massive suicide attack killed five people and Iran called for the total destruction of the Jewish state.
News reports said the first wave of the offensive began early Thursday, October 27, with Israel Air Force planes pounding positions in the Gaza Strip from where militants allegedly fired Qassam rockets.
In published remarks Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday, October 27, defended the attacks pledged that Israel’s new offensive in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would continue until terrorism ends.
He spoke after Israel’s High Holiday season came to an abrupt end Wednesday, October 26, when a Palestinian suicide bomber, blew himself up in the open air market in the coastal city of Hadera killing five people and wounding some 30 others.
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
"Unfortunately the Palestinian Authority has not taken any serious action to battle terrorism," Sharon reportedly said at the start of a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. "We will not accept under any circumstances a continuation of terrorism. Therefore our activities will be broad and nonstop until they halt terrorism."
The militant group Islamic Jihad said the bombing was in retaliation for the death of its military leader, Luay Sa’adi, in an Israeli army raid in the West Bank several days ago. Wednesday also marked the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Islamic Jihad chief Fathi Shekaki outside a Malta hotel in a mission widely attributed to Israel, news reports said.
"It is a natural retaliation for the Israeli crimes committed against our people, namely the crime against Luay Sa’adi," The Associated Press (AP) news agency quoted Islamic Jihad spokesman Khader Habib as saying. "The Islamic Jihad movement was committed to the truce, and is still committed to the truce, but this truce should be mutual. We cannot tolerate a one-sided truce."
DESTRUCTION ISRAEL
The suicide attack came as Iran, which has been accused by America and Britain of supporting terrorism, announced its support for the destruction of Israel. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel is a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the map", during a speech to thousands of students at a "World without Zionism" conference.
"There is no doubt that the new wave in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from
the face of the Islamic world," state-run television quoted Ahmadinejad as telling the group of students.
"Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury, [while] any [Islamic leader] who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world."
His fiery comments were seen as a reference to modest steps by some Arabic states to normalize relations with Israel following its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in September.
In September, Bahrain announced it was ending a decades-old law banning trade ties with Israel. Earlier this month, Qatar said it was donating six million US dollars to help build a soccer stadium for a mixed Arab-Jewish team, the first such financial assistance by an Arab state for any town inside Israel.
DISMISSING WITHDRAWAL
The Iranian president dismissed Israel’s summer withdrawal from the Gaza and northern Samaria as a "trick," designed to make Islamic states acknowledge Israel.
The Iranian president set a hard-line foreign policy course sharply at odds with that of his moderate predecessor, echoing the sentiments of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran’s Islamic revolution, analysts said.
European Union leaders on Thursday, October 27, condemned Ahmadinejad’s comments, saying that "calls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community," Reuters news agency reported.
Support for the Palestinian cause is a central pillar of the Islamic Republic which officially refuses to recognise Israel’s right to exist. "For its part, the EU remains committed to a solution to the Arab-Israel dispute based on the principle of two states living side-by-side in peace and security. It urges all parties in the region to do their utmost to bring that vision to fulfilment," the EU leaders were quoted as saying during a one day summit outside London.
DIFFERENT POLICY
Under reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s eight-year tenure Iran had shown signs of easing its implacable hostility towards Israel and officials said Tehran might not object to a two-state solution if that was what the Palestinians wanted.
But Ahmadinejad, a former member of the hardline Revolutionary Guards and traditional religious conservative who came to power earlier this year, made clear there could be no let-up in its hostility to Israel.
The United States stressed Ahmadinejad’s remarks show that Washington’s fears about Iran’s nuclear program are accurate. "I think it reconfirms what we have been saying about the regime in Iran," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters in Washington. "It underscores the concerns we have about Iran’s nuclear intentions," AP quoted him as saying.
Ahmadinejad also repeated the words of the founder of Iran’s Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who called for the destruction of Israel. "As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, who came to power in August. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas released a statement condemning militant activities and the suicide attack in Hadera, saying it "harms the Palestinian people’s higher interests," news reports said. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and reports from Israel).
