Gaza crisis in pictures

The Palestinian Prime Minister visited a Gaza mosque today to deliver a defiant sermon urging Palestinians to stand firm against Israel.

Ismail Haniya insisted that his Hamas-led government would never recognise the Jewish state's legitimacy.

Preaching in his customary Friday sermon, Mr Haniya - one of Hamas's most accomplished orators - accused Israel of imposing collective punishment upon ordinary Palestinians during its military strikes on Gaza over the past week.

Israel said that the campaign is intended to pressure the Palestinians into releasing Corporal Gilad Shalit, an Israeli tank soldier taken by Palestinian militants during a raid on an Israeli military base last Sunday.

Israel yesterday arrested eight Hamas Cabinet ministers and dozens of MPs and senior officials in a round up of some of the Islamist movement's most prominent figures in the West Bank. Today, Israeli jets bombed the offices of Palestinian Interior Ministry and a vehicle that Israeli commanders said was carrying militants.

"We will not recognise the Israeli occupation. It's not in our dictionary. Not in our culture and not in our history to recognise occupation," said Mr Haniya.

Preaching to a packed al-Mahatta mosque in Jabalya, northern Gaza, with bearded Hamas loyalists armed with Kalashnikovs on the roof, Mr Haniya urged Palestinians to be patient.

"We know that our children and men are in hospital suffering a lot, and they are hearing the sounds of explosions and war planes and tanks," he said. "We are in a bad situation, it is a critical time for you."

He said the Israelis were "driving the Gaza Strip to a war zone", but insisted that its arrest of one third of the Palestinian Cabinet would not stop his government or cause it to fall.

"This is a war against the Palestinians, they are targeting our ministers, targeting the Palestinian legislative council and the government and we tell them from this mosque that these activities will not defeat us it will not force us to recognise the Israelis."

While proclaiming the Palestinians right to resist Israeli occupation of the West Bank in Gaza he was careful to insist that the government knew nothing in advance of Sunday's tunnel raid in which Corporal Shalit, 19, was captured.

And he insisted the soldier's seizure was being used by Israel as a pretext to inflict collective punishment on ordinary Palestinians by massing its tanks around Gaza and destroying its power stations and bridges.

"It is only an excuse that they are launching this war for this soldier," said Mr Haniya, who unlike previous weeks arrived in a bullet-proof limousine. "They had already planned for this a few months ago. They are killing innocent civilians."

Today, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the destruction of Gaza's power station, which could be out of action for up to a year, had pushed the territory to the brink of a humanitarian crisis, and that it was in talks with Israel to deliver aid and medicine to the Palestinians.

"The ICRC is in negotiations with Israel in an effort to bring into Gaza medical supplies, ambulances and food parcels," said Casper Landolt, an ICRC spokesman. "There is also a need for fuel since the bombing of the power station."

Either side of Mr Haniya's sermon, Israeli aircraft kept up their assault against Palestinian militants. Although any large scale ground assault against Gaza appears to have been suspended while back-room negotiations take place for the release of Corporal Shalit, Israeli jets have carried out more than 30 raids against Gaza in the last 24 hours.

Early this morning, missiles destroyed the fourth-floor offices of the Hamas Interior Minister Said Siyam. The ground floor of the ministry was also destroyed, but the first, second and third floors of the building, where passports and ID cards are printed, were left untouched.

This evening, three members of the militant group, Islamic Jihad, were reported injured after their vehicle was hit by Israeli missiles. A statement from the Israeli Defence Force said the men were preparing to attack Israel with anti-tank missiles.

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