Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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Israel Calls Up 16,000 More Reservists
by VOA News
Israel's military called up an additional 16,000 additional reservists,
taking their total to 86,000, as military operations in the Gaza Strip
continue, an army spokeswoman said Thursday.
"The army has issued 16,000 additional mobilization orders to allow
troops on the ground to rest, which takes the total number of
reservists to 86,000," said the spokeswoman, according to the French
news agency AFP.
Israel's security cabinet, which met for five hours Wednesday,
unanimously decided to pursue attacks against Hamas "terrorist targets"
and other operations to destroy a network of tunnels used by the
Islamist movement between Gaza and Israel, public radio said.
Another meeting of the cabinet, which comprises eight ministers, will
be held Thursday afternoon, the radio added.
Destroying tunnels
Meanwhile, Israel pressed ahead with its Gaza offensive saying it was
days from achieving its core goal of destroying all Islamist guerrilla
cross-border attack tunnels, but a soaring Palestinian civilian toll
has triggered international alarm.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet on Wednesday
approved continuing the assault, Israel also sent a delegation to
Egypt, which has been trying, with Washington's blessing, to broker a
cease-fire.
Gaza officials said at least 1,361 Palestinians, most of them
civilians, have now been killed in the battered enclave. Israel has
lost 56 soldiers to Gaza clashes and three civilians to Palestinian
shelling.
Early Thursday, plumes of smoke could be seen rising above Gaza City
following another night of airstrikes and heavy tank shelling by
Israel.
The sound of explosions and planes flying overhead continued to be
heard across the city as the sun rose.
Overnight, several large explosions lit up the sky.
The Israeli military said it is targeting Hamas command centers, rocket
launchers and weapons arsenals.
Attack on school condemned
On Wednesday, the United States and United Nations condemned the
shelling by Israel of a U.N.-run school in Gaza that housed
Palestinians seeking refuge, killing at least 15 people and wounding
more than 100 early Wednesday.
The Obama administration condemned the school shelling, using tough,
yet carefully worded language that reflects growing White House
irritation with Israel and the mounting civilian casualties stemming
from its ground and air war against Hamas.
Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the U.S. is extremely concerned that
thousands of Palestinian driven from their homes cannot find safety in
U.N.-designated shelters. She also condemns those who hide weapons in
those shelters.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was incensed on Wednesday at the
shelling of the U.N.-run school for Palestinians displaced by the
fighting.
"It is outrageous. It is unjustifiable. And it demands accountability
and justice," Ban said.
Israel said its forces were attacked by guerrillas near the school, in
northern Jabalya, and had fired back.
It did not immediately comment on another incident, in nearby Shejaia,
in which Palestinian officials said 17 people were killed by Israeli
shelling near a produce market.
"Such a massacre requires an earthquake-like response," said Hamas
spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, whose group has kept up dozens of daily rocket
launches deep into Israel.
The Israelis have kept casualties from the salvoes low with nine Iron
Dome interceptor batteries and air-raid sirens that send people to
shelters.
Rolling Israeli ground assaults on residential areas, prefaced by
mass-warnings to evacuate, have displaced more than 200,000 of Gaza's
1.8 million Palestinians. The tiny territory's infrastructure is in
ruin, with power and water outages.
Israel says it is trying to avoid civilian casualties and blames these
on Hamas and other Palestinian factions dug-in for urban combat.
Cease-fire negotiations
Both sides have voiced openness to a truce, but their terms diverge
dramatically. Israel wants Gaza stripped of infiltration tunnels and
rocket stocks. Hamas rules that out, and seeks an end to a crippling
Gaza blockade enforced by Israel and Egypt, which view the Palestinian
Islamists as a security threat.
The negotiations are further complicated by the fact Israel and the
United States shun Hamas as a terrorist group, while the go-betweens -
Egypt, Qatar and Turkey - disagree on Gaza policy.
In the absence of a deal, Israel has ordered its ground forces to focus
on locating and destroying a warren of tunnels with which Hamas has
menaced its southern towns and army bases.
Major-General Sami Turgeman, chief of Israeli forces in Gaza, said on
Wednesday they were "but a few days away from destroying all the attack
tunnels." The army said 32 of the secret passages had been found so far
and half of them blown up.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday by a booby trap
detonated as they uncovered a tunnel shaft, the army said. Military
losses are more than five times those from the last Gaza ground war, in
2008-2009, but Israeli opinion polls show strong public support for
fighting on until Hamas is quelled.
Netanyahu faces intense pressure from abroad to stand down, however.
The United States and the U.N. Security Council have urged an
immediate, unconditional cease-fire by both sides in Gaza to allow in
humanitarian relief and for further talks on a more durable cessation
of hostilities.
Separately, the Pentagon said it had allowed Israel to stock up on
grenades and mortar rounds from a U.S. munitions store located in
Israel as part of bilateral emergency preparedness arrangement.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters, AFP and AP.
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References
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