a bad thing as only Israel will be standing afterwards.
Posted on 05/12/2004 5:16:52 AM PDT by yonif
Israeli forces searching for the remains of their fallen comrades in the streets of Gaza City's Zeitun neighborhood are encountering mounting resistance from Palestinian combatants, with bombs being detonated near troop carriers and anti-tank rockets fired at soldiers.
Four soldiers have been lightly wounded by Palestinian gunfire in operations since Tuesday night. IAF helicopters have fired missiles at a number of groups of armed Palestinians, attempting to place bombs in the area. Palestinians report three dead, and at least ten wounded.
One Palestinians died when he exploded after being shot by IDF troops.
The army will conduct a situation assessment later Wednesday regarding the results of the day' search. It is unclear how long the forces will remain in the area, although Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that the IDF's primary mission, called operation "steel cavalry", is to bring the soldiers' body parts back to Israel for burial.
Givati soldiers who lost their comrades in Tuesday's explosion are refusing to leave the area and continue to search for their remains along with additional forces dispatched to the area.
Security officials have confirmed that some of the soldiers' remains have been recovered and passed over to the IDF's Rabbinical Corps. IDF officials said that there are no plans to pull the troops out until the search is completed.
The operation is being coordinated from nearby Kibbutz Nahal Oz by OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Dan Harel. "We are searching every house, we are climbing onto every roof and balcony, to locate the remains of the bodies and the APC," Harel told Army Radio. The IDF's top officers, including Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon and Givati commander Col. Eyal Eizenberg are in the area to supervise and assist the operation. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz also visited commanders at Nahal Oz.
In addition to the infantry units searching the area, a special victims identification unit of the IDF Rabbinate Corps. is gathering those body parts found and transferring them to the National Forensics Institute in Abu Kabir.
Infantry forces, searching house-to-house, are accompanied by armored units, helicopters, combat engineering troops, and some elite IDF units. During Tuesday night, military intelligence and the Shin Bet worked feverishly to locate those in possession of the body parts of six IDF soldiers. Soldiers have taken over houses in the area of Tuesday's explosion and have fortified their base of operations in the Hamas stronghold. Zeitun residents have been told to stay in their homes. Soldiers are searching each and every home in the area of the blast.
Body parts were reportedly spread over a 300-meter radius, which was how some made it to the hands of the Palestinians during the armored incursion into the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City.
While Halacha has allowed the IDF to bury soldiers whose body parts are missing, the bereaved families are likely to put enormous pressure on the IDF to spare no effort in getting their sons' remains back.
Tuesday night saw a flurry of activity on all levels, including the Shin Bet and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and contacts with the Palestinian Authority to get the remains returned.
Ya'alon said the main mission of Givati soldiers operating in Zeitun is to retrieve their fallen comrades and return them to Israel for burial. "We will do everything necessary to complete the mission. Up until now we have suffered no small number of causalities but the search continues. At the same time there have been a number of clashes with terrorists and we are hitting them and I believe that they have suffered a number of losses," he said.
Ya'alon added that up until now IDF forces have blown up four metalwork factories used to manufacture Kassam rockets and mortars and have arrested two fugitives. "Wherever there is terror we will fight against it and it appears we will continue to do so," the Chief of Staff said.
Expressing his condolences to the families of the dead soldiers, Mofaz said that the army's supreme mission is to recover the remains of the fallen soldiers. "We will lay our hands on all those who defiled the honor of our soldiers, our account with them is a bitter one," Mofaz said. "Our hand will reach all those who harmed our soldiers and desecrated their honor," he added.
The six soldiers of the Givati Brigade's engineering unit were killed instantly Tuesday morning, when terrorists detonated a large mine underneath their armored personnel carrier, setting off some 100 kilograms being carried inside.
The names of the six soldiers killed are: Sgt.-Maj. Edron Amar, 20, of Eilat; Sgt. Eitan Newman, 21, of Ramot in Jerusalem; Aviad Deri, 21, of Ma'aleh Adumim, Kobi Mizrahi, 20, of Moshav Matta, St.-Sgt. Ofer Gerbi, 20, of Moshav Ben Zakai, and Sgt. Jacob Marvizi, 26, from Kibbutz Geva.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad both claimed responsibility for the attack and announced they are holding body parts of the dead soldiers, which were scattered hundreds of meters from the scene of the attack by the force of the blast.
Egypt is talking to representatives of Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza in an effort to convince them to hand over the remains of the Israeli soldiers, Israel Radio reported Palestinian officials said it is difficult to get in touch with the Palestinians involved because they are in hiding.
Israel won't negotiate for the return of the bodies of the six soldiers killed in Gaza Tuesday, and the IDF will remain in the Zeitun neighborhood where they were slain until their body parts are handed over, the security cabinet decided Tuesday evening.
Justice Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid said there would be no negotiations with the terrorists. "You cannot enter into negotiations with cannibals. We should do whatever we can to get the body parts back, but we should be careful not to pay the price the Palestinians want," he told Army Radio.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened the security cabinet Tuesday night to discuss the killing of the six soldiers in Gaza.
One senior diplomatic official said the forum was not convened to make any new operative decisions, but rather to give the ministers intelligence information concerning the situation in Gaza and to show solidarity both with the soldiers operating there and with the families of the soldiers whose bodies were desecrated.
Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reportedly said at the meeting that, rather than conducting negotiations for a return of the body parts, Israel should increase pressure on Gaza, cut off the water and electricity supply to the area, and set up roadblocks that would effectively divide the region until the Palestinians ask to return the bodies.
Netanyahu also reportedly said the families of the slain soldiers should be asked for permission to distribute abroad the grisly footage of the Palestinians desecrating the bodies, so the world will have a clear picture of the "monsters we are dealing with."
Interior Minister Avraham Poraz said Israel should act against terrorist targets from the air, not with ground forces. When he was told that this is impossible because innocent civilians would likely be harmed, Poraz suggested dropping leaflets before an aerial attack so that those in harm's way could flee.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom again suggested that Israel remove PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, saying this is something Israel has been talking about for nearly four years and which is necessary to enable the possible emergence of a new Palestinian leadership.
"We have been bleeding now for four years," Shalom said. "We need to stop this. I'm not talking about removing him tomorrow, but the preparations need to be made."
Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said deporting Arafat at this time would severely harm Israel's international standing. Sharon agreed, saying this is not the right time for such a move.
One senior diplomatic source said it would be difficult to use Tuesday's action as the trigger for removing Arafat, since "this was a military action that went sour. We don't have anything to tie him to the event." At the same time, the official said, Arafat could have taken action to ensure the return to the body parts to Israel.
The official said it is likely that in the near future Israel will take more "sustained and targeted actions against the heads" of the terrorist organizations, and also intensify actions against the terrorist infrastructure, specifically armament factories and warehouses.
The fight against terrorism in Gaza will continue regardless of the final fate of Sharon's disengagement plan, the official added. He said that Tuesday's actions will likely give Sharon "added impetus and urgency to push through with his disengagement plan." At the same time, he said, this could mean an even more intensified campaign against terrorism now, in order to disabuse Hamas and Islamic Jihad of the notion that they are responsible for chasing Israel out.
Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, who cut short a trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, said the army would show no mercy to anyone who attempted to deal for the body parts.
"We won't show any forgiveness toward all those who are responsible," Ya'alon said. "They, and those who are responsible for the Gaza Strip are required to return the remains in their hands to us. We are not conducting any negotiations or speaking in such terms. We are determined to return them for a worthy burial," Ya'alon told reporters at Ben-Gurion Airport.
Ya'alon had been in Romania and rushed home, canceling his scheduled visit Wednesday to the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz on Thursday.
Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.
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