Gaza: The Mass Killing in Zeitoun

Yesterday we reported the mass killing in Zeitoun, where a house with about 100 members of the al Samouni clan was shelled by Israel. There has been confusion over the initial story, in The Daily Telegraph, of 60 to 70 dead, as medical personnel tried to get back into the area. The Washington Post has an update on the story:

Emergency workers said they rescued 100 more trapped survivors Thursday and found between 40 and 50 corpses in a devastated residential block south of Gaza City that the Israeli military had kept off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross for four days.

As there are still injured trapped without food or in the rubble of the house, the death toll is likely to rise.



Israeli soldiers had ordered a number of people into the house and told them not to leave as fighting went on in the area. According to one of the survivors, speaking to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, the house was hit by two explosions, the first as three members of the clan were leaving to find other relatives and bring them back. Those fleeing from the attack went to another house where they found Israeli soldiers guarding 30 Palestinians, "several of whom were blindfolded".

If this wasn't tragic enough, there is a disturbing, hanging, uninvestigated sentence in the Post story:

Most [victims] had sustained trauma injuries from shelling, but many had gunshot wounds as well.

Who shot them?

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: The United Nations "Cease-fire" Vote

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (9 January)

A Headline Story with a Twist....

As expected, the United Nations Security Council passed a consensus resolution, drafted by Britain, which "calls for, an immediate, durable, and fully respected cease-fire which will lead to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza". The resolution also welcomed negotiations on the Mubarak-Sarkozy package and called for humanitarian corridors. The vote was 14-0 in favour, with one abstention.

The twist is that the abstention came from the United States. Despite news reports throughout the day that the resolution was a US-UK-France initiative, when the vote came, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat on her hands.

The reason? Well, Rice said that the resolution had laudable goals but the US "prefers to wait for results of ongoing, Egyptian-brokered talks in Cairo, Egypt, with Israeli and Palestinian leaders". In other words, Washington just told the United Nations that it is secondary, and indeed peripheral, to the Mubarak-Sarkozy process. There is no alternative to the talks in Cairo.

So what's the problem? Well, the immediate one is that Washington has just green-lighted Israel for a few more days: "All this discussion of a cease-fire is very, very nice but, for now, we're stand aside if you press on with your military operations." (Indeed, if you want to be cynical, you might speculate that the US went through the process of drafting this resolution only to block a Libyan-drafted resolution which was due to come before the Security Council yesterday.)

Beyond that, the Mubarak-Sarkozy process succeeds only if both Israel and Hamas agree to it. If Israel stalls on it or decides to walk away, it suffers no consequences --- at least in terms of American action. (That may also apply to the third actor, the Palestinian Authority.) However, if Hamas doesn't play ball, well, you fill in the blank.

This isn't a "spineless" abstention by the US. It does show resolve, calculated resolve. Unfortunately, that resolve is for more military action and more deaths until Hamas, in US and Israeli eyes, is cornered.

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.

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?).

How the US is Fighting for "Peace" in Gaza: Bunker-Busting Bombs

On Sunday we noted the story from The Jerusalem Post that the Israeli Air Force is using new bunker-busting bombs provided by the United States just before the start of the Gaza conflict:

The missile, called GBU-39, was developed in recent years by the US as a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision and low collateral damage strikes.

Israel received approval from Congress to purchase 1,000 units in September and defense officials said on Sunday that the first shipment had arrived earlier this month and was used successfully in penetrating underground Kassam launchers in the Gaza Strip during the heavy aerial bombardment of Hamas infrastructure on Saturday. It was also used in Sunday’s bombing of tunnels in Rafah.

We've now found some more detail.



According to Boeing, the manufacturer, the bunker-busting bomb can "penetrate 3 feet of steel-reinforced concrete". And the smaller size "means aircraft can typically carry and deliver four of these bombs instead of a single, 2,000-pound bomb". But don't fret too much: "the smaller warhead is also supposed to reduce the possibility of collateral damage".

Perhaps the most horribly comic aspect of the story is offered by the press release of the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, announcing the notification to Congress of the sale:

Our policy has been to promote Middle East peace, support Israel’s commitment to peace with other regional Arab countries, [and] enhance regional stability.

Would it be too cliched to invoke Orwell's double-speak of "War is Peace" at this point?