Today's Top Islamic News (DAILY)

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CAIRO — Beaten up to death, put on boats without engines and cut them adrift in international waters, desperate Muslim migrants are tasting humiliation at Thai coasts.

"All the survivors tell the same story," Ranjit Narayan, chief police of Indian Andaman Islands, told the Guardian on Friday, January 23.

"They say they were kept on an island, they were beaten up, some were shot dead, and then they were pushed out to sea."

Muslim migrants, mostly from Myanmar and Bangladesh, told stories of humiliation at the hands of Thai forces during their travel to Malaysia for work or asylum.

"Thai army personnel used to torture them physically," said a report by the Indian security agencies based on the survivors' testimonies.

"Their hands were tied and they were beaten mercilessly several times and they were not even properly provided food and water."

The report cites an incident in December when senior Thai officials went to an island where Muslim migrants have taken as a transit point.

"In front of them, around 9pm on the same day, the uniformed personnel started shifting all the Bangladeshis/Myanmarese, estimated at 400, to one big wooden barge which had neither engines nor sails/oars.

"During this time four persons were shot dead randomly and their bodies thrown into the sea, and one juvenile aged around 14-15 years whose hands were tied was also thrown into the sea."

The wooden boat was towed by Thai coastguards for 18 hours before the migrants were forced to sail without food or water.

A few days later, nearly 300 dehydrated men jumped into the sea for survival, but only 11 made it to the shore.

"These are all poor people who were looking for work. But they were treated very harshly, inhumanely, and they were in a horrible condition," said Kailash Negi, a coastguard commandant.

More than 200,000 Myanmarese Muslims live in Bangladesh in unofficial camps. They usually use Thai coasts as a transit stop to reach Malaysia for work or asylum.

* Systematic

Human rights activists accuse Thai troops of deliberate killings of Muslim migrants.

"This is not just an isolated incident," said Sunai Pasuk, with Human Rights Watch.

"There must be a policy behind it."

Thai officials deny mistreating Muslim migrants, claiming that Myanmarese migrants were assisting Muslim groups in violence-wracked South Thailand.

But Paul Quaglia, director of PSA Asia, a security consultancy in Bangkok, refutes the claim.

He said there is no evidence that the Myanmarese migrants, who speak a Bengali dialect, have joined separatists in the Malay-speaking south.

Facing harsh criticism from human rights groups, the Thai government launched a probe into the abuses of Muslim migrants.

"The military has agreed to a fact-finding investigation … [but] we're not dependent on their input alone," Panitan Wattanyagorn, a spokesman for the Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said.

But Quaglia, the PSA Asia director, said Abhisit is too weak to take any action against the military even if it was proved guilty.

"Abhisit is ... beholden to the military for getting his job – and keeping his job," he said.
Source: IslamOnline

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BBC resisting pressure over Gaza
A Palestinian man
The DEC appeal is due to be broadcast for the first time on Monday

The BBC is continuing to resist pressure over its decision not to air an appeal for aid to Gaza, as the Archbishop of York joined its critics.

Rival channels ITV, Channel 4 and Five have now agreed to show the DEC appeal.

Director general Mark Thompson has said by airing the appeal the BBC would risk reducing public confidence in its impartial coverage of the conflict.

But Dr John Sentamu said it was "not a row about impartiality but rather about humanity".

In a statement, he said: "This situation is akin to that of British military hospitals who treat prisoners of war as a result of their duty under the Geneva convention.

"They do so because they identify need rather than cause.

"This is not an appeal by Hamas asking for arms but by the Disasters Emergency Committee asking for relief. By declining their request, the BBC has already taken sides and forsaken impartiality."

Disasters Emergency Committee Gaza humanitarian appeal:
Launched by UK charities on 22 January to raise money for Gaza aid relief and reconstruction
Participants: Action Aid, British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund, World Vision
Information on 0370 60 60 900 or at DEC website

Reaction to the BBC's appeal veto
Mark Thompson on Gaza appeal
Send us your comments

BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons has voiced concerns over political interference in the BBC's editorial independence, after a number of politicians publicly criticised the move.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal will be screened for the first time on Monday.

In a blog message on the BBC website explaining the decision, Mark Thompson said: "Inevitably an appeal would use pictures which are the same or similar to those we would be using in our news programmes but would do so with the objective of encouraging public donations.

"The danger for the BBC is that this could be interpreted as taking a political stance on an ongoing story."

Rally arrests

He stressed the corporation would "continue to cover the human side of the conflict in Gaza extensively across our news services where we can place all of the issues in context in an objective and balanced way".

Earlier on Saturday, police said at least 2,000 protesters gathered outside the BBC's Broadcasting House in central London, and chants of "BBC, shame on you" were heard as a petition was handed in to the corporation.

We can't ignore suffering in the interests of what the BBC call impartiality
Tony Benn

There were seven arrests at the rally.

Veteran politician Tony Benn, a speaker at the protest, said: "We can't ignore suffering in the interests of what the BBC call impartiality."

Earlier, ITV and Sky had been in agreement with the BBC that they would not air the appeal. But ITV later reversed its decision.

Sky says it is still considering the Disasters Emergency Committee's request.

The DEC - an umbrella organisation for several major aid charities - wants to raise funds for people in need of food, shelter and medicines as a result of Israel's military action in the Gaza Strip.

Previous DEC appeals shown on multiple TV and radio channels have raised millions of pounds for victims of wars and natural disasters.

'Human suffering'

International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the British public could "distinguish between support for humanitarian aid and perceived partiality in a conflict".

"I really struggle to see in the face of the immense human suffering of people in Gaza... that this is in any way a credible argument," he added.

BBC's chief operating officer Caroline Thomson defends the veto

"They [the BBC] still have time to make a different judgement to recognise the immense human suffering."

Shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said it was "clearly a decision for the BBC and other broadcasters " whether they showed the appeal.

But the Conservatives believed it should be played to allow the public to make up their own minds about the appeal, he said.

Liberal Democrat media spokesman Don Foster said the BBC's "disgraceful" decision must be reversed.

In a letter to the BBC director general on Saturday, BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons expressed concern that the "level and tone" of some of the political comment was "coming close to constituting undue interference in the editorial independence of the BBC".

He assured Mr Thompson the Trust would "do everything in our power to ensure that you are given the space to make the editorial decisions you feel, after due consideration, are right in the circumstances".

BBC political correspondent Gary O'Donoghue said the corporation was facing "quite a lot of pressure", but its position had been shored up "a little bit" by the Trust's move.

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'Phosphorus wounds' alarm Gazans

By Aleem Maqbool
BBC News, Gaza City

Sabah Abu Halima in her hospital bed
Sabah Abu Halima suffered terrible burns on her arms, legs and torso

Staring straight ahead and rocking steadily backwards and forwards in her hospital bed, Sabah Abu Halima lists the fate of each of her nine children.

"Abed, 14 years old, was decapitated," she says. "Shaheed, one year and three months, was in my arms when the fire took her…"

Sabah explains that her husband and four of her children died when their house in northern Gaza was shelled during the recent Israeli offensive.

Many of the rooms in that house now lay dark and empty - blackened by fire.

The light fittings and power sockets have melted down the walls.


These burns were very severe, very deep, and became deeper and wider over time
Dr Nafiz Abu Shabaan

Q&A: White phosphorus injuries
UN accuses Israel over phosphorus
Israel defends use of phosphorus

A shaft of light coming from the ceiling of the corridor, and mangled steel, marks the entry point of one of the missiles.

Scrawled, in Arabic, on the wall of a bedroom is the statement: "From the Israeli Defence Forces, we are sorry."

But on the next wall, there is a patch of white where, Sabah's 20-year-old son Mahmoud tells us, had also been the words "nice underwear". He says he scrubbed them off in anger.

'Strange burns'

Hundreds were killed in the 22-day Israeli offensive, but it is the manner in which Sabah's relatives lost their lives, and the weapon used, that has attracted attention.

Writing on room in Sabah Abu Halima's house, saying: "From the Israeli Defence Forces, we are sorry."
Sabah's family say Israeli troops wrote an apology in Arabic on their wall

Sabah herself has suffered terrible burns on her arms, legs and torso and is considerable pain.

"There was fire, and so much white smoke," she says. "The missile melted my children. My daughter-in-law melted in front of my eyes."

Dr Nafiz Abu Shabaan, the head of the unit in which Sabah is being treated, says he has seen many victims with what he described as "strange burns".

"These burns were very severe, very deep, and became deeper and wider over time," he says. "In some cases, smoke came out of the wound, even after hours."

The cause of these types of injuries is believed, by visiting medical officials, to be Israel's use of shells containing white phosphorus.

Incendiary weapon

In another part of the city, at a former security compound flattened by the Israeli bombardment, Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, points out evidence that white phosphorus had been used.

Mobile phone footage of an Israeli attack on a UN school

"We're standing here right next to an M825A1, which is the US designation for their white phosphorus shell," he says.

"Manufactured in the US and sold to Israel, the shell here is unexploded, although it's cracked and you can see the phosphorus pouring out in kind of this yellow-orange colour."

"Around the area there are also some white phosphorus felt pieces," he adds.

"As the weapon explodes in mid-air, 116 pieces of felt doused in white phosphorus fall on a large area. These pieces are littered around here. If you kicked them open, they would begin to smoke and potentially reignite."


Alleged burning lump of white phosphorous at the UN's headquarters in Gaza (20 January 2009)
It's important that we investigate the use of white phosphorus, because it does appear that it was used incorrectly in a clear breach of Geneva Conventions
Marc Garlasco, military analyst
Human Rights Watch

Controversial as it is, white phosphorus is not illegal, at least in an open battlefield setting, where it is used to mask troop movements, or set on fire areas of high brush that need clearing.

But the international convention on the use of incendiary weapons says it should not be used where there is a possibility of hitting civilians.

The compound sticks to human skin and will burn right through to the bone, causing death or leaving survivors with painful wounds which are slow to heal.

United Nations officials say it was used in the shelling of a school in which hundreds of civilians were taking refuge from the fighting, and fired at the UN's main headquarters in Gaza.

Eyewitnesses and victims talk of it being used on many other occasions in built-up areas.

Internal investigation

After initially denying that white phosphorus shells were fired in Gaza, some Israeli military officials have now acknowledged its use.

Israeli artillery shells explode above Gaza City on 4 January 2008
Analysts say the distinctively shaped plumes are indicative of white phosphorus

The army says it has started an internal investigation, the insistence being until now that no weapons were used illegally.

Human rights groups have meanwhile started their own research.

"It's important that we investigate the use of white phosphorus, because it does appear that it was used incorrectly in a clear breach of Geneva Conventions, " says Mr Garlasco.

"But as grave as the injuries caused by white phosphorus are, there are a number of weapons that were used in Gaza that killed and injured an awful lot more people," he adds.

"We have to look at the full variety of weapons that were used here, how they were employed and how they impacted on the civilian population."

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CAIRO — Britain's top Christian clerics and main dailies on Sunday, January 25, piled up pressures against the BBC over its refusal to broadcast an aid appeal for the civilian population of the bombed-out Gaza Strip. "My feeling is that the BBC should broadcast an appeal," the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, told a church service in Cambridge.

The BBC is refusing to air an aid appeal by Disasters Emergency Committee, a coalition of charities including Oxfam, British Red Cross and Islamic Aid, to raise funds for the people of Gaza.

More than 1,350 people, including 437 children, were killed and 5,450 wounded in 22 days of air, sea and land Israeli attacks.

"Dad, I'm Dying" Killed by Israel, Eaten by Dogs "I Will Never Walk Again" The deadly onslaught left Gaza infrastructure in tatters, with 4,100 homes totally destroyed as well as 17,000 homes, 1,500 factories, 25 mosques, 31 government buildings and 10 water or sewage pipes damaged.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimates the physical damage so far at about $1.9bn (£1.4bn).

The BBC, a publically-funded broadcaster, argues that airing the fund-raising appeal could compromise its impartiality.

"This is not a row about impartiality but rather about humanity," insists Dr. John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York.

"This is not an appeal by Hamas asking for arms but by the Disasters Emergency Committee asking for relief," he added.

"By declining their request, the BBC has already taken sides and forsaken impartiality."

In 2006, a report by the BBC's board of governor found that the BBC's coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is "inconsistent, incomplete and misleading", failing to adequately report the hardships of Palestinians living under occupation.

Groundless

Leading British newspapers also disparaged the world's largest broadcaster for banning the Gaza aid appeal.

"That the population of Gaza is experiencing a humanitarian crisis is a matter of fact, not political hypothesis," the Guardian said in an editorial.

"On what grounds then, might the BBC judge a charitable appeal on behalf of the people of Gaza to be politically partisan?"

The mass-circulation daily said the BBC's argument was flawed.

"An alternative interpretation, and one that is ultimately much more damaging to the BBC's reputation, is that any humanitarian intervention in Gaza, by definition, expresses a political position in the long-running conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

"By that logic, there can never be victims in a war zone, even among civilians, since to designate anyone as such would offend one of the combatant sides.

"That is patently absurd and inhumane."

The Independent also ridiculed the BBC's claim for not airing the Gaza aid appeal, describing it as a "mistake".

"This is a weak-minded interpretation of the BBC's duty of impartiality. The corporation seems to think it can avoid the charge of bias if it does nothing," it wrote.

"The suggestion that any expression of compassion for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza is to side with terrorists and anti-Semites is an unworthy one. It was spineless of the BBC to fall for it."

A total of 51 lawmakers have backed a parliamentary motion asking the BBC to explain its "unconvincing and incoherent" decision and run the appeal.

British ministers had joined demonstrators who gathered outside a BBC building in central London Saturday to protest its decision.

"I think the British public can distinguish between support for humanitarian aid and perceived partiality in a conflict," insisted International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander.

"I really struggle to see, in the face of the immense human suffering in Gaza at the moment, that this is in any way a credible argument."

Source: IslamOnline

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Hamas offers year-long truce with Israel
Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:46:53 GMT
Hamas offers a year-long truce with Israel and opening of the crossings into the Gaza Strip through indirect talks mediated with Egypt.

An official from the movement said on Monday that Hamas accepts a one-year truce "with guarantees that Israel shows commitment to lift the siege and completely reopen crossings", Xinhua reported.

A delegation from Hamas is currently holding truce talks in Cairo with Egyptian officials over an 18-month Israeli blockade of Gaza, a ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners with Israel.

Ayman Taha, a Hamas negotiator, said on Monday that Tel Aviv is considering the opening of the Gaza crossings as well as releasing 1,000 prisoners in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit.

"Israel hinted it might accept an 18-month truce with Hamas for reopening Gaza crossings and partially lift the blockade and not completely, but Hamas rejects it," Taha told reporters in Cairo and insisted that "the siege should be completely lifted."

Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire that ended on Dec. 19, just one week before Israel launched its 23-day military incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Hamas did not accept the truce because Israel kept the blockade on Gaza.

Israel unleashed Operation Cast Lead on the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27, allegedly to put an end to rocket attacks against southern Israeli towns. At least 1,330 Palestinians died during the offensive, while some 5,450 others were reported wounded.

SF/SME

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CAIRO — A galaxy of British actors and directors threatened to boycott the BBC if the world's biggest broadcaster did not reverse its decision not to air an aid appeal for the homeless population of the bombed-out Gaza Strip. "We will never work for the BBC again unless this disgraceful decision is reversed," they wrote in an open letter to BBC's director-general Mark Thompson cited by The Scotsman on Tuesday, January 27.

Last week, the BBC refused to air an aid appeal by Disasters Emergency Committee, a coalition of charities including Oxfam, British Red Cross and Islamic Aid, to raise funds for the people of Gaza.

More than 1,350 people, including 437 children, were killed and 5,450 wounded in 22 days of air, sea and land Israeli attacks.

The deadly onslaught left Gaza infrastructure in tatters, with 4,100 homes totally destroyed as well as 17,000 homes, 1,500 factories, 25 mosques, 31 government buildings and 10 water or sewage pipes damaged.

Watch the Gaza aid appeal Thompson claims that airing the fund-raising appeal could compromise the BBC's impartiality.

"I will never work for the BBC again unless they change their mind," actor Samantha Morton, who initiated the boycott call, told a fund-raising event for the Medical Aid for Palestinians agency Monday.

BBC longtime actor Tam Dean Burn, prominent writer Pauline Goldsmith and actors Peter Mullan and Alison Peebles joined in.

"We therefore are taking what action we can in protest at this decision," said the group's open letter.

The signatories also vowed not to pay their TV license fee to the publicly-funded broadcaster in protest, urging others to do likewise.

"It is time for the people of Britain to take a stand on this issue."

Review

The BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, has ordered a review into the controversial decision after receiving up to 21,000 complaints in just few days.

It said that the huge public concern meant it was inevitable to review the decision.

Because of the intense public feeling about the situation, the trust is expected to announce its verdict within days of receiving an appeal.

Pressure is mounting on the BBC to reverse its controversial decision.

More than 100 MPs have signed a motion criticizing the BBC and Sky News for refusing to broadcast the Gaza appeal.

"The fact that well over 100 MPs from different parties have signed this Commons motion shows the breadth of concern about the position which the BBC and Sky are taking," said Richard Burden, the Labour MP who tabled the motion.

The BBC's decision was also met with fierce criticism from the Church of England archbishops, editorial writers and senior British government ministers.

Protests were held Monday outside the BBC's Broadcasting House headquarters, with people burning their TV licenses.

Sit-ins were also staged at the BBC's London headquarters and its broadcast center in Glasgow.

The BBC's news coverage of the Middle East has repeatedly provoked controversy among commentators in Britain.

In 2006, a report by the BBC's board of governor found that the BBC's coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is "inconsistent, incomplete and misleading", failing to adequately report the hardships of Palestinians living under occupation.

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From The Times
January 28, 2009
Israeli soldiers recall Gaza attack orders
Sheera Frenkel in Gaza Strip

“Fire on anything that moves in Zeitoun” – that was the order handed down to Israeli troops in the Givati Shaked battalion, who reduced the eastern Gaza City suburb to little more than rubble in a matter of days.

According to Israeli soldiers who took part in the three-week offensive, the destruction of the area, a known Hamas stronghold, was designed to send a wider message to Gazans. “We pounded Zeitoun into the ground,” an Israeli soldier who was deployed in the area, told The Times.

“We knew everything was booby-trapped, we knew that they would try to kidnap us and if they did that was the end, we were finished . . . so we took no chances. We pounded them with fire; they never had a chance.”

Stretched along the southeastern corner of Gaza City, Zeitoun is where the coastal enclave narrows to just under five miles, serving as the perfect launching point for the Israeli military’s forays deeper into the Gaza Strip.

Soldiers on foot first entered the neighbourhood on January 4, overtaking several key positions there and finally withdrawing on January 14 – destroying much of the area in their wake.

The stories that have emerged from Zeitoun have been some of the most shocking of the war. The Samuni family said they lost 29 members after soldiers forced them all into one building that subsequently came under fire. Survivors said that the initial shelling killed 22 people, while others slowly bled to death after being denied medical care for nearly three days.

Others, including the Helw and Abu Zohar families, have similar accounts of watching loved ones dying of their wounds and coming under fire after emerging from their homes carrying white flags.

Human Rights organisations have called for an independent investigation into the Israeli army’s conduct in Zeitoun, accusing them of denying medical access to the wounded and firing on civilians. An Israeli military spokesman said that the incident was being investigated, and that the accusations were being taken “very seriously”.

The soldier, who broke Israeli military censorship restrictions to talk to The Times and did not wish to be named, was part of the second wave of troops who set up positions in the neighbourhood. “Most of the positions had been secured and we heard that the [Hamas] fighters had gone into the other areas. We had been warned of traps and it was very tense. We were to shoot first and ask questions later.”

He added that Zeitoun was a known Hamas stronghold and that militants had used the local fields and orchards to launch rocket attacks into southern Israel.

“There was definitely a message being sent,” he said. This weekend, the experienced infantryman took leave from his unit and was able to read some media accounts of Zeitoun. “I read about the family, the Samunis, and it was hard, it was horrible.” Asked if what he had read made him rethink his actions in Gaza he said: “I don’t know, I’m not sure. It maybe raised some questions.”

Israel banned journalists from entering Gaza during the military operation. It has since censored the names of military units and soldiers who took part in the fighting, fearing that lawsuits will be filed against them by human rights organisations, which renewed their criticism of Israel’s conduct yesterday.

“Having interviewed dozens of victims and witnesses and, having examined the ballistic evidence from north to south, we are convinced that Israel did not do everything possible to minimise civilians’ harm and death,” said Fred Abrahams, of Human Rights Watch.

“The rules of engagement were exceedingly loose, and they dropped the bar on the laws of war. This allowed civilian casualties to rise.”

Some in Israel have questioned the decision to send the Givati Shaked battalion to the area. Two of the battalion's four company commanders were removed, although one was later exonerated in an incident that involved the killing of Iman al-Hams, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, in Rafah on October 2004. In the same year 11 Givati soldiers were killed when militants captured two armoured personnel carriers in Zeitoun.

One soldier from Givati Shaked told an Israeli daily newspaper that “revenge is our first impulse” after a friend of his was killed during an operation in Gaza last year.

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The IAEA chief cancelled all his planned interviews with the BBC in protest at the corporation's refusal to air a charity appeal for Gazans.

Mohamed ElBaradei head of the UN nuclear watchdog said Wednesday that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has violated 'the rules of basic human decency' by not airing the appeal.

The IAEA director's interviews with BBC World Service television and radio were scheduled to take place at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Saturday.

ElBaradei's action follows growing criticism of the BBC's decision in Britain with lawmakers saying that more than 110 of their colleagues have endorsed motions criticizing the BBC's decision to keep the Gaza appeal off the air.

A BBC spokesman meanwhile said, “We regret that Mr. ElBaradei was not able to participate in an interview with the BBC while he is at Davos. Our audience around the world remains interested in what he has to say about a range of topics, and we hope he will accept an invitation at another time.”

Sky News joined BBC in deciding not to carry the charity appeal. Much of the criticism has nonetheless focused on BBC because of its publicly-funded status.

A group of anti-war activists occupied the lobby of BBC Scotland's headquarters in Glasgow on Monday in protest against the national broadcaster's decision not to air a charity fundraising appeal for Gazans.

The appeal was nevertheless broadcast by ITV, Channel 4, and Channel Five Tuesday night and was watched by a combined audience of 4.5 million throughout Britain.

A voiceover at the beginning of the broadcast said, “This is not about the rights and wrongs of the conflict - these people simply need your help.”

Despite the inability to get exposure on BBC and Sky News, the aid agencies behind the appeal say they have been able to raise 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, had earlier alleged that the appeal was not to be broadcasted by the corporation because it would have damaged the impartiality of its coverage of the conflict.

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Retaliatory rocket lands deep in Israel
Thu, 29 Jan 2009 07:16:46 GMT
Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip have fired rockets into Israel after Israeli warplanes pounded the southern parts of the sliver.

One of the rockets fired on Thursday morning hit the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council area, but did not result in any damage or casualty, Israel Radio reported.

Israeli Air Forces bombed the southern parts of the densely populated costal sliver early on Thursday for a second consecutive day.

Israeli warplanes embarked on bombing the Rafah border region on Wednesday, hitting the tunnels under the border with Egypt.

Shortly after the Israel resumed air strikes on the beleaguered strip, a Palestinian Qassam-type rocket fired from Gaza hit the Eshkol region in the western Negev, causing no casualties.

The cross-border tunnels along Rafah have been used by Palestinians to import food, medicines and other vital supplies in the face of a 19-month-long Israeli blockade.

The development comes as indirect talks between Hamas and Israel over a ceasefire continues in Cairo with the mediation of Egypt.

The Palestinian side conditions the truce to reopening of the border-crossings into the blockaded Gaza Strip, while Tel Aviv says it would open the crossings in exchange for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Hamas says that Shalit would only be released in exchange for the release of a certain number of Palestinian prisoners whose names were given to Ofer Dekel, the former Israeli coordinator of the issue.

Salah el-Bardawil, a member of the Hamas delegation who is currently in Cairo for peace talks has also rejected Israel's demand.

"If they want to release Schalit, they have to pay a price in return... the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails waiting to be released," he said.

The Hamas delegation has offered a year-long truce but demanded "guarantees that Israel shows commitment to lift the siege and completely reopen crossings."

Tel Aviv waged an "all-out war" against the Gaza Strip on December 27 allegedly to stop rocket attacks into southern Israel. The military campaign resulted in the killing of 1,300 Palestinians -- many of whom women and children.

Hamas announced an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on January 18 after Israel declared a unilateral truce.

MSH/MMN

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Israel resumes airstrikes: 9 Gazans wounded
Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:48:26 GMT
Israel has resumed its airstrikes on the Gaza Strip leaving eight civilians and a Hamas policeman wounded in the southern parts of the region.

According to eyewitnesses and medics, the Hamas policeman, Mohammed al-Sumeiri, was injured while he was riding his motorcycle in the town of Khan Yunis on Thursday.

They added that an adult civilian who was riding on the back of the bike was also wounded. Six schoolchildren passing by also fell victim to the strike.

So far, the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip has claimed the lives of 1,330 Palestinians and left 5,450 others wounded.