CAIRO, Egypt, Jan. 14, 2009
Proposal Emerges For 10-Day Truce In Gaza
Hamas And Egypt Negotiate Cease-Fire As Palestinian Death Toll Surpasses 1,000
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Palestinians react during a funeral of four men killed in Israeli military operations, at the mosque in Beit Lahiya northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009. (AP Photo/Fadi Adwan)
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Lebanese army soldiers stand next to a rocket which fell short in Lebanon several kilometers north of the Israeli border, as the soldier in the right looks up to an Israeli warplane, near the village of el-Meri, south of Lebanon, Jan. 14, 2009. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
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A shell fired from an Israeli Army tank explodes over a building in the outskirts of Gaza City, as seen from the Israeli-Gaza border, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
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An Israeli tank prepares to cross into the Gaza Strip on a combat mission, from Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2009. Israeli troops advanced into Gaza suburbs for the first time early Tuesday, residents said, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Islamic militants that they face an "iron fist" unless they agree to Israeli terms for an end to war in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
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Palestinian medics carry a wounded boy who according to Palestinian medical sources was injured in an Israeli strike, into Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Monday, Jan. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
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Secret Smuggling In Gaza
Although Israeli troops have surrounded Gaza on three sides, arms and explosives are still being snuck into Gaza through elaborate tunnels connected to Egypt. Richard Roth reports from Israel.
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Israel Deploys Reserve Troops
President Bush held his final news conference with a spirited defense of his policies and a look back at his mistakes. Jim Axelrod reports with commentary from political consultant Dan Bartlett.
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Little Progress In Gaza
Israeli forces advanced deeper into Palestinian territory and as Mark Phillips reports, the international call for cease-fire has done little to quell the violence in Gaza.
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Israel Hammers Gaza
Palestinian militants launch rocket attacks, Israel hits back hard.
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Egyptian and Palestinian officials said they hoped to seal Hamas' agreement on a temporary halt in fighting, which would be presented to Israel for approval. Key uncertainties remained for a longer-term deal under which Gaza's borders would be open and Israeli troops would withdraw.
The officials provided details of the deal on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the Egypt-Hamas talks. But Egyptian officials also expressed public optimism that momentum toward a deal was growing.
"We're working with Hamas and we're working with the Israeli side. We hope to reach an outcome soon," Hossam Zaki, a spokesman for Egypt's Foreign Ministry, told the British Broadcasting Corp.
A Hamas spokesman said he also believed an agreement was possible.
"There is good progress in Egypt. We hope that now Egypt will contact Israel and talk about all issues," Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas adviser, told the BBC.
Asked if a negotiated settlement could also include a deal between Hamas and the rival Palestinian administration, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, Hamad said he was hopeful.
"I am optimistic now because I think there is no other choice for us," he said.
However, the Hamas leadership said it still had "certain reservations" over the Egyptian plan, reports CBS News' George Baghdadi in Damascus.
"We responded positively to the Egyptian initiative but there is still several specified points of differences and certain reservations. We hope that these points will be solved over the next few days to meet with the Palestinian national interests," a Hamas source told CBS News in Damascus on condition of anonymity.
In Jerusalem, a senior Defense Ministry official said Israel was sending a chief envoy to Egypt on Thursday to present Israel's stance. The senior official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Amos Gilad's trip has been postponed for days but his presence in Egypt would be a strong signal of progress.
Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said details on the proposed cease-fire would be kept "under a lid of secrecy" until all parties agreed but said issues included an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, opening crossings into the blockaded territory and some kind of international monitors.
Israeli military officials have said talks in Cairo will determine whether Israel moves closer to a truce with Hamas or widens its offensive to send thousands of reservists into crowded, urban areas where casualties on both sides would likely mount.
Hamas has insisted that it would not agree to a cease-fire unless Israel pulls its troops out of the tiny Mediterranean coastal strip and allowed Gaza's borders to the outside world to immediately reopen.
But the temporary cease-fire proposal being discussed in Cairo would allow Israel's military to stay in place and the borders closed during a 10-day period of quiet, the Egyptian and Palestinian officials close to the talks said.
During that time, Egyptian, Turkish and other international mediators would try to negotiate an arrangement for policing Egypt's border with Gaza to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory, the officials said.
This would likely entail some kind of international monitors on the Palestinian side of the border - but the two sides remained far apart on who would make up the force, where they would be deployed and their mission.
Hamas has so far publicly resisted deploying international monitors and has demanded a role in policing the crossings and borders. Israel - like the United States, the EU and other nations - considers Hamas a terrorist group and has always rejected a role for it policing the crossings.
Egypt has also rejected any foreign troops on its side of the border, though it says it would accept foreign technical and financial aid to help control the border, which is riddled with smuggling tunnels.
Only after a deal has been reached on border security - including control of the crossings - would the crossings be opened and Israel would withdraw its forces from Gaza, the officials said.
That means negotiators potentially would have only 10 days to work out the contentious details or else risk a return to fighting.
Efforts of Arab countries to contain the crisis were marked by their own divisions. Qatar on Wednesday managed to get enough Arab countries to agree on an emergency summit meeting in its capital of Doha for Friday.
Its efforts succeeded over the strong opposition of Egypt and Saudi Arabia who preferred a meeting a few days later in Kuwait on the sidelines of an economic summit.
In related developments:
The decision by President Hugo Chavez's socialist government comes more than a week after Venezuela expelled the Israeli ambassador in Caracas and seven embassy staff members.
A Foreign Ministry statement said Wednesday that Venezuela "has decided to break off diplomatic relations with the state of Israel given the inhumane persecution of the Palestinian people."
"My call is (for) an immediate end to violence in Gaza," he said in Cairo after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
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U.N. Secretary General
"It is intolerable that civilians bear the brunt of this conflict," he said, adding that the "negotiations need to be intensified to provide arrangements and guarantees in order to sustain an endurable cease-fire and calm." Ban is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Thursday. He will also visit Jordan, the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Kuwait. His itinerary does not include a stop in Gaza because of the ongoing conflict.
It is intolerable that civilians bear the brunt of this conflict. Negotiations need to be intensified to provide arrangements and guarantees in order to sustain an endurable cease-fire and calm."
Ban Ki-moonU.N. Secretary General
Guerrillas in Lebanon sent rockets crashing into northern Israel on Wednesday for the second time in a week, drawing an Israeli artillery barrage and threatening to drag the Jewish state into a second front.
The rocket fire in the north caused no injuries, but sent residents scurrying to bomb shelters. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and speculation focused on small Palestinian groups. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed guerrilla group that fought a monthlong war with Israel in 2006, denied involvement in last week's attack.
Israel launched the onslaught in Gaza on Dec. 27, seeking to stop the ruling Hamas militant group from firing rockets into southern Israel. The offensive has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, half of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The toll included 11 Palestinians killed Wednesday, medical officials said.
Thirteen Israelis have also been killed since the offensive began, four by rocket fire from Gaza.
Overnight, Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships pounded a police court in Gaza City, rocket-launching sites, gunmen, weapons-production and storage facilities and about 35 weapons smuggling tunnels, the military said. Later in the day, witnesses in southern Gaza reported air strikes on the house of a rocket squad leader and a militant's car.
Aircraft also struck the Sheikh Radwan cemetery in Gaza City, destroying about 30 graves - some just recently dug - and scattering bits of flesh and body parts, residents said.
Maj. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said the army targeted a weapons cache next to the cemetery and a nearby rocket-launching site. She said the heavy damage was the result of secondary explosions.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using mosques, schools and other civilian areas to stage attacks or store weapons.
Fireballs and smoke plumes from Israeli bombing have become a common sight in the territory of 1.4 million people, who are trapped because Israel and Egypt have blockaded border crossings ever since the Islamic Hamas overran Gaza in June 2007.
Humanitarian concerns have increased amid the onslaught although some aid is reaching Gaza during daily three-hour lulls Israel has allowed to let in supplies. A total of 111 truckloads of food and medical supplies were to pass through on Wednesday, the military said.
Palestinian rocket fire has dropped off dramatically since the offensive began. Twelve rockets were fired at Israel on Wednesday, down from as many as 80 a day early in the operation. Israeli police said Hamas militants fired a phosphorus shell from the Gaza Strip into Israel for the first time. Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said the mortar shell exploded in a field near the border town of Sderot Wednesday evening. There were no casualties.
Human Rights Watch has said Israel used phosphorus shells, which illuminate targets at night or create a smoke screen for day attacks, against targets in Gaza.
Phosphorus shells can burn anything they touch and pose a threat to non-combatants if used in civilian areas. Israeli says it uses munitions in line with international law.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 208 CommentsDa*rn, this is going to take longer than I thought.
The important thing to note is that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOVER will a world body like the U.N. immediately and forcibly send U.N. peacekeeper troops and humanitarian aid into the Gaza strip, THEIR HANDS ARE TIED until a cease-fire is negotiated. I mean it might be possible if the U.N. wasn''t a corrupt, immoral, inhumane and cowardly organization, bereft of integrity to it''s stinking core, but that''s not the case, is it.
BTW: They have the stomach to WATCH MUCH MORE Israel, so you''re going to have to try a lot harder than slaughtering hundreds of women and children and EXPLODING graveyards filled to the brim with rotting bodies while they look on... a LOT harder.
Posted by AlanW1077
Who''s nukes? israel claims they don''t have any, of course when have they ever told the truth. The nukes would be a good thing though you could kill two birds with one stone hamas and the israeli''s from the fallout, and then there would be peace.
Is Hamas getting hit hard every day that now they change their tune?
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Israel would be foolish to enter into a "hudna" with Hamas before all of its goals are accomplished.
Just what country in the world, except whacko Iran, recognizes Hamas? Jordan won''t let them in, Egypt even fences them out. The are not recognized by the E.U., U.N., Russia, or about anybody else. Even the Arab League doesn''t recognize Hamas and calls on the Palestine people to unite under Abbas.
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Israel would be foolish to enter into a "hudna" with Hamas before all of its goals are accomplished.
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Posted by one4gipper at 01:49 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Which is why the Europen Union needs to get the equivalent of U.N. storm-troopers and just walk into the Gaza strip with FULL ARMAMENT AND HUMANITARIAN AID OUT THE WAZOO and IMMEDIATELY AND VIOLENTLY retaliate against any Israeli attacks or Hamas rocket fire.
Because this isn''t about Israel, it''s about ending their "operation" with EXTREME PREJUDICE.
Because we who would end this have GOD on our side.
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Posted by jsd330 at 01:41 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Israel has never claimed that they don''t have nukes. They have simply never admitted to having them!
To give the civilians relief, but no one expects a zionist jew to understand anything of that sort.
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Posted by l00ker1 at 02:08 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Gie it a break, those murderous thugs don''t care about the women and children one bit! They simply need time to regroup! Who''s kidding who!
Just like the video I saw yesterday on Al Jazeera TV--- A Hamas gunman running down the street in Gaza City trying evade the IDF, he snatched up little boy- 5 or 6 years old by the arm and disappeared into doorway.
Now that''s what I call caring about the women and children!
You''re clueless!
Because this isn''''t about Israel, it''''s about ending their "operation" with EXTREME PREJUDICE.
Because we who would end this have GOD on our side.
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Posted by samael2014 at 02:03 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Yea, right!
They same UN StormTroopers who stood around picked their noses and watched while the Serbs separated the Bosnian Muslim men and boys from the women and marched them off into the woods to executed!!!
What planet are you living on! The UN is the single most incompetant, worthless, useless, dysfunctional and impotent organization in the world. They are simply not capable of providing security, saftey or delivering aid because they lack the respect of virtually every country in the world.
And you keep eating the shiit, that you want the rest of us to eat.
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Posted by l00ker1 at 02:20 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Sorry if you can''t handle the truth! If you had avaible argument, I''m sure you would have expressed it. But no, you can only spew hatred and profanity!
Get over it!
The same countries which have recognized that cancerous sore Israel.
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Posted by l00ker1 at 02:06 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Once more--- a statement of extreme intelligence!!
Get over it!
Look at their record.
10 more days to re-arm then start over.
Just kill the M@therf@ckers !!
Sooner the better.
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Posted by Moderator672
Agreed. Nothing less than complete surrender.
U.S. aid to Israel is $2.4 billion, for military assistance, of which 75% must be spent on U.S. army back here. This is equal to the aid to Jordan and Egypt combined, and they don''t have the 75% provision. Actually, 4 of the top 5 countries getting U.S. aid are Muslim countries, and far exceed what is given to Israel.
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Posted by hungry685
Rest assured that will not happen.
Oh, the $700 billion to Wall Street, and $300 billion to the big three auto makers, and today''s call for more by Obama isn''t welfare?
CBS: Obama Courts Democrats For $350B Bailout
President-Elect Asks Senators Not To Stand In Way Of Additional Rescue Funds
Always happy to provide links and sources for my good friends on this board.
1. Israel - $2.4 billion - Virtually all of this money is used to buy weapons (up to 75% made in the U.S.). Beginning in 2009, the U.S. plans to give $30 billion over 10 years.
2. Egypt - $1.7 billion - $1.3 billion to buy weapons; $103 million for education; $74 million for health care; $45 million to promote civic participation and human rights.
3. Pakistan - $798 million - $330 million for security efforts, including military-equipment upgrades and border security; $20 million for infrastructure.
4. Jordan - $688 million - $326 million to fight terrorism and promote regional stability through equipment upgrades and training; $163 million cash payment to the Jordanian government.
http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/who-gets-us-foreign-aid.html
that''s what Israel HAS been doing for years and that''s why there will NEVER be peace. Every massacre carried out by Israel creates another generation of enemies.
Couldn''t find a link at Arab News on U.S. aid.
About a $trillion in bailout money this year for Americans.
Posted by FloydZeppd at 02:56 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Good to see that Obama will carry on the tradition. From Jesus nut Bush to Jesus not Obama. Some change
"I am optimistic now because I think there is no other choice for us," he said.
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IOW, we are tired of getting our little Palestenian Azzes kicked by those mean o jews after we start a fight we aren''t prepared to win.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday on a resolution "recognizing Israel''''s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza," Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday. The resolution was passed 390 to 5.
Introduced by Pelosi and House Minority Leader John Boehner, the nonbinding vote came on the 14th day of an air and ground assault on the Palestinian territory. Israel says it is aimed at halting the firing of rockets into Israel by Hamas militants.
The resolution''s language condemns Hamas, which Israel and the United States consider a terrorist organization, for the rocket attacks and "for deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders and weapons in private homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and otherwise using Palestinian civilians as human shields."
%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026%u2026
The 5 voting against were the usual whackos, Maxine Waters and crew.
All for the "privilege" of making ourselves susceptible to terrorism. - Posted by hungry685
You don''t whine about $1 trillion in bailout for American companies and homeowners, but $2.4 billion that had a clause that 75% has to be spent back here is driving you nuts.
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Just to show the new posters on this board that America Stands with Israel. Here are some more:
Gallup - only 13% of Americans polled think Israel is to blame for the current war in Gaza.
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Posted by FloydZeppd at 03:10 PM : Jan 14, 2009
That is the story of your life
Posted by FloydZeppd at 03:14 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Bush and Obama are both socialists. Great, some change
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=1155767
With a democrat controlled congress with its hands on the purse strings, why blame Bush. Nancy pelosi was clamoring for the money long before Bush gave approval.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6086636
(free download
"KILL THEM ALL!!"
Your Jesus must be very proud.
Posted by hungry685 at 03:23 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Just survival of the fittest, and Hamas has proven they suck at life. The Palestinians must be proud of their elected government.
Posted by hungry685 at 03:28 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Man, your life must suck. Glad I am not you.
All of us have lost one venture or another and it takes common sense to know when to back down. The Hamas need to cut their losses and concede.
And if Israel is "the fittest", then why do WE have to give them arms and ammo?
Posted by hungry685 at 03:29 PM : Jan 14, 2009
They pick better friends. You must admit they are surviving, and in a country no less. How are the Palestinians doing? You must admit they have sucked at life for a long time now
There are 2 forms of population control. One is war. Many undeveloped cultures are not familiar with the other method.
Posted by hungry685 at 03:34 PM : Jan 14, 2009
I don''t believe you are an american.
The Palestinians had NO PROBLEMS until the Zionists created Israel, and all the Palestinians were turned into refugees because of UN resolution 181.
You now proclaim that the Palestinians aren''''t living as well as the Israeli''''s BECAUSE of our involvement?!?
Posted by hungry685 at 03:37 PM : Jan 14, 2009
Wait - I thought the ever competent UN created Israel?
Zionists HATE America - it''''s obvious.
Posted by hungry685 at 03:38 PM : Jan 14, 2009
No, I am Norwegianist, thanks though.
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