GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing at least 155 and wounding more than 310 in the single bloodiest day of fighting in recent memory.

Hamas said all of its security installations were hit and responded with several medium-range Grad rockets at Israel, reaching deeper than in the past. One Israeli was killed and at least four people were wounded.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said “the operation will last as long as necessary,” but it was not clear if it would be coupled with a ground offensive. Asked if Hamas political leaders might be targeted next, military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich said, “Any Hamas target is a target.”

The strikes caused widespread panic and confusion in Gaza, as black clouds of smoke rose above the territory, ruled by Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as children were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children.

In Gaza City’s main security compound, bodies of more than a dozen uniformed security officers lay on the ground. One survivor raised his index finger in a show of Muslim faith, uttering a prayer. The Gaza police chief was among those killed. One man, his face bloodied, sat dazed on the ground as a fire raged nearby.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many civilian casualties there were.

Said Masri sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, close to a security compound, alternately slapping his face and covering his head with dust from the bombed-out building.

“My son is gone, my son is gone,” wailed Masri, 57. The shopkeeper said he sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and now could not find him. “May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn,” Masri moaned.

Defiant Hamas leaders threatened revenge, including suicide attacks. Hamas “will continue the resistance until the last drop of blood,” vowed spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.

Israel told its civilians near Gaza to take cover as militants began retaliating with rockets, and in the West Bank, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for restraint. Egypt summoned the Israeli ambassador to express condemnation and opened its border with Gaza to allow ambulances to drive out some of the wounded.

Protests erupted in the Abbas-ruled West Bank and across the Arab world.

Several hundred angry Jordanians poured protested outside a U.N. complex in the capital Amman. “Hamas, go ahead. You are the cannon, we are the bullets,” they cried, some waving the signature green Hamas banners.

In Beirut, dozens of youths hit the streets and set fire to tires. In Syria’s al-Yarmouk camp, outside Damascus, dozens of Palestinians protested the attack as well, vowing to continue fighting Israel.

Israeli leaders approved military action against Gaza earlier in the week.

Past limited ground incursions and air strikes have not halted rocket barrages from Gaza.

But with 200 mortars and rockets raining down on Israel since the truce expired a week ago, and 3,000 since the beginning of the year, according to the military’s count, pressure had been mounting in Israel for the military to crush the gunmen.

Earlier this month, Israeli security officials told the government that militants possess rockets with ranges capable of reaching farther from Gaza than ever before, including the cities of Beersheba and Ashdod.

Gaza militants fired several rockets Saturday, including one that struck a new target, the town of Kiryat Gat. A missile hit on the town of Netivot killed an Israeli man and wounded four people, rescue services said. In Ashkelon, TV cameras showed people huddle against a wall as a rocket alert sounded.

Barak, the Israeli defense minister, said that the coming period “won’t be easy and won’t be short for the communities in the south (of Israel).

Israel declared a state of emergency in Israeli communities within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) range of Gaza, putting the area on a war footing.

The first round of air strikes came just before noon, and several more waves followed.

Hospitals crowded with people, civilians rushing in wounded people in cars, vans and ambulances. “We are treating people on the floor, in the corridors. We have no more space. We don’t know who is here and what the priority is to treat,” said a doctor at Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s main treatment center. He hung up the phone before identifying himself.

Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a Gaza Health Ministry official, said at least 145 people were killed and more than 300 wounded.

Frantic civilians drove wounded people to hospitals in their cars.

In the West Bank, Hamas‘ rival, Abbas, said in a statement that he “condemns this aggression” and called for restraint, according to an aide, Nabil Abu Rdeneh. Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since the Islamic Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007, was in contact with Arab leaders, and his West Bank Cabinet convened an emergency session.

Israel has targeted Gaza in the past, but the number of simultaneous attacks was unprecedented.

Israel left Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, but the withdrawal did not lead to better relations with Palestinians in the territory as Israeli officials had hoped.

Instead, the evacuation was followed by a sharp rise in militant attacks on Israeli border communities that on several occasions provoked harsh Israeli military reprisals.

The last, in late February and early March, spurred both sides to agree to a truce that was to have lasted six months but began unraveling in early November. In recent days, Israeli leaders had been voicing strong threats to launch a major offensive.

We think that there should be some world cease fire for all these warring factions to be put into a soundproof room, and forced to work it out before they are released. however long it took and regardless of how bloody they made each other, they’d be forced to face their Stupidity and Stop this Madness.

War Regardless of What it’s Begun Over; always Ends as a Very Expensive and Worthless Exercise, Always

We Had to Include this as a rememberance piece, for 2008; as we do each year. remember your favorites, and celebrate their greatness today.

Hope this helps you

January

• January 3 – Yo-Sam Choi, Korean boxer (b. 1972)
• January 10 – Maila Nurmi, Finnish-American actress and television personality (b. 1921)
• January 11 – Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist (b. 1919)
• January 15 – Brad Renfro, American actor (b. 1982)
• January 16 – Nikola Kljusev, Macedonian Prime Minister (b. 1927)
• January 17 – Bobby Fischer, American-Icelandic chess grandmaster (b. 1943)
• January 19 – Suzanne Pleshette, American actress (b. 1937)
• January 22 – Heath Ledger, Australian actor (b. 1979)
• January 22 – Claude Piron, Swiss linguist and psychologist (b. 1931)
• January 26 – George Habash, Palestinian politician (b. 1926)
• January 27 – Gordon B. Hinckley, American Mormon leader (b. 1910)
• January 27 – Suharto, 2nd President of Indonesia (b. 1921)
• January 28 – Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens (b. 1939)

February

• February 2 – Joshua Lederberg, American molecular biologist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1925)
• February 5 – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Indian spiritual leader (b. 1917)
• February 7 – Andrew Bertie, British Grand Master of the Order of Malta (b. 1929)
• February 9 – Baba Amte, Indian social activist (b. 1914)
• February 10 – Roy Scheider, American actor (b. 1932)
• February 11 – Alfredo Reinado, East Timorese rebel (b. 1967)
• February 11 – Tom Lantos, American politician (b. 1928)

• February 12 – Imad Mughniyah, Lebanese militant (b. 1962)
• February 12 – Badri Patarkatsishvili, Georgian businessman and politician (b. 1955)
• February 13 – Kon Ichikawa, Japanese film director (b. 1915)
• February 13 – Henri Salvador, French singer (b. 1917)
• February 18 – Alain Robbe-Grillet, French writer and filmmaker (b. 1922)
• February 19 – Natalia Bessmertnova, Russian ballerina (b. 1941)
• February 19 – Yegor Letov, Russian singer (b. 1964)
• February 19 – Lydia Shum, Hong Kong comedian and actress (b. 1945)
• February 23 – Janez Drnovšek, 2nd President and 2nd Prime Minister of Slovenia (b. 1950)
• February 23 – Paul Frère, Belgian racing driver (b. 1917)
• February 27 – William F. Buckley, Jr., American author and conservative commentator (b. 1925)
• February 27 – Ivan Rebroff, German singer (b. 1931)

March

• March 1 – Raúl Reyes, Colombian guerrilla (b. 1948)
• March 2 – Jeff Healey, Canadian musician (b. 1966)
• March 3 – Giuseppe Di Stefano, Italian operatic tenor (b. 1921)
• March 3 – Norman Smith, English singer and record producer (b. 1923)
• March 4 – Gary Gygax, American writer and game designer (b. 1938)
• March 6 – Peter Poreku Dery, Ghanaian cardinal (b. 1918)
• March 5 – Joseph Weizenbaum, German-American author and computer scientist (b. 1923)
• March 12 – Lazare Ponticelli, Last French veteran of World War I (b. 1897)
• March 14 – Chiara Lubich, Italian Catholic activist (b. 1920)
• March 18 – Anthony Minghella, English film director and screenwriter (b. 1954)
• March 19 – Arthur C. Clarke, English author, inventor, and futurist (b. 1917)
• March 19 – Hugo Claus, Flemish writer, painter and film director (b. 1929)

• March 19 – Paul Scofield, English actor (b. 1922)
• March 22 – Adolfo Suárez Rivera, Mexican cardinal (b. 1927)
• March 24 – Neil Aspinall, British record producer and business executive (b. 1942)
• March 24 – Richard Widmark, American actor (b. 1914)
• March 26 – Manuel Marulanda, Colombian guerrilla (b. 1930)
• March 27 – Jean-Marie Balestre, French sports executive (b. 1921)
• March 30 – Dith Pran, Cambodian-American photojournalist (b. 1942)
• March 31 – Jules Dassin, American film director (b. 1911)

April

• April 3 – Hrvoje Ćustić, Croatian footballer (b. 1983)
• April 5 – Charlton Heston, American actor (b. 1923)
• April 10 – Ernesto Corripio y Ahumada, Mexican cardinal (b. 1919)
• April 12 – Patrick Hillery, 6th President of Ireland (b. 1923)
• April 13 – John Archibald Wheeler, American theoretical physicist (b. 1911)
• April 14 – Ollie Johnston, American animator (b. 1912)
• April 15 – Benoît Lamy, Belgian motion picture writer-director (b. 1945)
• April 16 – Edward Norton Lorenz, American mathematician and meteorologist (b. 1917)
• April 17 – Aimé Césaire, French Martinican poet and politician (b. 1913)
• April 29 – Albert Hofmann, Swiss chemist and writer, discoverer of LSD (b. 1906)

May

• May 1 – Anthony Mamo, 1st President of Malta (b. 1909)
• May 2 – Philipp von Boeselager, German military officer (b. 1917)
• May 3 – Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, 74th Prime Minister of Spain (b. 1926)
• May 8 – François Sterchele, Belgian footballer (b. 1982)
• May 10 – Leyla Gencer, Turkish soprano (b. 1928)
• May 12 – Robert Rauschenberg, American pop artist (b. 1925)
• May 12 – Irena Sendler, Polish humanitarian (b. 1910)
• May 13 – Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait (b. 1930)
• May 13 – Bernardin Gantin, Beninese cardinal (b. 1922)
• May 15 – Willis Lamb, American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
• May 23 – Cornell Capa, Hungarian-American photographer (b. 1918)
• May 26 – Sydney Pollack, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1934)
• May 28 – Sven Davidson, Swedish tennis player (b. 1928)

June

• June 1 – Yves Saint Laurent, French fashion designer (b. 1936)
• June 1 – Tommy Lapid, Israeli television presenter, journalist, and politician (b. 1931)
• June 2 – Bo Diddley, American musician (b. 1928)
• June 3 – Mel Ferrer, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1917)
• June 4 – Agata Mróz-Olszewska, Polish volleyball player (b. 1982)
• June 7 – Dino Risi, Italian director (b. 1916)
• June 8 – Šaban Bajramović, Serbian musician (b. 1936)
• June 9 – Algis Budrys, Lithuanian-American science fiction writer (b. 1931)
• June 9 – Karen Asrian, Armenian chess grandmaster (b. 1980)
• June 10 – Chinghiz Aitmatov, Kyrgyzstani writer (b. 1928)
• June 11 – Ove Andersson, Swedish rally driver (b. 1939)
• June 11 – Võ Văn Kiệt, Vietnamese prime minister (b. 1922)
• June 13 – Tim Russert, American journalist (b. 1950)
• June 15 – Stan Winston, American special effects and make up artist (b. 1946)
• June 17 – Cyd Charisse, American actress and dancer (b. 1922)
• June 18 – Jean Delannoy, French film director (b. 1908)
• June 22 – George Carlin, American author, actor, and comedian (b. 1937)
• June 23 – Arthur Chung, President of Guyana (b. 1918)
• June 24 – Leonid Hurwicz, American economist, mathematician, and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1917)
• June 28 – Ruslana Korshunova, Kazakhstani model (b. 1987)
• June 29 – Don S. Davis, American actor (b. 1942)

July

• July 4 – Jesse Helms, American politician (b. 1921)
• July 4 – Evelyn Keyes, American actress (b. 1916)
• July 5 – René Harris, President of Nauru (b. 1947)
• July 11 – Michael E. DeBakey, American surgeon and inventor (b. 1908)
• July 12 – Tony Snow, American political commentator (b. 1955)
• July 13 – Bronisław Geremek, Polish social historian and politician (b. 1932)
• July 15 – György Kolonics, Hungarian canoeist (b. 1972)
• July 22 – Estelle Getty, American actress (b. 1923)
• July 23 – Kurt Furgler, Swiss politician (b. 1924)
• July 25 – Johnny Griffin, American saxophonist (b. 1928)
• July 25 – Randy Pausch, American author and computer scientist (b. 1960)
• July 27 – Youssef Chahine, Egyptian film director (b. 1926)
• July 29 – Mate Parlov, Croatian boxer (b. 1948)

August

• August 1 – Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Indian politician (b. 1916)
• August 3 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)
• August 9 – Bernie Mac, American actor and comedian (b. 1957)
• August 9 – Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet (b. 1941)
• August 10 – Isaac Hayes, American musician (b. 1942)
• August 11 – Fred Sinowatz, Austrian politician (b. 1929)
• August 13 – Henri Cartan, French mathematician (b. 1904)
• August 15 – Jerry Wexler, American music producer (b. 1917)
• August 16 – Ronnie Drew, Irish singer (b. 1934)
• August 16 – Masanobu Fukuoka, Japanese microbiologist (b. 1913)
• August 19 – Levy Mwanawasa, President of Zambia (b. 1948)
• August 20 – Hua Guofeng, Chinese premier (b. 1921)
• August 23 – Thomas Huckle Weller, American virologist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1915)
• August 28 – Phil Hill, American race car driver (b. 1927)

September

• September 1 – Don LaFontaine, American voice actor (b. 1940)
• September 6 – Antonio Innocenti, Italian cardinal (b. 1915)
• September 6 – Anita Page, American actress (b. 1910)
• September 9 – Nouhak Phoumsavanh, President of Laos (b. 1910)
• September 12 – David Foster Wallace, American writer (b. 1962)
• September 15 – Richard Wright, English musician (b. 1943)
• September 18 – Mauricio Kagel, Argentine composer (b. 1931)
• September 26 – Paul Newman, American actor (b. 1925)

October

• October 1 – Boris Efimov, Russian political cartoonist (b. 1900)
• October 6 – Paavo Haavikko, Finnish poet (b. 1931)
• October 8 – George Emil Palade, Romanian cell biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
• October 10 – Kazuyoshi Miura, Japanese businessman (b. 1947)
• October 10 – Alexey Prokurorov, Russian cross-country skier (b. 1964)
• October 11 – Jörg Haider, Austrian politician (b. 1950)
• October 13 – Guillaume Depardieu, French actor (b. 1971)
• October 13 – Antonio José González Zumárraga, Ecuadorian cardinal (b. 1925)
• October 17 – Urmas Ott, Estonian talk show host and journalist (b. 1955)
• October 20 – Sœur Emmanuelle, Belgian-born French nun (b. 1908)
• October 25 – Muslim Magomayev, Azerbaijani singer (b. 1942)
• October 26 – Tony Hillerman, American writer (b. 1925)
• October 31 – Studs Terkel, American author (b. 1912)

November

• November 1 – Jacques Piccard, Swiss explorer and engineer (b. 1922)
• November 1 – Yma Sumac, Peruvian soprano (b. 1922)
• November 4 – Michael Crichton, American author and producer (b. 1942)
• November 4 – Juan Camilo Mouriño, Mexican politician (b. 1971)
• November 10 – Kiyoshi Itō, Japanese mathematician (b. 1915)
• November 10 – Miriam Makeba, South African singer (b. 1932)
• November 12 – Mitch Mitchell, English drummer (b. 1947)
• November 13 – Paco Ignacio Taibo I, Mexican writer and journalist (b. 1924)
• November 14 – Tsvetanka Khristova, Bulgarian athlete (b. 1962)
• November 22 – Ibrahim Nasir, Maldivian President (b. 1926)
• November 27 – Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Indian Prime Minister (b. 1931)
• November 29 – Jørn Utzon, Danish architect (b. 1918)

December

• December 1 – Mikel Laboa, Basque singer and songwriter (b. 1934)
• December 2 – Odetta, American singer (b. 1930)
• December 25 – Eartha Kitt, American Singer, Actor, Dancer (b. 1927)