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PA leader Ismail Haniya calls for three days of mourning (Flash90)
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Mahmoud a-Zahar holds up the blood of this son, killed in a clash with the IDF in Gaza (Flash90)
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| By Israel Insider staff January 15, 2008 |
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Hussam Zahar, son of former Palestinian Authority foreign minister and senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, was one of many in the killed in gunbattles with IDF soldiers in Gaza on Tuesday, the former minister reported. Sixteen other Palestinians were reported dead as IDF troops backed by tanks and helicopters streamed in northern Gaza in an operation to silence rocket fire.
Seccrity forces were bracing for a major escalation in attacks on Israel from Gaza. More than 40 Kassam rockets were fired into Israel, most hitting Sderot, lightly injuring five Israelis, including a mother and her young daughter. Hamas claimed responsibility for the killing of an Ecuadorian volunteer working in the fields Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha near the Gaza border. The volunteer killed was Carlos Andres Muscara Chavez, 20, from Quito. He was working in a potato field, about 100 meters from the perimeter fence, when he was shot in the back.
Hamas until now has only collaborated on attacks, assisting Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in the production and delivery of Kassams. It has refrained from directly participating in their firing. With the high number of casualties in Tuesday's operation, there is concern that the terror group would become directly involved in firing rockets. "If this happens, there will be a major increase in the number of rockets fired into Israel," a defense official explained.
On Tuesday evening, an IDF struclk militants firing rockets into southern Israel killed two militants in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun.
Hamas' political director Khaled Mashal in Damacus: "This proves that our people are great and our leaders sacrifice their sons. These are the real leaders that meld with their people and defend them, not those who infiltrate to the futile negotiating table with the Zionist entity, he said of Fatah."
Mashaal said Hamas will retaliate to the Gaza raid with more resistance, steadfastness and national unity. "We will not offer more concessions because of these crimes," he added.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the raids as "a massacre" which would not be forgotten by the Palestinians. "There was a massacre today against our people, and we say to the world that our people will not remain silent against such crimes," he said.
In a statement, the West Bank-based Palestinian government said Israel's "ugly crimes were a slap in the face" to efforts by Bush and the international community to resume peacemaking that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.
President Shimon Peres said as long as Gaza militants continue to fire rockets into the Jewish state, "we are left without a choice but to answer and stop it." David Baker, an official in the Prime Minister's Office, said of the attacks, "These measures will continue until these attacks cease and as to enable our citizens to live in peace in quiet and not to fall victim to incessant Palestinian terror."
Elite troops from the Golani Brigade's elite Egoz Unit, backed by tanks and Engineering Corps squads, swept into central Gaza early Tuesday morning pursuing Kassam rocket squads and trying to destroy terror infrastructure being built up along the border fence.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned what he called "the Israeli massacre in Gaza," calling it barbaric and damaging to the peace process. "[We] cannot remain silent in light of these crimes," he said.
Hamas declared three days of mourning in Gaza, and its Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal said that the IDF operation was the result of US President George W. Bush's visit to the Middle East. "This crime is the ugly fruit of Bush's visit to the region. He has incited the Zionists and has exerted pressure on the Palestinian side to become more hard-line against Palestinian dialogue," he said.
Zahar accused Abbas of being complicit in his son's death. "This is the hope of Abu Mazen and his colleagues, the collaborators with Israel and the spies of America," he said, referring to Abbas by his nom de guerre. Hamas, he vowed, would respond to Tuesday's raid "in the appropriate way. We will defend ourselves by all means."
Defense officials said that Tuesday's raid was not indicative of an escalation and admitted that while it did not contribute to a positive atmosphere for talks with the PA, such actions were "unfortunately necessary." In words echoing the early years of Oslo, one senior government official explained: "We are in a peace process, and we are also fighting terrorism, and both those things will continue in parallel."
An official in the Prime Minister's Office said that as much as Israel was willing "to be creative in negotiations, we will not compromise on security." He said IDF actions "are designed to protect our people," the official said. "They are surgical incursions designed to deal with the terrorist infrastructure. The operations have been successful in taking out hardcore terrorists, and we believe that the combination of military, economic and political pressure in Gaza will bring about a change." |
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