The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (14 January)

Latest Post: Gaza Diaries --- Dying and Awaiting Death
Latest Post: Alive in Gaza Audio and Written Blogs --- "We Do Not Know What Tomorrow is Holding for Us"
Earlier Updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (13 January --- Evening)

7:20 p.m. Sky News in Britain is claiming that Hamas has agreed "in principle" to Egyptian proposals. Unclear, however, if Sky report is based on an earlier announcement by Spanish Foreign Ministry, now retracted. Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said earlier to Al Jazeera that "points of difference" remained over the Egyptian proposals, while Hamas spokesman in Syria said agreement had been reached.

More when we get out of a bloggers' gathering in Birmingham.

6:30 p.m. The long-term effect of the Israeli invasion? From today's Washington Post:

A cornerstone of Israel's strategy in Gaza is to crush Hamas's will to fight, especially its determination to fire rockets into southern Israel. But in interviews here with wounded supporters of the Islamist militia, Israel's assaults appear to be breeding more recruits and more popular support for Hamas.

Men who say they have never fought before or were not Hamas loyalists now vow to join the struggle against Israel when they return to Gaza. They include policemen and other professionals who form part of the backbone of Gazan society.

6:05 p.m. While awaiting developments, I found the opening to this report in The New York Times gets to the heart of the political/military matter:

Despite heavy air and ground assaults, Israel has yet to cripple the military wing of Hamas or destroy the group’s ability to launch rockets, Israeli intelligence officials said on Tuesday, suggesting that Israel’s main goals in the conflict remain unfulfilled even after 18 days of war.

The comments reflected a view among some Israeli officials that any lasting solution to the conflict would require either a breakthrough diplomatic accord that heavily restricts Hamas’s military abilities or a deeper ground assault into urban areas of Gaza. 

5:30 p.m. We've just posted an update on two Gaza accounts, the words of a four-year-old girl in a hospital and the extraordinary "Gaza Diary" of Safa Joudeh.



5 p.m. The latest update from the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, current to 5 p.m. yesterday:

Civilians, notably children who form 56 percent of Gaza’s population, are bearing the brunt of the violence. As one of the most densely populated places in the world, more civilians risk being killed or injured if the conflict continues. The parties to conflict must respect the norms of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), in particular the principles of distinction and proportionality.

4:45 p.m. The Gazan death toll, according to medical services, has passed 1000. Beyond the morbid symbolism of passing that mark, a colleague at lunch has offered the following: given the Gaza population of 1.5 million, this is the equivalent in US of 200,000 dead.

3 p.m. So here's the statement from Ban Ki-Moon in Cairo:

I repeat my call for an immediate and durable cease-fire. I've been urging in the strongest of possible terms all sides must stop fighting now. We don't have any time to lose.

A statement which, I fear, is spitting into the wind: no evidence of any advance from Ban's talks with the Egyptians.

Afternoon update (2 p.m. Israel/Gaza time): No significant word from Ban Ki-Moon's talks in Cairo. Periodic gunfire and bombings in Gaza City.

Peripheral news: a chap named Osama bin Laden has issued a statement on Gaza, calling for "jihad".

11:05 a.m. Juan Cole considers one of the important effects of the conflict, a souring of relations between Turkey and Israel.

11 a.m. Gazan death toll now 978 with more than 4500 wounded.

10:45 a.m. Huge development which effectively means no advance in the diplomatic process.

Ha'aretz reports on the split in the Israeli Cabinet: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who wants to press ahead with military operations, is refusing to meet with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, both of whom support a cease-fire: "On Wednesday, he will not convene the political-security cabinet to discuss whether the operations should go on."

10:40 a.m. Watching an extraordinary "Inside Story" from Al Jazeeera on protests and the Gaza conflict. Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute is close to screaming at the other participants and making statements such as "The Hamas leadership is in a bunker underneath al Shifa hospital" (hmmm.....), "There was not a daysince the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza that went by without a Hamas rocket fired into Israel" (false --- for example, official Israeli figures show only one rocket fired into Israel in July 2008) and "There was no blockade" (I leave that one up to you).

It's simple for Muravchik: Israel and Hamas are "morally unequal".

10:25 a.m.  Global Voices has just posted the heart-felt but disturbing reflections of a Tel Aviv construction worker who worked alongside six Gazans for 18 months in 1996-97. Despite the passage of time, it is well worth a read:

I and most other non-Gazans would break down after a week of such a schedule, but our Gazans lived like this for decades. Up until the day the [Gaza Strip] was shut down once and for all, and the life of people there grew even worse. […] Having seen all this, I understood even then that it was impossible to defeat these people or break them down. They can either be eliminated, or we can learn to live together with them. There are no other options.

(Hat tip to Lisa Goldman.)

10 a.m. This from The Independent of London:

At least three Palestinians in Gaza were shot dead yesterday after Israeli soldiers fired on a group of residents leaving their homes on orders from the military and waving white flags, according to testimony taken by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. The testimony was rejected by the military after what it said was a preliminary investigation.

9:50 a.m. Our colleagues at "Alive in Gaza" have posted their first audio despatch, from photojournalist Sameh Habeeb in Gaza City.

Morning update (9:30 a.m. Israel/Gaza time): The overnight military pattern continued. Israeli airstrikes on more than 60 targets, as well as naval and land bombardment. Fighting as Israeli forces further secured their positions around Gazan cities, while in southern Gaza, Israeli planes used bunker-busting bombs on tunnels near Rafah.

The headline development is on the other side of Israel. Three rockets from Lebanon, in the second launch in recent days, landed in northern Israel. The "National Front" has claimed responsibility,but worryingly CNN is already putting out the line that "nothing happens without the wink and nod of Hezbollah".

In what is likely to be a depressing diplomatic sideshow, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon visits the region today, seeing Egyptian and Arab League leaders on Wednesday and Israeli leaders on Thursday. Without visible support from another international entity, such as the United States or the European Union, or a parallel effort by the Arab League, I am afraid the trip will be publicity without substance (although if Ban can use the trip to get some movement on the humanitarian front, it may not be without value).

Meanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly will convene, offering its own symbolism of a denunciation of Tel Aviv. The President of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. has condemned the Israeli attacks as "genocide" against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (12 January)

Latest post: Orwellian Press Release of the Day --- The Israeli Consulate and "Waltz with Bashir"
Latest Post: Tony Blair Slams Hamas; His Former Ambassador Slams Blair and Israel
Latest post: A Gaza Diary
Latest Updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (12 Jan. --- Evening)

4:30 p.m. In case anyone cares: in his last press conference as President, George Bush says Hamas has to stop firing rockets into Israel if it wants a cease-fire.

4 p.m. United Nations Human Rights Commissionadopts resolution condemning Gaza offensive and accusing Israel of "grave" human rights violations



3:30 p.m. Heavy gunfire reported in north and east of Gaza.

2:30 p.m. Public relations meets reality: CNN website is noting another three-hour respite from Israeli attacks to allow aid into Gaza, but the lead story is highlighting the diary of an aid worker:

All of Gaza is on the verge of collapse: Most people have no electricity, no running water and inadequate food supplies. Fuel is running low. And only a fraction of aid needed to sustain Gaza's 1.5 million residents is getting in.

2:05 p.m. Israel allows 105 trucks with aid into Gaza. (This compares with about 750/day during truce period.)

2 p.m. Gazan death toll now 905, of whom at least 277 are children and 95 are elderly. More than 90 are women. About 4100 Gazans have been wounded.

12:20 p.m. On BBC Radio 4 this morning, Jeremy Greenstock --- former British Ambassador to the United Nations and the British representative on the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq --- sharply criticised Israeli policy in the Gaza conflict. My colleague Canuckistan has just posted an analysis.

10:22 a.m. Bombardment continues near Rafah.

10 a.m. Israeli reservists now operating in some Gaza City neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, a fascinating --- if you can be fascinated amidst this tragedy --- story of the splits in Israeli Cabinet: it appears that the man in charge of Israel's military, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, is reluctant to expand operations. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is also ready to declare "mission accomplished", but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is pressing for further military moves.

9:15 a.m. Al Jazeera now giving close coverage to Israel's use of white phosphorous, with Ayman Moyheldin reporting on patients suffering from effects and Dr. Moussa el-Haddad, who witnessed use of the bombs, talking about "respiratory distress"

9:04 a.m. Heavy fighting reported overnight in Gaza City's Sheikh Ajleen neighbourhood. Huge plume of smoke above minaret of Gaza City mosque.

9 a.m. Israeli intelligence reportedly calling Gazan residents. Speaking in Arabic, they are "friendly at first", but eventually ask about whereabouts of Hamas fighters.

8:20 a.m. The United Nations Humanitarian Corridor has released the latest report on conditions in Gaza, current to 5 p.m. Gaza time on Sunday:

There is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and for every day that hostilities continue, the cost for the civilian population inevitably intensifies. Only an immediate cease-fire will be able to address the large-scale humanitarian and protection crisis that faces the people of Gaza.

Morning update (8 a.m. Israel/Gaza time): Little change in the overnight pattern, awaiting Monday's Israeli Cabinet meeting. Number of Israeli reservists sent into Gaza unclear. Fewer airstrikes overnight, but heavy bombardment on ground and from sea continued, especially just outside Gaza City, where heavy fighting is reported.  About 20 rockets fired into southern Israel on Sunday.

Gazan death toll is now 898, of whom 45 percent are women and children. Israeli death toll remains 13, of whom 10 are soldiers.

Follow-Up: The Zeitoun Mass Killing

We noted this in yesterday's updates but, given the significance of the story, we believe that it has get as much exposure as possible:

If you haven't seen it, the reportage by Taghreed El-Khodary and Isabel Kershner in yesterday's New York Times is a stunning exposure of the atrocity that took place last week, killing about 30 members of the al-Samouni clan and dozens of others in the vicinity:

“I could feel the blood dripping inside my head,” Ahmed said, recalling the days he lay wounded in the bombed-out building. “My father was crawling — he couldn’t move his legs,” he said. His cousin Abdallah, 10, was trying to stand up but kept falling down; his brother Yaqoub, 12, kept removing large pieces of shrapnel from his own stomach; and his sister Amal, 9, was not moving at all. Another brother, Ishaq, 12, was wounded in the legs. He bled for two days before he died.

No wonder that this has "horrified many" since the Red Cross, four days after the Israeli shelling, finally got to the dead and wounded. And no wonder that at least one UN official was moved by this to call for a war crimes investigation. The reaction of the Israeli military spokeswoman: the army had “no intention of harming civilians".



For Arab Clan, Days of Agony in a Cross-Fire
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER

GAZA — Israel’s attack has razed buildings and upended families in much of crowded Gaza. But few neighborhoods suffered more than Zeitoun, a district of eastern Gaza City. And few families felt the wrath of the Israeli military more than the Samounis.

Israeli troops swarmed Zeitoun shortly after the ground invasion of Gaza began a week ago, and members of the extended Samouni family said they were moved from house to house as soldiers took over the neighborhood. On Monday, with nearly 100 Samounis huddled together in one house, the shooting and the shelling began, according to accounts of family members and witnesses that were partly corroborated by the Red Cross and the United Nations.

Thirty Samounis died, not all of them quickly. Ahmed al-Samouni, 16, survived.

“I could feel the blood dripping inside my head,” Ahmed said, recalling the days he lay wounded in the bombed-out building. “My father was crawling — he couldn’t move his legs,” he said. His cousin Abdallah, 10, was trying to stand up but kept falling down; his brother Yaqoub, 12, kept removing large pieces of shrapnel from his own stomach; and his sister Amal, 9, was not moving at all. Another brother, Ishaq, 12, was wounded in the legs. He bled for two days before he died.

Ahmed, speaking from his hospital bed, said he wanted to call for help. But his mother, Laila, was among the dead, and her cellphone was nowhere to be found.

The story of the Samouni family has horrified many since Red Cross officials on Wednesday publicized their discovery of four emaciated Samouni children trapped for days in a home with the corpses of their mothers. The Red Cross said the Israeli military denied its paramedics access to the area for several days after the ground invasion began on Jan. 3, part of the offensive against Hamas that Israel says is intended to stop the firing of rockets into southern Israel.

Israeli officials said they were still looking into the Zeitoun episode. A military spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich, said Monday that the army had “no intention of harming civilians.” Hamas, which governs Gaza, “cynically uses” civilians for cover by operating in their midst, she said.

But some international aid officials are arguing that the plight of civilians in Zeitoun, as well as the shelling of a United Nations school where civilians had sought refuge, should be investigated as war crimes.

“Accountability must be ensured for violations of international law,” Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said in an address in Geneva to a special session of the Human Rights Council focused on Gaza. The council has a reputation for censuring Israel. Ms. Pillay is a respected South African judge who recently assumed the top United Nations human rights job, which is separate from the council.

Ms. Pillay said, “Violations of international humanitarian law may constitute war crime, for which individual criminal responsibility may be invoked.” She suggested that the council weigh dispatching a mission to assess violations committed by both sides.

The Israeli military has not said whether the strike on the house in Zeitoun was intentional or a mistake. In the case of the United Nations school, Israel has said that Hamas militants were firing mortars from a location near the school.

According to Ahmed and other witnesses interviewed at the hospital, soldiers came to several of the Samouni homes that make up a section of Zeitoun soon after the ground invasion started. They told family members to vacate their homes and to gather together in one home down the street. Ahmed said they were moved a second time as well, until nearly 100 of his relatives crowded into one house.

Soldiers searched and occupied the now-empty houses. The Zeitoun neighborhood is strategically located and is known to have many supporters of Hamas. Ahmed said the Israelis wanted to turn it into “a military camp.”

Samouni family members did not deny that Hamas militants operated in the area. A family member said there was no active Hamas resistance in the immediate vicinity, although militants were firing rockets at Israel a little more than a mile away.

At about 6 a.m. on Monday morning, Ahmed said, tanks started demolishing a wall of the house where the extended clan was sheltered. His father moved toward the door, presumably to warn the soldiers that civilians were inside, but the troops started shooting, he said.

The shooting then stopped, and the soldiers appeared to withdraw. But a short time later, three rockets and several shells hit the building and tore apart the rooms where his family was gathered.

Ahmed said he and his brother Yaqoub pulled blankets over their relatives and managed to shut the doors in an attempt to hide from the tanks and soldiers outside. Everyone was crying, he recalled, and he did not immediately realize the scope of the damage.

Some relatives, like Masouda Samouni, 20, Ahmed’s sister-in-law, managed to crawl out by themselves and arrived at the hospital that same day. A few hours after the attack on Monday, she recounted how she had lost her mother-in-law, her husband and her 10-month-old son.

At that time, witnesses and hospital officials believed that 11 members of the extended family were killed and 26 wounded, with five children age 4 and under among the dead. The first survivors who arrived at the hospital may not have been aware of the full extent of the disaster and apparently had not counted all those left behind.

Ahmed, rescued nearly three days later, named 27 relatives who died in the building where he was hiding; the Red Cross said three more corpses were found in a house nearby.

The survivors ate tomatoes, drank water and cooked noodles over a fire, but tried to avoid attracting the attention of soldiers in the area. Relatives who escaped repeatedly asked the Red Cross to send help, but Red Cross officials said their requests to respond to the emergency were rejected by the Israelis during the initial days of the siege.

It was 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday when help finally came, half an hour before the end of a three-hour pause in the fighting ordered that day by Israel to allow humanitarian aid and rescue workers to enter Gaza.

Antoine Grand, the head of Red Cross operations in the Gaza Strip, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that the first rescue team on Wednesday had to leave the dead and take out only the wounded, “horrible as that seems,” because they had only limited time and only four ambulances.

“We had no other choice,” Mr. Grand said.

He added that the ambulances had to stop on one side of an earth mound put up by the military. The team had to walk a mile to the houses and bring back the wounded in a donkey cart.

On Thursday, they went back to the same area and brought out another 103 survivors, three of them wounded.

A report issued by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs on Thursday, based on telephone interviews with several members of the Samouni family, largely corroborated Ahmed’s version of events, saying about 30 people were killed when the house was shelled repeatedly. The report said the attack on the Samouni home was one of the “gravest incidents” in the Israeli campaign.

In another statement issued on Friday, the humanitarian affairs office emphasized that its report was not intended to render a legal verdict on the attack.

In a rare public statement on Thursday, the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said it believed that in this instance, the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. The delay in permitting entry to rescue services was “unacceptable,” it said.

The rescue team found “four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses,” the Red Cross said. “They were too weak to stand up on their own.”

The Red Cross added that Israeli soldiers were posted at a military position some 80 yards away from the house, and there were several other army positions and two Israeli tanks nearby.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said Friday that it was important that “we have better channels of communication and coordination” with the Red Cross and other aid groups. He said Israel had an interest in the Red Cross’s “successfully carrying out its mission.”

Taghreed El-Khodary reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from the United Nations.

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (10 January)

Latest Story: The Plan to Bring Fatah into Gaza — Livni Speaks
The Final Bush Legacy: Why the US Abstained on the Gaza Resolution
Latest Story: The Plan to Bring Fatah into Gaza?

12:10 a.m. With a lull in activity, we're going for some downtime. We half-expected a major Israeli ground attack before dawn but it appears that the Israeli Cabinet may still be undecided about pushing into Gazan cities.

Meanwhile, it's safe --- and sad --- to say that all is stalled on the political front. This has settled into a frustrating circle: none of the major players wants to appear to make a concession to Hamas (since most of those players want to get rid of the organisation) and, without a concession such as the opening of border crossings, Hamas will not negotiate for a cease-fire.



11:25 p.m. Israeli military says seven soldiers "lightly wounded" on Saturday. More than 60 targets hit in airstrikes. Suicide bomber killed in northern Gaza.

Four members of same family killed by Israeli tank shell near Beit Lahiya.

10:15 p.m. Israeli bombing raids in northeastern Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli "information" services brings out their secret weapon: "internationally-renowned singer Noa", who speaks for peace to "Palestinian brothers":

Now I see the ugly head of fanaticism, I see it large and horrid, I see its black eyes and spine-chilling smile, I see blood on its hands and I know one of its many names :Hamas.

9:55 p.m. Watching Khaled Meshaal recorded statement: while he says Israel has ruined chance of peace, I think he has set down a marker: Hamas will negotiate if there is an unconditional opening of the crossings (which Israel will not accept, of course)

9:50 p.m. Khaled Mashaal, Hamas leader in Damascus, tells Al Jazeera that Israel has failed in Gaza, achieving only "a holocaust which your leaders are trying to use for the next election".

9:45 p.m. Report of 500-1000 demonstrators in front of Israeli Embassy in London. Shoes and signs being thrown, and riot police charging the crowd.

9 p.m. Four Israeli F-16 jets violate Egyptian airspace.

8:30 p.m. Human Rights Watch tells Al Jazeera that it is "convinced" Israeli military is using white phosphorous

8:15 p.m. Information or disinformation? Israel's Channel 2 claims some Hamas fighters are wearing civilian clothes and some are impersonating IDF soldiers.

7:50 p.m. "Rafah Kid" is blogging with updates and opinion from Rafah, Gaza.

7:40 p.m. BBC says up to 50,000 at London demonstration for Gaza. Participants estimate more than 100,000.

6:20 p.m. Israeli military claims that it has killed Gaza City commander of Hamas rocket launching programme.

4:25 p.m. Diplomatic battle lines drawn between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas. Abbas in Cairo supports "international presence in the Gaza Strip", but Hamas delegation says it was not consulted.

While Abbas covered his back with the warning, "If Israel doesn't want to accept, it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood," he also set up Hamas for the fall if it does not accept the Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal: "If any party does not accept it, regrettably it will be the one bearing the responsibility."

4:15 p.m. Associated Press says leaflets dropped by Israel throughout Gaza announce "a new phase in the war on terror". Israeli Army calls the leaflets "a general warning".

3:45 p.m. Diplomatic negotiations going nowhere. Egypt and the Palestinian Authority have rejected the placement in Egypt of international observers for the Gaza-Egypt border, while Hamas have rejected the placement of an international force in Gaza.

3:40 p.m. From the diary of Sami Abdel Shafi, management consultant and columnist in Gaza City:

Whatever capacity we did have to run our own affairs is now no longer there, and it will make it extraordinarily difficult for the Gaza Strip to go forward whenever the war does end.

Only then will people discover the real cost of this war, when we have to look around and ask just how we begin a rebuilding effort on such a massive scale.

3:35 p.m. UN says three-hour respite not enough to allow resumption of aid deliveries in Gaza.

3:30 p.m. Israel dropping leaflets on Gaza City residents warning them to stay indoors as it plans to "escalate" offensive.

2:15 p.m. The interview with Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert could have a significant impact if it spreads beyond Al Jazeera, which is featuring it each hour. Gilbert is saying that the injuries he is seeing are not from "ordinary" shrapnel but from DIME (dense inert metal explosive) weapons.

Claims that the Israelis used DIME in Gaza first surfaced in 2006. The weapons have not been declared illegal, but the injuries caused show severe heat as well as percussive damage.

2 p.m. Israeli ground offensive imminent? Israeli Cabinet approves call-up of "unlimited" number of reservists

1:45 p.m. Explosions continue despite supposed three-hour "respite".

1:25 p.m. United Nations official Chris Gunness says Israeli Defense Forces have admitted responsibility for the Jabiliya school/shelter bombing:

In briefings senior officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from the school. The IDF admitted in that briefing that the attack on the UN site was unintentional.

Gunness added that footage released by the IDF, trying to show Hamas fighters operated from the school in 2007, was filmed after the UN had temporarily abandoned the site.

1:10 p.m. Israeli military says three-hour "respite" began at 1 p.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin reports that Israeli forces have surrounded all major population centers in Gaza City.

UN is now investigating the Zeitoun mass killing.

1 p.m. Gazan death toll now 815.

12:40 p.m. Israeli tank shell kills eight members of a family in Jabaliya camp.

12:10 p.m. In Cairo, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas calls Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal a "rescue initiative" which is "the only mechanism" to end Gaza war. Sharp-eyed readers will note that Abbas makes no reference to the UN cease-fire resolution passed just over 24 hours ago.

12:05 p.m. Latest Israeli airstrike just outside Gaza City as Ayman Moyheldin reports live on Al Jazeera.

12 noon: Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor, says 165 dead children and more than 1200 wounded children brought to al Shifa hospital to date.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin says Israelis are bringing aid into warehouse but international agencies cannot and will not distribute because of security issues and shortage of fuel. No resumption of aid shipments so far. Close combat between Israeli and Hamas forces overnight, with unknown number of Hamas fighters killed and five Israeli troops wounded.

11:10 a.m. Journalists in Gaza demonstrate after the Israeli strike on a building used by media.

11 a.m. Poll of the Day: Hamas' military branch, the Al Qassam Brigades, offers visitors to their English website the choice of "Keep Calm", "Resume Rockets", "Resume Operations". Right now, it's 40 percent each for "Keep Calm" and "Resume Operations", with 20 percent for "Resume Rockets".

Morning Update: Israeli operations continue overnight, with strikes on more than 40 targets, as talks begin in Cairo on the Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal.

Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, "expressed disappointment that the violence is continuing on the ground in disregard". A UN official has called for a war crimes investigation of Israeli actions.

More to our follow-up on the Zeitoun mass killing: The Guardian has an article --- it appears at least 30 members of the al-Samouni clan died in the Israeli shelling of a house, and up to 30 other civilians died nearby. The dead and wounded lay unattended for up to four days.

More than 800 Gazans have been killed since the start of the conflict two weeks ago. Thirteen Israelis, of whom 10 are soldiers, have been killed --- in contrast to the claims of the Al Qassam Brigades that they killed eight Israeli troops in an ambush, claims no losses on Friday.

The Final Bush Legacy: Why the US Abstained on the Gaza Resolution

We were quite surprised when the US, represented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, abstained in the UN Security Council vote on the Gaza cease-fire resolution late Thursday night. After all, as we noted yesterday, Rice had joined British Foreign Minister David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in the development of the resolution, in part to block the Libyan-drafted alternative.

Now we have a partial answer to the mystery:

The call that changed everything apparently came just as ministers and ambassadors were taking their seats in the council chamber. It was President George Bush for Ms Rice. Don't veto the resolution, he said, but don't vote for it either.

Apparently, Bush had just gotten off the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who appealed to the White House to override the State Department and ensure that the US did not support the cease-fire call.

Since it was the British who drafted the resolution and did a lot of the heavy lifting to line up support, especially from Arab delegates --- "it was hairy there for the moment", said one British official --- the Foreign Office is none too impressed with Washington. (Which is why some of their staff gave this story to The Independent and to the Guardian)

So it's a final legacy for President Bush, refusing to back a cease-fire and effectively green-lighting Israel to carry on with the killing (of both Hamas fighters and civilians) in Gaza. But that leaves a further mystery: who really made the decision to pull away from the resolution?

In the history of this Administration, as detailed by writers like Barton Gellman, Thomas Ricks, and James Risen, the Vice President's office and the Pentagon have often bypassed and even trampled upon the State Department to push through their own strategic ideas. Well, Donald Rumsfeld and his deputies may be long gone, but Dick Cheney remains, at least for another 10 days.

So did the Vice President step in again or was it really "The Decider", as Bush likes to style himself, who did make a fateful decision?