Gaza War

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This is the sadest period for Palestinians; they fighting against each other and Isral is bombing.
Palestinian civil war is great opportunity for zionist to wipe out Hamas and its suppoters.
 
BACK ON TOPIC, SOME GOOD NEWS FOR ONCE IT SEEM HAMAS AND FATAH MAY HAVE REACHED A CEASE FIRE, LETS HOPE THIS ONE STAYS IN EFFECT FOR THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli airstrikes targeted Hamas for a fifth straight day Saturday, hitting a rocket squad and two workshops in Gaza, and the defense minister warned militants who attack Israel they should be "very afraid."

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But Defense Minister Amir Peretz also said now is not the time for a major Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Hospital officials said two Palestinians were killed and four wounded in the latest Israeli strikes.

Days of Israeli air attacks on Hamas targets have coincided with a surge in deadly infighting between Hamas gunmen and rivals from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction. On Saturday, the two groups reached a new cease-fire deal, pledging to pull fighters off the streets and exchange hostages, officials from both sides said.

Previous truce agreements quickly collapsed in recent days, and it was not clear whether this one would hold. Failure to stanch the bloodshed would spell the end of the shaky power-sharing agreement Hamas and Fatah reached two months ago to end a previous round of internal strife.

Clashes erupted outside the home of a senior Fatah official in Gaza City as the latest truce was reached, and security officials said several people were wounded. In the course of the gunbattle, the convoy of a Fatah-allied colonel in the Palestinian intelligence came under fire, but no one was hurt.

Later, however, teams of representatives from the various Palestinian militant factions went around to buildings to make sure gunmen had come down from rooftops. Once rooftops are cleared, an exchange of an unknown number of hostages kidnapped during the past week is to begin. Other faction members removed roadblocks that had been erected during the fighting to identify gunmen from rival factions.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said he expected the latest truce to stick because of Israel's military strikes.

"No one would accept to fight one another while the Israelis are shelling Gaza," he said.

Israel launched its latest round of airstrikes on Tuesday to counter a stepped-up barrage of Hamas rockets on Israeli border towns. The militant group, which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, has fired nearly 120 rockets at southern Israel since Tuesday, the military said.

On Saturday, Israel missiles slammed into a rocket squad near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the army said.

Earlier in the day, missile strikes demolished two suspected Hamas metal workshops.

Saturday's two deaths brought to 22 the number of Palestinians killed in airstrikes in the past week.

Peretz warned militants involved in rocket operations should be "very afraid," because "it is our intention to act against Hamas."

"We are mainly focusing on sensitive locations tied to Hamas," he told Israel Radio, adding that these locations included rocket workshops.

Asked whether Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and the head of Hamas' military wing, Ahmed Jaberi, could also be targets, Peretz said he would not rule out any action that "makes it clear to everyone that we don't intend to allow anyone to harm Israeli citizens."

At the same time, he said Israel would not embark on a major offensive in the Gaza Strip because it had other, unspecified tools in its arsenal to use against rocket-launchers.

Israel's Security Cabinet is to meet on Sunday with senior defense officials to discuss the rocket attacks and how to respond, Israel media reported.

Four rockets hit the border area Saturday, causing damage, but no injury. A day earlier, four Israelis were hurt in rocket attacks.

Peretz said Israel is worried by Hamas' efforts to extend the range of its rockets, which include training in Iran.

The Israeli airstrikes have driven Hamas fighters out of their bases, prompting accusations that Israel is helping Fatah.

Peretz insisted Israel is not interfering in the internal fighting. However, he also said that "we certainly would like the moderate forces to emerge with the upper hand," a reference to Fatah.

The weeklong Hamas-Fatah fighting has killed more than 50 Palestinians and wounded dozens.

By mid-afternoon, Hamas and Fatah announced they had reached a new cease-fire deal, negotiated in a meeting at the Egyptian Embassy and endorsed by Abbas and Hamas' supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal.

"The main guarantee is that this agreement was reached by ... Mr. Abbas and Mr. Mashaal," Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said. "We are trying to have an atmosphere of national unity and reconciliation. The most important thing is to stop any form of internal violence between Palestinians."

Abbas and Haniyeh, the most senior Hamas politician in Gaza, have so far failed to calm the situation, indicating they have largely lost control to the gunmen and their political patrons.

Abbas has stayed in his West Bank headquarters during the fighting. Palestinian officials said he was told by security advisers not to travel to Gaza, for fear of possible danger to his life.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070519/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians
 
Interesting. So I suppose the fact that Israel took out some Hamas sites has worked to bring "unity" amongst the factions? Whatever works I guess. I hope the fighting continues to die off, but something tells me there will be another round of it before its over.

Does anybody know when the next Palestinian election is supposed to take place?
 
:sl:/Peace To All

The following doesn't deal with Gaza, but it does with Israel. And I think it's relevent in pointing out that certain nations don't want peace in the Middle East, and prefer constant chaos in order to have a license to intervene in the region.

The name of the game is continuous destablisation...

U.S. Forbids Israel - Syria TalksU.S. takes Harder Line On Talks

Between Jerusalem, Damascus

By Ze'ev Schiff, Amos Harel and Yoav Stern,
Haaretz Correspondents
Last update - 10:31 24/02/2007
Haaretz


The United States demanded that Israel desist from even exploratory contacts with Syria, of the sort that would test whether Damascus is serious in its declared intentions to hold peace talks with Israel.

In meetings with Israeli officials recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forceful in expressing Washington's view on the matter.

...According to senior Israeli officials, the American position vis-a-vis Syria, as it was expressed by the secretary of state, reflects a hardening of attitudes.

When Israeli officials asked Secretary Rice about the possibility of exploring the seriousness of Syria in its calls for peace talks, her response was unequivocal: Don't even think about it.

Israeli officials, including those in the intelligence community, are divided over the degree to which Syrian President Bashar Assad is serious and sincere in his call for peace talks with Israel.

One view describes Assad's call as a propaganda campaign, and insists that the Syrian leader is not serious. Among those holding this view is Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

In Military Intelligence the view differs. There are those who say that Assad is serious in his call for peace talks, but also say that this does not mean that those talks would be easy for Israel. They even suggest that there is a very good chance that the talks would fail.

It is also known that the Syrians have recently tried to send messages to the Israeli leadership through intermediaries in Europe. These are English nationals and former American diplomats.

The assessment is that the Syrian efforts are mostly the work of associates of Syria's foreign minister, Walid Mualem. The interlocutors approach various Israelis in order to cultivate ties with officials.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has so far adopted the strict American position not to respond to the Syrian feelers.

On the other hand, at the Foreign Ministry and within the defense establishment, there is a greater degree of openness to the offers, and the overall view is that the door should not be closed entirely to the Syrians. Similarly, many believe that the Syrian offers should be tested for their sincerity...

Complete Report:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/829441.html
 
:sl:/Peace To All

Diplomats Fear US Wants To Arm Fatah For 'War On Hamas'

Courtesy Of: TimesOnline.co.uk
From: Stephen Farrell,
In Jerusalem
November 18, 2006

AMERICAN proposals to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian security forces with additional guns and fighters have alarmed other Western nations, who argue that it is tantamount to supporting one faction in a potential civil war.

Fearing the strength of Hamas in Gaza, some US officials have urged that the moderate President Abbas should be given “deterrent capability” so that his Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority forces can confront the Islamist group if talks on a national unity government fail.

The divisions have led to a stand-off over the past month, with US officials saying that the unity government proposal had “no legs”. Other members of the “quartet” of international mediators — made up of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia — say that it should be given a chance instead of arming one of the Palestinian factions.

Proposals raised at meetings in London and Cairo include doubling the size of Mr Abbas’s presidential guard and persuading Israel to allow thousands of rifles into Gaza to alleviate its chronic shortage of weapons relative to Hamas.

Fatah officials have asked for more than 1,000 reinforcements from the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Badr Brigades, in exile in Jordan.

One Western official said that non-American quartet members emerged from one meeting convinced that the US wanted President Abbas to dismiss the Hamas Government, and to use his security forces to “confront Hamas politically and militarily, having confronted it economically”.

“There was effectively a stand-off. As far as we are concerned, what the Americans are proposing to do is back one side in an emerging civil war,” said a western official familiar with the discussions.

Opponents argued that the international community had accepted the participation of Hamas in elections and should therefore look to support a national unity government. Hamas won elections last January but instantly became international pariahs. Sanctions and an aid freeze have left the Palestinian Government broke and unable to pay 160,000 civil servant salaries.

The Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, announced a new Middle East peace initiative with France and Italy yesterday. Central to the plan were an immediate ceasefire, a prisoner exchange, talks between the Israeli Prime Minister and the Palestinian President, international ceasefire monitors and a national unity government. Israeli officials dismissed the overture.

Some in Washington are sceptical about a new Palestinian coalition, believing that it will be too close to Hamas and will refuse three international demands — to recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by previous agreements.

“Everybody wants to support Abbas, but there is a difference of opinion on how best you do it — or how much you are supporting him against Hamas against how much you are supporting him as President, which are not necessarily the same things,” said one international observer.

“A lot of what the Americans were saying was, ‘If there is going to be a fight, we might as well make sure the right person wins’. We would have a difference of opinion there. You really don’t want to be encouraging a civil war.”

The US insists that it has a good relationship with its partners. “We are continuing discussions and working things out. I think it is a little premature to be talking about a civil war as talks about a national unity government are still ongoing,” said a spokeswoman at the US Consulate in Jerusalem yesterday.

Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, confirmed that senior US diplomats travelled this week to Jordan to meet neighbouring Arab leaders, some of whom are hostile to Hamas.

Mr McCormack said that Washington was doing what it could to try to make sure that if the Palestinians produced a government that met the standards of the quartet statement, He said that Hamas had had failed in its attempt to govern.

The quartet has survived previous differences, notably the European insistence on alleviating Palestinian suffering with a temporary international mechanism that channelled salaries directly to some health workers when it became apparent that the international embargo on Hamas left Palestinian institutions near to collapse.

Alvaro de Soto, the UN Special Co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said:

“The need to get a grip on law and order is one of the key reasons for pushing ahead with aan agreed new national unity government. Only this could bring about what has been desperately missing until now, which is the security bodies under the authority of the President and those controlled by the Government, instead of facing each other off on the streets and even shooting at each other, working cohesively not only to fight crime and ensure stability but also to act against those who fire rockets into Israel.”


Source:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article640747.ece
 
Mubarak: Hamas will never sign a peace agreement with Israel
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak expressed great concern over the increasing strength of Hamas in talks with senior diplomatic officials on Wednesday, declaring that the organization will never sign a peace agreement with Israel, Haaretz has learned.

He said that the Egyptian government is at a loss regarding the future of the Gaza Strip. However, he also proclaimed that Egypt is making great efforts to end the Hamas government and support Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

"With Hamas no way," he reportedly said.



Mubarak painted a dark picture of the situation with Hamas and said there was no chance for peace with the organization. "Hamas will never sign a peace agreement with Israel if it stays in power," the Egyptian president said.

Mubarak also said that Egypt did not accept Hamas in power, especially in light of its growing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, which leads the opposition in Egypt. Mubarak sees the Brotherhood, which gained considerable power in Egypt's last parliamentary elections, as a threat to secular power.

Egypt has begun barring senior Hamas leaders from entering Egypt due to concerns over their contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since Hamas rose to power and in view of the continuing strife between Hamas and Fatah, Egypt has been working through its security delegation in Gaza to reach a cease-fire among the factions. At the same time, Egypt has continuously held talks with Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Islamic Army over the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit.
Click to expand...


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/860469.html
 
Salaam,

i aggre with the conclusion by most muslim here.

The US gave fatah arms and weapons to fight Hamas.
the unity goverment is a farce.

Hamas was voted DEMOCRATICALY by the poeple but the western world did not like it.
Thus they created espionage and problem for the Palestinians.

Inshallah,i hope the palestinians and the muslim world take a look and see the dirty finger behind this.

Inshallah,Palestine will regain its land and the invaders be dealt with appropriately.

One side fight for the people,the other fight for their own sake.
 
lol...now the U.S. is responsible for Fatah and Hamas shooting each other as well....why not really go for broke and blame the U.S. for the problems in Darfur too?
 
Democracy (literally "rule by the people", from the Greek demos, "people", and kratos, "rule")-Wikipedia

usually through ''elections''

Hamas sweeps to election victory -Thursday, 26 January 2006

Source

but they don't recognise Israel!!!

Big Deal.. China doesn't recognise Taiwan does that mean the UN should put sanctions on the chinese government??

You can't promote democracy only to sabotage it when it's put in motion by the people through elections that's hypocritical. I do not see this as a failure by the ordinary Palistinians for they did what they thought was in their best interest and that is elect a government which previously as a non governmental entity was supporting hospitals,schools etc etc while Fatah on the other hand was seen as a corrupt entity

What you see today is the product of a year long boycot and sanctions projected and enforced by the Western bloc and Israel on a Palistinian government that was democraticly elected by the ordinary people through fair elections. If you do not respect peoples decisions you do not have the right to speak of democracy or freedom or even point a finger at me, yes i may be a muslim and yes i'm silent most of the time but i observe and absorb and i processed todays reality long before these incidents happened cause a puppet government can't stimulate peace and stabilty on the contrary it will only create more instability and chaos for they serve foreign interests instead of those of their own people
 
AHMED_GUREY said:
Democracy (literally "rule by the people", from the Greek demos, "people", and kratos, "rule")-Wikipedia

usually through ''elections''

Hamas sweeps to election victory -Thursday, 26 January 2006

Source

but they don't recognise Israel!!!

Big Deal.. China doesn't recognise Taiwan does that mean the UN should put sanctions on the chinese government??

You can't promote democracy only to sabotage it when it's put in motion by the people through elections that's hypocritical. I do not see this as a failure by the ordinary Palistinians for they did what they thought was in their best interest and that is elect a government which previously as a non governmental entity was supporting hospitals,schools etc etc while Fatah on the other hand was seen as a corrupt entity

What you see today is the product of a year long boycot and sanctions projected and enforced by the Western bloc and Israel on a Palistinian government that was democraticly elected by the ordinary people through fair elections. If you do not respect peoples decisions you do not have the right to speak of democracy or freedom or even point a finger at me, yes i may be a muslim and yes i'm silent most of the time but i observe and absorb and i processed todays reality long before these incidents happened cause a puppet government can't stimulate peace and stabilty on the contrary it will only create more instability and chaos for they serve foreign interests instead of those of their own people
Click to expand...

How absurd. Why should the Western powers or Israel deal with a "government" that is run by a terrorist organization? How can their be a viable peace process when the government you are trying to broker a peace deal with are also the same people who send out suicide bombers and fire rockets into Israeli towns?

You mention China and Taiwan. You know what the real difference is? China isn't firing rockets and sending suicide bombers into Taiwan.
 
Keltoi said:
How absurd. Why should the Western powers or Israel deal with a "government" that is run by a terrorist organization?
Click to expand...

Yet the West and Israel have no problems with supporting a ''entity''(Fatah) which is part of the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces which includes Hamas:D

How can their be a viable peace process when the government you are trying to broker a peace deal with are also the same people who send out suicide bombers and fire rockets into Israeli towns?
Click to expand...

How can you broker peace with a Power that flattens your homes with F-16's, uses massive fire power like Tanks to fight insurgents, a Power that doesn't respect your decision as a ''people'' tell me how?

You mention China and Taiwan. You know what the real difference is? China isn't firing rockets and sending suicide bombers into Taiwan.
Click to expand...

And Taiwan isn't occupying Mainland Chinese cities and destroying Mainland Chinese homes :)
 
AHMED_GUREY said:
Yet the West and Israel have no problems with supporting a ''entity''(Fatah) which is part of the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces which includes Hamas:D



How can you broker peace with a Power that flattens your homes with F-16's, uses massive fire power like Tanks to fight insurgents, a Power that doesn't respect your decision as a ''people'' tell me how?



And Taiwan isn't occupying Mainland Chinese cities and destroying Mainland Chinese homes :)
Click to expand...

The U.S. and Israel didn't "support" Fatah, but they did view them, more specifically Abbas, as being a viable negotiating partner. Someone with whom they could make agreements with and who would negotiate in good faith. The U.S. and Israel do not feel this way about Hamas, and for good reason.

As for Israel respecting the election of Hamas, what rule states that you have to deal with an elected government even if their charter calls for your destruction? The Palestinians, probably more as a response to Fatah corruption, voted an organization into power who has the destruction of Israel written into their charter...who is there to seriously broker a peace deal with?
 
AHMED_GUREY said:
Two of the many definitions of the word ''Support''

1.To aid the cause, policy, or interests of...

2. To provide for or maintain, by supplying with money or necessities.

A. http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0122-Palestine.html

B http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1264914.ece

I'm out of time later
Click to expand...

The reason I disagree with the use of the word "support" is due to the nature of the relationship. I suppose one could say the U.S. and Israel support Abbas, but supporting Fatah is something altogether different.
 
Zman said:


I presented you with facts, and if you don't believe them to be true, then the burden is on you to prove me wrong.

Put your money where your mouth is, and back up your opinion with concrete evidence that'll support your opinion, and not with sarcastic and evasive remaks...
Click to expand...

Err,, exuse me, but what facts? YOUR Facts or official facts? I see no source/link in your post
 
This thread might as well be closed, it is obvious that staying on topic is too difficult for some people.
 
I did see today that rockets attacks are continuing from Gaza, and Israel has stated that no Hamas leader is safe from reprisal. Put together with the situation in Lebanon today, looks like a peace process is further away than ever.
 

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