January 6th, 2009 2:27 PM
By Jonathan Ferziger and Saud Abu Ramadan
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli troops, backed by attack helicopters, fought Hamas gunmen in street battles that raged in the Gaza Strip’s main cities, as European diplomatic efforts failed to end the 11-day conflict.
Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair said a truce can probably be worked out quickly if smuggling tunnels that allow arms and money to flow into Gaza from Egypt are shut down. French President Nicholas Sarkozy urged Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to use his political clout so that the militant Islamic Hamas movement stops firing rockets at Israel.
“There are circumstances in which we could get an immediate cease-fire,” the former U.K. prime minister, who now represents the world powers seeking Middle East peace, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio’s “Today” program from Jerusalem. They include “clear action to cut off the supply of arms and money through the tunnels.”
Israeli forces are expanding their hold over the 65- kilometer (40-mile) long coastal territory, fighting in the streets of Gaza City in the north and Khan Yunis in the south, in a bid to stop the rocket fire into Israel. Palestinians scored their longest shot so far when a rocket hit the Israeli city of Gedera, 45 kilometers to the north, injuring a 3-month-old infant, police said.
Gaza’s water and sewage systems were on the verge of collapse because of power shortages, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned. More than 530,000 people among Gaza’s population of 1.4 million are completely cut off from running water and the rest receive water only every few days, the agency said in an e-mailed statement.
Soldiers Killed
Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded by a tank shell in a “friendly fire incident” in the northern region of Gaza, the military said in an e-mailed statement today. Another soldier may also have been killed by fire from his own forces. Israel lost one soldier in fighting with Hamas Jan. 4.
“It’s getting harder now that we’re suffering casualties but public support for this operation in Gaza isn’t going to really be affected,” Shmuel Sandler, a Bar Ilan University political scientist, said in a telephone interview. “People are so fed up after years of Hamas rockets and they’re happy that the army is doing something about it.”
At least 580 Palestinians have died in the conflict, some 50 in the overnight fighting, and 2,600 are wounded, said Mu’awia Hassanein, chief of emergency medical services in Gaza. Israeli forces today hit two schools run by the United Nations in Gaza, killing five people, Agence France-Presse cited UN officials as saying.
UN officials say as many as a quarter of the Palestinians killed are civilians, a figure Israel disputes as too high.
Halting Attacks
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak vowed yesterday to continue the operation until Hamas stopped its rocket attacks. The armed wing of Hamas issued a statement in Gaza saying it had “lots of surprises” waiting for Israel’s soldiers.
Sarkozy met with al-Assad today in Damascus after holding talks yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian leader, who controls the West Bank, is scheduled to address the United Nations today.
“I am sure that Syria has an influence; Syria should help us convince Hamas to listen to the voice of reason,” Sarkozy said today at a news conference. Al-Assad said he favored a cease-fire, while describing Israel’s offensive in Gaza as a “war crime.”
Rocket Fire
As many as 3,200 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel since the start of 2008. Rocket attacks have killed four Israelis since fighting began. At least 30 rockets struck Israeli territory today compared to 40 yesterday, according to the army. That’s down from a peak of 76 on Dec. 27, the first day of the operation.
Last week, Israel rejected a French-proposed 48-hour truce with Hamas, saying it was seeking a permanent end to the Gaza rocket attacks.
The Israeli air force attacked more than 40 targets throughout the Gaza Strip yesterday. They included tunnels dug under the Egyptian border, weapon storage areas, houses of Hamas operatives, a number of weapons manufacturing sites and rocket launching areas, the army said in an e-mailed statement.
Israel has come under increasing diplomatic pressure since the start of the ground operation.
Sarkozy told reporters in Ramallah yesterday that “because Israel is a great nation and a democracy, it can’t leave the humanitarian situation as it is today.”
Medical Aid
Israel has allowed 400 trucks carrying 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other supplies into Gaza since the start of its military campaign, the Foreign Ministry said in an e-mailed statement, including 70 trucks yesterday.
Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, said over the weekend it planned to send suicide bombers to Israeli cities and kidnap Israeli soldiers. One soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, has been held captive in Gaza for more than two years.
Israel began the campaign to halt rocket attacks after a six-month cease-fire with Hamas expired Dec. 19. Hamas refused to renew the truce because it said Israel hadn’t eased its economic blockade of Gaza. Militants fired 70 rockets at Israel the day before it ended.
During the truce with Hamas there was wholesale smuggling of Grad rockets from Iran, said Jeremy Issacharoff, deputy chief of mission in Israel’s Washington embassy.
“Iran was very kind with the Grad; it was too big to be smuggled so they broke them into four components to make it more ‘smuggler-friendly,’” he told reporters yesterday.
Iran’s assistance complemented a local Hamas “industry” of making shorter-ranged Qassam missiles, which have constituted most of the launchings, Issacharoff said.
On the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the benchmark TA-25 index rose 2.3 percent today, and has climbed more than 10 percent since Israel began its campaign against Hamas, tracking a global rally.
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