Operation in Densely Packed City, Camps Weighed
By Craig Whitlock and Reyham Abdel Kareem
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 11, 2009
JERUSALEM, Jan. 10 -- The war in the Gaza Strip entered its third week Saturday, as weary Palestinians braced themselves for the possibility that the worst was yet to come. Israeli tanks edged closer to Gaza City, and warplanes dropped leaflets warning that an escalation in the fighting was likely.
Thousands of the leaflets fell out of the sky onto the Shati refugee camp, a concrete slum where about 80,000 people live along the Mediterranean Sea. The written warnings were clear: Don't help Hamas, and evacuate your homes if there are any "terrorist elements" nearby.
But with Hamas fighters and supporters scattered everywhere in Gaza, civilians in the Shati camp wondered where they were supposed to go. "They are shelling everywhere -- it makes no difference to them whether people are civilians or militants," said Mahmoud Shahin, 60.
Intense firefights had already forced Shahin and his family to abandon their home north of Gaza City and seek refuge with relatives in the Shati camp. He said dogs were eating corpses in the streets of his old neighborhood. Gazans have seen firsthand the power of Israel's military many times over the years, he said. "But this time, it's different. It's awful. It's like a monster attack."
Many Gazans also reported receiving a surge in telephone calls overnight from Israeli intelligence officers, warning them of planned operations in their districts but also attempting to pump them for information. Other callers purported to be concerned Arabs from other countries, such as Libya and Algeria.
The Israeli military has mobilized tens of thousands of reserve soldiers in the past week. Government leaders have said they are debating whether to expand the war by sending troops into Gaza City and the territory's densely packed refugee camps, where the leadership of Hamas and many fighters are based.
On Saturday, Israeli military officials said they bombed about 60 targets, while Hamas launched about 15 rockets into southern Israel, the fewest since the war began. One rocket struck the city of Ashkelon, 12 miles north of Gaza, wounding several people.
Israeli leaders have said they will not withdraw from Gaza until they are confident Hamas will no longer be able to attack Israeli towns with the crude rockets or other missiles.
Eight Palestinians were killed Saturday when a shell crashed outside a home in the Jabalya refugee camp, Gazan medical officials said. The Israeli military denied responsibility, saying its forces were not in that area.
More than 840 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began the military offensive Dec. 27, according to health officials in Gaza. Thirteen Israelis have died, including three civilians struck by rocket fire and 10 soldiers.
Diplomats struggled to jump-start peace talks Saturday, a day after both Israel and Hamas rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire.
In Cairo, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, pressed Israeli and Hamas officials to sign on to the French-Egyptian proposal and warned of catastrophic consequences if the fighting escalated.
Abbas said both Hamas and Israel bear responsibility for the conflict, but he singled out Israel as responsible for hundreds of civilian casualties. "If Israel doesn't want to accept," he said of the cease-fire plan, "it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood."
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after a bloody battle with Abbas's Fatah party, which was kicked out but still controls the West Bank.
The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said the Islamist movement would not give up or agree to a cease-fire until Israel withdrew and reopened border crossings into Gaza. Israel has imposed an economic blockade on Gaza since Hamas came to power.
In a televised speech from Damascus, the Syrian capital, Meshaal called the war a "holocaust" and said, "Let the aggression stop first, let the crossings open, and then people can look into the issue of calm."
Israel dismissed the Security Council resolution Friday, calling the plan "unworkable" because it lacked any guarantee that Hamas would stop firing rockets.
Meanwhile, with food increasingly scarce and electricity shortages widespread, Gazans struggled to endure.
In Gaza City, the owners of a bakery, the Extra Baguette, decided to share access to their still-functioning generator. They installed several small electric ovens on the sidewalk and invited passersby to bake their own bread, if they had their own ingredients.
In the Shati camp, another baker, Zuhair Abu al-Arraj, opened his house to a steady stream of neighbors looking for a place to cook. Arraj did not have electricity, but he did have a clay oven, which he powered with cardboard refuse and paper trash collected from the streets.
"Give me more, give me more," he said, sticking his hands out to two women who had brought baskets of dough. Dripping with sweat and sporting bloodshot eyes, Arraj had baked 400 loaves by midafternoon. "The important thing is just to end this suffering," he said.
The Israeli military ordered another three-hour pause in its operations Saturday to enable relief workers to deliver supplies and send ambulances to collect the wounded. But sporadic gunfire and explosions occurred during the lull nevertheless, witnesses said. And humanitarian-aid agencies said they still faced enormous challenges.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency said the Israeli military refused to allow aid shipments through Gaza's border checkpoints Saturday, saying the crossings were closed for the Sabbath. The U.N. agency had temporarily suspended deliveries Friday after it said two aid workers in a truck convoy had been shot and killed by Israeli forces.
The Israeli military said Saturday that an investigation had found no evidence that its soldiers were involved.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the Relief and Works Agency, said Israel had formally assured the United Nations that its workers were not being targeted.
But he said a lack of trust remained.
"We've had enough expressions of regret," he said. "It's time for Israel to step up to the plate and deliver."
Abdel Kareem reported from Gaza City.
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