VARIOUS: Palestinian death toll tops 900 as Israel keeps military pressure on Hamas

Record ID: 376379

  • Title: VARIOUS: Palestinian death toll tops 900 as Israel keeps military pressure on Hamas
  • Date: 13th January 2009
  • Summary: RAFAH, GAZA (JANUARY 12, 2009) (REUTERS) VIEW OF RAFAH NEAR EGYPTIAN BORDER SMOKE BILLOWING OVER RAFAH, NEAR BORDER RESIDENTS WALKING NEAR SITE OF EXPLOSION SMOKE BILLOWING - BOY LOOKING FROM OVER THE TOP OF THE HILL WOMEN WALKING AWAY MORE OF SMOKE WOMAN CRYING - RESIDENTS FLEEING SIGN SHOWING HAMAS LEADERS WIDE OF FUNERAL FOR FATAH MEMBER KILLED BY ISRAELI FORCES
  • Embargoed: 28th January 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA6ZX7BRQIPQMX9RQYCNRB8059K
  • Story Text: Medical officials say Palestinian death toll had risen past 900 as Israel military keeps pressure on Hamas.
    Israeli war planes continued to pound the Gaza Strip on Monday (January 12) as ground troops fought fierce gun battles with Hamas fighters, keeping military pressure on the Islamist group while avoiding all-out urban warfare that would complicate ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza war.
    In Gaza city, residents gathered at a site of the latest Israeli air strike that killed two, where blood stains could still be seen on the ground.

    "There is no place safe in Gaza for the civilians. They are afraid to stay home, they are afraid to move. They are also afraid to go down the street to try to find some water or to try to buy some food. No electricity, no water, difficult access to hospitals, ambulances are not able to reach some places to collect the wounded," said Antoine Grand, head of International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza.
    In the southern towns of Rafah and Khan Younis, mourners managed to hold funeral processions for some of the dead in the short hours of lull between one Israeli strike and another.
    Medical officials said the Palestinian death toll in the offensive Israel began 17 days ago had risen past 900 and included at least 380 civilians. Israel says 13 Israelis -- three civilians hit by rockets and 10 soldiers -- have died.
    An Israeli military spokesman said army reservists had been thrown into the campaign that Israel launched with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks from the Hamas-ruled territory to its south.
    But Israeli forces were still holding back from a threatened third stage of their deadliest assault on Palestinian militants in decades -- a push into the city of Gaza and other urban areas to add more punch to an air campaign and ground offensive.
    Israel also allowed humanitarian aid that includes basic food supplies and medicine to cross into the coastal territory. 165 loaded trucks crossed through Kerem Shalom and Karni crossings.
    But Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, speaking to reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, described the situation in Gaza as intolerable and demanded that Israel immediately stop its aggression against Palestinians in Gaza.

    "We strongly condemn the refusal of Israel to this (UN) resolution and their continuation in turning their back to the international will which was expressed by the Security Council by stating the importance of a ceasefire and their continuation of the attacks on our people without paying attention to the civilian casualties," Fayyad said.
    About 3,600 Palestinians have been wounded.
    The health minister in the Hamas-run government in Gaza, Bassem Naeem, told reporters that 42 percent of those killed -- or about 380 -- were women and children. Israel, which says it has killed "hundreds" of fighters, has questioned civilian casualty figures from Gaza but has not offered its own estimate.
    Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking at a school in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, said the operation is about to reach its goals.

    "In order for it to end two things have to happen and they are possible. We are closer to them today than we were a few days ago,"
    Olmert said.
    He went on to explain that Hamas firing rockets against Israeli targets needed to stop and that Israel needed guarantees that what he described as
    "murderous groups" would not have the ability to target Israeli civilians again.
    As he spoke, Israel's opposition leader Benyamin Netanyahu toured the constructions site of a school in Ashdod, southern Israel, which was hit by a Hamas rocket earlier on Monday -- proof that rocket attacks were still taking place.
    Egypt's state news agency MENA said more talks in Cairo with a Hamas delegation on an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire were planned for Monday after "positive" discussions a day earlier.
    Hamas official Osama Hamdan said some delegates had returned to Damascus for consultations with the group's leadership.
    Israel, which rejected a U.N. ceasefire resolution last week as unworkable, wants a halt to rocket attacks and measures to stop Hamas from rearming via the tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, in an area known as the Philadelphi corridor.
    Western and Israeli officials said diplomats were discussing an internationally-assisted technical monitoring system to help Egypt stop weapons smuggling and intercept rocket shipments.
    Egypt, concerned for its sovereignty, opposes stationing an international force on its side of the frontier.
    Hamdan said Hamas was working on a final position on the Egyptian proposal.
    Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has said the group would not consider a ceasefire until Israel ended its air, sea and ground assault and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
    END
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