Palestinian President Abbas asks Arab League chief to visit Gaza

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has asked Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby to visit Gaza on Saturday or Sunday, Egypt's  state news agency MENA said, following Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian territory.
   
"At the behest of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a member of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat, has made a telephone call to the Arab League Secretary-General, Nabil Elaraby, asking him to visit Gaza on Saturday or Sunday," MENA said.
   
Abbas asked Elaraby to visit Gaza as head of a delegation comprising Arab foreign ministers, MENA said.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak sought government approval on Friday to mobilise up to 75,000 reserve troops for Israel's Gaza campaign, political sources said, in a sign of preparations for a possible ground offensive.
   
The sources, speaking after Palestinian rockets were fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, said ministers were being polled by telephone by the cabinet secretary to approve the call-up.

Earlier, Hamas' Al-Qassam brigades adopted the downing of an Israeli jet which had been hovering over Gaza. The armed wing also said it fired a Qassam rocket towards Jerusalem, minutes after air raid sirens sounded around the holy city.    

The Israeli radio reported that the rocket landed in Jerusalem area as ambulance services said that there were no causalities. The crash apparently occurred in an inhabitant area.

In this context, Iraq's representative to the Arab League said on Friday that Arab states should use oil as a weapon to put pressure on the United States and Israel over the attacks on Gaza.
   
"Iraq will invite (Arab) ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel," Qais al-Azzawy told reporters in Cairo on Friday.
   
"The economic weapon is the strongest one to be put into effect now, to assure of standing by the Palestinian people, in light of there being no military power that can stand in the face of Israel at the present time."

The Iraqi representative denied later that there is a proposal by Iraq to the Arab foreign ministers meeting tomorrow (Saturday) that will specifically look into the Israeli aggression on Gaza," Azzawy said in a statement emailed to Reuters by a media assistant.

This after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip towards Tel Aviv on Friday landed in the sea, a police spokesman said. "The rocket landed off the shores of Tel Aviv," the spokesman said after air raid sirens sounded in Israel's commercial center and an explosion was heard.

The rocket firing breached the truce once again set to take place during the visit of Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil to Gaza.     

Meanwhile, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi denounced Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip as "a blatant aggression against humanity" and said Cairo "would not leave Gaza on its own", the state news agency MENA reported.

Morsi's made the comments in a speech following Friday prayers in a mosque in central Cairo, MENA said. His prime minister, Hisham Kandil, visited the Gaza Strip on Friday.

"Cairo will not leave Gaza on its own ... Egypt today is not the Egypt of yesterday, and Arabs today are not the Arabs of yesterday," Morsi added.

Earlier on Friday, upon the arrival of the Egyptian PM, two Palestinians including a child were killed in an Israeli raid on Gaza.   

In turn, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, claimed responsibility for launching 42 rockets from Gaza to Israel on Friday morning following the arrival of the Egyptian PM.   

Israel said that Hamas was not abiding by the temporary truce during the visit of the Egyptian PM.     

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to an Egyptian request to cease all offensive operations in Gaza during the visit of the Egyptian prime minister there this morning, which is supposed to last for about three hours.     

Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil and the accompanying delegation had arrived in the Gaza Strip early in the morning through the Rafah border crossing to show solidarity with the Palestinian people following a two-day Israeli military offensive in the enclave, an Egyptian official said.  

On the field:

Explosions continued to rock Gaza on Friday morning as Israeli missile strikes pounded the Hamas-ruled coastal strip, signalling a ground invasion might begrowing near.       

Early on Friday, 85 missiles exploded within 45 minutes in Gaza City, sending black pillars of smoke towering above the strip's largest city.    

The death toll in the densely populated Palestinian territory climbed to 19, including six children and a pregnant woman according to Palestinian health officials, as waves of Israeli fighter planes and drones sent missiles hurtling down on suspected weapons stores and rocket-launching sites.      

One missile hit the Interior Ministry, a symbol of Hamas power.         

Israeli troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers massed near the Palestinian territory, signaling a ground invasion might be growing near.   

On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck dozens of Hamas-linked targets, sending loud booms echoing across the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip at regular intervals.  

After nightfall, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart. The military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.    

Fighting between the two sides escalated sharply on Thursday with a first-ever militant attack on the Tel Aviv area, menacing Israel's heartland.     

No casualties were reported, but three people died in the Israel's rocket-scarred south when a projectile slammed into an apartment building.      

The Israeli military reported early Friday that its aircraft had struck more than 350 targets since the beginning of its operation against Hamas' rocket operations.   

The onslaught has not deterred the militants from striking back with more than 400 rockets aimed at southern Israel.     


Call for UN action

This as the Palestinian Authority renewed its call on Thursday for the U.N. Security Council to take action to stop Israel's attacks against the Gaza Strip, a day after the 15-nation body held an inconclusive emergency meeting on the escalating conflict.   

"The mobilization of Israeli occupying forces on the ground, including the amassing of tanks, armored vehicles and buses near the Gaza border are cause for serious concern and demand the attention of the international community," the Palestinian U.N. observer, Riyad Mansour, wrote to the U.N. Security Council.   

"We thus reiterate our urgent appeal to the Security Council ... to uphold its (U.N.) Charter duties and to act now to protect the Palestinian civilian population under Israel's occupation in accordance with international humanitarian law," he wrote to Indian Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, president of the Security Council this month.

Israel and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce since Israel's devastating incursion into Gaza four years ago, but rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes on militant operations didn't halt entirely.      

The latest flare-up exploded into major violence on Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas' military chief, Ahmed Jabari, and followed it up with a punishing air assault meant to cripple the militants' ability to attack Israel with rockets.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday called on Israel and Hamas to "stop this dangerous escalation" in the Gaza Strip to avoid further bloodshed in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Ban's spokesman said.
   
"The Secretary-General is extremely concerned about the continued violence in Gaza and Israel, and deeply worried by the rising cost in terms of civilian lives," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said. "Rocket attacks are unacceptable and must stop at once. Israel must exercise maximum restraint."
   
Nesirky added that Ban "plans to visit the region shortly." U.N. diplomats have said that Ban will visit Israel and Egypt next week.


APTN/REUTERS