The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (8 Jan --- Evening)

Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA

Earlier Updates on The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (8 January)
Latest Story: Breaking News: Obama Administration “Prepared To Talk to Hamas”?
Latest Story: How the US is Fighting for “Peace” in Gaza: Bunker-Busting Bombs
Latest Article: Gaza: One Man's Tragedy is Another Man's Marketing Opportunity

1:30 a.m. A bit of downtime. We'll be back in the morning, updating on the discussions at the UN Security Council, on the humanitarian situation, and on any military developments.

12:30 a.m. The Guardian of London is reporting the statement of the head of the Arab League that Arab nations have accepted the US-UK-France resolution to be presented to the United Nations Security Council.

11:20 p.m. Gazan photojournalist and peace activist Sameh Habeeb, who has been blogging on his experience of the conflict, reports via Twitter that his area is under heavy Israeli bombardment.



10:50 p.m. Iran makes it position clear: Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani, after meetings in Damascus, calls Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal "honey injected with poison"

9:20 p.m. Now here's a twist: part of Israeli information campaigns has been the charge that Hamas has been using human shields in Gaza. This just in from Amnesty International via the BBC:

Israeli troops had forced Palestinian civilians to stay in their homes after taking them over as sniper positions or bases, [Amnesty] said quoting sources in Gaza. "This increases risk to families and means they are effectively being used as human shields."

It should be noted that Amnesty criticised both sides, blaming Hamas for endangering civilians by firing from their homes. Still, the report should make for uncomfortable reading in Tel Aviv, clearly putting an onus for civilian deaths on the Israeli military:

The army is well aware gunmen usually leave the area after having fired and any reprisal attack against these homes will in most cases cause harm to civilians - not gunmen.

9:15 p.m. United Nations Relief and Works Agency says "lack of cooperation" with Israeli is "completely unacceptable" and they have "lost all confidence" in Israeli authorities.

8:35 p.m. CNN is headlining the press conference of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Abbas replayed his endorsement of the Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal as "important to reach a cease-fire", a position supported by Zapatero.

Fair enough. But why, at this important time, is Abbas spending a tangential 24 hours in Madrid? He is due to go to Cairo.

7:45 p.m. Reuters and Al Jazeera offer details, from a Western diplomatic source, of the US-UK-France resolution for the United Nations Security Council. It will "include a call for an immediate ceasefire, action to stop smuggling of arms [to Hamas] and open the border crossings". Trying to overtake the Libyan-drafted resolution, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner presented the draft resolution to Arab foreign ministers.

7:20 p.m. Unsurprising Development of the Day: US Senate passes non-binding resolution expressing strong support of Israel. The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, explained, "The Israelis...are responding exactly the same way we would."

6:40 p.m. Curious report by CBS News: 10 Damascus-based Palestinian factions, including Hamas, have rejected the Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal, stating that they ""didn't see in the Egyptian initiative any valid basis for any acceptable solution as it includes articles deemed risky for the Palestinian resistance and its future". The aim of the proposal was "to impose restrict on the resistance movement, blockading it while giving the enemy the free hand. The initiative could only help the enemy achieve the results they are unable to attain so far." To my knowledge, this supposed rejection has not been reported in any other American or British media. It is unclear what effect it has on the talks currently underway in Cairo.

6:17 p.m. Barack Obama now delivering a speech calling for urgent action on an economic stimulus plan. Can't help but notice that, when it comes to economy, he has no problem being Presidential but, when it comes to Gaza, he declares that "America cannot have two Presidents at once".

6:15 p.m. The US-Britain-France resolution has been drafted by the British. My suspicion is that the trio have done this to try and forestall formal consideration of the Libyan-drafted resolution, which would undoubtedly have been unacceptable to Israel.

Afternoon update (6 p.m.): Significant shift on diplomatic front? US-Britain-France reported to be working on binding UN resolution for Gaza cease-fire.

Hamas official says organisation is considering cease-fire options. Will agree to proposal if it includes provisions for "end to Israeli aggression" and lifting of economic blockade.

UN aid agency has suspended operations after one of its trucks was hit by Israeli fire. The Gazan death toll is now 763.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has condemned the firing of rockets into northern Israel and says his Government will strive to find those responsible. Israeli Government believes a group called National Front is behind the rocket launches.

Teachers Against Occupation: An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Colleagues in the United States have notified me of the formation of Teachers Against Occupation. They have written an open letter to President-elect Barack Obama, calling for "a new path...in the name of justice" in US foreign policy, and an essay concluding, "As teachers, we must commit ourselves to ensuring the memory and the future of the Palestinian people."

Breaking News: Obama Administration "Prepared To Talk to Hamas"?

Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian of London reports from Washington:

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon President Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

Goldenberg claims, from three sources "with knowledge of the discussions", that this would not be the direct engagement of which Obama spoke in his campaign until he was slapped down by rival Hillary Clinton. Instead, it would be "low-level" or even covert contacts. Richard Haass, the State Department's director of policy planning in the first years of the Bush Administration and Obama's likely Middle Eastern envoy, is reported to favour this approach.

All this fits with messages from well-placed Washington insiders, up to last summer, that an Obama Administration would deal with Hamas. However, there is a major catch --- unrecognised by Goldenberg --- in her exclusive.

Haass, writing with Martin Indyk (Bill Clinton's point man on Middle Eastern affairs), set out two conditions for contacts with Hamas in an article this week: "if the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continues to hold and a Hamas-PA reconciliation emerges".

That means any talks with Hamas, even at the lowest level, are still to Israel (will it accept a ceasefire which might lead to recognition of its enemy?) and the Palestinian Authority (will it accept talks that might give legitimacy to its rival and its dominant position in Gazan politics?).

Rolling Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (6 January --- Evening)

Later Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (7 January)
Earlier Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (6 January)

2:20 a.m. That's it for a while. Thanks to all who checked in with us on a turbulent day. I hesitate to think about tomorrow....

2:15 a.m. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is pushing the "Mubarak plan" for "immediate cease-fire for a limited period" for humanitarian aid deliveries and Egyptian invitation to Israel and "Palestinian factions/authorities" to talks on border security and blockade.

But....Kouchner sidesteps questions of whether Europeans will deal with Hamas by repeating this is an "Egyptian proposal". Yeah, right --- that's why Nicolas Sarkozy was hopping from Jerusalem to Ramallah to Damascus to Cairo before the proposal appear.

And...Kouchner makes clear that this proposal is not alongside UN Security Council resolution but instead of one. Arab journalists (and I suspect a lot of Arab people outside Governments) are not impressed.

2 a.m. Media reporting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's "impassioned plea" to the UN Security Council for "an urgent intervention by the Security Council to...deter the aggressor". Hmm.... Forgive my scepticism, but in light of today's manoeuvres, some cease-fires are more equal than others: what are the political objectives of this one?

Meanwhile, Israel is scrambling to regard publicity advantage (or at least a shred of respectability) by opening a "humanitarian corridor". Israeli spokespersons are still insisting that the Jabaliya school/shelter struck by Israeli tank fire, killing 40 Gazans, was being used by Hamas militants as a base for operations.

1:30 a.m. CNN missed the significance in Rice's statement --- totally missed it. Their UN correspondent, Richard Roth, is wittering on without any reference to the Secretary of State's call for restoration of Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

1:22 a.m. RICE CALLS FOR LEGAL COUP IN GAZA


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice begins speech at UN Security Council. She's very much on-message: basic problem is "ongoing attacks against Israel" (which followed Hamas' "illegal coup" in Gaza), so have to have "sustainable and durable" cease-fire for "true calm" and not "return to status quo ante".

Rice does throw in the concession of opening border crossings on lines of 2005 agreement, but the basics of this are control of tunnels and cut-off of arms into Gaza.

Then the killer phrase: this is to restore Palestinian Authority's "legitimate control" of Gaza.

Got it? Rice has in fact inverted history and current events: she has turned Hamas' electoral victory in Gaza in 2006 into an "illegal coup" to justify a "legal coup" by Fatah/Palestinian Authority, under cover of Israeli military operations, in January 2009.



1:10 a.m. UN Security Council meeting on possible resolution ongoing.

Al-Jazeera correspondent notes that it is serving  the interests of a number of UNSC meetings to delay acting: "It seems there is a lot of dragging of feet....Some people are wondering if there is Arab complicity here" in not pressing for immediate cease-fire

11:50 p.m. Here we go: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, following his meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, has proposed "an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, to be followed by talks on long-term arrangements including an end to the blockade of Gaza".

This is only a first, tentative step. There is nothing in the proposal about security arrangements to monitor borders and the import of arms and no statement on the role Hamas would play in negotiations.

The next move will come from Tel Aviv: Sarkozy said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "will react soon" to the Mubarak proposal. This will probably include Israeli acceptance of talks with Egypt on border security.

11:09 p.m. French President Nicolas Sarkozy reads out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's role in the diplomatic play: Cairo invites Israel "without delay" to discuss Egypt-Gaza border security

11:05 p.m. Al Jazeera: Danish  Foreign Ministry has summoned the Israeli Ambassador to explain the bombing of three mobile clinics run by a Danish charity in Gaza

10:55 p.m. Forgive me for abandoning objectivity but Israeli authorities best produce some proof of their charges of Hamas using the Jabaliya UN school/shelter as a base for military operations. If they don't, their lying to cover up responsibility for civilian deaths --- which has happened in the past --- should be held up as an abandonment of their supposed "moral clarity".

The statement from the Israeli Consulate in New York:

These initial investigations indicate that Hamas used the UNRWA school to fire at IDF forces, indicating once again that Hamas is more than willing to sacrifice Gaza citizens to promote terrorism. International law recognizes that the presence of civilians in an area of conflict does not delegitimize a military target. Israel and the IDF will continue to abide by these laws and to make every effort to avoid harming civilians in conducting further operations. We urge the international community to strongly condemn Hamas’s cynical exploitation of its citizens and firing of rockets, which remain the most effective way to ensure peace for Gazans and Israelis alike.

9:50 p.m. Obama to Gazan population --- Can you wait another two weeks?

After Jan. 20 I'm going to have plenty to say about the issue.

9: 40 p.m. Israeli Defense Forces statement on shelling of Jabaliya school:

A number of mortar shells were fired at IDF forces from within the Jabalya school. In response to the incoming enemy fire, the forces returned mortar fire to the source. This is not the first time that Hamas has fired mortars and rockets from schools, in such a way deliberately using civilians as human shields in their acts of terror against Israel.

Flashback to the Israeli bombing of Qana in July 2006:

One Israeli military official raised the possibility that the building collapsed hours after the strike and that munitions had been stored in it.

9:35 p.m. Washington and European leaders are synchronising their statements: in last few hours: White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, German chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have all called for a cease-fire based on closure of tunnels and cut-off of supply of arms to Hamas. The possible concession to Hamas is an arrangement for opening of border crossings.

9:10 p.m. A Gazan to an Israeli friend, quoted in Ha'aretz:

They're bombing us from the sea and from the east, they're bombing us from the air. When the telephone works, people tell us about relatives or friends who were killed. My wife cries all the time. At night she hugs the children and cries. It's cold and the windows are open; there's fire and smoke in open areas; at home there's no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the Israelis] say there's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you normal?

8:55 p.m. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino on the Jabaliya school bombing: "We should not jump to conclusions on who is responsible."

Al Jazeera's Rob Reynolds: "The world's superpower is playing dumb on this."

8:40 p.m. 34 rockets fired into southern Israel today.

8:30 p.m. Excellent Timing Award. An Israeli blogging collective is circulating the quote from Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974:

We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.

8:25 p.m. Al Jazeera is showing a guided tour of Al Shi'fa hospital by Dr Erik Fosse, one of the two Norwegian physicians who has brought the medical crisis to international prominence

8:10 p.m. Obama speaks! Says he is "deeply concerned" about the civilian casualties in Gaza....

8 p.m. Qana 2006 --- Jabiliya 2009?

Arguably it was the Israeli bombing of Qana and the killing of 28 civilians, or more specifically the international reaction to the horror of the incident,  that forced Tel Aviv to call a halt to its military operations 2 1/2 years ago. The building  response to the incident this afternoon, in which 40 Gazans died at a UN shelter/school, could be the symbolic ringing of time on Israel's current military mission. Every news organisation is headlining the bombing, and BBC Radio has just spent several hard-hitting minutes on the incident.

5:50 p.m. Nicolas Sarkozy to reporters in Lebanon, before heading to Egypt:

I'm convinced that there are solutions. We are not far from that. What is needed is simply for one of the players to start for things to go in the right direction.

5:25 p.m. More evidence that we're on the mark about a "grand design" for regime change, removing Hamas and bringing in the Palestinian Authority?

The Israeli Consulate has just distributed (and endorsed?) today's column by Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal:

Israel also has much to gain by avoiding a frontal assault on Gaza's urban areas in favor of the snatch-and-grab operations that have effectively suppressed Hamas's terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank. A long-term policy aimed squarely at killing or capturing Hamas's leaders, destroying arms caches and rocket factories, and cutting off supply and escape routes will not by itself destroy the group. But it can drive it out of government and cripple its ability to function as a fighting force. And this, in turn, could mean the return of Fatah, the closest thing Gaza has to a "legitimate" government.

5:15 p.m. CNN reports UN protest of Israeli attack on UN-run school/shelter but has not updated death toll.

Breaking News: Obama names Leon Panetta as Director of CIA

From the New York Times:

President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff, to take over the Central Intelligence Agency

For the Times, "Given his background, Mr Panetta is a somewhat unusual choice", since he has no experience in the military or the intelligence services. That's not quite true --- directors like George H.W. Bush came "from the outside". However, it appears that Barack Obama's priorities in the choice, after his initial choice John Brennan ran into trouble because of his connections with CIA interrogation programmes, was to find a clear pair of hands. And a clear pair of hands with both connections on Capitol Hill and, Chief of Staff to President Clinton, management skills.