Hamas Leader Calls for End of Truce with Israel and Attacks to Begin BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip - Hamas' exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal, says a 2005 truce with Israel is finished and appealed to all Palestinian factions to resume attacks: "There must be a roaring reaction so that we avenge all those victims." Israeli tank shells ripped through a residential neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip early Wednesday, killing at least 18 members of an extended family, including eight children as they slept, Palestinian health officials and witnesses said. Two Palestinian militant groups promised to step up suicide attacks in response. Hamas' military wing in Gaza urged Muslims worldwide to attack U.S. targets, a call disavowed by the Hamas-led Palestinian government. Israel halted artillery attacks in Gaza while it investigated the shelling, but said operations would continue against Palestinian rocket squads. Both Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed regret at the loss of civilian life and offered humanitarian and medical assistance to the Palestinian Authority. The tank shells landed around a compound of four apartment buildings in Beit Hanoun, the town Israel took over for a week in pursuit of militants who launch rockets at southern Israel. More than 50 Palestinians, most of them gunmen, were killed before Israeli troops withdrew on Tuesday, and the rocket attacks resumed immediately. After the Wednesday shelling, gaping holes were torn into the structures, owned by four brothers from the al-Athamna family who lived side by side. Blood pooled in front of the houses. Asma al-Athamna, 14, said her family was woken early Wednesday by the sound of an explosion. Her mother quickly ordered everyone out of the house. "She was saying, 'There is shelling.'" Another shell landed as the family fled, killing the girl's mother, older sister and brother-in-law. "They were killed when they came out of our house," the weeping girl said, speaking from her hospital bed. "I was behind them and I was wounded. " Bits of dismembered bodies were plastered to walls of the damaged buildings and lying on the ground. A woman's headscarf, children's boots and slippers, and a pair of jeans — all burnt — were strewn outside. "I saw people coming out of the house, bleeding and screaming. I carried out a young girl covered with blood," said 35-year-old Rahwi Hamad. "We saw legs, hands, parts of heads stuck to the wall. There was a smell of blood and the stench of burnt bodies." A young man, standing in the bloodied alleyway, said an infant girl had been blown to pieces. "I tried to look for her head, I tried to look for her head," he shrieked, then sank to the ground, weeping. Weeping relatives gathered outside the homes. One man dipped his hand in victims' blood and smeared it all over his face. "God avenge us, God avenge us," he wailed. Khaled Radi, a health ministry official, said all the dead belonged to the al-Athamna family. About 60 people were wounded, including 26 children, the ministry said. The Israeli army said it had fired artillery at suspected rocket launching sites early Wednesday, but the targets were far from the apartment compound. In Gaza, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the "terrible, despicable crime" jeopardized peace prospects. "We tell the Israelis, you are not seeking peace at all, but are destroying all chances for peace. You must therefore bear all the consequences of these crimes," he told Palestine TV. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas suspended talks with Abbas on forming a coalition government. Abbas, a moderate from the rival Fatah party, urged that negotiations continue. Both men declared a three-day mourning period throughout the West Bank and Gaza and, in a rare gesture, the two visited victims in a Gaza hospital together and each donated blood. After the explosions, thousands of people, including relatives of the dead, gathered outside Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where some of the bodies were brought. Many called for revenge. Mashaal, Hamas's Syria-based leader, said his group was abandoning a February 2005 truce and would resume attacks, raising the prospect of a new wave of suicide bombings. Scores of Israelis have been killed in attacks by Hamas over the past decade. "The armed struggle is free to resume, and the resistance is dictated by local circumstances," he told Al-Jazeera from Damascus. Since the 2005 cease-fire there has been a sharp drop in violence, although rocket fire and periodic suicide attacks have continued. Hamas, however, has not been involved in any of the suicide bombings. The last Hamas suicide attack was in August 2004. Hamas militants in Gaza, accusing the U.S. of supporting Israel, urged Muslims around the world to target "the American enemy." But Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the Hamas-led government, said the group had no intention of attacking American targets. Israel, he added, "is a state that believes in killing, and therefore this state should cease to exist." The killing of Palestinian civilians in the past has often preceded a sharp escalation of violence. A series of deadly incidents last summer, including a June 9 explosion on a Gaza beach that killed eight civilians, was followed by the capture of an Israeli soldier and an ensuing Israeli invasion of Gaza. The civilian deaths drew swift condemnations around the world. France and Russia warned of an escalation of hostilities, and the British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, demanded that Israel "respect its obligation to avoid harming civilians." "It is hard to see what this action was meant to achieve and how it can be justified," she said in a statement. The U.N. special envoy to the Middle East, Alvaro de Soto, said he was "deeply appalled and shocked." Jordan, one of three Muslim states with diplomatic ties to Israel, denounced the "heinous massacre." Spontaneous demonstrations erupted across Gaza and the West Bank. In the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, thousands called for revenge and chanted, "Death to Israel, death to America." Black smoke billowed into the skies of northern Gaza as protesters set tires ablaze.
Sounds cliche'd, but political correctness aside, I wouldn't be surprised if yesterday's election defeats for the Republicans emboldened these imbeciles a little bit.
One of the questions we should ask Israelies is "What the **** were U thinking? Killing innocent children is an act of terror!"
I think our impotence in dealing with Iran and it's various unsavory activities have already done that. Artillery strikes in populated areas? WTF is that? Hamas does it, so Israel can too? BS.
I think what emboldened them was the fact that it had fallen apart anyway. There were suicide bombings recently, Israel invading, and killing women and children with tanks. I think that had all had a little more to do with it than our midterms.
Why is it BS? They are a tiny nation, surrounded by people who think they are the devil. I commend them for the strength and resolve to do what it takes.
What kind of argument is this? Can someone say: "Hamas doesn't even have a country, bullied by Isrealie war machines backed by US, branded as terrorists by the world. I commend them for the strength and resolve to do what it takes"? This is how absurd your argument above sounds. Nothing justify act of terror. Someone in the Israelie government should be tried for war crimes because of this.
So, Israel responds to attacks, kills mostly gunmen, some civilians tragically die in the process, and it draws zero criticism of the terrorists and universal condemnation of Israel. SSDD. Great group of people they got over there, chanting death to America. Hard to figure why more Americans don't follow the doves viewpoint and carry the torch for them.
^ Have you wondered why they are chanting "Death to America"? Is it because they hate our freedom or the fact that we give Israel over $2 Billion a year and that tank that fired the shell likely said "Made in the USA." I don't give Hamas the moral high ground but I don't think Israel has kept that high ground either. Israel's problems aren't necessarily the US's and the sooner American policy takes a more objective viewpoint of the situation the better things will be for us and frankly for the Israelis too.
And yet the Israelis are an illegal occupying oppressor and you have people applauding everything they do as well. Both sides over there have made wrong move after wrong move. Targeting civilians is never good no matter who does it. Occupying a people and oppressing them based on nothing more than their ethnicity is also bad, and isn't right no matter who does it.
Israel makes their own tanks, the Merkava (chariot in Hebrew). America also gives tons of money to various Arab nations (Egypt chief among them) and until they elected a terrorist organization to be their government, also provided a very significant amount of aid to the Palestinians. That we were supporting the enemies of an ally to the point where whn we cut off that aid they said it would shut down their government, speaks volumes to me. How much aid was Iran sending to Israel? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I'll side with the group that doesn't intentionally target civilians. You are welcome to equate them. Israel will be better off when they realize that no matter how much restraint they show, they are never going to get world opinion on their side and thus choose to solve their own problems by annexing whatever territory they feel is necessary, get behind their walls, and cut off all ties to the Palestinians. After that happens, the next terrorist attack will be an act of war and can be responded to as such, time to stop making it a law enforcement problem.
ISrael isn't showing much restraint. While it isn't committing genocide, that doesn't mean it is showing restriant. They won't annex territority because that would mean giving Palestinians power, and possibly outnumbering the Jews. Israel has certainly intentionally targeted civilians in the past, and regularly disregards civilians even if it doesn't target them. They also are the one side intentionally oppressing, and denying self determination to the other side, and making one set of laws for one ethnic group, and another set of laws for a different ethnic group. I have no idea why you would want to support that side. I think it is wiser to support neither side until both adopt a more humane policy toward the other, and work on helping both see why it is beneficial to their own side to adopt such a policy.
I would tend to agree. It shows about as much restraint as the Turks have done to the Kurds or the Sri Lankans have done to the Tamils which is to say not that much. Their actions aren't much less brutal than these other nations in dealing with insurgency. This is the very problem that Israel found itself in when it decided to annex and occoupy lands already resident with Palestinians. It has tried hard to annex and expel as many residents as possible through brutal armed force, settlements and basically small scale ethnic cleansing in order to grab as much land as possible but this policy has pretty much reached its limits. Israelis are being very unrealistic in its policies in asking Palestinians to continue to live in poverty and squalor under hostile brutal military occupation, near complete blockade and isolation with no citizenship of any nation, no funds and no govt services, while lands are slowly seized thru more and more settlements. I doubt Israelis would accept such conditions but they certainly expect Palestinians to do so indefinitely...
They are showing much more restraint than I would, tht is for damn sure. Only if they annex territory that has Palestinians inside of it. They can make the settlements, roads, rivers, et. part of Israel without increasing their Palestinian population. America has intentionally targeted civilians in the past. Palestinians are doing it now. The Palestinians are certainly trying their best to oppress and deny self determination to Israel. You can't launch rockets into someone's territory and claim you are respecting their sovereignty at the same time. Israel is better at it (they have more money, better equipment, better training), which is why they get better results. Yeah, none of your posts could be considered one sided. I have simply recognized that the kumbiyah solution that everyone is waiting for is not going to happen. Someone is going to need to force a settlement, and Israel is in the best position to do that. The Palestinians should have taken whatever they could get a long time ago.
I think Hamas has a Rutgers dilemma, in that their strength of schedule is well below Al Qaeda's. Israeli shopping malls don't give you the power points that fighting America and Britian on multiple fronts does.
The Palestinians have no power to oppress Israel. They don't have a way to gain power since there is a military order to destroy in any business that can economically compete with an Israeli business. My posts are arguing against Israel because I am talking with someone that supports Israel despite their oppression, bigotry, and inhumane policies. I have never supported Palestinian terrorism, nor will I. I do support their right to a workable independent state. If someone came on here and was arguing that the Palestinians were blameless and we should support them against Israel, I would argue against them as well. Neither side has the moral high ground in this.
