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WORLD> Middle East
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Israel faces criticism as Gaza toll hits 765
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-09 10:46 BROTHERS IN DEATH Around 20 rockets hit Israel on Thursday, fewer than at the start of the war but not the total halt it wants so that "quiet will reign supreme," as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said. Rockets have killed three Israeli civilians since the offensive began. Olmert said Israel's goal had not been achieved and a decision on further military action lay ahead. Aside from a 3-hour ceasefire which Israel ordered for the second day, to let Gaza civilians venture out, there was no let-up in fighting. Air strikes and ground attacks killed at least nine civilians and three gunmen, medical officials said. The dead included two brothers aged six and 13, killed when an Israeli air strike missed a group of Islamic Jihad fighters. A Ukrainian woman, who could have left, was killed in her home by a tank shell, along with her son. The father said his wife was sliced in two, his 18-month-old son only recognizable "by his teeth." In Washington, the U.S. Senate adopted a bipartisan motion "reaffirming Israel's inalienable right to defend against attacks from Gaza," said majority leader Harry Reid. The United States would do the same if "rockets and mortars coming from Toronto in Canada" hit Buffalo, New York, he said. LEBANON FRIGHT Israel says it accepts the "principles" of a ceasefire proposal by Egypt and the European Union, and Washington has urged the Jewish state to study details of the plan. Hamas, shunned by the West for espousing violence, said it was still considering the ideas. But the militants say they will never accept Israel, whose establishment in war 60 years ago dispossessed and uprooted Palestinian people. European governments offered to back the plan with an EU border force to stop Hamas rearming via tunnels from Egypt. The deal would also address Palestinian calls for an end to Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. Relations between Israel and the Vatican, never easy, chilled further over Gaza. The Jewish state condemned an aide to Pope Benedict for calling Gaza "a big concentration camp," the Vatican's toughest criticism of Israel since its offensive. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel was astounded at "the vocabulary of Hamas propaganda, coming from a member of the College of Cardinals." The ICRC accused Israel of violating the rules of war by delaying ambulance access to the house where its team found children huddled beside corpses, 80 meters (yards) from the Israeli army. The Red Cross said the army must have known of the situation but did not help the wounded, in violation of international law. Israeli nerves were rattled in the morning when a rocket from southern Lebanon hit an old people's home in Nahariya, raising fears that Hezbollah fighters were opening a second front to relieve pressure on Gaza. Israel fought a 34-day war with Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006 and is no hurry to engage them now. It responded with a few artillery rounds and played down the rocket attack.
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