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GAZA CITY, Gaza (CNN) – Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza City early Tuesday from two directions despite U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling on both sides in the conflict to “just stop.”
The rumble of artillery fire and airstrikes continued throughout the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory as Israeli troops and armor pushed into Gaza City from the northwest and northeast, approaching the headquarters of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service.
The Israeli military reported clashes between its troops and Hamas fighters and said at least 30 Palestinian combatants were killed or wounded.
Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships struck 60 targets overnight, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“We are tightening the encirclement of the city,” Brig. Eyal Eisenberg, commander of the Israeli offensive, told reporters brought in to Gaza to observe the deployment. 
Watch the latest report from Gaza »
Israel launched its military operation in Gaza on December 27 to halt rocket attacks on southern Israel. At least 14 rockets were fired into Israel on Monday, causing no injuries, an Israeli ambulance services spokesman said.
For a sixth day, Israel halted the bombardment temporarily to allow civilians access to needed supplies. The IDF said it expected 100 trucks loaded with aid to be transferred to the territory through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.
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Both Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza since mid-2007, have ignored last week’s U.N. Security Council resolution that called for a cease-fire. In an adamant message Monday directed at both sides, Ban demanded that they comply with the cease-fire call.
“My message is simple, direct and to the point — the fighting must stop,” the secretary-general told reporters in New York. “To both sides, I say, just stop now. Too many people have died.”There has been too much civilian suffering. Too many people, Israelis and Palestinians — live in daily fear of their lives, and in Gaza the very foundation of society is being destroyed.” Watch comments by Ban »
Ban is scheduled to hold a series of meetings in the region starting Wednesday with nearly all the players in the conflict except Hamas. The group has been branded a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and European Union…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6604775898578139565
Watch this – you will see one side of this story THAT U WILL NOT SEE ANYWHERE ELSE!
Hi
I was reading a British online newspaper this morning, and thought it was something I wanted you all to see.
It is a report of Ehud Olmert (Israel’s Prime Minister) boasting that he called your president and forced him to get the US to abstain in the recent UN Resolution 1840, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. This resolution was brought by your own Sec of State, Ms Rice. In the article it states that “Mr Olmert also claimed yesterday that the US President confessed to him that he did not even know the wording of last week’s crucial resolution”.
Now I don’t know how you all feel about this, but for a country which the US has consistently supported, this feels a little like back stabbing
Please go here to read the full article for yourselves.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/olmert-claims-he-told-bush-to-backtrack-on-un-ceasefire-deal-1334259.html
Hamas is the enemy of all peace loving people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI1q3etFX2k&eurl=http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk
Why call for a ceasefire? Israel has been taking hits from Hamas for about 2 years. They have a true right to defend themselves, and they’ve simply had enough. Let them be, let us not stick our noses in another country’s business, I believe even the UN needs to leave them alone. In other wars, countries did not care the least about Collateral damage. War is hell, if you don’t get out of the area, you’re already screwed. Putting groups of people in single buildings in the middle of a war zone is careless and ignorant.
The reason given by the Israel for the carnage in Gaza is Hamas. The objective given by the Israel for their invasion in Gaza is to destroy Hamas’ ability to launch Qassam rockets towards Southern Israel .
This is my question to the Israelis. If Hamas is the root cause for the conflict, then what had caused Hamas to exist in the first place? When Israel occupied the land and drove Palestinians by the millions away from their homeland, there was neither Hamas nor Qassam rockets. There were only poor ordinary Palestinians begging for their lives. Even then, Palestinians were massacred by large numbers.
Remember, when Palestinians started their popular intifadhah, they were just throwing stones towards the Israeli soldiers. It was because they were just throwing stones that nobody listened to or cared about them. Had the world listened to them back then, I doubt there would be any need for them to start using explosive belts.
When they started using explosive belts, they were called ‘terrorists’ . You see, once you’re labelled terrorist, no amount of diplomatic deeds would undo it. Not even when you won a fair democratic election by a landslide. Not even when you have proven your ability to maintain unilateral truce and quiet for years.
Not even when you’re needlessly willing to share power with political opponents for the sake of unity. What you would get in return are unprovoked raids, political abductions and unending sieges and conspiracies to bring you down from power.
Palestinians have been under brutal occupation for decades. They were forced to give up their rights for peace. Under any occupation, resistance movements are always natural. Any rightly guided mind definitely cannot expect otherwise. In fact, resistance is the only right thing to do when you’re occupied.
Hamas and ‘Jihad Islam’ are only natural fruits of a long brutal occupation and nothing more. Even if Hamas and Jihad Islam are crushed to their bones, resistance is always the only right thing to do under the occupation and Israel has to face that.
Then you may ask me, ‘Why can’t Hamas behave like Fatah?’ Firstly, even if Hamas were to behave like Fatah, what difference would it make towards the Israel attitude? Israel would always play tricks and give excuses.
The Zionist regime decided to stop bilateral talks with the Palestinian Authority since 2000, long before Hamas won the PLC election in 2005. Secondly, as the 2005 election results rightly show, Fatah is not the answer for most Palestinians.
In fact, for most Palestinians, Fatah is more a problem than a solution. Fatah was not seen by most Palestinians as representing resistance, but more as selling out on Palestinians rights for their own comforts and worldly gains.
The Palestinians, for decades, have tried throwing ideas on various negotiating tables, they have tried throwing stones, they have tried explosive belts, they have tried Qassam rockets – all in the name of a resistance movement. And resistance is the right of all occupied people.
The only thing to blame for the conflict in Palestine is the Israeli occupation, and only this occupation, and nothing else. It is certainly not the resistance, not Hamas, and not Qassam rockets. Anyone blaming anything or anyone else is playing to the tune of the Zionist regime.