Hamas: IOF chose date of starting hostilities, we will determine its final date

[ 29/12/2008 - 09:07 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Hamas on Sunday stressed that it would be the one to determine the end of military operations in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli occupation terrorist forces chose the date of starting those hostilities.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told a press conference held jointly with Hamas political leader Dr. Ismail Radwan that the IOF military adventure was meant to liquidate the resistance program and Hamas after securing regional approval.

He emphasized that Gaza would not surrender and the Palestinian people's determination would not weaken.

The spokesman said that the declared war on Gaza would only "boost our insistence on resisting occupation in defense of our people using all means available".

He hailed the Arab and Islamic masses that expressed solidarity with Gaza and appreciated the Arab and Islamic countries that sent urgent aid topped by Qatar.

Barhoum called on the Arab countries and the Ramallah authority to immediately halt normalization of relations with Israel, break the siege on Gaza and open the Rafah crossing.

Shallah: Resistance will foil IOA plans

[ 29/12/2008 - 11:02 AM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)--

Dr. Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, the secretary general of the Islamic Jihad Movement, has charged that the Israeli occupation terrorist forces' ferocious attacks on Gaza Strip were the tools of a regional, Arab and international plot to liquidate resistance.

Shallah told Al-Jazeera TV network in a statement from Damascus on Sunday night that Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni talked during her visit to Cairo about a regional axis to dissect Gaza hoping to change the "rules of the game".

He stressed that Israel was the one that breached and ended the truce and not the resistance factions.

The Jihad leader underlined that ending the "Zionist aggression" and lifting the siege on Gaza were basic conditions before discussing any new calm.

Shallah said that the PA along with a number of Arab countries had given the green light to Israel to carry out its genocide in Gaza. He asserted, however, that IOF tanks would not succeed in changing the situation in Gaza.

Salah: IOF launching carpet bombing on Gaza

[ 29/12/2008 - 11:00 AM ]

UM AL-FAHAM, (PIC)--

Shaikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian areas occupied in 1948, said that the American backed Israeli occupation authority was launching a carpet bombing campaign against the Gaza Strip in preparation for invading the Strip and toppling the resistance program.

Shaikh Salah on Sunday evening said in a press statement that the IOA war on Gaza was the last in a series of wars launched in the region, charging that the Arab and Islamic official silence encouraged Israel to launch this war.

He said that whether this silence was deliberate or not in the end it passed capital punishment against the entire Strip.

The Islamic leader said that Palestinians in the 1948 lands have declared general strike and mourning following the start of the military campaign against Gaza while marches and demonstrations were organized in various areas.

Hannibal Gaddafi: Egypt is besieging Gaza

[ 29/12/2008 - 10:12 AM ]

DOHA, (PIC)--

The Egyptian authorities refused to grant landing permit for a Libyan plane loaded with urgently needed medical and humanitarian relief material to land in Arish airport near to Gaza despite carrying with it Seiful Islam Al-Gaddafi the son of the Libyan leader Muamer Al-Gaddafi.

Hannibal Gaddafi, brother of Seiful Islam, told Doha-based Al-Jazeera TV network shortly after midnight Sunday that Egypt blocked the passage of Libyan and Qatari aid to Gaza.

He noted that the Libyan airplane was denied landing permission on Saturday and was forced to land in Abu Dhabi. Seiful Islam intended to personally supervise distribution of the assistance.

Hannibal disclosed that an Egyptian-Israeli coordination had prevented the Libyan ship Al-Marwa, which carried tons of humanitarian relief material, from docking in Gaza port a few weeks ago.

He resolved that Egypt is the one besieging the Gaza Strip, and expressed utter dismay at blocking entry of badly needed relief material to Palestinian citizens under siege and aggression.

The Libyan leader's son pledged that Marwa would set sail anew to Gaza and reach its harbor regardless of Israeli sea blockage.

Meanwhile, in Arish eight Egyptian surgeons and their aides were denied passage into the Gaza Strip to assist in urgent surgeries to Palestinian seriously wounded in the Israeli ongoing aerial attacks.

An Egyptian MP said that those surgeons are waiting at the Rafah border terminal for the Egyptian authority's permission to cross into Gaza.

IOF massacres escalate: Mother and 4 daughters killed & buried under the rubble

[ 29/12/2008 - 08:30 AM ]

JABALIA, (PIC)--

The Israeli occupation forces committed more massacres in the Gaza Strip on Sunday night this time openly targeting civilians killing a mother and her four little daughters in Jabalia north of the Strip and three brothers in Rafah south of the Strip.

Local sources said that an IOF F-16 warplane blasted the home of Anwar Balusha killing his wife and four of his little children while the rest were either still under the rubble or hospitalized after the modest house collapsed in the bombing.

Three brothers of the Absi family were killed at a late hour on Sunday in Rafah after the IOF targeted the home of Qassam Brigades field commander Raed Al-Attar but the brutal shelling killed the three children in a nearby house.

Medical sources reported that 4-year-old Ziyad Al-Absi was killed on the spot along with his 13 and 14 years old brothers Ahmed and Mohammed.

IOF warplanes and gunboats have jointly bombarded the western area of Gaza city after midnight Sunday causing immense damage to Gaza harbor and a security post.

The gunboats also shelled the marine police premises in Gaza city and a mosque in Rafah.

At the early morning hours on Monday, IOF gunboats fired a number of shells at the house of Ekilan family, which is adjacent to the home of PA premier Ismail Haneyya.

Big damage was inflicted on the targeted house along with nearby buildings but no casualties were reported.

The IOF barbaric aerial strikes launched since Saturday killed more than 310 Palestinians and wounded 1400 others so far as Israeli military and political leaders declare that the aggression was still in its preliminary stages.

Naim: Israeli air strikes on Gaza kill 300 Palestinians, wound 1000 others

[ 28/12/2008 - 05:44 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Palestinian health minister Dr. Basim Naim has affirmed that the brutal Israeli air strikes on Gaza Strip reaped more than 300 Palestinian lives, and wounded close to 1000 others, scores of them in critical conditions.

Israeli warplanes of all kinds were used in attacking the densely populated Gaza Strip, and unleashed tens of missiles against Palestinian police headquarters and civilian buildings, increasing the death toll.

In a press conference he held Sunday evening, Naim underlined that bodies of tens of civilians were still under the rubble of the destroyed buildings, adding that Gaza sky was covered with smoke and occupation warplanes. He said that blood and chopped limbs were seen everywhere on the streets.

But Naim highlighted that the most serious obstacle facing Palestinian doctors was the severe shortage in medicine and medical equipment to treat the growing number of injuries among the Palestinians.

He added that almost half of the ambulance vehicles in Gaza Strip were out of work due to lack of spare parts as a result of the Israeli economic blockade on Gaza, adding that Gaza hospitals urgently need electricity generators to help run the remaining equipments.

"This brutal Israeli aggression is carried out amidst awful Arab silence, and clear international connivance", stressed Naim, pointing out that the Israeli warplanes have indiscriminately bombed civilian and security buildings in the Strip, and that it was calling owners of Palestinian homes to vacate their housed in preparation to flatten them.

Moreover, Naim called on Arab health ministers to dispatch medical teams to the "steadfast" Strip, and to send medicine and ambulances equipped with intensive care equipments.

He also shrugged off statements of Ahmad Abu Al-Ghait, Egypt's foreign minister, alleging that Hamas was blocking wounded Palestinians from passing into Egypt, explaining that Egypt is still sealing off the Rafah crossing point, in addition to the fact that many of the wounded Palestinians were in serious conditions and "transporting them could jeopardize their lives".

"We still remember the six wounded Palestinians who were martyred after transferring them to Al-Areesh (in Egypt)", underscored Naim, disclosing that the PA government in Gaza had requested Egyptian ambulances to come into the Strip and to carry the wounded Palestinians, but, he added, Egypt refused our request in addition to preventing hundreds of Arab volunteer doctors from helping their comrades in Gaza.

In this regard, Naim urged the Egyptian regime to allow Arab medical assistance into the Strip through the Rafah border terminal, saying that Egypt was still blocking such medical aid from passing on to the Palestinians.

In Damascus, Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, the spokesman of Hamas, rejected Abul Ghait's fabrications on opening the Rafah crossing before the wounded Palestinians, asserting that the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza was declared from Cairo.

"It is clear that those statements were meant to cover up positions of certain Arab parties involved in the conspiracy against Gaza", asserted Abu Zuhri in a press release Sunday and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC.

He also lashed out at PA chief Mahmoud Abbas and Abul Ghait for "trying to justify the Israeli massacre in Gaza, accusing them of attempting to exploit the precious Palestinian blood for mean political goals".