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Israel: ‘We Prefer the Diplomatic Solution’ But Are Ready to ‘Escalate’, Invade Gaza

Nov. 19, 2012 4:12pm Jason Howerton

Israel: We Prefer the Diplomatic Solution But Are Ready to Invade Gaza

An Israeli policeman examines the damage to a school classroom hit by a rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, at the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. Israeli aircraft struck crowded areas in the Gaza Strip and killed a senior militant with a missile strike on a media center Monday, driving up the Palestinian death toll to 96, as Israel broadened its targets in the 6-day-old offensive meant to quell Hamas rocket fire on Israel. (Credit: AP)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (TheBlaze/AP) — Israeli aircraft struck crowded areas in the Gaza Strip and killed a senior militant with a missile strike on a media center Monday, driving up the Palestinian death toll to 100, as Israel broadened its targets in the 6-day-old offensive meant to quell Hamas rocket fire on Israel.

An Israeli official said Israel hoped to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis as well and signaled Egypt was likely to play a key role in enforcing any truce.

“We prefer the diplomatic solution if it’s possible. If we see it’s not going to bear fruit, we can escalate,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomatic efforts under way.

The official said Israel doesn’t want a “quick fix” that will result in renewed fighting months down the road. Instead, Israel wants “international guarantees” that Hamas will not rearm or use Egypt’s neighboring Sinai peninsula for militant activity.

Escalating its bombing campaign over the weekend, Israel began attacking homes of Hamas operatives, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza. Gaza officials claim these attacks have led to a sharp spike in civilian casualties, killing 24 civilians in just under two days and doubling the number of civilians killed in the conflict.

The rising toll came as Egyptian-led efforts to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas got into gear.

While Israel and Hamas were far apart in their demands, both sides said they were open to a diplomatic solution – and prepared for further escalation if that failed.

The leader of Hamas took a tough stance, rejecting Israel’s demands that the militant group stop its rocket fire. Instead, Khaled Mashaal said, Israel must meet Hamas’ demands for a lifting of the blockade of Gaza.

“We don’t accept Israeli conditions because it is the aggressor,” he told reporters in Egypt. “We want a cease-fire along with meeting our demands.”

The leader of Hamas Khaled Mashaal speaks during a press conference in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. (Credit: AP)

Pro-Israel supporters take part in a rally across the street from Sadler’s Wells Theatre where a performance by the Batsheva Dance Company was due to take place in London, Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. Batsheva Dance Company is an Israeli contemporary dance group currently on a UK tour. A pro-Palestinian group were holding a protest against the theatre performance at the same time further up the street. (Credit: AP)

A Palestinian youth throws a stone towards Israeli forces at the Qalandia checkpoint, in the Israeli occupied West Bank, on November 19, 2012. UN chief Ban Ki-moon will meet Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as part of a growing push for a Gaza war ceasefire, his spokesman said. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Overall, the offensive that began Wednesday killed 100 Palestinians, including 53 civilians, and wounded some 840 people, including 225 children, Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra said.

On the Israeli side, three civilians have died from Palestinian rocket fire and dozens have been wounded. A rocket-defense system has intercepted hundreds of rockets bound for populated areas.

Hamas fighters have fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israel in the current round of fighting, including 95 on Monday, among them one that hit an empty school in the coastal city of Ashkelon. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 29 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile battery. Rockets landed in open areas of Beersheva, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and caused damage in a number of areas.

Schools in southern Israel have been closed since the start of the offensive on Wednesday, and large police units deployed in the area to respond to any potential damage and injuries from rockets.

A poll published in the Haaretz daily on Monday showed widespread support in Israel for the offensive. It said that 84 percent of the public supports the operation, with 12 percent opposed. At the same time, it said just 30 percent of the public supports a ground invasion of Gaza. The poll, conducted by the Dialog agency, surveyed 520 people and had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

In Monday’s violence, an Israeli airstrike on a high-rise building in Gaza City killed Ramez Harb, a senior figure in Islamic Jihad’s military wing, the Al Quds Brigades, the group said in a text message to reporters. A number of foreign and local news organizations have offices in the building, which was also struck on Sunday. A passer-by was also killed, medics said.

Thick black smoke rose from the building. Paramedics said several people were wounded.

Islamic Jihad, a smaller sister group to Hamas, said it believed Harb was the target of the strike.

Israel has killed dozens of wanted militants in surgical strikes throughout the operation, the result, officials say, of intelligence gathered from its collection of high-flying drones overhead and a network of informants.

Before dawn Monday, a missile struck a three-story home in the Gaza City’s Zeitoun area, flattening the building and badly damaging several nearby homes. Shell-shocked residents searching for belongings climbed over debris of twisted metal and cement blocks in the street.

The strike killed three adults and a 2-year-old boy, and wounded 42 people, al-Kidra said.

Residents said Israel first sent a warning strike around 2 a.m., prompting many to flee their homes. A few minutes later, heavy bombardment followed.

Ahed Kitati, 38, had rushed out after the warning missile to try to hustle people to safety. But he was fatally struck by a falling cinderblock, leaving behind a pregnant wife, five young daughters and a son, the residents said.

Sitting in mourning with her mother and siblings hours after her father’s death, 11-year-old Aya Kitati clutched a black jacket, saying she was freezing, though the weather was mild. “We were sleeping, and then we heard the sound of the bombs,” she said, then broke down sobbing.

Ahed’s brother, Jawad Kitati, said he plucked the lifeless body of a 2-year-old relative from the street and carried him to an ambulance. Blood stains smeared his jacket sleeve.

Another clan member, Haitham Abu Zour, 24, woke up to the sound of the warning strike and hid in a stairwell. He emerged to find his wife dead and his two infant children buried under the debris, but safe.

In another area of Gaza City, the patriarch of the Daloo family, Jamal, sat in mourning for 11 members of his family killed in a missile strike on his home Sunday. Among the dead were his wife, his son, daughter-in-law, his sister and four grandchildren. He embraced relatives and neighbors paying their condolences, his face swollen from crying. He disputed Israel’s initial claim that a senior Islamic Jihad operative was hiding in his house.

The mourners sat in plastic chairs just meters away from bulldozers clearing the ruins of Daloo’s home. His 16-year-old daughter Yara was still missing and believed under the rubble, family members said.

Egypt is trying to broker a cease-fire with the help of Turkey and Qatar. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and a delegation of Arab foreign ministers were expected in Gaza on Tuesday.

A senior Egyptian official told The Associated Press that Hamas and Israel were each presenting Egypt with their conditions for a cease-fire.

“I hope that by the end of the day we will receive a final signal of what can be achieved,” said the official, who is familiar with the indirect negotiations. He said Israel and Hamas are both looking for guarantees to ensure a long-term stop to hostilities. The official says Egypt’s aim is to stop the fighting and “find a direct way to lift the siege of Gaza.”

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the indirect negotiations.

U.N. Security General Ban Ki-moon also arrived in Cairo to appeal for an end to violence.

The rising toll was likely to intensify pressure on Israel to end the fighting. Hundreds of civilian casualties in an Israeli offensive in Gaza four years ago led to fierce international condemnation of Israel.

But Mashaal said Gazans were prepared to keep fighting.

`’Gaza’s demand is not a halt to war. Its demand is for its legitimate rights,” including a stop to Israeli attacks, assassinations and a lifting of the blockade, Mashaal said.

Israel has been jittery that a second front along its northern border could be opened, either by militants in Lebanon or from spillover from the Syrian civil war.

Lebanese military experts dismantled two Katyusha rockets Monday that were equipped with timers and ready to fire at Israel, a senior Lebanese security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

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Comments (36)

longknifed
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 6:42pm
They “prefer diplomacy.” BS. They prefer to send American youth into Israeli geopolitical war zones to get their legs blown off, their minds shattered, their families broken and their lives taken.

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- sillyfreshness
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 7:07pm
  Obey your handlers the “chosen people”………support Israel.
  
  Support all your leftist, Marxist “chosen people” politicians: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Frank Lautenberg, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Al Franken (stein), Chuck Schumer, Henry Waxman, and about 100 others. My hand is too tired to type all the “chosen people” puppet masters out there. I would have to type for about 24 hours nonstop.
  
  To sum up: Listen to your handlers the “chosen people”.
  
  Report this comment
- longknifed
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 7:15pm
  You left out the “right” side (actually one side). Kagan, Wolfowitz, Stein, Levin, Savage, B Goldberg, J Goldberg, Frum (my fingers are too tired as well).
  
  When we get drafted, because we don’t deserve our Gentile legs, lets start a revolution.
  
  Report this comment
- sillyfreshness
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 7:28pm
  Support Israel financially. Get a loan at your nearest bank so your interest payments can support Israel.
  
  Support Israel financially. Buy stocks so proceeds can go to support Israel from your local “chosen person” stock broker.
  
  Obey your “chosen people” puppet masters. Obey George Soros.
  
  Report this comment
- adeleeeee
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 10:04pm
  @long
  They will do just fine even without a single soul to support them. But if we do not support them we are in trouble and will not hold for not guilty.
  Islam, a.k.a, Radical Islam is coming at us. I will not die without resistant! Now it is all your choice: to live with dignity or die by beheading.
  
  Report this comment
- Small_Al
  Posted on November 20, 2012 at 5:31am
  Too bad we don’t have leadership like that in this country. Read fresh political commentary at: http://smallcraftadvisorychronicles.blogspot.com
  
  Report this comment
castious
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:33pm
Ah i see JERKoff is back with his same one liners i think he is spamming us

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- The_Jerk
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:50pm
  Where’s that Jerk off guy?
  
  Report this comment
- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:51pm
  CASTIOUS, What else would expect from him? As I responded to him earlier, why is it that he thinks that he is the only one who is right about all of this and the rest of us are just so wrong.
  
  Report this comment
- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 6:15pm
  THE_JERK, Merely take that long look in the mirror.
  
  Report this comment
Impenitent
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:27pm
It would be ironic if Hamas fired a Iranian supplied rocket into Jerusalem and leveled the dome of the rock…

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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:49pm
  IMPENITENT, I have thought the same thing for a number of years. But, now they are calling their responses essentially rocket propelled fire crackers, so they would claim that it would have to be Israeli interdiction even if they blew up their beloved Dome Of The Rock.
  
  Report this comment
nzkiwi
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:20pm
I doubt that Israel prefers the diplomatic solution. I think that they are saying so to keep their enemies off balance, and the world less critical of their position.

I think that what Israel would really prefer is the expunging of their sworn enemies from their doorstep. In this they are being entirely sensible. Israel, it seems, is the only nation in the world that is expected to take a continuous beating without defending itself or retaliating. Hamas invited this response by attacking Israel, and for them to call Israel the aggressor is risible.

The Muslim Brotherhood has openly and repeatedly stated that the intend Israel’s annihilation. Israel should thank then for the warning – that was very decent of the MB. Seriously, what did these idiots think Israel was going to do?

In my opinion, given that the MB has clearly shown by word and action what its intentions are, Israel has no choice whatsoever. They must remove the viper in their living room before the MB can fully organise its new territories into a cohesive attacking force.

Any appeasement, or even delay, will only be to the benefit of their enemies.

And these enemies, who ceaselessly run off at the mouth, have told Israel what will happen next.

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- The_Jerk
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:53pm
  Israel is a belligerent state. They’d prefer killing all of them. Killing is their M.O..
  
  Report this comment
- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:57pm
  NZKIWI, I think that you are right about Israel wishing they could go with a diplomatic solution. But, they also know that a cease fire at this point is just a way for the UN to step in and allow the opposing side to resupply their munitions. It has happened so many times in the past that they will be fools to allow it to happen again. Right now, it is best for them to take this to ground…..and take a lot of ground.
  
  Report this comment
- nzkiwi
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 7:45pm
  @ RJ
  
  Yes, I think that’s what will happen
  
  @ The Jerk
  
  If you have a moment, look up the word “fatuous” in the dictionary.
  
  Report this comment
ResistSocialism
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:03pm
http://www.askisrael.org/facts/qpt.asp?fid=17

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spfoam1
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:59pm
There can be no diplomatic solution. Islam, as directed by the koran, offers no compromise with non muslims. It’s death or victory, and they love death.

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rickc34
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:42pm
So many kids would not get injured if these cowards would quit using them as shields. God watch over Israel and your promise that you made.

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Steve LeMaster
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:39pm
March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here’s what he said:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

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4GODUSAANDISRAEL
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:30pm
God be with you and bless you Israel. You are surrounded by enemies and have the support of allies in words only. My prayers are with you for protection and understanding. Sadly though, I believe Israel shall remain alone until it is too late.

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- Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:35pm
  I still expect that the insane Obama will send in troops to ‘protect the Palestinians from oppression by Israel.’ He values the terrorists more than any other people who love freedom – American and Israel he loathes.
  
  Report this comment
- Keatonc333
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:41pm
  God also watch over the innocent lives in Palestine
  
  Report this comment
- Keatonc333
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:45pm
  Snowleopard… do you honestly believe that? or do you just say it to make a point?
  
  Report this comment
- 4GODUSAANDISRAEL
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:51pm
  I don’t know about the troop thing, he doesn’t have enough of a spine for such a move, now Obama staying out of the way of the U.N. and letting them protect the Palastinian terrorists while standing back like a British police officer saying “stop! Or I’ll say stop again!” I can see him doing. Plus we don’t need to send in troops, we’re already supplying guns to the resistance (aka Muslim brotherhood, aka hamas) in Syria. There’s already an American armed army surrounding Israel. Turkey, Egypt, Jordan (once it falls to hamas, er, I mean the Muslim brotherhood) Syria and Iraq are all enemies to Israel, and all have been armed and trained by the United States. No, Obama doesn’t need to send troops, he already has them there.
  
  Report this comment
- 4GODUSAANDISRAEL
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:55pm
  I agree, there are innocents in Palestine, and I pray god’s protection on those innocents. but unfortunately for them, their leadership is full of terrorists who use the innocents as a political leg up by draging their dead bodies into the street to show camera crews once they’re done having used said innocents as shields.
  
  Report this comment
The_Jerk
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:29pm
All Israel, all day, everyday. Propaganda?

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- Keatonc333
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:44pm
  Blatant propaganda! I love how the only story the run on the 80 some Palestinian deaths is that some poor boy may have actually been killed by a hamas rocket… yet in the story theres no evidence.. I HATE to make this comparison.. but its like hitlers jew propaganda..
  
  Report this comment
- tzion
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 5:00pm
  @Keaton
  There was plenty of evidence, or rather the evidence was how much Hamas sought to clear away the evidence. The explosion was too small to have come from an Israeli strike and Hamas was quick to clear the area of bomb remains to hide their own involvement. Besides, this happened during a ceasefire. Who is more likely to be responsible: Hamas who regularly breaks ceasefires or Israel that almost never does?
  
  Report this comment
CrazyChicken
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:29pm
Obama is the Muslim Brotherhood. Why the Fk the military hasn’t gone in Washington D.C. and taken out this wholesale treasonous bunch is beyond me. Is everyone in on this. What happened to American honor? What happened to defending us from foreign and DOMESTIC enemies? What a sham! A million man march on Washington DC on January 21st…ARMED

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dublinthewagons
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:25pm
NAPALM the Gaza strip.
.its the friendly choice.
You aren’t killing children, just reinforements.

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- Shasta
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:53pm
  Indeed, many muslim mothers see their babies as future martyrs, but these children are still children to God (and anyone with a heart)
  
  Report this comment
Tri-ox
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:24pm
Gaza belongs to Israel – If Israel decides to take Gaza back by sending in ground troops, they will not be INVADING – it is their land.

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Impenitent
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:24pm
invade Gaza? that will not end this conflict… nuking Tehran? perhaps that would…

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- tzion
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:36pm
  On the other hand, invading Gaza would allow Israel to entirely suppress Hamas. With Syria, Hezbollah’s main supplier, caught up in a civil war, Israel can attack Iran without fear of Iranian proxies. Only Egypt is a real concern.
  
  Report this comment
- RayOne
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 4:49pm
  Tehran may be a write off if Iran escalates, I have a photo book of the architecture in the Holy Land, if it is time in man’s history to say goodbye and make a personal peace, I will.
  The world does not need another Islamic ghetto, those that don’t assimilate be required to return to the ‘land that glows, orange’.
  Peace has been an option, they should pray.
  
  Report this comment

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