Israel Creates a Security Zone in the Northern Gaza Strip
Israel's evacuation from the Gaza Strip was never part of the Road Map. It was a unilateral measure created on Israel's terms with no negotiation or input from the Palestinians. Instead of liberating territory from occupation, it merely created a free-fire, free-surveillance and free-harrassment zone in which the Palestinians have no security, privacy or sovereignty.
This is a dispatch from today's Le Monde:
Since last Wednesday, the Gaza Strip is not longer completely accessible to Palestinians. At 6:00 pm (local time), the sector surrounding the ruins of the former Israeli colonies of Dugit, Eleï Sinaï and Nissanit has been declared a no-man's land by Israel. This area, approximately 1 km deep, had been transformed over the last few weeks into a launching site for home-made Qassam rockets by members of Islamic Jihad. On December 18, a rocket landed in the industrial zone of the Israeli town of Ashkelon, which includes several sites deemed "strategic", including a power station and a fuel depot. A few days later, three soldiers were wounded by the explosion of a Qassam rocket near their camp.
On Wednesday December 28 at 4:00 pm, shortly before the declaration of a "security zone", the Israeli Army airdropped flyers warning the populace that any person found in the area, which is uninhabited, would be targeted. During a meeting with their Palestinian counterparts, Israeli officers drew the outline of the area, which is soon to be protected by a wall. In the evening, a Palestinian rocket struck the outskirts of Sderot, a town in the Negev Desert on the edge of the Gaza Strip. No one was injured. During the night between Wednesday and Thursday, the Israeli Army fired a dozen mortar rounds at several targets inside the buffer zone. At dawn a car carrying a team of Qassam launchers narrowly escaped the mortar barrage.
The Palestinian Authority has condemned the move by Ariel Sharon. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and has no right to return under any pretext, including that of rocket launches, which, by the way, we equally condemn, declared President Mahmoud Abbas. Since the end of the Israeli evacuation from the Gaza Strip on September 15, nearly 240 Qassam rockets have been fired by armed Palestinian groups. No Israeli was killed by the rockets, of which only 160 reached Israeli territory.
Hamas, the inventors of the Qassam, has avoided participating in these action since the end of September to avoid damage to its campaign for the elections scheduled on January 25th. The prime responsibility for the attacks is Islamic Jihad, a tiny Islamist group that will not participate in the vote and which has never felt bound by the truce declared in March. At the same time, Israel has asassinated a number of militants using helicopter-launched rockets.
At least one Israeli was killed Thurdsay morning in a suicide attack near a West Bank checkpoint. There were at least two suicide bombers, including a woman. An Englishwoman, employed by a Palestinian human rights organization and her parents will kidnapped Wednesday in Rafah.
Interim news service.
This is a dispatch from today's Le Monde:
Since last Wednesday, the Gaza Strip is not longer completely accessible to Palestinians. At 6:00 pm (local time), the sector surrounding the ruins of the former Israeli colonies of Dugit, Eleï Sinaï and Nissanit has been declared a no-man's land by Israel. This area, approximately 1 km deep, had been transformed over the last few weeks into a launching site for home-made Qassam rockets by members of Islamic Jihad. On December 18, a rocket landed in the industrial zone of the Israeli town of Ashkelon, which includes several sites deemed "strategic", including a power station and a fuel depot. A few days later, three soldiers were wounded by the explosion of a Qassam rocket near their camp.
On Wednesday December 28 at 4:00 pm, shortly before the declaration of a "security zone", the Israeli Army airdropped flyers warning the populace that any person found in the area, which is uninhabited, would be targeted. During a meeting with their Palestinian counterparts, Israeli officers drew the outline of the area, which is soon to be protected by a wall. In the evening, a Palestinian rocket struck the outskirts of Sderot, a town in the Negev Desert on the edge of the Gaza Strip. No one was injured. During the night between Wednesday and Thursday, the Israeli Army fired a dozen mortar rounds at several targets inside the buffer zone. At dawn a car carrying a team of Qassam launchers narrowly escaped the mortar barrage.
The Palestinian Authority has condemned the move by Ariel Sharon. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and has no right to return under any pretext, including that of rocket launches, which, by the way, we equally condemn, declared President Mahmoud Abbas. Since the end of the Israeli evacuation from the Gaza Strip on September 15, nearly 240 Qassam rockets have been fired by armed Palestinian groups. No Israeli was killed by the rockets, of which only 160 reached Israeli territory.
Hamas, the inventors of the Qassam, has avoided participating in these action since the end of September to avoid damage to its campaign for the elections scheduled on January 25th. The prime responsibility for the attacks is Islamic Jihad, a tiny Islamist group that will not participate in the vote and which has never felt bound by the truce declared in March. At the same time, Israel has asassinated a number of militants using helicopter-launched rockets.
At least one Israeli was killed Thurdsay morning in a suicide attack near a West Bank checkpoint. There were at least two suicide bombers, including a woman. An Englishwoman, employed by a Palestinian human rights organization and her parents will kidnapped Wednesday in Rafah.
Interim news service.
posted by Nur-al-Cubicle | 7:24 PM
6 Comments:
zone in which the Palestinians have no security, privacy or sovereignty.
Because instead of trying to form a normal society, the palestinians have reverted to their natural stateof anarchy, mayhem, murder, and terrorism - both against Israel as well as agaisnt their own.
Gaza was a test-run for a palestinian state. They have failed miserably. Continuing their tradition of violating every single agreement they have ever made, they have not secured Rafah crossing, they have not disarmed terrorists, they have smuggled in anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, and they have contiued shooting rockets into Israel.
If Israel were a country with the same rights as other countries, they would have already turned all of Gaza into a parking lot.
Peretz says it as well as anyone could say: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060102&s=peretz010306
The palestinians will get nothing, and it will be a helluva lot more than they deserve.
I'm sorry you don't have to be Einstein to figure out that Israel is going to have to accept that the reality of a Palestinian state. The sooner they accept this realization progress can be made. Hasn't anyone learnt anything from the lessons of Northern Ireland?
Israel has accepted the reality of a Palestinina state, and even has a peace agreement with it - signed in 1994 with King Hussein. If you are talking about another palestinian state, that is a different matter.
And the goal of the Irish (as opposed to the palestinians)was the creation of an independent country, not the destruction of an existing one.
Actually when referring to Northern Ireland I was referring to the Unionists and their complete inability to accept power sharing with anybody be it Sinn Fein or SDLP which of course they ultimately had to accept (although some hold-outs still remain)
Signed with the King of Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Likudnudnik not with the Palestinians. I see that your comments on Ireland are as wilfully blinded and inaccurate as the rest of your postings here and Correntewire.
For an up close and personal account of what it is like to live in Gaza at present, you might like to look in on Laila. It sure doesn't sound like peace of any kind.
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