Israel, the mid-east, and Russia

[Shammu]

Israel army clashes with militants

July 1, 2006

Israeli troops and Hamas gunmen clashed inside southern Gaza in one of the worst exchanges of fire since Israeli forces launched an assault to free a soldier abducted by Palestinian militants.

Gunmen from the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement said they hit an Israeli tank with two rocket-propelled grenades near the town of Khan Younis.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said: "An anti-tank missile was fired at a bulldozer. The force responded with gunfire."

The spokeswoman said exchanges of fire with gunmen continued, adding there were no reports of casualties.

She said there were a number of Israeli tanks in the area to back up troops.

Soldiers backed by tanks had earlier skirmished with gunmen in the area, wounding one Palestinian, witnesses said. An Israeli military source said the soldiers were looking for mines and other explosives.

Israeli forces entered the southern Gaza Strip this week as part of efforts to free Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized in a cross-border raid last Sunday.

The crisis has piled more pressure on the Hamas Islamist government, already straining under a US-led aid embargo to get it to renounce violence and drop its vow to destroy Israel.

Israel army clashes with militants

[Shammu]

Russia Urges Palestinians to Stop Violence

Created: 14.06.2006 09:38 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:01 MSK

MosNews

Russia on Tuesday called on feuding Palestinians factions to stop the violence that has raised fears of imminent civil war, The Associated Press reported.

The statement by the Foreign Ministry came a day after hundreds of Palestinian police loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas went on a rampage against the Hamas government.

Spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement posted on the ministry web-site that Russia was concerned about increasing instability in the Palestinian territories. “All political forces should return to legal solutions, stop civil strife and unite around the central idea of forming an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the existing solutions of the international community,” Kamynin said.

The rampage on Monday, which saw police riddling the parliament building and cabinet offices with bullets before setting them ablaze in retaliation for an attack by Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip, raised new fears the Palestinians were headed toward civil war.

Along with the United States, the United Nations and the European Union, Russia is a member of the so-called Quartet of Mideast mediators, which has drafted a roadmap for peace in the troubled region.

Russia, which is seeking to boost its international clout and its role in the Middle East peace process, hosted a high-level Hamas delegation in March. The Moscow visit made no visible headway in persuading Hamas to soften its militant, anti-Israel stance.

Russia Urges Palestinians to Stop Violence

[Shammu]

Israel Squeezes, and Gaza Strip Adapts to a Vise
By IAN FISHER

GAZA, July 1 — Omar Areny's wife had left their 11th-floor apartment here only once in three days. When the power is out — which is often since the Israeli military knocked out nearly half of Gaza's power supply on Wednesday — that means a long climb up the stairs.

"It's a prison but there are no guards," said Mr. Areny, 40, waiting for the power to return as Israeli artillery shells thudded nearby on Friday. "You are obliged to stay in your house."

No electricity means not only no elevators, but also less water, refrigeration and air-conditioning in the middle of summer. The Israeli military campaign in Gaza — aimed at forcing the release of a captured Israeli soldier — has come with other problems: the closed borders have locked out fuel, which has nearly run dry, and food. The sonic booms set off by Israeli jets in the night terrify the Arenys' four children.

Even after so many years of fighting, Mr. Areny said, Israel had again misunderstood the Palestinian mind.

He and others here believe the military campaign is aimed less at fighters than at making Palestinians' lives so miserable that they turn against their government, which is now run by the militant group Hamas. Hamas's military wing led the attack into Israel last Sunday in which the soldier was captured.

"I don't like the government, but in these circumstances I will support it," said Mr. Areny, a member of Fatah, Hamas's rival. "I cannot stand with the Israelis against our people."

Nearly a week after the attack in which the Israeli soldier was taken, the Israeli military operation has not yet created a full-blown crisis for the 1.3 million people who live in the already poor and violent Gaza Strip.

But aid groups worry that one could come more quickly now than it might have under other circumstances. Gaza has already been squeezed financially — and civil servants like Mr. Areny not paid for four months — since Hamas, classified by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist group, took power in January elections and the West cut off financial aid.

"They are heading for the abyss unless they get electricity and fuel restored," Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency coordinator, told reporters in New York on Thursday.

In recent days, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been negotiating with Israel to allow into Gaza emergency stores of food, fuel and medical supplies. No decision had been made as of late Saturday, and it remained unclear how long the current crisis would last.

On Wednesday, Israeli missiles destroyed all six transformers in Gaza's only power plant, which supplied nearly half of the strip's electricity. Gaza is now completely reliant on Israel for power, which is being rationed around the strip, in an erratic schedule that gives residents only a few hours of power a day.

Meantime, with the borders completely shut since Sunday, officials estimate at most a few days' worth of fuel remains — and many gasoline stations have already run out.

On Friday afternoon, Mahmoud Saleh, 33, a taxi driver, pushed his empty car into a gas station near the beach, only to find the last drops had been sold the day before.

"It's a disaster," said the station's accountant, Akram Majid, 29, as the employees, with nothing else to do, worked on lighting up fragrant sheesha tobacco in a big water pipe to pass the time. "Everything will stop. We will go back thousands of years."

Water is also quickly becoming a problem: without electricity to work water pumps — and with a shortage of diesel to run generators — 130,000 Gazans, mostly in rural areas, have been left without a regular supply, according to the United Nations.

And the problems compound: some 160,000 Gazans, half of them widows, the disabled and blind, are dependent on the United Nations World Food Program for food, which comes in rations of chick peas, flour, oil and salt.

But Kirstie Campbell, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program, said the concern was that people would not be able to cook without adequate water and fuel.

"You can't eat flour," she said. "You can't eat dry chick peas."

Some of the problems of the last few days seem more like inconveniences, although they go down as badly here as they would anywhere. People have been unable to check their e-mail messages regularly, because the power cuts have also affected Internet network computer servers. Beaches, normally crowded on hot days, are nearly empty for fear of an Israeli artillery shell, from the regular artillery rounds or from the Israeli gunboats off the coast.

At his grocery store in Gaza, Osama Abu Hamdah, 25, opened his refrigerator, which had been on only two hours that day, so a visitor could smell the rotting meat and cheese. He slid open the ice cream freezer to reveal a pile of soggy, flat wrappers.

"It's not fair," he said. "It's collective punishment."

In a place where seafood is a major part of the diet, fishermen have been warned by Israeli gunboat patrols not to go beyond the coast all week. Al Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, has been almost entirely reliant on its generator this week. The hospital has stored up two weeks' worth of fuel, which officials hope is enough.

But worries persist about the generator itself — "which is a machine which may at any time stop," said Dr. Jumaa Saqqa, the hospital's spokesman.

Many are worried too about the longer-term effects of the violence on their children. Violence here is caused not only by Israelis but also by fighting among Palestinians factions, but residents here say that in the last week Israeli sonic booms — which cause houses to shudder and sound like massive bombs exploding overhead — have been especially terrifying.

Mahmoud Bahador, 30, a car mechanic, said that one night this week, his 3-year-old son, Moamin, bolted out of bed after one of the booms in search of his toy gun to defend himself.

"I told him, 'Don't be afraid. They aren't here,' " he said. "But he didn't understand."

On Friday afternoon, as if on cue, an Israeli F-16 shattered the sound barrier over a double wedding here, already noisy with drums, a tambourine, a traditional flute and, as is custom in many Arab countries, rounds of celebratory gunfire in the air.

"What should we do?" asked one of the grooms, Ayman Arichy, 25. "This is my wedding, and Israeli bombers are scaring us. Life goes on."

Israel Squeezes, and Gaza Strip Adapts to a Vise

[Shammu]

'Give BD10m to help Palestine'

By TARIQ KHONJI

A BAHRAINI political society is calling for Bahrain and other GCC governments to each give BD10 million from oil revenues to Palestinian cause.It comes along with a call to support a demonstration outside UN House today against Israel's latest brutalities.

Oil prices are currently so high that the region could easily afford to give away this amount of money, says National Democratic Action Society (Wa'ad) secretary general Ibrahim Sharif.

"Bahrain's budget is drawn up based on a $40 per barrel price but oil prices have skyrocketed to between $60 and $70 per barrel and all this is surplus income," he said.

"We would not have made such a suggestion if we felt that the region didn't have enough money for itself, but this is clearly not the case and BD10 million represents about 0.5 per cent of the Bahrain government's estimated revenue for this year.

"Since oil prices are expected to remain high, it will be a similar story next year too."

Meanwhile, Wa'ad and several other political societies are joining hands to demonstrate outside UN House in Hoora, to denounce Israel's recent raids on Palestinian territory after one of its soldiers was kidnapped and shot.

The demonstration will be held from 5.30pm to 6.30pm.

Mr Sharif said that the demonstration was being organised after a distressed Palestinian resident in Bahrain, who did not want to be named, called some of the societies asking why they were not doing anything.

"We rallied the societies together to voice our condemnation of Israel's actions, which are entirely devoid of logic and reason," he continued.

"How can the life of one Israeli soldier justify the slaughter of dozens of civilians?"

Mr Sharif said that the international community was allowing Israel to "get away with murder".

"They are also destroying bridges and other infrastructure, which the international community paid to build. And yet, ironically, they are not doing anything to stop them."

Mr Sharif also proposed that Bahrain and other Arab countries set aside 100 scholarships a year to give to Palestinians.

"Getting an education is very difficult in Palestine. They have to walk miles just to get to a university," he said.

"In addition, they suffer from shortage of medicine, lack of hospitals and other problems which we need to help them with."

'Give BD10m to help Palestine'

[Shammu]

Palestinian militants issue new demands

Fri Jun 30, 7:55 PM ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Palestinian militants holding an abducted Israeli soldier issued a new demands Saturday, calling for a halt in Israel's military offensive in Gaza and the release of 1,000 prisoners from Israeli jails.

The demands were laid out in a joint statement by the militant wing of the ruling Hamas party, and two smaller militant groups, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Army of Islam. The three groups have claimed responsibility for Sunday's abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid.

The statement also repeated an earlier demand for the release of all Palestinian women and minors held in Israeli prisons in exchange for information about Shalit.

As with its earlier demand, Saturday's statement did not promise to release the soldier. Israel has ruled out any prisoner swap.

Palestinian militants issue new demands

[Shammu]

PAL: OK you release 1,000 prisoners and stop Gaza offensive.
Israel : No deal!

PAL : OK, YOU stop Gaza offensive and then release 1,000 prisoners!
Israel : ummm NO!

PAL: OKOK YOU release 1,000 prisoners, AND THEN stop Gaza offensive
Israel :

PAL to UN, we cannot reach an agreement with Israel because they reject our repeated efforts to reach a deal!

If only people's lives weren't being lost over it, it'd be really funny.

[Shammu]

Hamas: Kidnappings to increase
01/07/2006 22:37  - (SA) 
   
Oslo - The representative of Hamas in Lebanon said on Saturday that the number of kidnappings of Israelis would increase unless Israel freed Palestinian prisoners.

"Palestinians will do everything to get their sons, daughters, brothers and women freed from Israeli prisons," Osama Hamdan was quoted as saying in the internet edition of the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

He said the current Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip would not deter the kidnappers.

"Kidnappings will increase as long as Palestinians are not freed, whatever the outcome of the Israeli invasion in the Gaza Strip," he said, because "Israel has never freed Palestinian prisoners for any other reason".

The comments come days after the seizing by Palestinian militants of Israeli army corporal Gilad Shalit, which prompted the Israeli offensive.

Following the capture of the 19-year-old corporal on Sunday, militant factions affiliated to the armed wing of Fatah have sent several statements to the media claiming the abduction of other Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

The Israeli government has launched a massive operation against the Gaza Strip in a bid to free the soldier.

More than a dozen Palestinian cabinet members belonging to the Hamas faction have been detained.

Hamas: Kidnappings to increase

[Shammu]

Erdogan Slams Israel Over Detentions
Published: 7/1/2006

ANKARA- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced Israel's offensive in the Palestinian territories and the arrest of dozens of Palestinian politicians as a disproportionate and mistaken response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.

"I'm having a hard time understanding now that eight Palestinian ministers and more than 50 parliament members and local directors were kidnapped, and I don't see this as ever adding to peace in the Middle East," he said.

"The kidnapping of a soldier is not right -- it's wrong. OK, is the price of this eight ministers, does the price of this mean kidnapping parliament members and local directors over there, taking them prisoner?" Erdoðan told a "Glocalization" conference hosted by Ankara Mayor Melih Gökcek and attended by some 400 guests from mostly Islamic countries.

"These developments have greatly saddened us, but we have not given up hope. We will do all we can (to help resolve the crisis)," he said. Meanwhile, Israel on Saturday rejected demands from Palestinian militants who captured an Israeli soldier to free 1,000 prisoners from its jails and kept up air strikes on Gaza aimed at winning his release.

A Palestinian official said Corporal Gilad Shalit was alive and stable after being treated for wounds. The soldier's seizure in a raid across the Gaza Strip's frontier last Sunday sparked a crisis that has sent Israeli-Palestinian relations to new lows and dashed any chance peace talks might be revived.

Erdogan Slams Israel Over Detentions

[Shammu]

Hamas responds to Israeli threats by declaring resilience

RI Urges UNSC To Stop Israel's Campaign Against Palestine

Indonesian House Commission Demands Release Of Palestinian Officials
Gaza (ANTARA News) - A senior Hamas leader and politician responded Saturday to recent Israeli threats to target movement officials in declaring the resilience of the Palestinian cause.

"Our flag would never fall down, though our leaders may be killed imprisoned," Mushir al-Masri responded reports that Israel threatened to target Prime Minister Haneya and other ministers and lawmakers in the Hamas-led government if the captive Israeli soldier is killed.

Al-Masri also said the Hamas movement, which together with two other Popular Resistance Committee (PRC) militants, abducted the 19 year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit last Sunday, "will not reduce its demands for the release of Palestinian imprisoned in Israel jails."

He reiterated a statement issued by the militant captors earlier in the day Saturday saying that "the release of a 1,000 prisoners spending high sentences in Israeli jails, is a clear condition for the release of the abducted soldier Gil`ad Shalit."

Three militant groups, led by Hamas armed wing al-Qassam Brigades killed two Israeli soldiers and kidnapped Shalit in an attack they carried out against an Israeli army base into Israel, south-east of the Gaza Strip on June 25, DPA reported.

"The abduction of the soldier is a step in the right direction in order to release imprisoned Palestinians, Arabs and Moslems from the Israeli jails," said al-Masri, expecting that Israel "sooner or later would give up and accept the conditions."

Jul 02 04:42

Hamas responds to Israeli threats by declaring resilience

[Shammu]

Israel to ease trade blockade, keep up offensive

By Nidal al-Mughrabi 1 hour, 1 minute ago

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was widely expected on Sunday to ease an economic blockade on the Gaza Strip but to keep up a military offensive designed to force Palestinian militants to free a kidnapped soldier.

Israel sent troops and tanks into southern Gaza in a clampdown on the coastal territory after the militants seized the soldier in a cross-border raid last Sunday, but the standoff has triggered a looming Palestinian humanitarian crisis.

Israeli political sources said Olmert would seek cabinet approval to reopen the main commercial crossing into Gaza so the Palestinians could import food, emergency electricity generators and other vital items.

"We expect Karni (crossing) to be opened by Monday," one source said on condition of anonymity. "But the military operations are going ahead."

Even before the standoff, the Palestinian government -- run by the Hamas Islamist group -- was already straining under a U.S.-led economic embargo imposed to get it to recognize Israel.

The militants holding Corporal Gilad Shalit, including Hamas members, have demanded Israel release hundreds of Palestinians from its jails before they will free him.

Israel has ruled this out and threatened to step up its military offensive in Gaza, which it quit last year after 38 years of occupation.

DASHED HOPES

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian mediators have been involved in round-the-clock negotiations with Hamas in an attempt to defuse a standoff that has plunged relations with Israel to new lows and dashed hopes of renewed peace talks.

"Things are not deadlocked. People are looking for a satisfactory solution and hopefully we will get that solution," said Abbas, a moderate whose Fatah group is a rival to Hamas.

Abbas told reporters he still hoped some Palestinian demands would be met as part of any diplomatic breakthrough.

A Palestinian official quoted mediators as saying 19-year-old Shalit was alive after being treated for wounds.

President Bush and other Western leaders have said freeing Shalit was key to ending the standoff and should be a first goal.

But Israel has faced Western censure for its initial response to the abduction. The Jewish state launched air strikes against the main Gaza power plant and road bridges as well as a round-up of senior Hamas politicians in the occupied West Bank.

Serious casualties have so far been limited to two dead militants.

The United Nations said its Middle East special envoy, Alvero de Soto, would go to Gaza on Sunday for talks with Abbas.

Diplomats said Egypt was trying to get Syria to lean on Damascus-based Hamas leaders who have greater sway over the group's armed wing than political leaders based in Gaza.

Israel has said it was playing no part in the mediation.

Israel to ease trade blockade, keep up offensive

[Shammu]

Israel targets Palestinian PM's office

8 minutes ago

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at the Gaza City office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh early on Sunday, setting it alight, witnesses said.

They said Haniyeh, a top official of the ruling Islamist militant party Hamas, was not believed to be in the office at the time.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the air force targeted Haniyeh's office.

Minutes later, another Israeli missile hit a Al-Arqam School in Gaza, which was founded by the late Hamas founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, witnesses said.

There were no reports of casualties in either air strikes.

Israel sent troops and tanks into the Gaza Strip after Palestinian gunmen snatched one of its soldiers in a cross-border raid last Sunday. Civilian infrastructure and facilities used by the Palestinian government have also be targeted in air strikes.

Israel targets Palestinian PM's office

[Shammu]

'We will halt tanks with human mines'
By Harry De Quetteville in Khan Younis
(Filed: 02/07/2006)

Palestinian militants preparing for an expected Israeli armoured assault on Gaza have vowed to deploy suicide bombers against advancing tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

Militant leaders are activating volunteers who have lain dormant because security measures make it all but impossible for Palestinian bombers to attack Israel from fenced-off Gaza. Only a handful of suicide bombers have emerged from Gaza, including a British national who exploded a bomb outside a bar in Tel Aviv in April 2003, killing three.

But in the warren of streets just off the main north-south road through Gaza, a squad of young men once willing to die as "human bombs" are now preparing to die as human anti-tank mines.

"We had a queue of volunteers so long we could not use them," said a leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, who goes by his nom de guerre, Abu Jendal. "Now we are planning to attack tanks with our bodies. It is an effective means of resistance."

The suicide corps is from Gaza's second biggest city, Khan Younis, where, Israeli intelligence believes, Corporal Gilad Shalit, the soldier kidnapped last weekend, is being held by an alliance of Palestinian groups. Cpl Shalit, himself a tank gunner, was captured on Sunday morning in a well-planned raid that killed two other Israeli soldiers and humiliated an army used to enjoying total military supremacy in the conflict with the Palestinians. Yesterday, it emerged that he had been treated by a Palestinian doctor for three wounds sustained in the raid.

Abu Jendal is al-Aqsa's commander in Khan Younis and, though he says he knows nothing of the whereabouts of Cpl Shalit, mobile phones and radios used by him and his associates buzz with reports from fellow militants.

Unstrapping his pistol and throwing it on a pile of camouflaged uniforms in an upstairs room in Khan Younis, he recalled dispatching a woman who blew herself up at a border checkpoint between Israel and Gaza in 2004, killing four. Suicide belts and improvised rocket-propelled grenades were close at hand, he said.

Three times, he said, he had escaped Israeli assassination attempts, including an airstrike this year on an al-Aqsa's "control room". "I stepped out to get a glass of tea," he said. "Then the missiles hit. I was saved by tea."

But while militants such as Abu Jendal have been buoyed by their success in last -Sunday's raid into Israel, few have any illusions about the battle that they assume is just days, if not hours, away.

"We are not fools," he said. "We know they are strong. 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."

Their favoured battlefield will be the twisting alleyways of refugee camps across Gaza, where Israeli tanks have little room for manoeuvre. Until yesterday, however, those tanks remained stationed at either end of Gaza, awaiting orders to roll in, as rumours abounded that Egyptian mediators had made a breakthrough and that Cpl Shalit was to be freed.
    
Middle East factfile

But then those holding him announced the terms of any deal - including the release of women and children and 1,000 other Arab prisoners.

Israel, which has vowed not to barter for Cpl Shalit's release, dismissed the offer, raising expectations that it would begin its armoured push at the end of the Jewish Sabbath yesterday evening.

Even before the land campaign, Gazans have been feeling the pinch from -Israel's air and artillery assault. A missile strike on Gaza's power station has proved a critical blow on a territory where electricity is key to basic needs.

While Gaza can get by -without air-conditioning, it cannot live without water, which is supplied from wells that rely on electric pumps.

Fuel to run emergency generators is also running low, as Israel imposes a total blockade on Gaza. It has refused to allow the Red Cross to deliver emergency shipments of fuel and medical supplies.

While Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has repeatedly stated this week that his government has "no interest to harm the Palestinian people", few in Gaza see what military benefit Israel derives from inflicting power shortages or ear-splitting sonic booms upon them.

But for Mr Olmert, a leader without strong army credentials, those considerations are outweighed by the need to appear tough and to end the barrage of home-made missiles launched at southern Israeli towns.

Nor are they the principal worry of Abu Jendal.

"It's not easy choosing a suicide bomber," he said. "We don't want those who are angry or desperate but those who are convinced of the principle of sacrificing themselves. If I just followed the emotions of young men, I would be sending in dozens. We want an effective result."

'We will halt tanks with human mines'

[Shammu]

Palestine 'ready to trade' captured Israeli soldier

Secret talks over prisoners are 'close to deal' as negotiators race against time to prevent bloodbath

Conal Urquhart in Gaza City
Sunday July 2, 2006
The Observer

Palestinian militant sources claimed last night that they were close to reaching an agreement in negotiations over the release of an Israeli soldier. They want a guarantee that Israel will free prisoners at a future date in return for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit. Palestinians say they accept that Israel will not free any prisoners immediately, but insist they will give up the 19-year-old soldier only in return for a commitment for a future release. Because they have no confidence in Israeli assurances, they stipulate that it must make a commitment to a third party such as Egypt. Israel would also be expected to end its attacks on the Gaza Strip.

It came as the Palestinian Deputy Minister of Prisoner Affairs said Shalit had minor injuries but was in a stable condition. Speaking at a news conference in Ramallah, Ziad Abu Aen cited 'mediators' as telling him that Shalit, captured during a raid into Israel by militants last Sunday, had three wounds: 'I guess shrapnel wounds.'

The tone of the secret negotiations is very different from the public utterances of both parties. Yesterday the three groups holding Shalit said they would free him if Israel released 1,000 Palestinian women, children and humanitarian cases from prison. Mark Regev, of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, rejected the demand, saying that Israel would make no deals. There has been energetic diplomacy to prevent the situation descending into a bloodbath. Ghazi Hamed, spokesman for the Hamas government, said Egypt, Turkey and other governments were mediating and making progress.

'Israel says it will not agree to a simultaneous release, but it will agree to release prisoners in the future. We are looking for a third party, possibly Egypt, to accept a guarantee from Israel that it will respect that they will release prisoners at a later date,' he said. However, Walid Awad, a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, said 'immense Egyptian efforts' to resolve the crisis were being thwarted by Israeli intransigence and the inability of the Hamas government to exercise any influence on its military wing. 'Ismail Haniyeh, the current Prime Minister, appears not to have any say in what is going on in this regard,' he said.

But there was no relief for Gaza yesterday as the sonic booms of Israeli attacks from sea and air could be heard every hour. An airstrike on an electricity plant left homes and hospitals without essential power while the World Food Programme, which helps feed about 600,000 people in the occupied territories, says that many Palestinians are now living on one meal a day, and there has a been a rise in anaemia and kidney problems due to the poor nutrition.

Karen Koning AbuZayd, the head of the UN's relief agency, said there was a humanitarian crisis growing for Gaza's 1.4 million people. 'Gaza is an urban environment but urban life is not functioning. Water is not getting to people in apartment buildings and there is very little power. The situation can better be compared to Sarajevo, although it's not that sort of siege,' she said.

After leaving Gaza ten months ago, Israeli troops are now dug in around southern Gaza and massed in the north. Israel's re-engagement with Gaza began before dawn last Sunday when eight men from Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees, and the hitherto unknown Islamic Army crawled through a tunnel from Gaza to attack Israeli positions from the rear.

They destroyed an armoured personnel carrier and a tank, killing two Israelis and abducting Corporal Shilat. Bedouin trackers, who volunteer for the Israeli army, found the footprints and believe that Shilat was wounded but able to walk unaided.

The Islamic Army appears to be a part of the Popular Resistance Committees, but some Gazans believe it is a new group which draws its inspiration from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida rather than the quest for Palestinian liberation. For years, Fatah splinter groups have operated independently of its mainstream leadership, but this time it was Hamas that was to be embarrassed by its lack of control of its cadres.

Previously Hamas was a disciplined group which kept disputes internal and spoke with one voice. It decided to enter the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council in January after a lengthy period of consultation.

However, six months in office have left many activists disillusioned by the inability of Hamas to take control of events and the perceived hypocrisy of the Western governments in rejecting the democratic choice of the Palestinian electorate. 'People are very angry and frustrated,' said Yehiyeh Musa, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. 'People have been calling us cowards.' In spite of the fragmentation of the Palestinian factions, Israel decided to hold Hamas and the Palestinians responsible for the captive soldier. Israel blew up roads and a power station in Gaza and arrested 64 Hamas officials in the West Bank, including cabinet ministers and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

For some in the Israeli government, the abduction of Shilat provided an opportunity to settle scores with Hamas. 'There is a school of thought that believes that an armed conflict with Hamas would be inevitable and this would have happened without the abduction,' said Yossi Alpher, an Israeli strategic analyst.

Palestine 'ready to trade' captured Israeli soldier

Keep in mind this is coming from the Palestinians...

[Shammu]

Israel’s Reluctant Journey from Hostage Crisis to War Confrontation in Gaza

DEBKAfile Special Report

July 2, 2006, 12:45 AM (GMT+02:00)
   
The ball landed squarely in the Israeli court Saturday night, July 1, after Cairo admitted its bid to negotiate an end to the Gideon Shalit hostage crisis had ended in fiasco six days after his capture. The IDF, whose armored forces are standing 3 km inside the southern Gaza Strip since Wednesday, June 28, and camped on the fringes of its northern sector, are awaiting their next orders. It is up to prime minister Ehud Olmert to tell the troops how to complete their incursion of the territory and approach their confrontation with Hamas.

He is holding emergency conferences with security and military chiefs Saturday night on whether to approach the inevitable clash at once, or in stages; incrementally, or by a blitz operation entailing the reoccupation of all or most of the Gaza Strip.

Casualties on both sides are unavoidable.

Hamas is gearing up for action. Seven Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades factions have rallied to Hamas and are pledged to fight – not with RPGs or roadside bombs but by hurling themselves bodily against incoming Israeli tanks as martyrs.

The signal for war came Saturday night from Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. He was urged by the Egyptians to state that diplomacy had run out of steam in the absence of a Hamas partner for dialogue on the fate of Gideon Shalit.

DEBKAfile’s sources disclose that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his aides derailed their own mediation effort out of hubris, while Mahmoud Abbas is picking up the pieces in the hope of maneuvering Israel into doing his dirty work and toppling the Hamas regime.

In an interview Friday, June 30, to the Cairo daily al Ahram, Hosni Mubarak boasted he had brokered a deal with Hamas leaders on terms for the Israeli hostage’s release, but accused Israel of rejecting them. This was the reverse of the real situation. Mubarak had no clearance from Hamas before he went public, but Olmert was willing to listen. Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was supposed to travel to Jerusalem Saturday, July 1, to present the deal in detail.

DEBKAfile disclosed those terms that same day:

1. Gilead Shalit will be freed and handed to the IDF.

2. Israel will then pull its troops back from the Gaza Strip.

3. The 87 Hamas leaders Israel detained on the West Bank last Thursday, June 29, will be released.

4. Olmert will give Mubarak his personal guarantee to free groups of Palestinian prisoners at a suitable future opportunity as a gesture of goodwill.

After reading Mubarak’s al Ahram interview, Hamas leaders in Damascus and Gaza blew up. The Damascus-based Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, ordered the special emissary he sent to Cairo last week (as reported earlier by DEBKAfile) to notify the Egyptian president that Hamas utterly disowns his proposals for a hostage deal.

The Israeli corporal’s captors, a coalition of three terrorist groups, thereupon posted their new demand for the release of another 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, on top of the 450 demanded earlier. There was no offer to free Gilead Shalit. This reverse thoroughly confused the situation as presented in the media.

Olmert and Mubarak then found out from their intelligence agencies that Hamas had not let the grass grow under its feet. Taking advantage of the time gained by the hold-up in Israel’s advance into Gaza and Egypt’s mediation bid, Hamas used last week to recruit the seven armed Fatah suicide squads in the Gaza Strip and build a new alliance called “The National General Command of Asifa Palestine.”

The new grouping passed two resolutions.

1. Its members no longer recognize Mahmoud Abbas’s authority.

2. A concerted effort by all the allied factions will be mounted to fight Israeli forces if they deepen their incursion of the Gaza Strip.

Saturday night, July 1, the NGCAP announced its principle weapon would be suicide fighters. Israel military sources believe Fatah will have no difficulty in rounding up large numbers of recruits for a mass suicide assault.

In an effort to save his face, the Egyptian president made Abbas publicly state that night that the failure of Cairo’s mediation bid to free the Israeli hostage was not the fault of Egypt or Israel, but the lack of a responsible Hamas party to address.

DEBKAfile’s Palestinian sources report that Abu Mazen has calculated cynically that Olmert is in a fix: he can hardly keep on dragging out Operation Summer Rain any longer, and he will end up destroying the Hamas government on behalf of the Palestinian leader. This will not of course prevent Abbas from calling on the world to intervene and rescue the innocent Palestinian people from the Israeli armed forces.

Our political sources note that Israel’s leaders fell into the disastrous error of putting their trust in the Egyptian ruler instead of entrusting the IDF with a swift, comprehensive offensive to vanquish Hamas. The result of their dilly-dallying is that Israel is being dragged against its will into a far broader and more costly conflict whose outcome is incalculable against an enemy which has used the time gained to prepare for the fray.

Saturday too the Lebanese Hizballah placed its forces on the ready. Hassan Nasrallah, the terrorist group’s leader, explained that when the IDF attacks Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian organizations in Lebanon will be set loose against Israel’s northern border.

Israel’s Reluctant Journey from Hostage Crisis to War Confrontation in Gaza

[Shammu]

Abbas: Hamas indecision obstacle to ending hostage crisis

Egyptian efforts to diplomatically resolve crisis over abducted soldier are being set back by confusion about who has decision-making power on Palestinian side - Hamas government or militants holding the captive

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that Egyptian efforts to diplomatically resolve a crisis with Israel over an abducted soldier are being set back by confusion about who has the decision-making power on the Palestinian side: The Hamas government or the militants holding the captive.

IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, was abducted by Palestinian gunmen during an attack on an IDF position overlooking the fence on the southern Gaza border.

"The efforts by the Egyptians are facing difficulties due to the absence of an address on the Hamas side capable of taking decisions," said Abbas, the moderate leader of the mainstream Fatah movement.

"Hamas political leadership outside are saying the decision is in the hands of its military wing inside Gaza, while the military wing is saying the decision is in the hands of the political leadership outside. Ismail Haniyeh, the current prime minister of Hamas government, appears not to have any say in what is going on in this regard," Abbas said in a statement issued by his office.

"If things do not change, all indications are leading into one direction, more bloodshed, more chaos and poverty, more catastrophes, and worse instability in our region," Abbas said of the hostage crisis.

"Cool heads particularly in Israel should prevail. Military force of any kind did not work in the past, and will not work, now or in the future. In the short run, the solution is to give more time to diplomacy, and in the long run is a negotiated peaceful settlement," he said.

Egypt’s plan to dispatch the Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman to the area to mediate talks has not yet been carried out owing to the obstacles. Egyptian elements holding negotiations with Hamas representatives in Gaza and Hamas leaders in Damascus reached the conclusion that the organization was leaning towards the decision not to release Shalit except in a hostage exchange deal.

Palestinian sources familiar with the talks said that Egypt is frustrated with both sides – with Israel for its inflexibility and insistence that the only solution is the soldier’s release with no conditions, and with Hamas for their refusal to agree to anything that does not include the immediate release of security prisoners.

Palestinians officials said that one of Egypt's suggestions was that the soldier be released immediately, and later Israel would free Palestinian security prisoners as a goodwill gesture in advance of the upcoming diplomatic meeting between President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. But this plan also ran aground. Sources in the Palestinian Authority said that the next few hours would be decisive, although estimates are that no breakthroughs will be made. In the PA, concerns are high that a breakthrough will not be reached until another round of bloodshed on both sides.

The factions who captured Shalit demanded earlier Saturday that Israel free 1,000 prisoners from its jails and end an assault on Gaza launched to win the soldier’s release.

The second statement from the groups since Shalit’s abduction, appeared to cast doubt on the hopes of mediators that diplomacy could soon get him free.

“We are declaring to the public our just and humanitarian demands,” said the statement faxed to news agencies by the armed wing of the governing Hamas Islamist group, the Popular Resistance Committees and Army of Islam.

Earlier Saturday an initial report on Shalit’s condition was received, seven days after his abduction.

Palestinian sources said an examination of the soldier by a Palestinian physician a few days after the kidnapping found that he is suffering from a light stomach injury caused by shrapnel.

Hamas indecision obstacle to ending hostage crisis