Three Qassam rockets slammed into the western Negev on Tuesday, ending Monday's brief respite
Earlier Tuesday, Israel Radio quoted an Islamic Jihad official as saying the Palestinian militant group had only agreed to the respite to allow the entry of humanitarian goods into Gaza, and would shortly renew rocket fire against Israel.
Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, meanwhile, has said that his Palestinian militant group is willing to renew the recently ended truce in Gaza with Israel.
Zahar made the comments in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram that was published on Tuesday. He told the paper that Hamas would agree to renew the cease-fire under its previous conditions.
Hamas on Tuesday announced that one of its gunmen had been killed in a "work accident" near the village of Khan Yunis in the central Gaza Strip.
Jasser Kadikh "was killed while carrying out a Jihad mission," Hamas's military wing said in a statement. Hamas routinely puts out such euphemistic statements when operatives are killed while handling explosives.
(AKI) - Palestinian Authority forces on Monday arrested a prominent leader from the Islamist Hamas movement who was thought to have been killed in 2002. Rajab Awni Tawfiq Al-Sharif was arrested in the Palestinian city of Nablus, considered a Hamas stronghold in the West Bank. PA forces said they had been hunting al-Sharif since 2004, said Palestinian news agency Maan. In 2002, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades claimed Al-Sharif was killed by the Israeli Army during an incursion in Nablus' Old City. However, his body was never found.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Palestinian factions have decided to observe a 24-hour ceasefire and refrain from launching Qassam rockets against Israel at Egypt's request. However, a senior Hamas official said the movement might consider a longer truce if Israel were to reciprocate and refrain from military attacks in Gaza and the lifting of the economic blockade. There was heightened tension in the region after Hamas declared an end to the ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip last Thursday. The intense exchanges of fire between Israeli Forces and Gaza militants began last Monday with the assassination of one of the leaders of the al-Quds Brigades, allegedly by Israeli undercover forces in the West Bank.
This article starring:
RAJAB AWNI TAWFIQ AL SHARIF
Hamas
Posted by: Fred ||
12/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
See also STRATEGYPAGE > GAZA MOVES CLOSER TO DOOMSDAY.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for the first time, seeking Russian support to keep the shaky Middle East peace process on track. Abbas' visit to Moscow came against a backdrop of resurgent unrest in Gaza, with Israel threatening a major offensive against Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the enclave.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Good. Let the american russophobia assert itself.
A planned $4.5 billion "Peace Canal" to bring water from the Red Sea to the fast evaporating Dead Sea could benefit the entire Middle East, an Israeli minister said in Jordan on Monday. "I think that all the region will benefit from the project," Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told reporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/23/2008 00:00 ||
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Ah yes, apply to Arabs' sense of enlightened self interest.
#2
"I believe 60 percent of desalinated water will go to Jordan," he said, noting that the project's environmental studies will take "about a year and a half."
The rest of the water would presumably go to Israel.
Presumably... if the Israeli government doesn't give the rest away in a misguided attempt to buy peace.
Hamas threatened on Monday to resume suicide attacks if Israel launches an offensive on its Gaza stronghold, as the Jewish state kicked off a diplomatic campaign to win support for any military action. "It is our right as an occupied people to defend ourselves from the occupation by all means possible including suicide attacks," Ayman Taha, a Hamas leader, told AFP.
The warning came as Israel kicked off a campaign to muster international support for any major military offensive to try to halt rocket fire from the impoverished Palestinian territory. Tensions have mounted since the expiry on Friday of a six-month truce in and around Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
UN: In a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Israel's envoy to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev said the government would respond to continuing rocket fire, foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the main governing Kadima party, has ordered Israeli ambassadors around the world to emphasise that Israel "will not hesitate to react militarily if necessary" to protect its citizens. She is also due to meet foreign ambassadors to Israel and speak with her counterparts abroad.
"The world must understand that the situation in southern Israel is intolerable for hundreds of thousands of citizens exposed to rocket fire," Palmor said. "We cannot remain with our arms crossed. Either the international community intervenes or we will have to act," he told AFP.
The public relations effort came a day after Israel threatened a major offensive against the impoverished territory that has been ruled by Hamas since June last year. Violence around the enclave has steadily escalated since Friday, when Hamas said it would not renew a six-month truce with Israel, which came into effect after months of Egyptian mediation. Since then, the army has carried out several air strikes, killing one militant and wounding several Palestinians, and militants have launched several dozen rockets into the Jewish state, wounding a handful of people.
Despite the bellicose rhetoric, observers say the Israeli government is wary of launching a major offensive less than two months before the general election for fear it would not be able to score a decisive victory against Hamas. "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 on Sunday. "And worse than that, to be accused of having ordered a military operation just to improve their chances at the ballot box," he said.
A senior Hamas group official said on Monday Palestinian armed groups in Gaza were observing a 24-hour halt to rocket fire against Israel at the request of Egyptian mediators. Ayman Taha said the brief ceasefire went into effect on Sunday evening. He said Hamas might consider a longer truce if Israel were to reciprocate by ceasing all military attacks in Gaza and lifting an embargo on the impoverished territory. "Hamas and other factions agreed in order to give a chance to the Egyptian mediation and to show that the problem was always on the Israeli side," Taha told Reuters. An Israeli military spokesman said that, as of Sunday evening, Palestinians in Gaza had fired at least one rocket and four mortar bombs across the border.
New truce: A member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet, meanwhile, questioned the long-term efficacy of any major military sweep of the crowded and impoverished coastal strip, and said renewing the truce could be an option. "The calm is, of course, one alternative, and it is an alternative that can be seriously examined," Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog told Israel Radio. "I, like many of my colleagues, am ready to consider continuing the calm, on terms that are comfortable for Israel."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/23/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
You Hamaas, FU and Die. Bless the IDF.
you are petty fools funded by stupid petty arab nations and when I am through with those, you will not have a shekel to your name. This all is over. And over NOW.
I told you you were overstepping.
All you moslems are. Take your allah to your grave.
Palestinian armed factions in the Gaza Strip are observing a 24-hour halt to rocket fire against Israel at the request of Egyptian mediators, a senior official of the ruling Islamist Hamas group said on Monday. Ayman Taha said the brief ceasefire went into effect on Sunday evening. He said Hamas might consider a longer truce if Israel were to reciprocate by ceasing all military attacks in Gaza and lifting an embargo on the impoverished territory.
A six-month Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas expired on Friday with exchanges of fire across the border raising fears of a wider conflict. "Hamas and other factions agreed in order to give a chance to the Egyptian mediation and to show that the problem was always on the Israeli side," Taha told Reuters. "If a new (truce) offer were made, which met our demands, then we would be willing to study it."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/23/2008 00:00 ||
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Is there any advantage to Israel to continue having these endless, phoney cease fires? If not, refuse to participate.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/23/2008 8:10 Comments ||
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It's a short-term benefit leading to a long-term detriment.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/23/2008 9:00 Comments ||
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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
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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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.
Hamas on Tuesday announced that one of its gunmen had been killed in a "work accident" near the village of Khan Yunis in the central Gaza Strip. 
(AKI) - Palestinian Authority forces on Monday arrested a prominent leader from the Islamist Hamas movement who was thought to have been killed in 2002. 
Palestinian armed factions in the Gaza Strip are observing a 24-hour halt to rocket fire against Israel at the request of Egyptian mediators, a senior official of the ruling Islamist Hamas group said on Monday. Ayman Taha said the brief ceasefire went into effect on Sunday evening. He said Hamas might consider a longer truce if Israel were to reciprocate by ceasing all military attacks in Gaza and lifting an embargo on the impoverished territory. 
