Hamas Ends Ceasefire

[bigfootedfred]

Seven people, including three children,
have been killed by Israeli shells which hit a beach in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say.

At least 30 people were wounded in the shelling, they say.
The Israeli military says it has halted all shelling of Gaza
and has launched an inquiry into whether ground-based artillery could have been involved.
In a statement, the military wing of Hamas threatened to resume attacks on Israel in the wake of "massacres".
The group has been observing a self-imposed ceasefire for more than a year.
Although there have been threats of a response to other attacks in recent months, the BBC's Simon Wilson in Jerusalem says the move is significant because it appears on the official website of the armed wing of the group.

The incidents come a day after senior Palestinian official Jamal Abu Samhadana
was killed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah, the southern Gaza.
Samhadana - the founder of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) -
was buried in Rafah on Friday, with thousands of mourners pledging to avenge his death.
Samhadana was one of Israel's most wanted men in Gaza, and his group has been blamed for a series of missile attacks on Israel.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli strikes in Gaza.
"What the Israeli occupation forces are doing in the Gaza Strip constitutes a war of extermination and bloody massacres against our people," Mr Abbas said in a statement carried by the Palestinian official Wafa news agency.
UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said London was "deeply concerned by reports of the deaths from Israeli
shelling of civilians, including children, on a Gaza beach".

Anyone would think isreal wants carnage. im starting to think thats exactly what they want.
Carnage. a nice excuse to finally deal with their 'Palestinian question'
source

[danzig]

Whats the weather going to be like in NYC tomorrow and any idea of current traffic reports? Since most of your posts are generally just links to news articles with very little added commentary or point figure you may as go all the way. Oh and please keep us up to date on World Cup scores k?

*edit* and Im just kidding really

[bigfootedfred]

UPDATE:

Hamas vow to end truce

The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, has said it will no longer respect a self-imposed truce.
In a statement on its website, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigade said Israeli "massacres" had spurred the decision.
Seven people, including three children, died on Friday when Israeli shells hit a beach in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say.

Hamas's armed wing posted a message on its website and distributed leaflets
declaring the end of a ceasefire that had held since February 2005.
"The Israeli massacres represent a direct opening battle and that means the earthquake in the Zionist cities will resume and the herds of occupiers have no choice but to prepare the coffins or the departing luggage," the statement read.
The BBC's Simon Wilson, in Jerusalem, says there have been threats of a response to previous attacks, but the official nature of this response appears significant.

source

changed title to reflect the rapidly changing story.
The message from hamas seems very clear now.
Now they are the PA, and they are the offical leaders of palestine.

[Freddie]

UPDATE:

Hamas vow to end truce



source

changed title to reflect the rapidly changing story.
The message from hamas seems very clear now.
Now they are the PA, and they are the offical leaders of palestine.

Hamas is a Militant Islamist organization. Its ideology is indistinguishable from that of al-Qaeda, even if its ambitions are currently limited to waging a violent jihad against “infidels” only on the battlefield between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. (Although, as scholar Daniel Pipes has noted, a recent Hamas children's publication calls for parts of Spain to be returned to Muslim rule as well.)

Hamas has close ties with Iran's radical mullahs. And it is unambiguous in its enthusiasm for terrorism: It parades its children dressed up as suicide bombers.

The annihilation of Israel is not merely Hamas' negotiating posture. It is a deeply held religious conviction. Jews, Christians and moderate Muslims may not like Hamas' interpretation of Islam. But we can't just wish it away.

Does that imply that progress toward peace is impossible in the near term? Of course it does. Nevertheless, this is a significant moment. Palestinian voters were given the opportunity to make a choice. Respecting that choice demands they now be given the chance to accept its consequences. To do otherwise would be to treat Palestinians as infants.

Hamas will have authority. It must be saddled with responsibility as well. The U.S. and Europe say they will not fund a Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority until and unless Hamas recognizes Israel's right to exist. So Hamas must either change or govern without Western aid and investment. But change – sincere change, not rhetorical chance – is difficult when policy is based on a religious obligation to raise “the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.”

[bigfootedfred]

Pherhaps two extremes are the best people to talk to each other in this situation.

With any luck this will pass, israel has attacked only the hamas men going to launch rockets in response.
So lets just hope we dont hear any thing else. and this may just pass.

[Siblesz]

Anyone would think isreal wants carnage. im starting to think thats exactly what they want.
Carnage. a nice excuse to finally deal with their 'Palestinian question'
source

Funny how you try to equate the crisis in Palestine with what happened during Nazi Germany by quoting 'Palestinian question'. There's really no basis for comparison, either for Israel's intentions or for the conflict in itself.

[Red Harvest]

This will be interesting, since when Hamas ends its truce it is effectively the elected govt. at war with Israel and by extension the Palestinians themselves will be responsible, since this is their elected representation. So the Palestinian territories will clearly represent terrorist entities themselves...rather than just harboring them.

Very interesting.

Bigfootedfred neglected to post about the Palestinian rocket attack and on target retaliatory kills that also occurred during the same time period. The incident in question does look like some sort of serious mistake. Mistakes will happen though when you have terrorists working among your population...and the consequences are severe.

[Last Roman]

Anyone would think isreal wants carnage. im starting to think thats exactly what they want.
Carnage. a nice excuse to finally deal with their 'Palestinian question'

you forgot to add that Isreal only shelled to stop rocket attacks. so it was retaliation, not genocide as you seem to imply

edit: Red Harvest beat me to it

[bigfootedfred]

I apologise for my poor taste.
But i felt it was nesscary.
Seeing a family on picnic dead becuase a shell landed on their head, and more than 30 wounded does tick me off.
Isreal monitors the gaza strip very well indeed,
but They've been shelling civillian areas for nearly a year
Something like this was bound to happen,
one stray shell, thats all it needs, and you hit civllians.
Sometime they are lucky, today they were not.

they also wernt lucky several times before

such as the 11th of april

Israel has said it will intensify its artillery bombardment of the Gaza Strip
to deter rocket attacks by Palestinian militants on its territory.

Officials said they regretted the recent deaths
of a number of Palestinian civilians but were set on stopping the rocket attacks.
An eight-year-old girl killed by a shell on Monday has been buried.
She was the 16th Palestinian to die in Israeli air and artillery attacks on Gaza in the past four days.

link

[Major.Stupidity]

I apologise for my poor taste.
But i felt it was nesscary.
Seeing a family on picnic dead becuase a shell landed on their head, and more than 30 wounded does tick me off.
Isreal monitors the gaza strip very well indeed,
but They've been shelling civillian areas for nearly a year
Something like this was bound to happen,
one stray shell, thats all it needs, and you hit civllians.
Sometime they are lucky, today they were not.

they also wernt lucky several times before

such as the 11th of april





link

Still, there was no need to equate the way Israel treats the Palestinians to the Holocaust. Its anti intellectual, and ignores the reality in Israel with militants launching at random rockets into Jewish settlements.

[Red Harvest]

I apologise for my poor taste.
But i felt it was nesscary.
Seeing a family on picnic dead becuase a shell landed on their head, and more than 30 wounded does tick me off.
Isreal monitors the gaza strip very well indeed,
but They've been shelling civillian areas for nearly a year
Something like this was bound to happen,
one stray shell, thats all it needs, and you hit civllians.
Sometime they are lucky, today they were not.

Hey, I've got an idea! How about the Palestinians renounce terrorism, quit calling for the destruction of Israel, and actually try PEACE? It is the Palestinians that walked away from negotiations.

The aggressor is not Israel. They are stuck trying to pick terrorists out from civilians, and they will make mistakes--it is not an exact science and mistakes are messy, but they have no choice. You can imagine how tough the job must be when terrorists form much of the opposing govt. As Golda Meir said to Sadat before peace talks, "We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours."

Your concern is certainly misplaced. The Palestinians don't want peace but instead have elected a govt. based on the principle of destroying Israel, so you blame the problem on the Israelis? Unreal. Another Golda Meir quote, "Golda Meir: "There will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel."

The lack of strategic insight of blaming this on Israel reminds me of the old joke about the two friends standing by the river. Someone floats by drowning, they swim in and rescue the person. This happens again, they rescue another. Finally, a third person floats toward them, but one fellow doesn't jump in, and instead starts running up river.
His friend cries out, "Hey, where are you going, there are people drowning?"
To which he responds, "I'm going to find the SOB thats throwing them in!"

Focus on the root problem, not symptoms and side effects.

[Sétanta]

I will admit that sometimes Israeli military actions seems heavy handed, but what would you rather have them do? Let splinter cell Palestinian groups attack you ceasefire or not?

[bigfootedfred]

Their 'heavy handedness' just ended the hamas ceace fire.
I do not soley blame the problems there on irsreal.
But this,
Even abbas, the ussally more moderate guy, is now speaking in very agressive terms.
That is why i asked, right from the start Do the isrealis want carngage?
Or are they just mad?
Shelling for months, 250 shells a day on one given area.

The ceasefire, really does seem over.
cnn cbs , bbc ..

[Gaius Baltar]

I will admit that sometimes Israeli military actions seems heavy handed, but what would you rather have them do? Let splinter cell Palestinian groups attack you ceasefire or not?

I cant understand why a naval vessel would be firing at a beach anyway. Was there supposed to be a "target" nearby". Using naval gunfire to respond to rocket attacks is like using a handgrenade to peel potatoes.

Or was this a case of an Israeli with an itchy trigger finger?

[Mangalore]

Hey, I've got an idea! How about the Palestinians renounce terrorism, quit calling for the destruction of Israel, and actually try PEACE? It is the Palestinians that walked away from negotiations.

The aggressor is not Israel.
....

uhm, nearly a third of Israel is territory is land stolen from Palestinians, I say stolen because this land claims were never accepted by the UN and thus remains occupied territory Israel has actually no right to take over, settle, lay claim on. Similarily several million displaced Palestines as a result of Israel's politics makes Israel definitely an aggressor towards the Palestinians, if only from the perspective of the Palestinians.

That may not excuse terrorism but to claim Israel is merely defending itself does not work in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as you have several millions people practically under foreign occupation for decades now who clearly state they don't want to be.


I kind of wonder if Israel's military actions that led to this response were not a bit misplaced. Hamas was quickly losing support among the Palestinians as they actually had no clue about turning the tables to good either. This attacks by the Israeli military gave Hamas a good excuse to go all the way towards their radical positions and possibly gain public opinion because of it, afterall now elected government officials got killed not some undesirable "civilian" aka terrorist.

[Red Harvest]

uhm, nearly a third of Israel is territory is land stolen from Palestinians, I say stolen because this land claims were never accepted by the UN and thus remains occupied territory Israel has actually no right to take over, settle, lay claim on. Similarily several million displaced Palestines as a result of Israel's politics makes Israel definitely an aggressor towards the Palestinians, if only from the perspective of the Palestinians.

Oh, get real. Israel gained control of these fighting a war for survival. They have every right to claim every bit of that land including the territories, because they are still in a state of war. The whole lot of the Palestinians in the territories are fortunate not to have been displaced for security reasons alone. Frankly, I'm amazed at how tolerant Israel has been over the decades. I doubt ANY other nation would have been as restrained as they have been for six decades in a fight for survival.

After seeing the Palestinians celebrating in the street on 9/11...I think I have their measure.

[Denny Crane!]

It was not in fact responce to a rocket attack but a regular activity designed to discourage militants from practicing in open areas.

It has a large element of randomness and does nothing to help the peace process, especially when something like this happens. It is a propaganda nightmare and sheer stupidity and unexcusable. To discourage a handful of rocket attacks they have guarunteed a couple of suicide bombers.

Slow hand clap for the israelis.

Peter

[Perikles]

The ceasefire has always been temporary, it could never last, especially with hamas in charge of the Palestinians. I don't see why Israel has to keep shelling them in the name of peace though, maybe they just want trouble like you said....

[Adherbal]

how about we buldoze the temple mount and that jewish temple wall and any other religious places in the region so those idiots on both sides can nolonger claim them, and end negotiations because the other side refuses to give them up.

If I was world leader this israel-palistina problem would be solved within a couple of years. Pitty it's not that simple.

[Total Warrior X]

how about we buldoze the temple mount and that jewish temple wall and any other religious places in the region so those idiots on both sides can nolonger claim them, and end negotiations because the other side refuses to give them up.

If I was world leader this israel-palistina problem would be solved within a couple of years. Pitty it's not that simple.

Thats what I would do, seriously. Build a school on top of the Mount.