MIDEAST: Mideast violence mounts as Israeli leaders forming coalition bloc

Record ID: 354416

  • Title: MIDEAST: Mideast violence mounts as Israeli leaders forming coalition bloc
  • Date: 4th April 2006
  • Summary: WIDE OF AL-ZAHAR AND CHINESE AMBASSADOR AT PRESS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) PALESTINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MAHMOUD AL-ZAHAR SAYING THAT HE WILL VISIT CHINA AND EAST ASIA, SAYING: "We will visit the area and China will be the first country we visit, we will visit Asian countries west of Asia, east of asia and middle asia"
  • Embargoed: 19th April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA29GFH1YMXLFUMA4HTTG19GMFE
  • Story Text: Israeli tank shells fired at northern Gaza killed a Palestinians man and wounded seven others hours after Israeli missiles hit a Palestinian security compound in Gaza City on Tuesday (April 4).
    Israel launched the strikes shortly after interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his centrist Kadima Party expected centre-left Labour to be its senior partner in a coalition government being formed after elections last week.
    Hamas said Israel was trying to send a message in response to the Islamic group's ascension to power last week after its victory in January parliamentary elections.
    Israel said it was responding to Palestinian cross-border rocket attacks.
    The Israeli military said it carried out two separate air attacks, one on an open field in northern Gaza from where militants fire rockets, and the other on an "open, unpopulated space" in Gaza City.
    In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiyeh, Israeli fire killed at least one person and wounded about seven others, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.
    Earlier, Palestinian witnesses said two missiles fired from the air struck a training base used by Palestinian security forces in Gaza City. The office of President Mahmoud Abbas is nearby, although he was not there at the time.
    The missile attack in Gaza City wounded a policeman.
    A Hamas spokesman and Abbas's office condemned the air strikes. The militant group is sworn to Israel's destruction.
    "This sporadic shelling tells us that the zionist enemy is starting an all out war against our Palestinian people. I believe the international community should act immediately and quickly to force the Israeli occupation to stop their crimes," Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri told Reuters Television in Gaza.
    Militants regularly fire rockets from Gaza, which Israel withdrew from last year after 38 years of occupation. But the makeshift missiles rarely cause casualties nor are they launched from Gaza City because they do not have sufficient range.
    Olmert vowed an "iron" response to Palestinian militant attacks in the lead up to Israel's March 28 elections.
    With Labour leader Amir Peretz at his side on Tuesday, he said he wanted to form a government soon. Formal coalition talks are expected to begin when President Moshe Katsav gives his approval, possibly as soon as Wednesday.
    "We are happy to announce that immediately after the President empowers me to put together a government we will start coalition talks to start a process that would enable us as quickly as possible a government with the Labour Party as the senior partner," Olmert told a press conference in Jerusalem.
    Kadima won the most seats, but fewer than expected, on its plans to lay down Israel's final borders with or without Palestinian agreement. It secured 29 seats in the 120-member parliament. Labour came second with 19.
    Once endorsed by Katsav, Olmert would have 42 days to form a government. Several smaller parties are expected to join.
    Olmert's plan is to trace a border along a barrier Israel is building in the West Bank, where 240,000 Israelis live among 2.4 million Palestinians. Israel would keep major settlement blocs.
    Palestinians condemn such a move, saying it would annex land and deny them the viable state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
    Seeking to break from attempts by Israel and the United States to isolate the new Palestinian government, Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar announced plans on Tuesday to visit China and other Asian countries next month.
    Zahar, a senior Hamas figure, was speaking after meeting a senior Chinese diplomat in Gaza. He did not say which other countries in Asia he planned to visit.
    Israel regards Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
    In the West Bank city of Ramallah hundreds of Palestinians held a funeral procession for a 16-year-old Palestinian who was killed on Monday (April 3) in a shooting incident with the Israeli army.
    An army spokeswoman confirmed that troops had fired at two youths after calling on them to stop as they tried to cut through a security fence, although she could not confirm the death.
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