Israel to continue offensive despite UN resolution

[CptSternn]

http://tinyurl.com/8ojg85

JERUSALEM – Israeli jets and helicopters bombarded Gaza Friday and Hamas responded with a barrage of rockets, as Israel's government said it will press forward with its offensive despite a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.

One Israeli airstrike killed two Hamas militants and another unidentified man, while another flattened a five-story building in northern Gaza, killing at least seven people, including an infant, Hamas security officials said. By midday, 19 Palestinians had been killed.

In all, Israeli aircraft struck more than 30 targets before dawn, and constant explosions continued after first light. Friday's deaths in Gaza pushed the Palestinian death toll to more than 760 in the two-week-old conflict, with at least half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Thirteen Israelis have died.

In Israel's first official response to the U.N. Security Council resolution, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said Israel "has never agreed to let an external body decide its right to protect the security of its citizens."

The military "will continue acting to protect Israeli citizens and will carry out the missions it was given," the statement read. The rockets fell in Israel on Friday "only prove that the U.N.'s decision is not practical and will not be kept in practice by the Palestinian murder organizations."

Israel launched its assault on Dec. 27 in an attempt to halt years of rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory.

Despite the devastating offensive, Hamas continued to bombard residents of southern Israel. Rockets hit Friday morning across southern Israel, including in and around Beersheba and Ashkelon, which — like other cities within rocket range of Gaza — have largely been paralyzed since the fighting began.

The U.N. Security Council resolution was approved Thursday night by a 14-0 vote, with the United States abstaining. The resolution "stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."

Israel and Hamas were not parties to the council vote and it is now up to them to stop the fighting. But a Hamas spokesman said the Islamic militant group "is not interested" in the cease-fire because it was not consulted and the resolution did not meet its minimum demands.

Israel called up thousands of reserve troops earlier in the week, and they are now ready for action.

The Security Council action came hours after a U.N. agency suspended food deliveries to Gaza, and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers. It also followed concerns of a wider conflict after militants in Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel early Thursday, though the border has been quiet since.

The United States abstained from the Security Council vote even though it helped hammer out the resolution's text along with Arab nations that have ties to Hamas and the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. "fully supports" the resolution but abstained "to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation" with Israel and Hamas, also aimed at achieving a cease-fire.

The resolution expresses "grave concern" at the escalating violence and the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and emphasizes the need to open all border crossings and achieve a lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It also calls on U.N. member states "to intensify efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a durable cease-fire and calm, including to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition and to ensure the sustained reopening" of border crossings.

In addition, the resolution "condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians" and calls for "unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza."

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas envoy to Lebanon, told the al-Arabiya satellite channel that the group "is not interested in it because it does not meet the demands of the movement."

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the U.N. failed to consider the interests of the Palestinian people. "This resolution doesn't mean that the war is over," he told the al-Jazeera satellite television network. "We call on the Palestinian fighters to mobilize and be ready to face the offensive, and we urge the Arab masses to carry on with their angry protests."

Following the resolution, Egypt was expected to take the lead in persuading Israel and Hamas to accept it. Israeli representatives returned home from talks in Cairo Thursday, and Hamas was due to send political leaders to the Egyptian capital on Saturday.

Israel's government says any cease-fire must guarantee an end to rocket fire and arms smuggling into Gaza. During a six-month cease-fire that ended with the current operation, Hamas is thought to have used tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border to smuggle in the medium-range rockets it is now using to hit deeper than ever inside Israel.

Hamas has said it won't accept any agreement that does not include the full opening Gaza's blockaded border crossings. Israel is unlikely to agree to that demand, as it would allow Hamas to strengthen its hold on the territory which it violently seized in June 2007.

With Israeli troops now in control of many of the open areas used by militants to launch rockets, gunman have continued shooting from inside populated neighborhoods.

The conflict has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza increasingly desperate for food, water, fuel and medical assistance, and the situation was expected to worsen as humanitarian efforts fall victim to the fighting.

One of the dead Thursday was a Ukrainian woman, the first foreigner to die in the fighting, according to Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain. He said the woman was married to a Palestinian doctor who trained in Ukraine and returned with her to Gaza. Her 2-year-old son was also killed in the tank shelling east of Gaza City, he said.

Details are emerging of other incidents in which civilians were killed. A U.N. agency said Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in Gaza City on Jan. 4, then shelled the building 24 hours later, killing 30 people.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report was based on eyewitness testimony. It added details to an incident previously reported by The Associated Press and an Israeli human rights group.

The U.N. agency said 110 people were in the house. The 30 people reported killed is a far higher figure than in other accounts.

The Israeli military had no comment on the report Friday.

The West Bank saw its biggest protests so far Friday, as thousands took to the streets following prayers to express their anger at the Israeli offensive. In Ramallah, scuffles broke out between supporters of Hamas and the rival Fatah faction.

[Minyaliel]

It´s insane.

[Noirette]

Try living in Israel for a few months and you will get to see the other side of the coin that everyone seems to ignore.

Did you ever experiance this fear to go to the nearest city because some person can decide that he is ready to explode himself in order to kill you and the rest of the people in the bus you took?

Did you ever felt this fear for a dear person's life, only becuase he lives in the wrong place, that is bombarded with rockets every day for a few months?
Sure, there are Palestines who aren't ready to die just to kill Israeli people, but there also many Israeliens that don't want all the Palestines dead. Does it change anythig?
No.
By the way, did you know that Hamas kills some other group of Palestins (which name I don't remember currently) and says that they were killed by Israeliens?
But since only the Palestin side is noticed by everyone, we bed Israeliens only want to kill the poor good Palestines that had never done anything wrong, of course.
How can it be otherwise?

I'm not in fond of this war, but as a person who had grown up here, I don't see a better solution. If you do, please feel free to tell it to me and to the Israeli government, I'm sure that they will be glad to hear out your opinion. Wars happen when there aren't better choices, that's all.

[Geoluhread]

Kill israelian and palestinian government and let people who want to live in peace live in peace

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Noirette

Try living in Israel for a few months and you will get to see the other side of the coin that everyone seems to ignore.

QFT.

I'm not in fond of this war, but as a person who had grown up here, I don't see a better solution. If you do, please feel free to tell it to me and to the Israeli government, I'm sure that they will be glad to hear out your opinion. Wars happen when there aren't better choices, that's all.

There's a much better choice: Stop blowing the fuck out of each other.

I know that's probably not likely to happen, but that is a choice which is available, and if enough people on both sides demand a cease-fire, and make a concerted effort to stop those who are continuing the violence, I believe it can happen.

It will be hard, and the way is going to be FULL of violence, misunderstanding, and terror, but you already live like that anyway.

I know it's easy for me to say that, living a long, long way away from the nearest tank, rocket, or suicide bomber, but the way I see it you always have a choice.

Right now the choice is either to live in a constant state of hell until one side completely wipes the other off the map, or do something about it.

[Necrophagist]

91% of stupid Israeli fucks are for the war.

Typical Israeli: makes a massive issue out of nothing.

[Noirette]

Originally Posted by Necrophagist

91% of stupid Israeli fucks are for the war.

Typical Israeli: makes a massive issue out of nothing.

Of course, we are so evil that all we do is wonder "How will we start the next war to kill a lot of Evildoers like tose Palestines and to kill our 18-years-old men?"

[PortraitOfSanity]

Originally Posted by Necrophagist

91% of stupid Israeli fucks are for the war.

Typical Israeli: makes a massive issue out of nothing.

You really don't think before you write this shit, do you?

[Necrophagist]

Don't need to, because unlike weener above, I don't post bullshit.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Could've fooled me.

[AngelikDemonik]

I really, really dislike the Israeli government.