News and Articles

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli Hunts launched on Saturday and the morning of Sunday, more than 100 tons of bombs on security installations in Gaza, which left at least 230 Palestinians dead, in what represents one of the Offensive bloodiest in decades in the conflict in the Middle East.

The Israeli government said that the attack marked the beginning of a campaign to halt rocket attacks and mortars that have traumatized southern Israel.

Killed at least 230 Palestinians, mostly militia members, and over 400 were injured in one of the bloodiest days in decades of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis were killed and six wounded.

The assault triggered unprecedented protests throughout the Arab world. Many Western allies of Israel called for restraint, although the United States blamed Hamas for the fighting.

But there was no end in sight. The first round of attacks began around noon on Saturday, followed by successive waves that continued until the early hours of Sunday.

Israel hinted it would pursue the leaders of Hamas, and the militiamen were still firing a barrage of rockets. Armored units and infantry moved toward the Israeli border with Gaza in preparation for a possible ground offensive, officers said on condition of anonymity imposed by military regulations.

In the first attack Sunday morning, Israeli aircraft destroyed a mosque near the Shifa hospital in Gaza city, Palestinian sources said. There were no initial reports of casualties and the army made no statements.

In a televised statement on Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the aim was to "provoke a fundamental improvement in the security situation of the inhabitants of the south," adding that "could take some time."

The attacks caused great panic and confusion in Gaza, while clouds of black smoke rose over the territory, ruled by Hamas for about 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles fell in densely populated areas at a time when children were leaving school, and women took to the streets searching frantically for their children. At least 15 civilians died, according to the sources.

The militiamen often operate against Israel from civilian areas, which has caused great mortality in the population over the reprisal of the Jewish state. On Saturday night, Israeli forces flooded the phones of people in Gaza with messages in Arabic that called for moving away from the houses where they might have caches of weapons of the militiamen.

The offensive began eight days after the end of a six-month truce between Israel and the militia. According to the Israeli army, militiamen fired about 300 rockets and mortars against Israeli targets last week and 10 times that number throughout the year.

"There is a time for calm and there is a time to fight, and now it's time to fight. The operation will be expanded if needed," said the Israeli minister of defense, Ehud Barak, during a press conference.

The leaders of the Jewish state had threatened a large-scale offensive.

Hamas said that it will avenge, not only with rocket attacks, but sending suicide commandos to Israel. "Hamas will continue the resistance until their last drop of blood," said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told a radio station in Gaza.

When asked whether Israel could now continue their attacks against political leaders in Gaza, the military spokeswoman Avital Leibovitz said: "Any installation of Hamas is a target."

In the main complex of security forces in Gaza City, they found the bodies of more than a dozen uniformed police officers lying on the floor. A survivor lifted the official rate, in a defiant show of faith to the Muslim style. The police chief in Gaza was among the dead.

Protests erupted into Israel, both in the West Bank, the other Palestinian territory _ controlled by the moderate president Mahmud Abbas _, as elsewhere in the Arab world.

Abbas said in a statement that condemned "this aggression" and called containment, said one adviser, Nabil Abu Rdeneh.

Several hundreds of angry Jordanians protested against a UN compound in Amman. "Hamas, goes on! You're the gun, bullets us," was one of the heckling. Several protesters waved the characteristic green banners of Hamas.

In Beirut, dozens of youths took to the streets and burned tires. At al-Yarmouk camp on the outskirts of Damascus, dozens of Palestinians also protested the attack, promising to continue their struggle against Israel.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Vatican, UN Secretary General and special envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair called for an immediate restoration of calm. The Arab League called an emergency meeting for Sunday to discuss the situation.

In Washington, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: "The continuing attacks by Hamas against Israel must cease if we want to end the violence. The United States called on Israel to avoid civilian casualties in their attacks against Hamas in Gaza."