Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli soldiers and Hamas gunmen engaged in pitched battles last night throughout the Gaza Strip, as increased diplomatic efforts to end the 11-day conflict failed to make headway.
Fighting was heavy in northern Gaza and on the outskirts of Gaza City, the Haaretz newspaper reported. Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded by a tank shell in a “friendly fire incident” in the northern region of Gaza, the military said in an e-mailed statement today.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking to reporters yesterday, vowed to continue the operation until Hamas stopped its rocket attacks on Israeli communities.
The armed wing of Hamas issued a statement in Gaza saying it had “lots of surprises” waiting for Israel’s soldiers and would “fight against the aggression.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy met yesterday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah to push for a cease-fire. Sarkozy, who also met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday, told reporters in Ramallah that he is working with Egypt on a “common initiative” to resolve the crisis.
Israel expanded its hold yesterday over the coastal territory it abandoned three years ago, deploying tank columns and thousands of troops in Gaza while continuing an aerial campaign aimed at stopping attacks on its towns and cities. An Israeli soldier was killed Jan. 4 by Hamas gunfire, the army said.
Death Toll
At least 537 Palestinians have died in the conflict and 2,600 are wounded, including several women and children killed yesterday, said Mu’awia Hassanein, chief of emergency medical services in Gaza. United Nations officials say as many as a quarter of those killed are civilians, a figure Israel disputes as too high.
Thirty-seven rockets from Gaza struck Israeli territory yesterday, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, down from a peak of 76 on Dec. 27, the first day of the operation. Two people were lightly wounded, he said.
Altogether, 520 missiles have struck Israel in the past 10 days, damaging dozens of homes and wounding more than 50 people, police said. An empty kindergarten was hit in Ashdod, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Gaza. Schools have been closed there since last week because of the rockets.
As many as 3,200 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel since the start of 2008. Rocket attacks have killed four Israelis since fighting began.
Diplomatic Efforts
Last week, Israel rejected a French-proposed 48-hour truce with Hamas, saying it was seeking a permanent end to the Gaza rocket attacks.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met yesterday with Tony Blair, the representative of the so-called Quartet backing Middle East peace talks, which comprises the European Union, Russia, the UN and the U.S.
“This is a delicate time and we will do everything required to bring the quiet that is necessary for the region,” Blair said, according to an Israeli Foreign Ministry statement.
As Israeli forces pressed on Gaza City, Abbas said in Ramallah that “we cannot accept the destruction of Hamas,” adding the group is part of the Palestinian people. Abbas is set to go to the UN today to make his case for a truce.
Power Sharing
Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 after a brief power- sharing arrangement with Abbas, of the rival Fatah movement.
Israeli armored forces captured the former Jewish settlement of Netzarim yesterday, splitting Gaza in two in the middle of the territory and isolating Gaza City in the north, Palestinian witnesses said. The army declined to comment.
The settlement was one of the last evacuated by Israel when it left Gaza in 2005. Palestinian security forces later used the land for a training camp.
“The Israelis surrounded Netzarim with tanks and seized control of the dunes inside,” according to Mohammed Arafat, who watched the operation from the fifth floor of his house in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City.
The Israeli air force attacked more than 40 targets throughout the Gaza Strip yesterday, including tunnels dug under the Egyptian border, weapon storage areas, among them houses of Hamas operatives, a number of weapons manufacturing sites and rocket launching areas, the army said in an e-mailed statement.
Humanitarian Aid
Israel has come under increasing international diplomatic pressure since the start of the ground operation.
Sarkozy told reporters in Ramallah that “because Israel is a great nation and a democracy, it can’t leave the humanitarian situation as it is today.”
Israel has allowed 400 trucks carrying 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other supplies into Gaza since the start of its military campaign, the Foreign Ministry said in an e-mailed statement, including 70 trucks yesterday.
Hamas, deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU, said over the weekend it planned to send suicide bombers to Israeli cities and kidnap Israeli soldiers. One soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, has been held captive in Gaza for more than two years.
Israel began the campaign to halt rocket attacks after a six-month cease-fire with Hamas expired Dec. 19. Hamas refused to renew the truce because it said Israel hadn’t eased its economic blockade of Gaza. Militants fired 70 rockets at Israel the day before it ended.
Rocket Smuggling
During the truce with Hamas there was wholesale smuggling of Grad rockets from Iran, said Jeremy Issacharoff, deputy chief of mission in Israel’s Washington embassy.
“Iran was very kind with the Grad; it was too big to be smuggled so they broke them into four components to make it more ‘smuggler-friendly,’” he told reporters yesterday.
Iran’s assistance complemented a local Hamas “industry” of making shorter-ranged Qassam missiles, which have constituted most of the launchings, Issacharoff said.
The U.S. State Department said yesterday that any cease- fire must halt Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and deal with tunnels Hamas uses for smuggling.
On the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the benchmark TA-25 index rose 0.9 percent yesterday, and has climbed 8.7 percent since Israel began its campaign against Hamas, tracking a global rally. The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index gained 6.1 percent in the same period. The shekel strengthened 0.1 percent to 3.8502 per dollar since the fighting began.
“We won’t see any impact on regional markets because it’s clear the crisis is going to be contained,” Rami Sidani, head of Middle East and North Africa investments at Schroders Investment Management Ltd. in Dubai, said in a telephone interview. “If the issue were to take on other proportions, things may change.”
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Topic: Israel, Hamas Trade Fire as Gaza Truce Efforts Fail (Read 387 times)