Air raids and fighting in the Gaza Strip : More than 30 dead

The Israeli army carried out air raids and Palestinian activists fought Tuesday in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of seeking to ...destroy... the population of the territory devastated by 18 days of bloody offensive. More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in and around Gaza City and in other areas of the territory controlled by Hamas, bringing to over 950 the toll of dead Palestinians in the Israeli offensive launched on December 27, according to Palestinian medical sources.

•     By early evening, Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids that have killed six Palestinians, including three children playing in the street in Jabalia (north). Two Palestinians were killed in Beit Lahya (north) and five in Khouzaa (south) according on the medical sources.
  
      Meanwhile, fighting opposed Israeli troops aboard tanks and palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
  
      In the early hours of the day, Israeli tanks had conducted incursions into Tal al-Hawa, Sheikh Ajline and Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza peripheral City, where fighting had opposed activists firing mortar shells and RPG rockets, according to witnesses.
  
      Dozens of homes were destroyed or damaged by bombing in the area.
  
      ‘This is the 18th day of the Israeli aggression against our people and the attack becomes more fierce each day and the number of victims increases. Israel persists in this aggression to destroy our people there,’ said Abbas in Ramallah in the West Bank.
  
      According to the latest news provided by the head of emergency services in Gaza, Hassanein Mouawiya at least 952 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, including 277 children, 97 women and 92 elderly, and more than 4400 injured.
  
      A Saudi jihadist who fought alongside Hamas was killed in the offensive, reported Islamist sites.
  
      Three Israeli soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in an explosion in northern Gaza, according to the army.
  
      In total, ten soldiers and three Israeli civilians have been killed since December 27.
  
      The Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak said that the offensive had achieved ‘most’ of these goals ‘but probably not all.’
  
      The operation did not stop firing rockets into southern Israel, where three of these devices and mortar shells were shot without a victim, according to the army.
  
      'We have won many successes against the regime, infrastructure and the military wing of Hamas but our mission is not over,’ also said Gabi Ashkenazi, the chief of staff, insisting on the ‘complicated fighting.’
  
      An ultranationalist Israeli MP Avigdor Lieberman, said Israel had to fight Hamas in Gaza as the United States had faced in Japan during the Second World War, in an apparent allusion to the use of the atomic bomb.
  
      On the diplomatic front, Cairo was still waiting for that Hamas committed without delay on its plan for a cease-fire in Gaza, where the Islamic movement have said "remarks’.
  
      The number two of the political bureau of Hamas in exile in Damascus, Moussa Abu Marzouk, has stated that there was ‘a chance’ that his movement accepts the Egyptian plan if changes were made.
  
      An Israeli envoy, Amos Gilad, is scheduled to visit Cairo Thursday to discuss it.
  
      In New York, the Security Council is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the situation in Gaza for the first time Thursday since the adoption of resolution 1860, calling for the establishment ‘of a cease-fire’ but remained a dead letter.
  
      The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected in Cairo Wednesday, the first stage of a tour in the Middle East.
  
      In Washington, the Secretary of State designated Hillary Clinton assured the Congress that the administration of Barack Obama would make ‘every effort’ to allow a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
  
      In the meantime, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains critical. One million people in the Gaza Strip, two thirds of the population, live without electricity, 750,000 are without water and hospitals are run by emergency generators, according to the UN.
  
      The President of the International Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, who has visited hospitals in Gaza, said: ‘seeing what I see is just very painful.’
  
      The situation in Gaza is a ´test of our humanity’ said Director of Operations in Gaza at the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), John Ging. Civilian populations are not (protected) at home, they are not in ours.’
  
      In the West Bank, a Palestinian who tried to grab the weapon of a Israeli soldier was shot dead.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.