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Israel cuts water and power to gaza { May 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/international-31/115149747169330.xml&storylist=orinternationalhttp://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/international-31/115149747169330.xml&storylist=orinternational
Israelis keep pressure on Palestinians
6/28/2006, 6:41 a.m. PT
By IBRAHIM BARZAK
The Associated Press
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel turned up the pressure on Palestinian militants to release a captive soldier Wednesday, sending its warplanes to bomb a Hamas training camp after knocking out electricity and water supplies for most of the 1.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians dug in behind walls and embankments, preparing for a major strike after Israel sent in troops and tanks and bombarded bridges and a power station.
At mid-afternoon, warplanes fired missiles at open fields in northern Gaza in an effort to prevent Palestinians from launching rockets, the military said. Separately, Israel attacked a rocket-making factory in southern Gaza.
No casualties were reported.
Residents of northern Gaza, preparing for what they feared could be a long military operation, stocked up on food, candles and batteries for radios as a minister warned of a "humanitarian crisis."
It was Israel's first ground offensive since pulling its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza last summer. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would not balk at "extreme action" to bring Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, home but did not intend to reoccupy Gaza.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas deplored the incursion as a "crime against humanity," and a leading Hamas politician issued a call to arms against the Israeli troops.
Meanwhile, concerns about the fate of a missing West Bank settler grew after militants claiming to hold him displayed what they said was a copy of his identification card.
Israeli tanks and soldiers began taking up positions east of Rafah overnight under cover of tank shells, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said. Capt. Jacob Dallal, a military spokesman, said troops moved a mile inside the coastal strip.
Israeli warplanes fired at least nine missiles at Gaza's only power station, cutting electricity to 65 percent of the Gaza Strip, engineers at the station said. The station's three functioning turbines and a gasoline reservoir were engulfed in flames.
Wasfi Kabha, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, said the Israeli attacks were creating a "humanitarian crisis."
"They hit the bridges, they hit the power station, so there will be a problem in water supply and health services," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.
The Israeli military said in a statement that three bridges were attacked "to impair the ability of the terrorists to transfer the kidnapped soldier." Knocking down the bridges cut Gaza in two, Palestinian security officials said.
Witnesses reported heavy artillery shelling near the long-closed Gaza airport outside of Rafah, just over the border with Israel. In Rafah, a shack where militants produced and stored rockets was on fire after Israel attacked it, witnesses said.
Later, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at an empty Hamas training camp in Rafah, witnesses said, adding that they saw militants running away from the scene. Ambulances had no immediate reports of injuries.
The army said it launched an airstrike in open areas as part of efforts to intimidate militants holding Shalit.
Warplanes, meanwhile, flew low over the strip, rocking it with sonic booms and shattering windows. And troops in Israel backed up the assault, firing artillery into Gaza.
"We won't hesitate to carry out extreme action to bring Gilad back to his family," Olmert said. "All the military activity that started overnight will continue in the coming days.
"We do not intend to reoccupy Gaza. We have one objective, and that is to bring Gilad home."
The militants who seized Shalit have demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails in exchange for information about the captured soldier.
Olmert repeated that Israel will not negotiate the release with militant groups.
Shalit was taken captive Sunday during an attack on a southern Israeli military post by militants affiliated with the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party. The Palestinian government has called for the soldier's release, but Israel believes the group's Syria-based leaders ordered the operation.
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Hamas' Syria-based political chief, Khaled Mashaal, was "not immune" from Israeli reprisal.
"Khaled Mashaal, as someone who is overseeing, actually commanding the terror acts, is definitely a target," Ramon, an Olmert confidant, told Army Radio. The station interpreted his comments as meaning Mashaal was a target for assassination.
Israel tried to kill Mashaal in a botched attempt in Jordan in 1997. Two Mossad agents injected Mashaal with poison but were caught. As Mashaal lay dying in a Jordanian hospital, King Hussein forced Israel to provide the antidote in return for releasing the Mossad agents.
Ramon told Israel Radio in a separate interview that he believed diplomacy had run its course.
Abbas deplored the Israeli invasion, calling it "collective punishment and a crime against humanity," according to a statement.
Abbas urged the United States and international negotiators to intervene to halt the operation.
An aide said Abbas called Syrian President Bashar Assad to ask him to persuade Mashaal to free the soldier. Assad promised to do so, the aide said on condition of anonymity because he was discussing private talks.
Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer of Hamas said his government, too, was trying to resolve the situation diplomatically, but he would not say whether that involved direct contact with Israel.
"We call for an immediate halt to the invasion, and urge that the soldier's life be spared," Shaer said.
The normally bustling streets in southern Gaza, where the invasion was launched, were eerily deserted, with people taking refuge inside their homes.
The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt — Gaza's main link to the outside world — has been closed since Sunday's attack. Usually, there is some activity in the area, even when the passage is closed, but Wednesday it was empty.
Israeli troops, backed by tanks, took over the Gaza airport. Dozens of people living near the airport left their homes, seeking sanctuary in nearby Rafah.
A small grocery near the airport was open, but no one was inside except the owner, 45-year-old Allah Abu Jazr.
"All options are open, but let's hope this crisis will pass," Abu Jazr said. "We want the soldier to return home, just as we want our prisoners to come home."
Militants said they fired rockets early Wednesday at the Israeli village of Nahal Oz, the Israeli forces' staging area, and at other Israeli targets.
Dallal said the army was prepared for a long operation, and "everything is on the table."
Trying to defuse building tensions, Hamas negotiators said Tuesday they had accepted a document that Abbas allies say implicitly recognizes Israel. But Mashaal's No. 2, Moussa Abu Marzouk, denied a final deal had been reached.
Shalit's abduction has threatened to turn devastated relations between Israel and the Hamas-led government into all-out war. Hamas took over the Palestinian Authority after winning parliamentary elections in January, and has been under international pressure to renounce violence and recognize Israel.
Complicating matters was a new claim by the Hamas-linked Popular Resistance Committees, one of the three groups that carried out Sunday's assault, that it had also kidnapped a Jewish settler, 18-year-old Eliahu Asheri, in the West Bank.
At a news conference at a Gaza City mosque on Wednesday, PRC militants displayed what they said was a copy of Asheri's identification card, and reiterated threats to kill him if Israel did not end its Gaza invasion.
A spokesman for the group also warned that the PRC had just begun its campaign to seize soldiers.
"The operation of kidnapping soldiers has started and is in a countdown," spokesman Mohammed Abdel Al said.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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