Hamas keeps flag flying
Arab News



FIGHTING SPIRIT: A Palestinian man places a Hamas flag in the debris of a mosque in Gaza City on Wednesday. (AFP)


GAZA CITY: Israel yesterday rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and stepped up preparations for a possible ground offensive.

US-made Israeli aircraft carried out more than 10 airstrikes in sharply reduced operations in rainy weather that allowed many Gaza residents to venture out to shop for food for the first time since the start of Israel’s five-day-old war on a defenseless population.

The poor weather — “a truce imposed by God” as one Palestinian put it — could delay any push by Israeli tanks into the impoverished territory.

US President George W. Bush spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert but did not discuss a timetable for halting Israeli strikes, the White House said. Bush put the onus on Hamas to stop firing rockets as a first step to a truce.

As expected, Israel brushed aside as “unrealistic” a French proposal for a 48-hour truce that would allow in more humanitarian aid for Gaza’s 1.5 million residents.

“If we think there will be a diplomatic solution that will ensure a better security reality in the south, we will consider it. But at the moment, it’s not there,” an aide quoted Olmert as saying.

“We didn’t start this operation just to end it with rocket fire continuing as it did before it began,” Olmert said, according to the aide. “Imagine if we declare a unilateral cease-fire and a few days later rockets fall on (the town of) Ashkelon. What will that do to Israel’s deterrence?”

Hamas vowed to fight “until the last breath” if Israel makes good on threats to send ground troops into Gaza.

“We in Hamas are ready for all scenarios and we will fight until the last breath,” said Mushir Al-Masri, the group’s senior leader. “Israel will embark on a veritable misadventure if it decides to invade Gaza. We have prepared surprises for them,” he vowed.

President Mahmoud Abbas called for the war to be stopped “immediately and without any conditions” and said Israel was “fully responsible” for the carnage. Abbas will ask the UN Security Council to act, said his aides. Diplomats said the deadliest conflict in the Gaza Strip in four decades appeared close to a tipping point after five days of Israeli airstrikes that have killed 393 Palestinians, at least a quarter of whom, UN figures showed, were civilians.

Inside Gaza, many residents ventured outside their homes to stock up on supplies, taking advantage of a brief lull in Israeli airstrikes that have turned Hamas government buildings into piles of rubble.

Yesterday’s airstrikes targeted Hamas government offices in Gaza City. Palestinian medics said four people, including a doctor and a paramedic, were killed. Food supplies in Gaza were running low and power cuts were affecting much of the territory. Hospitals were struggling to cope with the high number of casualties from the Israeli war.

Medical officials revised the number of wounded to 1,650 after figures arrived from medical centers that had not reported their casualty statistics earlier.

Israel’s intensive bombardment has failed to stop rocket fire into Israel. Since the start of the onslaught, Palestinians have fired more than 250 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, killing three civilians and one soldier and wounding several dozen people.

Five of the rockets fired since late on Tuesday slammed into the desert town of Beersheba, some 40 km from the Gaza border — the deepest yet that its projectiles have reached inside Israel.