Israel said on Sunday it would intensify its military assault on the Gaza strip, hours after more than 100 000 people rallied in Tel Aviv to demand that Ariel Sharon follow through on his pledge to withdraw Jewish settlers from the territory.
The defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, told the weekly cabinet meeting that the army would work to ”create a new reality” along the border between Gaza and Egypt, where the UN has said the army destroyed about 200 Palestinian homes in the Rafah refugee camp after seven soldiers were killed in the area last week.
A total of 13 soldiers have died in the Gaza strip since Tuesday — some of the worst casualty figures inflicted on the Israeli army during the present intifada.
More than 30 Palestinians have died. Three more Palestinians were killed on Sunday night as they tried to plant a bomb on the Israel-Gaza border.
”We will deepen the fighting,” the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz quoted Mofaz as telling the meeting.
Early this morning Israeli helicopters fired five missiles at an office of the Fatah movement of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. There were no reported casualties. Yesterday, Israel’s high court overturned an injunction preventing the military from bulldozing Palestinian homes in Rafah, saying the army was entitled to act for security or operational reasons.
The army chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Moshe Ya’alon, said the destruction would continue despite an international outcry, including stiff criticism from the White House of demolitions that left more than 1 000 Palestinians homeless on Friday.
”Hundreds of Palestinian houses along the Israel-Egypt border have been targeted for demolition,” General Ya’alon said, according to Israel Radio.
The cabinet’s hard line was reiterated the morning after the rally in favour of pulling Jewish settlers and the army out of the Gaza strip.
The protest was called to demand that Sharon keep to his pledge to withdraw from Gaza despite losing a referendum on the issue in his Likud party last month.
The rally’s organisers, led by the opposition Labour party, said recent polls showed a hardening of public support for the withdrawal since the deaths of the 13 soldiers.
Rallying under the slogan, ”The majority has decided. Leave Gaza, start talking,” the organisers said twice as many people attended the rally as had voted in the Likud referendum to reject the pullout or had joined a rightwing demonstration in support of the settlers.
Shimon Peres, the former prime minister and present Labour leader, said the 80% of Israelis who backed a Gaza pullout could not be held hostage by the 1% of the population who voted to reject it in the Likud referendum.
”We have come here to say tonight, ‘This minority, this one and only percent, will not send us back to the wars, to the bloody path,”’ he said.
Tzaly Reshev, a founder of Peace Now, told the crowd: ”We had this terrible week all because of the settlements. The fact that we have become a vicious, cruel conqueror is because of the settlements.”
The left sought to stop Sharon hijacking the rally in support of his broader plan to pull out of Gaza but retain the bulk of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, by demanding the prime minister resume negotiations with the Palestinians.
Sharon has justified his scheme to impose the borders of an emasculated Palestinian state unilaterally, arguing there is no one to negotiate with on the other side. Critics, such as former cabinet minister Yossi Beilin, told the rally Sharon did not want to negotiate because the Palestinians would never accept the terms he wants to impose.
”The biggest lie is that there is no partner,” he said. ”There is a partner to get out of Gaza with agreement. Anyone who says there is no partner doesn’t want to talk.
”Ariel Sharon is not the first prime minister who didn’t want to make peace, but he’s the first who didn’t even try. Sharon is a political and military danger to Israel.”
Mr Sharon has said he will present a modified withdrawal plan to his cabinet in about a fortnight.
On Sunday, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, accused Arafat of undermining American efforts to strengthen the Palestinian security forces and curb attacks on Israel.
He also attacked the Palestinian leader for a statement in which he urged his supporters to ”find whatever strength you have to terrorise your enemy”.
However, he condemned Friday’s demolitions.
”We know Israel has a right for self-defence, but the kind of actions they are taking in Rafah with destruction of Palestinian homes we oppose,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited Â