Tuesday
Jan062009
Rolling Updates on the Invasion of Gaza (6 January)
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 14:41
Later Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (7 January)
Later post: International Crisis Group on "Ending the War in Gaza"
Later post: The Israel-Fatah Collaboration
5:15 p.m. Medical sources say up to 40 Gazans die from Israeli tank shelling of UN school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
4:25 p.m. US State Department says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice going to United Nations "to help create a ceasefire" in Gaza
4:20 p.m. Further to the news of 13 members of a family dying in an Israeli air attack (3:45 p.m.), The New York Times has a detailed profile:
4:05 p.m. Diplomatic development: French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Damascus has urged Syrian President Bashir al-Assad "to throw all his weight to convince everyone to return to reason". Sarkozy said any ceasefire had to provide "serious guarantees" for the security of Israel and a halt of rocket fire by Hamas.
No rescuers came. Instead, Israeli soldiers entered their building late Sunday night and told them to evacuate to another building. They did. But at 6 a.m. on Monday, when a missile fired by an Israeli warplane struck the relatives’ house in which they had taken shelter, there was nowhere to run.
It seems, however, that Assad has rebuffed Sarkozy's gambit --- which parallels Tony Blair's media blitz today --- to put all the conditions for a cease-fire on Hamas. He responded that Israel had to agree to ease economic restrictions on Gaza: "The blockade is slow death. There will not be a ceasefire that holds if the blockade is not lifted." Assad also called for a cessation of Israeli "war crimes".
Immediate analysis? No breakthrough here --- this is increasingly looking like two rival diplomatic camps.
3:45 p.m. Al Jazeera reports 13 members of a single family killed in al Zaitoun, east of Gaza City, in air attack
3:35 p.m. Further evidence of the "grand design", backed by US, Israel, and Egypt, of military and political action to topple Hamas and bring in the Palestinian Authority? The BBC's Jeremy Bowen has just assessed that European representatives will sit on their hands for now over a possible cease-fire. It's also notable that the French, who only 24 hours were supposed to be pushing a UN resolution, have gone very quiet.
Bowen adds the question, in line with our own post, of who will be able to succeed Hamas. Will it be anarchy and a Somalia-type situation?
2:55 p.m. Just posted what I think may be the critical background story of this week --- Israel-Fatah Collaboration in plan to install Palestinian Authority in power in Gaza
2 p.m. Former British Prime Minister and the envoy of the Middle Eastern Quarter, Tony Blair, confirms his clinging to relevancy with an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He lays out the condition for a cease-fire:
In other words, before any cease-fire is possible, Hamas has to make concessions. In far, it's more than that: countries accused of smuggling weapons and finance to Hamas, namely Iran and Syria, have to give assurances.
The proposal is a non-starter. And I doubt that Blair --- who met with Israel's Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak on Sunday --- has any credibility left as an "impartial" broker of a temporary, let alone long-term, settlement.
1 p.m. Israeli officer reported killed in fighting in northern Gaza.
12:40 p.m. United Nations Relief and Works Agency official John Ging confirms that three people killed in UN school/shelter by Israeli missile. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ging also describes "awful" situation at al-Shifa hospital.
12:05 p.m. Missing news: meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: ""The results of the operation must be... that Hamas must not only stop firing but must no longer be able to fire."
But, given earlier French efforts to get a cease-fire and reported French attempts to get a UN resolution, what was Sarkozy's position/reaction? There is no evidence in the story by Agence France Presse, only the note that Olmert and he agreed that Sarkovy "would continue to push for a deal including Egypt".
12 noon: Israeli Defense Forces say more than 10 Hamas rockets have been launched on Tuesday. One landed in Gadera, 36 kilometres (23 miles) north of the Gaza border --- the further a rocket has flown into Israel.
11:55 a.m. Al Jazeera is reporting heavy Israeli air attacks, including strikes on a school (and now probably a shelter) run by the United Nations, killing at least three people, and a central market in Bureij, south of Gaza City. Israeli Defense Forces say there have been more than 40 airstrikes since midnight.
There are also reports of Israel violating Lebanese airspace.
10:25 a.m. Heavy fighting in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza and resistance to Israeli naval landing at Deir al-Balah.
10:20 a.m. Former British Prime Minister and current "Middle Eastern envoy" Tony Blair clings to relevance with 10-minute interview on BBC radio's Today programme. He frames situation as "good" Palestinian Authority v. "bad" Hamas and holds out against dialogue with the latter.
10 a.m. One day it might be called the "el-Haddad effect", and it might be seen as a major reason why the Israelis halt military operations before they achieve their objectives.
Moussa el-Haddad, the Gazan resident who came to international notice via his daughter Laila, a writer and blogger prominent on Twitter as "Gazamom", is now being featured regularly on CNN. He is also now the lead voice on the BBC's flagship radio programme Today. His eyewitness emphasis is on the destruction and humanitarian cost of the Israeli attack, overtaking the standard wartime narrative of Israeli forces v. Hamas forces.
Ironically, as Robert Fisk noted in The Independent yesterday, the Israeli exclusion of journalists from Gaza means that news services are scrambling to find an "authentic" account of events. That in turn means they have moved to other means, such as Internet-based activity, for information and analysis. (The Guardian of London, which featured bloggers during the 2003 Iraq War, got a jump on other print outlets with its featuring of "local" stories, and broadcast media are now playing catch-up.)
As long as Moussa el-Haddad's phone and Internet service holds out, he may be an influence putting Israeli political and military forces may be in a race against time.
9:27 a.m. CNN is now summarising the Israeli and Hamas casualties we reported below.
There is an intriguing twist in the article, however:
The summary of a "psychological campaign", while not as strong as "political warfare", is a far different characterisation of the Israeli tactics than the earlier portrayal --- encouraged by Tel Aviv --- of the phone calls as concern for the civilian population.
9:10 a.m. The humanitarian-first approach to the conflict makes it to the top level of "mainstream" US news coverage. Mads Gilbert, one of the two Norwegian doctors setting out the scale of crisis at Gazan hospitals and the large number of civilian casualties, is given almost three minutes on CBS. His portrayal of events? "They are bombing one-and-a-half million people in a cage."
The clip is now circulating on YouTube.
9:00 a.m. Al Jazeera reports 18 Gazans killed overnight.
8:50 a.m. The International Crisis Group has released a briefing, "Ending the War in Gaza". We're reprinting in full as a separate item. The ICG concludes:
8:35 a.m. Israeli Defense Forces claim 135 Hamas fighters killed.
8:20 a.m. In another sign of shifting media emphasis towards humanitarian issues, CNN website leads with story on psychological damage caused to Gazan children by the conflict, albeit with an emphasis on the creation of "extremists". (This was superseded an hour later by latest reports on military clashes.)
8:15 a.m. Israeli troops have surrounded Gaza City. Al Jazeera reports that Israeli forces have moved into Khan Yunis in southern Gazan strip
Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 wounded --- four severely --- in a "friendly fire" incident. Another eight soldiers were lightly wounded in fights with Hamas forces.
Forty rockets were launched into southern Israel on Monday, slightly down from 47 on Sunday.
Treatment of wounded in hospitals has been further hindered by Egyptian refusal to let medical personnel across its border into Gaza.
Later post: International Crisis Group on "Ending the War in Gaza"
Later post: The Israel-Fatah Collaboration
5:15 p.m. Medical sources say up to 40 Gazans die from Israeli tank shelling of UN school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
4:25 p.m. US State Department says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice going to United Nations "to help create a ceasefire" in Gaza
4:20 p.m. Further to the news of 13 members of a family dying in an Israeli air attack (3:45 p.m.), The New York Times has a detailed profile:
The Samouni family knew they were in danger. They had been calling the Red Cross for two days, they said, begging to be taken out of Zeitoun, a poor area in eastern Gaza City that is considered a stronghold of Hamas.
No rescuers came. Instead, Israeli soldiers entered their building late Sunday night and told them to evacuate to another building. They did. But at 6 a.m. on Monday, when a missile fired by an Israeli warplane struck the relatives’ house in which they had taken shelter, there was nowhere to run.
4:05 p.m. Diplomatic development: French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Damascus has urged Syrian President Bashir al-Assad "to throw all his weight to convince everyone to return to reason". Sarkozy said any ceasefire had to provide "serious guarantees" for the security of Israel and a halt of rocket fire by Hamas.
No rescuers came. Instead, Israeli soldiers entered their building late Sunday night and told them to evacuate to another building. They did. But at 6 a.m. on Monday, when a missile fired by an Israeli warplane struck the relatives’ house in which they had taken shelter, there was nowhere to run.
It seems, however, that Assad has rebuffed Sarkozy's gambit --- which parallels Tony Blair's media blitz today --- to put all the conditions for a cease-fire on Hamas. He responded that Israel had to agree to ease economic restrictions on Gaza: "The blockade is slow death. There will not be a ceasefire that holds if the blockade is not lifted." Assad also called for a cessation of Israeli "war crimes".
Immediate analysis? No breakthrough here --- this is increasingly looking like two rival diplomatic camps.
3:45 p.m. Al Jazeera reports 13 members of a single family killed in al Zaitoun, east of Gaza City, in air attack
3:35 p.m. Further evidence of the "grand design", backed by US, Israel, and Egypt, of military and political action to topple Hamas and bring in the Palestinian Authority? The BBC's Jeremy Bowen has just assessed that European representatives will sit on their hands for now over a possible cease-fire. It's also notable that the French, who only 24 hours were supposed to be pushing a UN resolution, have gone very quiet.
Bowen adds the question, in line with our own post, of who will be able to succeed Hamas. Will it be anarchy and a Somalia-type situation?
2:55 p.m. Just posted what I think may be the critical background story of this week --- Israel-Fatah Collaboration in plan to install Palestinian Authority in power in Gaza
2 p.m. Former British Prime Minister and the envoy of the Middle Eastern Quarter, Tony Blair, confirms his clinging to relevancy with an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He lays out the condition for a cease-fire:
If...Israel feels it has achieved something -- namely the end of the smuggling of weapons and finance to Hamas -- then I think it is possible to resolve this reasonably quickly.
In other words, before any cease-fire is possible, Hamas has to make concessions. In far, it's more than that: countries accused of smuggling weapons and finance to Hamas, namely Iran and Syria, have to give assurances.
The proposal is a non-starter. And I doubt that Blair --- who met with Israel's Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak on Sunday --- has any credibility left as an "impartial" broker of a temporary, let alone long-term, settlement.
1 p.m. Israeli officer reported killed in fighting in northern Gaza.
12:40 p.m. United Nations Relief and Works Agency official John Ging confirms that three people killed in UN school/shelter by Israeli missile. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ging also describes "awful" situation at al-Shifa hospital.
12:05 p.m. Missing news: meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: ""The results of the operation must be... that Hamas must not only stop firing but must no longer be able to fire."
But, given earlier French efforts to get a cease-fire and reported French attempts to get a UN resolution, what was Sarkozy's position/reaction? There is no evidence in the story by Agence France Presse, only the note that Olmert and he agreed that Sarkovy "would continue to push for a deal including Egypt".
12 noon: Israeli Defense Forces say more than 10 Hamas rockets have been launched on Tuesday. One landed in Gadera, 36 kilometres (23 miles) north of the Gaza border --- the further a rocket has flown into Israel.
11:55 a.m. Al Jazeera is reporting heavy Israeli air attacks, including strikes on a school (and now probably a shelter) run by the United Nations, killing at least three people, and a central market in Bureij, south of Gaza City. Israeli Defense Forces say there have been more than 40 airstrikes since midnight.
There are also reports of Israel violating Lebanese airspace.
10:25 a.m. Heavy fighting in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza and resistance to Israeli naval landing at Deir al-Balah.
10:20 a.m. Former British Prime Minister and current "Middle Eastern envoy" Tony Blair clings to relevance with 10-minute interview on BBC radio's Today programme. He frames situation as "good" Palestinian Authority v. "bad" Hamas and holds out against dialogue with the latter.
10 a.m. One day it might be called the "el-Haddad effect", and it might be seen as a major reason why the Israelis halt military operations before they achieve their objectives.
Moussa el-Haddad, the Gazan resident who came to international notice via his daughter Laila, a writer and blogger prominent on Twitter as "Gazamom", is now being featured regularly on CNN. He is also now the lead voice on the BBC's flagship radio programme Today. His eyewitness emphasis is on the destruction and humanitarian cost of the Israeli attack, overtaking the standard wartime narrative of Israeli forces v. Hamas forces.
Ironically, as Robert Fisk noted in The Independent yesterday, the Israeli exclusion of journalists from Gaza means that news services are scrambling to find an "authentic" account of events. That in turn means they have moved to other means, such as Internet-based activity, for information and analysis. (The Guardian of London, which featured bloggers during the 2003 Iraq War, got a jump on other print outlets with its featuring of "local" stories, and broadcast media are now playing catch-up.)
As long as Moussa el-Haddad's phone and Internet service holds out, he may be an influence putting Israeli political and military forces may be in a race against time.
9:27 a.m. CNN is now summarising the Israeli and Hamas casualties we reported below.
There is an intriguing twist in the article, however:
Israel also stepped up its psychological campaign Monday, trying to turn Gazans against Hamas.
"Urgent message, warning to the citizens of Gaza," said a recorded phone call to Gaza resident Moussa El-Hadad. "Hamas is using you as human shields. Do not listen to them. Hamas has abandoned you and are hiding in their shelters."
The Israeli military also dropped leaflets into the streets of Gaza warning residents that the IDF will continue using "full force against Hamas."
The summary of a "psychological campaign", while not as strong as "political warfare", is a far different characterisation of the Israeli tactics than the earlier portrayal --- encouraged by Tel Aviv --- of the phone calls as concern for the civilian population.
9:10 a.m. The humanitarian-first approach to the conflict makes it to the top level of "mainstream" US news coverage. Mads Gilbert, one of the two Norwegian doctors setting out the scale of crisis at Gazan hospitals and the large number of civilian casualties, is given almost three minutes on CBS. His portrayal of events? "They are bombing one-and-a-half million people in a cage."
The clip is now circulating on YouTube.
9:00 a.m. Al Jazeera reports 18 Gazans killed overnight.
8:50 a.m. The International Crisis Group has released a briefing, "Ending the War in Gaza". We're reprinting in full as a separate item. The ICG concludes:
Sustainable calm can be achieved neither by ignoring Hamas and its constituents nor by harbouring the illusion that, pummelled into submission, it will accept what it heretofore has rejected. Palestinian reconciliation is a priority, more urgent but also harder than ever before; so, too, is the Islamists’ acceptance of basic international obligations. In the meantime, Hamas – if Israel does not take the perilous step of toppling it – will have to play a political and security role in Gaza and at the crossings. This might mean a “victory” for Hamas, but that is the inevitable cost for a wrongheaded embargo, and by helping end rocket fire and producing a more stable border regime, it would just as importantly be a victory for Israel – and, crucially, both peoples – as well.
8:35 a.m. Israeli Defense Forces claim 135 Hamas fighters killed.
8:20 a.m. In another sign of shifting media emphasis towards humanitarian issues, CNN website leads with story on psychological damage caused to Gazan children by the conflict, albeit with an emphasis on the creation of "extremists". (This was superseded an hour later by latest reports on military clashes.)
8:15 a.m. Israeli troops have surrounded Gaza City. Al Jazeera reports that Israeli forces have moved into Khan Yunis in southern Gazan strip
Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 wounded --- four severely --- in a "friendly fire" incident. Another eight soldiers were lightly wounded in fights with Hamas forces.
Forty rockets were launched into southern Israel on Monday, slightly down from 47 on Sunday.
Treatment of wounded in hospitals has been further hindered by Egyptian refusal to let medical personnel across its border into Gaza.
tagged BBC, Bashir al-Assad, CBS News, CNN, Egypt, Ehud Olmert, Gaza, Hamas, International Crisis Group, Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Jeremy Bowen, Khan Yunis, Laila el-Haddad, Mads Gilbert, Moussa el-Haddad, Nicolas Sarkozy, Palestine, Tony Blair, United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Middle East & Iran
BBC, Bashir al-Assad, CBS News, CNN, Egypt, Ehud Olmert, Gaza, Hamas, International Crisis Group, Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Jeremy Bowen, Khan Yunis, Laila el-Haddad, Mads Gilbert, Moussa el-Haddad, Nicolas Sarkozy, Palestine, Tony Blair, United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Middle East & Iran
Reader Comments (1)
Blair made the same point in an interview on BBC Radio 4 this morning and it was the lead item on BBC news bulletins. However, it was framed differently from the way you've put it in that, I believe, there was a reference to Egypt helping to shut down the tunnels. Thus, the cooperation of Hamas was not required. I'd be very surprised if Blair said this without having discussed it with the Israelis first.