Israeli tanks push deep into Gaza

Israeli tanks severed the main north-south route through Gaza

Israeli tanks and bulldozers have moved deep into the southern Gaza Strip in the biggest incursion into the territory in months.

Three Palestinian militants were killed early in the fighting, local medical officials said.

Israeli military officials say two soldiers were wounded. Reports speak of 30 or more tanks being involved.

Gaza is run by the Hamas militant group which took over the territory in June after a violent struggle with Fatah.
(Which resulted from a US/Israeli coup attempt, using corrupt elements of Fatah as proxies. Censoring the U.S. Role in Gaza’s 'Civil War'  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387436.html )

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Ramallah says it is the largest military incursion of Gaza for months, coming exactly two weeks after the Annapolis meeting that heralded a new round of peace negotiations.

(Actually, since these attacks on Gaza were planned long before Annapolis, it appears as if the meetings were designed to create a cover for these preparations, a bit of positive PR for those plotting aggression.)

On Wednesday, Israel and a Fatah-led Palestinian delegation are to hold a first round of talks aimed at relaunching the peace process.

(But since this excludes the democratically-elected representatives of the Palestinians, few take this eriously.)

Since that meeting nearly 40 Palestinians, mainly militants (numbers?), have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces.

The incursion was launched not far from the Sufa crossing point into Gaza, an area regularly used by militants to launch rocket and mortar attacks at Israel.

'Routine operation'

The Israeli force cut traffic on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah, and encountered fierce resistance from Palestinian fighters, witnesses said.

A petrol station was reportedly demolished, and three Islamic Jihad militants were killed when an Israeli missile struck a house.

"During the latest period, with all the mortar shelling and rocket launching coming from the area... it's not something out of the ordinary," an Israeli spokeswoman said.

(And indeed, Israeli defence officials warned that Israel's imposition of measures of Collective Punishment on Gaza would provoke these attacks. As usual, Israel created the reason it's now using to 'justify' its premeditated aggression.)

But correspondents on the scene said it looked anything but routine, with bodies lying amid the rubble of a destroyed building and Israeli tanks pushing deep into Palestinian territory.

(Sounds a lot less 'sterile' than the initial statements of this very report.)

Schoolchildren ran through the streets of Khan Younis, the largest town in southern Gaza, after schools closed so they could take refuge at home.

Dozens of people were detained in house-to-house raids by the Israeli troops, residents said.

Hours before the operations an Islamic Jihad militant was killed in an Israeli air strike, local medical officials said.

Rocket attacks

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC the operation was designed to protect Israel's civilian population.

(But this is BS. It's about undermining the democratically-elected Government of the Palestinians, and increasing the suffering of the people stuck in the world's largest Concentration Camp.)

"We've had over the last few months some 4,000 rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli territory, trying to kill Israeli civilians.

(Since many fell close to military installations, that statement is a distortion of the facts. And Israel's attacks on Gaza, coupled with its measures of Collective Punishment, have killed vastly more Palestinian civilians. Does this, then, mean that the Palestinians are entitled to attack Israel ... ?)

"We do believe that [with] these sort of surgical incursions where we go in, we deal with the infrastructure of the extremists, of the terrorists - we keep them on the run, we keep them playing defence," he said.

(But mainly, we terrorize the population, which we hope will convince them to give up and leave the territory we want to annex for ourselves.)

Palestinian officials have accused Israel of trying to derail peace talks before they start, with the announcement of tenders to expand a settlement in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israel denies this saying past obligations to cease settlement activity did not apply in that area.

(International Law, and UN Resolutions, apply in ALL Occupied areas.)

Hamas, which won parliamentary elections January 2006, has been excluded from the Annapolis talks and from the negotiations that are about to be launched. It does not recognise Israel.

(No, it does not recognize Israel as an Apartheid "Jewish state". That's not the same thing.
The Real 'Facts on the Ground' in the ME  http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?8619S )

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7138076.stm

Olmert: No Timetable for Peace Talks

A day after the IDF announced that it was ready to re-invade Gaza, as was planned before Annapolis, Olmert's Regime announced that there was no timetable for peace talks, and Israel pressured the US to pull a UN resolution which would enforce the talks.
 http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?8737S

US Withdraws Mideast Resolution at UN
www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8052/index.php

ALERT: Annapolis a Charade: Israel Plots Massive Aggression
Posted by Men Hung At Nuremberg For The Same on Tuesday, November 13th at 6:11 PM

It's interesting to note that, while the Plant Spammed the site again, pretending to be someone else reposting old articles, he glaringly eliminates certain stories.

In Germany, according to historian Richard Evans, in 1931-1932, if enough Germans of conscience had begun to say No -- history would have had an entirely diferent outcome.

If we go any further down this road the tears will be those of conservatives as well as progressives. They will be (Israeli) tears.

The time for weeping has to stop; the time for confronting must begin.

Adapted from "American Tears"
www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/american-tears_b_68141.html
The timing is interesting, given the upcoming "Annapolis Conference", which serves to be about PR alone, as Olmert has already ruled out any Negotiations or Compromise in the name of peace.

If you follow the events surrounding Israel's "Disengagement" from Gaza, you will quickly understand that this was the plan all along. While Israel was making a public spectacle of "forcing Jews to leave their homes", it was quietly surrounding the Strip with artillery emplacements, in an operation ominously named "First Rain".

Under this operation, Gaza basically became a "Free-Fire Zone", and several artillery and gunship strikes killed a high number of civilians. Finally, when one of these batteries fired upon and murdered a Palestinian family - picnicking on a beach that had been Segregated "Jews Only" only weeks before, Hamas finally decided to call an end to its unilateral, two-year cease-fire.

(In essence, they took Israel's bait. After all, you can't excuse your Aggression and label it "defense" if you're not being intermittently attacked. Never mind the hypocrisy underlying the entire media's framing of that whole debate ...)

When the Palestinians responded by electing Hamas to power (yes, elected), Israeli Extremists and their Ideological, bought foreign co-conspirators imposed unilateral sanctions on Gaza, a bit of Collective Punishment which increased the hardship of those stuck in the world's largest Concentration Camp.

When they felt Gaza had been substantially weakened, the US and Israel undertook a Coup attempt, using corrupt elements within the Fatah Party, provoking a violent response by Hamas, which expelled the group. Most of the world's media ignored the events leading to this "crisis", and instead only repeated the Propaganda emanating from the US and Israel, which used this to further increase sanctions against Gaza.

Most recently, Israel stepped up its Collective Punishment, except that human rights groups and legal advisors to the Government halted some of its approved measures, because they run contrary to International Humanitarian Law.

This was sold as another "response to rocket attacks" (again highlighting the hypocrisy of the debate's Framing - are the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves from strikes which actually KILL people ... ?), even though high-ranking officials said that this was NOT, in fact, a response to these attacks, but a way to "distance Israel from Gaza's infrastructure".

The real reason for this whole episode, of course, has been to "soften up" the Gaza Strip for a long-planned military attack, a way to undermine the resolve, and hopefully rid this territory of Palestinians altogether.

 http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?8076S

Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land
www.freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=169