U.N. Halts Aid To Gaza After Worker Killed

U.N. Says Israeli Gunfire Killed Truck Driver; Red Cross Decries "Unacceptable" Delays

(CBS/AP)  The U.N. halted deliveries to the Gaza Strip on Thursday after gunfire from an Israeli tank killed an aid truck driver, and the international Red Cross said it would restrict activities after one of its drivers was injured in a similar incident.

The threat of a wider conflict arose when militants in Lebanon fired two rockets into northern Israel. One rocket crashed into a retirement home, but there were no serious injuries. Israel responded with mortar shells.

During a three-hour pause in the fighting to allow in food and fuel and let medics collect the dead, nearly three dozen bodies were found beneath the rubble of bombed out buildings in Gaza City.

Many of the dead were in the same neighborhood where the international Red Cross said rescue workers discovered young children too weak to stand who had stayed by their dead mothers.

Relations between Israel and humanitarian organizations have grown increasingly tense as civilian casualties have mounted.

The United Nations demanded an investigation after Israel earlier this week fired shells at a target next to a U.N. school filled with Gazans seeking refuge from fighting that has left nearly 750 Palestinians dead, according to Palestinian hospital officials and human rights workers. Israel said militants had launched an attack from the area, and then ran into a crowd of civilians for cover. Nearly 40 Palestinians died.

"We've been coordinating with them (Israeli forces) and yet our staff continue to be hit and killed," said a U.N. spokesman, Chris Gunness, announcing the suspension. The U.N. is the largest aid provider in Gaza.

Israeli police, meanwhile, said militants in the Gaza Strip fired 24 rockets into Israel on Thursday, injuring four people, one of them seriously. Militants fired larger numbers of rockets in the early days of the conflict.

The Israeli military said one soldier attached to a tank battalion was killed by gunfire in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

Twelve Israelis, including nine soldiers, have died since the Dec. 27 beginning of the offensive against the Hamas militants in charge of Gaza, meant to halt years of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel. But with roughly half the Palestinian dead believed to be civilians, international efforts to broker a cease-fire have been gaining steam.

Israeli envoys traveled to Egypt on Thursday to discuss the proposal being brokered by France and Egypt and now backed by the U.S.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said any time lost will play into the hands of those who want war.

"The weapons must go quiet, the escalation must stop, Israel must obtain security guarantees and leave Gaza," he said in Paris.

The U.N. provides food aid to around 750,000 Gaza residents - about half of Gaza's population - and runs dozens of schools and clinics throughout the territory. They have some 9,000 locally employed staffers inside Gaza, and a small team of international staffers who work there.

Elena Mancusi Materi, UNRWA's spokeswoman in Geneva, said the suspension concerned all truck movement in Gaza.

"If someone comes to one of our food distribution centers, we will give that person food," she said. "If people come to our clinics with injuries, we will treat them."

For a second straight day, Israel suspended its Gaza military operation for three hours to allow in humanitarian supplies. Shortly before the pause took effect, however, the U.N. said one of its aid trucks came under fire from a gunner on an Israeli tank, killing the driver.

U.N. spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said the U.N. coordinated the delivery with Israel, and the vehicle was marked with a U.N. flag and insignia when it was shot in northern Gaza. The Israeli army said it was investigating.

In Geneva, the international Red Cross said it would restrict its aid operations to Gaza City for at least one day after one of its convoys came under Israeli fire at the Netzarim crossing during the three-hour lull in fighting Thursday. One driver was lightly injured.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry said 35 bodies were discovered Thursday during the three-hour pause in fighting in several areas around Gaza City that have seen fierce fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants.

He said it was unclear how many militants were killed because the remains were in poor condition, but that women and children were among the dead. Hassanain said 746 Palestinians have died in Israel's 13-day offensive.

Many of the dead found Thursday were in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood, where the international Red Cross said it found four small children alive next to their mothers' bodies in the rubble of a home hit by Israeli shelling. The neutral aid group says a total of 15 dead were recovered from two houses in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday.

A Red Cross spokesman says rescuers had been refused permission by Israeli forces to reach the site for four days. It said the delay in allowing rescue services access was "unacceptable."

The Red Cross statement was a rare public criticism from the aid group, which normally conducts confidential negotiations with warring parties.

The Israeli military said in a statement that Hamas militants used Palestinian civilians as human shields, and that Israeli forces work closely with international aid groups to help civilians during the fighting in Gaza.

In other Gaza violence, Israel killed at least 12 people, including the U.N. driver and three people who were fleeing their homes, according to Palestinian medical officials.

For Israel to accept a proposed cease-fire deal, "there has to be a total and complete cessation of all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, and ... we have to see an arms embargo on Hamas that will receive international support," said government spokesman Mark Regev.

But Hamas has rejected the peace deal, saying the absence of an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza would be "risky for the Palestinian resistance," reports CBS News' George Baghdadi from Damascus.

The Palestinian Authority controls the West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza - two territories on opposite sides of Israel that are supposed to make up a future Palestinian state. Hamas took control of Gaza from forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007.

[jsd330]

So now the idf is killing unarmed UN aid workers. I can hear israels excuse for this one, it was an accident, just like the USS Liberty.

[rusure5]

R: "So now the idf is killing unarmed UN aid workers."

Posted by jsd330

Many of US will also recall that the Israelis targeted and killed 4 civilian UN observers in Lebanon, in 2006.

[jediservant]

Part 3

It is stunning to realize that more than three years since we pulled out of the Gaza Strip, evacuated our soldiers, and erased any sign of the small Jewish settlements there, we are still regarded as the aggressive occupiers! For three years the people of Gaza have been left to rule themselves, rebuild their city, and create better lives with no interference. In this time, the world community has poured millions of dollars and Euros into Gaza to establish services like education, health, welfare, commerce, and industry. This great three year opportunity has been wasted, for nothing has been accomplished except producing weapons, smuggling arms, training militants, and, most of all, shooting thousands of missiles at us. Did the international community ever demand that these terrorists stop? Did it ever demand a report of what has been done with the millions contributed to Gaza? No! When hypocrisy is the name of the game, this is what results.
I can understand the average person being unaware of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza three years ago and of the fact that there is no justification to fire missiles at us. But for state leaders worldwide to fail to understand that it is time to stand strong against terror is nothing but stupidity and a clear expression of their weakness. They are inviting terrorism to their own countries, because if there is one thing that terrorism is capable of identifying, it is weakness in the leadership of its victims.

[factsearcher]

Do you all recall UN and the world be stunned when US -in more than 6 occassions- have killed civilians when at was..in Iraq, Kuwait, Vietnam...

[riotgrrl-2009]

When the insane Israelis stop being supported by the likes of AIPAC''s jediservant (who conveniently ignores the 300K+ settlers Israel has illegally planted in the West Bank as well as its status as the leading ROGUE nuclear nation of the world) and the whack religous right - and the elites of Tel Aviv stop sitting in cafes while their government rots - then, and only then, will there be peace - the US is ALONE in its blind support of the madmen.