Land invasion of Gaza seems imminent

Published 11:41 am Saturday, January 3, 2009

JERUSALEM — Israeli air strikes killed at least eight Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Friday amid mounting speculation that a long-threatened land invasion of the coastal territory would begin soon.

As warplanes swooped overhead, supporters of the militant group Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for 18 months, paid final respects to one of the movement’s senior spiritual and military leaders, an advocate of suicide bombings, in a mass public funeral.

Hamas and other factions continued rocket launches toward southern Israeli towns, striking several buildings but causing only minor injuries. Gazan militants have extended their range deeper into the Jewish state, killing three Israeli civilians and one soldier during the past week.

In the same period, Israeli attacks have killed more than 420 Palestinians, including more than 60 civilians, and injured an estimated 2,000, according to local medical sources.

Israeli jets on Friday targeted a prominent mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp, along with several homes the Israelis said belonged to Hamas operatives.

Thousands of Israeli military personnel remained massed on the Gaza border, as Israel temporarily opened the Erez crossing to allow hundreds of foreign passport holders to flee. Many of the evacuees were foreign-born women married to Palestinians and their children.

In Tehran, Iran, a senior Iranian official and ranking cleric told worshippers that Hamas possesses a “new weapon” to use if Israel decides upon a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip. The advanced weapon would allow the militant group to target Israeli tanks “from a long distance,” said former Iranian president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of Iran’s powerful Expediency Council.

U.S. and Israeli officials accuse Iran of providing weapons to Hamas in Gaza, which has been pummeled by six days of Israeli air strikes.

Among the dead Friday were Muhammed Al Astal, 11, his brother Abed Rabbo Al Astal, 8, and their cousin Walid Al Astal, 10. Witnesses said the boys were standing outside their home in the western Gaza city of Khan Younis chewing on a stalk of sugar cane when an Israeli missile struck.

“Why they were targeted? There was neither armed Hamas positions nor governmental compounds,” said the victims’ uncle Muhammed Al Astal. “For what was this bombing? I want the world of democracy to tell me.”

The ongoing attacks generated more international calls for an end to the violence. President George Bush on Friday called the Hamas attacks on Israel unacceptable and said the United States was leading diplomatic efforts for a meaningful cease-fire.

“Another one-way cease-fire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable,” Bush said on his weekly radio address, which airs today, but which the White House released a day early. “And promises from Hamas will not suffice — there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end.”

U.S. officials said they were discussing the possibility of a cease-fire, with proposals coming from the Egyptians, Turks, United Nations officials and the four-party diplomatic group called the “Quartet.” It includes the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, said Friday that Israel would consider international monitors to ensure that both sides observe a cease-fire.

The Israelis would like guarantees that Hamas would not only halt missile and mortar fire, but would also agree to a verified halt to arms shipments, so that its strength could not increase again once the fighting is halted.

The ongoing violence, and the threat of a bloody infantry and tank invasion has roiled Palestinian public opinion, and Israel braced for a backlash Friday. Protesters in Arab East Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank clashed with both Israeli soldiers and security forces from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which is run by the Fatah faction, a rival Palestinian group to Hamas.

Israel sealed off the West Bank for three days, starting Thursday night. For Friday prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, no Palestinian men under 50 were allowed to enter.

Palestinian Authority police disrupted a large pro-Hamas demonstration in the center of the West Bank city of Ramallah, while Israeli soldiers used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades against rock-throwing youth in several West Bank towns.

Hamas defeated Fatah in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006 but was shunned by Israel and the Western powers for its refusal to formally recognize Israel’s right to exist. After a short-lived Fatah-Hamas unity government collapsed into armed clashes, Hamas fighters vanquished Fatah forces and took full control of Gaza.