The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Israeli cabinet calls up reservists as Gaza strikes continue



Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 December 2008 13.46 GMT



Israel's cabinet approved a call-up of reservists today, as its military continued attacking Gaza, destroying the main security headquarters after killing more than 280 Palestinians in a first round of strikes yesterday.



Israeli tanks were seen deploying in southern Israel, close to the Gaza Strip, raising the prospect that the air raids - which brought the biggest loss of life in a single day in Gaza for more than 40 years - might escalate into a major ground offensive.



The latest Israeli attack flattened most of the buildings in the security headquarters, the second time the compound had been attacked in two days. At least four Palestinians were killed.



Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets into southern Israel, with two missiles reaching as far as Ashdod, an Israeli port about 18 miles north of Gaza. One Israeli was killed in a rocket attack on Saturday.



In addition to the 280 dead, at least 600 Palestinians have been injured. Most of the dead appeared to be policemen or security officials affiliated with Hamas, although there were reports of dead civilians. An Israeli air strike yesterday killed seven teenage students at a UN vocational college for Palestinian refugees while they waited for a bus to take them home, said Christopher Gunness, a UN Relief and Works Agency spokesman.



At its regular weekly meeting in Jerusalem, the Israeli cabinet approved a reserve call-up, which may indicate a much larger operation is proposed. The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, reportedly told the meeting that the fighting in Gaza would be "long, painful and difficult".



"Israel will continue until we have a new security environment in the south, when the population there will not longer live in terror and in fear of constant rocket barrages," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the prime minister.



A UN security council statement called for a halt to the violence, as did the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, who said an "urgent ceasefire" was needed to stop the "massive loss of life" in the territory and that he and the prime minister, Gordon Brown, were following the situation with "grave concern".



However, the US squarely placed the blame for the fighting with Hamas, the Islamist movement that won Palestinian elections three years ago and then seized full control of Gaza last year.



A fragile five-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza finally collapsed 10 days ago.



Israeli government officials, including the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, have spoken openly of their wish to topple Hamas from power in Gaza. However, most Israeli military analysts said they did not expect the Israeli military to seize full military control of the Gaza Strip again, for fear it would cost the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers.



Israel's actions come just weeks before a general election, due on 10 February, in which the future of Gaza and its Hamas rulers will be a key issue.



Gazans said their streets were largely empty yesterday, with most shops closed and queues only at bakers where Palestinians stocked up on supplies.



Mowaffaq Alami, 35, was close to the main security headquarters, the Suraya, in Gaza yesterday when it was attacked in the first round of Israeli air strikes at around 11am. "People were walking through the streets just like a normal day, children coming home from school. Suddenly, without any warning, the bombing started. We didn't even see the jets in the sky. That's why so many people were killed," said Alami. He said the first round of attacks was over within a few minutes but left dozens dead. "Suddenly people started to run, you saw people running to the ambulances, and the police running everywhere. People were crying. I saw some just sat on the ground against the wall."



Alami lives in an apartment nearby and runs the Gaza office of One Voice, an initiative that works to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "I left home just for a few minutes this morning; the streets were quite empty. People are following the news, wondering what's coming next. People are very worried there may be a ground invasion. Nothing is ordinary now. We used to plan our lives day by day. Now, it's hour by hour. You don't know what will come next."



Israel yesterday banned foreign journalists from entering Gaza. Israeli journalists have been banned for more than two years.



Hamas has sounded defiant in the face of the attacks. "Today we are stronger then we've ever been," said one spokesman in Gaza, Taher Nounou. "We won't raise the white flag, we won't give anything up, we won't retreat. We call on the Arab states in the region to take a stance against this massacre and not to be satisfied with just condemnations."



But the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, a bitter rival of Hamas, accused the Islamist group of provoking the Israeli raids by not extending the ceasefire. "We have warned of this grave danger and said that we should remove all the pretexts used by Israel," said Abbas in Cairo. "We all hope to end the aggression and return to the calm. We want to protect Gaza." Egyptian officials have spent months trying to bring Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas back into a united government.



guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

---