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TechnoratiIsrael Says Army Ready for Gaza Invasion
JERUSALEM - Israel's army has completed plans for a large offensive in the Gaza Strip and is only waiting for government approval for the action, the military chief said Wednesday, shortly after two Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli tank fire in the coastal area.
Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said that until he receives the go-ahead for a broad operation, Israel will continue with its policy of airstrikes and brief ground incursions to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.
"If it is necessary, we are prepared for the possibility of action," Ashkenazi told Army Radio. "Until then I think it is our duty to exhaust all other avenues and to operate every day and night in order to provide security."
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has repeatedly said that the time for a widespread ground invasion of Gaza is drawing closer. But as recently as Tuesday, he said it was not yet necessary to launch a broad operation, which would likely result in heavy casualties to Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza's crowded urban landscape.
On Wednesday, Israeli tanks fired shells toward a group of Hamas militants on the outskirts of the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip after dawn, Palestinian doctors and residents said. Two of the Palestinians were killed and four wounded, one critically, the doctors said.
The army confirmed the strike, saying the militants were preparing to fire mortar shells toward southern Israel.
The attack brings to about 30 the number of militants that Israel has killed in the past 10 days.
Despite frequent cross-border attacks and air strikes on Gaza militants, the Israeli army has been unable to stop the rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory.
This year, Gazan militants have fired 2,000 rockets and mortars, the army said. The rockets have killed a total of 12 people in recent years and cause widespread panic in southern Israeli border towns.
Israel blames Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, for allowing the attacks, even though the group has not been directly involved in most of the rocket launchings.
In addition to military action, Israel has sealed Gaza's borders since Hamas took control of the territory last June, allowing only food and humanitarian supplies into the area. Israel considers Hamas, which has killed more than 200 Israelis in suicide bombings, a terrorist group and refuses to have contact with it.
Following Hamas' takeover of Gaza, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fired the Islamic group from the government and installed a rival Western-backed administration in the West Bank. Israel formally launched peace talks with Abbas at a summit in the U.S. last week.
The White House announced Tuesday that President Bush will visit the Middle East in early January as he presses the Israelis and Palestinians to push forward with talks meant to lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israeli media reported that the visit would include a stop in Israel. U.S. diplomats could not confirm or deny the reports.
In a move that could hamper the U.S. peace push, Israel on Tuesday announced plans to build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east Jerusalem neighborhood. Palestinians warned that the move will undermine the newly revived peace talks.
The new housing would expand Har Homa, a Jewish neighborhood of about 4,000 residents in an area Palestinians claim as capital of a future state. Palestinian officials appealed to the U.S. to block the project.
The announcement focused attention on one of the most difficult issues facing Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in peace talks that are supposed to resume this month - the future of Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has indicated willingness to withdraw from some Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the 1967 Mideast war. But in principle, he backs the long-standing Israeli policy that the whole city is the capital of Israel.
Palestinians object to Israeli construction in east Jerusalem, pointing to the internationally backed "road map" peace plan, which is the basis of renewed negotiations agreed on at the Mideast summit.
According to the plan, Israel is supposed to cease all settlement construction. Israel does not consider construction in east Jerusalem to be settlement activity.
© 2007 The Associated Press
20 Comments so far
Show AllRather hard to tell these days with the neocons and all where the US gov't ends and the Israeli gov't starts Salia.
"…is only waiting for government approval for the action…"
That government is undoubtedly the US overnment.
I must apologize, I would never want to associate the act of being a _ "Good Samaritan" _ as anything other than a courageous act of altruism, attempting to save another's life.
Perhaps my joke about the perceived 'Israeli' point of view might save some innocent Samaritans (Palestinians), which is morally fitting for the Israeli's to return the favor so long ago given, and named for one being a "Good Samaritan" to another in need (but before, it was the provider of care that had been excoriated despised for hundreds of years, not the victim).
Perhaps in some possible future, the biblical story will re-create with an absolute reversal of roles where the poor excoriated and despised Jew provides disparately needed care to a rich land owning traveling Samaritan?
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
Well it looks like Israel has found a solution to it's pesky Palestinian problem.
What kind of SOLUTION is it?
A "definitave" solution? No..... a brockered solution? Nope, not that. A just solution? Maybe the "peace of the just" solution. A meek solution? Well the meek tend to inherit the earth in six by two foot sections so that might fit.
I'm sure they want the solution to the problem to last and as they seem to have adhered strongly to the heritage of Eastern Europes jewry and the lessons learned in WWII......
I bet the palestinians get "a final solution" from Israel.
Forgiveness is divine,
one gets what one gives, and
karma has memory better than elephants
(and cannot be paid off) - so guess what?
The choices of the "chosen ones" were their choice to to be subject of God's Laws, and nobody nohow (population) ever made themselves better than, or is above the rest of mankind, especially acting and speaking AS IF they were actually chosen by God — Sorry it's the other way around.
Looks to me like somebody lost the details of the covenant with God, and needs some lessons in God fearing?
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
The only "Good Samaritan" is a …
No shit? The reason they cleared the settlements out of Gaza was so they could bomb it with impunity when the time came. They'll form a line across the strip, sweep everything before them, and herd any survivors into the gas chambers. You know, don't you, that the usual Israeli epithet for the samaritans (sorry - palestinians) is "cockroaches'?
meanwhile there will be nay a peep from the "christian fundamentalist" camp which has it's head way up in Israel's ass. now how come this isn't considered "persecution"
Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashke-NAZI's stormtroopers are ready to kick some "evil" AAAA-rab butt. What tough guys, eh?
Can you imagine if it was the Arabs going in to Israel to invade with bulldozers, tanks and guns and level of the shrill outcry over that? You'd need earplugs.
How can we tell they're terrorists, Yitzhak?
It's easy, Shimon, you can tell when you turn them over.
Ezflyer, this isn't about religion anymore than South Africa was about religion. Religion may be complicating things as certain factions use it as an excuse, this is a land grab. I also think the Israelis think if they make life difficult enough for the Palestinians they will stop out- reproducing them. It doesn't work that way though. They (the Palestinians) will probably end up having more children.
They have to attack Gaza because they are afraid of Nasrallah.
Israel has to make itself seem big so it is looking for fish to shoot in a barrel.
A pathetic sick country. I predict a bad end for it.
Anybody who does not see this as an absolute outright act of genocide against the Palestinians is lying to themselves. This is an outrage! Israel needs to stop their insane crap! Enough is enough!
This strategy was planned long ago just like Lebanon and they are using any excuse to carry it out. When will Americans wake up and call for the end of the occupation of our Congress and that of Palestine?
Another state-sponsored, US-sponsored terrorist activities to murder civilians and calling them terrorists. This is done specifically to antagonize the Palestinians and jeopardize the so-called peace-process in Annapolis. And Abbas bent over like a good whore.
Can the current government in Israel afford to lose another war?
It's Zionist 'Manifest Destiny'.
They will expand to the sea in all directions.
Religion kills.
And so it goes in the modern apartheid state of Israel...