SPONSORED BY:

Israeli forces advance deep into Gaza urban areas

Israeli forces advance deep into Gaza residential areas, fighting urban warfare

 

Email To A Friend

Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.

Separate multiple addresses with commas

SPONSORED BY
 

(JERUSALEM) Israeli ground forces made their deepest foray yet Sunday into Gaza's most populated area, with tanks rolling into residential neighborhoods and infantry fighting urban warfare in streets and buildings with Hamas militants who kept up their rocketing of southern Israel.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said residential neighborhoods in Gaza are riddled with homemade bombs and booby traps, including mannequins placed at apartment entrances to simulate militants and rigged to explode if soldiers approach.

The army "is advancing more into urban areas," said the spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich. "Since the majority of the Hamas militants are pretty much in hiding in those places, mainly urban places, then we operate in those areas."

Early Monday, Israeli navy gunboats fired more than 25 shells at Gaza City, setting fires and shaking office buildings, including the local bureau of The Associated Press. The military said that in general, the targets are Hamas installations but had no immediate information about the shelling that began just after midnight.

Before daybreak Monday, at least one militant was killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, where a battle was in progress, hospital officials said.

Gaza medical officials say at least 870 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict that began Dec. 27 with Israeli airstrikes on Hamas buildings, as well as suspected rocket launch sites and smuggling tunnels on the Egyptian border. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have died.

Label

Newsweek Top Stories
Visions of a Decade
Visions of a Decade

From 2000-2009, one photo per month.

The Failure of Copenhagen
The Failure of Copenhagen

Why there could be a silver lining in a failed climate treaty.

Sex Scandals of the 2000s
Sex Scandals of the 2000s

From John Edwards to Mark Sanford, the decade's memorable affairs.

118 Days in Hell
118 Days in Hell

A NEWSWEEK journalist recounts his captivity in Iran.

Discuss

Sponsored by

Member Comments

  • Posted By: Vigilance @ 01/14/2009 11:58:49 AM

    No, there is a big difference. Hilter killed Jews en masse. The Israelis haven't committed genocide...they have, however, caused an exodus of half a million people.

    I do wonder if there's a Israeli contingent that would secretly love it if they just gassed and burned all the Palestinians. Probably so.

    However, anyone OUTSIDE of the situation can see that if Israel did that, every Muslim nation on Earth would declare war on them immediately. Israel's army, well-trained and equipped as it is, can't win that battle without nukes.

    This is a bad scenario - and Israel has enough nukes to probably kill every person on Earth through nuclear winter.

    Honestly, I will have no love for Israel unless they actually declare their own nuclear program. It's so ____ing sad to see them bitch about their enemies' nuclear programs when they secretly obtained 200 tons of yellowcake in Operation Plumbat....liars, man. And my country is too damn ignorant to know...most people in America don't know that, not only is it a nuclear power, it probably has somewhere between 150 and 300 MIRVed nuclear bombs at this point. They definitely don't know what MIRV does -if you want a rough analogy, consider a nuclear version of the cluster bombs Israel has been peppering Gaza with.

    I sympathize with the nation of Israel over what was done to the Jews all in World War II. However, that doesn't give it the right to threaten to blow up the world. At least one Israeli political scientist has mentioned the possibility. I fully believe Israel's nuclear stockpile is possibly the biggest threat to the Earth, other than climate change maybe.

  • Posted By: Contumacious @ 01/11/2009 9:01:52 AM

    The Judeo-American Axis of Evil is determined to exterminate the Paleswtinians and steal their Land..Then they pretend not to know why the hate. The US has been financing the Palestinian ethnic genocide since 1948.

  • Posted By: Getitout @ 01/11/2009 2:26:44 AM

    Can it get any worse? Yes it can.The IDF will blow up every building, than the city, and than the people, or they can let the people in Gaza relocate to the West Bank, or to Egypt. Speaking of Egypt, if many years ago the Egyptian Pharoah didn't let the jews go with Moses, we wouldn't had that problem. Back in the present, Israel has a problem. The IDF cannot return to Israel unless they won it. They haven't. The Israeli government is already spliting over the invasion, and the atrocities that happened in Gaza. The government going to fall. Hamas going to win it, inside Gaza, or outside. Than Israel will have to answer to a high court for its crime against humanity. If we tried Hitler's generals for their atrocities against the jews in Germany,I don't why we don't try the Jews for their atrocities in Gaza. I dodn't see a difference to what the germans did to the jews, and now for what the jews are doing to the Palestinians.

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse

My Take

Customize the NEWSWEEK homepage
to feature your favorite columnists.

Customize Now