Israel looks to drive out Hamas

January 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Israeli intelligence and military officials are increasingly pushing for the assault on Gaza to continue until it assures the eventual downfall of Hamas amid assertions that the 10 days of military bombardment have crippled the Islamist party's ability to govern.

As the onslaught progresses, officials are more confident of "changing the equation" in Gaza and are predicting the collapse of the Hamas administration.

Last night, Israeli forces bombed the centre of Gaza, and there were reports of intense clashes with Hamas fighters on the edge of the city. But the fighting and the occupation of parts of the north and centre of the Gaza Strip did not stop Hamas from firing more than 40 rockets into Israel.

The death toll from 10 days of fighting has risen above 550. Those killed yesterday included 13 members of the same family killed in their house by Israeli tank fire east of Gaza city.

The Israeli military said early today that three of its soldiers were killed and four wounded when one of its tank shells was fired in error.

The rising number of civilian deaths is helping to drive growing diplomatic pressure for an end to the killing. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, on a visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah, yesterday called on Israel to stop the violence and demanded an immediate ceasefire by both sides. There was a similar call from an EU delegation in Israel.

But they were rebuffed by Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who said: "When Israel is being targeted, Israel is going to retaliate. Israel is going to give an answer to it because this is an ongoing, long battle, war, against terror."

Livni's determination reflects a growing confidence in the upper echelons of the Israeli establishment that the assault will fatally damage the foundations of Hamas's control and, in time, drive it from power. Intelligence and military officials have told the cabinet that "not much" remains of the Hamas administration in Gaza and that its ability to take control again has been undermined by the destruction of a large part of the physical infrastructure of administration, including the parliament building and many government offices.

The intelligence services also told the cabinet that they believe the Israeli bombardment is turning Palestinian popular opinion against Hamas and that terms can be forced on the Islamist party that will further weaken its control.

Israeli officials have generally been reluctant to say that the attack on Gaza is intended to force Hamas from power out of concern that it would undermine the international support they have won by portraying the assault as a purely defensive measure to stop Hamas rockets.

Last week, Israel's deputy prime minister, Haim Ramon, and the leader of the Shas religious party, Eli Yishai, walked out of the cabinet meeting that approved the invasion of Gaza because it did not specifically call for the toppling of the Hamas administration. After Ramon told Israeli television that what "we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern", other government members denied that was the intent.

But Livni yesterday said Hamas's continued control of the Gaza strip was "an obstacle" and that Israel was seeking an agreement that "weakens it".

The head of the Shin Bet internal security service, Yuval Diskin, told the Israeli cabinet that Hamas was finding it increasingly difficult to govern with its leadership in hiding from Israeli rockets and much of its infrastructure blown to pieces.

He was backed by the chief of the general staff, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, who said "not much" remained of the Hamas government, and by the head of military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin. "Hamas has absorbed a very hard blow ...

Its ability to govern has been harmed, its leaders have completely abandoned the population and are only worrying about themselves," Yadlin told the cabinet.

He said Hamas was increasingly isolated, both internationally and from the Palestinian population.

Hamas leaders remained defiant yesterday with the party's political head in Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, saying it would fight on "in the name of God". He said in a speech broadcast in Gaza: "They legalised for us knocking down their synagogues when they hit our mosques, they legalised for us knocking down their schools when they hit our schools."

Hamas leaders have been assassinated and driven underground before, and the organisation has generally emerged fortified and more radical. Israel has also pursued these tactics in the past and failed to curb Hamas's influence or the rocket attacks. But whether or not the Israeli military and intelligence leaderships' claims to the cabinet are overstated, they reflect a strengthening intent to bring down Hamas.

Livni told the cabinet that a diplomatic agreement for a ceasefire should weaken Hamas politically. "This is not a matter of an isolated operation and every arrangement should advance the interests of the state of Israel vis-à-vis Hamas. There is no intention here of creating a diplomatic agreement with Hamas. We need diplomatic agreements against Hamas, and any agreement that weakens it is positive in our eyes," she said.

Israel wants foreign powers to impose terms on Hamas that would in effect require it to submit to the authority of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Palestinian Authority, which was driven from the territory in bloody internal fighting two years ago.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian negotiator involved in talks with Israel over its 2005 withdrawal of settlers from Gaza, said the Israeli assault had strengthened short-term solidarity with Hamas, but was likely to have weakened the group politically.

"People in Gaza are under assault right now so they're going to support Hamas. But when the dust settles I think we'll get a very different perspective, a lot of questioning about whether Hamas has the right strategy.

"I think what's going to happen will be similar to what happened when [Yasser] Arafat was besieged in the mukata [the Palestinian presidential compound] in 2002. People who were very critical of Arafat before said 'we're supporting him 110%.' A few weeks later ... you started to get the introspection of 'is this really what we need, is this really what we want?'"

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Deal to admit journalists aborted

January 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Plans to allow journalists into Gaza were aborted yesterday after Israel's military said it was too dangerous to keep staff at the Erez passenger terminal to allow people to cross into the besieged territory.

Israel argues that excluding the international media from Gaza is helpful because foreign journalists are unethical and biased in their reporting.

Foreign journalists are "unprofessional" and take "questionable reports at face value without checking", said Danny Seaman, who heads Israel's government press office, which vets and issues permits to foreign correspondents.

Seaman said it was not Israel's responsibility to give foreign media access to Gaza. "They should have been there in the first place," before Israel began restricting access on 6 November, said Seaman. "We are not going to endanger the lives of our people just to let journalists in."

Israel began restricting media access to Gaza after the six-month ceasefire with Hamas began unravelling on 4 November. But a high court challenge by the Foreign Press Association resulted in a compromise in which eight members of the media were to be allowed in when the Erez crossing was opened for humanitarian reasons.

During the case the military had told the court it was too dangerous to allow journalists in.

Under the agreed arrangement, aborted yesterday, the FPA was allowed to select six journalists by lottery and submit the names to Israel for vetting. Israel selected the other two journalists.

In this first pool it chose people from NBC and Fox news, which is pro-Israel.

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Pakistan terror accused acted in self-defence, court hears

January 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Two London-based men accused of inciting terrorist attacks in Pakistan were acting in self-defence, a court heard yesterday.

Faiz Baluch, 27, from Wembley, north London, and Hyrbyair Marri, 40, from Ealing, west London, have both pleaded not guilty to assisting terrorism and incitement to murder abroad.

Defending Baluch, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC told Woolwich crown court he was a "casualty of geopolitics" and the US-led war on terror.

It is alleged that the two men encouraged acts of violence against Pakistan via website Baloch Warna (Baluch Youth).

"This case is not about jihad or al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden," said Kennedy. "These men abhor the distortion of Islam by Osama bin Laden."

She said the people of Baluchistan were "suffering a slow death" at the hands of the Pakistan government. Their land had been used for nuclear weapons tests in 1998, which had caused cancer and leukaemia. Those who protested against the behaviour of the Pakistani authorities, she said, faced prison, torture and death. "This case is about classic self-defence, not regime change." If the case was not so serious, she said, "it would be laughable."

After 9/11, said Kennedy, "a lot of nations called their dissidents terrorists" and the former Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf, had used this excuse to label the Baluchis as such. "In law, people are entitled to defend themselves," she said. "If the Germans had marched into Britain, we would have been entitled to resist."

Giving evidence, Baluch said he had been born in the part of Baluchistan now in Iran but had been educated in Quetta, which was under the control of Pakistan. He came to Britain as an asylum seeker in 2002, and worked as a kitchen porter in Coventry before meeting fellow exile Marri and moving to London.

Baluch said the website, which was set up in 2004, was "to report what is happening, the human rights violations and to bring the plight of the Baluch people to international attention." He denied he ever used the site to incite people to kill.

He told the court about the shelling of the Baluch village of Dera Bugti in 2005 in which around 30 people died after protests that a woman doctor had been raped by members of the Pakistani military.

The case, which started last month, continues.

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