Palestinian death toll tops 900: Gaza official

[Project Grudge]

Source: Reuters

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops fought gun battles with Hamas fighters on Monday, keeping military pressure on the Islamist group while avoiding all-out urban warfare that would complicate ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza war.

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 three Israeli civilians, hit by Hamas rockets, and 10 soldiers have died.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSTRE5053R720090112

[laststeamtrain]

1. Israeli troops battle Hamas amid Egyptian truce talks

Source: AFP

Israeli troops battle Hamas amid Egyptian truce talks
by Mai Yaghi – 42 mins ago

GAZA CITY, (AFP) – Israeli troops clashed with Hamas fighters on Monday across the Gaza Strip after the Jewish state poured reserve troops into the territory and ceasefire talks plodded on in Egypt.

Israeli warplanes struck some 12 targets in Gaza overnight, the army said, marking the lowest level of night-time bombing of Israel's deadliest offensive in the Palestinian enclave launched in response to rocket fire.

Infantry units exchanged fire with Palestinian fighters across Gaza, including in the northern town of Jabaliya and the southern town of Khan Yunis, the army and witnesses said.

Late Sunday Israel sent reserve troops into Gaza in what Israeli media said could be a sign of intensifying operations.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090112/ts_afp/mideastconflictgazaundraftvote_newsmlmmd

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2. Haaretz: Barak and Livni disagree with Olmert, want quick end to Gaza fighting

Barak and Livni disagree with Olmert, want quick end to Gaza fighting
By Barak Ravid

Sources close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed Sunday that he continues to disagree with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni regarding the question of continuing the warfare in Gaza. The so-called troika met last evening to discuss the subject, and both Barak and Livni reportedly argued for ending Operation Cast Lead as soon as possible. This is apparently the reason Olmert wants to present the issue to the security cabinet, where the majority supports his view.

Livni contends that continuing the offensive could harm the deterrence it has achieved so far and damage Israel diplomatically. Barak objects mainly to inserting ground troops deep into densely populated areas of Gaza. For his part, Olmert told the full cabinet Sunday that stopping Operation Cast Lead now would be a missed opportunity.

Sources close to Olmert said Sunday, after the meeting of the three, that most of the security cabinet supports Olmert's stand or even believe the operation should be expanded. Olmert is likely to convene the security cabinet today to seek approval for an expansion of the operation.

Olmert's associates also said no one in the security cabinet supported Livni's position and that a few Labor ministers support Barak's position that an agreement should be reached with Hamas.

Olmert told the full cabinet Sunday: "The pressure we are exerting must not be reduced. Anyone who broadcasts weakness will earn the good will of the global community for 12 seconds, but will not change anything essential."

Sources in the Prime Minister's bureau said Egypt has begun to relax its stance on bringing in American and European engineering experts to deal with the tunnels in the Rafah area. ...http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054554.html

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3. Reuters: Palestinian death toll tops 900: Gaza official

Palestinian death toll tops 900: Gaza official
By Nidal al-Mughrabi – 1 hr 35 mins ago

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli troops fought gun battles with Hamas fighters on Monday, keeping military pressure on the Islamist group while avoiding all-out urban warfare that would complicate ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza war.

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 three Israeli civilians, hit by Hamas rockets, and 10 soldiers have died.

Along battle lines in the suburbs of the rubble-strewn city of Gaza, Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants engaged in more fierce fighting.

Residents and local journalists said Israeli troops and tanks had taken up positions in open areas, seeking to penetrate guerrilla defenses in built-up zones that included booby-traps, snipers and fighters with rocket-propelled grenades.

Among targets hit by air strikes were the homes of more Hamas leaders, which Israel said contained weapons stores.

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...http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090112/ts_nm/us_palestinians_israel

[subsuelo]

5. 5 times the number killed in the Mumbai attacks

[Jefferson23]

4. Israeli government's opportunity to continue the blockade and the slaughter

of Palestinians before Obama takes office.

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6. IPS: Israelis Rain 'Phosphorous Bombs' Over Gaza

Israelis Rain 'Phosphorous Bombs' Over Gaza
By Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Jan 12 (IPS) - "There is no doubt that Israel is using phosphorous bombs over Gaza. Israel is flagrantly violating the Fourth Geneva Convention," says Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza.

"This is not the first time we have documented Israel using this kind of prohibited weapon against Gaza's civilian population," Sourani told IPS on phone from Gaza.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed Sourani's assessment in a statement it released on Friday. Its researchers said they had seen "multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorous over Gaza city."

"I've been on the border for the last few days watching the Israeli artillery firing white phosphorus shells into refugee camps," Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at HRW told France TV channel 24...http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45377

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7. Reuters: Deep inside Gaza, Israeli troops eye hostile city

Deep inside Gaza, Israeli troops eye hostile city
12 Jan 2009 22:29:11 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Dan Williams

GAZA, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Perched on the third-floor balcony of a commandeered Palestinian villa, Lieutenant-Colonel Yehuda gazes over the Gaza Strip, his posture suggesting a man in repose rather than a soldier poised to press home an offensive.

"I think Hamas has already folded," he says when asked to sum up the resistance Israeli troops encountered when they stormed into the enclave last week as part of a ground, air and sea campaign to counter rocket salvoes by the Islamist movement.

Apologising for a voice almost inaudibly hoarse, he says: "It's from shouting at my guys not to let themselves become complacent. But things have been getting busier at night. That's when the snipers try to close in and get a shot."

Under a crisp winter sunset, it's a still, sad vista.

To the north, the teeming city of Gaza, encircled by Israeli forces and pounded by the air force as part of a campaign to counter Palestinian rocket fire. To the west and east, tanks have churned up swathes of farmland and crushed buildings. Though Palestinians continue to launch their short-range missiles sporadically into Israel, from this vantage point there are few signs of life other than than the cautious criss-cross of Israeli armour in the 5 km (3 miles) of fields from border to beach.

More than 900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have died in an Israeli offensive that has drawn international condemnation for its humanitarian toll. Israel says Hamas invites such carnage by fighting in populated areas...http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LC572469.htm

[laststeamtrain]

8. AP: Israel's Olmert: Rice embarrassed over UN vote

Israel's Olmert: Rice embarrassed over UN vote
By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer – 54 mins ago

JERUSALEM – Israel's prime minister said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was embarrassed by orders to abstain from voting last week on a U.N. truce resolution for Gaza that she helped arrange.

Israel had argued that the Security Council measure calling for a halt to the Gaza fighting — which passed Thursday in a 14-0 vote with the U.S. abstaining — was unworkable because it did not guarantee Israel's security.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he called President George W. Bush to seek an abstention from the U.S., a key Israeli ally at the United Nations.

"I said: 'Get me President Bush on the phone,'" Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. "They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care: 'I need to talk to him now.' He got off the podium and spoke to me."

Olmert said he argued that the United States should not vote in favor, and the president then called Rice and told her not to do so.

"She was left pretty embarrassed," Olmert said...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_us_rice_2

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9. BBC: UN chief wants Gaza conflict halt

UN chief wants Gaza conflict halt

<snip>

"My message is simple, direct and to the point: the fighting must stop," Mr Ban told a news conference in New York ahead of his departure on Tuesday for the Middle East.

"In Gaza, the very foundation of society is being destroyed: people's homes, civic infrastructure, public health facilities and schools."

His diplomatic tour will see talks with the leaders of Egypt, Israel and Syria as well as the Palestinian president in Ramallah.

However UN officials say he will not be meeting representatives of Hamas, and it is not clear whether he will go to Gaza itself during his week-long trip.

Meanwhile reports suggest diplomatic efforts between Egypt and Hamas in Cairo are progressing.

<more>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7825480.stm

[THUNDER HANDS]

10. hamas has 20,000 fighters

so if the fighter:civilian ratio is roughly 4:1, that means about 5,000 civilians will have to die for Israel to be rid of Hamas.

If that's Israel's goal, this isn't over for a long long time.