- JABALIYA, Gaza Strip (AFP)
- Twelve Palestinians and an Israeli were killed in the Gaza Strip and
the West Bank as Israel's army warned its massive offensive in Gaza could
last for weeks.
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- Since Israel unleashed its military might six days ago,
77 Palestinians have been killed in the deadliest incursion into the Gaza
Strip since the start of the intifada, or uprising, four years ago.
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- Israeli chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon warned that
the onslaught, aimed at establishing a buffer zone to prevent militants
from firing homemade and generally inaccurate rockets at Israel, could
last for weeks.
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- "Our forces are ready to operate not just for days
but for weeks," Yaalon told army radio.
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- "In the war on terror, one does not resolve the
problem in a single operation but by a series of operations and we will
continue for as long as it takes."
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- Four militants from the Islamist Hamas movement were
killed in an air strike on the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp,
just before dawn. The army said the men were seen preparing to lay an explosives
charge in the path of an Israeli patrol.
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- Two more men and a 16-year-old girl were killed during
gunfire in the camp, Palestinian medics said.
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- In the evening, another Palestinian was killed by Israeli
tank fire in Jabaliya and an armed Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli
troops near the Kissufim border crossing point between the Gaza Strip and
Israel.
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- Violence also flared in the southern Gaza Strip where
a four-year-old boy was shot dead by Israeli troops during an incursion
into a village near Khan Yunis.
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- In the West Bank, two Palestinians were killed in Ramallah
during an operation by members of a special unit of the Israeli army, Palestinian
hospital sources said.
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- An Israeli was also killed during the operation and five
Palestinian members of the radical Hamas group were arrested, Israeli and
Palestinian sources said.
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- Unmanned planes and helicopters were flying over Jabaliya
camp on Monday, firing missiles and strafing any fighters who dared to
venture out, AFP correspondents witnessed.
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- Plumes of suffocating black smoke billowed from tires
set ablaze by militants while residents gathered in the homes of the bereaved
or in the large mourning tents traditionally erected for the families of
the "martyrs".
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- The International Committee of the Red Cross was distributing
food and water in the hardest hit neighbourhoods, where power and water
supplies had been cut off by the heavy fighting.
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- Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath hit out at
the Israeli incursion, calling it "state terrorism" which contravened
the internationally-established rules of war.
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- "A crime is being perpetrated against civilians
by the Israeli occupation forces, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention,"
he said while visiting the wounded in Jabaliya's Kamal Udwan hospital.
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- The operation had caused a "humanitarian disaster",
he added, calling for an emergency meeting of the convention's signatories
to demand that Israel respect its provisions on the treatment of civilians
under occupation or in time of war.
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- The Palestinian cabinet has declared a state of emergency
in the face of the onslaught while the UN Security Council was set to debate
the continuing Gaza operation at an emergency session in New York later
on Monday.
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- Several foreign governments, as well as the Red Cross,
have expressed concern at the operation, while Israel's arch foe Iran accused
it of "genocide".
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- In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said
he was deeply concerned over the recent bloodshed in Gaza, telling Israel
it must show restraint in military operations.
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- And French aid group Medecins du Monde warned that the
relentless operation made it difficult for rescue workers to reach the
wounded and that local residents were running dangerously low on medicine
and basic supplies.
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- The United States Monday urged both Israel and the Palestinians
to show "maximum restraint".
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- The State Department reiterated Washington's belief that
Israel had a right to defend itself against terrorist attacks but called
on the Jewish state to "minimize the humanitarian consequences"
of the operation and to spare civilians.
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- Despite the huge army presence in Gaza, two rockets landed
on the southern Israeli town of Sderot just across the border on Monday,
lightly injuring one person, police said.
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- What had started off as a smaller incursion into northern
Gaza was massively stepped up on Wednesday after two children were killed
in a similar rocket attack on Sderot.
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- Before these deaths, Qassam rockets -- generally inaccurate
-- had killed two other people -- a child and a middle-aged man at the
end of June.
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- Another three Israelis, two of them soldiers, have been
killed in Gaza since the offensive began last Tuesday.
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- UN chief Kofi Annan will launch an investigation into
Israeli allegations that Palestinian militants have used UN ambulances
to carry weapons and will ask Israel for proof to support its accusations,
his spokesman Fred Eckhard said Monday.
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- However, he said the UN secretary general "has no
reason whatsoever to doubt" the conclusions of Peter Hansen, the head
of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), who
demanded a retraction and apology from the Israeli government.
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- Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman,
Monday repeated his country's allegations against UNRWA, accusing it of
involvement in "terrorist activities."
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of Agence France Presse.
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