By Calev Ben-David and Saud Abu Ramadan
Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli aircraft attacked police and security installations across the Gaza Strip, killing scores of people in the deadliest raid since the occupation of the coastal region ended in 2005, security and medical officials said.
As many as 200 people were killed and 750 injured, including women and children, Mu’awia Hassanien, a Palestinian medical-services official in Gaza, said today. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called the air strike a massacre and said it would retaliate. At least 30 rockets were fired from Gaza today, Israel Radio reported, killing a woman in Netivot.
Israel’s strikes started at 11:30 a.m. and in two minutes hit more than 30 targets, most of them security compounds run by Hamas, said an official of the movement who declined to be identified. They came after a week in which dozens of Qassam rockets were fired into Israel following the expiration Dec. 19 of a six-month cease-fire with Hamas.
“Israel expects the support and understanding of the international community as it confronts terror,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said. The government ordered the strikes on Hamas only after it saw no other way to stop rocket attacks on its southern towns. The attack comes amid an election campaign in Israel, with the ballot scheduled for Feb. 10.
“The operation will be continued, expanded and intensified as much as will be required,” the Israeli army said in an e- mailed statement. The Israel Home Front Command warned people within 20 kilometers of Gaza to stay close to air-raid shelters.
Police Chief Killed
Most of the Palestinian dead were members of the Hamas security forces, including police chief Tawfiq Jaber and the head of the organization’s Security and Protection Service, Ismail al-Jabary, said Taher Noono, a spokesman for Hamas.
Dead and wounded people were laid in the corridors of Gaza’s Shifra Hospital because the morgue couldn’t cope with the bodies.
There were immediate calls for restraint from around the world.
President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, who holds the rotating European Union presidency, said he “firmly condemns the irresponsible provocations that have led to this situation, as well as the disproportionate use of force,” according to an e-mailed statement.
“President Mahmoud Abbas strongly condemns this harsh aggression that Israel is waging now against the Gaza Strip,” said Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority president, in an e-mailed statement. “The president calls on the Israeli government to stop this aggression immediately and urges the international community to intervene.”
U.S. Urges Restraint
In Washington, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in an e-mailed statement from President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, that “Hamas’s continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop.” He also urged “Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza.”
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in a statement that he “condemns the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip and blames Israel, as an occupying force, for the victims and the wounded.” Egypt ordered the Rafah terminal on its border with Gaza to be opened so that the wounded could be treated in Egyptian hospitals, the statement said.
Hamas ruled out renewal of a six-month cease-fire with Israel as the conflict started to escalate last week, with Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli border towns and retaliatory air raids on Gaza.
Trade Restrictions
Hamas leaders blamed Israel’s refusal to remove restrictions on the flow of food, medical supplies and other goods through Gaza border crossings, and Israeli military operations, for the failure of the cease-fire. Israel says the restrictions on trade with Gaza and its air strikes were in response to Palestinian rocket attacks.
Israeli and Hamas officials agreed to the cease-fire through Egyptian mediators in June without negotiating directly. Hamas canceled meetings in Cairo planned earlier this month that were aimed at renewing the truce.
For full story: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aw5WKSxUSqHU&refer=home
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