Olmert warns of more fighting soon as Israel pulls troops out of Gaza
As Israeli tanks pull out of Gaza, Olmert is making it very clear that this is only happening because of Condoleezza Rice's visit and that hostilities will resume as soon as Rice leaves the region. Ironically, Rice's visit is to promote the peace talks, and she arrives at the very moment when Abbas is refusing to have contact with Israel because of Olmert's illegal behaviour in the Gaza Strip. Behaviour which Olmert is promising to resume the minute Rice gets back on her plane.
"We are in the midst of a combat action," Olmert was quoted as telling a parliamentary committee. "What happened in recent days was not a one-time event ... The objective is reducing the rocket fire and weakening Hamas."Olmert's actions have already been the subject of worldwide condemnation. And there has been criticism much nearer to home:
Israel's leading human rights group B'Tselem, which has researchers on the ground, said at least half the Palestinian dead "did not take part in the hostilities".And the stories of indiscriminate killing by the Israelis are simply horrific:
It has been estimated that half of the Palestinian dead are not militants. Israel will state that she does not deliberately target civilians and one must accept her at her word on that. However, that figure alone is horrific.One house targeted, on the corner of the main al-Quds Street, was home to the Abu Safi family. One of the younger sons, Hassan, 21, had been married seven days earlier. He stood on the second floor balcony to make a mobile phone call at around 8am on Saturday and was shot dead with a single bullet to the head. "We didn't see the soldiers until they had shot him," said one of his brothers, Yahya, 26. The family insist neither he nor others in the house were fighters and there was none of the insignia that usually marks a militant's funeral.
Half an hour after the shooting Israeli soldiers forced open the building and entered the apartment. "They went in and saw his blood and they walked through it," said Mohammad Abu Safi, 32, the oldest brother. "That was very hard for us."
The soldiers searched the flat and the family and found nothing. "They asked: Are you Hamas? I said, of course not. We're businessmen." Abu Safi showed his identity card and his Palestinian Chamber of Commerce card. The soldiers confiscated their mobile phones and, the family say, took several hundred shekels too. "They never apologised for killing my brother," he said. "At the end, one patted my father on the back and said: God bless him."
The majority of Israelis want their government to negotiate with Hamas and, when your military campaign is killing as many innocents as it is killing militants, one must wonder how long Olmert can morally refuse to enter negotiations.
Abbas, despite the fact that he is refusing to negotiate with Israel, has offered to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Israel have yet to respond to his offer.
It is at this moment that one would hope that Rice, leading the charge for Bush's Middle East road map, would intervene and pressure Olmert to step back from the brink; but we have watched for seven years as this White House abandoned any pretence of playing the role of honest broker and came down firmly on the side of the Israelis. So Rice will, in all likelihood, do and say nothing.
We have become used to this. In reality, it will not be until there is a new President in the White House that we can hope to see any change in this insane US policy.
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1 comment:
Rockets rained down on Israel after Gaza was turned over to Hamas.
There is no occupation but there are rockets.
The "illegal" actions are those of Arabs'terror rockets but they cry when they get hit back. You'll cry a lot.
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