Israel threatened on Sunday to launch a major offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as violence simmered around the impoverished territory days after the end of a truce with the Islamists.
The two frontrunners in the race to become prime minister after a snap election in February both vowed to topple Hamas, which has run Gaza since violently seizing power there in June 2007.
Militant rocket and mortar fire continued on Sunday, the Israeli army said, reporting that one person was slightly wounded. A Palestinian medic said a woman had been injured in northern Gaza by shrapnel from a tank shell but the military denied firing in the area.
"Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the governing Kadima party, was quoted as saying by Israeli media. "Israel must react when it is fired upon, must re-establish its force of dissuasion and stop the rockets."
Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party which is leading in opinion polls, echoed the sentiment. "In the long run, we have no choice but to topple Hamas rule," he was quoted as saying by the Ynet news website as he toured the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of militant rocket attacks from Gaza. "Right now we have to go from passive response to active assault."
Senior defence officials said after the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel was preparing to take action to halt the rocket strikes. "We are preparing our response to the Hamas threat, with the decision yet to be taken on the timing and the scale," Amos Gilad, a senior adviser to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, told public radio.
A senior Israeli defence official told AFP that a major military confrontation in the besieged territory was unavoidable. "It is obvious where we are heading in Gaza. The situation is intolerable but clear. The army's considerations are the only thing that is deciding when events will unfold," the official said on condition of anonymity.
In Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian woman in her 40s was wounded by shrapnel from a tank shell on Sunday, a Palestinian medic said, but the Israeli army denied opening fire in the area.
The army spokesman said militants had fired 19 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, wounding one person slightly and causing some damage. The armed wing of the radical Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is loosely linked to the Fatah movement of president Mahmud Abbas, claimed it was behind the rockets.
Tensions around Gaza have risen steadily since Friday, when Hamas said it would not renew a six-month truce with Israel that came into effect in June after months of Egyptian mediation. Since then, Gaza militants have launched several dozen rockets, causing some damage and slightly wounding a handful of civilians, and Israel has retaliated with air strikes, killing one militant and several other Palestinians.
Although several Israeli ministers have for weeks been calling for the army to oust the Islamist masters of Gaza, observers say the government is wary of launching a major offensive less than two months before the election for fear it would not be able to score a decisive victory.
"The politicians aren't in any rush to reach election day with an incomplete military operation and only partial results hanging around their necks," wrote military analyst Alex Fishman in top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot. "And worse than that, to be accused of having ordered a military operation just to improve their chances at the ballot box," he said.
Israel responded to violence that erupted around Gaza in early November by tightening its blockade of the territory and halting deliveries of humanitarian aid and other basic supplies.
#3
Divide Gaza up into districts and everytime Gaza attacks Israel a district is leveled (working from the border inward to create a buffer zone). Soon the Pals will be living in hovels on the Egyptian border mostly out of rocket range.
#2
During the Viet Nam war, one of the arguments for resisting the draft was "The North Viet Namese are not trying to kill me!" Given that the Hamasses have declared their intention to massacre the Jews, not fighting back seems...shortsighted. Not every war is Viet Nam.
Palestinian Muslim worshippers witnessed a second round of mosque desecration as they arrived at a mosque near the Jaffa Port only to discover graffiti on its doors with the words "Muhammad is a pig" and "Death to the Arabs" spray-painted. But why? They're such good neighbors!
The Jaffa mosque graffiti marks the second desecration incident in December, following the desecration of mosques and cemeteries in Israeli-occupied West Bank villages by Jewish settlers.
Islamic Movement representatives in Jaffa filed a complaint with the police. "The miserable and un-deterring punishments against those who carried out similar offenses only encourage their repetition," Sheikh Ahmed Abu Ajawa, head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch in Jaffa, told Yedioth news, adding that the incident was "a continuation of the incitement against Muslims and Arabs, in which senior politicians take part."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The elites are useless, the change has to come from the People.
#5
Jews spraypaint Mosques. Mulsims burn Synagogues. I'm not sure they really should be complaining lest the Jews start playing with fire as well.
The Arabs destroy Joesph's tomb without any repercussions.
I'm telling you I'd seriously consider blowing up the Al Aqsa mosque if I was running Israel. Islam can't hate the Jews any more than they do. The world couldn't favor the Muslims any more than they do.
#6
The Israelis spray paint on a house of worship. The Palestinians spray bullets. I'm sure I could make a case for moral equivalency after another cup of coffee and removing part of my brain.
#10
Now if they'd used pigs blood for paint they would have shown that would have gotten a gold star for the effort but just spray paint? Well any gang in the US can spray paint any non-moving target. There really isn't much to it.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Sunday to end Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip if she is elected prime minister in a February election.
"The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza," Livni told members of her centrist Kadima party. "The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic."
Israel's prime minister earlier brushed aside calls for an immediate large-scale operation in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as Tel Aviv and Hamas forces solidified the end of a six-month ceasefire with strikes from both sides.
Palestinian forces have fired more than 50 makeshift rockets at Israel, which often cause no damage or injuries, and Israel responds with air strikes that are usually fatal and kill civilians.
Unless Hamas stopped the salvoes, Israeli cabinet minister Isaac Herzog said the army would have no choice but to take "severe action", though he did not say what that might entail.
"It needs to be clear. A strike in Gaza will come, and it will be hard and painful," Herzog said after the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas ended on Friday.
The ceasefire initially broke down last month after a fatal Israeli airstrike on Gaza coupled with its crippling blockade of the impoverished strip, a move Israel says is for its protection, but world leaders and organizations have slammed as "collective punishment" of Gaza's 1.5 million people.
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12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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Israel threatened on Sunday to launch a major offensive against the Gaza Strip as violence simmered around the impoverished territory days after the end of a truce with Hamas. The two frontrunners in the race to become prime minister in February's parliamentary polls both vowed to topple Hamas.
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12/22/2008 00:00 ||
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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.
Israel threatened on Sunday to launch a major offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as violence simmered around the impoverished territory days after the end of a truce with the Islamists.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Sunday to end Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip if she is elected prime minister in a February election. 
