UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is "extremely concerned" about the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip and urged an extension of a recently ended truce, his office said on Friday.
"The Secretary General is extremely concerned at statements calling into question the continuation of the Egyptian-brokered calm in and around Gaza," his press office said in a statement. "A major escalation of violence would have grave consequences for the protection of civilians in Israel and Gaza, the welfare of the Gazan civilian population and the sustainability of political efforts."
Ban reiterated his appeal that "the calm should be respected and extended, rocket attacks against Israel must be immediately halted and all acts of violence must cease," his office said.
Shortly after the armed wing of Hamas formally announced that the six-month truce with Israel was over, the smaller Islamic Jihad group said it fired three rockets at southern Israel, which caused no reported damage or casualties.
Violence has escalated for the past several weeks in the run-up to the end of the ceasefire. Militants fired nine rockets on Thursday toward southern Israel that caused no damage or victims after Israeli forces carried out five air strikes and killed one Palestinian on Wednesday.
Israel responded to violence that erupted in early November by tightening sanctions and closing its crossing points with Gaza, halting deliveries of humanitarian aid and other basic supplies
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas met in Washington on Friday with US President George W Bush, set to leave office on January 20 without the Middle East peace deal he had hoped to broker by the end of the year.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2008 09:38 ||
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#2
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Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin said Sunday that Hamas is capable of firing rockets that can strike targets as distant from Gaza as the Negev capital of Be'er Sheva. He told a meeting of the cabinet that rockets could also hit Kiryat Gat and Ashdod, cities which thus far were seen as beyond range.
Hamas officials, meanwhile, are not ruling out a renewal of suicide bombings in Israel. Ayman Taha, a Hamas representative in Gaza, told Haaretz that under the current conditions, no cease-fire is in effect whatsoever. "Rocket fire is in the hands of the military wing. It will decide how to react," he said. "Resistance must continue in every way and by every means, as long as the occupation continues."
According to Diskin, Hamas has lifted its reins from other armed organizations, and had resumed firing on its own. "Make no mistake, Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms. It wants us to lift the siege [on Hamas-ruled Gaza], stop [IDF] attacks, and extend the truce to include Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]," Diskin said.
The is no effective mediator between Israel and the Palestinian side, he said. The Egyptians are sitting on the fence, and there's a lack of trust between Hamas and Egypt, he continued, adding that were Hamas to find itself in a situation in which it needed Egyptian mediation, the Egyptians will again be players.
#1
Israel needs to make a blanket statement: "Rockets coming from anywhere in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon, will have the area of launch completely razed by retaliatory fire. If these are civilian areas, the onus for endangering the civilians rests solely with those who used civilian areas for warlike purposes. Israel accepts no responsibility for damages to civilian or military personnel caused by its legitimate defensive response against those endeavoring to kill Israeli citizens."
Print that in full-page ads in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Cairo and Beirut. Drop leaflets in Gaza, the WB and south Lebanon. Put all involved on clear notice: if you let the terrorists set up shop in your neighborhood, they are bringing down swift and certain death and destruction on your head.
GROZNY, Russia Ineffectual Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived on Sunday in Grozny, capital of Russias troubled region of Chechnya. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov welcomed Abbas at the airport to take him to his residence along a road decorated with photos of their previous meetings.
We feel at home here. We thank the Almighty that we came to the Chechen Republic, Abbas told journalists through an interpreter.
Chechnya is a bombed-out rubble. Of course it feels like home ...
Kadyrov is seen by Chechens as dedicated to the revival of the Muslim religion and has met several influential Muslim leaders from Arab states. Kadyrov, a former rebel who now declares loyalty to the Kremlin, held talks with Abbas during the haj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.
Chechnya, on Russias southern border, is now relatively peaceful after two wars fought by separatist rebels and Islamist militants against Moscows rule starting in 1994. Some analysts say that, in return for quelling rebel attacks, the Kremlin has let Kadyrov enforce some Islamic rules, such as requiring women working in government offices to wear headscarves and long skirts, and imposing periodic alcohol bans.
A Kremlin spokesman in Moscow said Abbas would stay in Russia until December 22, when he was due to hold talks with President Dmitry Medvedev.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/21/2008 00:00 ||
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"Chechnya is a bombed-out rubble. Of course it feels like home"
Snark-O-The-Day®
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/21/2008 13:39 Comments ||
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Israel launched its first air strike on the Gaza Strip Saturday, a day after the six-month-long ceasefire between the Jewish state and Hamas
" The Israeli escalation confirms the need to unify and strengthen the resistance in the face of this aggression that did not respect the truce as is evident from the ongoing Gaza blockade. "
Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesperson
rulers expired, the army and Palestinians said.
An Israeli military official said the air strike targeted members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who were firing rockets towards Israel.
The attack came hours after two rockets fired from Gaza landed in Israel, causing no damage or injuries, the army said.
Ali Eliyan Hijazi, 25, a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was killed and two others were wounded when a missile exploded in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2008 00:00 ||
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#4
Justifiable response to the Occupation... er...Zionist aggression...er...the closure of the crossings in response to the rocket attacks!
/That's the ticket!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2008 10:51 Comments ||
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#5
The orwellian, surreal inversion of "news" is nowhere better captured than right here. As others here have commented, what exactly started this round?
"It all started when I hit him back".
My favorite pithy rendition of this contemptible idiocy.
#7
Exactly right, Verlaine. The hypocrisy of the international media and US policy has reached Kafkaesque dimensions.
If the Mexican army decided to start lobbing rockets into El Paso some fine morning, there wouldn't be two boards left nailed together or one brick standing on another in Ciudad Juarez by nightfall.
Yet Israel is expected to silently endure this provocation, and this expectation has become institutionalized.
On a brighter note, I predict that media and academic support for Paleo terrorism will start to decline as falling oil revenues reduce the supply of honoraria, gifts, fellowships, investment capital and other bribes currently flowing into our self-appointed cultural elites.
At $40 a barrel, the day might come when oil ticks can't even buy a British journalist, let alone an American one.
#8
FREE On-Demand TV Shows, Movies, Music(over 6 million digital quality tracks), Unlimited Games, Money, and FREE College Educations (Stanford, Oxford, Notre Dame and more) @ InternetSurfShack.com
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An Israeli air strike against a rocket squad killed a Palestinian militant Saturday, the first Gaza death since Hamas formally declared an end to a six-month truce with Israel.
Since November, Israel has tightened the blockade to pressure Gaza militants to halt their rocket fire on Israeli border towns. However, sporadic fighting has continued, and Gazas Hamas rulers declared Friday that they would not continue a truce that had taken effect in June.
On Saturday, Palestinians fired 10 rockets and at least 23 mortar shells from Gaza into Israel, causing some property damage but no casualties, the Israeli military said. An Israeli air strike at one of the rocket squads in northern Gaza killed a militant, said the army and Palestinian medics. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah movement, identified the dead man as one of its fighters. Hamas said carried out the mortar fire.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/21/2008 00:00 ||
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extra-large smackdown please?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2008 8:52 Comments ||
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#2
FREE On-Demand TV Shows, Movies, Music(over 6 million digital quality tracks), Unlimited Games, Money, and FREE College Educations (Stanford, Oxford, Notre Dame and more) @ InternetSurfShack.com
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is "extremely concerned" about the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip and urged an extension of a recently ended truce, his office said on Friday.
Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin said Sunday that Hamas is capable of firing rockets that can strike targets as distant from Gaza as the Negev capital of Be'er Sheva. He told a meeting of the cabinet that rockets could also hit Kiryat Gat and Ashdod, cities which thus far were seen as beyond range. 
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An Israeli air strike against a rocket squad killed a Palestinian militant Saturday, the first Gaza death since Hamas formally declared an end to a six-month truce with Israel.
