GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip, Jan. 9, 2009
Israel, Hamas Defy Calls For Cease-Fire
Fighting Friday Amoung Heaviest In Two-Week Conflict; Death Toll Approximatedly 780
-
Play CBS Video Video Working Towards A Cease-Fire UN diplomats are working through the evening in the hopes of creating a lasting resolution to stop the conflict in Gaza. But as Mark Phillips reports, their efforts have not yet produced results.
-
-
The sky is illuminated by explosions from Israeli military operations over the outskirts of Gaza City as seen from the Israel-Gaza Border, Jan. 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
-
A Palestinian youth uses a sling-shot to hurl a stone from behind a burning tire barricade during clashes with Israeli troops at a protest against Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank village of A-Ram, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Jan. 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)
-
- With the Dome of The Rock Mosque in the background, Israeli riot police line-up during clashes with Palestinians during a protest against Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip, in Jerusalem, Jan. 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Atta Awisat)
-
A Palestinian demonstrator, wearing a mask to protect from the effects of tear gas, throws a tear gas canister back at Israeli forces, not seen, during clashes which erupted following a demonstration against Israel's military operations in Gaza, at the Kalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, Jan. 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
-
Smoke caused by explosions from Israeli military operations hangs in the sky over the outskirts of Gaza City as seen from the Israel-Gaza Border, Jan. 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
-
-
Photos Israel Hammers Gaza Palestinian militants launch rocket attacks, Israel hits back hard.
Stories:
In-Depth:
Video:
- U.S. "Persistent" in Mideast Peace Push
- Clinton: Israel "Needs to do Much More"
- Palestinians: Clinton Hinders Peace Talks
- Palestinian Memo: Obama Hopes "Evaporated"
- Group: Israel Hogging West Bank Water
- Israeli Children Get Fortified Playground
- Clinton: Israeli Actions "Unhelpful"
In-Depth:
Video:
The Israeli prime minister's office said the U.N. action was not practical, and senior Cabinet ministers decided to press on with the offensive. Israel will stop only when it succeeds in ending rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory, the government said.
Quoting from a communiqué by the Israeli government, CBS News correspondent Richard Roth said, "The Israeli defense forces will continue operations in order to defend Israeli citizens and will carry out the mission with which it has been assigned."
"Is it really logical to expect Israel to hold both hands behind our back and do nothing?" Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman told CBS News. "We will act to protect our people."
Hopes that Thursday night's U.N. Security Council resolution would end Gaza's worst fighting in decades were further tempered by dismissive remarks from Hamas, angry that it was not consulted during exhaustive diplomatic efforts at the world body.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called on the Palestinian resistance to continue to fight, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger.
Both sides have rejected the cease fire because neither side has the result it wants from this conflict. Israel is not only demanding the rocket fire stop, but that Hamas be kept from re-arming itself. And Hamas keeps fighting because it wants the Israeli blockade that is strangling Gaza, lifted, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips from the Israel-Gaza border.
Israel launched a heavy air bombardment Dec. 27 in response to intensified rocket fire that has disrupted life in southern Israel. A week later, ground troops moved in, with artillery and tank fire that has contributed to a surge in civilian casualties that continued Friday on Gaza's ruined streets.
Seven members of the Salha family were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their house overnight, militants said. On Friday, crowds in neat rows bowed in prayer in front of their bodies, wrapped in funeral shrouds and flags.
In a hospital in Beit Lahiya, a northern Gaza town that has been particularly hard-hit, doctors treated a young girl whose left arm was torn off at the shoulder. She lay on a stretcher with a terrified expression on her face.
Such scenes have triggered anger throughout the Islamic world and elsewhere. There have been daily protests in the Middle East and in Europe, where there also has been a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
Allegations -- some of them supported by U.N. officials in Gaza -- continue to be made of Israel targeting of civilians, Phillips reports.
One woman told CBS News that 20 members of her family were herded into a house by the Israelis, that her husband was shot and that tank fire badly injured her children. Israel denies these accounts.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it is difficult to protect civilians in a place as densely populated as Gaza.
"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. "So it's hard."
In Geneva, the top U.N. human rights official called for an independent investigation of possible war crimes in Gaza for an incident in which Palestinians said Israeli forces shelled a house, killing 30 people. Israel's military said it was not aware of the specific incident but would not have deliberately targeted the building.
(CBS)
Thirteen Israelis have been killed - four of them by militant rockets, the rest in battle in Gaza.
The Security Council resolution called for an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
While the call was tantamount to a demand on Israel and Hamas to stop fighting, it did not require that Israel's troops withdraw until there was a durable cease-fire. The resolution also urged U.N. member states to intensify efforts to provide guarantees in Gaza to sustain a lasting truce, including prevention of arms smuggling - a key Israeli concern.
A six-month truce unraveled in November, and Israeli officials have said that lull allowed Hamas to bring in more advanced weaponry through hundreds of smuggling tunnels snaking beneath the Gaza border from Egypt's Sinai Desert.
In Israel's first official response to the U.N. resolution, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said more Hamas rockets fired Friday "only prove that the U.N.'s decision is not practical and will not be kept in practice by the Palestinian murder organizations."
Senior Cabinet ministers issued a statement saying the military offensive would continue to protect Israeli citizens.
Hamas also dismissed the resolution, and spokesmen expressed annoyance they were not consulted.
"Nobody consulted Hamas or talked to Hamas. Nobody put Hamas in the picture and yet Hamas is required to accept it. This is unacceptable," Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas official based in Syria, told Al-Arabiya television.
Hamas has said it won't accept any cease-fire deal that does not include the full opening of Gaza's border crossings. The U.N. resolution emphasized the need to open all crossings, which Israel and Egypt have kept sealed since Hamas militants forcibly seized control of the territory 18 months ago.
Israeli leaders oppose that step because it would allow Hamas to strengthen its hold on Gaza.
In Lebanon, Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Al-Arabiya that the group "is not interested in it (the U.N. resolution) because it does not meet the demands of the movement."
Seven Hamas officials crossed into Egypt on Friday through the Gaza border crossing at Rafah, on their way to Cairo for Egyptian-hosted negotiations on a truce with Israel.
The Islamic militant group, which was behind suicide bombings that killed hundreds of Israelis in past years, has been largely shunned by Western powers since coming to political power in 2006 Palestinian elections.
That isolation has only deepened since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 in five days of fighting with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Moderate Arab governments as well as the U.S. and its allies in Europe have supported Abbas' government, which controls only the West Bank.
The division has complicated efforts to advance peace efforts and reach a cease-fire in the latest fighting.
Despite the cool reception to the Security Council vote, the foreign ministers of Germany and Spain planned to visit the region to promote the U.N. resolution.
Israeli military operations showed no signs of abating Friday, despite a three-hour lull in fighting that has been instituted for three days running to allow aid to reach Gaza's distressed people.
The Israelis say that they will continue to fight, but they have not yet decided whether to move to a threatened third phase of their action and push into the urban areas of Gaza, an action virtually guaranteed to raise the death toll on both sides, Phillips reports.
(AP Photo/Ola Al-Rifai)
Two Israeli missiles clipped the roof of a building housing the offices of Iran's English-language Press TV and a sister Arabic-language network, slightly injuring one person, the channel's correspondent, Ashraf Shannon, said. The military said it had no knowledge of any attacks in that area.
Heavy clashes were reported northeast of Gaza City as Israeli soldiers advanced under the cover of Apache helicopters firing machine guns.
Fares Alwan, 49, said he was eating with his family when their house came under fire.
"I took my kids and wife and started running away for cover," Alwan said. "We saw wounded people in the street while we were running."
Later Friday, some residents received recorded phone messages said to be from Israel's military warning of a planned escalation. A military spokesman said he had no knowledge of the calls.
Hamas rockets hit in and around two of the largest southern cities in Israel, Beersheba and Ashkelon, but no casualties were reported.
In Gaza's rubble-strewn streets, there was concern of a worsening humanitarian situation on the second day of a U.N. suspension of aid deliveries and the Red Cross restricted its medical operations to Gaza City, where it has a team assisting surgeons at the main Shifa hospital.
The decisions by the two organizations came after they said Israeli fire killed two contractors delivering aid for the U.N. and injured the driver of a Red Cross truck in separate incidents Thursday.
With just over half the territory's population of 1.4 million relying on the U.N. for food, U.N. officials said Friday that they planned to resume aid operations "as soon as practical," based on Israeli assurances that aid workers would be better protected.
Gaza's people have become increasingly desperate for food, water, fuel and medical assistance. One million people are without electricity and 750,000 are without running water, according to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency.
In related news:
The Guardian report says Obama's likely Mideast-envoy-to-be, Richard Haass, is in favor of creating a dialogue with the group.
"This is going to be an administration that is committed to negotiating with critical parties on critical issues," another source with knowledge of recent discussions among Obama's foreign policy team told the newspaper.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report released Thursday added details to an incident previously reported by The Associated Press and an Israeli human rights group.
The Israeli military had no comment on the report Friday.
There were 110 people in the house when it was shelled, the agency said. The 30 people reported killed is a far higher figure than in other accounts.
The U.N. agency said a Red Cross medical team was blocked from reaching the area until three days later. Rescuers were allowed in on foot, without ambulances.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says the harm to civilians in Israel caused by Hamas rockets is unacceptable. But she says Israel must abide by international humanitarian law regardless of Hamas' actions.
Pillay says both parties must care for the wounded and avoid targeting health workers, hospitals and ambulances.
In France, a juvenile court judge filed preliminary charges against four French teenagers accused of attacking a Jewish girl, a judicial official said Friday, amid tensions around Europe over the fighting in Gaza.
Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is headed to the Middle East on Friday in support of international attempts to reach a lasting cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza.
And in Malaysia, some 3,000 mostly Muslim protesters burned Israeli flags and effigies of U.S. President George W. Bush in demonstration against Israel's invasion of Gaza.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 542 Comments
- Wanton disregard for the rights and safety of civilians. The world will, of course, ignore this. "Muslim separatists burn Christian homes in Philippines," from Radio Australia News, January 8.
Muslim separatists have torched the houses of 30 Christian families in an attack on a southern Philippines village.
"Dr. Khan, a fervent nationalist, has said, ''All Western countries,'' he was once quoted as saying, ''are not only the enemies of Pakistan but in fact of Islam.'' - Reply to this comment
- Oh come on n8yvn29, do you mean to tell me that the people here who can see that Israel should be able to protect themselves are actually paid and sponsored by Israel''''s secret service? You have to be joking..
I am an Australian and am lucky enough to get more news than you do in America, simply because we are a smaller country with less news of our own so we have to have outside news, and we have been watching the rockets being fired into Israel for years and wondered how long Israel would keep taking it before they retaliated.
Israel gave the GAza to Palastine for peace which didnt happen, they even left the green houses behind costing Israel 14 million when they could have taken them into israel for themselves and what did the Palastines do to all this food and employment that they would have had, they leveled it to the ground, yep 14 million dollars worth.. sure sounds like this tiny little country which is surrounded by millions of Muslims is the problem eh... - Reply to this comment
- patriot9, you have your history a little mixed up. You say that Israel should have been established in Germany, since it was there that Hitler killed six million Jews.
Posted by one4gipper
***
Actually, the vast majority of Jews killed during the Holocaust were killed in Poland. - Reply to this comment
- A question for all who think that Israel is the villain here: Just what, in your mind, would be a legitimate response from Israel to rockets being fired across its border into its territory, killing its citizens?
- Reply to this comment
- Why should Hamas heed the UN call for a cease fire. That would stop their ability to profit from weapons, drugs, alcohol and prostitution running. The tunnels are not used to move food and medicine. They are for illegal black market goods that Hamas gets their cut of the profits. That money goes into offshore accounts just like Yassir Arafat and his henchmen did. Needless to say, Hamas will never keep a peace because there is no profit in peace. The suffering of the Palestinians is directly related to the corruption of the Hamas leadership. The warmongers don''t know how to work legally for a living.
- Reply to this comment
- n8yvn29, define "RIGHTFULLY AND HISTORICALLY." The fact is that Palentine was occupied by the British in WWI because the Islamic Caliphate joined the Second Reich in against Britain, France, Russia and, later, the United States. There was no grievance on the part of the Ottomans against Britain or France. Their Empire was crumbling and it was a war of pure expansionism. The Ottomans were trying to regain land that they had lost to the Russians in the prior century. It was the British that allowed Jewish immigration into the land of the vanquished Muslims. However, the Muslims brought the event upon themselves. One may argue that Britain should not have allowed European Jews into Palestine. But the fact is that they did and the UN sanctioned the creation of Israel three decades later.
- Reply to this comment
- I just wonder how many of the posts on this blog are paid and sponsored by Israel''s secret service? It''s obvious the Israelis have a lot to lose (obscene amounts of hard-earned American tax dollars) should American public opinion turn against them for their butchery of women and children. Just when will the Palestinian side get a fair shake in the media %u2013 especially since they are fighting for land which is RIGHTFULLY AND HISTORICALLY THEIRS!
- Reply to this comment
- Salah-el-din, yes, and the video of the Hamas gunmen shooting the wedding guests for singing and playing music -- that was all staged so the the world would believe that Hamas is a barbaric, murdering organization. It is a Muslim maxim that war is deceit, not a western maxim. Throwing acid in the faces of shool girls did not happen. The honor killings of two teenage Muslim girls in Texas for dating Kaffr was planted in the press to disparage Islam. It is all a big lie. Islam really is a peaceful religion that does not behead journalists on video and publish the gruesome event on the internet. No bombs were really set off in the subways of Madrid or the streets of Bali. And, the World Trade Center has been camouflaged so that we cannot see it anymore. Here is my advice to you. Get your Haj in now before Mecca is turned into a sea of glass, because the event is inevitable.
- Reply to this comment
- patriot9, you have your history a little mixed up. You say that Israel should have been established in Germany, since it was there that Hitler killed six million Jews. First, at certainly not most important, is that one division of Hitler''s Waffen SS were Muslims provided by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. They were complicit in the killing of Jews.
However, more important is the fact that Jewish immigration into Palestine was sanctioned by the British, beginning with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It was WWI and not WWII that planted the seed for the Zionist state. Note also that the Ottoman army was made up of two-thirds Turks and one-third Arabs and others from the Ottoman Empire, including Palestinians. The icing on the cake is that in 1915 the Ottomans massacred up to 1.5 million non-Muslim Armenians, including Christians and Jews, in cold blood. - Reply to this comment
The Pope never said that a concentration camp is a bad thing for the Palies. - azirine
ARE YOU REALLY THAT STUPID? I BET YOU VOTED FOR BUSH - TWICE!- Reply to this comment
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
