Israel, the mid-east, and Russia

[Shammu]

 Suicide Bombers Prepared For Invasion
by UPI Wire
Jul 2, 2006

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza - July 2, 2006 (UPI) -- Militants in Gaza say they are preparing volunteers to serve as human anti-tank weapons against the Israelis.

A leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade who uses the name Abu Jendal told The Sunday Telegraph the group had more volunteers for suicide-bombing missions than it could use.

"Now we are planning to attack tanks with our bodies," he said. "It is an effective means of resistance."

Israeli forces have massed on the Gaza border or just across the border since the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit. They have avoided direct confrontation with the Palestinians, who are bracing for an invasion.

Abu Jendal said he knows the Palestinians cannot match Israel's military equipment.

"We are not fools. We know they are strong," he said. "But they know that if they leave their tanks they will be shot. So we will strike the weak points of tank on foot, wearing suicide belts, and with explosives buried in the sand, to force them out."

[Shammu]

Palestine seeks Nigeria's help over Israeli military onslaught
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Palestine appealed to Nigeria at the weekend to exert pressure on Israel to halt its military onslaught on Palestinians.

In a statement issued in the Nigerian capital Abuja, the Embassy of the State of Palestine described the Israeli attacks as "military aggression and violations against the Palestinian people. "

The statement appealed to the "loving people of Nigeria" to demand that Israel halt its aggressions and violations and comply with its obligations under international law, including international humanitarian and human right laws.

A few days ago, Israel launched an attack in Gaza, saying this was aimed at recovering one of its soldiers captured by a Palestinian group that attacked an Israel military unit operating in the south of Gaza Strip.

"The Gaza Strip is now facing further incursion which represent a very dangerous military escalation and threatening the Palestinian civilian population," said the statement.

In the past few days, the main power plant, major bridges, some militants' posts as well as Prime Minister Ismail Haneya and Interior Minister Said Siam's offices in Gaza have been targeted and destroyed in Israeli military operation.

Palestine seeks Nigeria's help over Israeli military onslaught

[Shammu]

Israel to try captured Palestinian officials
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Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, in an interview with the CNN on Sunday, said that Israel will prosecute the captured Palestinian government ministers and lawmakers suspected of participating in the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.

"They will be put to trial, and they will be accused of participating, supporting terroristic acts against the civilian government," Peres said.

As Israeli helicopters struck the Gaza office of the Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya early Sunday morning, Peres said this was not an attempt on his life but "a clear warning."

Peres also said that Israel is not trying to topple the Hamas government.

"We are trying to topple down the policies of this so-called government, which are policies of terror," Peres said.

After the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants on June 25, Israel has detained scores of Hamas members in the West Bank, including eight ministers and more than 20 lawmakers.

Israel to try captured Palestinian officials

[Shammu]

EU president calls on Israel to free Palestinian officials
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Israel should release detained Palestinian officials and the Palestinian side should free immediately an Israeli soldier, said Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen on Saturday, whose country has just assumed the European Union (EU)'s rotating presidency.

In an interview with Germany's Die Welt newspaper, Vanhanen urged the Palestinian militants to immediately release the Israeli solider captured during a predawn attack on an Israeli outpost near Gaza border on Sunday.

Israel retaliated by sending troops into the Gaza region, launching airstrikes and arresting Palestinian officials.

Vanhanen said Israel must halt its military operations, free the Palestinian ministers and members of parliament and stop destroying civilian infrastructure in the Palestinian territories.

He stressed that negotiation is the only way to solve the problem.

Finland took over from Austria the rotating presidency of the 25-member EU on Saturday.

EU president calls on Israel to free Palestinian officials

[Shammu]

 Yishai Calling for a Security Zone in Northern Gaza
14:40 Jul 02, '06 / 6 Tammuz 5766

(IsraelNN.com) Industry & Trade Minister (Shas) Eli Yishai stated at the Sunday morning weekly cabinet meeting that a security zone must be established between northern Gaza and the western Negev communities. This area he explained would be manned by IDF soldiers in order to place Kassam rockets out of range.

Yishai stated creating such an area, which would be free of Palestinian Authority (PA) residents, would significantly strengthen Israel’s deterrence abilities.

Yishai Calling for a Security Zone in Northern Gaza

[Shammu]

Security increased for Hamas heads
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST    Jul. 2, 2006

Hamas leaders in Syria insist they have nothing to do with the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and have no influence over his Palestinian captors.

But the leaders have been putting in 20-hour days since the soldier's capture a week ago, and fielding requests for help from several countries trying to win the soldier's release, as Israel has increasingly blamed them for the attack.

They also have changed homes, abandoned the use of their mobile phones and resorted to basic modes of communication - missives carried by trusted messengers - to communicate with each other, because of Israeli threats to target them.

Israel has accused the group's top leader, Khaled Mashaal, who is in exile in Damascus, of being the brains behind the June 25 kidnapping and indicated he is a possible target for assassination.

"We take the Israeli threats seriously, and we know the occupation will not pass up the opportunity to get the movement's leadership," Osama Hamdan, Hamas' Lebanon representative, told The Associated Press in Damascus on Sunday.

"We have taken precautions that won't get in the way of our performing our duties," he added.

Since operatives close to Hamas claimed 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit's abduction, attention has focused on what role the Damascus-based political leadership of Hamas has played in the kidnapping and its aftermath. The fact that Hamas now controls the Palestinian government has only added to the confusion.

US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton has called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to arrest Mashaal and close the Hamas office in Damascus.

Hamas' political leaders have denied any role, saying such attacks are planned on the ground by the group's military wing, and they have no influence or contact with its members.

It's an argument Hamas has used since it began suicide attacks against Israel in the 1990s.

Yet Hamas officials admit several countries have contacted them as part of diplomatic efforts - spearheaded by Egypt - to win the soldier's release.

"We have a role because international parties get in touch with us," said Hamdan. "But we refer those parties to the people on the ground. We have no contact with those holding the prisoner."

A Palestinian official in Lebanon, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the political leadership lays broad guidelines - such as agreeing to a deal to defuse the crisis - but the captors set the details for what the acceptable conditions for a deal are.

But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said that Egyptian efforts to diplomatically resolve the crisis are being set back by confusion about who really has the decision-making power on the Palestinian side.

Hamdan rejected that, reflecting the tension among the Palestinian factions.

"Instead of wasting his time talking about who's in charge (of Hamas), Abu Mazen (Abbas) should say he stands by the Palestinian resistance and by the Palestinian people in their fight to free Palestinian prisoners," said Hamdan.

Either way, the crisis has kept Hamas leaders in Syria quite busy, said the Palestinian official in Lebanon, with members of the politburo - whose number Hamas refuses to disclose - barely getting four hours of sleep a day. The official said the members rarely meet together for security reasons.

But, he insisted, morale is high, and Mashaal is taking the Israeli discussion of targeting him with calm and a sense of humor.

Hamdan said the negotiations have not borne any fruit and blamed Israel for not agreeing to a deal set out by the kidnappers in which Shalit would be exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in addition to female and teenage Palestinians jailed by Israel.

Egypt and Jordan have also contacted Syria to use its influence with Hamas to help win Shalit's release. But Syria, according to Arab officials, has said it cannot do so while the Israeli offensive against Gaza continues.

Another top leader of Hamas in Syria, Mohammed Nazal, said Sunday that no deadlines have been set in the talks with the Egyptian mediators, despite Israeli newspaper reports that Egypt had given Hamas a Sunday deadline to resolve the crisis.

In Cairo, an Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Egypt would continue its diplomatic efforts. He said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was talking to Assad, soliciting his support to persuade Hamas leaders to release the soldier, while Egypt's chief of intelligence was talking with Mashaal directly.

Egypt has proposed that the Israeli soldier be freed immediately and that in return, Israel release unspecified prisoners in the near future.

But Hamdan said Hamas wanted more than just promises.

"The Palestinians have for years gotten guarantees that prisoners would be released but nothing would happen," he said. "That's why the resistance fighters are more determined than ever not to stop only at promises that will not be kept. They want something on the ground."

Security increased for Hamas heads

[Shammu]

Israel blasts Palestinian PM's office to pressure Hamas
by Ibrahim Barzak
Indiana Daily Student

Published Monday, July 3, 2006

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli aircraft sent missiles tearing through the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday in an unmistakable message to his ruling Hamas group to free an Israeli soldier.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet that the military had been ordered to "do all it can" to return the captured 19-year-old corporal, and cautioned that arrests of senior Hamas officials could spread to Gaza, the Islamic militant group's power base, a government official close to the prime minister said.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz told the Cabinet meeting that Israel would go after "higher-caliber targets" in the future -- a reference to senior Hamas officials inside and outside the Palestinian territories, a high-ranking political official said.

Israeli aircraft, tanks and naval gunboats have been pounding Gaza for the past week in an effort to win the freedom of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was seized June 25 in a cross-border raid that left two comrades dead. Thousands of troops also were sent into the coastal strip for Israel's first ground invasion since quitting Gaza nine months ago.

Late last week, Olmert called off plans to broaden the incursion in deference to intense diplomatic efforts involving Egypt and other regional players.

There has been no direct evidence of the soldier's condition since he was seized by Hamas-linked militant groups.

So far, the ground invasion has been focused on southern Gaza, where Israel believes Shalit was taken. On Sunday, officials decided to invade northern Gaza if rocket fire on southern Israel resumes from that area, security officials said.

There has been no rocket fire since Saturday night, the military said.

Palestinians said two missiles fired by attack helicopters set Haniyeh's office ablaze, but it was empty because of the early hour -- 1:45 a.m., witnesses said. One bystander was injured slightly, hospital officials said.

Haniyeh, inspecting the burning office building, called the Israeli attack senseless.

"They have targeted a symbol for the Palestinian people," he said.

Later, before meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Haniyeh vowed, "This will not break the will of the Palestinian people."

After the meeting, the two men surveyed Haniyeh's damaged office together, waving through a hole in the wall.

"The world must understand that this is a dirty, criminal act," Abbas said.

Israeli Cabinet minister Roni Bar-On said the objective of the attack on Haniyeh's office was to "compromise the Hamas government's ability to rule."

"We will strike and will continue to strike at (Hamas') institutions," said Bar-On, an Olmert ally. "They have to understand that we will not continue to let them run amok."

Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, took power after winning January parliamentary elections. The group has a military wing and a political wing, and its political leadership is divided between more moderate elements in the West Bank and Gaza, and the more radical top leadership based in Syria.

The gunmen holding Shalit are believed to take their orders from Hamas' Damascus-based political chief, Khaled Mashaal.

In other airstrikes after midnight, Israeli aircraft hit a school in Gaza city and Hamas facilities in northern Gaza, where a Hamas militant was killed and another wounded, Palestinian officials said. The military said they were "planning terror attacks against Israel."

The 34-year-old Hamas gunman, Shaaban Manoun, was the second militant killed in the five-day Israeli operation.

Israeli artillery also fired at open spaces near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the military said. It denied Palestinian radio reports that Hamas training camps were the target. No injuries were reported.

Exerting pressure on Hamas from various directions, Israel continued to hold 64 Hamas leaders, including eight Cabinet ministers, rounded up in the West Bank on Thursday night.

Hamas' roots are in Gaza, and that is where Haniyeh and most other Cabinet ministers live.

"I don't promise that the arrests of senior Hamas officials will be limited to Judea and Samaria," the official close to the prime minister quoted Olmert as saying, using the biblical names for the West Bank. "Wherever there is a proven terror infrastructure, there will be arrests. There will be immunity for no one."

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the Cabinet session was confidential.

Military officials said the government would bring the detainees before a court this week to seek permission to extend their detention.

Israel, meanwhile, reopened its main cargo crossing with Gaza to allow food, medical supplies and fuel to be sent in to the impoverished area from Israel, Israeli officials said.

While food shortages have not been reported, human rights groups have cautioned that Gaza could face a humanitarian crisis because about 43 percent of the territory's electricity supply was knocked out after Israeli missiles struck Gaza's only power station. Israel has increased its supply of electricity to Gaza, the Israeli army said Saturday, but fuel for generators has been scarce.

On Saturday, Hamas demanded the release of more than 1,000 prisoners held by Israel, but Israel rejected that out of hand.

Olmert again said Sunday that Israel would not yield to Hamas' demands.

"Israel doesn't intend to give into blackmail of any sort," Olmert told his Cabinet. "Giving in today would be an invitation to the next act of terror."

Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad urged Israel to be more flexible.

"I think that if the Israeli government will understand that it's possible to release prisoners, things will end OK," Hamad told Army Radio. "If not, I think the situation will be very difficult for us and for you, too. ... Maybe there will be a (military) escalation and people will die."

Peretz met with senior security officials Saturday night and then called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to urge the Bush administration to step up pressure on Syria to work for Shalit's release, Israeli officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make a formal statement.

Israel blasts Palestinian PM's office to pressure Hamas

[Shammu]

Fatah official: Hamas brought violence
Associated Press and JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST    Jun. 29, 2006

A senior Fatah member said on Thursday that although Israel should be condemned for its incursion into the Gaza Strip and the arrest of senior Hamas officials, it was Hamas who brought these actions upon the Palestinian people.

He blamed Hamas' uncompromising, extremist approach - especially that of Hamas leader in Damascus Khaled Mashaal - for turning the whole world against the Palestinians.

The official, an associate of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, told Israel Radio said that Mashaal interfered with any attempt at moderation or mitigation of the economic embargo on the Palestinians.

Other officials throughout the Arab world reacted with concern to the escalation of the Israeli-Palestiniain crisis, criticizing Israel for causing suffering to Gaza residents and citing Israeli warplanes' buzzing of the Syrian president's home as especially troubling.

Qatar's foreign minister called the crisis "a critical situation."

"We might not agree with Syria on everything, but the least we could do in these circumstances, is to take a clear stance, not [just] talk," the foreign minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr Al Thani, said on al-Jazeera television.

In Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood Movement, the kingdom's largest and most powerful opposition group, said Israel had launched its offensive into Gaza and "reached the door of Syria for the sake of one [captured Israeli] soldier, while Arabs, Muslims and the free world remain silent on the arrest of 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children." It called on the United Nations to press the Israelis to stop.

Despite their criticism, Arab governments also have worked ferociously behind the scenes to try to get the Palestinians to free the Israeli soldier - worried that the crisis will spin out of control and result in new violence across the region.

Egypt has been talking directly with the supreme leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal - in exile in Syria - to push him to facilitate the release, Egyptian officials have said. An aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has said both Abbas and Egyptian officials also had called Syrian President Bashar Assad to ask him to persuade Mashaal, with no results so far.

Egypt in particular worries that Gaza refugees might flood across its border if the Israelis increase their offensive in Gaza.

Mashaal's aides have denied he had a direct role in the capture, but Israel has accused him of masterminding the kidnapping. Late Wednesday, it sent warplanes to buzz the summer home of Assad, who it accuses of protecting Mashaal.

Early Thursday, Israeli forces also arrested nearly one-third of the Hamas-led Palestinian Cabinet and 20 lawmakers. Army Radio said the arrested Hamas leaders might be used to trade for the captured soldier. Israel had refused earlier to trade Palestinian prisoners for the soldier's release.

A Hamas official close to the Islamic movement's exiled leader refused to comment on how Hamas would respond if Israel proposed exchanging Palestinian politicians for the soldier.

The official, Osama Hamdan, who is Hamas' Lebanon representative and close to Mashaal, asserted that Hamas' leaders and the Syrian government would not be intimidated by the Israeli warplanes buzzing of Syria. He called past similar actions ineffective.

Meanwhile, commentators across the region seemed focused on the Syrian flyover and the looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, called the Israeli incursion and the buzzing of Assad's house an "unprecedented blackmailing threat."

Noting that Gaza residents were now without electricity because of Israeli bombing of the main power plant, he asked in a front-page editorial, posted on the Internet: "Is the life of the captive soldier worth the suffering of all of those people?"

In Kuwait, Abdul-Rahman al-Awadi, a former health and planning minister, told The Associated Press he worried that the violence, if it continued, "will spread to the whole area."

The English-language Jordan Times warned in an editorial that a "tragedy" awaits the Palestinian people. It accused the United States and the European Union of losing "vigor to intercede" in the Mideast conflict, while "Israel is free to act as it pleases."

"It is a sick situation," declared the daily.

Fatah official: Hamas brought violence
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God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage.

[Shammu]

PA television airs clip encouraging children to become shaheeds
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

This week, Palestinian television reprised, after a three-year absence, a clip featuring Palestinian child Mohammed a-Dura, calling to other children to join him in a shaheed heaven for children.

The dramatic heart-wrenching footage of a-Dura, shot dead in crossfire in a clash between Israeli and Palestinian forces in the Gaza Strip in the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, was broadcast around the world.

"Palestinian Media Watch" reported on the television clip on Saturday, and announced, "The Palestinian Authority is once again airing video clips designed to influence the behavior of young children and to make them seek deaths as shaheeds."

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The clip, which caused much controversy when it first aired, was taken off the air in the fall of 2003, after Palestinian Media Watch director Itamar Marcus, presented the clip at a U.S. Senate hearing.

Following the hearing, senators slammed the clip and criticized it as "horrifying abuse of children."

In the clip, a child portraying a-Dura is peacefully playing in heaven, and calls to other children, "follow me." The popular singer Aida performs the song in the clip, which describes how the earth longs for the deaths of children, saying, "How pleasant is the smell of the earth whose thirst is quenched by blood pouring out of young bodies."

Another clip that aired this week after a long absence depicts a young girl witnessing her mother's murder and then singing about how she misses her mother. She sings, "If you can't come to me, I can come to you."

Palestinian Media Watch reported that the 2000-2003 Palestinian television campaign to recruit young children was so effective, that 70 to 80 percent of Palestinian children during that time wanted to die as shaheeds, according to three separate polls.

Marcus fears that the "sudden and surprising reprisal of the a-Dura clip, calling upon children to join him in a playground in shaheed children's heaven, may be only the first of many steps in a wide campaign designed to recruit children for the cause."

PA television airs clip encouraging children to become shaheeds

[Shammu]

IDF says would not free prisoners involved in terror attacks
By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent

The security establishment is prepared to release Palestinian prisoners who have not been convicted of hostile terror activity, if a deal is reached with Hamas on the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit and instituting calm on the Gaza-Israel border.

The Israel Defense Forces said it will not support a deal that would release terrorists "with blood on their hands," but only those who have not been involved in planning or carrying out terror attacks. The army would be willing to release individuals who are being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, such as Hamas ministers and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, as well as security prisoners jailed for relatively minor offenses, such as belonging to terrorist organizations.

The number of prisoners released is less important to the IDF than the type of prisoners, and there are no plans to repeat the actions of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who freed ordinary Palestinian criminals to fulfill his part of the Wye Accords.

Decisions on the type of prisoners whose release the IDF would support came up in security discussions held over the last few days, led by Defense Minister Amir Peretz and IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, in which defense officials have formulated a draft deal for the release of Shalit.

However, military officials said they do not think the sides are close to reaching such a deal. Top IDF officials said the crisis over Shalit's abduction is liable to last "days, weeks, months and even years." As of Sunday night, the most updated information available to security officials indicated that Shalit was alive and that his captors planned to keep him healthy as long as they don't think the army is planning a military operation to secure his release.

The conditions for such an operation are far from ready, according to senior military officials. They said the negotiations for his release will require a lot of patience. Such patience is also likely to characterize the IDF approach to ground operations in Gaza, which are not planned for the short term.

The IDF's draft deal is meant to show the Olmert government the limits of the Israeli concessions that the army considers tolerable. In the eyes of the IDF, more significant concessions to Shalit's captors and Hamas would encourage extremist Arab and Muslim groups and would critically damage the position of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Defense officials warned against ending the crisis in a way that would show Palestinians and others in the region that Hamas and extremist groups have succeeded where moderates like Abbas have failed.

The draft deal calls for a total halt to the firing of steep-trajectory weapons, whether by Hamas or other organizations; a halt to attacks on Israeli citizens and IDF troops, wherever they are located; and a ban on abductions. There were four abductions and attempted abductions over the last month, three of them in the West Bank.

In exchange for a Palestinian commitment to stop these activities, the deal calls for the IDF to stop operating in Gaza, while reserving the right of defense and the right to foil terror attacks. The IDF also wants a "sleep balance" between Sderot and Gaza: If the children of Sderot can't sleep due to fear of Qassam rockets, Israel will disrupt the sleep of Gaza children.

The IDF assessment is that Hamas leaders in Gaza recognize that their rule would be seriously threatened if an attack on the Negev leads to a harsh Israeli reprisal. The army also said that flying over the summer palace of Syrian President Bashar Assad undercut the position of Hamas lead Khaled Meshal in Damascus.

Senior IDF officials in charge of Gaza think Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh will choose to maintain power, at the cost of suspending terrorism.

IDF says would not free prisoners involved in terror attacks

[Shammu]

SAUDIS HELP AL QAIDA REGIME IN SOMALIA

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The Bush administration has acknowledged that Saudi Arabia was financing the Al Qaida-aligned regime in Somalia.

Officials said Saudi Arabia has become a leading financier of the Islamic takeover of Somalia. The so-called Islamic Courts Union, headed by an Al Qaida commander wanted by the United States, has garnered most of its foreign support from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

"I don't want to say the Saudi government is supporting any particular [Islamic] court," Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said. "But I do know that there is money coming in from Saudi Arabia."

On June 29, Ms. Frazer told the House International Relations Committee that despite U.S. opposition Saudi funding was reaching the Al Qaida-aligned movement in Somalia. She said another U.S. ally, Yemen, has sent weapons to the new Islamic regime in Mogadishu.

SAUDIS HELP AL QAIDA REGIME IN SOMALIA

[Shammu]

 Iran's ambassador calls for halt to Zionist attacks on Gaza
Beirut, July 3, IRNA

Iran-Zionist-Gaza
Iran's Ambassador in Lebanon Mohammad Reza Sheibani here Monday said that it is urgent for Islamic and Arab countries to take action to stop Zionist attacks on Gaza Strip.

He made the remarks after his meeting with the Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fawzi Salloukh.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in a telephone conversation with his Lebanese counterpart a few days ago discussed the latest development along with crimes committed by the Zionists in Palestine.

In his meeting with the Lebanese foreign minister, the Iranian ambassador called for implementation of the previous agreements inked between the two countries.

He also underlined the need for exchange of visit by officials of the two sides to help bolster mutual ties.

Briefing the Lebanese minister on the latest status of Iranian diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon, he called on the Lebanese minister to seriously pursue the case.

Four Iranian diplomats were kidnapped in 1982 by the Zionists in Lebanon and to date there is no news about their fate.

Iran's ambassador calls for halt to Zionist attacks on Gaza

[Shammu]

Arab governments brace for pro-Palestinian outrage

Thursday, June 29, 2006; Posted: 1:26 p.m. EDT (17:26 GMT)

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Anger flared across the Middle East on Thursday over Israel's raids in Gaza to save a kidnapped soldier, as Arab governments braced for pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Fearing a flood of refugees, Egypt clamped a curfew on its Gaza border after Palestinians used a land mine to knock a hole in a border wall and tried to cross. Egyptian troops lined up nearby as Palestinian security forces, firing shots in the air, blocked Palestinians trying to get through the opening.

Egypt also braced for a wave of pro-Palestinian protests called for by the government's top rival, the Muslim Brotherhood, on Friday, the day of weekly Islamic prayers. (Watch more Israeli strikes on Gaza -- 2:08)

Hoping to prevent the violence in Gaza from spinning out of control, Egyptian officials have been talking directly with the Damascus-based political leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Khalid Meshaal, to push him to facilitate the release of the Israeli soldier who was abducted by Palestinian militants. (Full story)

An aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said both Abbas and Egyptian officials called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to ask him to persuade Meshaal to release the soldier, with no results so far. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak spoke with Abbas on Thursday, the Egyptian state news agency said.

In talks with Arab leaders Thursday, Meshaal asked them to help put a stop to Israel's "massacres," a statement from his office said, according the the Al-Jazeera news network.

"This situation demands that Arab officials and the international community take a tough stance," Meshaal's top aide Moussa Abu Marzouk told Al-Jazeera. "They should pressure Israel to withdraw from the middle of cities and stop shelling civilians."

The Israeli offensive has put moderate Arab governments like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in a tight corner. They have been cold to the new Hamas government, trying to push it to moderate its positions to keep the Arab-Israeli peace process alive, and have done little to help it amid the West's financial boycott of the Palestinians.

But now they face the perception among the Arab public that they are leaving the Palestinians in the lurch.

Israeli warplanes, tanks and thousands of troops swept into Gaza since Tuesday in an operation aimed at freeing the soldier. Dozens of Hamas government ministers and lawmakers have been seized, and Israeli forces knocked out Gaza's only power station and sealed the territory, raising fears of a humanitarian crisis among its 1.5 million residents.

The leader of the Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood blasted Arab governments.

"We haven't heard even a whisper from you," Mohammed Mahdi Akef said in a statement Thursday. "You can't provide medicine and milk and the necessities of life to our besieged people in Palestine ... You take a hesitant stance toward their freely elected government, fearing the spread of the virus of freedom to your own fertile pastures."

"If that's your situation, then what hope is there in supporting you?" he said. "Your nations, which have long been patient and swallowed their anger over your oppression, won't be patient forever."

Akef called on Arabs and Muslims to "express your anger over what is happening, make the thunder of your voices heard ... using the peaceful means that are at your disposal."

The Brotherhood has called for a wave of protests in Cairo and other Egyptian cities after Friday prayers. Past protests by the group have erupted into clashes with security forces.

In the Jordanian capital Amman, around 50 people held a sit-in protest, carrying banners reading, "Wake up Arab nation! Save the babies, the old men, the land and our honor."

Jordanian columnist Taher Adwan accused the Israelis of being "criminals and killers."

"What is frustrating is that the world, under U.S. pressures and bribes, has put them above the law," he wrote in the independent Al-Arab Al-Yawm daily.

Gulf Arab officials were discussing the possibility of sending aid to the Palestinians, but one said there was little chance to move supplies through the Israeli blockade.

The head of an alliance of Gulf countries -- some of whom have taken quiet steps toward economic ties with Israel -- called the Israeli offensive "barbaric."

"This dangerous escalation against the Palestinian people is a war against innocent civilians, women, children, and the elderly that has left Gaza without water and electricity," said Abdel Rahman Attiye, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, in a statement issued on behalf of all six Gulf countries.

The 22-member Arab League held an emergency session in Cairo calling for "urgent support" for the Palestinians.

But Abdul Khaleq Abdulla, a political scientist at Emirates University, said, "There's absolutely nothing the Arab world can do. The Palestinians are left alone to go through all this by themselves."

Arab governments brace for pro-Palestinian outrage

[Shammu]

09:02     IDF shelling open areas in northern Gaza (Israel Radio)
09:01    Assad: Syria stands beside Palestinian people facing Israel`s oppression (Itim)
08:17    Dahlan: Ultimatum was negotiating tactic, efforts to broker compromise continue (AP)
08:10    IDF troops kill Palestinian planting bomb in Jenin (Haaretz)
07:37    Israel says nothing changes in its position after militants` deadline passed (Reuters)
07:36    Palestinians fire three Qassams at western Negev; no casualties (Haaretz)
07:08    Islamic Army spokesman in Gaza: `Discussion is closed` on Shalit (Reuters)

Haaretz news Flash

[Shammu]

Group claims Islamic law guides them not to kill Shalit
herb keinon and jpost.com staff, THE JERUSALEM POST    Jul. 3, 2006

"We will not kill the soldier since the principles of Islam command us to treat prisoners with respect," a spokesman for one of the groups that kidnapped Gilad Shalit said on Tuesday, three hours after the ultimatum to release Palestinian prisoners, which was rejected by Israel, expired.

Earlier, the group vowed not to release any new information about Shalit.

Abu Muthana, the spokesman of "the Army of Islam" announced shortly after the 6 a.m. deadline expired. He would not say whether the soldier is dead or alive. "We will not give any information that will give the occupation good news or reassurance," he told The Associated Press.

The Army of Islam was unheard of before the soldier was captured on June 25.

Group claims Islamic law guides them not to kill Shalit