and tranquility" for residents of southern Israel.

One of the rockets struck a large outdoor market that was closed at the time in the town of Sderot, just across Gaza's northeastern border. Another hit a kindergarten in the coastal city of Ashdod, north of the strip. The kindergarten, like schools across southern Israel, was closed and empty because of the rocket threat.

Israel has three main demands: an end to Palestinian attacks, international supervision of any truce, and a halt to Hamas rearming. Hamas demands an end to Israeli attacks and the opening of border crossings to vital cargo.

Livni said the operation was designed to change the rules of Israel's struggle against Hamas after years of firing rockets at Israel. From now on, she said, "when Israel is targeted, Israel is going to retaliate."

Israeli military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich said Hamas was to blame for civilian casualties because it operates in densely populated areas.

"If Hamas chose cynically to use those civilians as human shields, then Hamas should be accountable," she said.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar exhorted Palestinians to fight the Israeli forces and target Israeli civilians and Jews abroad.

"The Zionists have legitimized the killing of their children by killing our children. They have legitimized the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people," Zahar said in a grainy video broadcast on Hamas TV.

Israel's operation has sparked anger across the Arab world and has drawn criticism from countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, which have ties with Israel and have been intimately involved in Mideast peacemaking.

In Beirut, Lebanon, protesters tried to pull away barbed wire blocking their path to the U.S. Embassy. They were driven back with heavy blasts of water.

[letsbgood]

MORE PRESENT FACTS (really important)
11. Hamas took control with power (executed their own people) and corrupted elections
12. Hamas is attacking Israel before and after they took control
13. Israel never aimed at civilians (some unfortunate individuals past incidents)
14. Arab countries killed the Palestinians in their territories when tried to raise their voices
15. After 8 years of getting attacked by Hamas rockets, Israel decided to protect their civilians
16. Hamas is using the Palestinian civilians as a human shield to protect themselves
17. Hamas is using the Palestinian civilians to create hate when civilians killed by Israel
18. Israel is bombing locations where Hamas fired rockets from
19. Israel is sorry when civilians are getting killed but has the right to protect it''s own civilians
20: Hamas is only one of many Islamic groups around the world, who believes in this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3369102968312745410

[letsbgood]

SOME PRESENT FACTS (really important)
1. Israel is the only democracy in the middle east
2. Israel is now a fact so only a peace agreement can work
3. Palestinian territories where occupied while defending from surrounded Arab countries
4. No Arab county wants the territories as part of them
5. most Arab countries slaughtered the Palestinians in their territories
6. The Palestinian situation is an excuse for Arab countries to divert hate toward Israel
7. Israel had many attempts for peace but was the only one who really wants it
8. Israel dealt with terrorists (Arafat) when showed some willing to negotiate
9. Palestinians never hide the face that a peace will be the 1st step to occupy all Israel
10. Hamas is a terror organization supported by Iran to harm Israel

[letsbgood]

SOME PAST FACTS (really important)

1. Jewish always lived in Israel that once was their kingdom
2. Jewish where expelled from Israel but some where always there
3. Jewish temples where destroyed and mosques where build on top of it
4. Jewish did not steal Israel from the Palestinian
5. Jewish are back to Israel and rebuild it
6. Jewish are as greedy, nice, good, bad as any other group
7. Due to be hunted, Jewish EDUCATION was a surviving tool
8. Due to EDUCATION Jewish known to be smarter (higher positions) and richer (not greedier...)
9. When economy is bad people tend to blame the powerful and rich groups
10. Racist and anti-semi used depressions to grow hate about Jewish people

[jsmithcsa]

Israel should DESTROY Hamas.

[gaye5]

mitch6544, I would have to disagree with you there, if people followed what is written in their religious books instead of folling greed and hate, there would not be any wars.. the new Testament, Budda, Hundi, etc (except Islam) all teach to live in peace, not to kill, to love others no matter who they are or what they believe, etc..
It is man who has destroyed all this and had the cheek to add religion to it..

[gaye5]

wvu7462, you are dead right, they condem Israel when it is the Muslims who put their rockets in Schools, Mosques, etc and no one condems them, so wvu7462 does that mean that those who will not condem that are jsut as sick???
Israel has bunkers where their people can go when they are being shelled, so why dont the Muslims protect their own like this instead of making sure that Israel will target children...

[gaye5]

rusure5, Did you know that Hamas operatives are in the hospital and have disguised themselves as nurses and doctors.

War is deceit, kuffar Human Shields Update: "OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet that Hamas was using mosques, public institutions and private homes as ammunition stores." "IDF battling Hamas terrorists in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun,"
So what else do you expect when Israel sees on it''s radars that rockets are coming from an area and they target that of course if it is in a house people including children are going to die. How disgusting that Palestine doesn''t have shelters that people can hide like Israel do, or do they want their own killed so as it looks bad in the eyes of the world???.. Well, why else would they put their rockets in schools, homes, mosques etc.. or the only other reason could be that they are not very intelligent eh..

[gaye5]

drmaqazi, in all my reading I have never come across anything like the Ten commandments in the Muslim books, and yes in the first quarter of the Quran there are many wonderful verses on tolerance, love, peace etc in the first quarter anyway but once their numbers were large enough to become a force and allah changed his mind and they became a force.

IF you really know their holy books you will see how Mohammad himself went on many raids of other villages and sent his merry men on other raids, and yes they were not to kill the innocent, but non muslims are not counted as the innocent in the muslim holy books. The Muslims are commanded to wage an everlasting war against the unbelievers and are assured victory in the struggle..

[gaye5]

rusure5, of course some children were killed, the Palestinians placed their rocket stations in schools and Mosques where there are people and children, where as the Jews make shelters for their population to hide in when there is a rocket launch from Hamas.. it is the way of Islam..

[armywiferant]

Does anyone at CBS have the ability to access google? Here is some interesting information on your dear Mad Doctor: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=35&x_article=1580

[rusure5]

From a related CBS article-

"Four young siblings were killed in a missile strike on a house east of Gaza City. Three other children died in a naval shelling of a Gaza City beach camp and three adult civilians died when a missile struck near a house of mourning...Three other adult civilians died in attacks elsewhere."

"At least 10 Palestinian children were killed in the attacks..."

"The vast majority of confirmed deaths have been civilians..."


Killing civilians and then blaming the victims.

It is the way of the Zionists.

[armywiferant]

Does anyone at CBS have the ability to access google? Here is some interesting information on your dear Mad Doctor: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=35&x_article=1580

[mitch5511]

As long as the people on both sides allow "religion" to dictate how they must live, there will be no peace in the region.

Time for the US to take a neutral stance in this equation. As long as the US is viewed as Israel''s partner, nothing positive will ever happen.

[jamesblame]

ROMAN CATHOLIC POPES AND THE JEWS

SYLVESTER I. Condemned Jewish anti-Christian activity.

GREGORY I (''The Great''). Protested wholesale circumcision of Christian slaves by Jewish traders, who monopolized the slave trade in Europe and the Middle East and were widely suspected of supplying white girls to Oriental and African buyers.

GREGORY VIII. Forbade Jews to have power over Christians, in a letter to Alfonso VI of Castile.

GREGORY IX. Condemned the TALMUD as containing "every kind of vileness and blasphemy against Christian doctrine."

BENEDICT XIII. His Bull on the Jewish issue (1450) declared: "The heresies, vanities and errors of the TALMUD prevent their knowing the truth."

JULIUS III. Contra Hebreos retinentes libros (1554) ordered the TALMUD burned "everywhere" and established a strict censorship over Jewish genocidal writings - an order that has never been rescinded and which presumably is still binding upon Catholics.

PAUL IV. *** nimis absurdim (1555) promulgated immediately after his coronation, was a powerful condemnation of Jewish usury. It embodies a model legal code to curb Jewish power that was recommended to all communities.

PIUS IV. Condemned Jewish genocidal writings.

PIUS V. Hebraeorum gens (1569) expelled all Jews from the Papal States.

GREGORY XIII. Declared that Jews: "continue to plot horrible crimes" against Christians "with daily increasing audacity."

CLEMENT VIII. Condemned Jewish genocidal writings

[grandesign]

"The new Arab proposal at the U.N., which is still being formulated, calls for a cease-fire, an immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops, the opening of crossing points, monitoring mechanisms and a U.N. international peacekeeping force to be created for Gaza to protect the civilian population - but no mention was made about rocket attacks against Israel."

Then let''s make it part of the UN directive, that if after Israel abides by all these provisions, that if Hamas fires another rocket, even one more--then the UN will issue a warrant for Hamas leaders'' arrest and prosectue them for crimes against humanity.

Put some teeth into the mandate that the Arab will agree to, in that Hamas will be held responsbile for commiting terrorist acts. The government is representative of their people, they are ultimately responsible for the women and children''s deaths in this war, if they will not seek peace.

[hackerpc]

"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines" (Matthew 24:7)

[hackerpc]

And if by then there''''s no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Hamas homemade rockets will rain down on Israel again. Posted by goodsamarata we will come back with BIGGER BOMBS watch your head

[gaye5]

Truthin2009, it is not just Jews that are to be destroyed.. here is a few verses from the books of the man that they worship and follow today..

Ishaq:327 %u201CAllah said, %u2018A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land.

Qur%u2019an 8:39 %u201CFight them until all opposition ends and ALL submit to Allah.%u201D

Qur%u2019an 8:39 %u201CSo fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and ALL submit to the religion of Allah ALONE (in the WHOLE world).%u201D

Ishaq:324 %u201CHe said, %u2018Fight them so that there is no more rebellion, and religion, ALL OF IT, is for Allah ONLY. Allah must have no rivals.%u2019%u201D

Muslim:C9B1N31 %u201CI have been commanded to fight against people till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah,

Qur%u2019an 8:7 %u201CAllah wished to confirm the truth by His words: %u2018Wipe the infidels out to the last.%u2019%u201D

And yes many terrible things have been done in the name of Religion..but Islam is the only religious book which tells them to slaughter all who will not submit in the WHOLE world. You can check these verses out yourselves..

[plutoboy]

Keep USA tax dollars out of Israel. The region has become the ''heart of darkness'' and is leading our great country (USA) into a massive quagmire. Our support of Israel does not align with our national interests, for it is generating terrorists, not eliminating them.

[xalox-2009]

Poor Gaza,being used as a sheild for Hamas.Its a sad story.But why do the United States have to be"The Police of the World."We have our own problems to worry about.Our troops are spread out everywhere but in the United States.We are in debt.Our economy is near a recession.And have a high unemployment rate.