BBC news 2008-12-28 加文本

BBC News with John Jason.

Israel has been continuing intensive air attacks on the Gaza Strip. The Israelis say the raids will continue until Palestinian militants stop firing rockets and mortars into southern Israel. Palestinian officials say nearly 230 people have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the strikes began on Saturday. From Jerusalem, Paul Wood reports.

Plumes of smoke shot into the air as the attack began. Gaza hasn’t suffered as badly in a single day since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. There were two intense waves of airstrikes. More than 100 tons of bombs were dropped, Israel said, on dozens of targets. There were many civilian casualties. The emergency services were overwhelmed. Bodies were dumped in piles outside the main hospital. Frantic crowds gathered to look for loved ones among the dead. Hamas and the other armed groups have promised revenge. Salvos of rockets have already fallen on Israeli towns bordering Gaza, although with far less effect than Israel’s airstrikes. 

Israeli officials said the operation was targeting the Hamas movement which controls Gaza and that they were trying to avoid civilian deaths. The Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appealed directly to the people of Gaza.

You, the citizens of Gaza, are not our enemies. Hamas, Jihad, and the other terrorist organizations are your enemies as they are our enemies. They have brought disaster on you and they try to bring disaster to the people of Israel. And it is our common goal to make every possible effort to stop them.

But the spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry in Gaza Ehab Alghosain said Israel’s actions were disproportionate.

And we can’t equalize these rockets a whole, a whole with the Palestinian action hit by the Israeli strike. In one hour, in less than one hour, there was[were] 150 people killed. We can’t say that this is equal what is going on by the Palestinian faction.

There was swift international reaction to the Israeli attacks. The United States called for Israel to do all it could to protect innocent people, but said Hamas was responsible for renewing violence in the region. The UN Secretary General called for an urgent end to the violence while the Arab League is meeting on Sunday, as Jenny Berry reports.
 
The Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa said he expected the Israeli military operation to continue and Arabs had to decide how best to respond. Meanwhile in the United States, a spokesman for President Bush called on Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targeted Hamas, but stop short of calling for an end to the airstrikes. And he said Hamas must cease what he called terrorist activities if it wanted to play a part in the future of the Palestinian people.

World News from the BBC.

The army officer who seized power in Guinea earlier this week has adopted a firm tone in his first public speech. The officer, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, said he would not tolerate corruption and that anyone who embezzles state funds for their own personal benefit would be killed.

About half a million people, whose families were forced to flee Spain during the Civil War and General Franco's subsequent rule, have been given the right to apply for Spanish citizenship. People whose mother or father was Spanish and the grandchildren of those who had to renounce their Spanish nationality now have two years to apply. // reports.

The Spanish civil war in the 1930s in General Franco’s administration caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Spaniards and forced many more into exile across the world. Last year, the Spanish Parliament enacted the Law of Historical Memory to make amends to the victims of the war. Most of those who qualify live in Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Mexico and France. The Spanish government is expecting a huge response to the offer of citizenship and it’s providing 150 extra staff to deal with applications at consular offices around the world.
 

Campaigning is ended for the general election to be held on Monday to restore civilian rule to Bangladesh. The two main candidates, Sheikh Hasina and her rival Begun Khaleda Zia, crisscrossed the country on the final day to make one last appeal for votes. The Bangladeshi military stepped in two years ago after long-running clashes between the two main parties brought political life in the country to a stalemate.  (www.hXen.com)
 
A Senior Somali official has been shot dead. The Deputy Minister for Reconciliation Ismail Hassan Timir in the transitional government was killed as he got out of his car in the southern city of Baido. Elsewhere in Somalia, reports said at least ten people were killed in fighting between rival Islamic militias in the central town of Gurael.

BBC News.