Isabel Kershner, International Herald Tribune, March 2, 2008
ASHKELON- Israeli-Palestinian violence spilled over from Gaza to the West Bank on Sunday, and a spokesman for the Western-backed Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, said contacts with Israel had been temporarily suspended "in the light of the Israeli aggression."
The move was likely to mar further a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region that is set to start Monday.
Also Sunday, militants from Gaza fired more rockets into Israel, including some longer-range ones that hit the large Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon and the desert town of Netivot, despite days of harsh Israeli military action against the rocket launchers and the continued presence of a large Israeli ground force in northern Gaza.
At least 10 Palestinians were killed in Gaza by Israeli fire Sunday, according to local hospital officials, bringing the total of Palestinians killed since Wednesday, when the latest surge in hostilities began, to more than 100. Israel says that most of those killed were armed militants, but Palestinian officials say that more than half were civilians, including several children.
A spokesman for the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, said Sunday that 35 members of his group had been killed. About nine militants from smaller militant groups like Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees were also reported among the dead.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian boy, Mahmoud al- Masalmeh, 14, near Hebron and dispersed stone-throwing demonstrators in several other cities and areas bordering on Jerusalem as protests broke out against the spiraling death toll in Gaza.
Regarding the death of the youth near Hebron, an Israeli Army spokeswoman said that there had been "very violent disturbances" in the area and that soldiers had opened fire at two Palestinians who were acting suspiciously near the West Bank barrier in the course of the riot, hitting at least one of them.
Two Israeli soldiers who were killed in the fighting in Gaza on Saturday were buried in Israel on Sunday. One Israeli civilian was killed by short-range rocket fire on Wednesday in the Israeli border town of Sderot.
The surge started on Wednesday when five Hamas Qassam Brigades members were killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza. Israeli military officials said that the five were on their way to carrying out a special operation against Israel, possibly involving infiltrating the border and capturing a soldier. Some of the five had just come back from Iran and Syria, which the military officials said may explain the strength of the Hamas retaliation.
In response, militants in Gaza fired huge barrages of rockets at Sderot, killing the civilian, and since Thursday, have launched an unprecedented number of longer-range, manufactured Katyusha-style rockets at Ashkelon, a major Israeli city of about 120,000 people about 10 miles north of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas, the militant Islamic group, took control of the Gaza Strip last June after routing the pro-Abbas forces there. Its military wing has claimed responsibility for most of the recent rocket fire.
Israeli officials describe the firing of the longer-range rockets, which they refer to as Grads, as a serious escalation of the conflict, and have mounted a ground and air campaign in northern Gaza that left more than 60 Palestinians dead on Saturday.
Before dawn on Sunday, the air force struck three targets in Gaza that the army spokeswoman described as Hamas headquarters and weapons storage facilities. Among the targets was a headquarters of Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials. It was empty at the time.
The air force also struck against armed militants in northern Gaza on Sunday afternoon, the army spokeswoman said.
Abu Obeida, the Qassam Brigades spokesman, said in Gaza that his group would continue firing rockets.
A senior Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity under army rules, said the army was trying to hit the sites where rockets are stored, many of which are located in civilian homes. He said there were enough rockets in Gaza for the firing to continue for now at a rate of a few dozen a day.
Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Jerusalem and Taghreed El-Khodary from Gaza City.
Hizbullah slams deployment of US warships off coast
Moussa visits Damascus ahead of arab summit
By Hussein Abdallah, The Daily Star - Lebanon, March 01, 2008
BEIRUT: A US deployment of warships off the coast of Lebanon further sharpened tensions in the crisis-plagued country on Friday, as Hizbullah condemned the move and the Lebanese government said it did not ask for the ships to be sent. Hizbullah on Friday denounced Washington's dispatch of the USS Cole and two other vessels to waters off Lebanon as military interference.
Hizbullah's condemnation came as pro-government newspapers in Beirut said the deployment was a clear signal to Syria, which is accused by the ruling coalition of blocking a presidential vote in Beirut.
A senior Hizbullah official, Ghaleb Abu Zeinab, told The Daily Star on Friday that the US decision to send the warships was an "unhelpful" one.
"It is not the first time the US uses such tactics. It seems they have not learned the lessons of the past," he said, hinting at the attacks on US targets that followed the naval shelling of Lebanese areas during the Civil War.
"The US failed to take over the region despite its occupation of Iraq. Sending warships would not change anything," Abu Zeinab added.
The United States acknowledged on Thursday that it had sent the guided-missile destroyer and two other ships to the waters off Lebanon, which has been embroiled in a paralyzing political crisis for months.
It is "a show of support for regional stability" because of "concern about the situation in Lebanon," a US official said on condition of anonymity, declining to say whether the show of force was aimed at Syria or Iran.
The US also played down Hizbullah's criticism of the deployment, insisting that the show of force was meant to promote stability.
"On Hizbullah's concerns, I would express some of our own concerns with Hizbullah's actions. So I'll just leave it at that," White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters.
Johndroe sidestepped questions about comments from Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora, who said Friday that his government did not ask Washington to send warships to the area.
"We have regular consultations with Prime Minister Siniora and his government, as well as our allies, both in the immediate region, as well as in Europe on the situation in Lebanon," said the spokesman.
"There's constant communication at various levels. But let's be clear: The purpose of the US Navy ships in the Eastern Mediterranean is a show of support for regional stability," amid Lebanon's political crisis," Johndroe said.
"I know we share with Prime Minister Siniora a desire for the situation in Lebanon to be resolved, and resolved by the Lebanese people," he added.
Siniora, whose government is backed by the West and most Arab countries, had stressed earlier during a meeting with Arab ambassadors that Beirut did not ask for the warships and had summoned a top US diplomat for "clarifications."
"We did not ask anyone to send warships," Siniora said, adding that no US warship was in "Lebanese waters."
Earlier, Siniora summoned US Charge d'Affaires Michel Sison "to ask her to clarify the presence of the USS Cole" in the Mediterranean, a government source told AFP.
"Mrs. Sison assured him that the warship was in international waters and had been dispatched to guarantee regional stability," the source added.
Meanwhile, a media officer for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Neeraj Singh, said on Friday that UNIFIL forces had not been informed of the United States' sudden move.
Elias Hanna, retired general and political science professor at the Notre Dame University, told The Daily Star on Friday that some reactions to the US move were extremely exaggerated.
"The move is not more than a political message," he said.
"If the US wants to go to war, the deployment would be followed up by other escalatory military measures. We need to watch the buildup before we can make any judgment," he added.
As the deployment stirred new tensions in Lebanon, the country was still waiting to receive an official invitation to take part in the upcoming Arab summit in Damascus.
Midnight Friday was the deadline for receiving invitations to take part in the summit, scheduled for March 29 and 30. No invitation was reported to have been received by the time The Daily Star went to press.
Well-informed sources said the invitation might be handed over to Lebanon's representative in the Arab League, since Syria is unlikely to invite Siniora. Normally, an invitation would be delivered to the president, but the Siniora government has assumed presidential powers since former Emile Lahoud left office last November and no replacement was elected.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa headed to Damascus on Friday to meet President Bashar Assad and make some arrangements for the summit.
"Inter-Arab relations are very tense ahead of the upcoming summit," Moussa said before heading to the Syrian capital. - With agencies
By Hussein Abdallah, The Daily Star - Lebanon, March 01, 2008
BEIRUT: A US deployment of warships off the coast of Lebanon further sharpened tensions in the crisis-plagued country on Friday, as Hizbullah condemned the move and the Lebanese government said it did not ask for the ships to be sent. Hizbullah on Friday denounced Washington's dispatch of the USS Cole and two other vessels to waters off Lebanon as military interference.
Hizbullah's condemnation came as pro-government newspapers in Beirut said the deployment was a clear signal to Syria, which is accused by the ruling coalition of blocking a presidential vote in Beirut.
A senior Hizbullah official, Ghaleb Abu Zeinab, told The Daily Star on Friday that the US decision to send the warships was an "unhelpful" one.
"It is not the first time the US uses such tactics. It seems they have not learned the lessons of the past," he said, hinting at the attacks on US targets that followed the naval shelling of Lebanese areas during the Civil War.
"The US failed to take over the region despite its occupation of Iraq. Sending warships would not change anything," Abu Zeinab added.
The United States acknowledged on Thursday that it had sent the guided-missile destroyer and two other ships to the waters off Lebanon, which has been embroiled in a paralyzing political crisis for months.
It is "a show of support for regional stability" because of "concern about the situation in Lebanon," a US official said on condition of anonymity, declining to say whether the show of force was aimed at Syria or Iran.
The US also played down Hizbullah's criticism of the deployment, insisting that the show of force was meant to promote stability.
"On Hizbullah's concerns, I would express some of our own concerns with Hizbullah's actions. So I'll just leave it at that," White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters.
Johndroe sidestepped questions about comments from Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora, who said Friday that his government did not ask Washington to send warships to the area.
"We have regular consultations with Prime Minister Siniora and his government, as well as our allies, both in the immediate region, as well as in Europe on the situation in Lebanon," said the spokesman.
"There's constant communication at various levels. But let's be clear: The purpose of the US Navy ships in the Eastern Mediterranean is a show of support for regional stability," amid Lebanon's political crisis," Johndroe said.
"I know we share with Prime Minister Siniora a desire for the situation in Lebanon to be resolved, and resolved by the Lebanese people," he added.
Siniora, whose government is backed by the West and most Arab countries, had stressed earlier during a meeting with Arab ambassadors that Beirut did not ask for the warships and had summoned a top US diplomat for "clarifications."
"We did not ask anyone to send warships," Siniora said, adding that no US warship was in "Lebanese waters."
Earlier, Siniora summoned US Charge d'Affaires Michel Sison "to ask her to clarify the presence of the USS Cole" in the Mediterranean, a government source told AFP.
"Mrs. Sison assured him that the warship was in international waters and had been dispatched to guarantee regional stability," the source added.
Meanwhile, a media officer for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Neeraj Singh, said on Friday that UNIFIL forces had not been informed of the United States' sudden move.
Elias Hanna, retired general and political science professor at the Notre Dame University, told The Daily Star on Friday that some reactions to the US move were extremely exaggerated.
"The move is not more than a political message," he said.
"If the US wants to go to war, the deployment would be followed up by other escalatory military measures. We need to watch the buildup before we can make any judgment," he added.
As the deployment stirred new tensions in Lebanon, the country was still waiting to receive an official invitation to take part in the upcoming Arab summit in Damascus.
Midnight Friday was the deadline for receiving invitations to take part in the summit, scheduled for March 29 and 30. No invitation was reported to have been received by the time The Daily Star went to press.
Well-informed sources said the invitation might be handed over to Lebanon's representative in the Arab League, since Syria is unlikely to invite Siniora. Normally, an invitation would be delivered to the president, but the Siniora government has assumed presidential powers since former Emile Lahoud left office last November and no replacement was elected.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa headed to Damascus on Friday to meet President Bashar Assad and make some arrangements for the summit.
"Inter-Arab relations are very tense ahead of the upcoming summit," Moussa said before heading to the Syrian capital. - With agencies
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