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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Gaza Death Toll Passes 100 as Truce Efforts Build
2012-11-20
[An Nahar] Israeli air strikes killed 35 Paleostinians on Monday, hiking the Gazoo corpse count to 103 as global efforts to broker a truce to end the worst violence in four years gathered pace.

In the latest bloodshed, an Israeli missile killed a senior Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
beturbanned goon in a strike on a Gazoo City tower housing Paleostinian and international media, the Israeli army and gun-hung tough guys said.

Israel's intelligence services said the strike targeted "senior Islamic Jihad officials" who were on the premises. It was the second time in as many days that Israel had fired on the Shurouq Tower in the city's upscale Rimal neighborhood which is used by media outlets including Britannia's Sky News, the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network, Russia Today and Iran's Press TV.

Smoke was seen billowing from the lower floors of the tower, also used by Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,' Al-Aqsa TV whose offices were destroyed in the first strike on Sunday morning, officials said.

"One Paleostinian was killed and three others injured in a strike on the Shurouq Tower," an ambulance services statement said.

Islamic Jihad sources named him as Ramez Harb and said he was a senior commander in its armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades. Three other people were hurt in the strike, including two cameraman -- one who works for Al-Arabiya.

"One person was killed and lots of people were maimed. Now there's a fire on the second, third and four floors," Saed Swerky, Russia Today's Gazoo correspondent told Agence La Belle France Presse by phone just after the attack.

"The Israelis warned the foreigners to leave this building yesterday because they were going to attack it again," he said, speaking from inside the building.

In a statement, Israel's Shin Bet internal security services said it had targeted senior Islamic Jihad officials.

"In a joint activity between the Shin Bet and the IDF an attack was carried out on senior Islamic Jihad officials who were in the Shurouq building in Gazoo City."

On Sunday morning, Israeli jets bombed two media facilities, including the Shurouq Tower, leaving at least eight journalists injured. One of them lost a leg. Russia Today said its office was badly damaged in the incident, but none of its staff were hurt.

Israel's military defended the strike, saying it had targeted rooftop operational communications belonging to Hamas and had sought to minimize civilian casualties. But the strikes were condemned by the local Foreign Press Association as well as international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

Elsewhere, two more people died in bombing in Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gazoo, medics said. There was no immediate information on the identities of any of the victims.

Also during the afternoon, one person was killed and another two maimed when a missile struck a car just north of Gazoo City, medics said. There were no immediate details on identity of the victims.

Medics also said 22-year-old Ramadan Mahmoud died of injuries suffered in Maghazi refugee camp in central Gazoo on Sunday. Another three people also succumbed to injuries sustained in the violence, but the health ministry could not immediately provide details on their identities.

Meanwhile,
...back at the Senate, Odius Sepulcher called for war against the Visigoths...
a missile hit a cycle of violence east of Khan Younis in southern Gazoo, killing two men and critically wounding a child who was with them, Gazoo's ambulance service said. The two were named as Abdullah Abu Khater, 30, and Mahmoud Abu Khater, 32.

An earlier strike on Qarara in the same area killed two farmers, Ibrahim al-Astal and Obama al-Astal, medics said.

In a strike on southern Gazoo City, a car was hit, killing one man and injuring another three, officials said, naming him as 23-year-old Mohammed Shamalah. Shortly before that, three people were killed in a strike on a car in Deir al-Balah in central Gazoo, all of them from the same family: Amir Bashir, Tamal Bashir and Salah Bashir.

Early in the day, two women and a child were among four killed in a strike on Gazoo City's eastern Zeitoun neighborhood -- Nisma Abu Zorr, 23, Mohammed Abu Zorr, five, Saha Abu Zorr, 20 and Ahid al-Qatati, 35. And medics said another man had been found dead in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, naming him as Abdel Rahman al-Atar, a 50-year-old farmer.

As the violence raged for a sixth day, ceasefire efforts gathered steam, with Hamas officials in Cairo saying Egyptian-led talks with Israel were "positive" but now focused on the need to guarantee any truce. Desperate for a safe haven, many Gazoo families have fled their homes in search of a safe place, with some seeking haven in the south, which has seen fewer strikes.

But they know nowhere is safe.

"My son Mohammed refuses to eat. He follows me everywhere because he's so scared and asks me every 10 minutes when we're going to die," said Umm Jihad, 37. "He says he won't go back to school because he's scared he'll be martyred or that he'll come back from school and find that I or his brothers have been killed," she told Agence La Belle France Presse.

Mourners flocked to the funeral of nine members of one family killed in a weekend strike on a Gazoo City home, the tiny bodies of the five children carried through the streets wrapped in Paleostinian flags.

"Do children fire rockets?" shouted a man through a loudspeaker, as the crowd roared back: "No!"

The violence, which comes as Israel gears up for a general election on January 22, raised the specter of a broader Israeli military campaign like its 22-day Operation Cast Lead, launched at the end of December 2008. Analysts say Israel's leadership appears satisfied with the success of Operation Pillar of Defense and that could it be ready for a ceasefire. But the Jewish state has signaled it is ready to expand the operation.

And Gazoo's Hamas rulers have been emboldened after securing the support of the recently installed Islamist governments of Egypt and Tunisia.

The overall corpse count from the Israeli raids on the Paleostinian territory hit 98, with another 21 people killed on Monday.

The Israeli army said that 42 rockets had struck on Monday and another 19 been intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system.

To date, the military has struck more than 1,350 targets in Gazoo, and 640 rockets have crashed into southern Israel while another 324 have been intercepted.

The latest negotiations aimed at ending the conflict, conducted behind closed doors in Cairo, ended without agreement. But all sides have expressed a willingness to engage in more talks. Hamas has demanded Israel lift its six-year siege of Gazoo as a basic condition for a truce and is also understood to be seeking seeking guarantees Israel will stop its assassinations, like the one which killed a top military commander on Wednesday, sparking the current round of hostilities.

The Jewish state has showed little sign of being ready to call off or even briefly halt its campaign, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman insisting "the first and absolute condition for a truce is stopping all fire from Gazoo".

A string of international leaders have visited the region in recent days in a bid to end the bloodshed, with U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
expected to arrive on Tuesday for two-days of talks with Israel and Paleostinian leaders.

Speaking in Jerusalem after meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres, Mideast Quartet
... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy....
envoy Tony Blair expressed hope a truce would firm up in the coming days.

"I very much hope that during the coming days we can achieve cessation on a basis that stops the threat of missiles coming from Gazoo, targeted at Israeli civilians and also then relieves the people of Gazoo," he said in remarks broadcast on public radio.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle was also due to arrive in Jerusalem on Monday just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israel was ready to "significantly expand" its operation.

On Monday morning, public radio reported that some 40,000 reservists were already massed near the Gazoo border.
Posted by:Fred

#4  Very low death toll in Gaza considering the number of IDF strikes - speaks to very precise targeting by the Israelis. There is clearly an objective to minimize civilian casualties during this operation.
Posted by: Raider   2012-11-20 23:17  

#3  Israeli radio claims Hamas claims that a ceasefire is to take effect as of 9:00PM local Gaza/Israel time, but both Fox + CNN repor there appears to be no sign of such???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2012-11-20 22:13  

#2  Tuesday updates:

first Arab casualties in Israel from Gaza rockets
first IDF casualty (from shrapnel)
first mass execution of Gazas suspected of collaboration by Hamas
about a half dozen successful targeting of rocket squads
First Hamas attack at a checkpoint. Checkpoint (used to provide stuff for Gaza) is closed now and will probably go to minimal operation later today.

Monday had about 120 rockets from Gaza toward Israel. This was up from about 70 on Sunday.
Posted by: lord garth   2012-11-20 10:44  

#1  That's less than one Paleo per rocket fired at Israel.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2012-11-20 01:06  

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