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Operation Cast Lead

Day 21 - Friday 16 January 2009

The ground operation in the Gaza Strip continues, and since Friday morning (Jan. 16), IDF forces have hit 20 armed terrorists. In a joint operation of the Armored Corps and the Engineering Corps, a tunnel containing weaponry and explosive devices was uncovered. The tunnel was detonated in a controlled manner by the IDF. Golani Brigade forces identified a number of terrorists planting an explosive device and opened fire at them. In an additional incident, reserve forces identified a group of armed terrorists approaching and fired at them.

Thursday night (Jan. 15), IDF forces operating in the Gaza Strip identified a group of armed terrorists who were in the process of launching a mortar shell at Israeli territory. The forces immediately directed IAF forces, who then targeted the launching site and identified a hit. This incident is an example of the full cooperation between forces involved in the ground operation in the Gaza Strip - Infantry Corps, Armored Corps, Engineering Corps, Artillery Corps and Intelligence Corps-- and the IAF and the IN.

The IAF struck approximately 65 targets throughout the Gaza Strip during Thursday night. Among the targets were a mosque in Gaza City that served as a weaponry storage facility and a smuggling tunnel, two Hamas outposts, the house of a Hamas operative, six groups of armed terror operatives, four smuggling tunnels, 13 rocket launching sites, three weapons storage facilities - one of them inside of a Hamas training camp-- IEDs storage facilities, and five additional targets that were hit after being directed by the ground forces.

Over the course of Thursday night's operation, the Israel Navy targeted several Hamas terrorist sites and rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip and continued enforcing the naval closure of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops and tanks withdrew from a densely populated southwest suburb of Gaza City on Friday, leaving behind at least 23 Palestinian bodies and dozens more injured, the head of the region's emergency services said. Tel Al-Hawa, a fashionable residential and administrative neighborhood, has been the subject of heavy shelling over the past 24 hours by Israeli tanks in probably one of the most intensive military operations conducted by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

As international pressure intensifies against the attacks on Gaza, the UN chief has also called upon Israel to stop and declare a unilateral ceasefire. He met with the Israeli defence and foreign ministers. The UN chief says the death toll in Gaza has reached an unbearable point but is confident a ceasefire is near. "We don't have any more time to lose, we must end the civilians' suffering now," Ban Ki-moon said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon - on a weeklong tour of the region - was in the West Bank town of Ramallah, where he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The top U.N. official called on Israel to stop its assault on Hamas targets on Gaza. "The fighting must stop now," he said. "We have no time to lose. If they [take] some more time, there will be more casualties, more losses of human lives, more destructions. I would urge you again that a unilateral declaration of ceasefire would be necessary at this time."

Israel immediately rejected the notion of a unilateral cease-fire. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the Jewish state does not want a temporary solution - one that would be short of guaranteeing a permanent end to Hamas rocket attacks against civilians in Southern Israel. "We want a sustained, real quiet in the South and it's clear that Israel will not agree to a situation where we unilaterally cease our fire and have Hamas simultaneously shooting rockets into Israel," he said.

In Washington, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni finalized a U.S.-Israeli deal that aims to stop Hamas from smuggling weapons into Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed an agreement in Washington offering U.S. help to Israel in solving the problem of arms smuggling in Gaza. The deal is intended to keep Hamas from re-arming if a cease-fire is reached. In Cairo, a senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, held a second day of truce talks with Egyptian mediators.

Meanwhile, an emergency summit of Arab leaders is taking place in the capital of Qatar, Doha. Leaders of Syria, Algeria, Sudan and Lebanon are taking part, as well as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Senegal's leader Abdoulaye Wade. Indonesia and Turkey have also sent their representatives to Doha.

Syrian-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal rejected on Friday Israel's conditions for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip at the opening of a summit for Arab and Muslim nations in Qatar's capital, Doha. Mashaal also said that "the aggression must stop and Israel must withdraw its troops and open border crossings into Gaza immediately." Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was present at the meeting, while President of the Palestinian Autonomy Mahmoud Abbas has not come. Hamas say that they are ready to conclude an armistice with Israel for a year if its operation in Gaza is stopped and the Israeli army leaves the area within a week. Hamas representatives also insist on the immediate opening of all crossing points. Meshaal told Arab leaders that Israel caused the conflict. He accused the Jewish state of waging war against all Palestinians, including women and children.

Two of Hamas most senior officials were also killed Thursday - one of them was the organisation's Interior Minister Said Siam, regarded as the architect of Hamas' takeover Gaza in 2007. Siam was killed along with his brother's family in an Israeli air strike on Gaza on Thursday, Palestinian TV reported. A further 20 people were reported injured. The Israeli army said they attacked a house after receiving information that Siam, considered to be one of Hamas' most senior leaders in the Gaza Strip, was inside.

Across the border in Israel, nearly thirty rockets slammed into the south, wounding five people. Five Israelis were wounded by rockets that exploded Friday afternoon in Kiryat Gat and Ashdod, as 20 rockets and mortars struck Israel. The military said more than 15 rockets and mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip, striking the Israeli cities of Ashdod and Kiryat Gat. Israel's largest port, Ashdod handles approximately 60% of the county's marine cargo and has a population of 200,000, while Kiryat Gat has 50,000 inhabitants. Since the beginning of the IDF operation in Gaza (Dec 27, 2008), four Israelis have been killed and 285 wounded by rocket fire. 771 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel.

Since the beginning of the operation on December 27, over 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them civilians, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The overall death toll in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip had reached 1,133, with another 5,150 injured. Around half of the dead are women, children and the elderly. According to a statistical report, shelling has damaged 20,000 buildings, 4,000 of which have been destroyed completely, and some 26,000 civilians are without homes and are living in temporary shelters.