Israel's Holocaust museum reaches out to Muslims, but Gaza offensive overshadows event

Israel's Holocaust museum reaches out to Muslims, but Gaza offensive overshadows event

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

RAMLE, Israel (AP) _ An exhibition on Albanian Muslims who sheltered Jews during World War II opened in this mixed Jewish-Arab town on Tuesday to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but the event was overshadowed by tensions from Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

It was the first time that Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, has hosted a standing exhibition in Hebrew and Arabic. Holding the event in Ramle, a working-class town where thousands of Arabs live alongside Jews, underscored the organizers' goal of improving relations.

Some 20 Arab high school students toured the exhibition, confronted by a picture of strewn corpses in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and then of black-and-white photographs of Albanian Muslims who sheltered Jews.

Students were clearly interested. But the Gaza offensive, which ended just over a week ago, was also on their minds.

While Israeli Arabs have citizenship rights, they identify with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The three-week offensive, meant to halt rocket attacks from Gaza, smashed thousands of homes and killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians.

"I'm sad for their dead, but shouldn't we be sad if Jews or Arabs are killed?" asked Amira Abu Ghanem, 16, as she looked at the images of Holocaust victims. She wore a Muslim headscarf and a black-and-white checkered shawl, symbolic of Palestinian identity, on her shoulders.

The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews supported the military assault. But many in Israel's Arab community were angered by images of destruction, wounded civilians and dead children on Arab satellite news channels. During the fighting, police broke up several Arab demonstrations protesting the war.

"They killed innocent children," Abu Ghanem said, as other girls nodded agreement.

The teenagers said they understood the difference in numbers: 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust, but said they wanted their own pain to be acknowledged.

"I'm proud that Muslims helped the Jews and saved them. But we have to respect each other's feelings," said Henadi Abu Shab, 16.

Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner Shalev, said the timing of the exhibit was unintended, since it was planned months ago to coincide with the international Holocaust day. Yad Vashem hosts a much larger ceremony on Israel's annual Holocaust memorial day, which is marked according to the Hebrew calendar and takes place each spring.

Shalev said Yad Vashem does not involve itself in the modern-day Mideast conflict, but said he hoped the exhibition would inspire and provoke discussion.

"There is nothing in common with that period and this bitter conflict that goes on and on ... but if both sides recognize their right to exist, side by side, we'll find a way. This kind of exhibition sheds light, it gives hope of the humanity of human beings," Shalev said.

Yad Vashem has honored 63 Muslim Albanians for sheltering Jews during World War Two. They are among 22,000 people that the museum recognizes as "Righteous Among the Nations" _ non-Jews who defied their communities and governments to save Jews from death at the hands of Nazis. The exhibition will run for three months in Ramle.

Yad Vashem has a Web site in Arabic, and online exhibits in Arabic.

___

On the Net:

http://yadvashem.org/

Trapped in Gaza, hundreds of thousands flee their homes to avoid fighting

Trapped in Gaza, hundreds of thousands flee their homes to avoid fighting

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ A woman escaping clashes flees to a U.N. school, but is forced to flee again on Saturday to a hospital after the school is shelled. A shell shocked, wounded teenager walks into an abandoned apartment and collapses.

They are among the 200,000 Palestinians that according to a Gaza rights group were forced to flee their homes to escape Israel's three-week-long campaign of bombing and ground fighting meant to crush the militant group Hamas which rules Gaza.

Even if the shelling stops under an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, thousands will still have been forced out.

The problem is, there's nowhere safe to go in tiny Gaza _ a sliver of land 10 kilometers wide and 40 kilometers long.

"Where to go?" panted Nabila Kilani as she held her infant daughter in the backyard of the Kamal Adwan hospital, where she had just fled a U.N. school that came under fire as hundreds of people sheltered there.

Gazans are trapped in their small enclave: bordering Egypt and Israel will not let them enter except in exceptional circumstances.

"Innocent children and innocent men and women are dying here in Gaza hour by hour by hour. What are these poor people to do? Where are they to go now? They're asking me, 'Where should we go?' I don't know where they can go," said Gaza-based senior U.N. official John Ging at the school. It was the third U.N. school to be hit by Israeli fire and in a fourth incident on Jan. 6, shells landed near a school to kill about 40 people.

Fighting has raged in the streets, between homes and schools, and among the crowded buildings that house Gaza's 1.4 million residents. Hamas militants often use Gaza's schools and hospitals to fire weapons and rockets. Israeli forces respond with airstrikes, tank and artillery fire.

Israel also targets the homes, public buildings and police stations where Hamas militants gather, often killing and injuring civilians.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has said Israel's use of artillery that can damage a wide area violates international law because of the harm it can cause to civilians.
Speaking on Israel's Channel 2 TV Saturday, Cabinet Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israeli operations were "surgical" and fully justified."

Hamas does not comment on using civilians as human shields.

Israel frequently warns people to flee areas where Hamas activists operate, using recorded telephone messages and air-dropped leaflets. Warplanes often fire empty shells at buildings, the dull thud a clear warning for residents to flee.

"In areas of intense ground combat, we try to recommend to the civilian population to try, if possible, to evacuate those areas, to more central areas where is less presence of ground troops, where they will not be caught in the crossfire," a military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with Israeli guidelines.

More than 1,140 Palestinians have been killed _ about half of them civilians have been killed. Thirteen Israelis have been killed, including three civilians.

By comparison, during Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, more than a quarter of Lebanon's four million citizens fled fighting and about 1,000 Lebanese were killed.

The U.N. has said more than 45,000 Gazans are crowded into 49 U.N. schools that have been converted into shelters. The Gaza-based Mezan Center for Human Rights estimates another 150,000 Palestinians fled to homes of relatives and friends.

Although it has not done so, legal expert Yoram Dinstein said Israel could if it wanted allow the temporary evacuation of civilians into its territory.

Fourteen-year-old Amira Kurim limped shellshocked and wounded into an abandoned reporter's apartment after her father, brother and sister were killed in Israeli strikes. She was found days later under a blanket.

"I stayed with daddy and they banged another rocket (nearby) and I was wounded," Kurim said from hospital.

On Saturday, Israeli shells struck in a U.N. school in northern Gaza, killing two people in the building where 1,600 people were sheltering. A pair of slippers were left in the charred room where a shell landed inside the school. Blood was sprayed on the walls and floor. Hundreds of people fled to a nearby Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza for cover. Nabila Kilani held her two-year-old daughter Yara in the hospital backyard, unsure of where to go next. She was wearing a tracksuit and a white scarf hastily thrown on her head.

"I used to dream for a future for her," Kilani said, pointing to her startled daughter. "What is the future going to be now?" she said.

Mirvat Emzayen fled her home on Dec. 27 when Israeli warplanes began bombing Hamas security compounds, including one next door. She shoved her two children into a taxi, scooped her 7-month old baby, grabbed some diapers and fled to her parents' home next to the southern Gaza border with Egypt. So did her siblings and their families, crowding her parents' home with around 20 people.

They stayed until Israel's ground assault and tanks passed through her parent's neighborhood. The next morning they all fled to their brother's shack in a cramped neighborhood in the southern town of Rajah.

After they arrived, a neighboring Hamas activist got a phone call that his house would be bombed, prompting panicked neighbors to rush onto the streets. The call was a hoax and the family trudged back to their brother's home.

Days later, intense Israeli shelling shook the shack. Fearing it would collapse, the family fled to a friend's apartment in another town. More bombing there sent them back to Rajah.

"I need tranquilizers," Emzayen said.

Wounded, shellshocked girl found alive in abandoned apartment 4 days after shelling

Wounded, shellshocked girl found alive in abandoned apartment 4 days
after shelling

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) _ Her relatives thought were they had buried her, but
Amira Kurim was found wounded and shell-shocked on Saturday in an
abandoned Gaza City apartment.

Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire taking effect early Sunday
after a 3-week offensive that killed nearly 1,200 Palestinians, about
half of them civilians, according to Palestinian officials.

Often, members of the same family died together, huddling for safety
and comfort during bombing runs. Relatives of 14-year-old Amira were
convinced she had died in the same round of shelling that killed her
father, sister and brother last Wednesday.

They were all fleeing fighting in the Gaza City suburb of Tel Hawwa
when her father was struck down by an Israeli missile. Kurim's
11-year-old brother Alaa and 12-year-old sister Ismat rushed to find
an ambulance while Amira stayed with her father.

Suddenly, another shell exploded.

"I stayed with daddy and they banged another rocket (nearby) and I was
wounded," Amira told The Associated Press from her bed in Gaza City's
Shifa Hospital, her face pale with shock, her lips quivering.

She limped to a nearby apartment building with a bleeding, broken leg.
And there she lay for four days, until Emad Eid, a journalist for a TV
channel run by the radical Lebanese Hezbollah went to survey damage to
the apartment he'd fled on the first day of the Israeli assault.

Beneath shattered windows, Eid found Amira lying on a mattress soaked
with blood, her pants tried around her leg in an effort to halt the
bleeding.

"She didn't know where she was," Eid said. "She just moaned."

While Amira survived, her brother and sister did not. They were killed
by a shell as they looked for help for their father. Medics found
their bodies, along with their father's on Friday. Relatives believed
that body parts found nearby were those of Amira.

Amira was reunited Saturday with her mother from whom she'd been
separated for years by her parents' divorce.

Hamas security chief slain in Israeli airstrike was widely feared

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

¶ JERUSALEM (AP) _ Hamas security chief Said Siam was one of the Islamic militant group's top five leaders in the Gaza Strip and a key figure in its violent takeover of the Palestinian territory in 2007.

¶ Siam, who died Thursday in Gaza from an Israeli airstrike, was widely feared for cracking down on opponents, but as interior minister he was also respected by residents for his ability to impose order. Before Hamas seized power 18 months ago, gun-toting thugs ruled Gaza's streets and clans battled each other with assault rifles.

¶ The 50-year-old Siam did not look like a typical Hamas leader. He sported a short beard, dark turtlenecks and black sports jackets, rather than the Arab robes worn by some of his colleagues.

¶ He was often long-winded at news conferences. When angry, he could use coarse, colorful Gaza slang to describe his rivals. The hard-liner often insisted women cover their hair, in compliance with conservative Muslim law, before entering his office.

¶ Born in 1959 in Gaza's Shati refugee camp, he worked as a math and science teacher at local U.N.-run schools and became a leader of the local teachers union. He joined Hamas in the 1980s as one of its earliest members.

¶ Siam was active in the first Palestinian uprising against Israel, which erupted in 1987. He headed a Hamas branch that hunted and killed suspected Palestinian informers for Israel.

¶ Israeli forces detained Siam repeatedly in the 1990s, and in 1992 exiled him for a year to southern Lebanon with hundreds of other Hamas leaders.

¶ Siam rose through Hamas' ranks, preaching at a local mosque and ultimately becoming a chief negotiator for the militant group in dealings with Egyptian and Iranian officials, with whom he enjoyed warm relations.

¶ He was elected to the Palestinian parliament in 2006, winning the most votes of any candidate.

¶ After Hamas' sweeping victory in those elections, the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah intensified. Siam set up the Executive Force, a security apparatus that developed into Hamas' police after the militants seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.

¶ After the takeover, local human rights groups frequently complained his ministry used torture on Fatah rivals.

¶ In 2008, Siam shut down a Gaza City neighborhood close to Israel's border after a local pro-Fatah clan living there refused to hand over suspects implicated in a car bombing that killed Hamas officials. Under Siam's directions, police used assault rifles, mortars and rockets, prompting clansmen to dash into Israeli territory for protection. Police sprayed gunfire behind them as they fled.

Gazans seek new places to bury the dead as cemeteries crowd with new victims

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writers

¶ GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ One family buried a slain son over his grandfather. Another bundled up the tiny bodies of three young cousins and lowered them into the grave of a long-dead aunt. A man was laid to rest with his brother.

¶ More than two weeks into the Israeli offensive that has killed more than 940 Palestinians, Gazans are struggling to find places to bury their dead. Cemeteries throughout Gaza City that were closed for new burials have now reopened.

¶ "Gaza is all a graveyard," gravedigger Salman Omar said Tuesday as he shoveled earth in Gaza City's crammed Sheik Radwan cemetery, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

¶ Just six miles (10 kilometers) wide and 25 miles (40 kilometers) long, Gaza has always suffered from a shortage of burial space. But Gazans say Israel's shelling and ground offensive have made it impossible for residents to reach Martyrs Cemetery _ the only graveyard in the area with space to dig fresh graves.

¶ The offensive is aimed at crushing the militant group Hamas and ending its rocket attacks on southern Israel. But Palestinian medical officials say roughly half the dead are civilians.

¶ Among them are the Samouni cousins, 5-month-old Mohammed, 1-year-old Mutasim and 2-year-old Ahmed, whose family hurriedly dug up the grave of an aunt to lay them to rest last week.

¶ "We buried them quickly," said Iyad Samouni, 26, speaking from al-Awda hospital in Gaza City, where he was being treated for shrapnel wounds. "We were afraid we'd be shelled. My relatives were trying to open other graves to prepare for the other dead, but we didn't get time."

¶ He said the family fled the graveyard after they came under fire from a warplane.

¶ The three boys were killed Jan. 5 in what the family and the United Nations said was an Israeli shelling attack on a house in eastern Gaza where they had evacuated on soldiers' orders to avoid nearby fighting.

¶ Many members of the clan were wiped out. The exact number is unknown _ figures vary from 14 to 30 people. Medics believe there are still bodies buried under the rubble that cannot be reached because of fighting in the area.

¶ Israel's military denies the account, but says the house may have come under attack in crossfire with Hamas militants.

¶ At Sheik Radwan on Tuesday, mourners pulled away the slabs of concrete covering the graves of long-deceased relatives, pushed the bones aside and lowered in the newly dead.

¶ "You have a martyr: you need an immediate solution," Omar, 24, said, using the term many Gazans use for Palestinians killed by Israeli fire and referring to Islamic law, which requires the dead be buried as soon as possible.

¶ "You look for where your grandmother, uncle or mother was buried, and bury them there. If there's three or four, bury them in the same grave," he said, drawing on a cigarette as he dug.

¶ Nearby, relatives hammered away at the concrete tomb of Moyhideen Sarhi, killed last May in an Israeli strike against Hamas militants. His brother Kamel, 22, also a Hamas militant, was killed Tuesday.

¶ The family feared approaching Martyrs Cemetery and decided to lay Kamel next to his brother.

¶ "As they were in life they are in death," said their cousin, Salim, 28, as other relatives pushed aside the slab protecting Mohyideen's remains and kissed his shroud before lowering his brother's body on top.

¶ Even the pathways in the hilly cemetery were filled with graves. The older ones had marble slabs, a reminder of more affluent times. Relatives of the newly buried make do with a small tile or a name etched in concrete. For others, there was no name at all, just the tombstone of the relative buried there first.

¶ One family arrived with their 14-year-old son, who they said was killed in an Israeli strike.

¶ A gravedigger approached, asking if the family had a deceased relative whose grave they could reopen. Street children hoping for small change scrambled to look for graves the family could use.

¶ Nearby, men in jeans dug up their grandfather's grave. The loud crashing sound of an airstrike nearby made some of them look up. Their relative, Mohammed Abu Leila, was a militant killed in the fighting.

¶ "I've buried a policeman in his mother's grave," said Omar, the gravedigger. "I buried three brothers in one hole. I buried children with their mothers. You don't ask questions: it's just important to find a place and bury them."

Survivors say Israelis shelled Gaza building where troops told them to shelter

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

¶ JERUSALEM (AP) _ With fighting all around them, Israeli troops knocked on the door of the Samouni clan in Gaza City last weekend and told them to leave, directing them to the building owned by a relative. Twenty-four hours later, three shells slammed into the structure where dozens of people were huddling, according to survivor accounts Friday.

¶ A newly released United Nations report said 30 people died in the shelling, citing four unidentified survivors who spoke by telephone. It called the shelling "one of the gravest incidents" to happen since Israeli infantry and armored troops entered Gaza Jan. 4 to quell Hamas rockets on Israel.

¶ Other accounts given to The Associated Press and an Israeli human rights group provided lower casualty figures, but all agreed that shells hit the large, unfinished warehouse-like building a day after Israeli troops told them to get inside it for their safety.

¶ The shelling allegedly occurred Monday, two days after Israel launched its ground operation into Gaza. It took place in the Zeitoun neighborhood, which suffered massive destruction from airstrikes and shelling from the ground.

¶ The report, by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, offered no evidence that the attack was deliberate.

¶ The Israeli military denied troops had forced civilians into a particular building, which was then shelled.

¶ "We don't warn people to go to other buildings. This is not something we do," said spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich. "We don't know this case. We don't know that we attacked it. It's not confirmed that we attacked it."

¶ Allegra Pacheco, a senior U.N. official in Jerusalem who helped draft the report on the incident for OCHA, added: "We are not making an accusation of deliberate action" by the Israelis.

¶ "We are just saying the facts. In Gaza, no civilian is safe. As long as violence continues, civilians will be injured and killed," she said.

¶ U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the U.N. report should be the basis for an investigation of "war crimes elements." Her spokesman, Rupert Colville, said the "war crimes elements" would refer to allegations that Israel impeded medical teams trying to care for wounded civilians and failed to care for those injured in the attack.

¶ Pillay told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that any harm to Israeli civilians by Hamas rockets was unacceptable, but it did not excuse abuses carried out by Israeli forces in response.

¶ Pillay went further in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., saying the incident "appears to have all the elements of war crimes."

¶ If an investigation found that Israel intentionally attacked a building it knew was filled with civilians, that also could constitute war crimes. U.N. human rights and humanitarian officials declined to comment on that possibility, saying a full examination of the facts was needed.

¶ Another Israeli military spokesman, Maj. Jacob Dallal, said an investigation of the U.N. allegations showed the building was not deliberately targeted. "What we understand there was no pinpoint attack on that building in question. There is a lot of exchanges of fire. Gaza is a war zone. It's combat."

¶ The incident highlighted the perilous situation of Gaza's 1.4 million residents, trapped in a narrow strip of land and wedged between two determined armed forces, Israel and Hamas.

¶ Further limiting the ability to find out what happened, the casualties were sent to at least two hospitals, and surviving relatives were scattered through Gaza City and could not account for each other. Palestinian journalists have not risked visiting the site where fighting continues, and Israel has not allowed foreign reporters into Gaza.

¶ On Monday, the AP interviewed survivor Salah Samouni at the hospital. He said the family had been ordered to go to the building Sunday by Israeli forces to avoid nearby fighting.

¶ As he spoke, Samouni was distraught, banging his head in mourning for of his three nephews whose bodies he brought to the hospital.

¶ The U.N. report differed in detail from an account to the AP on Friday by Ahmad Samouni and from Meysa Samouni, who told her story to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. But they all concurred that Israeli troops directed dozens of members of the Samouni clan into at least one building, which was shelled the next day.

¶ Ahmad Samouni, 23, said Israeli troops forced him and his extended family to leave their three-story home on Sunday. Once on the road, another squad of soldiers told them to go into another building belonging to Wael Samouni _ and stay there.

¶ He said at least 60 people were in the building, while the U.N. said 110 people were inside when the shells hit.

¶ Ahmad Samouni said a missile slammed into the door. The explosion threw him to the ground and he heard another two loud bangs, he said.

¶ With the dust still swirling, he recalled fleeing in terror from the building, shouting to those still alive to follow him and leaving behind the bodies of his mother and at least eight other relatives.

¶ In Meysa Samouni's account, the clan stayed there Sunday night without food or drink. In the morning, two relatives opened the door to search for other family members.

¶ "The moment they left the house, a missile or shell hit them. Muhammed was killed on the spot, and the others were injured from shrapnel," she said, according to the transcript. "My husband went over to them to help, and then a shell or missile was fired onto the roof."

¶ Ahmad Samouni said that when he lifted his head, he saw a gruesome sight: his mother's face was ripped off, his cousin was burned beyond recognition, and his sister-in-law's back was ripped open. Other relatives lay in heaps. Samouni said he counted nine unmoving bodies.

¶ His face covered with blood and dust, Samouni said he stood and screamed "'Whoever is alive, come outside. If we raise our hands up, they won't shoot us, but we have to go.'"

¶ Samouni said about 40 relatives walked out, many with hands raised. He said Israeli forces, watching them from nearby rooftops and positions on the ground, allowed them to pass, neither helping nor attacking them.

¶ They made their way to the center of town, to the hospital or to other relatives.

¶ The bodies of at least one Samouni man and his three children killed in the explosion were found in a Gaza City hospital. Desperate relatives pleaded with doctors to send rescue teams to find their kin in the rubble.

¶ On Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva accused Israel of "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach three Gaza City homes hit by shelling, where they eventually found 15 dead and 18 wounded, including young children too weak to stand.

¶ The Red Cross statement referred to the same Zeitoun neighborhood, but it was unclear if it involved the incident with the Samouni clan, or if it was the same building.

¶ The rescue team "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up," the statement said. "In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses" in one of the buildings, it added.

¶ "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded," the Red Cross said. "Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded."

¶ The Israeli military said it is closely cooperating with international aid groups to assist civilians caught in the crossfire.

¶ "The Israel Defense Forces are engaged in a battle with the Hamas terrorist organization that has deliberately used Palestinian civilians as human shields," a military statement said. "The IDF in no way intentionally targets civilians and has demonstrated its willingness to abort operations to save civilian lives and to risk injury in order to assist innocent civilians."

¶ ___

¶ Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City and Bradley Klapper in Geneva contributed to this story.

UN stops aid to Gaza, accuses Israel of attack on truck flying blue UN flag

By ARTHUR MAX and IBRAHIM BARZAK
Associated Press Writers

¶ JERUSALEM (AP) _ The U.N. suspended food deliveries to Gaza and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers, killing two, as the threat of a wider conflict emerged with Lebanon.

¶ With violence unabated in Gaza, key Arab nations and Western powers reached an agreement Thursday on the main elements of a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire between the two sides. Israel and Hamas are not party to the agreement, and it would be up to them to stop their military activities. But the resolution _ which would allow for the opening of border crossings to Gaza _ was supported by the United States, Israel's closest ally, and Arab nations with close ties to Hamas.

¶ As the Security Council convened to vote on the resolution, Israeli aircraft blasted a 5-story building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, killing seven people, including an infant, Hamas and hospital officials said. The building collapsed, and rescue workers dug the bodies out of the rubble. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

¶ In more than 30 attacks before dawn Friday, some aimed at houses of Hamas militants, three other Palestinians were killed.

¶ Militants in Lebanon fired several Katyusha rockets into northern Israel early Thursday, including one that tore through the roof of a nursing home and injured two people. Israel responded swiftly with mortar fire, briefly raising the possibility of a two-front conflict.

¶ About 750 Palestinians and 13 Israelis have died in the 13 days of fighting in Gaza, an assault launched by Israel in an attempt to halt rocket fire from the territory, controlled by the militant Islamic Hamas. Hamas said it fired 25 rockets and 12 mortars at Israel on Thursday.

¶ The conflict has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza increasingly desperate for food, water, fuel and medical assistance, and the situation was expected to worsen as humanitarian efforts fall victim to the fighting.

¶ Simon Horner, of the European Commission aid department, said 60 percent of Gaza's 1.4 million people have no electricity, and fewer people every day have access to clean water. The sewage system is in danger of a failing, which could lead to an outbreak of disease, and medical services were under severe stress.

¶ "The inability of the U.N. to provide assistance in this worsening humanitarian crisis is unacceptable," said Michele Montas, a U.N. spokeswoman.

¶ She said according to reports, the attack on the U.N. truck, which killed two Palestinian workers, took place during a three-hour humanitarian lull announced by the Israeli
military. Four U.N. Relief and Works Agency local staff have been killed in the conflict.

¶ In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it would restrict aid operations to Gaza City for at least one day after one of its convoys came under Israeli fire at the Netzarim crossing during the three-hour lull in fighting Thursday. One driver was lightly injured.

¶ The World Health Organization said 21 Palestinian medical workers have been killed and 30 more injured since Israel began its offensive.

¶ The Israeli military said in a statement that it cooperates closely with foreign aid groups to help civilians, and said Hamas uses civilians as human shields.

¶ The international Red Cross also accused Israel of hindering rescuers from reaching areas devastated in the battles. Ambulances could not get to the Zeitoun neighborhood for four days because the Israelis had blocked access with large earthen barriers, officials said.

¶ When they were allowed in Wednesday, the rescuers "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up," the ICRC said in a rare public statement. "In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses" in one of the houses.

¶ During the lull in fighting Thursday, Palestinian health officials dug out 35 bodies from several areas around Gaza that had been engulfed by battles or struck by Israeli air attacks since Israel launched its offensive against Hamas, said Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry.

¶ At least 24 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Thursday, including three elderly people fleeing their home, according to Hassanain. He estimated the death toll around 750, and U.N. officials say about half were civilians.

¶ Three Israeli soldiers were killed in combat Thursday, raising the number of soldiers killed in the conflict to 10, including one who died in a mortar strike before the ground invasion began. Three Israeli civilians have been killed by rockets.

¶ Gaza militants fired 24 missiles at southern Israel on Thursday, wounding four people.

¶ Egyptian-led diplomatic cease-fire efforts showed no immediate breakthroughs. Israeli representatives concluded talks in Cairo and returned home, one day after Hamas leaders reviewed the French-Egyptian plan that might offer a role in Gaza to the rival Palestinian Authority, led by Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas.

¶ Israel's government said Wednesday it viewed the proposal positively, but only if it guaranteed a halt to rocket fire on Israeli territory from Gaza and ensured Hamas cannot rearm. A Hamas official said the Islamic militant group was not ready to either accept or reject the plan.

¶ But Mohammed Nazzal, a member of Hamas' Damascus-based political leadership, said, "We will never raise the white flag. I believe there are going to be fierce battles and the resistance factions will fight house to house, street to street and neighborhood to neighborhood."

¶ Israel launched a ferocious air assault on Gaza Dec. 27 to disable Palestinian militants and cripple the Hamas movement.

¶ The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the shooting at the U.N. aid vehicle. U.N. spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said the truck was heading toward the Erez border crossing to pick up supplies and had coordinated the delivery with Israel.

¶ "We've been coordinating with them (Israeli forces) and yet our staff continue to be hit and killed," said Chris Gunness of UNRWA, which has been helping Gaza refugees since 1949.

¶ The deaths follow Israel's killing of at least 39 people at a U.N. school where hundreds of people had sought refuge from the relentless air and ground attacks. Israel said its troops were returning fire toward a squad of militants who fired mortars at its troops, then ran toward the school to hide among the refugees.

¶ Two hours after Thursday's shooting on the truck, Israel ordered a three-hour halt in its offensive for the second day in a row to allow aid into the territory. Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said 89 trucks of food were unloaded, along with 83,000 gallons (315,000 liters) of fuel.

¶ The two 3-hour breaks in the offensive provided rare windows for Gazans to buy from the dwindling supplies in the shops, and for rescuers to scour the ruins of entire neighborhoods for unreported casualties. Hassanain, the health official, said 20 more bodies were uncovered during Wednesday's mini-truce, in addition to the 35 found Thursday.

¶ Israel had been braced for a resumption of hostilities on its northern border, anticipating that Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon would try to come to the aid of its Gaza ally, Hamas.

¶ Nonetheless, the four rockets that hit the town of Nahariya created panic. "We are all a bit traumatized at the moment," said Sarit Arieli, 44, standing outside the nursing home that had been hit a few hours earlier.

¶ Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a standstill in a 34-day war in 2006 and is now a key faction in the Lebanese government, denied it was responsible for the rockets. Speculation focused on small Palestinian groups, which have rocketed Israel twice since the end of the Lebanon conflict. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora condemned the attack.

¶ Israeli leaders tried to keep a lid on northern tensions, calling it a one-time incident and welcoming Lebanon's condemnation.
¶ ___
¶ Arthur Max reported from Jerusalem and Ibrahim Barzak from Gaza City. Additional reporting by Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem.

Gaza hospital overwhelmed by dead, wounded from Israeli offensive

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writers

¶ GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ Wailing in grief, Salah Samouni banged his head against a wall inside the hospital morgue where the bodies of his three young nephews lay on the floor Monday.

¶ After 10 days of a relentless Israeli assault, Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, is overwhelmed. Bodies were crowded two to a morgue drawer, and some _ like 3-year-old Issa, 4-year-old Mohammed and 5-year-old Ahmad _ were on the floor.

¶ Shifa's shabby halls echoed Monday with the sounds of people screaming and the wail of ambulance sirens. Many of the wounded were being treated in hallways by harried doctors and nurses running on little sleep. The hospital was powered by emergency generators after shelling damaged power lines.

¶ Since Israel began a ground offensive Saturday, most of the dead and wounded arriving at Shifa are civilians, as Israel's offensive shifts from airstrikes to artillery shelling and fighting close to densely populated areas.

¶ Israel says it is targeting only the Hamas militants who control Gaza in an attempt to halt seven years of rocket fire at Israeli communities. But the 550 Palestinians who have been killed include at least 200 civilians, according to Dr. Moaiya Hassanein of the Gaza Health Ministry.

¶ On Monday, 20 children between the ages of 2 and 15 were killed, he said. Since the military offensive began Dec. 27, three Israeli civilians and two soldiers have been killed.

¶ Nurse Ahmad Abdul Salam, 34, red-eyed and smelling of sweat, his clothes stained with blood, said he couldn't sleep. "When my shift ends, I help my colleagues. These are our brothers and friends who are being harmed," he said.

¶ The hospital's most gruesome scene was in its morgue, where blood pooled on the floor and refrigerators meant to hold 35 bodies were crammed with 70, laid side-by-side in drawers.

¶ Lying on a gray mat on the floor, the three Samouni brothers appeared baby-faced and almost as though they were asleep, except for a large bandage wrapped around Issa's head.

¶ The children's father was also killed in what relatives said was an Israeli strike on a house in eastern Gaza City where the family had fled to escape fighting nearby.

¶ Relatives wept Monday and one man screamed for help for other family members he said were buried under the rubble of the house. "For God's sake, rescue them!" he pleaded.

¶ No militants were seen at Shifa. Israel says its forces have killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen, but Hamas has not listed its casualties and it is unclear where militants are being treated or where their bodies were taken.

¶ Shifa has been powered by generators since power completely cut out in Gaza City three days ago. Israel has not replenished Gaza's power station with industrial fuel since fighting began, and airstrikes have badly damaged power lines.

¶ U.N. health official Mahmoud Daher said the generators were meant only as an emergency backup and he feared they would break down with the constant use, imperiling some 70 people hooked up to lifesaving equipment.

¶ Throughout the day, exhausted medics rushed in with the wounded and the bodies of the dead.

¶ Mohammed Salman, 26, a volunteer medic washing blood from the inside of an ambulance, said he had treated people with horrific injuries, including headless children and a woman whose stomach had been torn open.

¶ The woman screamed, "Leave me and save my children," he said, and burst into tears.

¶ Israeli aircraft have hit three ambulances in Gaza since the campaign began, killing seven medics, according to Gaza health officials.

¶ A medical building owned by a relief organization not connected to Hamas was also bombed, said Daher. He said the building was destroyed, along with an ambulance, three mobile clinics and donated medicines.

¶ The Israeli army says it has no records of any of those strikes.

¶ Raed Arini, a Shifa hospital official, said he has stopped filling out the space on death certificates that says "reason for death."

¶ "The reason for death is the Israeli army," he said, as medics rushed in with more wounded people.

¶ ____

¶ Associated Press writer

Diaa Hadid reported from Jerusalem.

Civilians in Gaza live with fear, shortages as Israeli troops enter

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and BEN HUBBARD

Associated Press Writers

¶ GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ Anas Mansour sleeps in his street clothes in a south Gaza refugee camp, with his ID in his pocket so he can flee quickly if fighting gets worse. In Gaza City, the 10 members of the Karam family huddle in their hallway at night, kept awake by artillery fire booming outside.

¶ And in the central Gaza refugee camp of Nusseirat, Munir Najar said he only had another day's worth of flour to feed his family of seven, but ventured out to find streets deserted and shops closed.

¶ "There's not a loaf of bread to be found," said Najar, 43.

¶ As Israeli's offensive moved from pinpointed airstrikes to artillery shelling and ground fighting, Gaza's civilians are increasingly exposed to the violence. Since the ground assault began, 64 Palestinian civilians have been killed, said Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a Health Ministry official.

¶ More than 512 Palestinians have been killed since the operation began Dec. 27, at least 100 of them civilians, say Palestinian and U.N. officials. In the same period, three Israeli civilians and two soldiers have been killed.

¶ The International Committee of the Red Cross called Sunday on Israel and Hamas to stop killing and wounding civilians, citing international humanitarian law.

¶ Israel says the offensive aims to stop Hamas from firing rockets at the Jewish state and its airstrikes target only Hamas installations and leaders, but bombs have also destroyed or damaged adjacent houses.

¶ Lubna Karam, of Gaza City, said airstrikes had shattered her home's living room windows days before, letting cold air pour in. She said she feels under threat at all times, and her family has taken to sleeping in the hallway for safety.

¶ "We keep hearing the sounds of airplanes and we don't know if we'll live until tomorrow or not," said Karam, 28.

¶ Mansour, 21, of the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border, described watching his neighbor pile a mattress and blankets on a donkey cart to flee, but hadn't decided if he'd do the same. "Where can we go? It's all the same," Mansour said.

¶ The latest fighting came at the end of an ever-tightening blockade of the seaside territory, imposed after the violent Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007. The borders were virtually sealed in the last two months, leading to shortages of cooking gas and basic foodstuffs.

¶ Israel says there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, noting that it has continued to allow supplies into the territory.

¶ But the Israeli human rights group Gisha said Israeli airstrikes have left Gaza's water and sewage system on the verge of collapse. About one-third of the 1.4 million residents are cut off from the water supply and 75 percent of Gaza is currently without electricity, including the territory's largest hospital, Shifa, the report said. Shifa has backup generators.

¶ The Palestinian telephone company Paltel warned that Gaza's communications network has been extensively damaged by the Israeli strikes and is on the verge of collapse. The company added that three of its technicians had been killed and many injured in the fighting while trying to repair the network.

¶ Adding to the shortages, last week's bombing further battered Gaza's infrastructure, making many feel that the situation they thought couldn't get any worse had done so.

¶ "When there was a siege, we kept talking about a catastrophe," said Hatem Shurrab, 24, of Gaza City. "But then the airstrikes started, and now we don't even know what word to use. There's no word in the dictionary that can describe the situation we are in."

¶ Hamas leaders have remained out of sight, but some Gazans remain ardent in their support, saying Israeli violence will rally Gazans around the group.

¶ "They say Hamas is hiding in civilian places, but it's not that: We are Hamas," said Umm Bara, 25, of the Jebaliyah refugee camp. She gave only a nickname because many of her relatives are militants, she said. "After this (shelling), I'm so angry. My blood is Hamas and I want it to explode in their faces."

¶ Others said life in Gaza inured them to violence and that they're trying to go on with their lives.

¶ Even as Israeli troops operated two kilometers (one mile) from Sulafa Odeh's home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, the 25-year-old translator walked through an orchard to a neighbor's house to see if it had power so she could plug in her laptop.

¶ Odeh said the ground-shaking explosions frightened her, but that she refused to stay indoors.

¶ "It's a problem: This is strange, and frightening, but we have gotten used to it," Odeh said. "Unfortunately, we are used to this life."

¶ ___

¶ Hubbard reported from Ramallah. Additional reporting by

Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem.

Israel keeps ban on foreign journalists in Gaza

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

¶ EREZ CROSSING, Israel (AP) _ Israel maintained its ban on foreign journalists entering the Gaza Strip Friday despite a recent Supreme Court order to allow a limited number of reporters to enter the territory.

¶ The ban has been in place since a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas began to fray on Nov. 5. Israel eased the ban last month but tightened it again after launching its air offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers a week ago.

¶ A legal challenge by the Foreign Press Association, which represents foreign media in Israel, prompted the court ruling this week to allow groups of up to 12 foreign journalists to cross the border whenever the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza is open for humanitarian cases.

¶ That was the case on Friday, when Israel opened the crossing to allow nearly 300 Palestinians with foreign passports to leave Gaza. But authorities defied the court order and kept reporters out.

¶ "We call on the Israeli government to immediately honor the will of the court and allow foreign journalists access to Gaza," the Foreign Press Association said in a statement. "The authorities' position that there was not enough time to coordinate and allow the journalists to enter does not seem reasonable."

¶ A military spokesman said Israel kept the journalists out because authorities at the crossing point were focused on processing the hundreds of Palestinians exiting Gaza.

¶ "The crossing today was overwhelmed dealing with the emergency evacuation of people," said army spokesman Peter Lerner. He said journalists might be allowed to cross on Sunday, when Israel plans to open the crossing for injured Palestinians to enter Israel for medical treatment.

¶ The ban on foreign journalists has made it more difficult for news organizations to verify the extent of damage from the offensive, the number of civilian casualties or the seriousness of humanitarian problems such as shortages of food and medicine.

¶ Some organizations, such as The Associated Press, are relying on journalists who live in Gaza and cover the conflict full-time but would normally have sent in reinforcements to cover the story more extensively.

¶ The Israeli government has long banned Israeli journalists from entering Gaza because of fears for their safety, but foreign reporters have been permitted to go in, even during times of heavy fighting.

¶ While Israel has restricted media access to Gaza in the past, a ban this long is unprecedented. Journalists have protested the restrictions as a grave blow to press freedom.