Overview Briefing: Israel’s Military Operation in Gaza
The TUFI briefing below is an update for trade unionists regarding the current situation in Gaza.
Operation Cast Lead
- Since the 27 December, Israel has launched air strikes at over 500 key Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. These targets include: weapons smuggling tunnels in and around Gaza, Hamas command centres; Hamas training camps; and various Hamas installations, including rocket manufacturing facilities and storage warehouses. To support these continuing airstrikes, Israel launched a ground offensive into Gaza on Saturday 3 January.
- Israel has made clear that the operation is defensive and that there is no intention of reoccupying Gaza. On the first day of the military operation, Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak set out the three objectives of the offensive as: I) dealing Hamas a forceful blow; II) fundamentally changing the situation in Gaza; and III) bringing the cessation of rocket attacks against Israeli citizens.
- Over 600 Palestinians, mostly members of Hamas’ paramilitary groups or affiliated to the terrorist organisation, have been killed so far and that around 2,200 Palestinians had been wounded. Four Israelis have been killed and dozens more have been injured by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire from Gaza since 27 December. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting Hamas in Gaza.
- The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has stated that it is endeavouring to keep civilian casualties low and has been using a number of specific warning methods to achieve this. The IDF has been calling houses before they are to be targeted in order to give inhabitants time to flee the attack, dropping leaflets and sending SMS messages, encouraging people to leave the area before the strikes take place.
- Hamas have continued to fire rockets into Israel, and have fired over 200 rockets, missiles and mortar rounds since Israel launched its operation. For the first time Hamas has fired rockets (Iranian Grad-Katyushas) that have reached Israeli towns and cities as far as 40 km inside Israel. Nearly a million Israelis are now in range of rocket fire – over 10 percent of the population.
- Hamas has chosen to fire rockets and store its arsenals in civilian houses, Mosques, schools and hospitals, using its citizens as human shields.
Leading up to military operation: Hamas end ceasefire and increase rocket fire
- Prior to the Israeli strikes, Hamas declared the six month ceasefire was over while Israel expressed a desire to continue it. Along with other Palestinian militant groups Hamas responded to the end of the ceasefire by increasing the number of rocket, missile and mortar attacks launched at Israel. During the six month ceasefire (19 June – 19 December), 436 rockets, missiles and mortar shells were fired at Israel and just between 19 December (end of the ceasefire) and 26 December (day before the fist air strikes), over 170 were fired.
- Israel submitted a protest letter to the UN Secretary-General and President of the UN Security Council regarding the increased escalation of rocket fire from Gaza on Monday 22 December and submitted a second protest letter two days later.
- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview with the Arabic TV Channel Al Arabiya on Thursday (25 December) made clear that if Hamas did not stop the rocket fire, Israel would respond militarily. Olmert in an appeal to the people of Gaza said: “I say to you in a last-minute call, stop it. Stop it. You the citizens of Gaza, you can stop it. I know how much you want to get up in the morning to quiet, to take your children to school, the way we do, the way they want to in Sderot and Netivot.” (25/12/08)
- Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit criticised Hamas on Saturday (27 December), placing responsibility for the Israeli operation on Hamas. Gheit added that prior to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s arrival in Egypt on Thursday (25 December), 60 rockets were fired at Israel in a direct attempt to foil Egypt’s efforts to achieve quiet and that Egypt had repeatedly cautioned against continuing the situation.
- The Fatah Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and moderate Arab countries that have made lasting peace with Israel, such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have also laid blame on Hamas for the current situation.
Diplomatic Developments
- Egypt and France have proposed a plan (7 January) that calls for an immediate ceasefire to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip, and talks with Israel on border security. Israel's security cabinet is meeting to consider the deal. The Israeli Prime Minister has called for new international agreements on Israel’s border crossings, Hamas’ smuggling tunnels and a ceasefire, to end the violence. The Haaretz newspaper reported that Israel wants a deal with Egypt on smuggling tunnels, with American involvement; a reinstatement of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which would see the PA, Egypt and the EU operate the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza; and a UN Security Council cease-fire agreement that would allow Israel to respond to Hamas violations.
- Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged Arab nations to help end the conflict between Hamas and Israel by preventing the flow of arms into Gaza through smuggling tunnels under the Egypt – Gaza border. Brown said on Sunday (4 January) that Israel needed assurances that Hamas’ rocket attacks would stop and that Palestinians in Gaza needed more humanitarian aid. He said: “So first we need an immediate ceasefire, and that includes a stopping of the rockets into Israel. Secondly, we need some resolution of the problem over arms trafficking into Gaza, and thirdly we need the borders and the crossings open, and that will need some international solution.” (4/01/09)
- Quartet Special Envoy to the Middle East, Tony Blair, met Olmert and Israeli Defence Minister and Labor Party Chairman, Ehud Barak on Sunday and has met with senior Palestinian officials in the West Bank, emphasising the need for a stable mutual ceasefire and continued humanitarian assistance for Gaza. On 6 January he said that there is a “basis” for an immediate ceasefire if the supply of arms and money to militants in Gaza from Egypt is halted.
- French President Nicholas Sarkozy is currently in the region to press for a ceasefire, saying on Sunday (4 January) that “Hamas is responsible for the suffering of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
Humanitarian Situation
- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that a humanitarian corridor will be set up in Gaza to grant periodic access allow Palestinians to stock up on vital goods.
- Israel’s border crossings with Gaza are open for the transfer of humanitarian aid from international organisations: 401 trucks carrying thousands of tons of humanitarian aid (including basic food stuffs, medicines, medical supplies, tents and generators) have been delivered since the 27 December. (Prior to Hamas’ escalation of rocket fire in November 2008, Israel was providing close to 4,000 trucks of aid a month to Gaza.)
- Gaza hospitals are suffering from power cuts and some have reported a lack of fuel for back-up generators.
- Hamas have been reportedly blocking Palestinians in need of medical attention from crossing into Egypt. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on 28 December that “the wounded are barred from crossing... those who control Gaza. We are waiting for the wounded to cross.” Patients began to be transferred from Egypt to Gaza on 1 January, although Hamas continue to disrupt the process.
- Hamas deliberately causes border crossings to be closed and has prevented the distribution of aid coming into Gaza. There have also been reports that Hamas are stealing humanitarian aid and selling it on the black market.
Background: Hamas in Gaza
- Hamas Islamic militants seized power in Gaza in a violent coup in July 2007 leaving over 100 dead and Palestinian territory divided; Fatah in the West Bank, Hamas in Gaza. Hamas run a strict Taliban-type religious military totalitarian system in Gaza. For example, they recently changed the penal system to include amputations for petty crime.
- Hamas has stamped down on trade unionism, with many trade unionists in Gaza facing violence and intimidation. Soon after seizing power, Hamas seized the PGFTU headquarters, removing all existing slogans and flags, and raising a Hamas flag over the building.
- Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip rockets and mortars being fired from Gaza into Israel have increased exponentially. Since the start of 2008, there has been over 2,600 rocket and mortar shells fired at Israel; approximately seven rockets per day.
- Hamas has also significantly increased the size of its paramilitaries, with hundreds sent to train in Iran, and has acquired stock piles of advanced weapons from Iran, Syria and Hezbollah (smuggled from Egypt through tunnels into Gaza). Hamas used the six months of the ceasefire with Israel to build up its strength, develop and produce weapons and train terrorist operatives.
- Some 3,000 Christians live among 1.5 million Muslims in the Gaza Strip. Shortly after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, Christians living there appealed to the international community to protect them against increased attacks by Islamist extremists. The appeal came following attacks on a Christian school and church in Gaza City. The Rosary Sisters School and the Latin Church were torched and looted by masked gunmen using rocket-propelled grenades.
Background: Who are Hamas?
- Hamas (an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement) is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union, US, Japan and Canada and is banned in Jordan and Australia. The UK has proscribed its military wing, Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades, as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act of 2000. In all, Hamas have claimed the lives of at least 400 Israelis as well as injuring over 2,500 since 1989.
- Hamas was founded in 1987 as the Gaza wing of the Pan-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood organisation. Its charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state. Hamas officials have repeatedly denied that they would ever be able to accept the existence of Israel on land they consider ‘Waqf’, an inalienable religious endowment and therefore not in their gift to bargain away. Hamas’ first known attack was the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldier on February 16 1989. It formed the military wing 1992 and conducted knife attacks, shootings and car bombings before the first suicide bombing in 1993.
- Hamas were strident in their opposition to the September 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). During the peace negotiations in the period between September 1993 and September 1995 Hamas is believed to have been responsible for 25 terrorist attacks of varying nature, killing 47 Israelis and leaving many more injured. Hamas continue to be against any kind of peace process between Israelis and Palestinians and try to derail it with violence and intimidation whenever it can.
- Hamas played a major role in the wave of suicide bombings and other attacks that took place in early 1996. In February and March 1996, Hamas killed 47 Israelis in attacks that included two major bus bombings in Jerusalem. It was also deeply involved in the wave of terrorist attacks that occurred during the second Intifada or uprising. The most notorious attacks include the 2001 attack on The Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv that killed 21 and wounded 130, and the 2002 Passover bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanyha, that killed 30 and injured 150 Israelis.
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