Gaza airstrikes kill children

November 19th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Mohammed Saber / EPA

A Palestinian woman inspects the rubble of her destroyed house after an Israeli airstrike in the eastern part of Gaza City on Monday.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — International mediation efforts gathered steam Monday as Israel bombed dozens of suspected guerrilla sites in the densely populated Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in its campaign to quell militant rocket fire menacing nearly half of Israel’s population.

Overnight, an airstrike leveled two houses belonging to a single family, killing two children and two adults and injuring 42 people, Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra said. Rescue workers frantically searched for 12 to 15 people under the rubble.

Shortly after, Israeli aircraft bombarded the remains of the former national security compound in Gaza City. Al-Kidra said flying shrapnel killed one child and wounded others living nearby.

A missile strike on a truck killed three members of the radical Islamic Jihad group, Hamas security officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

In all, at least 95 Palestinians, have been killed in the five-day onslaught and more than 740 have been wounded, Palestinian medical sources told NBC News. At least 23 of the Gaza fatalities have been children.

Ammar Awad / Reuters

Two sides exchange deadly airstrikes, rocket attacks.

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Three Israeli civilians have died from Palestinian rocket fire and dozens have been wounded.

At least 17 rockets were fired at Israel on Monday, Israeli media said, but no damage or casualties were reported.

Israel’s decision to step up targeted attacks on leaders in Gaza on Sunday marked a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the crowded territory of 1.6 million Palestinians.

The rising civilian toll was likely to intensify pressure on Israel to end the fighting. Hundreds of civilian casualties in an Israeli offensive in Gaza four years ago led to fierce international condemnation of Israel.

Negotiations inch forward
International efforts to wrest a cease-fire from the two sides has intensified despite the escalated hostilities. The two sides have put forth widely divergent demands, but the failure to end the fighting could touch off an Israeli ground invasion, for which thousands of soldiers, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, have already been mobilized and dispatched to Gaza’s border.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Cairo to weigh in on cease-fire efforts led by Egypt, which borders both Israel and Gaza and whose Islamist-rooted government has been hosting leaders of Hamas.

“I strongly urge the parties to cooperate with all efforts led by Egypt to reach an immediate cease-fire,” Ban said before leaving for Egypt. He visits Israel on Tuesday.

A three-story building in Gaza was flattened by an overnight Israeli airstrike that was targeted at a Hamas militant. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.

As Hamas and other Islamist factions spurn permanent peace with Israel, mediated deals for each to hold fire unilaterally have been the only formula for stemming bloodshed in the past. But each side now placed the onus on the other.

Izzat Risheq, aide to Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, wrote on Facebook that Hamas would enter a truce only after Israel “stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza.”

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Listing Israel’s terms, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon wrote on Twitter (in Hebrew): “If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel’s citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack.”

In Washington, U.S. lawmakers called on Egypt and Turkey to take a central role in helping to end the conflict.

“Egypt, watch what you do and how you do it,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “You’re teetering with the Congress on having your aid cut off if you keep inciting violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

NY Times columnist, Tom Friedman and NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Andrea Mitchell discuss America’s role in the conflict between Hamas and Israel.

President Barack Obama said he has told Egypt’s president, Mohammed Morsi, and Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that “those who champion the cause of the Palestinians should recognize that if we see a further escalation of the situation in Gaza, then the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future.”

While defending Israel’s right to defend itself against the rocket fire, Obama also warned of the risks the Jewish state would take if it were to expand its air assault into a ground war.

“If we see a further escalation of the situation in Gaza, the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future,” Obama said.

Forces gather
Israel launched the current offensive Wednesday after months of intensifying rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which continued despite the strikes.

Overnight, aircraft targeted about 80 militant sites, including underground rocket-launching sites, smuggling tunnels and training bases, as well as command posts and weapons storage facilities located in buildings owned by militant commanders, the military said Monday in a release.

More than a hundred rocket attacks were launched from Gaza, triggering more panic and fear in Israel’s commercial capital where sirens were last heard during the Gulf War. NBC’s Martin Fletcher reports.

Aircraft and gunboats joined forces to attack police headquarters, and rocket squads were struck as they prepared to fire, the release said.

In all, 1,350 Gaza targets have been struck since the operation began on Wednesday.

Israeli tanks, artillery and infantry have massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off border and military convoys moved on roads in the area. Israel has also authorized the call-up of 75,000 military reservists, so far mobilizing around half that number.

Lior Mizrahi / Getty Images

Israeli soldiers prepare their weapons in a deployment area near the Gaza border on Monday.

Some Hamas rockets reached as far as Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital, but were shot down by the country’s air defense system.

As a precaution against the rocket interceptions endangering nearby Ben-Gurion International Airport, civil aviation authorities said on Monday new flight paths were being used. There was no indication takeoffs and landings at Ben-Gurion had been affected.

Israel’s declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli border towns for years. The rockets now have greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem within their reach — a strategic weapon for Gaza’s otherwise massively outgunned guerrillas.

NBC News Ayman Mohyeldin, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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