Hamas rejected an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel on Tuesday, moments after the Israeli Cabinet accepted the plan. (AP)
JERUSALEM — Plans for a truce devolved into threats of a wider war Tuesday as the first significant attempt to end more than a week’s worth of round-the-clock fire between Israel and Hamas ended before it had even begun.
The unravelling of an Egyptian cease-fire proposal offered little immediate hope for a diplomatic solution to a conflict that has left more than 190 Palestinians in Gaza dead and that on Tuesday claimed its first Israeli fatality.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the military authorization to use “full force” against militants in Gaza and vowed that Hamas and its allies would suffer for their decision not to halt their rocket fire into Israel.
“Hamas chose to continue fighting and will pay the price for that decision,” Netanyahu said in a televised address Tuesday evening. “When there is no cease-fire, our answer is fire.”
Netanyahu was under pressure from his right flank late Tuesday to authorize a risky ground invasion of Gaza aimed at ending Hamas’s reign as the de facto power in the coastal strip. Reflecting tensions within his government, Netanyahu fired his deputy defense minister for publicly accusing the cabinet of not moving aggressively enough against Hamas.
The Islamist militant group also showed signs of internal strain, with its military wing vowing to escalate the conflict even as a top political leader said the group was considering Egypt’s cease-fire plan.
The proposal, offered late Monday, called for Israel and Hamas to stop firing Tuesday without preconditions and then launch talks in Cairo within 48 hours.
Israel’s security cabinet approved the deal Monday morning, and Israel stopped firing into Gaza at 9 a.m. But Hamas officials balked at the proposal, saying they had never been consulted. The rocket fire from Gaza continued unabated, and Israel resumed military operations in the territory at 3 p.m.
A senior Hamas leader, Sami Abu Zuhri, accused Egypt’s military-backed government of collaborating with Israel to spring the proposal on the militant Palestinian Islamist group without warning. He called the initiative “unacceptable” and said Egypt is not a fair mediator because its government is deeply hostile toward Hamas.
“We are holding in our hands a proposal we got off social media,” Zuhri said. “We refuse to be dealt with in such a way.”
On Tuesday, authorities reported the first Israeli fatality in the current conflict. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said an Israeli man in his 30s was delivering food to soldiers Tuesday at the Erez crossing with Gaza when he was struck by a mortar shell fired from the territory, the Associated Press reported. Rosenfeld said at least 15 Israelis, including several children, have been injured by Palestinian rocket fire since the fighting began a week ago.
In addition to the more than 190 Palestinians killed, nearly 1,400 in Gaza have been injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The Iron Dome defense
Israel’s security cabinet was said to be meeting again Tuesday evening to decide how to proceed in Gaza.
The Israeli military said it struck 30 targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, including 20 concealed rocket launchers, tunnels, a weapons storage facility and “operational infrastructure used by a senior [Islamic Jihad] terrorist.” It said about 125 rockets were fired at Israel after 9 a.m., when the cease-fire was supposed to take effect. Of that number, it said, about 100 hit Israeli territory and 20 were intercepted by Iron Dome, a sophisticated antimissile system developed with U.S. assistance.
Hamas officials said the group balked at the Egyptian proposal on grounds that it had not been consulted on the terms of the deal.
The group’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, wrote on its Web site that the initiative was “not worth the ink it was written with” and vowed that “the resistance will continue until all the demands of our people are met.”
Israel reported dozens of rockets launched over southern Israel after 9 a.m. Tuesday, when Israel unilaterally began holding its fire. The attacks prompted sirens across several towns and cities, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries.
In Vienna, Secretary of State John F. Kerry condemned Hamas for “brazenly firing rockets” in the face of the cease-fire initiative. Speaking to reporters at the end of talks on Iran’s nuclear program, he also accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields and suggested that the group’s political and military wings were split on the cease-fire proposal.
“The international community strongly supports the idea of a cease-fire, the need — the compelling need — to have a cease-fire,” Kerry said. “I still think perhaps reason could prevail if the political wing can deal with the military wing and Egypt can have some leverage,” he added. “Let’s see what happens.”
Kerry said he was returning to Washington to deal with an Iranian bid to resolve the dispute over its nuclear program, instead of flying to Egypt to help press for a cease-fire, but he repeated a U.S. offer to help broker a truce or negotiations. He said he was “prepared to fly back to the region tomorrow if I have to,” adding that “the Egyptians deserve the time and the space to be able to try to make this initiative work, and we hope it will.”
Israel has called up 40,000 reservists and massed three brigades on the border with Gaza in anticipation of a possible ground offensive that it has repeatedly threatened.
At the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Palestinian Authority’s health minister, who represents the crumbling “unity government” in the West Bank city of Ramallah, was turned away Tuesday by an angry crowd ready to throw eggs and shoes at him. From a loudspeaker at a mosque across the street, a protester called the minister and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “traitors” and “collaborators” for allegedly supporting the cease-fire proposal.
The Hamas government on Tuesday closed its side of the Erez crossing, the only point for people in Gaza to travel to Israel.
With the Erez passage shut down, and the Gaza crossing into Egypt at Rafah closed, Gaza is now sealed, with no one able to come or go, including patients who rely on the Erez crossing to go to Israel for medical treatments. Because of the Israeli military, Gaza has no airport or seaport.
The Israeli military hit a site earlier this week at Erez because rockets were being fired at Israel from a nearby launch pad. The sand dunes and agricultural fields have been a dangerous no-man’s land for the past week.
A draft of the Egyptian initiative did not include a detailed plan but called for a de-escalation by 9 a.m. Tuesday followed by a full truce within 12 hours of the proposal’s “unconditional acceptance” by both sides.
Booth reported from Gaza City. Anne Gearan in Washington and Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Griff Witte is The Post’s London bureau chief. He previously served as the paper’s deputy foreign editor and as the bureau chief in Kabul, Islamabad and Jerusalem.
William Booth is The Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief. He was previously bureau chief in Mexico, Los Angeles and Miami.
INITIAL commentConfig: {includereply=true, canvas_permalink_id=http://ift.tt/1msnebh, allow_comments=true, commentmaxlength=2000, includeshare=true, display_comments=true, canvas_permalink_app_instance=bg52e9xhqr, display_more=true, moderationrequired=false, includefeaturenotification=true, comments_period=14, defaultsort=reverseChronological, canvas_allcomments_id=http://ift.tt/1kM2ugq, includevoteofftopic=false, allow_videos=false, includesorts=true, markerdisplay=post_commenter:Post Commenter|staff:Post Writer|top_commenter:Post Forum|top_local:Washingtologist|top_sports:SuperFan|fact_checker:Fact Checker|post_recommended:Post Recommended|world_watcher:World Watcher|cultuer_connoisseur:Culture Connoisseur|weather_watcher:Capital Weather Watcher|post_contributor:Post Contributor, childrenitemsperpage=3, includeheader=true, includeverifiedcommenters=true, defaulttab=all, includerecommend=true, includereport=true, maxitemstop=3, source=washpost.com, allow_photos=false, maxitems=5, display_ugc_photos=false, includepause=true, canvas_allcomments_app_instance=6634zxcgfd, includepermalink=false}!!!
UGC FROM ARTICLE: {allow_comments=true, allow_photos=false, allow_videos=false, comments_period=14, comments_source=washpost.com, default_sort=, default_tab=, display_comments=true, is_ugc_gallery=false, max_items_to_display=15, max_items_to_display_top=3, moderation_required=false, stream_id=}!!!
FINAL commentConfig: {includereply=true, canvas_permalink_id=http://ift.tt/1msnebh, allow_comments=true, commentmaxlength=2000, includeshare=true, display_comments=true, canvas_permalink_app_instance=bg52e9xhqr, display_more=true, moderationrequired=false, includefeaturenotification=true, comments_period=14, defaultsort=reverseChronological, canvas_allcomments_id=http://ift.tt/1kM2ugq, includevoteofftopic=false, allow_videos=false, includesorts=true, markerdisplay=post_commenter:Post Commenter|staff:Post Writer|top_commenter:Post Forum|top_local:Washingtologist|top_sports:SuperFan|fact_checker:Fact Checker|post_recommended:Post Recommended|world_watcher:World Watcher|cultuer_connoisseur:Culture Connoisseur|weather_watcher:Capital Weather Watcher|post_contributor:Post Contributor, childrenitemsperpage=3, includeheader=true, includeverifiedcommenters=true, defaulttab=all, includerecommend=true, includereport=true, maxitemstop=3, source=washpost.com, allow_photos=false, maxitems=5, display_ugc_photos=false, includepause=true, canvas_allcomments_app_instance=6634zxcgfd, includepermalink=false}!!
INITIAL commentConfig: {includereply=true, canvas_permalink_id=http://ift.tt/1msnebh, allow_comments=true, commentmaxlength=2000, includeshare=true, display_comments=true, canvas_permalink_app_instance=bg52e9xhqr, display_more=true, moderationrequired=false, includefeaturenotification=true, comments_period=14, defaultsort=reverseChronological, canvas_allcomments_id=http://ift.tt/1kM2ugq, includevoteofftopic=false, allow_videos=false, includesorts=true, markerdisplay=post_commenter:Post Commenter|staff:Post Writer|top_commenter:Post Forum|top_local:Washingtologist|top_sports:SuperFan|fact_checker:Fact Checker|post_recommended:Post Recommended|world_watcher:World Watcher|cultuer_connoisseur:Culture Connoisseur|weather_watcher:Capital Weather Watcher|post_contributor:Post Contributor, childrenitemsperpage=3, includeheader=true, includeverifiedcommenters=true, defaulttab=all, includerecommend=true, includereport=true, maxitemstop=3, source=washpost.com, allow_photos=false, maxitems=5, display_ugc_photos=false, includepause=true, canvas_allcomments_app_instance=6634zxcgfd, includepermalink=false}!!!
UGC FROM ARTICLE: {allow_comments=true, allow_photos=false, allow_videos=false, comments_period=14, comments_source=washpost.com, default_sort=, default_tab=, display_comments=true, is_ugc_gallery=false, max_items_to_display=15, max_items_to_display_top=3, moderation_required=false, stream_id=}!!!
FINAL commentConfig: {includereply=true, canvas_permalink_id=http://ift.tt/1msnebh, allow_comments=true, commentmaxlength=2000, includeshare=true, display_comments=true, canvas_permalink_app_instance=bg52e9xhqr, display_more=true, moderationrequired=false, includefeaturenotification=true, comments_period=14, defaultsort=reverseChronological, canvas_allcomments_id=http://ift.tt/1kM2ugq, includevoteofftopic=false, allow_videos=false, includesorts=true, markerdisplay=post_commenter:Post Commenter|staff:Post Writer|top_commenter:Post Forum|top_local:Washingtologist|top_sports:SuperFan|fact_checker:Fact Checker|post_recommended:Post Recommended|world_watcher:World Watcher|cultuer_connoisseur:Culture Connoisseur|weather_watcher:Capital Weather Watcher|post_contributor:Post Contributor, childrenitemsperpage=3, includeheader=true, includeverifiedcommenters=true, defaulttab=all, includerecommend=true, includereport=true, maxitemstop=3, source=washpost.com, allow_photos=false, maxitems=5, display_ugc_photos=false, includepause=true, canvas_allcomments_app_instance=6634zxcgfd, includepermalink=false}!!
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1n7WPE9
0 comments:
Post a Comment