This week has seen an escalation between Israel and Gaza. With Israel retaliating for increased rocket attacks on Israel. The Sunday Times of March 2^nd says ‘More than 40 rockets and mortar rounds were fired into Israel yesterday, including seven Iranian-made Katyusha rockets… They are more accurate than the locally produced Kassam rockets…..’

In under three years since Israel withdrew from all of Gaza over 3,700 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel. The Israeli towns of Sderot and now Ashkelon have born the brunt of these attacks. Israel has been more patient than many might have expected as it clearly does not want to take over Gaza from which it withdrew all its settlers nearly three years ago. But this week has seen intensified Israeli attacks on militants in Gaza who are sending these frightening rockets across the border. Very sadly this has not only killed militants but also civilians as, in the words of an Israeli spokesman quoted in The Sunday Times “Militants hide behind their own civilians using them as human shields, while actively targeting Israeli population centres; they bear the responsibility for the results”.

Things could even get worse.

The answer is that there is a long-term cessation of rockets from Gaza; a cessation of suicide and homicide attacks on Israelis. At the same time Israel would need to stop its attacks on Gaza. At that stage Israel and Hamas must be encouraged to talk, as Israel is already talking to the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.

Will the Palestinians be satisfied with a State of their own in West Bank and Gaza living in Peace alongside Israel, or will they only be satisfied with the complete elimination of Israel. I believe that is Israel’s underlying fear and until this question is resolved an enduring Peace seems far away.

Monroe Palmer

 

 

3700 Rockets into Israel from Gaza—enough is enough.   Reports from Monroe Palmer and ‘Beyond Images’ . 3/3/08.

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The Sunday Times of March 2^nd  2008 says ‘More than 40 rockets and mortar rounds were fired into Israel yesterday, including seven Iranian-made Katyusha rockets…

Israel

The map below shows the comparative size of countries in the Middle East.  Israel is too small to show except by following the line from the flag.

Israel is about the size of Wales.

Andrew White in Beyond Images writes:

No-one in Israel wanted the current escalation in violence.

The escalation is the result, not of the last 3 weeks, but of the last 3 years.

Gaza could have been a viable Palestinian mini-state by now, enjoying huge support at government level from the international community, and enjoying stable relations with Israel.

Instead, Hamas has turned Gaza into a gigantic armed camp, and a launching pad for a sustained rocket and missile assault against Israeli society.

It is no longer only Qassams against Sderot (though that is serious enough), but Iranian-supplied Grad missiles against the 120,000 citizens of Ashkelon in Southern Israel.

Ten Grads were fired from Gaza into Ashkelon last Thursday alone (see reports on the Jerusalem Post website - www.jpost.com).

This Palestinian campaign is ideologically-driven, Iranian-backed, and utterly self-destructive.

Innocent Palestinians in Gaza are paying a tragic price for this folly.

"Hamas rocket attacks amount to a suicide operation that sacrifices the security of all the residents of Gaza...."

- Al-Arabiya TV Director Abd'al Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 21 January 2008.

"What the Palestinians need is for Hamas to show some responsibility, even a little - before begging for compassion from the world, we had better have some compassion for ourselves...."

- Palestinian journalist Nadia Ilabouni, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat 23 January 2008.