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Last update - 21:07 15/01/2009
Olmert to Ban: Gunmen fired at IDF troops from UN Gaza compound
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent and News Agencies
Tags: hamas, israel news, israel 

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Thursday that Israeli troops shelled the UN headquarters in Gaza after coming under fire from militants within the building.

Thursday's Israeli artillery strike set the compound on fire, destroyed tons of food and humanitarian supplies and forced hundreds of refugees to flee, on day 20 of Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza.


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Olmert described the incident as "very sad" and said he regretted it.

"We don't want this event to happen again," he told Ban, "and I don't know if you know, but Hamas attacked from within the UNRWA compound during the humanitarian cease-fire."

Earlier Thursday, Ban expressed outrage over the shelling of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency compound.

Olmert echoed remarks by a senior Israel Defense Forces officer earlier Thursday, who said troops opened fire after militants inside the compound shot anti-tank weapons and machine guns. He said soldiers used 155-millimeter artillery shells. Throughout its offensive in Gaza, Israel has accused Hamas militants of hiding in civilian areas to stage attacks.

John Ging, a senior U.N. official in Gaza, dismissed as nonsense allegations that militants operated in the compound.

Chris Gunness, another U.N. official, said an Israeli military representative acknowledged in a meeting with U.N. officials that the firing came from several hundred meters away from our compound, not from inside it.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said its compound, where up to 700 Palestinians were being sheltered, was hit twice by fire and three staff members were wounded.

Another explosion blasted a tower block that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organizations, wounding a journalist for the Abu Dhabi television channel.

Also Thursday, the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City was engulfed in flames after it was caught in the fighting between IDF troops and Hamas.

At least 15 Palestinians were killed in the fighting. An IDF spokesperson said that five militants, some of whom were bodyguards for senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, were killed in Israel Air Force strikes on Thursday.

On Thursday morning, thousands of Gaza City residents fled their homes as Israeli ground forces made their deepest foray yet into a crowded residential area.

The Palestinian death toll from Israel's air-and-ground offensive has risen to at least 1,055, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

A Palestinian rights group said 670 of the dead were civilians. Thirteen Israelis have been killed - 10 soldiers, and three civilians hit by Hamas rocket fire.

IDF ground troops make deepest foray in Gaza neighborhood

Israeli troops backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and heavy guns on Thursday thrust further into the city than ever before to seek out Hamas gunmen, executing the army's most relentless shelling of the Gaza Strip in nearly three weeks of fighting.

Live video footage from a Reuters camera in central Gaza showed sustained artillery fire from the edge of the city for several hours. Shells exploded in downtown areas and long machinegun bursts echoed off Gaza's cramped housing blocks.

Much of the fighting was centered in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, where some residents fled on foot while others remained in the precarious shelter of their homes as a night-time attack stretched into the morning.

Tanks and bulldozers rolled into a neighborhood park, apparently seizing it as a kind of command center, witnesses said. Masked gunmen ran toward the areas under fire carrying bags containing unidentified objects.

Residents were seen fleeing their homes in pajamas, some wheeling elderly parents in wheelchairs. Others were stopping journalists' armored cars or ambulances pleading for someone to take them to safety.

Israeli forces have encircled the city of 500,000 people for days. Tanks have made forays towards the center to test the resistance of Hamas and other militant groups but have balked at launching all-out urban warfare in Gaza City, where Hamas militants are more familiar with the lay of the land and Israeli casualties would be liable to spiral.

IAF planes struck some 70 targets overnight, including weapons positions, rocket squads and a mosque in southern Gaza that it said served as an arsenal, the military said.

Seven Palestinians were killed overnight, medical officials said.

In an effort to keep the death toll from ballooning further, Egypt was
pressing both sides to accept a 10-day truce instead of a comprehensive accord to end the conflict.


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      1.   Do not accept 10-day truce. 09:24  |  Vital 15/01/09
      2.   KEEP UP THE PRESSURE 10:04  |  Sean 15/01/09
      3.   Nothing less than unconditional surrender 10:08  |  Alice 15/01/09
      4.   So much for the big mouths that Israel would not enter cities 10:11  |  Levi 15/01/09
      5.   Go go go... 10:15  |  RostoX 15/01/09
      6.   IDF burial ground 10:21  |  Adel 15/01/09
      7.   Still Firing Rockets 10:32  |  Rex 15/01/09
      8.   CAST LEAD, A NON STOP FLIGHT 10:40  |  BOB KING 15/01/09
      9.   You`ll get back to your homes 10:46  |  Bulent 15/01/09
      10.   Cries 11:02  |  Nnear 15/01/09
      11.   Sean - Obama 11:07  |  Phil 15/01/09
      12.   Adel if Hamas wanted peace, we were ready, but they want war 13:41  |  Simon 15/01/09
      13.   The Israeli war against the UN continues 13:44  |  Mark Lincoln 15/01/09
      14.   Gaza 14:49  |  Boris Kan 15/01/09
      15.   THE ULTIMATE PARADOX 14:50  |  Brant 15/01/09
      16.   criminal actions 15:00  |  ana 15/01/09
      17.   Mark @13 you forgot the injured 15:01  |  Joining the boycott 15/01/09
      18.   To: Adel in Bahrain 15:06  |  Angel 15/01/09
      19.   Post # 13 15:12  |  Schmidlap 15/01/09
      20.   White phosphorus used to shell UN? 15:15  |  Manny Goldstein 15/01/09
      21.   Mark Lincoln # 13 What Is Hamas Doing? 15:17  |  Jeff Northridge 15/01/09
      22.   Hospitals? 15:18  |  J.P. 15/01/09
      23.   Ten-day truce? 15:21  |  Angel 15/01/09
      24.   Amazing really!! 15:34  |  Matty Groves 15/01/09
      25.   Rx for Peace 17:02  |  Brian Freund 15/01/09
      26.   J.P. you should be as disgusted and appalled at hamas for using 17:03  |  terrornator 15/01/09
      27.   I`m sorry Matty, but I have yet to see any maps provided by HAMAS 17:04  |  Jacob Blues 15/01/09
      28.   Baraks apologizes undone by Olmert 17:05  |  Fred 15/01/09
      29.   Again!!! 17:08  |  An Arab Neighbor 15/01/09
      30.   J.P. #22, you don`t get it.... 17:12  |  Rickey 15/01/09
      31.   CNN Reort 17:13  |  Tom 15/01/09
      32.   Olmeert Is About As Trustworthy As... 17:15  |  Yaakov Sullivan 15/01/09
      33.   Go look at a map, Levi 17:17  |  Johnboy 15/01/09
      34.   So What Have They Achieved? 17:18  |  Yaakov Sullivan 15/01/09
      35.   Lebanon. West Bank, Gaza 17:45  |  Yaakov Sullivan 15/01/09
      36.   To #33 Johngirl 17:54  |  Levi 15/01/09
      37.   #25 Wisdom from Australia 18:27  |  Rick 15/01/09
      38.   Yaakov Sullivan, the two state solution has been smashed by both 18:28  |  Tzfonit 15/01/09
      39.   More harm than benefit 18:32  |  Tzfonit 15/01/09
      40.   Defense of Israel 18:32  |  Freedom 15/01/09
      41.   admit the mistake, stop the lies 18:34  |  goyis 15/01/09
      42.   So what if a gunman fired from the compound ? 18:35  |  Dutch 15/01/09
      43.   Good old IDF - piles of aid go up in smoke 18:38  |  Palestinian Brit 15/01/09
      44.   Hamas exploits Gaza`s civilians 18:50  |  x-ray 15/01/09
      45.   If Israel really intended to to massacre Palestinian civilians 19:24  |  Yonatan 15/01/09
      46.   Olmert to Ban 19:26  |  Mark Lincoln 15/01/09
      47.   hitting un compound 19:28  |  Dan 15/01/09
      48.   #16 ana`s "criminal actions" 19:30  |  Yonatan 15/01/09
      49.   Desperation ... where are the targets ? 19:36  |  John 15/01/09
      50.   Dutch #42 So what if a gunman fired from the compound ? 20:03  |  Free Gilad Shalit 15/01/09
      51.   The IDF has no credability 20:05  |  American in NY 15/01/09
      52.   UN compound was flour warehouse not HQ 20:05  |  Free Gilad Shalit 15/01/09
      53.   #48, Yonatan again.... 20:26  |  Silvienne 15/01/09
      54.   IDF, Hamas same shiite 20:38  |  Mahdi 15/01/09
      55.   to the haters of Israel and It`s Jews 20:49  |  Big Sur 15/01/09
      56.   ofcourse Olmert would say that 20:54  |  rm 15/01/09
      57.   phospherous 20:54  |  melissa 15/01/09
      58.   Why Has The Statement From The UNRWA Spokesman Been Ignored? 20:59  |  chet 15/01/09
      59.   A Palestinian child speaks at the hospital 21:00  |  David Israel 15/01/09
      60.   Response to big sur #55 21:01  |  Yaakov Sullivan 15/01/09
      61.   Bottom Line 23:11  |  BRL 15/01/09
      62.   N, 54 04:13  |  john and the TRUTH! 16/01/09
      63.   Naive American remarks 04:26  |  Shalom 16/01/09
      64.   Israel`s Lies 04:29  |  Janice 16/01/09
      65.   Hasbarah Lesson 1: How to muddy the water 04:37  |  Johnboy 16/01/09
      66.   # 25 Brian Freund 09:36  |  Abby 16/01/09
      67.   Summary of Jan. 15 09:51  |  Philipp 16/01/09
      68.   To no. 55 09:58  |  Dan 16/01/09
      69.   to arab neighbourg #29 10:21  |  Tina 16/01/09
      70.   Ban-Ki Moon job 20:31  |  Raph 16/01/09
      71.   #6 00:08  |  ron rowell 17/01/09
      72.   hollow victory 05:28  |  Rohan 17/01/09
      73.   #64 Janice`s lies 00:41  |  Moshe 18/01/09
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    Zvi Bar'el: Gaza op did nothing to combat Iranian threat against Israel
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    Akiva Eldar: Obama mustn't let Israel kill and bleed all the way to an apartheid state
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