Dubai: The UAE on Friday joined Turkey and Egypt in condemning Israel as thousands of people in the Middle East protested against the Jewish state’s continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has claimed the lives of 23 Palestinians since Wednesday.
The UAE condemned Israel’s brutal and aggressive attacks, and called on the international community to bear responsibility towards the Palestinians.
The UAE also called on putting a stop to Israeli interference in the security and stability of the region and international peace. The statement was issued by Dr. Saeed Mohammad Al Shamsi, Assistant Foreign Minister for International Organisations Affairs, who is leading the UAE team participating in a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Djibouti.
Hamas, meanwhile, fired a rocket that struck an uninhabited open area outside Occupied Jerusalem, causing no damage or injuries, the Israeli army said, shortly after sirens wailed across the city. Earlier Hamas fired another rocket that hit the sea off Tel Aviv in the second such incident.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan decried the strikes as a pre-election stunt.
Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi branded the Israeli assault a “blatant aggression against humanity” and promised that “Egypt will not leave Gaza on its own”. Prime Minister Hesham Qandil visited Gaza and vowed to intensify Cairo’s efforts to secure a truce and end Israel’s “aggression”.
Earlier report
Gaza: A loud blast rocked Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon as sirens wailed to warn of an incoming rocket for the second day running, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
Police said sirens had sounded but could not immediately confirm that anything had hit the Tel Aviv area, in an alert that came a day after a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the sea just off the sprawling coastal city.
Meanwhile, another death has been reported after a new Israeli strike on Khan Yunis, according to Gaza medics, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 22 since Wednesday.
Ground offensive
The Israeli army started calling up 16,000 reservists on Friday, as officials said the Jewish state was preparing for a possible ground offensive into the Gaza Strip.
“They’re distributing emergency call-up notices now, the process has started,” an army spokeswoman told AFP.
“As part of Operation Pillar of Defence, the IDF (army) will begin recruiting 16,000 reservists,” the military said on its official Twitter feed.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday approved the call-up of 30,000 reserve soldiers, who can be drafted into action by the military at any point, the army’s official spokesman said.
The move came as Israel pressed a relentless air campaign against Gaza which looked increasingly likely to expand into a ground operation after a rocket struck the sea just off the coast of Tel Aviv and a second landed to the south of the sprawling coastal city.
“We are in the process of expanding the campaign,” the military’s chief spokesman, Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, told Channel 2 television on Thursday.
“The defence minister approved ... based on the army’s request, the recruitment of another 30,000 soldiers. We will determine how many of them will be called in,” he said.
“This means that all options are on the table.”
Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil, on a brief visit to the Gaza Strip on Friday, denounced Israel's attacks on the Palestinian territory and said Cairo would try to secure a ceasefire.
"Egypt will spare no effort ... to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce," Kandil said during a visit to a Gaza hospital.
Fighting continued along the Israel-Gaza border during Kandil's three-hour visit.
Israel had announced it would hold its fire while Kandil was in the enclave on condition that Hamas militants did the same. It resumed air strikes after volleys of rockets were fired at southern Israel. Hamas said two Gazans were killed
Egypt, now led by an Islamist government seen as ideologically close to Hamas, has brokered previous informal truces between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
Kandil said Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, sought the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Throughout Friday morning, Israeli aircraft pummelled the rocket arsenals of Gaza militants and signaled a ground invasion might be growing near as troops, tanks and armoured personnel carriers massed near Israel’s southern border with the Palestinian territory.
The death toll in the densely populated Palestinian territory includes five children 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.
Fighting between the two sides escalated sharply 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 country’s rocket-scarred south when a projectile slammed into an apartment building.
The fighting has already widened the instability gripping a region in the throes of war and regime upheavals. Most immediately, it is straining already frayed relations with Egypt.
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 Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas’ military chief, following up with a punishing air assault meant to cripple the militants’ ability to terrorise Israel with rockets.
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.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck dozens of Hamas-linked targets, sending loud booms echoing across the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip at regular intervals, followed by gray columns of smoke. After nightfall, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart, a sign the strikes were not letting up. The military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.
The onslaught has not deterred the militants from striking back with more than 400 rockets aimed at southern Israel. For the first time, they also unleashed the most powerful weapons in their arsenal — Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
The two rockets that struck closest to Tel Aviv appear to have landed in the Mediterranean Sea, defense officials said, and another hit an open area on Tel Aviv’s southern outskirts.
No injuries were reported, but the rocket fire — the first in the area from Gaza — sowed panic in Tel Aviv and made the prospect of a ground incursion more likely. The government later approved the mobilisation of up to 30,000 reservists for a possible invasion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called surgical strikes, and warned of a “significant widening” of the Gaza operation. Israel will “continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people,” said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in January.
At least 12 trucks were seen transporting tanks and armoured personnel carriers toward Gaza late Thursday, and buses carrying soldiers headed toward the border area. Israeli TV stations said a Gaza operation was expected on Friday, though military officials said no decision had been made.
“We will continue the attacks and we will increase the attacks, and I believe we will obtain our objectives,” said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel’s military chief.
An Israeli ground offensive could be costly to both sides. In the last Gaza war, Israel devastated large areas of the territory, setting back Hamas’ fighting capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic isolation because of a civilian death toll numbering in the hundreds.
The current round of fighting is reminiscent of the first days of that three-week offensive against Hamas. Israel also caught Hamas off-guard then with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up with a ground offensive.
However, much has also changed since then.
Israel has improved its missile defence systems, but is facing a more heavily armed Hamas. Israel estimates militants possess 12,000 rockets, including more sophisticated weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime there last year.
Netanyahu, who has clashed even with his allies over the deadlock in Middle East peace efforts, appears to have less diplomatic leeway than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, making a lengthy military offensive harder to sustain.
What’s more, regional alignments have changed dramatically since the last Gaza war. Hamas has emerged from its political isolation as its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, rose to power in several countries in the wake of last year’s Arab uprisings, particularly in Egypt.
Egypt recalled its ambassador to protest the Israeli offensive.
At the same time, while relations with Israel have cooled since the toppling of long-time Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, new leader Mohammad Mursi has not brought a radical change in Egypt’s policy toward Israel. He has promised to abide by Egypt’s 1979 peace deal with Israel and his government has continued contacts with Israel through its non-Brotherhood members.
