The fighting in Gaza is quiet, at least for now, but it has sparked an uproar in Britain, where two major broadcasters are under fire for refusing to air a charity appeal to help Palestinian victims there.

The conflict pits the venerable British Broadcasting Corp. and Rupert Murdoch’s burgeoning Sky News empire — which maintain they must protect their journalistic impartiality — against British lawmakers and protesters demanding that the Gaza appeal be shown.

They argue that Sky and BBC are denying viewers the chance to learn about the horrendous situation civilians face in Gaza so they can, if they wish, make contributions that would help provide badly needed food, water and medicine.

Jeremy Corbyn, a governing Labour Party lawmaker, said he and other legislators will demand that the appeal be broadcast when they meet Tuesday with BBC executives.

European Union foreign ministers pressed Israel to allow more food and medicine into the Gaza Strip and reopen border checkpoints as the only way to ensure a lasting cease-fire after three weeks of fighting.

Israeli troops pulled out of Gaza last week, ending a 22-day land, sea and air offensive aimed at halting the shelling of Israeli cities by Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls Gaza.

Israel waged war on Hamas for 22 days, but on the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza there is little question that the group retains a firm grip on power.

Hamas policemen wearing fatigues and cradling assault rifles stand guard at their usual posts, even where the buildings they have been assigned to protect no longer exist. Movement officials — some still in hiding, some back in public — coordinate cleanup efforts. And pro-Hamas preachers celebrate their “victory” in mosques overflowing with followers who say their devotion to the group has only grown after a war that cost nearly 1,300 Palestinian lives.

Important to note, that Hamas is democratically elected by Gazan people.

In cyclone-like international phone-call diplomacy, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has centered the Middle East crisis on her agenda, showing her determination to challenge the tough issue.

Clinton has phoned leaders or her counterparts of Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France, Germany, Czech, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Mexico, spokesman Robert Wood said on Friday.

“The secretary expressed the desire to work closely with them,” Wood said, adding that most of the phone conversations were focused on the crisis in the Gaza Strip.

“The Obama administration hasn’t fully enunciated its Middle East policy. It will do so in “an appropriate time,” said the spokesman.

The Israeli military announced in a report on Thursday that it has used at least 20 white phosphorus bombs inside civilian areas during the IDF’s offensive in the Gaza Strip to try and stop rockets being fired by Hamas, from going into southern Israel. The report comes as Israeli naval gunships went silent for the first time since Israel announced their ceasefire on January 18, with Hamas following a few days later.

The report states that the military used white phosphorous bombs in civilian areas, with at least twenty phosphorous shells fired by a reserve paratroops brigade into a densely packed area of Beit Lahiya. The United Nations head quarters and a hospital in Gaza City were also bombed with white phosphorus.

A summit meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday will try to help Egypt turn Israel’s unilateral ceasefire in Gaza into a mutual agreement leading to Israeli withdrawal, Egypt said.

A new audio message purported to be from Osama Bin Laden has urged Muslims to launch a holy war to stop the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip.

The message also said Israel’s assault was a desperate attempt to benefit from the last days of President George Bush.

It also accused Arab leaders of colluding with the Jewish state.

The US has dismissed the tape, saying it shows the al-Qaeda leader’s isolation, and looks like an attempt to raise money.

November 5: Israel closes all of its crossings with Gaza.

December 14: Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal announces the six-month ceasefire with Israel will not be extended.

December 19: Six-month ceasefire between Hamas and Israel officially expires.

December 21: Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, says that her primary goal if she wins Israeli elections, will be to overthrow Hamas.

December 27: Israel begins assault on Gaza, codenamed “Operation Cast Lead”, by launching air raids that kill more than 225 Palestinians.

One Israeli is killed and six others wounded in missile attacks by Palestinian fighters.

December 28: Israeli aircraft bomb the Islamic University in Gaza City and the length of the Gaza-Egypt border, taking out more than 40 tunnels used to smuggle vital goods to the strip.

Hundreds of Israeli infantry and armoured forces mass on the border of the territory, and the army is given approval to call up reservists to bolster its fighting strength.

December 29: Israeli air strikes hit the interior ministry in Gaza City as Israel declares a “closed military zone” around the Gaza strip.

December 30: Rockets fired from Palestinian positions kill three Israelis, taking the death toll from Palestinian rocket attacks to four since the beginning of the Israeli offensive.

The European Union calls for “an unconditional halt to rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel and an end to Israeli military action”.

December 31: Members of the UN Security Council end an emergency meeting on the crisis after failing to agree on the wording of a draft resolution.

January 1: Hamas official Nizar Rayyan is killed along with 14 members of his family in an Israeli raid.

January 2: Egypt begins talks with Hamas over a way to end the conflict.

Around 25,000 Palestinians have fled the fighting [AFP]

January 3: As Israel begins its ground offensive in Gaza, at least 11 Palestinians, including one child, are killed after Israeli forces strike a mosque in the town of Beit Lahiya.

January 4: Israeli forces cut Gaza in half and ring Gaza City itself as an Israeli soldier is killed in the ongoing offensive.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, pledges an additional $4.2 million of emergency aid for Gaza and calls on Israel to respect international law.

An Israeli air strike hits two ambulances in Gaza, killing four paramedics.

January 5: Air and naval bombardments kill 45 Palestinians.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, holds talks with Hosni Mubarak, his Egyptian counterpart, to push for a truce deal.

January 6: An Israeli strike on a UN school in the northern town of Jabaliya kills 43 Palestinians and injures at least 100 who had taken refuge inside the school.

Israeli strikes hit two other schools, killing two in the southern town of Khan Younis and three in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.

January 7: 11 Palestinians are killed by air strikes and shelling in Gaza City and in the north of the Strip.

Violence continues after Israel temporarily halts attacks in Gaza City for three hours to provide a “humanitarian respite.”

The Israeli military drops leaflets warning thousands of people in the Rafah zone on the Egyptian border to leave their houses or face air strikes.

More than 4,300 Palestinians have been wounded in the fighting [AFP]
January 8: The UN’s refugee organisation in Gaza suspends all aid deliveries after an Israeli tank attacks a UN convoy, killing one Palestinian driver and injuring two other people.

Israeli bulldozers cross into Gaza and destroy a number of houses.

At least three rockets fired from Lebanon hit the northern Isreali town of Nahariya.

The UN Security Council passes resolution, with 14 votes in favour and only the US abstaining, that “stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza”.

January 9: Israeli attacks continue in Gaza soon after passing of UN resolution, with a series of explosions and gunfire heard.

Six Palestinians reportedly killed in an air strike in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, raising the Palestinian death toll in Gaza to around 770, including more than 200 children, since the Israeli offensive began.

January 10: Israel drops leaflets on Gaza City warning of a “new phase” in its two-week-old offensive.

Eight family members are killed by an Israeli tank shell in Jabaliya, raising the Palestinian death toll in Gaza to 831 people.

Khalid Meshaal, the exiled political leader of Hamas, says that Israel must halt the Gaza offensive and lift the blockade before Hamas agrees to a ceasefire deal.

January 11: Israel is accused of firing white phosporous bombs on densely-populated Gaza in violation of international law.

Israel reports to the UN that troops in the occupied Golan Heights came under small arms fire from Syria, but there were no injuries.

Israel began sending reservists into the Gaza Strip as the military offensive continued unabated for the 16th consecutive day.

January 12: Israel continues its offensive and the UN Human Rights Council adopts a non-binding resolution condemning Israel’s military offensive.

The resolution calls for an international mission to be immediately sent to Gaza to investigate Israel’s actions.

The toll rises to 935 Palestinians killed and 4,300 wounded. At least 25,000 people in Gaza are internally displaced but are unable to flee because crossing points remain closed.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

In a speech late on Monday, Olmert said Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, was left “pretty shamed” at the vote and had to abstain on a resolution she had helped arrange.

The Israeli prime minister said on Monday that he demanded to talk to Bush last Thursday, minutes before a vote in the UN Security Council on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“When we saw that Rice, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favour of the resolution … I looked for President Bush,” Olmert said.

Bush, who Olmert said was taken off a stage in Philadelphia where he was making a speech, said he was not informed on the resolution and was “not familiar with the phrasing”.

“I’m familiar with it. You can’t vote in favour.” Olmert claimed telling the US president.

“He [Bush] gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it, a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvred for,” Olmert said.

Bush was in Philadelphia on Thursday morning and gave a 27-minute speech on education policy that ended about 10 hours before the UN vote and there was no interruption of the public event.

The Israeli prime minister described Bush as an “unparalleled friend” of Israel.

US official denies the Olmert confession as untrue.

Obviously, it’s not difficult to imagine the understandable rage that Israelis feel when learning of another attack on Israeli civilians, in exactly the way that American rage over the 9/11 attacks was understandable. But just as that American anger didn’t justify anything and everything that followed, the fact that there are indefensible attacks on Israeli civilians doesn’t render the (far more lethal) attacks on Gaza either wise or just — as numerous Jewish residents of Sderot themselves are courageously arguing in opposing the Israeli attack.

Especially in the American media, there is a constant focus on the effects on civilians from the rocket attacks on Southern Israelis — as well there should be, since that is an important part of the debate. But everyone should also be permitted to view the devastating effects on actual human beings from these Israeli bombing and artillery raids in Gaza.