06/01/2009 …
It’s the eleventh day of the Israeli offensive on Gaza and the fourth day of the ground operation. 11 days have passed and Israel has so failed to achieve any clear objective; a reason to dump all calls for ceasefire. On the ninth of January, PA chief Mahmoud Abbas’s term ends and on the twentieth of January US President Barack Obama takes the oath. Time is not in Israel’s favor as elections are a few weeks ahead. The political confusion has been reflected recently on the battleground in Gaza. Israeli elite soldiers are getting killed, at least 3 on Monday night alone and settlers are still haunted by Palestinian resistance rockets. Practically, nothing has changed in Gaza for Israel to save face. The stigma of Israel’s blood thirst in Gaza, however, adds another paragraph to the books of Israel’s reference to massacres.
At least 23 Palestinians were killed in shelling up and down the Gaza strip early on Tuesday. Israeli strikes hit two separate schools run by the United Nations in the Gaza Strip, killing at least five Palestinians, medics and UN officials said. Two people were killed in a strike on a school in the southern of Khan Yunis and three people were killed in an air strike on a school in Gaza City, they said. Both schools are run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian medical sources earlier said that 10 Palestinian civilians were killed in Deir al-Balah when an Israeli ship fired shells at their house. Officials confirmed that of Tuesday’s 23 martyrs, only two were identified as resistance fighters.
On Monday, more than 33 civilians, including children, were killed on in the Israeli ground offensive, medics said.
The death toll in Gaza rose to at least 575 martyrs and more than 2,780. Among Monday's 33 civilian victims were 13 members of a Palestinian family killed in an Israeli strike on their home in a refugee camp, Palestinian medical officials said.
Meanwhile, four Israeli soldiers from the elite Golani Brigade have been killed in Gaza Monday night according to Israeli media, bringing the number of Israeli soldiers killed in the ground offensive according to Israeli media sources to 5. 24 other soldiers were injured including the Golani Brigade commander Col. Avi Peled, whose injuries were described as serious, according to Israeli media. The Israeli story was that the soldiers came under friendly fire.
Tactically, elite soldiers being killed by friendly fire has less impact than elite soldiers being killed by a few resistance fighters.
However the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, confirmed that at least ten soldiers have been killed and more than 30 others were injured in an ambush for resistance fighters. Qassam Brigades source said resistance fighters have brought gradually an elite unite of the Golani Brigade to a booby-trapped house in northern Gaza. The source added that when soldiers rammed into the house, it was blown up and resistance fighters then rained the trapped soldiers with bullets and grenades. Israeli helicopters evacuated the trapped soldiers under the cover of heavy fire and bombardment. The Qassam Brigades said it will unveil the details of this “special operation” later.
"We have prepared thousands of brave fighters who are waiting for you at each corner of the street and will welcome you with fire and iron," Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas armed wing the Ezzedine
Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a broadcast Monday.
"We tell you in all confidence that your defeat in the Gaza Strip is approaching with every hour," he said. "As long as the aggression intensifies, your losses will increase and you will sink further into the Gaza quagmire. "God willing, we are at the gates of victory and the Zionists will suffer only defeat and humiliation. The Qassams still have many means and have up to now used only a small part of their forces," Abu Obeida said.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak told lawmakers that Hamas had been dealt a heavy blow: "But we cannot say that its fighting capabilities have been harmed," he said. "Difficult moments lie ahead in this operation and the main test could still be ahead."
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