Joodse, centrum rechtse krant Haaretz schrijft:
Sources: Most of the dead are women and children
19 Palestinians killed in IDF shelling in northern Gaza
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and News Agencies
Israel Defense Forces artillery shells struck a residential area in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun early Wednesday, killing at least 19 Palestinians and wounding dozens of others.
Ten children and seven women were among the dead, the Palestinain Health Ministry said, adding that 18 of the victims were members of the Athamna family.
Khaled Radi, a Palestinian Health Ministry official, said all of those killed were civilians. According to witnesses, the victims were sleeping when the 15-minute barrage of shells first hit.
Radi also said at least 40 people were wounded, all civilians. Four hospitals are treating the wounded across Gaza.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni expressed regret for the deaths, saying that Israel did not set out to harm innocent civilians.
The IDF confirmed that an artillery battery containing 12 shells had aimed at a site from where Qassam rockets were fired at the southern city Ashkelon on Tuesday. The artillery fire had been intended for a location about half a kilometer from the Beit Hanun houses.
At this stage it is unclear whether the incident was caused by a technical or human error. The initial assumption is, however, that the wrong coordinates were fed to the artillery unit.
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz appointed Major General Meir Kalifi to head an investigation into the shelling.
Soon after the Wednesday attack, Peretz ordered the army to stop shelling in Gaza, and called for a speedy investigation into the incident.
The army has reduced the amount of artillery fire into Gaza in recent months, saying it was ineffective against the Qassam cells and inaccurate.
Nevertheless, the army decided to continue firing artillery shells sporadically, in specific instances.
Eight Qassams were fired at southern Israel from Gaza following the shelling. One person sustained light wounds.
At least seven houses in Beit Hanun houses were hit, witnesses said.
"It is the saddest scene and images I have ever seen," 22-year-old Attaf Hamad said. "I saw people coming out of a house covered in blood. I started screaming to wake up the neighbors."
One man wailed as he tried to find his son. "Where is my son?" he screamed. Neighbors did not have the
heart to tell him his son was dead.
"We were asleep and we were awakened by shells hitting the
house of my uncle next door. Then the windows to our houses were blasted away," said Asma Athamna, 14, who suffered shrapnel wounds.
"We fled the house only to be hunted outside. The shells killed my mother and sister and wounded all my siblings."
Family member Akram Athamna, an off-duty policeman, said he was woken at dawn by the sound of a shell exploding.
"I looked, and about 50 meters away, I saw smoke coming out of the house of my uncle Saad," he said. "It looked like the shells hit the top floor, and my brother and I ran down into an alley."
He said he counted about 15 shells hitting and that many of the casualties were people who fled outside after the first explosions and were caught in the open.
"Projectiles were fired directly onto the people who were rushing out of the house," he said. "There was blood everywhere. I saw my neighbor, Sakher Adwan, he went to get his sister, and he was killed."
Rahwi Hamad, 75, who lives across the street, said he woke to the sound of shells exploding and people screaming.
"I opened my window and I looked out and I saw a shell hit a neighbor's house ... When I came out, another shell had hit the house," he said. "There was a stench of blood and (burned) flesh."
Large holes had been punched in the fronts of the houses and their balconies had collapsed.
Surviving relatives sat weeping in front of the buildings. One man dipped his fingers in a puddle of blood and daubed it on his face.
"God avenge us, God avenge us," he cried.
Firefighters hosed the blood off buildings and cobblestones while ambulance crews gathered body parts from nearby streets and gardens.
The incident comes a day after the IDF ended a week-long military assault in which at least 52 militants and civilians were killed.
In the wake of the shelling, a Hamas spokesman called on all the Palestinian factions to renew terrorist attacks inside Israel.
Earlier Wednesday, an Israel Air Force air strike destroyed the house of a leading Hamas militant in Gaza City, Hamas and security sources said.
No one was injured in the strike, they said, as the occupants were warned ahead of time to leave.
Four killed in West Bank
In the West Bank, IDF troops ambushed a group of Palestinian militants near the West Bank town of Jenin early Wednesday, killing four, Palestinian security officials said.
After the ambush and the ensuing gunbattle, a 30-year-old civilian man had climbed to his a rooftop to observe the clashes was shot dead, security and medical officials said.
The military said it was checking the report.
Four local commanders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, were walking in the streets of Kfar Yamoun in the early morning when IDF troops opened fire, the security officials said.
The troops and militants exchanged fire, and the men fled into a nearby olive grove, where other soldiers shot them dead, they said.
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A Palestinian man weeping over the deaths of his family members in IDF shelling in the Gaza town of Beit Hanun on Wednesday. (Reuters)
Last update - 14:25 08/11/2006
Khaled Meshal: Hamas will retaliate for Gaza deaths 'by deed, not words'
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies
Hamas political chief in-exile Khaled Meshal said on Wednesday that Hamas will retaliate for Israel's offensive in Beit Hanun "by deed, not words."
Meshal was speaking at a press conference in the wake of botched Israel Defense Forces shelling in northern Gaza, in which 19 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed in their homes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun.
"The truce [with Israel] ended at the end of 2005," Meshal said. "The armed struggle is free to resume, and the resistance is dictated by local circumstances."
There must be a roaring reaction so that we avenge all those vicitms,"
Meshal said.
Meshal blamed the United States and Arab governments for the Israeli attack, saying the shelling took place "under American cover and aided by a complete Arab silence."
He also called for the formation of an international court to try Israeli
leaders for war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas strongly condemned the attack, calling it "a horrible, ugly massacre committed by the occupation against our children, our women and elderly in Beit Hanun."
"We urge and call the [UN] Security Council to convene immediately to stop the massacres committed against our people and to uphold their responsibility to stop these massacres," Abbas said in his his statement.
The PA chairman declared a three-day mourning period for the victims of the attack. Flags were to be lowered to half-staff and schools to be closed for three days, Abbas' office said.
Saeb Erekat, an Abbas aide, said the IDF attack in Hanun was proof that a military solution would not solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Speaking to CNN, the chief negotiator said Peace was clearly the only solution to ongoing hostilities
Earlier on Wednesday, Ismail Raduan, a spokesman for Hamas, called on all Palestinian factions, headed by the Hamas military wing, to renew suicide bombings inside Israeli territory.
Israel expressed regret for the shelling, and said that it would launch an investigation. Waar hebben we dat nog gehoord?
Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Wednesday that Israel must "cease to exist."
"After this barbaric operation, Israel proved that it's not a humane state," Hamad said. "It's a state that believes in killing, and therefore this state should cease to exist."
Hamas also called for Israel to be expelled from the United Nations, calling it an "animal, brutal state."
Thousands of Palestinians called for revenge Wednesday in a massive demonstration outside a morgue at the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Hanun, where some of the dead were taken.
"We are going to fight against the so-called Israel. We are going to launch our rockets, our martyrs are going to sacrifice their lives in the depths of our occupied land," said Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader in northern Gaza.
"They will strike in Jaffa, in Haifa, inside Ashdod. The battle will continue. The rifle is not going to be set down. All of us are martyrs in waiting. Revenge is coming."
Another senior Hamas official urged Palestinians to carry out attacks inside Israel in response to the Gaza shelling.
"The reaction is coming. [Israel] prepare the coffins and black body bags," Nizar Rayan, a hardline Hamas leader shouted to the agitated crowd outside the morgue.
"Revenge for the blood of martyrs is coming... We urge our
mujahideen to resume bombing attacks in Jaffa, in Haifa, in Ashdod - every place in our homeland."
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Wednesday called for a suspension of talks to forge a Palestinian unity government following the shelling.
He made his remarks during an emergency cabinet meeting in Gaza.
Following Haniyeh's remarks, Abbas said negotiations on forming a Palestinian unity government with Hamas must continue.
Abbas had previously expressed hope that a unity coalition between his Fatah movement and the rival governing Hamas militant movement could be created soon.
Palestinians hope a unity government will lead to a lifting of Western sanctions imposed on the Hamas government over its refusal to recognise Israel.
Responding to the Gaza deaths, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the world's largest Islamic body, accused Israel of war crimes Wednesday.
"This affirms that Israel scorns international law and insists on continuing to commit war crimes and violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, and an international effort is required to stop this killing," the Saudi-based OIC said.
The statement asked the United Nations Security Council to take urgent measures "to stop the Israeli attack and to guarantee the protection of the Palestinian people from Israel's brutality and state terrorism."
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en het onderzoek zal door dezelfde man gevoerd worden die de moord op de 7 familieleden op het strand heeft onderzocht en die concludeerde dat Israel niks fout heeft gedaan.
Halutz named Major General Meir Kalifi as the head of the investigation into the shelling. Kalifi previously headed the probe into the deaths of at least seven members of the same Palestinian family in an explosion on a beach in Gaza in June.
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reactie van de EU:
The European Union executive on Wednesday called the Israel Defense Forces attack that killed 19 Palestinians in Gaza "a profoundly shocking event."
"The killing this morning of so many civilians in Gaza, including many children, is a profoundly shocking event. Israel has a right to defend itself, but not at the price of the lives of the innocent," EU external relations chief Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement.
Syria also condemned the attack, and said the international community and United Nations Security Council had a duty to stop such "massacres" and hold Israel accountable.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Wednesday that she was "gravely disturbed" by the civilian deaths in Gaza, and extended her condolences to the families of the victims.
"The British government has repeatedly expressed its deep concern over mounting casualties and civilian suffering in Gaza in recent months, and raised these concerns with the Government of Israel," she said.
in the recenth months, en toch ging Israel verder omdat ze zich geen reet aantrekken wat de internationale gemeenchap denkt!
Italie reageert voorlopig het felst:
Italy's foreign minister branded the Gaza killings a "massacre" and called for an urgent international initiative to stop the violence.
"This morning 18 people, women and children, were massacred... an escalation of violence I think is unacceptable," Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema told reporters.
