"Israeli troops killed 16 Palestinians on Tuesday as fighting around the Hamas-run Gaza Strip escalated a day after the two sides launched talks on the core issues of their conflict.
The deadliest single day of violence in months saw the son of top Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar killed, while a civilian just inside Israel was shot dead in a rare sniper attack by militants in Gaza.
The fighting erupted a day after a meeting of top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, hot on the heels of US President George W. Bush's visit and his prediction of a peace treaty by the time he leaves office in a year.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas branded the Gaza operation a "massacre" and said it flew in the face of peace efforts relaunched at a US conference less than two months ago.
"What happened today is a massacre, a slaughter against the Palestinian people," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "Our people cannot keep silent over these massacres. These massacres cannot bring peace."
Why you working for Iz-ray-HELL then?
Since the two sides formally relaunched peace talks at the US-hosted conference in late November, some 115 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, according to an AFP count.
Hamas decreed three days of mourning and a day of general strike.
The Israeli assaults on Gaza have sown further discord between Israel and the Palestinians, who are also angry over the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied land in the West Bank despite the revived negotiations.
Tuesday's operation saw a heavy exchange of fire between soldiers and militants in eastern Gaza City, medics and witnesses said.
Among the dead were 13 members of Hamas's armed wing, including Hossam Zahar, the son of Hamas's former foreign minister Mahmud Zahar who vowed "to answer Israel in the only language that it knows."
The identities of the three others killed were not immediately known. About 45 other Palestinians, both militants and civilians, were wounded.
An army spokeswoman said Israeli troops opened fire on a group of armed Palestinians and a car containing gunmen during an operation against militants.
Government spokesman Mark Regev said the operation was a result of rocket attacks on Israel.
"This is the result, unfortunately, of the ongoing attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip," he said. "Over the last months there have been continuous firing of rockets and mortar shells against our civilian population."
In the latest such attack, an Ecuadorian male volunteer at a kibbutz collective farm was shot dead by bullets fired from Gaza in an attack claimed by Hamas.
Israel launches near-daily air and ground raids in Gaza aiming to stop rocket and mortar fire from the territory which has been under Hamas control for the past seven months.
On Monday, top negotiators began talks on the thorniest issues at the heart of the decades-old conflict -- borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees.
The negotiations came after the visit by Bush, whose administration has turned its focus on trying to solve the conflict during his last year in office, predicted a peace treaty would be signed by January 2009.
Underlining the divide between the two sides, construction of 60 new housing units has begun in a settlement in annexed east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of their promised state.
It was the latest settlement expansion in east Jerusalem -- despite Palestinian demands that such activity stops -- since the peace talks were revived.
Both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas face their own internal political obstacles in implementing any deal, however.
Abbas has authority only over the West Bank since Hamas's bloody seizure of Gaza in June, and Olmert is facing a potential revolt by a cabinet minister.
The premier voiced scepticism on the chances of a deal on Monday, a day before he met with a leading right-wing minister who has threatened to quit over the revived peace talks.
Ultra-nationalist Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman has threatened to withdraw his 11-member Yisrael Beitenu party from the coalition because he opposes the "core issue" negotiations.
Beitenu's departure would not bring down Olmert's government, which would still have 67 seats in the 120-member parliament. But it could weaken him ahead of the January 30 release of a report on the 2006 Lebanon war, expected to be critical of Olmert."
I don't care about all the political shit -- only those MURDERED!
Once again, though, I did not read or purchase today.
"Israeli-Palestinian Fighting in Gaza Leaves 16 Dead" by ISABEL KERSHNER
JERUSALEM — At least 16 Palestinians, mostly members of the military wing of Hamas, were killed in Gaza on Tuesday by Israeli army fire, according to hospital officials there, and a volunteer from Ecuador working a kibbutz field on the Israeli side of the border fence was killed by sniper fire from Gaza, Israeli military officials and witnesses said.
On Tuesday afternoon, a rocket fired from Gaza landed on a road in southern Ashkelon, an Israeli coastal city of 120,000, causing no casualties.
The escalation in violence came a day after Israeli negotiators and Palestinian counterparts representing the West Bank leadership started peace talks, and after the prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, seemed to rule out the immediate prospect of a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie!
.... Among the dead in Gaza was a son of Mahmoud Zahar, a senior leader of Hamas. The son, Husam Zahar, 21, was a Qassam member, and was killed in an Israeli air strike on the car in which he was traveling, according to Taher Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza.
The Israeli army moved about a mile inside Gaza before dawn on Tuesday in what a military spokesman called “a routine operation to distance terrorists from the fence,” as well as the threat of rocket and mortar shell fire aimed at the forces and Israeli civilian communities along the border. As well as the ground operation, the Army spokesman said, the air force carried out three separate strikes against a mortar shell launching squad; a car carrying armed militants; and two armed Palestinians spotted on the ground.
Several hours into the operation, at about 9 in the morning, the Ecuadorian volunteer was shot while working a potato field at Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, about 100 yards from the border fence, military officials said.
The army operation ended early Tuesday afternoon.
Mahmoud Zahar blamed President Bush, who visited Israel and the West Bank last week, for the escalation, saying the American president had given Israel “a green light to continue killing.”
As he left a Gaza City mosque on Tuesday afternoon, on his way to his son’s funeral, Mr. Zahar said that Mr. Bush’s “fate will be his end — his and his nation’s. Israel will also be wiped out,” he said, adding “all must remember this when the Palestinian flag is raised one day.”
A procession of bodies born on stretchers and wrapped in the green flags of Hamas left the mosque to be buried. The top military and political leaders of Hamas attended the funerals, including Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza.
Mr. Zahar lost another son, Khaled, killed in 2003 at the age of 24, during an Israeli raid on the family’s house.
Capt. Noa Meir, a spokeswoman for the Israeli army, said the killing of the Ecuadorian volunteer illustrated “exactly the rationale” for the kind of military operation that took place Tuesday in Gaza, saying the operations were aimed at “preventing tragic incidents such as this.”
Yeah, that happened AFTER YOUR SHITSTINK OPERATION began, NaZionist liar!!!!!
Although the Israeli leadership has been reluctant to undertake a massive military operation in Gaza, the military has stepped up its activities recently with frequent incursions and strikes against militants.
David Baker, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said “there will be no respite from these defensive measures” until the attacks on Israel stop."
Therefore, the murder and genocide of the Palestinian people will continue, 'eh, stink Jew?
And not only Palestinians, it seems:
" '3 dead' in U.S. Embassy car blast"
"An explosion just north of Beirut struck a U.S. Embassy vehicle Tuesday, a Western diplomatic source told CNN....
A Western diplomatic source said an American, an Iraqi and three Lebanese were among those wounded in the blast, which happened around 4:45 p.m. (9:45 a.m. ET).
Lebanese media reported about 20 people were injured in the blast, which appears to be the latest in a series of attacks against pro-Western, anti-Syrian targets in the Lebanese capital."
Update:
"Israelis talk peace yet massacre Palestinians. Sic..."
"
| AIC Condemns Israeli Massacre of Palestinians in Gaza | | |
| Written by Alternative Information Center (AIC) | |
| Tuesday, 15 January 2008 | |
|  Aftermath of Israeli Air Force and Army incursion into the Gaza Strip (AIC archive photo) Only one day after commencement of "peace talks" on core issues, The The AIC does not view today’s atrocity as an isolated incident, but another link in the ongoing Israeli chain of oppression and isolation of the Gaza Strip and its residents. Dr. Haider Eid, Associate Professor in the Department of English at “What is happening in the Gaza Strip cannot be isolated from Bush’s visit last week to The Palestinian cabinet has dubbed today’s killings by The 19 Palestinians killed include 24 year old Husam Zahhar, the son of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar, in addition to three farmers: 66 year old As’ad Eissa Radwan Tafesh, 22 year old Marwan Sameer Ouda, and 50 year old Sa’id Mustafa al-Sammouni. Although Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert noted yesterday that The writing is on the wall. The international community must immediately end its tacit support of |
Update II:
"Mossad kills 4 in Beirut, but misses its American target"
In Beirut today a roadside bomb went off as a U.S. motorcade went by. Mossad missed the American vehicle, but killed four Lebanese in a following vehicle (and wounded another). No Americans were hurt.
The clumsy attempt at a false flag was in the Dora-Karantina neighborhood (north Beirut), which is predominantly Christian. It was heard across Beirut, and gray smoke could be seen billowing near the Mediterranean coast.
The last car bombing was on Dec. 12 in Beirut's suburb of Baabda. It killed Lebanese army Maj. Gen. Francois Hajj plus two other people.
Last week a roadside bomb wounded two U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon
The Lebanon Daily Star says three people were killed. Other news sources say four.
In other news, the Jews murdered 17 Palestinians in Gaza today. Now that Bush has left ziostan, and it's back to murder as usual.
Bush is in Arabia today. Tomorrow he will go to Egypt.
