‘Days of Penitence’ one of deadliest weeks in Gaza

Compiled by Finn Finneran

Oct. 6 (AGR) — In what Israel is calling their “Days of Penitence,” an open-ended military operation to stop Palestinian rocket attacks on the Israeli border has claimed 70-80 lives with hundreds wounded in the Gaza Strip since Sept. 29.

Gun battles began to rage through the refugee camp Jabalya, which is a militant stronghold and home to 100,000 Palestinians following a missile attack on the Israeli town of Sderot, which killed two Israeli children on Sept. 29.

The strike was claimed by the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, to mark the fourth anniversary of the intifada.

Ariel Sharon vowed to respond “with severity” to the attack on Sderot which wounded another 20 people, some of them children. Late on Sept. 29, missiles plowed into the Jabaliya refugee camp, killing two Palestinians, one a policeman.

The mayor of Sderot, Eli Muyal, has said that if European countries faced similar attacks, Palestinian towns “would have been wiped out off the face of the earth.”

The following day proved to be the deadliest day in two years in Palestine: 32 Palestinians and three Israelis were killed. More than 130 were wounded across Gaza.

Commenting on the raid, a White House spokesman said Israel “has the right to defend itself.”

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his security cabinet on Sept. 30 ordered the army to carve out a three and a half square-mile “buffer zone” between Jabaliya camp and the border of Gaza to halt rocket attacks.

On Oct. 1 a Palestinian security source reported that about 200 Israeli tanks and armored vehicles were seen operating in north Gaza, which the army said was the source of the rocket launches.

Israeli army bulldozers plowed through houses to make their way through Jabaliya camp’s booby-trapped streets. Israel’s widely used military tactic of demolishing Palestinian homes during raids, which the army deems necessary to clear paths for forces or says are used by militants, continues to face much criticism at home and abroad.

“A bulldozer entered our living room and demolished half the house,” Hussein al-Jamal told the Associated Press news agency. His family fled, along with many of his neighbors.

Bulldozers destroyed rows of homes, uprooted orchards and tore up roads. UN officials said dozens of people were made homeless.

About 15,000 people in the area have been without water and electricity for days.

In the Tel Al-Zatar area northeast of Jebaliya, a kindergarten was reduced to an open-air pile of rubble.

Jaber Abu Oukal, head of the kindergarten, said 400 children ages 3-5 attended his preschool.

The army did not comment on the kindergarten. But Lt. Col. Ofer, an Israeli battalion commander, said troops were doing their best to avoid civilian casualties, before conceding “accidents happen sometimes.’’

He said gunmen were using groups of stone-throwing children for cover. “That’s why we don’t wait anymore. When we see a group of children gathering, we fire warning shots to disperse them.”

Hassan Khalil, 15, who was slightly wounded in his hand, said: “They shot at us before we could even throw the stones.

“The resistance couldn’t stop the tanks so we know the stones won’t either. But we want the Jews to know that we will not just lie down.”

Israeli army chief Moshe Yaalon warned that the operation could last for weeks.

“One does not resolve the problem in a single operation but by a series of operations and we will continue for as long as it takes,” he told army radio.

On Oct. 2, Hamas pledged to continue rocket attacks as long as the occupation continues.

“We will continue with this honorable battle until we achieve either victory or martyrdom,” said Nizar Rayan, a local Hamas leader in Jabaliya.

It is the third time in recent months that the Israeli army has launched a major incursion into Gaza to try to halt rocket strikes.

In previous operations, the troops killed a number of Palestinians and caused great destruction but the rocket launches continued.

Israeli agression refered to UN

Members of the Arab League (AL) agreed to refer Israel to the United Nations Security Council for recent assaults in Gaza Strip and the Palestinian territories, reported Middle East News Agency.

The Arab League chief Amr Moussa said in a press conference that the AL decided to contact the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the European Union and African Union immediately to put an end to what he described as Israel’s inhuman attacks and violation of the international law.

The US on Oct. 5 vetoed the Arab-backed UN Security Council resolution demanding Israel immediately end military operations in the Gaza Strip and withdraw its troops.

Germany, Britain and Romania abstained from the vote on the draft proposed by Algeria, Tunisia and Pakistan, while the other 11 UN Security Council member states voted for the motion.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit expressed Egypt’s disappointment at a US veto on a UN Security Council draft resolution which urged Israel to stop military operations in northern Gaza.

Furthermore, he expressed regret that the international community failed to give Israel a clear message to stop its operation against the Palestinians or show dissatisfaction with the operations, which have killed scores of innocent Palestinians.

“Israel should not take for granted that the US veto was a green light for it to carry on with its operation against the Palestinians,” said Gheit.

Sharon still plans withdrawal

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who plans to pull troops and Jewish settlers out of the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip next year, has warned that the “Days of Penitence” operation would last “as long as the danger exists.”

Speaking on Israel Radio, Sharon said he was determined to halt rocket fire on towns inside Israel and shelling of Jewish settlements in Gaza

“The current situation cannot continue,’’ Sharon said. “We have to expand ... the areas of operation in order to get the rocket launchers out of the range of Israeli towns.”

Raanan Gissin, a top adviser to Sharon, said the offensive would pave the way for the withdrawal by striking a tough blow against the militants.

“When we leave, it won’t be under the threat of fire,” Gissin said. “We have seized the initiative.”

Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat condemned the Israeli operation in Jabaliya, saying it showed Israel was preparing to reoccupy Gaza “at a time when [it] is talking about withdrawal and disengagement.”

Sources: Al-Jazeera, AP, BBC, The Guardian (UK), Reuters, Xinhuanet

IMF delivers contentious loan to Iraq

By Emad Mekay

Washington, DC, Sept. 30 (IPS) — The International Monetary Fund (IMF), one of the most powerful architects of the world economy and controlled by the planet’s wealthiest nations, marked its return to US-occupied Iraq with a new loan worth $436 million.

The IMF Executive Board approved the loan late Wednesday as Emergency Post-Conflict Assistance (EPCA), to the loud praise of the United States, the main power broker in the Arab country.

“This action by the IMF Executive Board is an important milestone in the international community’s support for Iraq,” said Secretary of the US Treasury John Snow in a statement Sept. 30.

The White House has worked hard to generate good news from Iraq — where more than 100,000 US soldiers fight to quell a deadly, growing insurgency — prior to the Nov. 2 presidential election.

Washington, which invaded Iraq in March 2003 and says it handed over “sovereignty” to an interim government June 28, is a major influence behind Iraq’s 2004-2005 economic and monetary program, on which the IMF based its new loan.

Snow said granting the loan is an essential step on the way to resolving the Iraqi debt, a long-time US. demand, by the end of 2004, as agreed by the Group of Eight (G8) most industrialized nations.

Washington wants creditors to forgive at least 90 percent of Iraq’s enormous $120 billion debt. But Russia and France, the country’s main creditors, have said they are only prepared to write-off up to 50 percent of the debt, on the grounds that Iraq is an oil-rich nation.

Watchdog groups and activists say the new IMF loan simply shifts Iraq’s debt from a few countries to the multilateral institutions where Washington exerts enormous influence.

“I think that it’s very much the case that America wants Iraq to remain indebted because debt is a way of exerting control. I think that’s part of the reason America is happy for Iraq to receive new loans and is not insisting that all financing to Iraq is in the form of grants,” said Justin Alexander of Jubilee Iraq, a group lobbying for arbitration on Iraq’s huge “odious” debt.

The United States is the biggest shareholder in both the Washington-based IMF and its sister institution the World Bank, which hold their annual meetings here this weekend. Debt forgiveness for the world’s poorest nations is expected to top the agenda.

According to the budget office of the US Congress, the country’s share in the World Bank—which lent $18.5 billion to spur development worldwide in 2003 — is roughly 14-22 percent, while its share in the IMF lies between 17 and 22 percent. The IMF lent $40 billion in 2003.

The IMF loan to Iraq is also a green light for commercial lenders to start doing business with the country.

The announcement will “serve to catalyze much needed financial and technical assistance from the international community, and will facilitate the process of reducing Iraq’s external debt to a sustainable level,” according to IMF Deputy Managing Director Takatoshi Kato.

He complimented what he called Iraq’s “progress” toward a market-oriented economy.

Washington wants to make Iraq a model for the neo-liberal economy in the Middle East, an area the United States, under the right-wing administration of Republican President George W. Bush, has increasingly viewed with what some observers say are near colonial ambitions.

The IMF has already been providing extensive technical assistance and training to US-appointed Iraqi officials in a number of areas, including tax policy, budget preparation and execution, central banking and the creation of a treasury bill market.

The interim Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi has said it will seek international loans and focus on implementing key structural changes, including tax and financial sector reform, restructuring and privatizing state-owned enterprises, and enhancing the oil sector, all of which serve the IMF’s goal of promoting the local and international private sector in the country.

The loan comes as the Open Society Institute’s, Iraq Revenue Watch, project released a report saying that recent audits expose serious failures in US. oversight of Iraq’s revenues and spending of US. reconstruction funds. It also raises questions about the new government’s ability to deal with additional funds, like the IMF loan, transparently.

The OSI is financed by George Soros, the billionaire who has pledged to spend more than $18 million to try to defeat US President George W Bush in November’s presidential election.

The Iraq Revenue Watch report says that US. and UK companies received 85 percent of the value of all reconstruction contracts for Iraq. Local firms, by contrast, received just two percent of the value of contracts, which were paid for with Iraqi funds, it adds.

“Government favorites such as Kellogg, Brown, and Root benefited at the expense of Iraqi companies, whose workers badly need jobs,” said Svetlana Tsalik, director of the Revenue Watch project.

The report also criticized the interim government for following the model of its US predecessor by providing scant information about how it is managing Iraq’s revenues.

“The new government is basically behaving the same way the CPA [the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority] did: not accountable, not transparent and not keeping good records,” said the OSI’s Sarah Miller-Davenport.

But the IMF pledged to track the funds as it does with other borrowing countries. “Of course we will monitor it, like we do with all members,” said IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato, who met with Allawi and other Iraqi officials over the past week.

“But I think that from our discussions yesterday [Sept. 29] with the responsible economic team, they have a very clear strategy for that,” he added.