Palestinian leader Dr. Nizar Rayyan and his family were killed by the Israeli airforce on January 1, 2009. Over 400 people have been massacred since December 27 in Gaza.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
00:33 Mecca time, 21:33 GMT
Israel kills senior Hamas figure
Rayyan is the most senior Hamas leader killed since Israel began its aerial offensive
A senior leader of the Palestinian Hamas movement has been assassinated in an air assault by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Nizar Rayyan is the most senior Hamas official killed since Israel unleashed its massive bombardment on Gaza, in what Israel argues is a response to persistent rocket fire from the enclave.
Israel went on to bomb sites near the southern Rafah border and open ground near the boundary in the north, increasing expectations of a ground offensive.
More than 40 bombs were dropped on the sixth day of the assault.
Medics say 13 members of Rayyan's family, including his wife and three children, were killed in the attack on his five-storey home in the Jabaliya refugee camp on Thursday.
About 30 people were wounded and surrounding buildings badly damaged.
Rayyan, 51, had refused to take security precautions despite Hamas figures being at risk of assassination. He held a PhD in Islamic studies and lectured at the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip.
Violations suspected
Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said the killing of Rayyan comes at a time when international organisations are saying Israel's policy of bombing the homes of Hamas leaders is against international law.
"While they may be targeting senior members of the factions and military wings, these organisations say there is no doubt that there are families there and they are in residential neighbourhoods," he said.
"As we have seen in this particular strike, it was a direct hit in the heart of the Jabaliya camp, the most densely populated in Gaza, home to 70,000 Palestinians."
At least 420 people have been killed and 2,100 injured since Israel's aerial bombardment of the coastal strip started six days ago.
The UN has said at least 25 per cent of the dead are civilians.
The 1.5 million people living in Gaza are unable to flee the bombardment as crossing points remain closed for most of the time. However, about 200 Gazans chose to re-enter the strip after being stuck in Egypt when the Rafah crossing was briefly opened on Thursday.
Earlier, Israel launched attacks from drones, manned aircraft and navy vessels on a number of buildings in Gaza, including the parliament building and the justice ministry.
Palestinian officials said attacks on government offices left four people dead and at least 25 people injured.
Meanwhile, at least 10 rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel.
The Israeli town of Beer-sheva, which lies about 40km from the boundary, was hit and the Israeli army said one rocket hit a residential building in the port city of Ashdod - more than 30km from Gaza. No Israelis were injured.
UN failure
With international pressure mounting on both sides to agree a ceasefire, the UN security council failed to agree on the wording of a draft resolution to end the violence at an emergency meeting held late on Wednesday in New York.
The special session followed calls from Arab countries for an urgent resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, and warnings from aid agencies that the people of Gaza are facing a humanitarian catastrophe.
The attempt to draft a resolution failed after the US and the UK requested that the document should be amended to mention Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
The US has said any lasting ceasefire is dependent on concrete assurances from Hamas – in terms that are acceptable to Israel – that the rocket attacks will stop.
Israel has so far rejected calls for a ceasefire.
It has described itself as being at "all-out war" with Hamas- the Palestinian faction that has controlled the Gaza Strip since a fragile six-month ceasefire between the two sides came to an end on December 19.
Israel says the current operation is aimed at destroying the ability of Palestinian fighters in Gaza to launch rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities.
Alan Fisher, reporting for Al Jazeera from the Israeli side of the Erez crossing, said Israel continued to mass troops and tanks along its boundary with the Gaza Strip, prompting speculation it is planning a land invasion.
"If Israel did send troops in and started to lose soldiers ... then I think that public opinion would leap away from this operation very quickly," he said.
While the chances of agreeing a ceasefire appear remote, Fisher said: "It seems it is almost up to the international community to come up with some sort of deal that will allow both sides to walk away."
On Thursday, Israel said it would facilitate the departure of the nearly 400 foreigners present in the Gaza Strip at the request of their respective embassies.
'No humanitarian crisis'
Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, said on a visit to Paris on Thursday that there was "no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce," reinforcing her rejection of a French-proposed ceasefire to allow in humanitarian aid.
"Israel has been supplying comprehensive humanitarian aid to the Strip ... and has even been stepping this up by the day," the foreign ministry quoted her as saying according to Reuters.
However, Karen Abu Zayed, the commissioner for the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said on Thursday: "In my eight years in UNRWA, the urgency of an appeal for the people here [in Gaza] has never been so acute. I am appalled and saddened when I see the suffering around me."
The UNRWA has made an emergency appeal for $34 million to help the Gaza population.
Hasan Khalaf, the assistant deputy health minister in Gaza, said it was "not a war in Gaza, it is an Israeli massacre".
"There is no comparison between what we have and what [Israel] are doing to us. The international community are standing unable to help us, and yet we know they have been helping Israel for tens of years.
"Even now they are comparing those getting scared in the south of Israel, and those buried under the rubble after having their houses bombarded."
Khalaf said the central hospital in Gaza has been receiving about 250 people per day.
"We received them in surgery, intensive care and the operating room. We had to increase the capacity for operating rooms from six to 12," he said.
"If we run out of supplies, the international community will know very well," Khalaf said. "The International Committee of the Red Cross and the World Bank supply us. They know what shortage we have."
The UN food distribution centre in Gaza, which has been closed for two weeks because of a shortage of supplies after Israel stepped up its two-year blockade of the Strip, is expected to open on Thursday.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Livni: No crisis in Gaza Strip
Tzipi Livni held talks with Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris
Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, has again rejected a French proposal for a ceasefire to allow aid into the Gaza Strip saying there is "no humanitarian crisis".
Israel's foreign ministry quoted Livni as having said in a statement during a trip to Paris that "there is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce."
Over the past six days more than 400 Palestinians have been killed and 2,000 wounded under an Israeli aerial bombardment.
The strip, home to 1.5 million people, is already suffering shortages of power, food and medical supplies due to a two-year blockade imposed by Israel on the area.
Livni was quoted as saying: "Israel has been supplying comprehensive humanitarian aid to the Strip... and has even been stepping this up by the day."
The Israeli cabinet had previously rejected a French proposal for a 48-hour ceasefire on Wednesday.
Livni held talks with Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, in the French capital on Thursday as pressure built on Israel to agree a truce to allow aid into the besieged Gaza Strip.
Sarkozy ceased to hold the rotating presidency of the European Union as of midnight on Wednesday, but decided to go ahead with the meeting which was aimed at brokering some form of end to the Israeli assault on Gaza.
The Israeli cabinet rejected a French proposal for a ceasefire on Wednesday on the grounds it was seeking a "durable solution" and that a temporary truce would simply allow Hamas fighters to regroup and re-arm.
Hundreds dead
France has been vocal in the diplomatic push for peace in Gaza and chaired an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Paris on Tuesday to discuss solutions to the conflict.
The Czech Republic has now taken over the EU presidency and a spokesman for the country's foreign office confirmed to Al Jazeera that it would be continuing the line of the French ceasefire proposal.
A Czech mission will begin a trip to the region on Sunday with visits scheduled to include Amman, Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Cairo.
Rula Amin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Beirut, said a senior Hamas source had confirmed on Thursday that there had been a European proposal for a ceasefire, but that its terms were very vague and that Hamas was still looking into it.
Amin said the ceasefire called for a halt to all attacks from both sides on civilian targets, the opening of crossings into Gaza and some kind of European presence to help organise the border crossings.
Bernard Kouchner, France's foreign minister, said on Wednesday that he and Sarkozy would be in southern Lebanon next week, and "will see if it is possible to go to Israel".
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
No comments:
Post a Comment