Israel continues Gaza bloodbath unabated

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2012-11-20T02:30:28+05:00 AFP


GAZA CITY  – Israeli airstrikes killed 24 people in Gaza on Monday, pushing the death toll in six days of violence to more than 100, emergency services said. Two Palestinians were killed in a new Israeli airstrike on central Gaza on Monday. “Two martyrs killed in a new Israeli strike east of al-Bureij (refugee camp) were taken to the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah,” an emergency services statement said. The deaths pushed the overall Gaza toll to 101.The two new deaths came on the heels of a raid on Gaza City’s Shuruq tower media centre — the second time the building has been targeted — which killed one person.Islamic Jihad sources named him as Ramez Harb and said he was a senior commander in its armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades.Elsewhere, two more people died in bombing of the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said, and another Palestinian was killed east of Nusseirat in a separate strike.There was no immediate word on the identities of the other victims.Also during the afternoon, one person was killed and another two wounded when a missile struck a car just north of Gaza City, medics said, without identifying those killed. Medics also said Ramadan Mahmud, 22, had died of injuries suffered in Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza on Sunday.Another three people succumbed to injuries sustained in the violence, but the health ministry could not immediately provide details on their identities.Elsewhere, a missile hit a motorcycle east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, killing two men and critically wounding a child who was with them, Gaza’s ambulance service said.The two were named as Abdullah Abu Khater, 30, and Mahmud Abu Khater, 32.An earlier strike on Qarara in the same area killed two farmers, Ibrahim al-Astal and Obama al-Astal, medics said.In a strike on southern Gaza City, a car was hit, killing one man and injuring another three, officials said, naming the dead man as Mohammed Shamalah, 23.Three people were killed in a strike on a car in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, all of them from the same family — Amir Bashir, Tamal Bashir and Salah Bashir.Early in the day, two women and a child were among four people killed in a strike on Gaza City’s eastern Zeitun neighbourhood — Nisma Abu Zorr, 23, Mohammed Abu Zorr, five, Saha Abu Zorr, 20 and Ahid al-Qatati, 35.And medics said another man had been found dead in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, naming him as Abdel Rahman al-Atar, a 50-year-old farmer.Meanwhile, rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas said on Monday they had decided to end infighting in a show of solidarity in the West Bank over the Gaza crisis, an AFP reporter said. “From here, we announce with other (factional) leaders, that we are ending the division,” senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub told a crowd of about 1,000 who gathered for a demonstration in Ramallah, the West Bank’s political capital.Among those present at the rally were top members of Hamas’s leadership in the West Bank as well as senior officials from its smaller rival Islamic Jihad, the AFP correspondent said.Ramallah’s Manara Square was a sea of Palestinian flags as the crowd chanted “Unity!” and “Hit, hit Tel Aviv” in an appeal to Hamas fighters who have fired at least five rockets at the coastal city since Thursday.“Whoever speaks about the division after today is a criminal,” top Hamas leader Mahmud al-Ramahi told the crowd.As the violence raged for a sixth day, ceasefire efforts gathered steam, with Hamas officials in Cairo saying Egyptian-led talks with Israel were “positive” but now focused on the need to guarantee any truce.Desperate for a safe haven, many Gaza families have fled their homes in search of a safe place, with some seeking haven in the south, which has seen fewer strikes.But they know nowhere is safe.“My son Mohammed refuses to eat. He follows me everywhere because he’s so scared and asks me every 10 minutes when we’re going to die,” said Umm Jihad, 37.“He says he won’t go back to school because he’s scared he’ll be martyred or that he’ll come back from school and find that I or his brothers have been killed,” she told AFP.Mourners flocked to the funeral of nine members of one family killed in a weekend strike on a Gaza City home, the tiny bodies of the five children carried through the streets wrapped in Palestinian flags.“Do children fire rockets?” shouted a man through a loudspeaker, as the crowd roared back: “No!”The violence, which comes as Israel gears up for a general election on January 22, raised the spectre of a broader Israeli military campaign like its 22-day Operation Cast Lead, launched at the end of December 2008.An Israeli spokeswoman said there was a lull overnight with 16 rockets fired over the border during the morning, and another three intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.The latest negotiations conducted behind closed doors in Cairo ended without agreement, although all sides have expressed a willingness to engage in more talks.Israel has showed little sign of being ready to call off or even briefly halt its campaign.This has piled even more pressure on Egypt’s President Mohamed Mursi and prompted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to promise to visit the region soon.Ban was due in Cairo on Monday for talks with the Egyptian leader ahead of a visit to the West Bank to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. Israeli officials said they expected to receive the UN leader on Wednesday.Palestinian officials had earlier said it was possible a deal would be reached as early as Monday.But Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman insisted that “the first and absolute condition for a truce is stopping all fire from Gaza”.Analysts believe Israel would closely coordinate any invasion of Gaza with the United States and go in certain of Washington’s full diplomatic support.US President Barack Obama has already sided with the Israeli by blaming the violence on Palestinian rocket attacks.But Obama said Sunday it would be “preferable” for the Gaza crisis to be resolved without a “ramping up” of Israeli military activity.

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