by Israel Hayom Staff and News Agencies
Despite cease-fire talks in Cairo, Hamas continues firing rockets at Israel • IAF hits more targets in Gaza, troops massing on Gaza border • U.N. Secretary-General to arrive Tuesday in an attempt to ward of IDF ground invasion.
Reserve soldiers training
near the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
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Photo credit: AP 
Soldiers near the Gaza border.
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Photo credit: AP 
Soldiers examine tanks on
the Gaza border.
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Photo credit: AFP 
Chief of Staff Lt. Gen.
Benny Gantz speaks with soldiers near the Gaza border on Sunday.
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Photo credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit 
Soldiers in the Armored
Corps awaiting instructions.
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Photo credit: AFP 
Reserve soldiers training
for urban combat.
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Photo credit: Ziv Koren 
As Operation Pillar of Defense entered its
sixth day on Monday, momentum toward a cease-fire between Israel and
Hamas was gathering pace as an international mediation effort, led by
Egypt, was working on a draft agreement that would put an end to the
fighting. An associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Reuters
that while Israel prefers a diplomatic solution to the crisis, the
Israel Defense Forces is ready for a ground invasion. "We would prefer
to see a diplomatic solution that would guarantee the peace for Israel's
population in the south. If that is possible, then a ground operation
would no longer be required," the official told Reuters. "But if
diplomacy fails, we may well have no alternative but to send in ground
forces."
But despite the indirect cease-fire talks, or
because of them, Hamas continued firing rockets at Israel. On Monday
morning, several rockets were fired at Israeli cities, with one landing
on a school in Ashkelon. There were no injuries as the school was empty
but significant damage was caused to the structure. All schools in
Ashkelon were closed on Monday. Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon,
speaking on Israel Radio, said that during cease-fire talks "all sides
are trying to improve their bargaining positions, but we embarked on
this operation to bring quiet to the south."
"Until Hamas understands that its escalation
was not worth it, and that terror from Sinai is not worth it, we will
continue. If from Gaza they didn’t fire rockets on our civilians, and if
they didn't fire on our soldiers near the border, and if they didn't
send terrorists our way from the Sinai, then we wouldn't have any
problems with Gaza. This event has shown us that Abbas is irrelevant
when it comes to Gaza. There are talks in Cairo and there is no
representative of the Palestinian Authority," Ya'alon said.
The IDF struck in southern Gaza early Monday
morning, killing two Palestinians, the Maan news agency reported. Israel
bombed some 80 sites in Gaza overnight, the IDF said, adding in a
statement that targets included "underground rocket launching sites,
terror tunnels and training bases" as well as "buildings owned by senior
terrorist operatives." One of the buildings targeted was the central
police headquarters, which was entirely destroyed, according to a BBC
reporter on the scene. Ten civilians and two field commanders from the
Islamic Jihad faction were killed and at least 30 other Palestinians
were hurt in the new airstrikes, hospital officials told Reuters.
The IDF assesses that the majority of Hamas'
underground military infrastructure is intact, Israel Radio military
reporter Carmela Menashe reported Monday. The rush to a cease-fire is
also meant to ward off an IDF ground invasion of Gaza, which Israel says
is imminent.
Tens of thousands of IDF troops were massed at
launching points around the Gaza Strip waiting for an order to deploy.
The IDF is making serious preparations for a ground offensive, and over
the past several days, units from the Paratroopers, Givati, Golani, and
Nahal infantry brigades; armored corps; and artillery units were
deployed on the Gaza Strip border. "The IDF is prepared for a ground
assault," IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz told Israeli
cabinet ministers on Sunday. As of Monday afternoon, the army was
waiting for a decision by the government on whether or not to expand the
operation and send in ground forces.
In the six days of fighting, some 546 rockets
have struck Israel — the vast majority in open fields and unpopulated
areas. According to the IDF, 33 rockets landed in urban areas, causing
three Israeli fatalities. There were 290 interceptions by the Iron Dome
system. The IDF hit 1,127 targets in Gaza, and according to Palestinian
accounts, 19 Hamas combatants have been killed. According to Palestinian
Health Ministry officials quoted by the BBC, there were 90 Palestinian
casualties in the six days of fighting, at least half of whom were
civilians.
Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza
arsenals and force Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli
border towns for years. The rockets now have greater range, putting Tel
Aviv and Jerusalem within their reach.
Netanyahu and his close ministers prefer
reaching a cease-fire agreement with Hamas and ending the current round
of fighting. Ya'alon, speaking on Channel 10 TV on Sunday night, said
the equation for a cease-fire was simple: "Quiet will be met with
quiet."
Reports on Sunday as to the nature of the
cease-fire talks, held in Cairo, were kept deliberately opaque by the
Israeli side, which denied reports in the Arab press that "an Israeli"
had traveled to Cairo to receive a draft agreement and brought it back
to Jerusalem. There was no official word from Prime Minister's Office of
this envoy. There were differing accounts of the progress or otherwise
of the talks; various media outlets reported the talks had broken down
while others reported significant progress.
A minister in the unofficial Forum of Nine
group of senior ministers, which Netanyahu created to discuss national
security issues, said that Israel's main demand for a cease-fire was a
"return of quiet" that includes a cessation of rocket fire against
Israel, an end to attacks on Israeli forces along the Gaza Strip border,
and a cessation to the planning and execution of terror attacks from
within the Sinai Peninsula. In return, Israel promises to refrain from
acting against terror targets in Gaza. "If a cease-fire can be reached
now with these conditions then there is no reason for a ground
operation," the senior minister told Israel Hayom. Russia Today TV
reported on Monday that in addition, Israel is insisting on an immediate
cessation of arms smuggling into Gaza as a condition for a cease-fire.
Cease-fire talks stepped into high gear on Sunday with the visit of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
was due to arrive in Cairo to weigh in on cease-fire efforts led by
Egypt, which borders both Israel and Gaza and whose Islamist-rooted
government has been hosting leaders of Hamas.
Netanyahu on Sunday continued to speak with
foreign leaders, and according to his office, said that he would "do
everything possible to end the attacks against us. Half of our
population is under fire, this is a situation that cannot continue."
When presented with cease-fire ideas,
Netanyahu responded, "First let them stop the firing — after that we'll
talk about the rest."
On Sunday, Hamas spokespeople said that Israel
had presented terms that were unacceptable. Deputy Hamas chief Mousa
Abu Marzook vowed that Hamas "would fight to the last drop of blood."
Izzat Risheq, aide to Hamas political bureau
chief Khaled Mashaal, wrote on Facebook that Hamas would enter a truce
only after Israel "stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted
assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza." Hamas’ demands, as
presented by Mashaal, include open borders for Gaza and international
guarantees that Israel will halt all attacks on Gaza, including targeted
killings of the movement’s leaders. Speaking to Al-Jazeera, Hamas
spokesman Ghazi Hamed said that talks between Egyptian intelligence
officials and Israeli officials had reached agreement on 90 percent of
the cease-fire terms. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev would not
say Sunday whether Israel seeks a demilitarized Gaza as part of a
broader cease-fire package, but said any deal must guarantee an end to
rocket fire for good.
“We don’t want a… quick fix and in two weeks
or two months we have another round,” he said. “‘The people of southern
Israel have the right to live normal lives, not in fear of incoming
missiles.”
In Israel, opposition to a cease-fire came from within
Netanyahu's own joint Likud-Beytenu list, with Energy and Water
Resources Minister Uzi Landau saying, "We are not yet at the point of a
cease-fire. A cease-fire now would be a serious mistake. The goals of
the operation must be achieved at any price, even with a ground
incursion, if it can't be avoided. We can't repeat the mistakes of the
past, when we stopped operations in the middle, before ensuring that we
had destroyed the terrorist infrastructure and before ensuring that we
had made sure they could no longer smuggle weapons. This matter requires
perseverance and patience."
Israel Hayom Staff and News Agencies
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6460
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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