Israël en Hamas strijden allebei om sympathie EU (en)

BRUSSELS - Spokesmen from both sides in new Gaza conflict are competing for international sympathy as fighting escalates.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told EUobserver on Thursday (15 November) morning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu i spoke with EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton i by phone on Wednesday.

Giving a flavour of what was said, Regev noted: "I would say this to European governments: I don't think a single European country would tolerate what Israel has gone through in recent months. Name one government that would sit idly by and watch its civilian population being targeted by terrorists. I think any European government would respond and some of them would respond more forcefully than Israel has."

He highlighted that the US has already voiced backing for its operations.

He added that Hamas, the military authority in Gaza, is guilty of "war crimes" in aiming rockets at Israeli towns and in using its own civilians as a "human shield" against Israel's "surgical strikes."

Israel says the fighting began because Hamas on Monday fired a missile at an Israeli jeep carrying four soldiers.

Israel reacted by assassinating Hamas' military commander Ahmed Jaabari in an air strike which also killed five civilians, prompting the launch of hundreds of rockets against Israeli towns within range of the enclave's walls.

Hamas fired over 45 missiles since midnight on Thursday alone.

Its latest strikes killed three Israeli civilians in Kiryat Malakhi, raising expectations of an Israeli ground incursion reminiscent of its bloody operation Cast Lead in 2009.

For his part, Hamas' deputy foreign minister Ghazi Hamad told this website by phone from Gaza that Hamas originally fired on the Israeli jeep "because it entered our territory. It came within 500 metres of people going about their normal business."

"The situation is like a war now," he said.

"I think they [European governments] should open their eyes to the situation here in Gaza, to see what is happening on the ground. Israel is using extreme violence against our citizens ... The international community should not give them permission to kill women and children in the streets. they should tell them to respect international law," he noted.

He added that Hamas expects Egypt's recently-installed Islamist government to come to its help in terms of diplomacy.

"The Egyptian situation has completely changed. I think the new government will tell Israel to stop killing our people. I don't think it will react with indifference as in the past. Inshallah - I think the whole equation in the region has changed."

He also said the escalation suits Israel's Netanyahu because he faces upcoming elections - a claim Regev denied.

"It will make him [Netanyahu] look more powerful. They are trying to exploit the situation," Hamad noted.

"This is not about party politics. If you look at the Israeli political situation their is a consensus on this [Israel's conduct over the past few days] from both the left and the right," Regev said.

Hamas has no official contacts with the EU because it is designated as a terrorist entity by European countries.

But the outbreak of violence took place amid a trip by EU foreign ministers and Ashton to Cairo to hold talks with the Arab League.

Ashton's delegation earlier this week unveiled a crisis room built with €1.9 million of EU funds at the league's headquarters in the Egyptian capital.

The facility is designed to help Arab states gather intelligence on emerging crises and to share it more easily with crisis rooms in EU capitals and in Ashton's foreign service in Brussels.

The EU also gave the green light for over €5 billion of loans and grants to the Egyptian government to help stabilise its economy after last year's revolution.

European and US leaders in the pre-revolutionary era of former president Hosni Mubarak had worked with Egypt to maintain its decades-old peace treaty with Israel.

But there are fears that a serious confrontation with the Palestinian side could see Egypt's new chief, President Mohammed Morsi, end Egyptian-Israeli security co-operation.

A joint statement by the EU and Egypt after the Cairo event said that the two parties will "work as closest allies" and hold more political-level meetings, including on "regional security."

It also said EU governments will help Morsi to get back billions of euros of Mubarak family money frozen in European banks after he used force to try to stop the uprising.