Israeli ground operation in two years, news reports said.
These latest clashes in the Gaza Strip came a little more than a day after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told thousands of Christians in Jerusalem Sunday, September 22, that he hopes the world would see "one day more than Israel’s military."
The well informed International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) said that the Israeli army’s action in the Gaza Strip was "the biggest since the wave of Palestinian violence against Israel began" in 2000.
Palestinians said at least 60 tanks and armored vehicles were involved in the operation, the ICEJ News Service reported. The operation was apparently aimed at destroying bomb factories and the infrastructure of terrorist organization Hamas following two suicide bombings in which at least 7 people died.
VIOLATING CURFEWS
The trouble began late Monday, September 23, after Palestinian protesters across the occupied territories violated curfews imposed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
An IDF statement said troops were met with gunfire, but Palestinian doctors and relatives reported that at least six of the dead were unarmed civilians.
The violence overshadowed the week-long Feast of Tabernacles, attended by thousands of Christians from around the world.
Hours before the bloodshed began, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert thanked the believers for making their way to the Israeli capital despite a conflict that has scared many tourists away.
ISRAEL IN PAIN
"We are in pain, indeed we are. But we are not weak and we are not going to be weak," the ICEJ News Service quoted him as saying. "God wants us to be strong and we will be strong."
However Palestinian Christians have openly questioned Sharon’s policies and have urged churches around the world not to forget believers living in Palestinian territories.
In addition the United States abstained, but did not, veto a United Nations Security Council resolution on Tuesday, September 24, demanding that Israel end its operations, "including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure."
"ACTIONS NOT HELPFUL"
In Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush said that he thought "the actions the Israelis took were not helpful in terms of the establishment and development of the institutions necessary for a Palestinian state to emerge."
Jews suffered also as thousands of Israelis visited Hebron a day after Palestinian gunman opened fire on visitors attending Jewish holiday celebrations, killing a man and wounding three of his sons.
Yet, there were some signs of hope reported Tuesday, September 24, as news emerged that the kidney of a Jewish teenager killed in last week’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv saved the life of a Palestinian girl, who suffered a disease that leads to kidney failure.
MEMORY LIVES ON
Yasmin Abu Ramila, 7, received the kidney of Jonathan Jesner, a 19-year-old student from Glasgow, who was on a Tel Aviv bus on Thursday when a Palestinian militant detonated his explosives.
His oldest brother, Ari Jesner, said after the transplant that the recipient’s religion or nationality was not important.
"The most important principle here is that life was given to another human being," he said in Jerusalem. "We are happy and delighted that Yoni’s memory will live on."
