GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH, 30 November 2007 — An Israeli intelligence website reported yesterday that Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi approved the entry of large Israeli troops into Gaza Strip in attempt to prevent Palestinians from reaching the border between Gaza and Israel.
The website added that Ashkenazi made this decision after an inspecting tour that he paid to the area surrounding Gaza strip in the company of commanding officer, Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant. The website reported that the Israeli Army has killed some 15 Palestinian fighters during the past 48 hours.
In the same context, the Israeli radio reported an Israeli military source as saying: “The countdown for a wide military operation against Gaza has started.” The deputy of the Israeli defense minister said yesterday that there is no relation between the Annapolis summit and the Israeli operation against Gaza Strip.
The radio also reported that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters who accompanied him on the plane from Washington after the end of the Annapolis summit, “Israel does not need permission from anyone to start operations in the Gaza Strip,” pointing out that what happened on the ground will determine the nature of the potential operation in the Gaza Strip. Four Palestinian fighters were killed early yesterday in two separate Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, Hamas and medical sources said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Muslims in Ihram garments for the Haj pilgrim yesterday staged a protest at the closed border crossing between Hamas-run Gaza and Egypt to demand they be allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia for the annual Haj pilgrimage. The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt has largely been closed since the Islamist group seized control of the coastal enclave in June, routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ secular Fatah forces.
In another development, the director of Palestinian Preventive Security Service, Akram Rajoub, yesterday said that his forces arrested 22 residents, including 12 Hamas members, during an operation in the village of Beit Fourik, near West Bank city of Nablus.
Rajoub added that the arrest campaign came as part of the security plan reached between the Palestinian and Israel early this month that aimed at enforcing law and order in the volatile Nablus district.
