Israeli Troops Advance On Gaza City

Militants Say They Are "Closer To Victory" As Israel Pushes Deeper Into Gaza With More Firepower

(CBS/AP)  Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stood within Hamas rocket range Monday and warned Islamic militants that they face an "iron fist" unless they agree to Israeli terms for an end to war in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas showed no signs of wavering, however, with its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, saying the militants were "closer to victory."

Despite the tough words, Egypt said it was making slow progress in brokering a truce, and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair said elements were in place for a cease-fire.

As Olmert spoke in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, Israeli tanks, gunboats and warplanes hammered suspected hiding places of Hamas operatives who control the poor, densely populated territory just across the border.

After nightfall, flares and explosions lit up the sky over Gaza and heavy gunfire was heard in parts of the coastal territory of 1.4 million people.

There was some disagreement in the Israeli war cabinet on whether to push further into Gaza's urban areas and cause more civilian casualties, or declare victory and stop, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.

Either way, Israel's Foreign Minister told CBS News that Israeli troops may be forced to stay in Gaza for some time.

"We hope to find a way to live in peace and protect our citizens without re-occupying Gaza, but at the end of the day, in the Middle East the choice is between bad options," Tzipi Livni told Phillips.

Hamas fighters battled Israeli troops on the outskirts of Gaza City and launched 15 rockets at southern Israel.

Fighting picked up early Tuesday, as Israeli forces, backed by artillery and naval shelling, advanced closer to Gaza City from the south, witnesses said.

Khader Mussa, 35, a resident of the area under attack, told The Associated Press by telephone that he saw two apartment buildings on fire. He said he was huddling in the basement of his building with 25 other people, including his pregnant wife and his parents. "The gates of hell have opened," he said. "God help us."

Gaza's Hamas prime minister insisted on an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of blockaded border crossings as part of any truce.

"As we are in the middle of this crisis, we tell our people we, God willing, are closer to victory. All the blood that is being shed will not go to waste," Haniyeh said on Hamas' Al Aqsa television. But he said the group was also pursuing a diplomatic track to end the conflict that "will not close."

Haniyeh sat a desk in a room with a Palestinian flag and a Quran in the background. His location was unclear; Israeli airstrikes have targeted militant chiefs, and most are in hiding.

The Israelis say that they have intelligence from within Gaza that the Hamas leadership there - unlike the brave talking leadership in exile in Syria - is beginning to crack, reports Phillips. And so they are determined to pile on the pressure until it does.

The fighting began Dec. 27 and has killed more than 900 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian medical officials. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have been killed.

As diplomats struggled for traction in truce efforts, Olmert said Israel would only end military operations if Hamas stops rocketing Israel, as it has done for years, and is unable to rearm after combat subsides.

"Anything else will be met with the Israeli people's iron fist," Olmert said. "We will continue to strike with full strength, with full force until there is quiet and rearmament stops."

A few hours before Olmert spoke, a rocket hit a house in Ashkelon but caused no casualties. Olmert addressed regional mayors in the relative safety of the basement of a public building during his two-hour visit; he has toured other towns hit by rockets since the war began.

Later, he tempered his tough talk, saying: "I really hope that the efforts we are making with the Egyptians these days will ripen to a result that will enable us to end the fighting."

Ashkelon is 10 miles from the border with Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas has Iranian-supplied rockets that can reach 25 miles into southern Israel.

Inside Gaza, an Israeli battalion commander identified only as Lt. Col. Yehuda said troops had not met significant resistance and had found several houses booby-trapped either with regular explosives, or by sealing the windows and doors and opening cooking gas valves.

"A couple of days ago, an armed squad popped up from a tunnel that was concealed by a nearby building. We took them out with tank fire and a bulldozer," he said.

In another incident, the commander said, his men spotted a suicide bomber on a bicycle.

"He ran off to take cover in a building, presumably to draw us in," Yehuda said. "We demolished the building on top of him with a bulldozer."

Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg said troops were "tightening the encirclement" of Gaza City and were "constantly on the move."

The comments by Yehuda and Eisenberg were approved by Israeli military censors. They spoke to a small group of reporters who accompanied Israeli units inside Gaza. Israeli forces have not allowed journalists to enter Gaza to cover the war.

Israeli warplanes pounded suspected Hamas positions in Gaza City, and navy gunboats fired at least 25 shells. Smoke billowed over buildings.

At least 20 Palestinians died Monday, some of them from wounds suffered on previous days, Gaza health officials said.

A girl, a doctor and a Hamas militant were killed in the northern Gaza Strip, said Basim Abu Wardeh, head of Kamal Adwan hospital.

The doctor rushed to evacuate the wounded from a building where two airstrikes had taken place and was killed by a third, Abu Wardeh said. Four other medics were injured, one critically.

The Israeli military said four soldiers were injured, one seriously, in what an initial inquiry concluded was a "friendly fire" incident in northern Gaza.

Israel has sent reserve units into Gaza to help thousands of ground forces already in the territory, and fighting has persisted despite a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire. Egypt has assumed a role as mediator between Israel and Hamas.

Talks "are progressing slowly but surely because each party wants to score some points," Hossam Zaki, the spokesman for Egypt's Foreign Ministry, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "We would like to be able to bridge some gaps and then proceed immediately to a cease-fire."

Zaki, however, said Egypt could not provide certain guarantees that Israelis seek, such as a halt to rocket fire.

"We'll enhance our efforts, but this is not an issue between Israel and Egypt," Zaki told the BBC. "It is an issue between Israel and Gaza, and this is something that will have to be worked out, as the (U.N.) Security Council says, in Gaza."

Much of the diplomacy focuses on an area of southern Gaza just across the Egyptian border known as the Philadelphi corridor that serves as a weapons smuggling route, making Egypt critical to both sides in any deal. The name of the corridor is an Israel military label.

Israel wants those routes sealed and monitored as part of any peace deal, and has been bombing tunnels that run under that border.

"I think the elements of an agreement for the immediate cease-fire are there," Blair said in Cairo. He added that, while more work needed to be done, he hoped to see a cease-fire "in the coming days."

Israeli Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad planned to travel Tuesday to Egypt for talks.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said European military observers should be sent to Gaza to monitor any eventual cease-fire.

Israel's chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, said the fighting was "difficult and complex" and that Hamas militants were setting boobytraps and firing missiles from the rooftops of civilian homes.

"There is a whole city built underground in Gaza. Lots of big weapons warehouses," Benayahu said. Soldiers also uncovered a tunnel dug inside Gaza that led 300 yards into Israel, he said.

In Monday's fighting, the army said it carried out more than 25 airstrikes, hitting squads of gunmen, mortar launchers and two vehicles carrying Hamas militants.

It said ground troops came under fire from militants in a mosque. An Israeli aircraft attacked the squad, and Israeli troops then took over the mosque, confiscating rockets and mortar shells.

With Israeli troops surrounding Gaza's main population centers, Israeli leaders have said the operation is close to achieving its goals. Security officials say they have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including top commanders, but there has been no way to confirm the claims.

Aid agencies said they have resumed relief operations in Gaza, but fighting still prevents them from evacuating the sickest people and reaching all those who need help.

The international Red Cross said it brought in seven truckloads of medical supplies and would distribute them to hospitals overwhelmed by the influx of patients.

International aid groups, however, say Israel is not doing enough to protect Palestinian civilians as well as aid workers. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced and many basic food items are no longer available, the office of the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator said.

As many 88 percent of Gaza's residents now require food aid, up from 80 percent before the war, said Helene Gayle, president of the international aid agency CARE.

The three-hour lull in fighting that Israel allows for humanitarian aid to move around Gaza is not sufficient, she said.

[mjlewis6]

Hamas has destroyed its goodwill generated in the 6 months ceasefire by initiating the attacks with missles at Israel to have stymied any peace talks with the PLO and Israel. Any wonder Israel attacked Gaza since that is where the missles are coming from?

And as to disporportionate force being applied to Gaza for the damage the missles cause...I can hardly defend the creation of a Palestinian State when such irresponsible Hamas leadership launches attacks against CIVILIANS so as to politically derail any negotiations for the creation of a Palestinian State.
They obviously do not have any consideration for the people they aim their guns at, or the civilians whom they are supposed to be representing and protecting by inflicting them with conflict over the indestriminate attacks against Israeli citizens.

[wardoglrs]

Israel ready to strike Iran.

The concept of insider information is a witch-hunter''s dream. It''s a natural for envy-driven losers, government lawyers, and the like.

Israel indeed will launch a strike against Iran''s nuclear facilities soon - possibly in just days as President George W. Bush prepares to leave office. The reason: The time clock has begun to run out. Iran is close to acquiring a nuclear device under the control of its radical president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in June that Iran would have a nuclear weapon in as little as six months. That six-month period has passed. Reports of Israel''s decision to imminently launch strikes, although unconfirmed, would seem to contradict the Bush stance outlined in a front-page New York Times story last week, which asserted that Bush rejected a plea from Israel last year to help it raid Iran''s main nuclear complex

[letsbgood]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_OGhj43GAE

[letsbgood]

I''m Jewish, never read the Talmud, don''t believe in god and hate the fact that kids die in Gaza
BUT do believe Israel should continue till the Hamas is gone
Israel is doing the maximum to prevent civiliance death but will keep fighting the Hamas till Israel is safe

[letsbgood]

Racist animals, stop looking for a way to make Jews look bad, it won''t take the eyes from the fact that HAMAS is the blame of everything going on now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_OGhj43GAE

[rrozsa-2009]

Olmert said Israel would only end military operations if Hamas stops rocketing Israel, as it has done for years, and is unable to rearm after combat subsides.
==============

That''s the ticket -- After WWII, Japan and Germany''s military were taken away permanently, so they would not become a threat again. I don''t see how this is any different. You can''t live in peace if rockets are continually being lobbed over your borders.

No one is surprised at the timing of this -- they have to get the job done before Obama is put into office, since it is difficult to predict where his support will go.

[mitdgreenb]

Per my post on another story...

The problem is senselessness. Each side will point fingers at the other discussing senseless killings.

Responsibility is the opposite of senselessness. A responsible government in Gaza would be able to police itself. A responsible government in Israel would respond to this effort by improving trade. The example is the relationship Israel has with Jordan... where tragic incidents on both sides (and there have been several) are viewed by both sides as isolated and criminal rather than as a cause for war.

But responsibility is hard... and Arafat proved that demagoguery is both easier and the route to personal wealth. That leaves Palestinian voters a choice, in general, for a corrupt (by their own assessment) party or a militant one. I feel for them, for even if they wanted to vote for responsible government, they can''t. And the tragedy therefore continues.

[mitdgreenb]

Abrame --

I think this is exactly what Israel is afraid of. Iran is in pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran sponsors Hamas. Hamas controls the smuggling tunnels. Add in an Israeli election, and the timing of this was inevitable.

Of course, Iran also has missiles. Much easier to hit Megido Hill with a missile than with a tunnel.

Sorry -- I''m sure that reference was too obscure for most of the folks on this board. Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armegeddon

[thatiswhy]

"If an elephant is tethered just outside a crowded village, and a few of the villagers are constantly throwing stones, tormenting the elephant before retreating back among the other villagers, when the elephant attacks, stomping every villager it can (rarely the stone throwers) these same cowards will cry, %u201COh look what this terrible elephant is doing to innocent women and children.%u201D

Since these people elected a terrorist organization to lead them, knowing that it ran on a platform of throwing stones...why are they surprised that the elephant finally got pissed?"

Posted by ddaymichael at 07:23 AM : Jan 13, 2009

Oh I am glad that you admit that Israel is senseless animal that doesn''t differentiate when kills.

Sorry that your psychological defense mechanism will take away the picture of innocent kids killed in your nightmare.

[ddaymichael]

If an elephant is tethered just outside a crowded village, and a few of the villagers are constantly throwing stones, tormenting the elephant before retreating back among the other villagers, when the elephant attacks, stomping every villager it can (rarely the stone throwers) these same cowards will cry, %u201COh look what this terrible elephant is doing to innocent women and children.%u201D

Since these people elected a terrorist organization to lead them, knowing that it ran on a platform of throwing stones...why are they surprised that the elephant finally got pissed?

[mandylind]

No more US tax dollars for Israel. Israel has violated American tax payer goodwill by continually provoking violence -- in this case, toward children. They have been deceitful, aggressive, and stubborn. We Americans should have nothing to do with their violent occupation.

[wvu74621]

When the USA was bombed by Japan, we fought many years, bombed them with some pretty big bombs and fought until we got an unconditional surrender. We occupied the country and our troops are still there. It worked out pretty good. Now we are friends.

Maybe Israel should follow the example of the USA and do the same.


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Posted by Prelgovisk at 05:56 AM : Jan 13, 2009


Through research I have''nt been able to locate any protests from 1942-1945 about this subject. Huh maybe the world was scared that they were about to become facists. Not much different than Hamass'' Jihadist ideology.

[wvu74621]

Would any one be surprised if HAMAS set off a nuclear weapon in Gaza city as a final act of hate so as to take out thousands of Israeli troops in the mother of all suicide bombings?


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Posted by brianwwb at 05:50 AM : Jan 13, 2009

No and if they had one they would have already used it.

[prelgovisk]

When the USA was bombed by Japan, we fought many years, bombed them with some pretty big bombs and fought until we got an unconditional surrender. We occupied the country and our troops are still there. It worked out pretty good. Now we are friends.

Maybe Israel should follow the example of the USA and do the same.

[wvu74621]

How true, and there are posters in here that are too ignorant to figure out that this refers to them as well as Hamas.


Woops left out a few words.
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Posted by wvu74621 at 05:32 AM : Jan 13, 2009
+ report abuse

[wvu74621]

Children tend to point fingers but fail to engage in introspection.

We''''ve all seen an outraged child yell about someone hitting them.

Then it turns out they hit the other person first.


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Posted by Abrame at 05:28 AM : Jan 13, 2009

How true, and there are posters in here that are too ignorant that this refers to them as well as Hamas.

[wvu74621]

Everyone is responsible to counter the truth-hiding by the media that Palestinians are a liability to the worlds people.

After all, it is World tax dollars which is given to Palestinians . Also American manufactured weapons are used by Palestinians to "terrorize" itself and kill civilians including women and children.

Here''''s a some of the direct costs of support to Palestinians:

- Billions of dollars literally given to Palestinians just to keep its economy going and keep the Palestinians citizens at a high standard of living.

- the oil embargo by the Arab countries in 1974 which caused a slowdown in the American economy manifested in the late 70s and early 80s.

- War in Iraq - costing thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

- A smeared image of the World because of its unconditional support to Palestinians which most of the world sees as a sadistic terrorist rabble.

- The rise of Al-Qaeda, Hizbullah and other terrorist groups together with the high cost of fighting them.

- The 9/11 attacks on the world center and other targets.

- The bitterness most Americans feel for being forced to support a blood-thirsty, trigger-happy nation.

Therefore, we must try to spread the truth of the matter without enticing hatred towards Palestinians .


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Posted by Abrame at 05:24 AM : Jan 13, 2009


Nice going Abrame. Way to flip it on them.

[wvu74621]

Posted by MoA-A at 04:53 AM : Jan 13, 2009
+ report abuse

You failed to mention the 400 million dollars and millions of tons of food the USA sends to the Palestinians every year, which eventually ends up in the hands of the terrorists Hamas.


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Posted by wvu74621 at 05:10 AM : Jan 13, 2009

Why don''t you give a credible answer to my question? Or are you a sympathiser with Hamas and thier terrorists acts.

[wvu74621]

Posted by MoA-A at 04:53 AM : Jan 13, 2009
+ report abuse

You failed to mention the 400 million dollars and millions of tons of food the USA sends to the Palestinians every year, which eventually ends up in the hands of the terrorists Hamas.

[wvu74621]

Just as Hitler ruled the peoples his country conquered, so Mr. Olmert intends to rule (with an "Iron Fist") over the imprisoned and impoverished Palestinians. When de we, as Americans, say enough is enough to these murderers of women and children, and stop supplying them with the weapons and ammunition they need to commit their crimes against humanity??


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Posted by n8yvn29 at 04:37 AM : Jan 13, 2009

Cospiracy theorists wear hats made out of aluminum foil.