Israel was scaling back its 17-day offensive in the Gaza Strip yesterday, after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon heeded the army's warning that an extended stay in crowded Palestinian areas is too risky and the US called for a quick Israeli pullout.
Sharon's decision came just hours after he told legislators Thursday that "Operation Days of Penitence," meant to stop Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli communities, would continue and even be expanded.
The prime minister's apparent zig-zag reflected his dilemma: continued Palestinian rocket attacks undermine support for his planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip next year, while a major military offensive invites international criticism because of heavy Palestinian casualties and does not stop the rocket fire entirely.
Since the Sept. 29 start of the Israeli campaign, triggered by a deadly rocket attack on the Israeli border town of Sderot, 108 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded. Among the dead were dozens of civilians, including 18 minors.
Israeli tanks and bulldozers have left behind a wide swath of destruction in northern Gaza, damaging houses, tearing up water pipes and knocking down electricity poles as they charge through narrow alleys of densely populated areas.
In an 18-page report obtained by reporters on Thursday, the UN wrote that Israel has engaged in "massive and wanton destruction of property" in Gaza. The report, written before the current Gaza operation, said that while some of Israel's actions can be explained by security concerns, many cannot.
The Israeli government said the report, to be presented to the UN General Assembly later this month, does not address the actions of Palestinian militants, including smuggling weapons into Gaza and sending suicide bombers into Israel.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday that the US hopes that Israel can end the Gaza operation "as soon as possible."
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
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