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No letup as air strikes pound Gaza
Source: Agencies |
January 3, 2009, Saturday
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ISRAEL bombed a mosque it claimed was used to store weapons and destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives yesterday, but under international pressure, the government allowed hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports to leave besieged Gaza.
Israel has been building up artillery, armor and infantry on Gaza's border in an indication that the week-old air assault could soon expand with a ground incursion.
International calls for a cease-fire have been growing, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected in the region next week.
Israel has so far been cool to a truce, and in a setback for diplomatic efforts, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington she had no plans to go to the region.
There was no slowdown in violence yesterday, with Israel attacking new targets and Palestinians firing at least 30 rockets into southern Israel. But Israel managed to open its border with Gaza to allow nearly 300 Palestinians with foreign passports to flee.
"There is no water, no electricity, no medicine. It's hard to survive. Gaza is destroyed," said Jawaher Haggi, a 14-year-old Palestinian American. She said her uncle was killed in an air strike when he tried to pick up some medicine for her cancer-stricken father.
Israel launched the aerial campaign last Saturday in a bid to halt weeks of intensifying Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza. It has dealt a heavy blow to Hamas but failed to halt the rockets. New attacks yesterday struck homes in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, wounding four Israelis, police said.
Before yesterday's air strikes, Israel's military called at least some of the houses to warn residents of an impending attack. In some cases, it also fired a sound bomb to warn away civilians before flattening the homes with missiles, officials said.
After destroying Hamas' security compounds, Israel turned its attention to the group's leadership. In strike after strike, warplanes hit some 20 houses believed to belong to Hamas militants and members of other armed groups, Palestinians said.
Most of the targeted homes belonged to activist leaders and appeared to be empty at the time, but one man was killed in a strike in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Separate air strikes killed five other Palestinians, including a teenage boy east of Gaza City and three children who were playing in southern Gaza, according to the Health Ministry.
More than 400 Gazans have been killed and some 1,700 have been wounded in the Israeli campaign, Gaza health officials said. The number of combatants and civilians killed is unclear, but Hamas has said around half of the dead are members of its security forces and the UN has said more than 60 are civilians, 34 of them children.
Israel has been building up artillery, armor and infantry on Gaza's border in an indication that the week-old air assault could soon expand with a ground incursion.
International calls for a cease-fire have been growing, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected in the region next week.
Israel has so far been cool to a truce, and in a setback for diplomatic efforts, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington she had no plans to go to the region.
There was no slowdown in violence yesterday, with Israel attacking new targets and Palestinians firing at least 30 rockets into southern Israel. But Israel managed to open its border with Gaza to allow nearly 300 Palestinians with foreign passports to flee.
"There is no water, no electricity, no medicine. It's hard to survive. Gaza is destroyed," said Jawaher Haggi, a 14-year-old Palestinian American. She said her uncle was killed in an air strike when he tried to pick up some medicine for her cancer-stricken father.
Israel launched the aerial campaign last Saturday in a bid to halt weeks of intensifying Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza. It has dealt a heavy blow to Hamas but failed to halt the rockets. New attacks yesterday struck homes in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, wounding four Israelis, police said.
Before yesterday's air strikes, Israel's military called at least some of the houses to warn residents of an impending attack. In some cases, it also fired a sound bomb to warn away civilians before flattening the homes with missiles, officials said.
After destroying Hamas' security compounds, Israel turned its attention to the group's leadership. In strike after strike, warplanes hit some 20 houses believed to belong to Hamas militants and members of other armed groups, Palestinians said.
Most of the targeted homes belonged to activist leaders and appeared to be empty at the time, but one man was killed in a strike in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Separate air strikes killed five other Palestinians, including a teenage boy east of Gaza City and three children who were playing in southern Gaza, according to the Health Ministry.
More than 400 Gazans have been killed and some 1,700 have been wounded in the Israeli campaign, Gaza health officials said. The number of combatants and civilians killed is unclear, but Hamas has said around half of the dead are members of its security forces and the UN has said more than 60 are civilians, 34 of them children.
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