Subscribe to Print Edition | Sat., February 16, 2008 Adar1 10, 5768 | | Israel Time: 02:21 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
  Back to Homepage
Rosner's Domain
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Advertising
Books Arts & Leisure Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. (Daniel Bar On / Jini)
Last update - 21:34 10/02/2008
PA negotiator Qureia warns IDF escalation in Gaza will hurt talks
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies
Tags: Ehud Barak, Gaza 

The chief Palestinian negotiator, former prime minister Ahmed Qureia, on Sunday warned that any Israel Defenses Forces escalation on the Gaza Strip would "affect the negotiation process," launched recently after a seven year lull.

Qureia said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned to visit the region in the near future in order to show her support for the peace process.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said earlier Sunday there was "no hope" for a Palestinian state that included the Gaza Strip as long as militants kept up rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled territory.
Advertisement
"There is no hope for the Palestinian people with Hamas," Livni told reporters. "There is no hope for any kind of peace or the vision of a Palestinian state which includes the Gaza Strip without real change on the ground," the foreign minister added, one day after an 8-year-old boy lost his leg in a Qassam attack on Sderot and his brother was also seriously hurt.

"Hamas is the enemy of Israel and the Palestinians alike," the foreign minister said, appearing to to be laying the ground for a stepped-up campaign against the Islamist group.

"There is a need for the international community to understand that there are certain steps that Israel needs to take in order to stop it," Livni said referring to barrages of Qassams that rain down on southern communities almost daily.

She declined to say what those steps might be.

Also Sundaym Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem that "we will reach all the perpetrators of terror, their superiors, their handlers and their dispatchers. We will not give special consideration to anyone."

In his remarks, Olmert was referring to the ongoing Qassam rocket attacks being launched from the Gaza Strip into southern Israeli towns.

However, the prime minister told his cabinet, "the pain is shared by all of us, and the rage is natural and understandable, but rage is not a course of action. We must act in a balanced, thought-out manner."

Olmert headed to Berlin after the meeting for talks with German officials.

Vice Premier Haim Ramon said Israel should "rain fire" on areas of Gaza from which Qassm rockets are fired.

Sheetrit: Demolish homes in rocket-launching towns
Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said Israel should order Palestinian civilians living in those areas to leave their homes and "demolish everything".

"We must take a neighborhood in Gaza and wipe it off the map," Sheetrit was quoted as saying.

Ramon, Sheetrit and Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim said anyone involved in the rocket attacks, either directly or indirectly, should be targeted for assassination.

Sheetrit singled out Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas' government in the Gaza Strip, as a "legitimate target".

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, during a visit to Sderot, said the military will "strike with all our means" militants firing the rockets.

"You can hear the helicopter gunships in the air. We will continue to act until we bring an end to the Qassam [rocket] fire," Barak said.

Vice Premier Haim Ramon said Israel should not make do with symbolic power cuts to pressure militants stop launching rockets.

"If they fire a rocket, then there should be no electricity, or water or fuel that day," he said.

Transportation Minister and former defense minister Shaul Mofaz criticized the government's approach to the situation in the Gaza Strip, saying "the targets of operation in Gaza are not defined. We must determine what we want to achieve, and then act in accordance."

Mofaz urged personally harming the heads of both the military and political arms of Hamas. "There is no such thing as a political arm in Hamas," he said. "They are all involved in terrorist activity. I don't understand why we haven't hurt [senior Hamas official] Mahmoud Zahar, who is also involved in terror."

Officials in the Prime Minister's Office and the defense establishment maintained that there is no intention to change the current government policy and launch a broad military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Opposition leaders, however, urged the launch of a large offensive in the Strip, following Saturday's Qassam attack. MK Silvan Shalom (Likud) said that, "until today the government refrained from a military operation out of political considerations, but the longer they [the government] continue to delay it, the price grows heavier."

MK Zevulun Orlev (NRP) said that the state has refrained from a large-scale ground offensive as to not admit to the failure of the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip, maintaining that "there is no other option but Operation Defensive Shield 2."

Shas Minister Yitzhak Cohen called for a complete power cut in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, saying that "as long as Sderot is burning we must suffocate the infrastructures in Gaza until all those who fire Qassams will put down their weapons in broad daylight."

Cohen said that cutting the electricity and fuel by one percent has the same international ramifications as cutting it by 100 percent, adding that "apparently in Gaza they do not understand warnings. Only a complete power cut will bring results."

Related articles:
  • PM: Terror can't be wiped out in one hit or explosion
  • IAF kills Hamas man; two hurt in attack on Sderot
  • 2 brothers, 8 and 19, seriously hurt in Qassam strike in Sderot
  • Shas Min.: Only complete power cut in Gaza will bring results

    • Bookmark to del.icio.us  
     
    Seeking refuge
    123 Sudanese refugees infiltrate Israel from Egypt overnight.
    Bracing for terror
    Israel, U.S. fear retaliatory strikes after killing of Mughniyah.
      1.   Barak and his options 10:58  |  Sam 10/02/08
      2.   Not a plan 11:40  |  Sidney 10/02/08
      3.   Impeach Olmert 11:43  |  Jane 10/02/08
      4.   Of course you will, Ehud, of course you will ((pat, pat)) 11:44  |  Clickfool 10/02/08
      5.   To Clickfool and other Doubters 11:55  |  Phil 10/02/08
      6.   To balance of what? 11:56  |  Vital 10/02/08
      7.   Barak would as always say" Situation is complicated" and proceed 11:57  |  Absolute Sweden 10/02/08
      8.   How much money did Olmert give Barack under the table in order to 12:06  |  Yoni 10/02/08
      9.   don`t be stupid-there is no option 12:12  |  avrom2 10/02/08
      10.   Shas is Dead Wrong: Electric Cuts Only Pump UP The Pals 12:17  |  Ovadiah ben Avraham 10/02/08
      11.   "balanced thought out manner"....??? Olmert ???? 12:20  |  Robert Tanner 10/02/08
      12.   The Question Remans, Which Side Are The Perpetrators? 12:21  |  Lev Bronstein 10/02/08
      13.   Ehud Chamberlain Olmert does not understand Islam! 12:22  |  redmike 10/02/08
      14.   OLDMERT is not equipped to wage war! 12:24  |  sptz 10/02/08
      15.   Olmert has betrayed the nation. 12:29  |  Yaakov 10/02/08
      16.   A photo that is definitely worth a 1,000 words.... 12:38  |  Johnboy 10/02/08
      17.   Yet another hyperbolic brag by Olmert that he can`t fulfil 12:40  |  Fairplay 10/02/08
      18.   DID UK SUPPLY ELECTRICITY TO NAZI GERMANY?? 12:47  |  Allon 10/02/08
      19.   You have it almost right 12:52  |  Jackie 10/02/08
      20.   Here we go 12:55  |  Outsider 10/02/08
      21.   Haaretz: Militants(Sic) terrorizing Sderot 13:07  |  Nora 10/02/08
      22.   olmers fantasies 13:08  |  nathan 10/02/08
      23.   "PM to cabinet; `my hands are tied unless George Bush lets`" 13:10  |  Jew 10/02/08
      24.   perpetrators of terror who are they? 13:13  |  Dennis Slapo 10/02/08
      25.   Something is missing ! 13:20  |  Chris 10/02/08
      26.   Children of Sderot less worth than those of Tel Aviv 13:28  |  Jonathan S 10/02/08
      27.   Jackie- Why should advance warnings be given? 13:41  |  Sam 10/02/08
      28.   Israel is Chelm. Being bombed, and are thinking what to do. 13:49  |  Jack 10/02/08
      29.   Fairplay, Ulmert`s brag will fool his audience 14:04  |  Dave 10/02/08
      30.   "We must take a neighborhood in Gaza and wipe it off the map," 14:20  |  European 10/02/08
      31.   It didnn`t work in the north 14:20  |  Tzfonit 10/02/08
      32.   No state while illegal settlements persists 14:27  |  Jens 10/02/08
      33.   Idiot Livni 14:56  |  eddie 10/02/08
      34.   Ms Livni, Phrasing Wrong! 14:57  |  Alex 10/02/08
      35.   `Lev Bronstein` and numbers in the ME 14:57  |  Daniel W 10/02/08
      36.   livni,zionist war criminals,enjoy your time with the 15:10  |  lakshmi 10/02/08
      37.   I see Winograd has been implemented 15:10  |  Moshe 10/02/08
      38.   Verse of the day @ Biblegateway.com Is there room in your heart? 15:11  |  It`s true 10/02/08
      39.   stop israeli rockets 15:17  |  Nabulsi 10/02/08
      40.   FM &PM live in a dream world , their insanity 15:23  |  Sal 10/02/08
      41.   Finally Livni says something intelligent 15:26  |  Nemesis 10/02/08
      42.   Palestinians never wanted a state 15:42  |  Jonathan S 10/02/08
      43.   ONLY A CONSTANT 15:42  |  ANUAR AL SADAT 10/02/08
      44.   Hamas polticiand and terror chiefs 15:44  |  Sabra 10/02/08
      45.   READ ANY BIBLE 15:56  |  NACHUM OF SDEROT 10/02/08
      46.   Mrs Livni...you wrong, pal don`t want a state..are you a martian 16:09  |  Tosefta, the General 10/02/08
      47.   My Apologies to Israel 16:10  |  Dennis 10/02/08
      48.   No palestinian state period! 16:10  |  RM 10/02/08
      49.   Without thinking there is no hope at all 16:11  |  Dan Chazan 10/02/08
      50.   #23 Jew in Jerusalem 16:15  |  Rudiker 10/02/08
      51.   "Olmert has betrayed the nation." 16:28  |  Shiham 10/02/08
      52.   what are you wiping? 16:54  |  Space 10/02/08
      53.   Incidious Nation 17:10  |  DoubleClick 10/02/08
      54.   No Recognition 17:16  |  Joe 10/02/08
      55.   No such race of people as Palestinians 17:18  |  Rozz 10/02/08
      56.   no3 17:26  |  motti 10/02/08
      57.   Why are the Human Rights Groups silent? 17:29  |  Eric 10/02/08
      58.   olmert and livni 17:30  |  geroge 10/02/08
      59.   Tzfonit #30 17:31  |  GABE1 10/02/08
      60.   Blind Samson hits the wall as he approaches Gaza 17:32  |  Tosefta 10/02/08
      61.   ben gurion 17:32  |  caroline 10/02/08
      62.   #53 Doubleclick 17:36  |  Oneclick 10/02/08
      63.   For Jackie 17:46  |  Rozz 10/02/08
      64.   "It (military action) didn`t work.Diplomacy is the only thing " 17:52  |  Sam 10/02/08
      65.   Finally they get it - kill EVERYONE who aids/abets kassam fire 17:58  |  Dr. L. Brnd 10/02/08
      66.   Which totally supports and vindicates my argument of last week 18:00  |  Chris Linthwaite 10/02/08
      67.   Evaluation of Hamas for Livni 18:01  |  Tosefta 10/02/08
      68.   The missing link 18:07  |  Danite 10/02/08
      69.   no state