GAZA CITY, 3 March 2008 — The Hamas-run administration in the Gaza Strip yesterday called for the formation of an emergency Palestinian unity government after a massive Israeli incursion killed 70 people.
The crisis in Gaza “demands unity and an end to divisions and the separation between the West Bank and Gaza,” Hamas government spokesman Taher Al-Nunu told a press conference.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas shared power in a unity government for three months last year, but the president fired the Islamist-led Cabinet after Hamas overran his forces in Gaza in June.
“We call for a serious national dialogue project without conditions to study the escalation of the occupation and to form an emergency national unity government,” said Nunu.
The remarks came amid an Israeli blitz in Gaza that has killed 70 people since early Saturday, including several women and children. Troops backed by dozens of tanks and helicopters continued the assault yesterday.
Meanwhile, Egypt opened its only crossing with the Gaza Strip to receive wounded Palestinians yesterday. Egypt sent 27 ambulances to the Rafah crossing to transfer 150-200 wounded Palestinians to hospitals in the Sinai Peninsula and other cities on the mainland, said Emad Kharboush, a medical official at El-Arish hospital near the Israeli border.
Yesterday was the first time Egypt has agreed to open the crossing since Hamas blew up part of the border wall on Jan. 23, letting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians cross over. Hamas wants Egypt to reopen the crossing and give the group a role in monitoring the crossing, a demand rejected by Cairo. Egypt has called for a return to a 2005 agreement that gives Israel and the European Union monitors a supervisory role.
Thousands of Egyptian students demonstrated in many cities yesterday calling for an end to Israeli attacks, an Egyptian security source said. Around 6,000 students demonstrated at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, 4,000 at Cairo University and around 3,000 each at rallies in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and in the southern city of Assiut, the source said.
The students burned US and Israeli flags and shouted slogans calling for Arab governments to get Israel to stop its attacks on the population of the Gaza Strip.
Also yesterday, the Saudi Press Agency quoted an unnamed official as saying “Israeli actions in Gaza are similar to Nazi war crimes.”
“Saudi Arabia will contribute in building each Palestinian house destroyed by the Nazism of Israel,” the official added.
Hezbollah Demonstration
In Beirut, hundreds of Hezbollah supporters gathered at a border fence separating Lebanon and Israel to protest ongoing Israeli attacks.
Up to 1,000 supporters carrying Lebanese and Palestinian flags took part in the demonstration at the Fatima Gate border point in the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila across from Israeli outposts on the other side.
“Death to Israel,” some of them shouted. Others carried banners that read in Arabic: “The blood of our sons in Palestinian will not be in vain.”
The attacks have caused fury in the Arab street, with demonstrations Saturday in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Amnesty, meanwhile, blasted both Israelis and Palestinians over the Gaza violence. Rocket attacks from Hamas-held territory in the Gaza Strip into Israel show a “callous disregard” for civilian life but the Jewish state’s retaliation is disproportionate, the top rights group said.
Criticizing both sides over the latest violence to flare up in the volatile region, London-based Amnesty International said in a statement: “All unlawful attacks must stop.”
“Israeli forces must put an immediate end to disproportionate attacks and collective punishment in Gaza and Palestinian armed groups must immediately stop the barrage of rockets into southern Israel,” it added.
