GAZA/ISRAEL: Israeli army distributes cockpit video of air strikes on Gaza, while palestinian rockets continue to slam southern Israel

Record ID: 340136

  • Title: GAZA/ISRAEL: Israeli army distributes cockpit video of air strikes on Gaza, while palestinian rockets continue to slam southern Israel
  • Date: 1st March 2008
  • Summary: SDEROT, ISRAEL (FEBRUARY 29, 2008) (REUTERS) TWO ISRAELI WOMEN TAKING COVER IN SAFE AREA WHILE A SIREN ALERTING ON ROCKET ATTACK IS HEARD/ CAMERAMAN STOPPING FOREIGN JOURNALISTS FROM LEAVING SAFE AREA FOREIGN JOURNALISTS REPORTING IN FRONT OF CAMERA IN SAFE AREA CLOSE OF WOMEN/ VIEW TO EMPTY STREET WHILE SIREN IS HEARD POLICE CAR AT SITE WHERE ROCKET LANDED VARIOUS OF POLI
  • Embargoed: 16th March 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: War / Fighting,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA12XHZODS6Y2Q4R6FF6HH72K4Q
  • Story Text: Israel's army distributed on Friday (February 29) footage showing numerous air strikes on the Gaza Strip that were taken for the cockpit of aircrafts, while militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza continue to launch rockets into southern Israel.
    According to army's slates that were edited along with the cockpit's footage of the air strikes, the video shows numerous attacks on various targets in Gaza, which Israeli troops, along with some 8,000 settlers, left in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.
    Israeli air strikes have killed at least 33 Gazans, including five children, in the past two days, and Israeli leaders said cross-border rocket fire may leave the Jewish state with no choice but to launch a broader military offensive.
    One Israeli was killed in a rocket attack on Wednesday in the southern border town of Sderot. Tensions increased further after longer-range rockets hit the city of Ashkelon, a major population centre near Gaza.
    Visiting Ashkelon, Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Channel 10 television that an Israeli response was "required" and that
    "Hamas bares responsibility for this deterioration and it will also bare the results".
    Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio earlier on Friday that "the more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger 'shoah' because we will use all our might to defend ourselves."
    Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Vilnai's remarks were proof that the Palestinians were faced with "new Nazis".
    Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has so far been wary of launching a major ground offensive, which could incur heavy casualties and derail U.S.-backed peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But domestic pressure is growing.
    Barak sought to prepare the way for an offensive by sending confidential messages to world leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will visit the region next week.
    Security sources were quoted by both Israel Radio and Army Radio as saying that a major operation was being prepared but was not yet imminent.
    A senior member of Olmert's centrist Kadima party, Tzachi Hanegbi, said the army should prepare to topple Hamas and capture areas used by militants to fire the rockets.
    Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but still maintains control of the territory's air space, coastal waters and major border crossings.
    Hamas has raised the stakes in the confrontation by using Soviet-designed Grad missiles, more powerful and accurate than improvised Gazan Qassams, to strike deep into Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people.
    Israel says it can maintain parallel tracks with the Palestinians, one aimed at breaking Hamas's hold on Gaza, and the other aimed at reaching a statehood agreement with Abbas, whose Western-backed Fatah forces were routed from Gaza last June by Iranian-backed Hamas.
    Although Abbas and his secular Fatah faction remain deeply hostile to Hamas, the president and his West Bank-based government have publicly criticised Israel for its military actions and for threatening to kill Hamas political leaders.
    Shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence after beating Abbas's Fatah faction in a parliamentary election two years ago, Hamas says it would cease fire if Israel stopped its military operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
    Hamas is also demanding an end to the Israeli-led blockade that has cut supplies to the territory's 1.5 million people.
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