On 19 June, a “state of calm” began between Israel and Hamas. The goal of this arrangement was to end Hamas’s rocket fire on Sderot and to gradually open up the border crossings into Gaza for civilian goods. You can see details of the arrangement in our previous post. This arrangement was due to last for 6 months, with possible renewal thereafter.
As you can see from the following graphs, while rocket and mortar fire from Gaza slowed during the “lull,” it never fully stopped. (The graphs are taken from a report published last month.)
In addition, rather than use the “state of calm” to promote peace and to build a civilian infrastructure in Gaza, Hamas took advantage of the situation to expand its terrorist capabilities. In addition to continuing to fire rockets and mortars, Hamas also smuggled weapons and other materiel from Egypt, and expanded its tunnel network, going so far as to dig a tunnel under Israeli territory to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
When Israeli forces acted on intelligence reports and went to investigate the tunnel on 04 November, they came under fire from “Palestinian gunmen” (see news item). The firefight resulted in the death of 1 gunman and the wounding of several others, and the wounding of 4 Israeli soldiers. During the following two days, Hamas launched 47 rockets and 10 mortar shells against civilian areas in Israel. Hamas declared that it had responded to Israel’s actions, and leaders of Israel and Hamas maintained their desire to prevent further escalation of the situation. However, Hamas continued to attack Israel–mostly by rocket and mortar fire–throughout the next few weeks. In order to protect its civilian population, Israel took occasional action against these Hamas terrorists (see the list of Palestinian casualties in November 2008 from B’Tselem–all were killed while carrying out hostilities).
In fact, as the “lull” was due to expire on 19 December, Israel still held out hope that Hamas would renew the agreement. Instead, Hamas declared its unwillingness to renew any agreement and commenced firing rockets and mortars at a higher rate than previously.
More hasbara – this is getting old.
Here’s what your own ex Shin Bet said of Israel’s cease fire breach – you didn’t mention there were several killed, did you. In fact it was at least 5 people and several others wounded, including a woman. Then there were the other breaches committed by Israel before that day you didn’t mention.
“Last week, Israeli forces entered Gaza, destroyed an underground border tunnel, and battled Hamas fighters, leaving several militants dead. In response, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired around eighty rockets into southern Israel, including the Israeli city of Ashkelon”.
“On June 19, 2008, Israel and Hamas began observing an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire, which was intended to last six months with an option to extend. In general, Hamas has observed the ceasefire; the number of attacks and rocket launches has decreased significantly, and Hamas has prevented other Gaza militant organizations from striking Israel”.
You also haven’t mentioned <a href=”http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD955TM2O0″ target=”_blank”Israel continued its crippling, humiliating 18 month blockade during the ’state of calm’ – a very significant omission by you, as the continuance of the siege breached the nature if not terms of the truce. From August to October, the rockets practically stopped – of the few that were fired, were any fired by Hamas, one has to wonder? Yet Israel kept up its excruciating siege, turning the screws on the entire Gazan population ever tighter. Also pertinent is the fact that there’s plenty of evidence that Israel had been cooking up its current slaughter many months before whilst dishonourably pretending to seek a truce, to time conveniently with Bush’s departure.
You also fail to admit that Hamas was willing to renew the truce on the 23rd December – if the stultifying blockade – collective punishment, a breach of the Geneva Conventions – was lifted. Yet for Israel, the lives of Palestinian people were not worthy of relief in this cruel great game.
As Jews for Justice for Palestinians said:
“The Israeli government steadily sought to break down the ceasefire, not just in Gaza since early November, but also in the West Bank. Israeli forces have carried out an average of 33 incursions, 42 arrests or detentions, 12 woundings and 0.84 killings a week in the West Bank during the ceasefire. The tactic has been to continue attacking Hamas and other militants in the West Bank, provoking responses in Gaza, and to use the responses as the pretext for the massive attacks of the last 24 hours.”
“On 23rd December Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire if Israel would undertake to open border crossings for supplies of aid and fuel, and halt incursions. For those of us appalled at the collective punishment involved in the ongoing siege, and concerned that Israelis should not fear death or injury from Qassam rockets, that seems a truly reasonable response.”
Do you think Israel can bomb and torment civilians en masse with impunity forever, whilst its allies act as a human shield for its misdeeds?
Brutality never works, it rebounds to damage its practitioner. As Gandhi said, “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.”
The worse Israel behaves, the shorter will be its existence in its current form. And that, my friends, may be a very good thing, as there’s no such thing as a “democracy” which offers and provides democracy’s complete and true essences to only one sector living within it.
One day soon your leaders will know just what imprisonment feels like. At Le Hague.
We received the following question from Twitter regarding this post:
Question: @drumgit your article misleads, says 1 hamas killed. your link to guardian confirms 6 killed, hamas launches rockets to retaliate
Response: The Guardian article reads, “One Hamas gunman was killed and Palestinians launched mortar bombs at the Israeli military. An Israeli air strike then killed five more Hamas fighters, including Wajed Moharib. Hamas launched 35 rockets into southern Israel, one reaching the city of Ashkelon.”
While there are several different versions of the events, it is fair to say that an initial firefight did result in “the death of one gunman and the wounding of several others,” as noted above. The other five deaths occurred subsequently, as Hamas operatives launched the “35 rockets into southern Israel.”
First paragraph of the article you quote from the Guardian:
“A four-month-old ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was in jeopardy yesterday after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid into the territory.”
You like to quote CNN. Here’s CNN confirming from several sources Israel broke ceasefire first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4
Your massaging of the facts is obvious to anyone with half a brain and basic google search skills.
Try again.
Israel admits, none of the rockets fired during the ceasefire were Hamas rockets.
Note that Israel’s excuse for their actions in Gaza was that Hamas breached the ceasefire by firing rockets. In this video they retract that claim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFMZ7Y-s_c