MIDEAST: Clashes and demos continue across the West Bank and Jerusalem after Israeli attack kills almost 200 in Gaza

Record ID: 338980

  • Title: MIDEAST: Clashes and demos continue across the West Bank and Jerusalem after Israeli attack kills almost 200 in Gaza
  • Date: 28th December 2008
  • Summary: PEOPLE OUTSIDE HOSPITAL VIEW OF GAZA SKYLINE AT NIGHT
  • Embargoed: 12th January 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVADURP7Y69EK82WV9CRX7U4FE9
  • Story Text: Clashes, demonstrations erupt across the West Bank and Jerusalem after Israeli warplanes and helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday (December 27), killing at least 195 people and threatening to plunge the region into a new crisis.
    Near the Jewish settlement of Beit El near the Palestinian city of Ramallah, hundreds of demonstrators clashed with Israeli security forces during a demonstration to protest Israel's attack on Gaza.
    Israeli troops used tear gas and stun grenades to stop Palestinian protesters. Dozen protesters were injured from rubber bullets and tear Gas inhalation.
    It was the bloodiest day for Palestinians in more than 20 years of conflict.
    Militants in the Gaza Strip responded with rocket salvoes that killed one Israeli man and wounded several others. Both sides said they were prepared to launch wider attacks.
    Israel said it had targeted "terrorist infrastructure"
    following days of rocket attacks from Gaza on southern Israel that caused some damage but few injuries.
    "Few hours ago the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) initiated an operation in the Gaza strip. The operation is an aircraft operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza strip. We are talking about warehouses, storage's for weaponry, we are talking about headquarters and other headquarters of Hamas. We do not have any intention to target civilians," Israeli army spokeswoman Avital Leibowitch told Reuters television.
    The rocket attacks had increased pressure on Israeli political leaders to strike Hamas ahead of a Feb. 10 election.
    Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said that the military campaign would take time and would be expanded "as necessary".
    Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a leading candidate to become Israel's next prime minister, called for international support against "an extremist Islamist organisation ... that is being supported by Iran", Israel's arch-foe.
    The administration of U.S. President George Bush, in its final weeks in office, appeared to put the onus on Hamas to prevent a further escalation.
    "Hamas' continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement that urged Israel to avoid civilian casualties but stopped short of calling for an end to the Israeli air strikes.
    European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, in contrast, called for an immediate ceasefire and urged "everybody to exert maximum restraint", his spokesman said.
    Hamas threatened to unleash "hell" to avenge the dead, including possible suicide bombings inside Israel.
    As darkness fell, Palestinian health service officials put the death toll at 195.
    Hamas estimated that at least 100 members of its security forces were killed, including police chief Tawfiq Jabber and the head of Hamas's security and protection unit, along with at least 15 women and some children.
    The Islamist group, which won a 2006 parliamentary election but was shunned by Western powers over its refusal to renounce violence and recognise Israel, said all of its security compounds in the Gaza Strip were destroyed.
    Aid groups said they feared the Israeli operation could fuel a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished coastal enclave, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, half of them dependent on food aid.
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Israeli air campaign was "criminal" and called for the international community to intervene.
    Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad Al-Malki, said that the Palestinian government is working under the instruction of president Abbas to move immediately with Arab countries, Quartet members and security council members to hold a special UN security council session to stop the Israeli aggression.
    "The government is working upon the instructions of president Mahmoud Abbas to move immediately with Arab brothers, with the Quartet members, and with the members of the security council in orderly to held a special session of the security council in order to stop the Israeli militarily aggression against our people in Gaza," Al-Malki told reporters during a news conference in Ramallah.
    Palestinians staged protest rallies in Arab East Jerusalem, and in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Hebron, leading to scuffles with the Israeli army.
    Egypt said it would keep trying to restore a truce between Israel and Gaza. Arab foreign ministers were set to hold an emergency meeting in Cairo on Sunday or Monday to take a common position on the raids.
    At the main Gaza City graduation ceremony, uniformed bodies lay in a pile and the wounded writhed in pain. Rescuers carried those showing signs of life to cars and ambulances, while others tried to revive the unconscious.
    Israeli warplanes also destroyed Gaza's presidential compound, which Hamas seized in June 2007 from Abbas's secular Fatah forces after a brief civil war.
    It was not immediately clear how much damage the Israeli air strikes inflicted on the hundreds of tunnels under Gaza's border with Egypt.
    Palestinians used the tunnels to bring in everything from household goods to weapons, making them prime targets.
    The campaign followed a decision by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet to widen reprisals for cross-border Palestinian rocket attacks following the collapse of a six-month-old, Egyptian-brokered ceasefire a week ago.
    A five-day Israeli offensive in March killed more than 120 people, but Saturday's death toll would be the highest for Palestinians since their 1980s uprising.
    Olmert, who will leave office after the February election, has repeatedly said Israel does not want to retake control of the Gaza Strip.
    Israel pulled its ground forces and settlers out of the coastal territory in 2005.
    After a 2006 war in Lebanon that many Israelis viewed as a failure, military action in Gaza has become a political hot potato that could affect the outcome of the election.
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