Israel Incursion Into GAZA:

June 26-2006:

David & Goliath-A Threat Of Willpower:

The Israeli government has amassed overwhelming firepower on the borders of Gaza, to intimidate the Palestinian government-Hamas, to free the Israeli soldier (Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19), it is alleged to have kidnapped.

What the Israeli government is doing here, is saying indirectly to Hamas, that they have the firepower to achieve their objective if, when, and where they choose.

So let my people go, or else!

We will see how this all plays out in the next few days.

Derryck.
New York City.



June 28-2006:

Israeli Incursion Into GAZA:

By IAN FISHER and STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: June 28, 2006

GAZA, Wednesday, June 28, Israel sent troops into southern Gaza and its planes attacked three bridges and a power station early Wednesday, in an effort to prevent militants from moving a wounded Israeli soldier they abducted Sunday, Israeli Army officials said.

Palestinian children gathered on a destroyed bridge following an overnight Israeli air strike on Gaza City. Israeli soldiers prepared to enter the southern Gaza Strip early Wednesday from their base near Kerem Shalom on the Israeli side of the border. Israeli airstrikes hit bridges in Netzarim and Deir al Balah. An undated photograph of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was captured Sunday by Palestinian gunmen.


Israeli soldiers prepared to cross the Gaza border.
Mian Khursheed/Reuters

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Islamabad, said that she called Palestinian and Israeli leaders in an effort to defuse the situation. Israeli troops and tanks began to move in force in an effort to rescue the soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, who is believed to be held there. Witnesses said Israeli troops had taken over the old Gaza airport and were heading toward Rafah on the road that marks the border between Gaza and Egypt, as Egyptian troops watched.

Electricity was knocked out through much of Gaza after a complex of electronic transformers, south of Gaza City, was struck by Israeli planes. Witnesses said that the station was hit by numerous missiles and that it was burning brightly against the night sky. The Israeli Army said the operation was limited to an effort to rescue the corporal and was not an attempt to reoccupy Gaza.

"If we need to, we continue on," said Capt. Noa Meir, an army spokeswoman. "It's all about getting him home." The airstrikes hit bridges on the coastal and interior roads near the old Israeli settlement of Netzarim, which divides Gaza between north and south, and near Deir al Balah. Israeli tanks and ground forces massed in staging areas along the border fence with Gaza, especially around Kerem Shalom and Nahal Oz.

On Tuesday, as Palestinians tried to block roads with dirt mounds and barbed wire against any Israeli armored assault, their political factions completed a draft agreement aimed at a national unity government that could include an implicit recognition of Israel by Hamas. The prospect of an invasion, threatened by Israel if Corporal Shalit was not released, seemed to have pushed the Palestinians toward agreement after months of internal fighting.

The draft agreement between the Fatah faction of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, and the Hamas faction of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya is based on a document outlined by Palestinian prisoners. It is described as containing an implicit recognition of Israel's right to exist, because it calls for the creation of a Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders, presumably next to Israel.

Such an accord would move Hamas closer to recognition of Israel a significant change and would raise the possibility of renewed Western aid to the Palestinians, which was severely curtailed after the Hamas victory in January. If the accord backing what would amount to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is completed, it will represent a victory for Mr. Abbas, who had threatened to put the issue to a referendum next month. But Saeb Erekat, a senior Fatah official close to Mr. Abbas, said that the document was incomplete, and that Mr. Abbas wanted to review it and consult further.

Israeli officials dismissed the draft agreement as an internal Palestinian matter irrelevant to the current crisis over the fate and return of Corporal Shalit. "We are at the edge of the cliff, and everyone is asking the Palestinian leadership to help avert this crisis and release our serviceman," said Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. "Yet energy and time is being put into this prisoners document, and it's in many ways tragic."

Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas legislator in Gaza, said the current crisis had united Fatah and Hamas to hammer out the accord. "It is natural that Israeli threats will unite Palestinians more and more," he said. "It will push us to put our differences aside and unite against a bigger threat." Mr. Erekat said Mr. Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, and Mr. Haniya were working together to try to free the Israeli soldier. "Abu Mazen has ordered a house-to-house search for the Israeli soldier," Mr. Erekat said. "If we knew exactly where he was, we would go get him ourselves."

Fatah negotiators like Samir Masharawi were eager to describe the document as a big Hamas concession. "It has recognized a state in the '67 borders," Mr. Masharawi said. "It means indirectly recognizing another state." But Salah al-Bardawil, a Hamas legislator, told Reuters, "We said we accept a state in 1967 but we did not say we accept two states." Mr. Masri said in an interview: "They do exist. It's tangible, they exist, we recognize the fact they exist. What we don't recognize is the legitimacy of the occupation."

By the last phrase, Hamas normally means the occupation of historic Palestine by an Israeli state of any kind; the Hamas charter explicitly says that Palestine is Islamic waqf — land given by God to Muslims, who cannot cede it or sell it. The draft document also contains a clause that supports armed action against Israel, which it says should be "concentrated" in areas occupied by Israel in 1967 but not limited to them. In Gaza on Tuesday, Palestinians worked to make any arrival of tanks and Israeli soldiers as treacherous as possible. In the town of Jabaliya, big berms of sand were piled up on a main road.

"I believe that against the Israelis, who have tanks and Apaches and all their technological machines, it's not that important," said Abu Raed, 30, a shopkeeper, sitting next to one of the berms. "But the fighters should have something to hide behind." In anticipation of Israeli military action, the militant group Islamic Jihad called reporters in Gaza on Tuesday to film them, battle-ready, in two fields near the now-abandoned Israeli settlement of Netzarim. At one field, 11 fighters in black masks and camouflage held automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and an antitank mine. Several also held up what they described as inserts for suicide-bombing belts: thin plastic bottles made to hold antiseptics that were filled with ball bearings.

Many in Gaza believed that the Israeli strike had begun shortly before 6 p.m., when a huge explosion tore apart a car in downtown Gaza, not far from the offices of both Mr. Abbas and Mr. Haniya. But it turned out to be a car bomb, which heaved half the car, bits of shrapnel and body parts dozens of yards. While several bystanders were injured, and nearby windows shattered and walls collapsed, the only death appeared to be that of the driver of the car, identified later as Hamza Abu Mukharreb, 21, a member of Hamas's military wing.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday called on Israel to give diplomacy more time. "There really needs to be an effort now to try and calm the situation, not to let the situation escalate, and to give diplomacy a chance to work to try to get this release," Ms. Rice told reporters during a refueling stop in Scotland en route to Pakistan. Before the incursion began, Israeli officials on Tuesday had said time for diplomacy would also help their parallel efforts to plan a rescue mission. One intermediate step, an official said, might be to cut off electricity and water to Gaza, which Israel had already sealed from the movement of goods or people, as an effort to increase pressure on those groups holding the corporal.

Those groups are the military wing of Hamas, in particular the Khan Yunis group; the Popular Resistance Committees, made up of militants from various factions; and a new group called the Army of Islam, believed to be close to Hamas. They carried out the raid into Israel on Sunday, emerging from a long tunnel dug for many weeks beneath the border, 300 yards behind Israeli lines. The attack killed two Israeli soldiers and led to the seizure of the corporal, who was said to be slightly wounded. The Hamas military wing is considered by Fatah and Israel to be under the control of the exiled Hamas political leader, Khaled Meshal, who is in Syria. Even a statement from Mr. Abbas's office on Tuesday, calling for Israeli patience, described "kidnapping the Israeli soldier by forces loyal to Khaled Meshal."

A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, Muhammad Abdel Al, said the corporal was being held "in a secure place that the Zionists cannot reach." The groups have refused to release him, despite efforts by Egyptian, French and other diplomats, and Mr. Haniya, the Hamas prime minister, to end the crisis. Mr. Al also said his group had kidnapped a Jewish civilian settler in the West Bank. The police said that Eliyahu Asheri, 18, who lives in the settlement of Itamar, near Nablus, had been reported missing since Sunday. They said they were trying to see if there was a connection.

Ian Fisher reported from Gaza for this article, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem.