Thousands of Gazans protest over deadly Israeli raids

Tens of thousands of Gazans on Friday protested against Israeli raids that killed 35 Palestinians, as Israel mulled a ground operation to stop rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory.

Late Friday an activist of Islamic Jihad and a 17-year-old girl were killed in an Israeli air raid on Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, hospital sources said.

A little earlier a militant of Hamas's military wing was killed in a similar raid while a two-year-old girl, Malak Karsarna, died after being wounded by a shell blast near Beit Hanun, the sources added.

The deaths brought to 6,198 the number of people killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence since 2000, most of them Palestinians, according to an AFP count.

The demonstrators poured into the streets throughout the impoverished and isolated territory in response to Hamas calls to denounce the air strikes, whose victims include several children.

"They've killed my right to childhood," read a sign held by a child, clad in a red-stained white funeral shroud, who attended a large rally in Jabaliya.

Among the protesters in Gaza City was Khalil al-Hayyah, a Hamas leader who lost a 25-year-old son in an air strike Thursday.

"We will never recognise Israel, even if it assassinates all our leaders and kills our children," he shouted to the crowd.

A senior Hamas official told worshippers at a Gaza City mosque that the coastal strip which the Islamists have ruled for more than eight months was facing war.

"Gaza today faces a real war, a crazy war led by the enemy against our people," said Ismail Haniya, the premier in a Hamas-led government which Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas fired after Hamas seized control of Gaza.

Haniya lashed out at the US administration, which he claimed backs the Israeli attacks by portraying them as "legitimate self-defence." He also accused the Arab world of "encouraging the Israeli aggression" through its silence.

Abbas meanwhile expressed concern at what he called the "dangers of an Israeli escalation" in the Gaza Strip, his office said in a statement received by AFP.

He urged Israel to cease its attacks on the territory and also called on Palestinian militants to stop rocket attacks on Israel.

"It is in the interest of the Palestinian people not to give Israel any pretext to continue its aggression," Abbas said.

The 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) also condemned the Israeli raids and urged the United Nations to rein in the Jewish state.

But Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned his country "will not shy away from any action" to halt the near-daily rocket fire from Gaza.

"By intensifying the rocket fire and extending their reach they are bringing onto themselves a worse catastrophe as we will use all means to defend ourselves," Vilnai told army radio.

Vilnai's spokesman took strong exception to media reports that quoted the minister calling for a "Holocaust" in Gaza. "The minister used the Hebrew term 'shoah' which means 'catastrophe' and in this context does not refer to the 'the Shoah' -- the Holocaust," said Eytan Guinsburg.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak said earlier Israel was considering the possibility of launching a widescale ground operation in Gaza.

Israel says its strikes target rocket-launching sites. Gaza militants have fired more 125 rockets at Israel since Wednesday, according to the Israeli army.

The attacks from Gaza injured a handful of people and killed a civilian who became the first Israeli to die since May as a result of the near-daily rocket fire.

The violence has overshadowed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process which was revived at a US-hosted conference in late November but has made little progress since.

The latest escalation around Gaza flared early on Wednesday when an Israeli strike killed five Hamas militants in the southern town of Khan Yunis. In retaliation, the Islamists launched a barrage of rockets into southern Israel.

Several of the rockets hit the coastal city of Ashkelon, raising fears inside Israel that Gaza militants are receiving longer-range projectiles and fuelling calls for a ground operation.

A five-month incursion in 2006 -- conducted after Gaza militants seized an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid -- killed several hundred Palestinians but failed to stop the rocket fire.

The chief of Israel's left-wing Meretz party, Yossi Beilin, said Hamas had offered a truce around Gaza over the past two weeks but the overtures had been rejected by the Israeli leadership, which brands the movement a terror outfit.

Source:news.theage.com.au/thousands-of-gazans-pr otest-over-deadly-israeli -raids/20080301-1w3r.html