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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scoobah who wrote (13901)	7/1/2006 1:02:41 PM
From: Solon	Respond to of 32591

Palestinians Say Israeli Soldier Alive, Wounded; Seek Exchange July 1 (Bloomberg) -- A Palestinian official said that an abducted Israeli soldier was alive but wounded as the armed groups holding him demanded a prisoner release that Israel immediately rejected. Three groups, led by the military wing of the Hamas group that controls the Palestinian cabinet, kidnapped Corporal Gilad Shalit, 19, on June 25 in an attack on a tank in the Gaza Strip that left two other soldiers dead. In a leaflet faxed to reporters in Gaza City today, the groups demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims held in Israeli jails. It was unclear what they were offering in return for their release. The leaflet also repeated an earlier demand that some 400 women and children under 18 also in Israeli prison be freed in return for information on Shalit. ``The whole international community, including the U.S. and the European Union, everyone has called for the unequivocal and immediate release of Shalit,'' Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said by phone. ``That is our position as well.'' Israeli forces have been in Gaza since the pre-dawn hours of June 28, marking the most serious military escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Israel withdrew from the territory nine months ago. It is the first major conflict between Israel and Hamas since the Islamic movement that refuses to recognize the Jewish state won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January. Abdomen Wound Ziad Abu Ein, Palestinian deputy minister in charge of prisoners, told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah that Shalit had three bullet wounds and was being treated by a Palestinian doctor. He said the information came from an unidentified doctor who treated Shalit. ``The ministry of prisoners' affairs received information from a Palestinian doctor in Gaza who visited the abducted soldier and said he was shot three times in the abdomen, but his condition is stable,'' Abu Ein said. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has acted as a mediator between Israel and Hamas over a possible deal to free Shalit was quoted yesterday by Cairo-based state-run Al-Ahram newspaper as saying that Hamas has set conditions for the soldier's release. He didn't name the conditions. Israeli warplanes overnight and in the early morning bombed training camps used by military groups affiliated with Hamas and its political rival Fatah, as well as seven main roads in the Gaza Strip, the army said in an e-mailed statement as its offensive moved into its fourth day. `Topple' ``The aim of this aggression being carried out against the Palestinian people and their democratically elected government is, I believe, to topple this government,'' Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismael Hania said in a Gaza City mosque yesterday. The incursion came hours after Hamas and Fatah reached an agreement that seeks an independent state alongside Israel. While Hamas is still formally sworn to Israel's destruction, the accord implicitly recognizes the Jewish state's right to exist. Hamas took over the Palestinian cabinet in March after winning the parliamentary elections. Its biggest rival, the Fatah movement, which backs resuming peace talks with Israel, still controls the presidency and security forces. Hamas and Fatah have been locked in a contest for power, a conflict that has erupted into street battles and bombings. The chaos in Gaza, a 360-square-kilometre (139-square-mile) enclave stretching along the Mediterranean coast, has been compounded by the decision of Western nations to cut off financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, in a bid to force Hamas to accept Israel's right to exist and foreswear violence. Without the aid, or tax transfers from Israel, the Authority hasn't been able to pay civil servants, damaging the economy. The 1.4 million residents of the Gaza Strip will face a humanitarian crisis ``within days'' unless fighting between Israelis and Palestinians stops, the head of United Nations emergency relief agency said. ``We are heading into the abyss,'' UN Under Secretary General Jan Egeland told reporters in New York yesterday. ``We will see a major humanitarian crisis because of the lack of clean water and basic supplies.''

To: Scoobah who wrote (13901)	7/1/2006 4:38:13 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

I truly hope that Israel takes the fight into Damascus.

To: Scoobah who wrote (13901)	7/1/2006 9:19:48 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32591

The Israelis have bombed the Pal pm hq; news.bbc.co.uk bout time

To: Scoobah who wrote (13901)	7/3/2006 11:47:12 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

As the demon rhetoric pile on, Israel must not pass up on this opportunity to annihilate hamass: Hamas cleric preaches revenge Saturday July 01, 2006 14:45 - (SA) suntimes.co.za By Charles Levinson KHAN YUNIS - As aged Hamas hardliner Ahmed Nimr took the pulpit Friday to invoke the wrath of God on the Jews, Israel's fierce retribution for a captured soldier sounded through the walls of his Gaza mosque. "The Jews have the technology and the power, the mighty fortresses and their tanks, and they think that this will protect them from us," Nimr thundered as the boom of exploding artillery shells reverberated through the mosque. "But God has sent his men to destroy them," the gray-haired sheikh told followers in the Rahma mosque in Khan Yunis. Rahma means "mercy" in Arabic, but in his sermon on this Muslim day of rest, with tensions rising between Israel and Palestinian militants who on Sunday seized an Israeli soldier, there was little mercy in Nimr's words. "God has sent his soldiers to execute his will on the Jews," declared the retired Arabic teacher-turned preacher whose fiery sermons draw worshippers from throughout Khan Yunis. Hundreds of the faithful listened intently, sweating beneath idle ceiling fans. Electricity only comes a few hours each day since Israel struck a power plant at the onset of its sweeping military operation to recover the soldier. Gilad Shalit, 19, was snatched on Sunday by Palestinian militants, including Hamas loyalists, who tunnelled under the border with Israel and caught an army unit unaware. The attack, in which two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian militants were killed and was dubbed "Destroyed Dream" by the Palestinians, was the culmination of a Koranic verse which promised God would send his soldiers to punish the Jews, Nimr said. The verse in question, the focal point of his 45-minute sermon, comes from Koran's Al Hasher chapter, verse 95:3. The verse first appeared in the seventh century when the early followers of the prophet Mohammed were putting down Jewish resistance to their rule in the city of Medina in modern day Saudi Arabia. "Destroyed Dream came from God, great be He, to protect the Islamic project from destruction and with it we realised what we have long hoped for: to kidnap an Israeli soldier in battle," Nimr said. In his sermon, Nimr also praised an Islamic Jihad militant shot and killed by Israel Friday east of Khan Yunis while allegedly attempting to plant a landmine. Those Palestinians who die attacking Israel are the true chosen people, he said. "God has chosen his people to carry out his work and they are great men." Nimr publicly opposed Hamas's participation in January's parliamentary election, in which the Islamists scored a stunning upset over the long-ruling Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. Hamas, however, refuses to recognise Israel or renounce violence and its rise to power soon brought international condemnation and a crippling aid boycott on the Palestinian Authority. To extricate Palestinians from their predicament the moderate Abbas urged Hamas and other factions to agree to a policy initiative drawn up by militants in Israeli jails. Hamas vehemently opposed the Abbas-backed initiative which implicitly recognises the Jewish state, but subsequently agreed to it. Hardline elements in Hamas, however, Nimr included, continue to oppose it. "We kidnapped this soldier from his tank to protect the Islamic project from being destroyed by the prisoners’ initiative," he said with frail arms shaking and purple veins bulging in his forehead. "With this soldier, God has given us something better than the prisoners’ initiative so that our people will not lose hope." After the aging sheikh's impassioned call to jihad, or holy war, worshippers took to the streets, along with others from the nearby Great Mosque. One thousand supporters of Hamas marched through the streets in a show of support, calling on the Islamists not to give up the kidnapped soldier. "We are telling our leaders not to turn over the kidnapped soldier," said Aish al-Astal, an unemployed 28-year-old marching in the rally. "If he is valuable to his family, so are our 9,000 prisoners in Israel valuable to their families." Sapa-AFP