After six days of punishing Israeli air strikes and Palestinian counterattacks with rockets, tough negotiations have opened up in Cairo, that hope to achieve much more than an immediate ceasefire.
Two heavyweights — Hamas’ leaders in exile Khaled Meshal and Moussa Abu Marzouk — have been joined by top guns of other Palestinian factions, including Ramadan Shalah of the Islamic Jihad and Nabil Shaath of Fatah, for talks with Egyptian mediators.
On a parallel track, the Egyptians are engaging two Israeli officials to work out a possible deal that could bring durable calm to Gaza, the impoverished coastal strip with a population of 1.6 million. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — both wired up to speak to Barack Obama, U.S. President — are there to give political shape to the talks, which are bound to encounter several pitfalls, because of the grossly divergent positions of the two sides so far.
In their opening gambit, the Israelis have asked for a 15-year lull in fighting, and a commitment by Palestinians to stop weapon smuggling into Gaza. All Palestinian factions must also stop rocket attacks, and Israeli soldiers on the Gaza border must not be targeted. In response to Israel’s maximalist demands, the Palestinians have demanded the lifting of the siege on Gaza, imposed on the coastal strip by Israel in 2007.
Mr. Shaath, former Palestinian Foreign Minister, was quoted by the Ma’an Palestinian news agency as saying the factions have also called for an end to Israeli incursions into Gaza, a stoppage to assassinations of leaders and a permanent freeze in attacks on fishermen off the coast.
He said Hamas had refused to accept the initial Israeli demand for a handover of weapons, but had agreed not to target civilians after the enforcement of a ceasefire.
The two parties are also arguing over who should stop attacks first; with the Hamas maintaining that Israel should initiate the truce because it had triggered the fighting by assassinating on Wednesday, Ahmad al-Jabari — a top Hamas commander.
Ahead of the talks, the Israelis seemed to be holding a gun on the Palestinians’ head by threatening to invade Gaza with ground troops.
“The army is prepared to significantly expand the operation,” asserted Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, at the start of a Cabinet meeting on Sunday. But it was unlikely that the Israeli bluster would impress the Palestinians, despite the gross asymmetry in military capabilities of the two sides.
Analysts say the Palestinians are counting on the heavy price that Israelis would have to pay, which could include sacrificing their ties with Egypt, should they choose to invade Gaza. An incursion would impose enormous pressure on the Egyptian leadership to scrap the 1979 peace treaty that anchors Egyptian-Israeli ties, in tune with the raucously emotive pro-Palestinian popular sentiment in the country.
In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Abu Marzouk, the senior Hamas leader, said moderate Islamist politicians in the region, including the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, would have to line up with the Gaza militants, should the Israelis decide to invade.
“The position of all Islamists in the region will be that of Hamas,” observed Mr. Abu Marzouk.
Despite supporting Israel in its air campaign, the West is also discouraging Israel from launching a ground offensive. William Hague, British Foreign Secretary, said on television on Sunday he, along with Prime Minister David Cameron had “stressed to our Israeli counterparts that a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support and sympathy that they have in this situation”.
These remarks come at a time when Israel has been hit by a public relations disaster, after a rogue Sunday air raid on Gaza killed nine members — all women and children — of the al-Dalou family.
Pictures of the tragedy from the site showed people pulling out bodies of dead children from the rubble. The sharply escalating death spiral in Gaza has now touched the 70 mark, out of which 20 are children.
Keywords: Hamas attack, Israeli air strikes, Gaza bombing, Middle East conflict, Israel-Palestine conflict
Israel may fall into a pincer attack.Syria shelling north Israel to
claim Golan Heights.
Hebzollah Lebanon rocket attacks from the west.
PA border skirmish in the east to press for UN observer status.
Rocket attacks from Gaza south
this unintended sudden strikes by israel clearly shows its way of
gathereing sentiments among israelis just before jan 2013 elections
and the lukid party leading to one of the man eaters syndrome.
this inhuman act clearly shows different protocols for different
nations by the UN and west.if the same could have been done by the
opposite it would have lead to condemanation by the USA west UN
etc.the world needs to express their feeling towards the inhuman
nature shown towards the poor palestenians. the world cant rest in
peace unless the problem of israel-paleatenine is solved .world war-3
may happen either due to isreal-palesteneine conflict or may be due to
resources.
Israel is really testing her American supplied fire arms, missiles and
the most trusted iron dome missile shield to prepare for the bigger war
of the Century, the coming IRAN WAR. The current Israeli war is not
going to end unless the grand testing operation is complete and received
green signal from the Pentagon.
Noam Chomsky about the recent bombing of Gaza:
The incursion & bombardment of Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. It is not about stopping rocket fire into Israel, it is not about achieving peace.The Israeli decision to rain death & destruction on Gaza, to use lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase in a decades-long campaign to ethnically-cleanse Palestinians.Israel uses sophisticated attack jets & naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, & slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army… & calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing.
Israel keeps saying they are retaliating to missiles launched from Gaza
that endanger their 1 million population. How many Israelis have died
from these attacks from Gaza in the last week? This is nothing more than
a political stunt being pulled off just before the election.
This is what Mahatma Gandhi predicted about what happens to a nation when it is formed in the name of religion. Violence, Violence and nothing but violence. There is another example about which everyone knows.
Israel must stop the crippling blocade of Gaza, which is extremely inhumane and causes a lot of suffering. Even the fishermen are only allowed to fish within three miles of the coastline. Why is the world not speaking up, why is India not speaking up? This is totally inhumane and firing rockets at Israel is the only way the citizens of Gaza can protest.
It's heart rending to know what's been happening on the Mediterranean coast. Either of the warring groups should halt their offensives or the UN, at the least should work more actively for reconciliation to avoid the loss of civilian life.
While loss of civilian lives is saddening,one should think about the root cause of the issue.Hamas and its allies refuse to recognize Israel as a nation and want to annihilate it.The incessant firing of rockets into Israel was a step towards it.Obviously,Israel has the right to retaliate,even though it might have overdone it.The conflict will go on unless the nations reconcile to the existence of Israel.
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