Monday, 29 December 2008
The six month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, signed in June with the mediation of Egypt, was broken up 3 days ago with the air strike against Hamas leading Gaza Strip by Israeli Air Forces. Both sides blamed each other for breaking the ceasefire. Israel said that its attack is just answer to the Hamas-led air strike against Israel cities of Ashkelon and Netivot. The air strikes were resulted more than 300 dead and 900 wounded innocent Gaza populations and one Israeli by Hamas attack. According to Israeli news agency most of those killed were the member of the Hamas terrorist organization, but officials said women and children also died. It was the heaviest Israeli attacks on Gaza for decades.
During the air strikes most of the Hamas infrastructures was damaged. One of the main targets was the Islamic University, where the laboratory of Hamas was situated for the production of the weapon. Israel Air Forces also targeted all main towns in Gaza, including Gaza City in the north and Khan Younis and Rafah in the south. On Sunday, at the second day of air strike, Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni said BBC that, “We took Hamas by surprise, we targeted Hamas headquarters, so this is the beginning of a successful operation, I hope, but the idea is to change realities on the ground".
The Israeli TV announced on Saturday that Israel troops are prepared for the ground offensives. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also announced that, Israel is not fighting against the population of the Gaza Strip; the main target of Israeli Forces is Hamas and its military basis in Gaza.
World organizations, like UN and EU, and also leading world countries, Russia, France, Great Britain condemned Israel for its action in Gaza. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for immediate halt of violence, which was resulted with the killing and injuring the innocent Arabs in Gaza. Israel Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni defended their attacks in Gaza and said that world community has not condemned Israel. She also stressed that Hamas is responsible for this action by the breaking ceasefire and launching a new round of rocket attacks against Israel.
Arab world also rallied against Israel action in Gaza. Hamas exiled leader Khaled Meshall called the Arab world for the new intifada. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas leader in Gaza said that, there would be no white flags and no surrender. "Palestine has never witnessed an uglier massacre”. According to APF news agency, big demonstrations in Egypt and Jordan were held in front of Israeli embassy. These states are the only Arab states recognize Israel independence and have diplomatic relations with it. The main demand of the protesters was to withdrawn Israel embassy from these two countries. Protesters burned Israeli and American flags. The protest in Egypt was held by the Hamas allies Muslim Brotherhood. Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, Shia movement in Beirut also called their fighter to be on alert.
Similar protest were also took place in the refugee camps of Palestinians in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and some other Arab states.
Shamkhal Abilov
