Palestinians hold Gaza truce talks in Cairo
CAIRO (AFP) – Palestinian officials are gathering in Cairo on Sunday for talks aimed at bolstering a ceasefire in Gaza, as Israel threatened to strike at Hamas after Gaza militants fired rockets into Israel.
Egypt has been mediating a truce after Hamas and Israel announced ceasefires on January 18, ending a devastating 22-day war that killed more than 1,330 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
An advisor to Ismail Haniya, who heads the Hamas government in Gaza, told AFP that the group was awaiting Israel's response to an Egyptian truce proposal.
"We can speak with details about the truce after our delegation examines the Israeli response," said Ahmed Yusef, adding that Hamas expected the response by Monday.
"But for now, things are moving in a positive direction."
A Hamas team from Gaza is already in Cairo, as is Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, while representatives of Hamas's Syria-based leadership are due on Monday, a Hamas official said.
In Jerusalem, a senior defence official told AFP that Israel was demanding an end to fire from Gaza and arms smuggling.
"Israel does not negotiate with Hamas. Israel demands two conditions -- the total cessation of fire and an end to arms smuggling. Israel is only holding talks with Egypt on this issue," he said.
The fragile ceasefire has been tested by tit-for-tat attacks which flared up after Palestinian militants detonated a roadside bomb at the Gaza border with Israel, killing a soldier.
Palestinian militants have also fired at least seven rockets at Israel.
"We've said that if there is rocket fire against the south of the country, there will be a severe and disproportionate Israeli response," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the weekly cabinet meeting.
Hamas has said it rejects any ceasefire that did not end Israel's blockade of Gaza, which was enforced after the Islamist movement violently seized the enclave in a week of fighting with its Fatah rivals in mid-2007.
Palestinians must unite for Gaza rebuilding: Egypt
CAIRO (AFP) – Rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah must reconcile if an Egyptian-hosted donor conference for Gaza's reconstruction is to be successful, an Egyptian official was quoted as saying on Sunday.
A 22-day war between Israel and Hamas left swathes of Gaza devastated, but international donors have expressed reservations over rebuilding the territory while the Islamist group and the Western-backed Fatah remain divided.
Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said more than 70 countries are expected at a reconstruction conference on March 2, but that donors might not think the Palestinian cause is "worth supporting" if the rivalry continues, the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported.
"The solution to this problem... (can come) from the Palestinian side. If they want a real international effort to help them... the only way is their reconciliation and unity," he said.
Hamas and the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have been bitterly divided since the Islamsts seized Gaza in a week of bloody fighting in June 2007, leaving Abbas's power base limited to the West Bank.
Egyptian efforts to reconcile the two groups foundered in November when Hamas boycotted a meeting in Cairo. Egypt has suggested February 22 as the date for the resumption of reconciliation talks.
A Palestinian Islamic Jihad official told Al-Ahram that an Egyptian proposal aimed at shoring up ceasefires between Hamas and Israel in Gaza called for reconstruction over three stages, beginning with emergency aid.
Experts would then assess the damage left by the war, but reconstruction will be "tied with the satisfaction of the international community with the political situation in Gaza," Jamil Yusef said.
Israel launched a massive air, sea and land offensive against Gaza on December 27 in a bid to halt militant rocket fire. The war killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
Hamas says international donors must treat the group as the legitimate government in Gaza, while Fatah has said a unity government should oversee the reconstruction.
Prosecutor looks at ways to put Israeli officers on trial for Gaza 'war crimes'
From "The Times"
Catherine Philp in Davos and James Hider in Jerusalem
The International Criminal Court is exploring ways to prosecute Israeli commanders over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The alleged crimes include the use of deadly white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas, as revealed in an investigation by The Times last month. Israel initially denied using the controversial weapon, which causes horrific burns, but was forced later, in the face of mounting evidence, to admit to having deployed it.
When Palestinian groups petitioned the ICC this month, its prosecutor said that it was unable to take the case because it had no jurisdiction over Israel, a nonsignatory to the court. Now, however, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, has told The Times that he is examining the case for Palestinian jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed in Gaza.
Palestinian groups have submitted arguments asserting that the Palestinian Authority is the de facto state in the territory where the crimes were allegedly committed.
“It is the territorial state that has to make a reference to the court. They are making an argument that the Palestinian Authority is, in reality, that state,” Mr Moreno-Ocampo told The Times at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Part of the Palestinian argument rests on the Israeli insistence that it has no responsibility for Gaza under international law since it withdrew from the territory in 2006. “They are quoting jurisprudence,” Mr Moreno-Ocampo said. “It’s very complicated. It’s a different kind of analysis I am doing. It may take a long time but I will make a decision according to law.”
Mr Moreno-Ocampo said that his examination of the case did not necessarily reflect a belief that war crimes had been committed in Gaza. Determining jurisdiction was a first step, he said, and only after it had been decided could he launch an investigation.
The prosecutor’s office has already received several files on alleged crimes from Palestinian groups and is awaiting further reports from the Arab League and Amnesty International containing evidence gathered in Gaza.
Under the Rome treaty that founded it, the ICC can investigate and prosecute allegations of the most serious war crimes only if the country responsible is unwilling or unable to do so through its national courts.
States that are party to the treaty can refer cases of crimes committed by their citizens or on their territory. Cases involving the citizens or territory of a country that has not signed up to the court can be referred by the United Nations Security Council – as in the case of Darfur. Ivory Coast set a precedent as the first nonstate party to accept the ICC’s jurisdiction over alleged war crimes on its territory. It signed the Rome treaty but never ratified it. In 2005 it lodged a declaration with the court accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction over crimes committed there since September 2002.
Palestinian lawyers argue that the Palestinian Authority should be allowed to refer the cases in Gaza on this same ad hoc basis – despite its lack of internationally recognised statehood.
The case has wide-reaching ramifications for the Palestinian case for statehood. If the court rejects the case, it will highlight the legal black hole that Palestinians find themselves in while they remain stateless. However, it also underlines some of Israel’s worst fears about a Palestinian state on its borders. A Palestinian state that ratified the Rome treaty would then be able to refer alleged Israeli war crimes to the court without the current legal wrangling. The case could also lead to snowballing international recognition of a Palestinian state by countries eager to see Israel prosecuted.
One avenue would be for Israel to agree to investigate its commanders and prosecute any crimes discovered. That would remove any case from the orbit of the international court. So far that appears unlikely, given Israel’s repeated denials of war crimes in Gaza.
The Israeli army has, however, launched an internal inquiry into whether white phosphorus was used in some cases in built-up areas, having eventually admitted that it did use the incendiary substance, which is not illegal as a battlefield smokescreen but is banned from being used in civilian areas. Camera footage from one such attack shows what appears to be white phosphorous raining down on a UN school in Beit Lahiya, where Red Crescent ambulances and their crews were stationed.
A coalition of Israeli human rights groups has urged the country’s attorney-general to open an independent investigation into allegations of war crimes by troops, urging that to do so could head off international court cases. The groups, including the antisettlement organisation B’Tselem, said that there had been reports of Israeli forces firing into civilian areas, denying medical aid to the wounded and preventing Palestinian ambulances from reaching them, and of firing at people carrying white flags.
Meanwhile, the UN is preparing an inquiry into the bombardment of a UN school in Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces fired artillery shells outside the school, which had been converted into a refugee shelter for Gazans fleeing their homes. At least 43 people were killed. Israel said that Palestinian militants had fired from the compound, which was denied by the UN
Israel bombs Gaza tunnels in series of air raids
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) – Israel launched a series of air strikes in the Gaza Strip Sunday, targeting a Hamas security complex and tunnels used to smuggle weapons after vowing a "disproportionate" response to cross-border fire.
The aircraft carried out half a dozen strikes after three Israelis were injured by a mortar salvo, including two soldiers and the first Israeli civilian hurt since a January 18 truce ended Israel's 22-day offensive in the coastal enclave.
There were no reported casualties in the air attacks. Five of the strikes targeted tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt, used to smuggle weapons into the coastal enclave, in a zone known as the Philadelphi corridor.
A further Israeli attack was on a security headquarters in a village in central Gaza that residents said had been vacated after Israel telephoned warnings to Palestinians to leave buildings that housed any weapons.
An Israeli military statement said that "in response to rocket and mortar fire today, the air force has attacked a number of targets in the (Gaza) Strip, including six tunnels and a Hamas position." Hamas said five tunnels had been bombed.
Egypt, with U.S. backing, has been trying to broker a long-term ceasefire that would end Hamas weapons smuggling into Gaza and also lead to a reopening of Gaza border crossings, one of Hamas's main demands.
Israel's blockade of Gaza, since Hamas Islamists seized the coastal territory from Western-back Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007, has led to shortages of crucial supplies for many of the 1.5 million Palestinians living there.
Israel's renewed air strikes came as its leaders took a hard line against rocket fire from Gaza ahead of a February 10 national election, which opinion polls predict right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who favors a tougher stance toward Hamas, will win.
About a dozen rockets and mortar bombs were fired from Gaza Sunday, the Israeli military said.
A wing of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group belonging to Abbas's Fatah faction, said it fired some of the rockets, but not all were claimed.
THREATS OF A "HARSH" RESPONSE
"The government's position was from the outset that if there is shooting at the residents of the south, there will be a harsh Israeli response that will be disproportionate, " Olmert, who is not an election candidate, said at the weekly cabinet meeting.
"We will act according to new rules which will ensure that we will not be drawn into a war of incessant shooting on the southern border, which would deprive the residents of the south of a normal life," he said.
Israeli radios quoted Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a candidate for prime minister as head of the centrist Kadima party, as saying Israel would mount a new offensive in Gaza if necessary to halt rocket fire from Gaza.
Olmert is not running, as he quit during a corruption probe in September and has stayed on as caretaker premier.
A spokesman for the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip condemned what he described as Olmert's "aggressive statement."
But the spokesman, Taher al-Nono, also urged all Palestinian factions to "respect the national consensus" on the ceasefire the Islamist group declared two weeks ago after Israel announced it was halting the Gaza offensive.
Israel was criticized internationally for the deaths, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, of more than 1,300 Palestinians, including at least 700 civilians in the offensive it launched on December 27.
Critics said Israel had responded disproportionately, in its air and ground offensive in heavily populated areas, to cross-border rocket attacks over eight years that killed 18 people. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed in the Gaza campaign.
Israel said Hamas militants bore responsibility for civilian deaths in Gaza by operating inside its towns and refugee camps.
Since the two-week-old truce, in addition to Sunday's injuries, an Israeli soldier was killed and three others were wounded when a bomb exploded next to their patrol. Israeli air strikes have killed three Palestinians and wounded 10.
(Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Jeffrey Heller, Adam Entous, Ari Rabinovitch and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Charles Dick)
Iran calls for lifting of Gaza blockade
EHRAN (AFP) – Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in a meeting with Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal on Sunday called for the lifting of Israel's crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip.
"The Gaza blockade should be lifted and Gaza port and the crossings should be reopened for reconstruction, " Mottaki told the Palestinian official in Tehran, state television reported on its website.
Mottaki said that it was the duty of other countries to help reconstruct Gaza and "exert efforts to offer help to the needy people through the legal government of Hamas."
He praised "the resistance of Gazans" which had "put out the fire of the Zionist regime," during the 22-day war in the impoverished Palestinian territory.
The Hamas leader arrived in Tehran on Sunday on his first visit since Israel's deadly offensive against his Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip.
Meshaal, who lives in exile in Syria, was to meet top Iranian officials, address students of Tehran University, and attend a session of parliament, the state news agency IRNA reported.
Meshaal is a frequent visitor to Iran, which is a staunch supporter of Hamas and does not recognise Israel.
Last month, Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has drawn global outrage for his anti-Israel tirades, congratulated Hamas on its "victory" in the war with Israel.
Israel's three-week onslaught against Hamas-ruled Gaza left more than 1,330 Palestinians dead. Thirteen Israelis were also killed during the conflict, which Israel launched to stop militant rocket fire from the territory.
In 2006, Tehran pledged millions of dollars in aid to the Hamas government. But the Islamic republic has always insisted its support for Palestinian militant groups does not extend to arming or training fighters.
.
تعليق