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| By: Israel Insider staff and partners |
| Published: April 10, 2006 |
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Israel pounded the northern Gaza Strip with artillery fire Sunday, killing a Palestinian police officer and wounding at least 16 people as the army escalated its retaliation against militant rocket attacks and put pressure on the new Hamas government, which refuses to stop the fire.
Israel stepped up its military strikes after the Islamic Hamas government, which rejects Israel's right to exist, took power less than two weeks ago. It has conducted 10 air strikes and launched 900 artillery shells at northern Gaza since late Thursday, and for the first time began firing at rocket-launching sites in populated areas.
Fifteen Palestinians, including 13 militants and the child of one of the radicals, a bomb maker, have died in Israeli attacks since Friday. No Israelis were wounded by the 10 rockets launched from Gaza into southern Israel over the weekend.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh convened an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the intensified attacks. Information Minister Youssef Rizka warned that the Israeli strikes "will make the Palestinian situation more complex and will increase extremism, and might be the reason for a third uprising (against Israel) that would be more violent and painful."
Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the military has been given a free hand to act against militants.
"Security forces will act decisively against anyone who fires Qassam (rockets), or anyone who will deal or deals in terror," Olmert said during the weekly Cabinet meeting. "There are no restrictions on security forces in the event they identify danger."
Hamas' military wing condemned the "dangerous escalation" and vowed revenge.
"We warn the government of this monstrous entity against committing more crimes, because this will provoke more destruction and escalated military attacks against them and their people," it said in a statement posted on Hamas' Web site.
The police officer killed Sunday, Yasser Abu Jarad, 28, was trying to evacuate colleagues from a makeshift military post when a shell hit his car in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun and killed him, Palestinian security officials said. At least 16 people were wounded in the shelling in northern Gaza.
The army said it had warned Palestinian security officers posted near launching sites that they could be in danger from Israeli retaliation.
Farmers evacuated their cows because of nearby shelling. Shells hit several farms and two cows were seen bleeding. Students also evacuated a school near the border with Israel and an ambulance waited in the street in case of an emergency.
"If the Israelis, thought this policy would work with the Palestinians, they are mistaken, because violence and escalation will bring more violence and will not lead to calm," said Osama Inesu, a 39-year-old police officer.
While Israel has been pressuring Hamas with military strikes, the U.S. and European Union cut off of hundreds of millions of dollars in desperately needed aid to the Palestinian Authority. The U.S. and EU classify Hamas as a terror group.
In interviews published Sunday, Palestinian Finance Minister Omar Abdel Razek said the government's financial crisis was worse than he thought, and he did not know when he would be able to pay salaries to 140,000 public workers, who support one-third of the 3.9 million Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Abdel Razek had said last week that he expected to pay the salaries by mid-April, but on Sunday, newspapers quoted him as saying that at the time, "I did not have a full picture of the magnitude of the problem."
Israel initiated the financial pressure by suspending the monthly transfer of some $55 million in taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority shortly after Hamas won Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections.
On Sunday, Israel's Cabinet was to discuss a more detailed policy toward Hamas.
In an interview published in The Washington Post on Saturday, Olmert said he would not hold peace talks with the Palestinians' moderate president, Mahmoud Abbas, because Abbas has lost authority since Hamas' rise to power.
It was Olmert's first clear statement that he would not negotiate with Abbas, who favors talks, unless Hamas recognizes Israel, renounces violence and accepts existing peace accords. If Hamas refuses to change, Olmert has said he would unilaterally pull out of large parts of Judea and Samaria while annexing large Jewish settlement blocs in the territory.
Hamas has said repeatedly it would not revise its positions, though some group leaders have hinted at a readiness to moderate.
Abbas, meanwhile, told the British newspaper The Guardian on Saturday that Hamas has begun to realize after just a few days in power that it cannot govern without the world's recognition.
"You may notice some confusion in their (Hamas') political positions," Abbas told the newspaper. "If Hamas does not change, nobody will deal with them. ... They came to understand it."
AP contributed to this report. |
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