Berlin, 2012. november 21., szerda (MTI) – Izraelnek joga és kötelessége megvédeni állampolgárait a Gázai övezetből érkező rakétatámadások ellen – mondta szerdán Berlinben a német kancellár.
Angela Merkel a Bundestagban, a német törvényhozás alsóházában elmondott beszédében a zsidó állammal való szolidaritásra szólította fel a nemzetközi közösséget, és szorgalmazta, hogy mielőbb jöjjön létre tűzszünet Izrael és a Gázai övezet között.
A szíriai konfliktusról szólva a kancellár hangsúlyozta: a kormány „természetesen konzultál a parlamenttel”, amennyiben egy NATO-szövetséges Patriot rakétaelhárító rendszer telepítésére kéri fel Németországot.
Törökország a szíriai határvidéken kívánja NATO-partnerek kapacitásait igénybe véve kiépíteni a rakétaelhárító rendszert.
A török kormány hivatalosan még nem fordult segítségért Németországhoz, de a kérelem hamarosan megérkezhet – mondta Thomas de Maiziere német védelmi miniszter szerdán, a parlament szakbizottságának ülése után. Hangsúlyozta: amennyiben a kérelem befut Ankarából Berlinbe, a védelmi minisztérium azt javasolja majd a kormánynak, hogy kérjen felhatalmazást a parlamenttől a rakétaelhárító rendszer telepítéséhez.
A NATO-ban csak az Egyesült Államok, Hollandia és Németország rendelkezik olyan kapacitásokkal, amelyeket a kérésnek megfelelően Törökország rendelkezésére bocsáthat.
Ministers rule out unilateral halt to airstrikes on Gaza; 4 soldiers injured in rocket attack
Senior ministers decide not to stop Israeli fire unless Hamas stops rocket attacks; 21 injured in central Tel Aviv bus bombing, which is condemned by US, France, UN; police on trail of bomber; Clinton meets with Egyptian president; in south, one house hit by rockets twice
Operation Pillar of Defense is deep into its eighth day, with continued rocket strikes on southern Israel and Israeli air attacks on terror targets in Gaza. A little after noon, a bus was blown up in central Tel Aviv. The Times of Israel is live-blogging developments. Refresh for latest updates.
Click here for all our previous live blog coverage of Operation Pillar of Defense.
Click here to receive our free daily newsletter, compiling each day’s key stories.
Click here to like us on Facebook. And here to join our Twitter feed.
Four of the Israelis injured in the Eshkol region in the past hour are IDF soldiers, according to the Israeli press. Earlier reports indicated that as many as seven Israelis were injured following a rocket attack in the area bordering the Gaza Strip.
AP reports that Pakistan’s foreign minister has condemned what he calls Israel’s “aggression” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Hina Rabanni Khar spoke Wednesday ahead of a summit for eight developing countries in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.
A government statement says the conflict in Gaza will likely be a hot topic in discussions between Pakistani leaders and those visiting for the D-8 summit, which will be held on Thursday.
Pakistan says participants will include Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Senior leaders from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nigeria will also attend.
Egyptian officials have said Egypt, Iran and Turkey will also meet on the sidelines of the summit to discuss the conflict in Syria.
Channel 2′s Arab affairs expert Ehud Ya’ari says he has been receiving calls from civilian sources in Gaza telling him that they understand Israel’s targeting of terrorists, but that too many innocents are being hit.
A meeting of nine Israeli cabinet ministers over the future of the Gaza operation has ended. There appears to be no dramatic change in the course of the military offensive.
The inner security forum convened at 2:30 p.m. and the meeting ended just before 6 p.m.
Members of the inner cabinet conclude their meeting in Jerusalem.
Channel 2′s Udi Segal says that the first message to come out of the meeting is that Israel would not carry out a unilateral ceasefire, as was reported elsewhere.
Segal adds that the ministers’ decisions regarding a possible ceasefire were dispatched to government representatives in Cairo.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is reportedly on his way back to Israel from Egypt.
Reuters quotes Ban saying that there were “many details to work out” before a ceasefire could be reached. “But while that happens civilians continue to die.”
“I am particularly concerned about the spiral of violence at the time of intense efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel,” Ban says, speaking after a meeting with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.
Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel diplomatic correspondent, reports:
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice condemns today’s “cowardly terrorist attack” in Tel Aviv, sending her “deepest condolences to the victims and loved ones,” she tweeted. “Terror is never justified.”
Rice is a top candidate to succeed Hillary Clinton as US secretary of state.
At least 116 rockets have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, 71 of which exploded in Israeli territory, the IDF spokesperson tells The Times of Israel. The Iron Dome missile defense system has intercepted at least 21 inbound rockets.
Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel diplomatic correspondent, reports:
Kadima Party lawmaker and former chief military spokesman Nachman Shai is praising the government for the way it has conducted the military operation in Gaza so far.
But Shai warns that public pressure and Wednesday’s terror attack in Tel Aviv might push it into what he sees as the wrong direction — expanding the offensive rather than seeking a ceasefire.
“Hamas poses a real challenge to the State of Israel, both militarily and diplomatically,” he said. “Eventually, we will have to talk to them.”
Conflicting reports are coming in about at least four Israelis injured after a volley of rockets and mortars fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in the Eshkol border region.
Ynet reports seven injured, one moderately and two lightly injured.
Four are being evacuated by helicopter to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba and three are being evacuated to Tel Hashomer Medical Center outside Tel Aviv, according to Ynet.
An unconfirmed report says that two suspects have been arrested on Route 443 near Shilat Junction close to the city of Modiin in central Israel on suspicion of involvement in today’s Tel Aviv bus bombing. The road, blocked for over an hour with police checkpoints, has been opened to traffic.
The United States Embassy in Tel Aviv has advised its employees to “remain at home until the Israeli National Police gives an all clear.” It further advises all American citizens in Israel to “monitor local news reports for the latest information” regarding developments concerning the security situation in Israel.
Channel 2 TV’s political analyst says Israel does not want a written ceasefire deal with Hamas, but rather an informal arrangement.
Israel’s government believes a written deal would be “like a deal with the mafia,” Udi Segal says.
Israel does not want formal guarantees from Egypt, because that would risk involving Egypt in the next round of Gaza violence, risking a historic peace agreement that Israel sees as a “strategic asset.”
Israel is currently ratcheting up its strikes in Gaza to show Hamas that dragging its feet on a ceasefire will cost it dearly, he says.
If Hamas ceases shooting, so will Israel, Segal says. The quiet will then be tested over a period of days or weeks, after which Israel might consider a gesture to Hamas like green-lighting the full opening of the Gaza-Egypt border terminal at Rafah.
In return, Egypt would promise to cut off the flow of rockets into Gaza, he says.
A delegation from the Rabbinical Council of America, the world’s largest organization of Orthodox rabbis, is in the south to express support for Israel.
“I sense a personal and communal need — as well as a need for American Jewry in general — to overcome our distance and disconnection from Israel,” Daniel Yolkut of Congregation Poale Zedeck in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said Wednesday.
The 25-person delegation has visited sites throughout the south, including an indoor playground in Sderot, a building in Kiryat Malachi where three civilians were killed this week, hospitals, and army bases.
The police have set up roadblocks and checkpoints on the major highways leading out of Tel Aviv in response to the terrorist attack on a bus in Tel Aviv earlier today.
Routes 1, 4, and 443 are backed up considerably as Israeli security forces comb the area in search for the perpetrator of the bombing. According to a Times of Israel correspondent on the scene, traffic has been at a standstill on Route 443, a main artery between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, for over an hour.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle condemns the attack in Tel Aviv.
“Our feelings are with the victims and their families. We wish those who were injured a speedy recovery,” he says in a statement.
Westerwelle last night returned to Berlin after concluding a two-day trip to the Middle East, during which he engaged in serious shuttle diplomacy in an effort to help broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are taking joint responsibility for the bus bombing in Tel Aviv, Army Radio is reporting. A statement they issued together says that the bomber was inserted into Israel three days ago and that he was able to pass through several rings of security on the way to Tel Aviv.
The latest reports indicate that the bomber is still at large. Police say they know his identity.
One of the houses damaged earlier today in the Be’er Tuvia region was hit for the second time in a matter of days, Ynet reports. Several days ago a rocket exploded several meters from the house and sprayed it with shrapnel; today the house suffered extensive damage after a Grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck the courtyard.
Haya, 83, who lives alone in her house, stood in the hallway when the rocket hit, Ynet reports. She says that workers had just finished cleaning up the broken glass and debris from the last attack when the second rocket hit.
“The explosion was massive,” she tells Ynet. “All of the glass shattered around me and I saw fire and smoke before my eyes. I feared that the gas [line] would explode, but my daughter arrived and hugged me and helped me get out.”
A house in the Be’er Tuvia region of southern Israel that was hit by a rocket on Wednesday. (photo credit: Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)
AP reports: An Iranian news agency says the head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard has disclosed his country has given fighters in Gaza the ability to produce longer-range missiles on their own, without direct shipments.
An apartment building in Rishon Lezion that was hit by a Fajr rocket from Gaza on Tuesday evening (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)
The comments by Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency, offer some of the clearest insights on Iran’s weapons support for Hamas, whose Iranian-engineered Fajr-5 missiles have struck near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem during the past week of rocket exchange with Israel.
The report Wednesday quotes Jafari as saying Iran has supplied technology to Gaza for the missiles to be produced “quickly.”
Up to now, Iran denied it directly supplied Hamas with the Fajr-5.
Iran also backs the anti-Israel faction Hezbollah in Lebanon, which fired thousands of rockets into Israel during a monthlong 2006 war.
Three rockets are fired at the Sdot Negev Regional Council area, security forces reported. Earlier, another rocket exploded in an open area in the Hof Ashkelon Coastal Region. No injuries or property damage were reported in any of the cases.
With Israel’s senior ministers convened in Jerusalem to deliberate the latest developments, including the bombing of a Tel Aviv bus, a senior Israeli official tells Israel Radio that a ceasefire may yet be in the cards for today, although he didn’t rule out that the announcement would be delayed.
Hours after the blast, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Cairo and enters talks with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who has been taking the lead in mediating between Israel and Hamas.
In Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the administration “strongly condemns” the Tel Aviv bombing.
“As I arrive in Cairo, I am closely monitoring reports from Tel Aviv, and we will stay in close contact with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s team,” she says. “The United States stands ready to provide any assistance that Israel requires.”
Meanwhile, UK Foreign Office Under Secretary of State Alistair Burt meets with Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. He condemns the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv and expresses “deepest sympathies.”
The Times of Israel’s Mitch Ginsburg has looked into the means by which Hamas has acquired its 10,000-strong rocket arsenal.
A rocket display in the southern town of Sderot, for years Hamas’ primary target (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/ Flash 90)
It is a hodgepodge of projectiles, he writes, ranging from “primitive tubes with a microwave computer” — according to aviation and airborne terror expert Hillel Avihai — to SA-7 surface-to-air missiles and Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets. Some were smuggled into Gaza, others created there. All told, they are the heart of the Palestinian territory’s offensive capacity.
Unlike a standard army, in which rockets and mortars provide support for the forward troops, Hamas’s doctrine, based on targeting civilians and protecting against an invading army, calls for the deployment of curved-trajectory weapons as a primary offensive tool, with foot-soldiers relegated to defensive tasks.
As a military tool, this doctrine is a failure: the thousands of Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigade foot-soldiers were not up to the task of halting or even significantly harming Israeli troops during Operation Cast Lead in 2009, and the threat of rocket fire was insufficient to stop the army from invading. As a terror tool, however, Hamas’s curved-trajectory weapons remain devastatingly effective: normal life has been paralyzed throughout the ongoing operation; fear among civilians is widespread; and Hamas, through the strategic use of violence and the targeting of civilians, has pushed its agenda to the center of the international stage.
Athletic Bilbao’s coach Marcelo Bielsa (photo credit: AP/Andres Kudacki)
The Union of European Football Associations has postponed a Europa League game between Hapoel Kiryat Shmona and Spanish team Athletic Bilbao due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, AP reports. The match was to take place tomorrow in Haifa.
The UEFA says they are unsure about the scheduling of another event, the draw for the Under-21 European Championships, to take place next week in Tel Aviv and to be attended by a host of European officials.
The Under-21 European Championships are scheduled for June 2013 in Israel.
Aviv Geffen, June 2012 (photo credit: Uri Lenz/Flash90)
Israeli rocker Aviv Geffen, a longtime symbol of the peace movement, is defending Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
“You can’t come and criticize and say, ‘How dare you?’ Come and live here. No country would tolerate such a prolonged missile attack without responding,” Geffen said in an interview with the Israeli news site Ynet on Wednesday.
“I say that if you don’t live here, in this conflict, it will be very hard for you to criticize,” Geffen said.
The operation has broad public support and solid backing across most of Israel’s political system, from right to center-left.
Geffen was speaking ahead of a benefit concert Thursday for residents of southern Israel.
Geffen became famous in the 1990s as a teen idol who supported reconciliation with the Palestinians and did not serve in the military.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius condemns “in the strongest terms” the attack in Tel Aviv, “targeting civilians at a time when everything must be done in order to reach a ceasefire.”
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius with PM Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Sunday, November 18, 2012. (photo credit: Valentine Bourrat/French embassy Tel Aviv)
Fabius, who was in Israel this week, says he will speak again with his Israeli, US and Egyptian counterparts to offer assistance in brokering a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the French Foreign Ministry says Paris is “extremely concerned” about the ongoing violence in Gaza and Israel.
The spokesperson also refers to various incidents in which Palestinian journalists were reportedly hit by Israeli air strikes in Gaza.
“France reaffirms its commitment to freedom of the press and the protection of journalists,” the spokesperson says.
Udi Segal on Channel 2 says Israel’s inner forum of nine ministers is convening now, with the same dilemmas it has faced for the last couple of days — whether to go for a ceasefire or step up Operation Pillar of Defense. If the former, he says, Israel does not want a written agreement but rather verbal understandings.
He says Hillary Clinton, shuttling between Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo, is pressing Mohammed Morsi, who in turn is pressing Hamas. To be brutal, he says, the US is telling Morsi, “Either there’s an agreement, or your US aid check won’t be coming. Congress simply won’t approve it.”
Segal says that the Tel Aviv bombing does not drastically change the picture for the ministers meeting in Jerusalem, even though it has likely stoked some Israelis’ passions for an intensified assault on Hamas.
Hundreds of people are participating in the funeral of Yosef Fartuk, the 18-year-old IDF soldier who was killed in a rocket attack on a kibbutz in the Eshkol region on Tuesday.
The funeral is being held in the Gival Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. Following the request of Fartuk’s ultra-Orthodox family, the army did not insist on a military ceremony.
The Israeli Air Force has stepped up strikes across the Gaza Strip in the wake of Wednesday’s bus bombing, Channel 2 is reporting.
Ehud Ya’ari, the channel’s Arab affairs expert, says Israeli aircraft are bombing targets from Rafah, at the territory’s southern edge, to neighborhoods north of Gaza City.
Yaari says “tens of thousands” of Palestinians have fled their homes in Gaza in recent hours, fearing Israeli retaliation for the Tel Aviv bombing. They are seeking shelter in schools and other facilities run by the United Nations in the Palestinian territory, he said.
Ban Ki-moon has condemned the terror attack in Tel Aviv: “The Secretary-General was shocked at the news of the terror attack on a bus today in the center of Tel Aviv. He condemns this attack in the strongest possible terms. There are no circumstances that justify the targeting of civilians. The Secretary-General is saddened and expresses his sympathy to those injured in the blast.”
Pro-Israel gathering in Atlanta. (photo courtesy)
Tuesday evening at the Ahavath Achim synagogue in Atlanta. A crowd of 1,000 from the Jewish and Christian communities gathered. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed spoke about his sincere support for Israel; Israel’s SE Consul General Opher Aviran also spoke, as did Rev. Jay Bailey, the leader of Christians United for Israel.
From Elhanan Miller:
Hamas is expressing joy over the bus explosion in Tel Aviv, calling it a “valiant and courageous operation” and a “natural response to the aggression against Gaza,” the Palestinian Quds Press news agency reports.
The bomb that exploded on a Tel Aviv bus at midday, wounding 21, was a relatively small device of three kilograms (6.6 pounds), Channel 2 reports.
Israeli authorities have yet to name the organization they believe carried out the attack.
Raphael Ahren reports that the White House has just condemned the Tel Aviv bus attack.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those injured, and with the people of Israel,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said, according to US media reports. “These attacks against innocent Israeli civilians are outrageous.”
“The United States will stand with our Israeli allies, and provide whatever assistance is necessary to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this attack. The United States reaffirms our unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security and our deep friendship and solidarity with the Israeli people.”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney addresses the media (photo credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner forum of nine senior ministers are convened to discuss the terror attack in Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lands in Cairo, where ceasefire negotiations have been taking place.
Deputy Knesset Speaker MK Ahmad Tibi of the Arab Ta’al party condemns the Gazan celebrations of the Tel Aviv bus bombing via Twitter, and expresses his opposition to the targeting of civilians.
To express happiness to the explosion in a bus in Tel aviv is horrible. Targiting civilians : Noooooo !
Raphael Ahren reports:
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague says his government is “deeply concerned” about the reports of a terror attack in Tel Aviv, but continues to urge a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas.
“We condemn it unreservedly. We are clear that terrorists must not be allowed to set the agenda,” he says. “This shocking violence further underlines the urgent need for an immediate de-escalation of violence and a full ceasefire. We urge all those involved to do everything they can to give maximum support to Egyptian-led efforts to allow them to succeed.”
Iran’s national flag
Iran has confirmed its military aid to Hamas, Al Jazeera reports.
“We are proud to defend the people of Palestine and Hamas,” Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani reportedly says on the Iranian parliament’s website. “Our assistance to them has been both financial and military,” he adds, without providing details.
A Hamas spokesman in Gaza is praising the Tel Aviv bombing, Reuters reports. The news agency also reports celebrations in Gaza.
“Hamas blesses the attack in Tel Aviv and sees it as a natural response to the Israeli massacres,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
“Palestinian factions will resort to all means in order to protect our Palestinian civilians in the absence of a world effort to stop the Israeli aggression,” he said.
He did not say Hamas was behind the attack. Israeli authorities have yet to name the Palestinian group they believe carried it out.
Reuters reported that sweet cakes were handed out in celebration at Gaza’s main hospital in response to news of the bombing.
Preamble: A Tel Aviv bus was blown up in a bombing attack midday Wednesday, with 21 people injured but no fatalities. Based on reports that a man in a green and yellow sweater disembarked one stop before the explosion, police were investigating the possibility that the perpetrator was still at large. In Gaza, there were spontaneous celebrations of the attack, with familiar scenes of candies being doled out to Palestinians in the street.
Meanwhile, with Operation Pillar of Defense in its eighth day, persistent reports were indicating that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was in the works. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in the region for a series of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, along with a scheduled stop in Cairo, where ceasefire negotiations have been taken place.
On the front lines it’s business as usual, with Israeli airstrikes rocking increasingly higher profile targets in the Strip — including the home of a close adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh — and rocket attacks slamming into homes in the Be’er Tuvia region in Israel’s south.
