Haaretz
Tamuz 18, 5766
The United States blocked a resolution Thursday
that would have demanded Israel halt its military offensive in the Gaza
Strip, the first United Nations Security Council veto in nearly two
years.
The draft, sponsored by Qatar, accused Israel of a
"disproportionate use of force" that endangered Palestinian civilians, and
demanded Israel withdraw its troops from Gaza.
The U.S. was alone
in voting against the resolution. Ten of the 15 Security Council nations
voted in favor, and four abstained.
The draft had been reworked
repeatedly to address concerns that it was too biased against Israel.
Language was added calling for the release of abducted Israel Defense
Forces soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit and urging the Palestinians to stop
firing rockets at Israel.
Nonetheless, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton
said it was still unacceptable because it had been overtaken by events in
the region - including the abduction of two IDF soldiers by Hezbollah
militants on Wednesday - and was "unbalanced."
"It placed demands
on one side in the Middle East conflict but not the other," Bolton said.
"This draft resolution would have exacerbated tensions in the
region."
Israel launched the operation two weeks ago in response to
a raid carried out by militants along the Gaza border, in which two
soldiers were killed and Shalit was abducted.
The resolution called
on Israel and the Palestinians to "take immediate steps to create the
necessary condition for the resumption of negotiation and restarting the
peace process." It urged all parties to help alleviate the "dire
humanitarian situation" faced by Palestinians.
The draft, sponsored
by Qatar on behalf of Arab nations, also demanded Israel release the
Palestinian officials it has arrested.
The U.S. had campaigned hard
in the last several days for other nations on the 15-member council to
either vote against the resolution or abstain. But those efforts failed
and it had to cast the veto to keep the draft from being
adopted.
The U.S. has periodically used its veto to block
resolutions critical of Israel. The last council veto, in October 2004,
was cast when the U.S. blocked a resolution condemning another Israeli
operation in Gaza.
Eight of the last nine vetoes in the council
have been cast by the U.S. Of those, seven had to do with the
Israel-Palestinian conflict.
IAF jets bomb PA foreign ministry
building in Gaza
Earlier Thursday, an Israel Air Force airplane
attacked the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Gaza City, severely damaging
the building, witnesses said.
The building partially collapsed and
the bomb caused widespread destruction in the area. Palestinian security
officials said no one was hurt in the night-time raid.
The Israel
Defense Forces confirmed it carried out an airstrike on the Foreign
Ministry, saying it is "led by Hamas" and has been used for the "planning
of terror attacks."
Palestinian Foreign Ministry spokesman Taher
al-Nunu accused Israel of carrying out "organized terrorism that targets
all the Palestinian people and aims to exterminate all government
institutions, one after another, to prevent them from carrying out their
duties."
Houses in the area were badly damaged by the force of the
blast, and the third and fourth floor of the foreign ministry building
were destroyed.
Since early Wednesday morning, 23 Palestinians have
been killed in the Gaza Strip since as the IDF expanded its operation in
Gaza, entering the central Strip for the first time since it began its
offensive there two weeks ago.
A mother, her five children, a
senior Hamas official and 11 armed militants were among the
dead.
The IAF targeted a group of people in the southern Gaza town
of Deir al-Balah on Wednesday, killing five people and wounding six
others, Palestinian officials said. The army said it had targeted an armed
militia.
The IAF struck at the home of a Hamas activist in Gaza
City before dawn Wednesday, killing seven people and wounding top Hamas
commander Mohammed Deif, Palestinians said.
The seven dead were all
members of the same family - two parents, including senior Gaza Hamas
figure Dr. Nabil al-Salmiah, and their five children - Palestinian
hospital officials said. Rescuers said four other people were still
missing and at least 24 people were wounded.
"We know he [Mohammed
Deif] was injured, but not to what degree," said an
IDF spokeswoman,
without giving details as to the source of the information. "He was in the
building," she said. Despite a denial from a spokesman for Iz al-Din
al-Qassam, Hamas' military wing, Palestinian sources confirmed Deif was
moderately wounded.
Meanwhile, six other Palestinians were killed
in separate incidents in Gaza on Wednesday, as the IDF troops moved into
central Gaza just after midnight.
Three militants were killed in
the afternoon by an IAF missile while trying to plant explosives near
Kissufim; an Islamic Jihad militant was killed in the early afternoon by
an IDF arillery shell near Dir el-Balah; a Palestinian security officer
was killed early Wednesday morning in an exchange of fire between IDF
forces and armed Palestinians; and a Hamas man died in another predawn air
strike near Khan Yunis.
An IDF spokesperson said the Hamas activist
al-Salmiah, his wife, and their five children were killed by an IAF
missile targeting high-level Hamas commanders in their house who were
discussing future attacks on Israel at the time.
Nervous Hamas
officials carefully inspected the bodies being brought into the hospital
but refused to comment. Abu Anas al-Ghandour, commander of Hamas' armed
wing in northern Gaza, was also moderately wounded. Army Radio said he was
involved in the Palestinian raid at Kerem Shalom in which IDF soldier
Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. Raed Sayed, the head of Hamas' military wing
in Gaza City who was in a vehicle outside the house at the time of the
strike, apparently escaped. His condition is unknown.
From the
force of the blast, the three-story structure collapsed, burying people
under the rubble. The family killed in the strike was on the house's upper
floor. Hamas activists said additional victims might be buried in the
basement.
Hamas official Ismail Radwan pledged to hit back at
Israel. "It was a terrible, bloody massacre, and the Zionists will pay a
heavy price for it," he said.
David Baker, an official in the Prime
Minister's Office, said Wednesday morning, "Israel is engaged in an
on-going war to thwart Palestinian terrorism and stop it in its tracks
before it reaches the hearts of our own communities. Palestinian terrorist
leaders continue to look for refuge and hide behind their own population.
Israel is compelled to take measures to stop this terror, including
neutralizing the threat posed by Palestinians terrorists who are actively
planning terror attacks against Israel."
At least five Qassam
rockets fired from Gaza landed on Wednesday on Israeli territory.
A Qassam landed in an open field near Kibbutz Be'eri, in the
south, causing a small fire. Another rocket landed earlier in the
afternoon in an open field near Sderot, and another landed near Kibbutz
Zikim. Palestinians in Gaza fired two more rockets Wednesday morning, one
which landed on Palestinian territory, and the other next to Kibbutz
Sha'ar in the Negev.
IDF cuts Gaza in half
The IDF
expanded its action in the Gaza Strip shortly after midnight Tuesday, when
infantry soldiers and tanks entered central Gaza for the first time since
Operation Summer Rains began two weeks ago.
The ground operations
resumed after a hiatus of a few days, as a combined force of infantry,
armored forces and engineering corps seized control of the road leading
from the Kissufim checkpoint to the former Gush Katif settlements.
By controlling the corridor around this road, which leads from the
Gaza-Israel border to the Mediterranean Sea, the military effectively cuts
the Strip in two.
To the sound of gunfire, dozens of armored
vehicles trundled into central Gaza down the same road from which troops
pulled out less than a year ago.
The IDF returned to Gaza in the
operation that began two weeks ago to press for the release of abducted
soldier Gilad Shalit and to halt Qassam rocket fire into southern
Israel.
The decision to expand the the military operation in Gaza
was made during consultations between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and
Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
"Our main target is the terrorist
infrastructure - the rocket crews, the gunmen, the arms caches," said an
IDF commander.
"But of course we are here to show that if, God
forbid, any of us is captured by the enemy, the army will do everything to
secure his return."
IDF troops rolled into Gaza from the Kissufim
crossing, once the main access point to Jewish settlements, and an access
road four kilometers to the south, menacing the nearby city of Khan Yunis
and town of Dir al-Balah.
Palestinians said that IDF bulldozers
were leveling farmland in the area, and the military ordered Palestinian
security forces to leave their forward positions.
Residents and an
Associated Press reporter said IDF forces took over radio frequencies used
by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Khan Yunis and broadcast messages to
civilians, blaming Hamas for the violence and warning them to stay away
from the fighting.
Palestinians fired two Qassam rockets that
landed south of Ashkelon on Wednesday morning. There were no casualties.
IDF troops arrested 15 wanted Palestinians in West Bank before dawn on
Wednesday, Israel Radio reported.
Number one wanted Hamas
man
The Shin Bet security service has been trying to nab Mohammed
Deif for more than ten years. Following Israel's assassination of Hamas
military wing chief Salah Shehadah in 2002, Deif has been considered to
head both the Hamas military wing and Israel's most wanted list. Deif's
involvement in a number of terror attacks, dating back to suicide bus
bombings in 1995 and 1996 made him a well-known figure in
Israel.
Deif, 36, was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the
Gaza Strip. He was active in the first Intifada and was jailed briefly in
Israel, where he met Fatah activist Mohammed Dahlan. The two kept in touch
even after Dahlan was appointed as head of preventive security in Gaza.
Deif managed to avoid arrest during most of the period when the
Palestinian security establishment was pursuing and arresting Hamas
activists from 1996-2000. Some attribute this to his connections with
Dahlan. There were even rumors that he had escaped to Egypt. Deif was
detained briefly in 2001.
Deif, who was released from a Palestinian
prison early in the intifada, established an infrastructure so secret that
other Hamas activists and operatives, from the military as well as
political wings, were also ignorant of its activities.