Word: gaza
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...ground assault only if the Israeli envoy now in Cairo, Amos Gilad, returns with an iron-clad promise that Egypt or an international force can effectively stop Hamas' border traffic in weapons and medium-range rockets that are capable of striking deep into Israel. "We won't end the Gaza operation without some kind of suspension of the arms smuggling," one senior Israeli official told TIME. "The next phase is inevitable." Since the Israeli offensive began, the number of rockets fired by Hamas has tapered off from nearly 100 a day to around 24 on Thursday, but large Israeli population...
...Hamas is just as adamant. Its four delegates returned from Cairo to Damascus and their Gaza bunkers resolved to fight on. Israel says it has identified at least 200 Hamas members who have been killed thus far, but a Hamas official in Damascus told TIME, "So far we have only lost 60 martyrs. We're prepared to lose many more." Advancing Israeli troops have had to thread through complicated Hamas defenses of roadside bombs and booby-trapped houses, and they are using robots to clear Hamas' maze of tunnels...
...Islamists doubt that Egypt can be an honest peace broker, as it is allied with Israel and the U.S. and is politically antagonistic to the Islamist movement. Hamas says it is refusing Israel's key demand for an international force to be deployed on the Gaza-Egypt border to prevent arms smuggling. "It will be doing the job of protecting Israel, not the Palestinians," said the Hamas official...
...Israel plans to fight on until it is satisfied that it has choked off the possibility of Hamas rearming itself via smuggling from Egypt. But Hamas believes it is winning the political battle. The Hamas official in Damascus said the organization believes Israel played into Hamas' hands by attacking Gaza, earning Israel international criticism and strengthening Hamas' position among Palestinians and in the wider Arab world. "The destruction is such that nobody will dare to mention peace with the Israelis for the next 10 years," he said...
...considerable political gains in Lebanon since the 2006 war by provoking a new Israeli attack. The more likely culprit in this instance is one of the many Palestinian splinter factions based in Lebanon, which is home to some 400,000 Palestinian refugees. Besides sympathizing with their brethren in Gaza, Palestinians in Lebanon have often been used as cannon fodder by regional intelligence agencies, and the impoverished refugee camps where about half of them live are incubators of discontent and chaos...