Hamas Working to End Rise in Gaza Violence

Wounded Palestinian children are rushed into the hospital after a house was hit by Israeli shelling in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya Monday, April 10, 2006. An 8-year-old Palestinian girl was killed Monday when a shell fired by Israeli artillery hit her house in northern Gaza, hospital officials and witnesses said. Thirteen others were wounded, ranging from one year old to 17, all members of the same family. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
 


By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer
April 10,2006

JERUSALEM - The new Hamas-led Palestinian government is quietly working to end a surge in violence, urging rival militant groups in the Gaza Strip to refrain from launching rockets at Israel without official permission.

Although the rocket attacks have not stopped and Hamas says it still supports violent resistance against Israel, its subtle efforts at persuasion look like an attempt to stabilize a chaotic situation so that it can focus on governing the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"We want resistance to be arranged and organized," said government spokesman Ghazi Hamad, adding that Hamas would try to get control over the rocket fire by negotiating with other militant factions. Hamas has not been participating in the attacks.

In the latest violence, an 8-year-old Palestinian girl was killed when an Israeli artillery shell hit her house in northern Gaza, hospital officials and witnesses said.

Relatives and neighbors drove bleeding children to the small local hospital. Doctors feverishly bandaged a wailing infant on a blood-splattered bed as others took away the dusty and bloody body of the dead girl.

The army had no immediate comment, but confirmed it was shelling populated areas where militants fire rockets. Three rockets fired from the northern Gaza village of Beit Lahiya landed in Israel on Monday, the army said.

The Israeli human rights group B'tselem said the killing was the inevitable result of Israel's decision to shell areas close to Palestinian homes, and Israel is legally responsibility for the outcome. The group also called on Palestinians not to use residential areas for "military actions."

The fighting with Israel has escalated in recent days, with militants repeatedly firing rockets into Israel and the army responding with airstrikes, artillery fire and attacks from naval gunboats.

A total of 17 Palestinians, including 13 militants, have been killed in the Israeli offensive since Friday. There have been no Israeli casualties from the rocket fire.

Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in January on a platform pledging to end government corruption and improve public services. But since being sworn into office less than two weeks ago, the government has found itself facing international isolation, a financial crisis, Palestinian infighting and growing violence with Israel.

A senior Palestinian security official in Gaza said Hamas has not officially proposed a cease-fire but is sending clear signals that it wants quiet.

"Without a cease-fire, Hamas can't build anything in Gaza. It can't get anything done while F-16s and Apache helicopters are flying overhead, Israeli artillery is being fired and rocket attacks are going on," he said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Hamas officials have confirmed they are interested in extending a year-old cease-fire with Israel, which the group has largely honored.

An Israeli security official said it appears Hamas is trying to regulate the rocket fire because uncontrolled violence is against its interests. The official was not permitted to be identified under military rules.

Islamic Jihad, which has been behind much of the rocket fire, said it would continue the attacks.

Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings, is under intense pressure from Israel and the international community to renounce violence and recognize Israel, demands it has so far rejected.

In Luxembourg, European Union foreign ministers on Monday endorsed a freeze of EU aid to the Palestinian government. The U.S. and Norway have also suspended aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Hamad denounced the decision as part of a policy of starvation. He said it was "punishment of the Palestinian people for their democratic choice ... and will lead for more tension and instability in the region."

Israel also has suspended the monthly transfer of $55 million in tax revenues it collects for the Palestinians.

The sanctions have already crippled the Palestinian treasury just two weeks after the Hamas-led Cabinet took office and Palestinian officials said they did not know when they would be able to pay monthly salaries of the government's 140,000 employees. Paychecks were due on April 1.

On Sunday, Israel's Security Cabinet, a small group of top ministers, declared the Hamas-led Palestinian government a "hostile entity" and ruled out contacts with it.

In the wake of the government decision, the Israeli military ejected Palestinian security officials from a coordination office in the West Bank town of Jericho.

If peace talks cannot be resumed, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he will unilaterally draw Israel's final border with the West Bank. His plan calls for withdrawing from much of the West Bank, while strengthening key settlement blocs. The plan falls short of Palestinian claims to all the West Bank.

Olmert hopes to complete the withdrawal before the next U.S. presidential election in 2008, a senior aide said in a report published Monday. Olmert, whose Kadima Party won last month's parliamentary election, had previously said he aimed to complete his plan by the end of his term in 2010. Olmert's aides believe President Bush would be amenable to the program.

AP


Indiscriminate Killings

Palestine Monitor

Over the last 48 hours, Israel has killed 16 Palestinians, one of whom was a five year old child.

On Friday, April 7, the Israeli Air Force fired three missiles into a civilian car parked outside the Popular Resistance Committees offices in the al-Mawasi area of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Eyad Abu al-'Einein, a leader of the Committees, was instantly killed, along with his five year old son Bilal. Four others also died. 'Einein's 14 year old son Muhammed was seriously injured, along with 14 other by-standers.(1) Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided a Nablus refugee camp, killing one man.

Less than 24 hours later, Israel executed another strike in northern Gaza, killing two more Palestinians whom it claimed had fired Qassam rockets into Israel—Sami Mufeed Abu Sharee'ah and Mohammed Talal 'Ajjour. Yet another air force strike took the lives of six suspected members of the Abu Rish Brigades of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. The killed include:

Mohammed 'Abdullah 'Abdul Hadi, 18
Mohammed Sa'ad Abu al-Husain, 18
Hassan Sa'ad Abu al-Husain, 22
Huthaifa Suleiman Shubair, 22
Mohammed Sami Hamdan, 22
Ibrahim Mar'ei Jaber 'Abdul Hadi, 29, whose brother was also killed by
IOF on 2 March 2003 (2)

Israel has combined these assassinations with intense artillery shelling of Gazan residential areas from across the green line. On Sunday morning, one of these shells struck a taxi traveling to the Palestinians National Security Forces. Yasser Hassan Abu Jarad, the taxi's driver, was instantly killed, and the four Palestinian policemen riding with him sustained serious injuries. Two other bystanders were also sent to the hospital.

This period marks the highest rate of fatalities in Gaza since Israel's supposed disengagement in August of last year.

The killings are part of Israel's policy of extra-judicial assassinations, targeting supposed militants without trial. Such attacks contravene Article Three of the Fourth Geneva Convention—ratified by Israel in 1951—under which "executions without previous judgment" are subject to international criminal prosecution.(3) Such procedures not only violate the right to due process, but consistently result in the deaths of bystanders, oftentimes children.

In the densely crowded Gaza Strip, the likelihood of such occurrences increases dramatically. According to Defence for Children International, each year, from 2000 to April 1, 2006, children in Gaza make up more than half of the child fatalities in all the Palestinian Territories that result from Israeli military or settler actions.(4) Throughout all the territories as of 31 January 2006, 418 Palestinians have been killed in assassination operations, including at least 154 bystanders, 44 of whom were children. Since 5 February alone, a further 23 Palestinians have been killed in this way.(5)

While Israel claims that it carries out such operations in response to the firing of rockets at Israeli civilian targets, according to international humanitarian law, an illegal act does not become lawful in response to a previous illegal act. Israel's continuation of such operations demonstrates that despite its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the Palestinians who live there continue to face constant Israeli aggression with no chance of leading normal and secure lives.

The Israeli government explicitly endorses targeted assassinations despite their clear illegality, yet there is no push from the international community to enforce international law within the Palestinian territories. The United States and European Union are withdrawing funds in order to pressure Hamas to renounce all forms of violence, while Israel continues its indiscriminate killings with impunity.

(1) PCHR press release, 8 April 2006: 5 Palestinians, Including a Child, Killed and 6 Others Injured in another Extra-Judicial Execution Committed by IOF,
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2006/38-2006.htm
Six Palestinians killed in Israel air strike in Gaza, 7 April 2006, AFP

(2) PCHR press release, 9 April 2006: 9 Palestinians Killed by IOF in Gaza Strip in Less Than 24 Hours,
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2006/39-2006.htm
Daily Situation Report, 9 April 2006, Palestine Monitoring Group, Negotiations Affairs Department, www.nad-plo.org
(3) Geneva Convention IV Relative to the Protection of the Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949. http://asp.alhaq.org/zalhaq/site/eDocs/txtDocs/intl%20law/IHL/convention%204.htm
(4) Defence for Children International, Distribution Statistics, updated 5 April 2006, http://www.dci-pal.org/english/Display.cfm?DocId=284&CategoryId=11
(5) See 'Israel's Assassination Policy'. The Electronic Intifada.
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/146.shtml.


Israeli Shelling Takes a Toll in Gaza

NPR