Israel warned over Gaza invasion

Israel warned over Gaza invasion

About 9,000 Israeli reservists have been drafted to join the army at Gaza's border [AFP]

Hamas' political leader has warned Israel that its army will be defeated if it invades the Gaza Strip.

"If you commit the stupidity of launching a ground offensive then a black destiny awaits you," Khaled Meshaal said in a recorded speech aired on Friday.

"You will soon find out that Gaza is the wrath of the God," he said.

Israeli soldiers, tanks and armoured personnel carriers have been lining Gaza's border, poised for a possible ground offensive, a week after launching devastating air attacks on the besieged territory in what Israel says is a response to rocket attacks on its southern towns.

Hamas's armed wing claims to have repelled an Israeli special forces unit trying to cross into the strip early on Saturday.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, has continued to bomb ground near its boundary, clearing it of any potential landmines and increasing speculation that a ground offensive is imminent.

Medical officials say 434 people have died in Gaza and 2,240 have been injured since Israel's aerial bombardment began.

Four Israelis have been killed in the same period by Palestinian rockets, including longer-range weapons that have hit the port of Ashdod and the desert town of Beer-sheva.

Clear position

Meshaal, speaking from Damascus, in Syria, said Palestinians in Gaza were ready for any land offensive made by the Israelis.

"This battle was imposed on us and we are confident we will achieve victory because we have made our preparations.
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"Our position is clear. We will not give in. Our resolve cannot be broken," he said.

"Our demand is also clear. The war must end, the siege lifted, and crossing points open without restriction. "

George Bush, the US president, in his first public comments on the hostilities, said Hamas had "instigated" Israel's war on Gaza, referring to the rocket attacks on Israel's southern towns.

"There must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end," he said in remarks prepared for his weekly Saturday radio address.

Talking to Al Jazeera, Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, said that the party to be blamed for the present situation is Israel, not Hamas.

"It's clear now that Israelis are blocking all the political solutions. The main question is supposed to be what will be the right end for this? And the clear answer is ending the occupation."

Diplomacy

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, begins a two-day four-nation tour of the Middle East on Monday, hoping to rally key players behind an initiative for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Sarkozy will visit Egypt and Syria before travelling to Jerusalem on Monday for talks with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and to the West Bank to show support for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Smoke rises from the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli attack [AFP]

Meshaal urged Arabs to step up aid and to send medical teams. He said European and Arab countries had contacted Hamas to discuss ending the fighting but he did not name them.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and several Arab foreign ministers are flying to New York over the weekend to urge the UN Security Council to adopt an Arab draft resolution that would condemn Israel and demand a halt to its bombing campaign in Gaza.

The US has said the draft is "unacceptable" and "unbalanced" , because it makes no mention of halting the Hamas rocketing of southern Israel which led to the Israeli offensive.

Most of the 1.5 million people in the densely populated enclave have no means of sheltering from the raids, and humanitarian groups say supplies of food and fuel are running dangerously low.

Hospitals have reported shortages of even the most basic medicines and say they have no more capacity to deal with the growing numbers of casualties.

Karen Abu Zayed, the commissioner for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, said that in eight years of working in Gaza the need for aid had "never been so acute".

"I am appalled and saddened when I see the suffering around me," she said, adding UNRWA has made an emergency appeal for $34m to help the Gaza population.

Hasan Khalaf, Gaza's assistant deputy health minister, described the ongoing assault on Gaza as "an Israeli massacre".