 Rockets fired from Lebanon hit Israel
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-09 07:40
Several rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel yesterday, slightly wounding two people, police and medics said, in an attack seen as linked to Israel's war on Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip. Initial fears that Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah guerrillas might have launched the attack dissipated after an Israeli Cabinet minister pointed the finger at Palestinian groups. Israel hit back with artillery shells in what an Israeli army spokesman called a "a pinpoint response". The limited reaction appeared to signal a desire to avoid escalation. An Israeli Cabinet minister blamed Palestinians in Lebanon, not Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas - with whom Israel fought a war in 2006 - for firing the rockets. "I think these are isolated incidents," Rafi Eitan, a senior minister in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government, said on Israel's Channel 2. "We expected this." A Lebanese minister also said he doubted Hezbollah had fired the rockets, which came from an area controlled by UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army, 3 km north of the border. Hamas sources in Lebanon denied involvement. The commander of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon called for "maximum restraint" after the border incident, and the Lebanese government criticized the perpetrators for violating the UN Security Council resolution that halted the 2006 war. Israel broke int'l law: ICRC The International Committee of the Red Cross accused Israel of delaying ambulance access to a shelled area of Gaza City where it found four small children in a home with 12 dead bodies, including their mothers, on Wednesday. In unusually strong terms, the neutral agency said it believed Israel had breached international humanitarian law in the incident and demanded it grant safe access for Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to return to evacuate more wounded. US backing for a truce proposal raised expectations of an end to an onslaught that has killed more than 600 Palestinians. Israeli forces have been on alert in the north, anticipating that Hezbollah or Palestinian groups could fire rockets across the border to show support for Hamas and 1.5 million Gazans. Hezbollah is not known to have opened fire since Israel began bombing Gaza on Dec 27 with the declared aim of halting Hamas rocket attacks. Israel's assault resumed after a brief pause on Wednesday to help Gaza's inhabitants stock up on much-needed supplies. The army planned a similar three-hour lull yesterday. An Israeli soldier was killed yesterday, the army said. Eleven Israelis have died in the past 13 days, eight of them soldiers, including four killed by "friendly" fire. Egyptian ceasefire plan With both George W. Bush's outgoing US administration and President-elect Barack Obama speaking out on the need for peace, officials said Israel would send an envoy to Cairo to discuss how the Egyptian plan might be implemented. That could take several days. For now, Israeli military commanders appear determined to keep up the pressure on the ground, even if the Cabinet has put off a decision on a possible new phase to attack militants in Gaza's towns and cities. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed Israel's concerns that any deal must stop Hamas from hitting Israel with rockets from the Gaza Strip. "It has to be a ceasefire that will not allow a return to the status quo," she said. Israeli leaders face a parliamentary election in a month and will want to show the public that they have met that objective. Over a dozen rockets hit southern Israel yesterday. Hamas said it was considering the Egyptian plan, brokered by France, which addresses Israel's demand that the militant group be prevented from rearming, as well as Hamas's call for an end to Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. Tuesday's killing by Israeli shells of 42 people, including women and children sheltering in a UN school in Jabalya refugee camp, increased world pressure on Israel to call a halt. Some Israeli analysts say Israel faces a deadline to wrap up its campaign by the time Obama is sworn in, or risk a strain in ties with Washington at the outset of the new administration. European governments have offered to back the Egyptian ceasefire proposal with an EU border force that would prevent Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, from rearming. Agencies (China Daily 01/09/2009 page12) |
