Gaza: The Israeli Invasion (11 a.m. Israel/Gaza; 9 a.m. Britain)

Latest Post: Rolling Updates on the Israeli Invasion (4 January)

As expected, the UN Security Council could not reach agreement on any action in its emergency session. The US blocked any approval of a resolution calling for an "immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas".

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, the only broadcast correspondent inside Gaza, reports fighting in the east of Gaza, with Israeli troops searching house-to-house. The Israeli attack occurred on three fronts, with an Israeli column moving east to west and reaching the Mediterranean to split Gaza in two. Israeli troops have reached the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun and the Jabaliya refugee camp, and eyewitness report Israeli forces on the outskirts of Gaza City.



Israeli Defense Forces say that they wounded a number of Hamas fighters and acknowledge that 30 Israeli soldiers have been hurt. Al Aqsa, Hamas' television station, has just claimed that two Israeli soldiers have been captured. Palestinian medical sources say four Gazans have been killed in the ground assault.

IDF also claims that they hit 45 Hamas targets including the Intelligence Headquarters. Five Palestinians have died in an Israeli artillery strike on a shopping area. The overall Gazan death toll is now 477.

A main water line to Gaza has just been damaged, cutting off supply to 30,000 people at the Nuseirat camp. Aid workers say hospitals in Gaza are overrun and lack medicines, equipment, and staff to cope with the casualties. Most people in northern Gaza have been without electricity for days.

Urgent Update on Israeli Invasion of Gaza (4 January)

Latest Update: The Israeli Invasion

3:15 a.m. We're going to get some downtime. Back later this morning to update on military developments and Security Council discussions.

2:50 a.m. Spain issues balanced statement calling on Israel to end ground operations and Hamas to cease firing of rockets.

2:38 a.m. Quick question: how many Hamas spokesmen do you think have been interviewed by CNN, BBC, Fox, and even Al Jazeera this evening?

2:36 a.m. CNN's Jim Clancy, who is usually notable for his simplistic parroting of US Government "received wisdom", actually has a wise comment about the Security Council meeting: "People shouldn't expect too much."

CNN then goes back to normal service, putting Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev on screen for several meetings, knocking softball questions from Christiane Amanpour out of the park.

2:27 a.m. I don't believe it. Al Jazeera has turned for analysis to Meyrav Wurmser. Along with husband David, who was a Bush Administration official in both the Vice President's office and the State Department, Wurmser has been one of the most vocal advocates of an expanded Israeli power, not only shattering Hamas and Hezbollah but also negotiating only with the Palestinian Authority from a clear position of strength. See, for example, the Wurmsers' role in the "Clean Break" blueprint submitted to Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in 1996.

2:20 a.m. Israel/Gaza time: Six hours after the news first broke, coverage of the Israeli ground assault has slowed. Attention is now turning to the UN Security Council emergency session in New York. While the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called for an immediate cease-fire, US support of Israel almost guarantees that there will be no resolution. At most, there will be a bland statement by the President of the Security Council expressing concern about both Israeli military action and Hamas' rocket attacks.

Reading the News from Iran to Gaza

A reader from Birmingham offers this excellent analysis of developments in Iran and in the Israel-Gaza conflict:

In Tehran, there is the usual mix of stories of protest, support for Hamas and Obama's Iranian 'dilemma'- but the strangest story is this from the Los Angeles Times:

In Tehran, Iran, a senior Iranian official and ranking cleric told worshippers that Hamas possesses a “new weapon” to use if Israel decides upon a ground invasion. The advanced weapon would allow the militant group to target Israeli tanks “from a long distance,” said former Iranian president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of Iran’s powerful Expediency Council.

Is Rafsanjani's sabre rattling related to this from couple of days ago? Radio Free Europe/Farda has a story that an Iranian newspaper has been closed for criticising the Iranian Government's support of Hamas. US public diplomacy has subsequently stirred the pot by claiming the reform paper was close to Rafsanjani.

Perhaps the most significant and under-reported story is that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki today started a visit to Iran, telling Iranian state television that his government would not allow Iraq to be used as a base to threaten its neighbours. The question of the Iraqi-based Iranian exile organisation MKO, whom Iraq wants to expel and Iran wants to extradite, will doubtless also come up. He will talk with Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini.

Anne Penketh of the Independent also balances a non-story that the war in Gaza will harden Israeli support for strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, with a few home truths about the reality of Iran's nuclear threat to Israel. There was also the story a few days ago that Iranian groups have been recruiting suicide bombers to travel to Israel and have been lobbying the government for assistance (which was not forthcoming)

Meanwhile, what has been lacking in news coverage is any real contemplation of the nature of an Israeli ground offensive. Only the Los Angeles Times has this quote from an Israeli military analyst:

Israeli analysts and experts have said that any ground operation should be brief but powerful. Alex Fishman, the military analyst of the daily Yediot Aharonot, wrote Friday, “Since the name of the game is killing and destruction, the ground operation has to be quick, with a lot of firepower at friction points with Hamas.” He added, “The goal is to exact a high price in the early stages of the ground operation and to end it quickly.”

Gaza: Worst Historical Analogy of the Week?

Deroy Murdock of the Hoover Institute asks us (and presumably Hamas) to remember that the civil rights movement narrowly avoided disaster by Dr. Martin Luther King's decision not to launch rocket attacks into the Upper West Side from bases in Harlem:

Picture the rockets' red glare as they rise from Watts and land in Beverly Hills. Up they soar in Harlem, and down they rain on the Upper West Side.

Such mayhem would have triggered a white crackdown on black areas. The squandered opportunity for greater racial equality and economic prosperity would have hobbled black progress, probably for decades. Barack Obama's presidential victory might have been a non-starter had Dr. King taken this low road.

Thank God Almighty, he did not.

Urgent (Rolling) Update: Israeli Ground Forces Reportedly Entering Gaza

Latest update: Gaza: The Israeli Invasion


1:10 a.m. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon calls for immediate cease-fire. CNN prefers to repeat, without analysis, the statement of Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak.

1 a.m. Watching Fox News to find out their angle --- They go to their man on the Israel-Gaza border, Mike Tobin, who quite clearly has no decent sources of information and is just making up "news", such as possibility that Hamas set fires to the gas tanks in Gaza --- The media-literate might find a Tobin/Fox News look-a-like in The Day Today's Peter O'Hanra-hanrahan

12:55 p.m. Al Jazeera: US State Department says cease-fire is needed as soon as possible and is concerned about humanitarian situation but says "Hamas is holding Gaza's people hostage"

12:42 p.m. CNN gives 10 minutes to military analyst Retired General David Grange, who says despite "extraordinary precautions" by Israel, Number One risk is civilian casualties --- He says Hamas wants to "induce casualties among its own people" as well as Israeli forces

Why not just identify Grange as "spokesperson for Israeli Defense Forces"?

12:25 a.m. Hamas spokesman says battalion of Israeli commandos surrounded ---5 soldiers killed, 29 injured

12:10 a.m. Israel TV says Gaza gas terminal hit.

12 midnight. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband calls for immediate cease-fire. UN Security Council to meet at 7 p.m. New York time (2 hours from now).

Massive explosion in Rafah.



11:33 p.m. As Israeli troops invaded, Israel jammed Al-Aqsa, Hamas' television station, and posted message, "Hamas --- Your Time is Over".

11:30 p.m. Al Jazeera reports that France has condemned the Israeli invasion. Israeli military says dozens of Gazans killed.

11:15 p.m. West Bank Palestinians on streets of Ramallah condemning invasion and calling on Arab states to respond.

11:10 p.m. UN has now set up shelters for refugees from Gaza fighting.

10:57 p.m. Al Jazeera correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin in Gaza City is very good, making excellent point that Israeli operation may have to attempt reoccupation of all Gaza. Rationale? Because Hamas has better rockets than in recent years, it can put them deeper in the territory. So if Israel wants to remove all the sites, they cannot go for a "limited" operation.

10:39 p.m. Israeli spokesman Mark Regev now talking to Al Jazeera. In response to Mahmoud Abbas's warning of "grave consequences" of Israeli invasion, he holds to the line of an operation responding to Hamas' "terrorism" of rockets. He does not rise to Al Jazeera's bait that Israel "wants to overthrow Hamas", arguing that this is "up to the Palestinian people themselves".

Regev is good: he gets in all the political hyperbole with Hamas as "a totalitarian, Taliban-type regime".

10:37 p.m. CNN's Ben Wedeman is officially hopeless. He passes on Tel Aviv's spin, "Our understanding from Israeli officials is that it's going to be, at least initially, the first stage, is going to be limited in scope," even as Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza City reports a two-pronged Israeli attack, one from east and one into Gaza towns (Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun) in northeast.

10:28 p.m. Al Jazeera reports that airport, in southern Gaza, "destroyed" by Israeli artillery.

10:24 p.m. Israeli state TV says number of Hamas fighters killed.

10:20 p.m. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman tells Al Jazeera that military operation is not "reoccupation" of Gaza, as it is only to destroy "Hamas infrastructure of terror". He then gives away the political aim, however, referring to a "legitimate Palestinian leadership" (Palestinian Authority) that could lead Gaza.

10:10 p.m. Palestinian Authority takes public position of criticising Israel: chief negotiator Saeb Erakat says, "What this will do is undermine the peace process."

10:00 p.m. Brigadier Avi Benayahu on Israeli television: "This won't be a school outing. We are talking about many long days."

9:50 p.m. Israel/Gaza: Ehud Barak, Israeli Defense Minister, is giving a press conference. The aim of the operation is "to force Hamas attacks and to stop its hostile activities....We are not war hungry but we should not allow a situation where our towns ... are constantly targeted by Hamas....It will not be easy or short, but we are determined."

The invading force is "columns" rather than a "column", coming in from four directions into northeastern Gaza.

9:45 p.m. Israel/Gaza: There has been contact between the invading Israeli column and Hamas fighters, according to a witness. Hamas is claiming on Al-Arabiya television that there have been Israeli casualties.

9:15 p.m. Israel/Gaza: Reuters, citing Palestinian witnesses, and Press TV are headlining that a "small Israeli ground force" has entered Gaza. (CNN is headlining but has yet to post story.)

Al Jazeera is reporting that the force is an Israeli armoured column supported by attack helicopters. Apparent objective is to seize sites from where rockets have been fired. Point of entry is in northeastern Gaza, on open land (and site of former Israeli settlements) near Beit Hanoun.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman has told Al Jazeera that ground operation is to continue until "situation on the ground...transformed".