Breaking News - Israel launches ground operation in the Gaza Strip

Israel launches a ground operation in the Gaza Strip

By Amos Harel, Yoav Stern and Yanir Yagana, Haaretz Correspondents, and News Agencies
Haaretz.com
Last update - 23:27 03/01/2009

Israel entered the second week of its offensive against rockets from Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday evening by launching a much-expected ground operation into the coastal strip.


Initial reports from both Israel and Gaza indicated that Israel Defense Forces troops had killed dozens of Hamas gunmen as they traded heavy fire upon entering the Strip.
"The objective is to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations," said Israel Defense Forces Major Avital Leibovitch, a military spokeswoman, confirming that incursions were under way. "We are going to take some of the launch areas used by Hamas."

The IDF Spokesperson's office issued a statement, emphasizing that this stage of the operation will further the goals of the eight-day offensive as voiced by the IDF until now: To strike a direct and hard blow against the Hamas while increasing the deterrent strength of the IDF, in order to bring about an improved and more stable security situation for residents of Southern Israel over the long term.

Large numbers of forces are taking part in this stage of the operation including infantry, tanks, engineering forces, artillery and intelligence with the support of the Israel Air Force, Israel navy, the Shin Bet security service and other security agencies.

Meanwhile, the cabinet has authorized an emergency call up of tens of thousands of IDF reservists.


The invasion was preceded by the firing of artillery shells into the strip from military preparation sites dotted along the Gaza-Israel border.

The artillery fire aimed to detonate Hamas explosive devices and mines planted along the border area before troops marched in.

Palestinian witnesses said the artillery barrage caused a large explosion in Gaza City as well as a series of blasts stitching the nearby frontier with Israel.

Channel 10 television quoted a witness as saying that Israel was shelling targets along the entire length of the shared border.

At one tank base along the border, the roar of tank engines and the rumble of their movements toward the border could be heard after dark, though none moved across the frontier. Hamas officials also reported tank movement toward the border near the northern Erez crossing point.

Defense officials said some 10,000 troops, including tank, artillery and special operations units, were massed on the Gaza border and prepared to invade. They said top commanders were split over whether to send in ground forces, in part because such an operation could lead to heavy casualties but also because they believe Hamas already has been dealt a heavy blow.

A family in Beit Lahiya said that an Israeli artillery shell had hit a house there, wounding many people. Ambulances could not immediately reach
them because of the resulting fire, they said.

Meanwhile, Israel Air Force warplanes stepped up airstrikes on Gaza, bombing the main road that runs throughout the strip in three different spots, making travel from one side of the Strip to the other close to impossible.

Palestinian health officials in Gaza reported Saturday evening that 13 people had been killed in another IAF bombing of a mosque in Beit Lahiya. They said that 26 Palestinians had died in IAF raids after dark Saturday.

The air force struck more than 40 Hamas targets over the course of Saturday, killing the third senior Hamas official since Israel's aerial assault began.

On Saturday morning, Israel Radio quoted a spokesman for the Hamas military wing as saying it had repelled an attempt by Israel Defense Forces soldiers to infiltrate the Shajaiyeh section of Gaza City.

According to Israel Radio, Hamas said that its militants detected the soldiers and fired six mortar shells. Hamas said the soldiers reportedly opened fire and then returned to Israeli territory.

source: _http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052299.html
 
So infuriating...the lies...the destruction...the apathy (or fear of Zionist blackmail) from world leaders who give guarded lip service with calls for a continuation of the "peace process", yet do nothing realistic to stop the sadistic slaughter.

I want to scream out that the Palestinian people did not break the cease fire. A few rockets allegedly fired by Hamas fighters after the IDF bombed innocent civilians does not an invading army of Israel make. And now there are accounts (with photo) of white phosphorous bombs being used by the IDF against the populace...just as in Lebanon. I weep because most of the world in their pleasure-seeking stupor or ignorance stands by and lets the psychopaths work their evil. Even worse are those persons cheering on..or dishonestly justifying...such darkness.
 
The two-faced con Ed Llewellyn, UK Ambassador to Italy, grieves the loss of all those lost at sea with the sinking of the British flagship Bayesian

PALERMO, Sicily, Aug 20 (Reuters) – Divers scoured the wreck of a luxury yacht off Sicily’s coast on Tuesday to find six missing people, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, following an intense storm that sank the vessel on Monday.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-meter-long (184-ft) superyacht, was carrying 22 people and anchored off the port of Porticello when it was hit by the fierce, pre-dawn storm.

Fifteen people escaped before it capsized and the body of one person who died was swiftly recovered. That left six passengers unaccounted for – Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah; Judy and Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International; and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo.

“The fear is that the bodies got trapped inside the vessel,” said Salvatore Cocina, head of civil protection in Sicily.

The boat was lying at a depth of 49 meters (160 feet), giving divers only 8-10 minutes at the wreck site before they had to resurface. Entering the boat was also proving difficult, said the fire brigade, which is leading the search operation.

“Inside the sailing ship the spaces are very confined, and if you hit an obstacle it is very complicated to move forward, just as it is very difficult to find alternative routes,” said fire spokesman Luca Cari.

Fire department diver Marco Tilotta told reporters the vessel appeared to be intact and was lying on its right side. Divers had not ascertained whether the 72-meter-long mast had snapped somewhere along its length during the tempest.

Karsten Borner, the skipper of a boat that had been moored alongside the Bayesian, said the yacht flipped on its side soon after the storm hit and sank within two minutes, giving those below deck little time to get to safety.

LYNCH TRIAL

Lynch, 59, is one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs. He built the country’s largest software firm, Autonomy, and was referred to as Britain’s Bill Gates.

He sold the firm to HP for $11 billion in 2011, after which the deal spectacularly unraveled with the U.S. tech giant accusing him of fraud, resulting in a lengthy trial. Lynch was eventually acquitted by a jury in San Francisco in June.

Morvillo represented Lynch in the case, while Bloomer had appeared as a character witness on his behalf.

In an extraordinary coincidence, Stephen Chamberlain, Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in the trial, died following a road accident in Britain over the weekend, his lawyer said on Monday.

The Bayesian was owned by Lynch’s wife, who survived the disaster, and other guests on the yacht included Lynch’s colleagues. The only body so far retrieved was that of the onboard chef Ricardo Thomas, an Antiguan citizen.

The British government’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch said it sent four of its inspectors to Sicily to conduct a “preliminary assessment.”

‘DIDN’T SEE IT COMING’

One expert at the scene of the disaster who declined to be named said an early focus of the official investigation would be whether the yacht’s crew had closed access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.

Investigators would look at whether appropriate measures had been taken, given the forecasts for bad weather overnight.

Borner, whose yacht was moored near the Bayesian, said that although there had been warnings of possible thunderstorms, there had been no indication they would be particularly violent.

“Thunderstorms can turn out good or bad and this one was a real violent squall … very violent, very intense, a lot of water, and I think a turning system like a tornado,” he told Reuters.

Storms and heavy rains have ravaged Italy in recent days, after weeks of scorching heat warmed the sea temperature to record highs, raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts said.

“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees more than normal,” said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.

“We can’t say that this is all due to global warming but we can say that it has an amplifying effect,” he told Reuters.

(Writing by Crispian Balmer; Reporting by Alvise Armellini, Giulia Segreti, Gavin Jones, William Schomberg and Sam Tobin; Editing by Bernadette Baum) (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024.
 

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