"Am I therefore become your enemy,because I TELL YOU THE TRUTH...?"
(Galatians 4:16)

Woman killed, dozens wounded in new Israeli strikes on Gaza

GAZA CITY-A Palestinian woman was killed and dozens of people, including children, were wounded on Friday in Israel's latest air strikes on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, medics and witnesses said.The raids were part of a spiralling escalation of violence between the army and the Islamists, amid warnings the upsurge could sink revived peace efforts.A 47-year-old woman died when an Israeli warplane fired into a building that used to house a Hamas "interior ministry" in Gaza City, destroying the structure, they said.The building was abandoned, but the powerful blast damaged 15 adjacent houses, killing the woman and wounding 46 others, including several children.Many of the injured were on their way to a wedding in the neighbourhood, witnesses said.A second strike hit a Hamas police building in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, wounding four people. A third strike on a Hamas building in the north of the territory left no casualties, medics said.The army did not comment on the deadly Gaza City raid, but confirmed it carried out the two others.This week has seen the sharpest flare-up of violence between the army and Hamas since before the Islamists violently seized control of the territory seven months ago.Since Tuesday, Israeli strikes have killed some 33 people, mostly gunmen, inside Gaza. For its part, Hamas has fired around 150 rockets and mortar shells into the Jewish state, lightly wounding more than 10 people.Earlier on Friday, an Israeli air strike killed a member of Hamas's armed wing in the town of Jabaliya in what the army said was an attack on "a rocket-launching squad after they launched rockets into Israel."In Israel itself at least five rockets slammed into communities around Gaza, causing damage but no casualties in attacks claimed by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad.And in the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead a militant in the northern town of Nablus.The upsurge in fighting comes a bit over a week after US President George W. Bush was in Israel and the Palestinian territories on a peace mission. He predicted then that the two sides-who relaunched negotiations in late November after a seven-year freeze-would sign a treaty within a year.But on Thursday a spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas warned that "the Israeli raids and military escalations aim to deliver a blow to the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations."Israel's main ally Washington should "intervene rapidly to prevent a further deterioration that may spin out of control, and to preserve the historical chance for peace," Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.Washington urged Israel to avoid the loss of innocent life, but defended its right to respond to rocket and mortar attacks.[[["In exercising their right to self-defence, we encourage Israel, as we do with our own armed forces-to make every effort to avoid any harm to civilians," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.]]]UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm over the mounting violence and urged "maximum restraint" by Israel and an end to attacks on the Jewish state.Although most of those killed in Gaza this week have been militants, civilians have been caught in crossfire. Aside from the woman killed on Friday, a teenage boy, his father and uncle were killed when an Israeli missile hit their car instead of one containing Islamic Jihad gunmen on Wednesday, and the following day a woman was killed when a missile struck a car filled with militants in front of her donkey cart.Late on Thursday Israel ordered a lockdown of Gaza-movement in and out of which has already been severely restricted since the Hamas takeover last June-and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to continue hitting militants.A spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) called on Israel to open the border crossings to allow in humanitarian aid."It is imperative that these crossings are opened so that the dire situation in Gaza does not deteriorate further, inflicting further misery on one and a half million people" who live there, Christopher Gunness told AFP.[[[Defence ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror confirmed that "nothing was passing into Gaza on Friday" but said the measure was temporary and depended on whether rocket fire continued."This is a signal we are sending to Hamas. We cannot keep the border crossings open while rockets fall on our towns and while Israelis posted at these crossings are themselves targeted in these attacks," he said.]]]

PS:I don't remember hearing from UN's Ban Ki Moon,during all the days and weeks Israel was being pounded by rockets fired BY HAMAS INTO RESIDENTIAL AREAS....I don't remember him or anybody saying "Hey,Hamas,why don't you quit the rockets...."of even better...order a cease fire from HAMAS TO ISRAEL....No zip zero nada....this thing against Israel DEFENDING ITSELF it's just pure hipocrisy...I would like to know what Moon's South Korea(and any of the other countries complaining) would do if KIM JONG ILL decides to pound the North of their country with rockets non stop and kill their farmers with snippers....What did that poor ecuatorian farmer volunteer do to Hamas,,,,uh...???

As in the days of Noah....