GAZA CITY, 10 January 2008 — Israeli fire killed three Palestinians, including one fighter, and wounded 10 others in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip yesterday, Palestinian medics said. The latest assaults on the Hamas-run territory came as US President George W. Bush traveled to Jerusalem, on his first trip to Israel since assuming office, with the aim of encouraging revived Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The attacks were in response to rockets and mortar shells launched against Israel by Palestinian groups that caused damage and lightly wounded one person. The Israeli Army carried out an air raid against the town of Beit Hanun in northern Gaza, killing two civilians in a residential building, Khadra Wahdane, 30, and Mohammed Al-Kafarna, 22, medical sources and witnesses told AFP.
An earlier Israeli attack was launched against “a rocket-launching cell in Beit Lahiya,” the army said in a statement. Medical sources said Amjad Abdel Dayem, 24, a fighter in the Popular Resistance Committees, was killed in the attack and four others wounded, one critically. While witnesses said the early morning attack was an air raid, the Israeli army said the attack was carried out from the ground.
Meanwhile, thousands of Hamas supporters took to the streets of Gaza yesterday to protest Bush’s visit, calling him the “butcher of the world.” “Before leaving the White House Bush, the butcher of the world, a criminal, is presenting himself before us to try and improve his image,” Mushir Al-Masri, a Hamas parliamentarian, told the crowds.
Angry protesters burned American and Israeli flags and effigies of Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, including a portrait of Bush with the caption “War Criminal Go Home.” Many demonstrators hoisted the green flags of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), while others held aloft pictures of Bush with blood dripping from his mouth.
“We say as we burn the American flag that the Bush visit is rejected by the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic world,” Masri said. “What is this but the visit of one who has become ensnared in Iraq and Afghanistan and wants at the end of his political life to produce honors for himself at the expense of our people,” he said.
Bush began his landmark Middle East tour in Israel in a bid to foster negotiations and try to secure a peace deal before his term in office ends in January 2009. His predecessor Bill Clinton visited the Gaza Strip in 1998, but the impoverished territory has been sidelined on Bush’s agenda since Hamas seized control in June last year.
Israel and the West consider Hamas a terror organization and have sought to isolate the territory with a strict sanctions regime. At the same time Bush has tried to bolster the rule of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — whose security forces were driven out of Gaza — by reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Bush will travel today to Abbas’ headquarters in Ramallah, where thousands of security forces will impose a virtual curfew for his protection. “If it were allowed the people of the West Bank and Hamas would express their rejection of this visit by sending thousands to fill the streets of Ramallah to say no to America and no to Israel,” Masri said. “The Palestinian people cannot be bought with political capital and will not sell Jerusalem... or the refugees, for American money. Our people, Bush, will never abandon our rights and principles,” he added.
Snipers watched from rooftops, helicopters circled overhead and Israeli police stood guard over the emptied streets of Jerusalem as Bush toured the holy city. On his first visit to Israel since taking office Bush was welcomed by the country’s leaders with full pomp and ceremony at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv before flying to Jerusalem aboard his Marine One helicopter.
Security forces were posted along streets leading from the helicopter-landing pad near the parliament building to the city center as well as around the historic King David Hotel where the president will stay until tomorrow.
