SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 2010

KLMNO

THE WORLD

Hostilities intensify between Gaza, Israel

CEASE-FIRE

IS AT RISK

Hamas leader urges international intervention

by Janine Zacharia

jerusalem — Tensions along the Is- raeli border with the Gaza Strip have es- calated in the past week, threatening a cease-fire with the ruling Hamas move- ment that has held since Israeli forces waged war in Gaza last year to try to end rocket attacks. The Israeli air force early Friday struck

at what the military said were a weapons manufacturing site and two arms storage facilities in retaliation for recent Pales- tinian rocket fire. Last month, nearly 20 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing one person. And last week, two Israeli soldiers were killed in a skirmish along the border with Palestinians who were planting ex- plosives. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s prime min- ister in Gaza, on Friday asked the inter- national community to intervene to pre- vent an escalation of hostilities. He urged Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip to “coordinate their activities,” suggesting that different factions should not unilat- erally provoke Israel with rocket attacks. “If rockets are a response to Israeli ag- gression, then they are a legal right. But in some cases, if we know we are going to pay a high price for it, for sure this tool should be reconsidered,” Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman, said in an interview in his office in Gaza on Wednesday. Since 2007, Hamas, labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and Is- rael, has ruled the Gaza Strip while a sep- arate security service and leadership, led by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fay- yad, governs the West Bank. Egyptian-led efforts to create a nation-

al unity government between the Islam- ist Hamas group and the secular Fatah party have floundered in recent months,

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HATEM MOUSSA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Israeli air force struck multiple targets in the Gaza Strip very early Friday after a rocket attack on southern Israel. No injuries were reported.

The United States has said its support

weakening Palestinian President Mah- moud Abbas’s ability to negotiate peace as the Obama administration seeks to re- sume talks to end the decades-old Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Hamas officials have expressed impa- tience with the inability to reach an ac- cord with Fatah. “We wish to have recon- ciliation now, not tomorrow,” Hamas eco- nomics minister Ziyad al-Zaza said in an interview. Hamas leaders accused Egypt of fail- ing to represent their point of view in a draft agreement that was meant to bring Hamas and Fatah together after the three-year split. Disputes over whether to abandon violent resistance to Israeli occupation and how to share power con- tinue to divide the factions. A member of Fatah’s Central Committee, Sakhr Bsaiso, secretly visited Gaza last week to try to resolve sticking points. Still, politicians and analysts in Gaza and Ramallah, the seat of Fatah’s power in the West Bank, predicted no quick end to the division.

of any unity government will depend on whether Hamas accepts Israel’s exis- tence, agrees to abandon violence and honors previous accords between Israel and the Palestinians.

During the political deadlock, Hamas

officials expressed concern about Egypt’s construction of an underground steel wall along its border with Gaza that would interrupt the flow of supplies. Egypt is trying to halt the flow of weap- ons through tunnels under the border. But Palestinians also rely heavily on the smuggling of everyday necessities through them. “We are quite worried they will destroy the tunnels,” Zaza said. Israel is now allowing essential foods and humanitarian supplies into Gaza, and a few truckloads of Gaza-grown flowers each week have been allowed out for export. The main power plant in Gaza still

runs at a little less than half-capacity be- cause of limited fuel supplies, leaving

rolling blackouts of eight to 12 hours a day throughout the Strip. Egyptian products are used to stock groceries where people with means shop alongside humanitarian distribution sites that distribute aid to the needy. With the restoration of some move- ment of goods, the majority of Gazans still cannot leave the Strip, either through Rafah checkpoint into Egypt or Erez checkpoint into Israel, leaving the new terminal there all but empty. Despite a ban on building materials, there is limited construction with ce- ment blocks made locally from a combi- nation of material brought in from Egypt and recycled gravel and other products scavengers try to collect largely from Jewish settlements that were evacuated in 2005. The hunt can be dangerous — Is- raeli forces prohibit Palestinian access to these areas and in late March there were two reports of Israeli troops firing toward Palestinians collecting rubble. Although Israel withdrew its troops

from Gaza in 2005, military operations around the Gaza Strip remain routine. On Thursday, the Israeli navy fired toward Palestinian fishing boats oppo- site the beachfront Sudaniya neighbor- hood. Snipers fired toward Palestinian territory near Beit Lahiya, the northern Gaza town close to the border with Is- rael. The Israeli shootings have led some who live in the luxurious seaside villas in Sudaniya in the past few months to move out. For Kamal Awaja, the shooting at Beit Lahiya has deterred him from mov- ing back to the town where he lived be- fore the 2009 war. “Even if they built me a palace there, I would not go,” said Awaja, 50, whose 9- year-old son was killed and whose house was destroyed during the war. He lives in a tent with his wife and oth- er children in a field a short drive away from Beit Lahiya. “I’m afraid to go back there.”

zachariaj@washpost.com

Obama hopeful of broad support for further U.N. sanctions on Iran

by Colum Lynch and Mary Beth Sheridan

new york —President Obama said Fri- day that “all evidence indicates” Iran is pursuing the capacity to develop nuclear weapons, but he expressed confidence that the United States could muster broad international support for a new round of U.N. sanctions designed to cur- tail Tehran’s atomic ambitions. The remarks followed an hour-long phone discussion Obama held late Thurs- day with Chinese President Hu Jintao, who will travel to Washington to partici- pate in a nuclear security summit April 12 and 13. In their conversation, the two dis- cussed the “importance of working to- gether” on Iran, the White House said. China has long resisted American calls for U.N. sanctions against Iran, but this

week, for the first time, it agreed to begin discussions on a possible resolution, ac- cording to U.S. and European diplomats. A senior U.S. official said Washington hopes to get a vote on a sanctions resolu- tion in April. But U.N. diplomats cau- tioned that they expect protracted negoti- ations with China over the substance. “I think the idea here is to keep on turning up the pressure. The regime has become more isolated since I came into office,” Obama said in an interview Friday with CBS’s “Early Show.” “We’re going to continue to ratchet up the pressure and examine how they respond. But we’re go- ing to do so with a unified international community that puts us in a much stron- ger position.” Repeating assertions the administra- tion has made previously, Obama said Iran’s emergence as a nuclear weapons power would create “huge destabilizing

effects in the region and will trigger an arms race in the Middle East.” He said it would also harm Iran’s political standing in the world. “Part of the reason that we reached out to them was to say, ‘You’ve got a path. You can take a path that allows you to rejoin the international community, or you can take a path of developing nuclear-weap- ons capacity that further isolates you.’ And now we’re seeing them further isolat- ed. Over time, that is going to have an ef- fect on their economy,” Obama said. Beijing’s decision to engage in negotia- tions on Iran signaled a willingness to move beyond disputes with Washington over a range of issues, including U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Obama’s recent meeting with the Dalai Lama and differences over currency rates. The issue is delicate for China in part because it maintains deep commercial ties with Tehran.

DIGEST

PAKISTAN

Legal official quits amid graft dispute

Pakistan’s attorney general re- signed Friday, accusing the gov- ernment of preventing him from carrying out Supreme Court or- ders to reopen old corruption in- vestigations into President Asif Ali Zardari. Anwar Mansoor’s announce- ment represented the latest chap- ter in a simmering dispute be- tween the judiciary and Zardari that risks destabilizing the gov- ernment just as the United States is pressing it to focus on the threat posed by al-Qaeda and Tal- iban militants in the Pakistan’s northwest, close to the Afghan border. The Supreme Court last year struck down a controversial am- nesty that had been protecting Zardari and scores of other top officials from prosecution over al- legations of corruption dating back several years. This week, it ordered those cases reopened. Mansoor said the Law Ministry has denied him access to docu- ments needed to carry out the Su- preme Court order.

— Associated Press

KENYA

Lawmakers approve draft constitution

Kenya’s parliament has unani- mously passed a draft constitu- tion that is one of several key re- forms experts say are needed to avoid a repeat of the political vio- lence that shook the country after the disputed 2007 election. Kenya invests the with enor- mous powers that are largely un- checked. Critics say that led to abuses of power that are thought to have fueled the post-election violence that killed more than 1,000 people. President Mwai Kibaki, who is not eligible to run for reelection, supports the new draft, which proposes several checks on presi- dential powers.

— Associated Press

TURKEY

Envoy to return to U.S., premier says

Turkey said Friday that it is sending its ambassador back to Washington a month after Namik Tan was recalled to protest a U.S. congressional committee label- ing as genocide the World War I

Brazil’s Serra prepares to run for

presidency: José Serra prepared to step down as governor of Sao Paulo state at midnight Friday to run for Brazil’s presidency as the main opposition candidate in Oc- tober elections. Serra, a well- known former health minister expected to be confirmed as the candidate of the centrist PSDB party, leads opinion polls in the race to succeed President Luiz In-

killings of Armenians in Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also confirmed that he will attend an international nu- clear summit to be hosted by President Obama in Washington April 12 and 13. The State Department wel- comed Erdogan’s decision to re- install the ambassador. “Turkey and the United States

have a significant strategic rela- tionship. There’s lots of work that we can jointly accomplish, and that work becomes more effective when we have an able interloc- utor here in Washington,” depart- ment spokesman P.J. Crowley said. Turkey is NATO’s only Muslim member and a key ally in trouble spots from Afghanistan to the Middle East.

— Reuters

FERNANDO LLANO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“To the extent that Venezuela is going to expend resources on behalf of its people, perhaps the focus should be more terrestrial than

extraterrestrial.”

— State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, on Venezuelan President

Hugo Chávez’s announcement that his country may set up a space program with Russian help. On Friday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made his first visit to Venezuela, which is struggling with energy shortages and drought.

ácio Lula da Silva. However, Lu- la’s chosen candidate, Dilma Rousseff of the center-left ruling Workers’ Party, has closed the gap

VENEZUELA

with Serra in recent weeks.

Suspected drug traffickers killed in Mexico shootout: Five

gunmen died in a shootout with soldiers in the border city of Rey- nosa, the latest in a string of clashes between troops and al- leged drug traffickers in north- eastern Mexico.

20 civilians killed in Somali cap-

ital: Twenty people were killed af- ter a battle between government forces and Islamist insurgents in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. About two weeks ago, scores of ci- vilians were killed in the capital.

ElBaradei defies officials in Egypt with outdoor speech: For-

mer U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei issued a public call for change in Egypt on Friday in defiance of an emergen- cy law banning gatherings crit- ical of the authorities. Plain- clothes security officials stood by as ElBaradei urged about 700 people to add their names to a pe- tition calling for reform.

Sounds heard in flooded China

mine: Rescuers heard faint signs of life Friday — tapping noises and possibly shouting — from in- side a flooded coal mine in north- ern China’s Shanxi province, where 153 workers have been trapped for more than five days.

— From news services

The United States, Britain, France and

Germany have been pressing China and Russia to begin formal talks on a new sanctions resolution as early as next week. But Chinese officials have yet to agree to a date. And Chinese officials con- tinue to insist publicly that they prefer to resolve the nuclear standoff through di- plomacy. The senior U.S. official noted that pres- sure on Iran was building even without a resolution, as banks and fuel companies halt business with its government. But “we want and need a resolution to

serve as a platform on which we can build more,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensi- tive policy issues. He said governments could use the resolution to legitimize a push for added sanctions of their own. The Security Council, of which China is a permanent member, has imposed three

rounds of sanctions on Iran to compel it to halt its enrichment of uranium. Iran has refused to comply and has in- sisted that it needs to produce uranium to fuel a peaceful nuclear energy program. In February, the International Atomic En- ergy Agency reported that Iran had “not provided the necessary cooperation” re- quired to allow the Vienna-based organi- zation to confirm that the country’s nu- clear activities are peaceful. To head off sanctions, China and Rus-

sia have pressed Tehran to accept a pro- posal to swap its enriched uranium for a foreign supply of nuclear fuel — possibly from France, Russia or Turkey — for its medical research reactor. Iran has re- buffed that proposal.

lynchc@washpost.comsheridanm@washpost.com

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