Gaza Fighting Rages as Clinton Pursues Durable Cease-Fire

Ernesto Londoño, Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post

21 November 12

 

bus bombing Wednesday morning brought the Gaza conflict to central Tel Aviv, as intensified fighting between Hamas militants and the Israeli military raised doubts about the prospects of a durable cease-fire being sought by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others in hectic rounds of shuttle diplomacy.

After flickers of hope on Tuesday that a cease-fire was imminent, the Israeli assault on Gaza early Wednesday instead appeared to have escalated. Israeli airstrikes targeted ministerial buildings of Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules Gaza, as well as dozens of other sites. Ten rockets were fired into Israel, according to an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman.

In Tel Aviv, an explosion on a bus wounded 10 people, Israeli authorities said. At least three were taken to a hospital with critical injuries, according to a medical official at the site of the blast across from an entrance to Israel's military headquarters.

Although the attack paled in comparison to the destruction and casualties suffered by Palestinian civilians over eight days of intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza, it raised the specter of a return to an era of Palestinian bombings of Israeli civilian targets that killed more than 500 people between 2001 and 2004, the deadliest years of the Second Intifada. It also threatened to steel Israeli resolve to continue the offensive against Gaza - and possibly to invade on the ground. That step that would risk causing far more suffering, as well as saddling Egypt with a potentially destabilizing refugee crisis.

"If we decide to launch a ground phase, it should be very effective and very dramatic," a senior Israeli military official said in Tel Aviv, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss internal government thinking. If there is a ground invasion, the official said, "collateral damage will be dramatically higher."

The senior official said Israel believes that Gaza militias still possess "many hundreds to thousands" of rockets, stockpiled over the last four years.

Israeli police cordoned off the area around the bus blast, saying they feared there could be other explosives. It was the first such bombing in Tel Aviv since April 2006, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people near this Mediterranean city's old central bus station.

As police pushed crowds of onlookers away from the wreckage of the green and white bus, Tel Aviv residents looked dazed and horrified.

Dalia Kaminer, 70, an English teacher, said the bombing was certain to derail cease-fire negotiations.

"Today we woke up to a new reality," she said, looking dejected. "It starts all over again."

Over the past few days, Kaminer said, a negotiated cease-fire seemed like the best way out of the week-long conflict.

"We now have to fight," she said. "This is what I feel. Now there is no way back."

Clinton, who arrived in Cairo on Wednesday after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday night, said in a statement: "The United States strongly condemns this terrorist attack, and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the people of Israel. 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. The United States stands ready to provide any assistance that Israel requires."

The White House issued a similar statement of condemnation. "These attacks against innocent Israeli civilians are outrageous," it said. It offered to help "identify and bring to justice the perpetrators" of the bus bombing and reaffirmed Washington's "unshakeable commitment to Israel's security and our deep friendship and solidarity with the Israeli people."

In Gaza, some residents greeted news of the attack in Tel Aviv with praise, although Hamas stopped short of claiming responsibility.

"We told you #IDF that our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are," wrote a spokesman for Hamas's military arm on Twitter. "You opened the Gates of Hell on Yourselves."

News of the attack was announced over mosque loudspeakers in Gaza. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told the Associated Press that the attack was to be expected.

"We consider it a natural response to the occupation crimes and the ongoing massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip,"Barhoum said.

Negotiations continued Wednesday, but it was unclear whether Israeli officials and Hamas negotiators, communicating through Egyptian interlocutors, were moving closer to the truce that the international community was furiously trying to broker. Among the main sticking points was whether Egypt and the United States could act as guarantors of a peace deal in a region where waves of aggression have come in vicious cycles.

A former senior Israeli official who has been briefed on the negotiations said both sides have made it clear that they prefer a cease-fire to avert a ground invasion by Israel, which could multiply casualties and spark a broader regional conflagration. But neither wants to back down without getting significant concessions, said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

The Israelis, the former official said, want a commitment that Egypt will do a better job of policing its porous border with Gaza, which includes dozens of tunnels that are used to smuggle everything from vehicles to rocket parts. Hamas wants Israel to lift its blockade of the enclave, home to 1.7 million Palestinians.

That left Clinton to rush between meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo respectively. She is not communicating directly with Hamas, a group that Israel and the United States consider a terrorist organization.

Putting to rest rumors and assertions throughout Tuesday that suggested a cease-fire deal was imminent, Netanyahu late in the day made it clear to Clinton that he has not ruled out a ground invasion.

"If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem through diplomatic means, we prefer that," Netanyahu said. "If not, I'm sure you understand that Israel will have to take whatever action is necessary to defend its people. This is something I don't have to explain to Americans."

In her meeting with Abbas in Ramallah on Wednesday morning, Clinton expressed appreciation for his "leadership in encouraging the restoration of calm and his role in maintaining security throughout the area, including in the West Bank," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. She said that in their half hour of talks, Clinton and Abbas were joined by, among others, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat, U.S. special envoy David Hale and Vice Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

More than 100 targets in Gaza were hit overnight, according to the Twitter feed of the Israeli Defense Forces spokeswoman, and a major Hamas ministry appeared to have been pulverized by several large airstrikes.

The impasse was a blow to Morsi, who had said earlier Tuesday that he expected a deal within hours. On Tuesday, the Israeli military said Gaza militants launched 200 rockets, while Israel struck more than 133 targets in Gaza.

Clinton, looking weary Tuesday after flying across five time zones from Cambodia, where she had been attending a regional summit with President Obama, spoke firmly about her desire to avert greater bloodshed.

"America's commitment to Israel's security is rock-solid and unwavering," Clinton said late Tuesday before sitting down with Netanyahu. "That is why we believe it is essential to de-escalate the situation in Gaza."

Points of Contention

The former Israeli official briefed on the discussions said a key concern is clearly defining the role that Egypt would play as a guarantor if a deal were reached.

"The cessation of smuggling requires a strong Egyptian role," the former official said. "I don't believe Hamas will commit to halt smuggling weapons."

In her remarks to Netanyahu, Clinton also stressed the pivotal part that Egypt stands to play, saying that "as a regional leader and neighbor, Egypt has the opportunity and responsibility to continue playing a crucial and constructive role in this process."

Israel also wants the deal to include the establishment of a buffer zone along its border with Gaza to prevent attacks on Israeli patrols, the former official said.

Hamas has demanded the permanent lifting of the Gaza blockade, the former official said, a concession that Israel is unlikely to grant. Israel says the measure is designed to keep militants from smuggling weapons and building bunkers.

Complicating matters, the former official said, the Egyptians are making demands of their own. Cairo wants Hamas to rein in Gaza-based militant groups that have formed alliances in recent years with extremists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

"This is a two-layered deal," the former official said. "Israel does not want to find itself agreeing to a deal that collapses after two or three weeks."

Fighting Intensifies

Tuesday was among the most violent days since Israel's operation, called Pillar of Defense, began a week ago. The campaign seeks to cripple militant cells in Gaza that have stockpiled enormous caches of rockets that are routinely fired toward southern Israeli towns.

The Israeli military suffered its first casualty of the offensive Tuesday, when an 18-year-old corporal from Emmanuel, an Israeli settlement town in the West Bank, was killed by a rocket in southern Israel. Five other Israeli soldiers were wounded by artillery Tuesday, the military said. A civilian Israeli defense employee was killed in a separate rocket attack in southern Israel, officials said, raising the Israeli death toll to five. More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the fighting began, according to health officials.

The 200 rockets launched by Gaza militants on Tuesday included 14 that landed in populated areas, said Capt. Eytan Buchman, an Israeli military spokesman. Two of those were long-range rockets. One landed in a barren area outside Jerusalem, and the other struck a building in a Tel Aviv suburb.

The rocket attacks "reflect the organization's intent to target population centers, as well as the increasingly advanced capabilities they have acquired over recent years," Buchman said.

Israel pounded densely populated Gaza throughout the day from the air and the sea. One of the airstrikes targeted the Islamic National Bank, which Hamas set up to fund operations in Gaza in the face of international sanctions.

The Israeli military distributed leaflets and sent text messages warning Gaza residents to move from certain parts of the border area - a warning that some interpreted as a prelude to a ground invasion.

As the strikes continued, Mohammed Deif, a top Hamas military commander in Gaza, issued a recorded statement exhorting his group's fighters to keep attacking Israel.

Hamas "must invest all resources to uproot this aggressor from our land," said Deif, who is in hiding. "The enemy should know that it will pay a heavy price for its heinous crimes against our people."

In Gaza City, meanwhile, masked Hamas gunmen publicly executed six alleged Israeli spies at a large intersection, the Associated Press reported. Hamas's military wing accused the men of giving Israel information about fighters and rocket-launching sites. The suspects were forced to lie facedown in the street and shot, and one of the corpses was tied to a motorcycle and dragged through the streets as passersby screamed, "Spy! Spy!"

Visit by U.N. chief

In a surprise visit to Israel on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed for an end to hostilities, warning that an Israeli ground invasion could spark a destabilizing regional conflict.

"Further escalation would be dangerous and tragic for Palestinians and Israelis and would put the entire region at risk," he said, speaking alongside Netanyahu. Saying that rocket strikes inside Israel have sown "fear and terror," Ban added: "Rocket attacks by Palestinian militants targeting Israel must cease immediately."

Birnbaum reported from Cairo. Karin Brulliard in Jerusalem and William Branigin and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.