 |
 |
 |
|
|
It's a bird... It's a plane... no it's a jet fighter. Palestinian kids look skyward at an IAF sortie. (AP)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff and partners June 30, 2006 |
|
| |
Israeli jet fighters destroyed the offices of Hamas' interior minister in Gaza early Friday, intensifying air activity while delaying a broad ground offensive in hopes that pressure on the Hamas government will secure the release of a kidnapped soldier.
Israel's air force has struck more than 30 targets in Gaza in the past 24 hours, hitting roads, bridges and power plants, in addition to hundreds of artillery shells fired by the army, most directed at "open spaces." The offensive is meant to pressure Hamas-linked militants to release Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, captured Sunday when a cell of the militant group tunneled under the border, attacking an Israeli outpost and killing two other soldiers.
While thousands of troops are massed along both sides of the Israel-Gaza border waiting for the go-ahead for a massive invasion into the crowded coastal area, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said militants had agreed to Shalit's conditional release, but that Israel had not accepted the terms.
Israeli officials said they did not know of such an agreement. But a senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the secrecy of the diplomacy, said the planned ground offensive had been delayed due to a request by Egypt that mediators be given a chance to resolve the crisis.
However, other officials denied the delay was due to Egypt, saying it reflected Israel's overall management of the crisis, which they said required both military pressure and withholding force when necessary.
"The Prime Minister is managing the campaign while seeing all the balances, including the diplomatic one. He needs to see the big picture, and the big picture is that there is a meaning to sometimes waiting a half a day, or a day. You need to exhaust all options," said Tzahi Hanegbi, head of the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee.
Egpytian President Hosni Mubarak spoke with Olmert over the phone Friday morning, according to MENA, Egypt's official news agency. The agency said the two leaders disussed the escalating tension in the Palestinian territories and how to solve it peacefully. It did not elaborate.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz called for leaders who have influence on the Hamas government to exert immediate pressure on them to release Shalit.
"The quicker this is done the better it will be. If the soldier will be returned and the Qassam (rocket) fire will be halted, we will also return our soldiers to their bases," Peretz was quoted as saying in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot on Friday.
Taher al-Nunu, a Palestinian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the Palestinian government was still seeking a "diplomatic solution to end the crisis."
There has been no sign of life from Shalit since his abduction Sunday. The Popular Resistance Committees -- one of the groups holding him -- revealed no information about his condition in a statement Thursday, but insisted on swapping him for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Israel has rejected that demand.
In the pre-dawn attack on the Interior Ministry, Hamas minister Said Siyam's office went up in flames when a missile struck his fourth-floor room. The ground floor office of Siyam's bodyguard was also destroyed, while the first, second and third floors of the buildings -- where passports and ID cards are printed -- were left untouched. No casualties were reported in the strike.
The Interior Ministry is nominally in charge of the Palestinian security forces, but President Mahmoud Abbas stripped it of much of its authority in a power struggle that erupted after Hamas won a January parliamentary election. The Israeli military said it targeted the ministry because it was "a meeting place to plan and direct terror activity."
In a separate strike, three Israeli missiles hit the office of hard-line Interior Ministry official Khaled Abu Ilal, who heads a pro-Hamas militia.
Palestinian police and members of the Hamas militia guarding the nearby Foreign Ministry fled immediately after the attack on the Interior Ministry, fearing their building would be next, witnesses said. The office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Abbas' house are less than one kilometer (half a mile) from the Interior Ministry.
But Haniyeh and nearly all the members his Hamas-led Cabinet have not been seen since Shalit's kidnapping, fearing they could be killed or face a fate similar to that of their colleagues in the West Bank, eight of whom were rounded up and put in Israeli prisons on Thursday. A total of 64 Hamas officials have been imprisoned.
In an unprecedented punishment Friday, the Israeli interior ministry revoked the Jerusalem residency rights of four senior Hamas officials, officials said. The measure takes away their right to live in the holy city and travel within Israel freely.
Decoy convoys have been sent out ahead of any trips by Haniyeh, Siyam and Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, who apparently also fear Israel's air force will target and kill them as it did Hamas leaders Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi in 2004.
On Friday, the army said it also attacked a cell that attempted to fire an anti-tank missile at Israeli forces in southern Gaza. Mohammed Abdel Al, 25, a local leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group, died early Friday of wounds he suffered in that airstrike. He was the first casualty in Israel's three-day-old offensive.
In a gunbattle in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, three Fatah-affiliated gunmen were wounded in what they said was a fight against undercover Israeli forces. Israel denied it had any ground forces in the area.
"The only activity is air and artillery," said army spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal. Israeli ground troops have entered southern Gaza but have not yet penetrated the north.
On Thursday evening, about 2,500 people attended a Hamas rally in Gaza City, denouncing Israel and calling for more abductions.
Palestinian militants launched homemade rockets on Thursday night, and four landed inside Israel, causing no damage or injuries, the army said. Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group affiliated with Abbas' Fatah, claimed responsibility.
Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian militant during a fierce gunbattle Friday at a cemetery in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian security officials said. Two other militants were arrested and one fled, the officials said. The army said its soldiers were operating in the area when a militant opened fire. The troops fired back, killing him, the army said.
The AP contributed to this report.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
