Yahoo: Israel vows no let-up, Hamas defiant, as Gaza toll tops 120

[JMS]

https://twitter.com/tomgara

Quote

Many in Obama admin now think "Netanyahu & his nat security team are both reckless & untrustworthy" on.wsj.com/1rtduQK (via @gabbystern) 12:15 AM

how accurate is that visionary.. Is that an article or a blog...

Cause both the house and senate voted on that military aid package and it passed the Senate unanimously.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/senate-approves-israel-aid-109642.html

I could see the WH thinking it was unhelpful.. but it would be hard for me to believe the administration is unaware of all the bills being voted on in both the senate and house which have a chance of passing.. Especially Arms packages.

Besides that after the house and senate acted, it would take the military to execute such an order and they are under the executive.

Not saying it didn't happen, but I would like to hear more about it.

[PeterMP]

 

You are suggesting America has no influence in Israel?   That's absurd.      We have as much or more influence in Israel as Israeli political leaders have here. We all know that's considerable.

 

I'm not suggesting that we have no influence.

 

"Our aid and relationships with Israel allows us to stick our nose into these troubles and hold our ground a little when Hawks try to push us out. That's it. period. We pull our aid, we loose influence."

 

If that's your attitude, then you don't really have any influence because nobody is really worried about losing the aid.

 

The things you site are all things that are or could be on the path of losing aid.  They'd be steps.

 

And I think it is clear, none of them are really going to encourage Israel to move back to the '67 borders.  The every elected official in the US could go pal around with the current opposition in Israel and that isn't going to move Israel appreciably to accepting the '67 borders.

 

So I'll ask you, what can we do get Israel to move back to the '67 borders.

 

And if you say nothing, I disagree.

 

Look at S. Africa, Bush announces he's actually going to enforce the S. African sanctions (which had only been passed a few years), and in the next year or so, S. Africa starts moving to end apartheidism.  Apartheid didn't end in S. Africa because the (white) people wanted it to, it ended because they were forced into a choice to either be a poor backward country like Cuba or N. Korea or change.

 

And the leadership understood this.

 

And I doubt the Israelis want to turn into a N. Korea or Cuba either.

 

And I don't want to threaten Israel's security, but we've been doing it there way for the last 50 years or so, and it isn't working.

 

And there is no reason to think it is going to start working in the near future.

 

It is time for another approach, and if they can't see that themselves, them I'm willing to start pushing them to seeing it.

 

What can we do to change the dynamic of the situation in a significant manner?

 

If the answer is nothing, then we don't really have influence.

[JMS]

http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-sway-over-israel-on-gaza-at-a-low-1407979365

 

https://twitter.com/tomgara

I found this related story..

 

WSJ Hypes False Story About Israeli End-Around The White House To Grab Munitions

Buried in the twenty-first paragraph of the WSJ piece is that what they suggest is an end-around in the first few paragraphs is actually standard operating procedure.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/israel-revolt/wsj-hypes-false-story-about-israeli-end-around-white-house-grab-munitions

 

 

Which Rings true to me.   We don't give Israel enough of a backlog of munitions, parts, missiles to be able to conduct months of war without resupply.     The net effect is we are called upon to resupply then weeks into all of their conflicts.   Which we routinely do.   Never heard of an instance when we didn't.   

[visionary]

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/mena/560271-despite-shaky-start-gaza-truce-extension-holds

Despite shaky start, Gaza truce extension holds

 

Millions in Gaza and southern Israel on Thursday enjoyed a welcome extension to a temporary truce despite a rocky start which saw a flurry of rocket fire and air strikes.

 

Egyptian mediators brokered a five-day extension to an existing truce to allow for further negotiations on a long-term ceasefire to fighting that has killed 1,962 Palestinians and 67 people on the Israeli side since July 8.

 

Despite a series of overnight rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on Gaza, the calm held throughout Thursday even if great uncertainty persists on both sides about the future.

 

Around 10,000 Israelis poured into Rabin Square in Tel Aviv late Thursday, police said, calling on the government and the army to end Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza once and for all.

 

It was the first major demonstration in Israel since the fighting began and organizers said it united people across often bitter divides of left and right-wing, as well as religious and secular communities.

 

"This is a universal principle. We want to live in peace," Alon Davidi, mayor of the southern town of Sderot, told the rally as Israel's security cabinet met to discuss the mediation in Cairo.

 

"I have full confidence in the government and in the army, but at the same time I ask as mayor of Sderot that they put an end to this situation once and for all," Davidi said.

 

Members of the crowd waved Israeli flags and held up banners calling for peace with the Palestinians and others scrawled with the words: "Occupy Gaza now!"

[JMS]

If that's your attitude, then you don't really have any influence because nobody is really worried about losing the aid.

It's like saying you have more influence on the Soviet Union during the cold war if we actually embargo'd grain sales. It's just not true which is why we didn't go there no matter how rough things got with the Soviets.. There is a difference between influence and dictating.. We have the former not the ability to do the latter. And that's not a bad thing necessarily.

Israel has to make the peace and live with it. Our role is more subtle. yanking our aid isn't subtle, and ultimately wouldn't be helpful to our end goals.. which are a stable ME.

 

Facts are once Israel does negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians,  we are going to need to put in a lot more aid, most likely.

 

The things you site are all things that are or could be on the path of losing aid.  They'd be steps.

 

And I think it is clear, none of them are really going to encourage Israel to move back to the '67 borders.  The every elected official in the US could go pal around with the current opposition in Israel and that isn't going to move Israel appreciably to accepting the '67 borders.

Yes all the things I mentioned are escalations... and their are a many many escalations possible before we pick up our ball and go home... which is what unilaterally with drawling aid could mean.

Yeah I think you are wrong about that... moving back to the 67 boarders is widely supported in Israel.  (see bellow)  at times it's been the government's starting negotiating position,  at times it's been supported by the Israeli public without even a comprehensive peace deal.   It's always been supported by the Israeli and Palestinian public as part of a comprehensive peace agreement..  We have 10 years of polls supporting that conclusions,  even if Netanyahu was never one of them.

 

So I'll ask you, what can we do get Israel to move back to the '67 borders.

 

And if you say nothing, I disagree.

 

Look at S. Africa, Bush announces he's actually going to enforce the S. African sanctions (which had only been passed a few years), and in the next year or so, S. Africa starts moving to end apartheidism.  Apartheid didn't end in S. Africa because the (white) people wanted it to, it ended because they were forced into a choice to either be a poor backward country like Cuba or N. Korea or change.

And the leadership understood this.

I never ever said there was nothing we could do. I said we weren't in a position to dictate to Israel peace terms, nor would we want to... Israel has to live with any solution she makes so Israel has to buy into such a solution.

Yes a massive boycott of Israel would force Israel's hand but that wouldn't be a US Government action, that's the scenario our government has warned Israel it's facing if it doesn't commit to finding a peaceful solution soon...

 

Obama warns Israel against ‘international fallout’

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/03/03/353007/obama-warns-israel-against-isolation/

US Government actions did not lead to an end of apartheid. There were decades of divestment campaigns. I would argue the coup de grace for South Africa was when American Universities and businesses were targeted and motivated to boycott South Africa, which they did. Not that US companies and especially our retirement funds were so deterministic, but rather because the rest of the world had already long ago divested so our industries and investment funds were the last men standing.

The US government was actually among the very last supporter of Apartheid.. Our government supported the Apartheid regime after it's position became untenable.

 

 

And I don't want to threaten Israel's security, but we've been doing it there way for the last 50 years or so, and it isn't working.

 

And there is no reason to think it is going to start working in the near future.

 

It is time for another approach, and if they can't see that themselves, them I'm willing to start pushing them to seeing it.

What can we do to change the dynamic of the situation in a significant manner?

 

If the answer is nothing, then we don't really have influence.

I never said we could or should do nothing. I said we have influence, we can't dictate, and influence is really all it should take to get an agreement along the 67 boarders. At times a majority of Israeli's have agreed to this without any comprehensive peace agreement,  consistently over the last decades most Israeli's support a return to the pre 67 boarders with land swaps as part of a comprehensive peace deal.

With about a decade of polls on the subject...we can see the public is pretty much already on board..

We just need to twist political arms.   

http://972mag.com/what-do-israelis-think-of-1967-borders-with-swaps/14896/

 

What do Israelis think of 1967 borders with swaps?

 

Published May 22, 2011

 

In sum, the Jewish Israeli public over the last few years tends to be divided regarding levels of support for the explicit notion of returning to the 67 borders, with land swaps/adjustments. However, when presented as part of a larger package of an agreement rather than as an isolated concept, Israelis mostly support such packages with clear majorities. The Jewish public became generally more hard-line after the mid-2000s, following the unilateral settlement dismantling in Gaza, the subsequent electoral rise of the Hamas and its takeover of Gaza in 2007 (see this comprehensive INSS report for evidence of the shift in attitudes following this phase).

The bottom line is that the notion of a Palestinian state based on the1967 borders, with adjustments, has never been shown to drag down support for a comprehensive agreement – were the leaders of this region serious enough to reach one.

[PeterMP]

First, with respect to the Soviet Union:

 

1.  We did stop selling them grain as a manner to influence them (Carter did it with respect to Afghanistan).  For a number of reasons, it didn't do any good (mostly there is a global market for grain and people were more than willing to buy grain from us and sell their own grain to the Soviets or even our grain to the Soviets and the US didn't have the political or moral will to say that we are taking the amount of grain we sold last year as a nation and decreasing the amount that went to the Soviets and that's all that's going to be sold on the international market, and we don't care if people are starving to death in places other than the Soviet Union).

 

So largely the reason that we didn't not sell the Soviets the grain after that (and likely before that even) is because it would have been shooting ourselves in the foot with respect to economics.

 

Now, that might be an argument to not do things like unilaterally put sanctions in place against the Israelis, but it isn't really an argument to not look carefully at our aid.

 

2.  It seems to me that as long as I can remember I've heard of the Israeli public supporting a land swap or two state solution, but it doesn't seem to be going any where.

 

3.  The fact of the matter is that S. Africa didn't change their mind until not only had the US passed sanctions, but the new President announced he was going to start actually enforcing them.

 

The S. Africans had announced just earlier that their economy was doing fine and that they had adjusted.

[JMS]

First, with respect to the Soviet Union:

 

1.  We did stop selling them grain as a manner to influence them (Carter did it with respect to Afghanistan).  For a number of reasons, it didn't do any good (mostly there is a global market for grain and people were more than willing to buy grain from us and sell their own grain to the Soviets or even our grain to the Soviets and the US didn't have the political or moral will to say that we are taking the amount of grain we sold last year as a nation and decreasing the amount that went to the Soviets and that's all that's going to be sold on the international market, and we don't care if people are starving to death in places other than the Soviet Union).

You are right, Carter did use it once in 79 over Afghanistan and it failed... The soviets were in Afghanistan for a decade. It's a model for how not to exert our will / influence. Don't think any other President tried it before or after carter, influence through grain embargo. We only had the bilateral grain agreement with the soviets though since 75.

2. It seems to me that as long as I can remember I've heard of the Israeli public supporting a land swap or two state solution, but it doesn't seem to be going any where.

Then let's examine that because the influence it takes to empower a majority who agree with us, is a lot more achievable than trying to move Netanyahu with no appreciation for why Netanyahu is locked against land swaps.

3. The fact of the matter is that S. Africa didn't change their mind until not only had the US passed sanctions, but the new President announced he was going to start actually enforcing them.

I would say to get a clearer picture you would have to be aware that the divestment in South Africa campaign began in 1962 with a UN GA resolution and progressed globally for nearly 30 years. The US government boycott was passed by the senate in 86, veto'd by President Reagan, and the senate had to overturn the veto... The private divestment campaign in the US started to reach crictial mass in 84-85.. The net result was SA negotiated a settlement in 1990... Again we were the last boot to drop pretty much everybody else important to SA's economy had already turned their back on her.

So I don't disagree with you that such a boycotte would work against Israel. I just disagree with you that it's within the power of the United States to instantiate such a boycott. It's much more likely as in South Africa we would be the last country standing by Israel, and would have to brought to any boycott kicking and screaming after Presidential Veto's.

Note the senate vote August 1st to gift 250 million dollars worth of arms to Israel... unanimous vote.. So I would say we are far far far from taking such action.

[visionary]

http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.610682?v=C7B8E31B6F0E22AA9C6A4570D927D49C

Dutch nonagenarian returns Righteous Among the Nations medal after six relatives killed in Gaza

 

A 91-year-old Dutch man who was declared a Righteous Among the Nations for saving a Jew during the German occupation on Thursday returned his medal and certificate because six of his relatives were killed by an Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip last month.

 

In 2011, the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum declared Henk Zanoli and his late mother, Johana Zanoli-Smit, Righteous Among the Nations for having saved a Jewish child, Elhanan Pinto, during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Pinto, born in 1932, was hidden by the Zanoli family from the spring of 1943 until the Allies liberated Holland in 1945. His parents perished in Nazi death camps.

 

In hiding a Jewish child, the Zanoli family took a double risk, because it was already under Nazi scrutiny for having opposed the German occupation. Zanoli’s father was sent to the Dachau concentration camp in 1941 due to his opposition to the occupation, and he subsequently died at the Mauthausen concentration camp in February 1945. Henk Zanoli’s brother-in-law was executed because of his involvement in the Dutch resistance, and one of his brothers had a Jewish fiancée, who was also killed by the Nazis.

 

Zanoli’s great-niece, Angelique Eijpe, is a Dutch diplomat who currently serves as deputy head of her country’s diplomatic mission in Oman. Her husband, economist Isma’il Ziadah, was born in the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. The couple has three children. Ziadah’s parents were born in Fallujah, on whose lands the town of Kiryat Gat now sits. His father died in 1987.

 

On Sunday, July 20, an Israeli fighter jet dropped a bomb on the Ziadah family’s home in al-Bureij. The bomb killed the family matriarch, Muftiyah, 70; three of her sons, Jamil, Omar and Youssef; Jamil’s wife, Bayan; and their 12-year-old son, Shaaban. The bombing thus orphaned Jamal and Bayan’s other five children, four daughters and a son, while bereaving Omar’s two sons and Youssef’s three sons and a daughter of their fathers. The bombing also killed Mohammed Maqadmeh, who happened to be visiting the family that day.

 

 

[PeterMP]

You are right, Carter did use it once in 79 over Afghanistan and it failed... The soviets were in Afghanistan for a decade. It's a model for how not to exert our will / influence. Don't think any other President tried it before or after carter, influence through grain embargo. We only had the bilateral grain agreement with the soviets though since 75.

 

1.  It failed because of the economics of the situation as I described.  It failed because it didn't affect the Soviets at all because grain is sold and bought on a global market.

 

You don't have influence if you can't cause changes.

 

2.  I'm not asking how far we are from being pro-active with respect to Israel.  Yes, I know that Congress is not going to approve a cessation of aid from the Israelis.  I'm asking, if it was going to happen, when/how would it happen.

 

3.  Yes, the S. African economy have been hit for 30+ years and even the US had passed sanctions a few years before (which Reagan didn't enforce (Yes, Obama isn't the first President to look at a law, decide they don't like it, and essentially ignore it)).  Despite that, there had been no appreciable movement towards ending apartheid.  Then Bush is elected, announces they will start enforcing the sanctions, and the next year they come to the negotiation table.

Now, like the grain embargo, it probably would not have been effective if only the US had been sanctioning S. Africa, but given the global sanctions in place, I think it is foolish to discount the effect of US sanctions, especially given the quickness at which things changed after the US actually started enforcing the sanctions.

 

I'll also point out that we've done a pretty good job of flipping quickly from being (very) supportive of a government to leading global opposition to it.  Look at Iraq and Saddam Hussein and Noriega in Panama.

 

I suspect a US lead sanction regime against Israel would quickly add other parties and significantly affect Israel, much less cancelling our aid, which we can do unilaterally.

 

It is great that the majority of Israelis support a two state solution, but that doesn't seem to be moving Israel in that direction.

 

But my question stands, what can we do to have Israel to significantly alter the current direction, which is what has been happening for a long time.

[visionary]

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/15/eu-gaza-border.html?utm_content=general&utm_campaign=ajam&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

EU offers to take control of Gaza borders

 

The European Union on Friday offered to take charge of Gaza's border crossings and work to prevent illegal arms flows, insisting on a durable truce with Israel and saying a return to the status quo for the region "is not an option."

 

As EU foreign ministers held an urgent meeting in Brussels about global conflicts, Hamas negotiators met in Qatar with the group's leadership to discuss a proposal for a long-term truce with Israel. An official said the group was inclined to accept the Egyptian-mediated offer.

 

The Gaza blockade remains the main stumbling block to negotiating a truce. The blockade has greatly limited Palestinians’ movements in and out of the territory of 1.8 million people, restricted the flow of goods into Gaza and blocked virtually all exports.

 

The EU ministers offered to reactivate and potentially extend monitoring of Rafah and other border crossings – if given a mandate by the U.N. Security Council and if it helps living conditions improve in Gaza.

 

In a statement, the ministers said they could also work to prevent arms smuggling and launch a training program for Palestinian Authority police and customs officers to be deployed in Gaza. They said “terrorist” groups in Gaza must disarm and an overall peace deal remains the main objective.

 

"The situation in the Gaza Strip has been unsustainable for many years and a return to the status quo prior to the latest conflict is not an option," they said.

[Burgold]

That actually sounds promising or at least hopeful.  Let's hope that the sides give it a shot and that they can pull it off.

[Kilmer17]

Maybe the EU will show it actual has some value in the world

[twa]

Maybe the EU will show it actual has some value in the world

 

more likely to implode before the ink dries

[visionary]

Damn, I thought things were heading in a good direction when I saw that the ceasefire had been extended for a day.

 

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/19/world/meast/mideast-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Israel strikes Gaza targets after rocket fire; Israeli negotiators called home

 

An Israeli delegation has been ordered home from talks in Cairo aimed at ending the conflict in Gaza, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday, shortly after the Israeli military blamed militants in Gaza for breaking a truce.

 

Three rockets fired from Gaza hit the Beer Sheva area in southern Israel Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli military said. No injuries were reported.

 

The rocket fire came only hours after the ceasefire was extended until the end of the day, as Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, struggling to reach a more lasting agreement, reported little progress.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces to respond to the rockets, a senior Israeli official told CNN. An IDF statement shortly afterward said strikes were being carried out against targets in Gaza.

 

"Yet again, terrorists breach the ceasefire and renew fire at Israeli civilians from Hamas ruled Gaza Strip," Israel Defense Forces spokesman Peter Lerner said in the statement.

 

"This continued aggression will be addressed accordingly by the IDF; we will continue striking terror infrastructure, pursuing terrorists, and eliminating terror capabilities in the Gaza Strip, in order to restore security for the State of Israel."

 

It's not yet clear who fired the rockets from Gaza, and no group has claimed responsibility.

A CNN team on the ground also saw earlier what appeared to be three rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel, leaving smoke trails in the sky.

 

Shortly before the rockets were launched, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in an e-mailed statement to CNN: "If Netanyahu does not understand our message and people's demands in Gaza through political language, we know a way to make him understand."

 

A banner on Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television blamed Israel for violating the truce.

 

Israeli jets have struck farmland near a residential area in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, it said, as well as striking two areas in southern Gaza, east of Khan Yunis. No injuries were reported.

[visionary]

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/.premium-1.611696

Obama and Netanyahu, from Gaza to Iraq: Closer than ever but miles apart

 

Netanyahu ejected the U.S. from peace talks and cease-fire efforts; the results can be seen in the bombs on Gaza and the missiles over Tel Aviv 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/hamas-warns-foreign-airlines-against-flying-tel-aviv-170038167.html;_ylt=AwrBJR61NPVTXTwAIuvQtDMD

Hamas warns foreign airlines, says Israel truce talks over

 

The armed wing of Hamas warned foreign airlines against flying into Tel Aviv on Wednesday and declared truce talks in Cairo over as a six-week war with Israel spirals into further bloodshed.

 

Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes across Gaza again on Wednesday in response to multiple rocket attacks on southern Israel, as nine days of calm exploded into bloodshed.

 

Several thousand furious mourners poured onto the streets of Jabaliya refugee camp to bury the wife and infant son of the top commander of Hamas's armed wing, baying for revenge.

 

Mohammed Deif, who has topped Israel's most wanted list for more than a decade, escaped the assassination attempt, Hamas said.

 

Israel, which had carried out five previous attempts on Deif's life, said its offensive in Gaza would continue until the security of Israelis was guaranteed.

[visionary]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/hamas-says-3-senior-leaders-killed-gaza-strike

HAMAS SAYS 3 SENIOR LEADERS KILLED IN GAZA STRIKE

 

The Islamic militant group Hamas says three of its senior military leaders have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.

 

Hamas says in a text message sent to media that the three — Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Mohammed Barhoum and Raed al-Attar — were killed in the Israeli airstrike near the southern town of Rafah early on Thursday.

 

They are considered to be in the senior levels of the Hamas military leadership.

 

Palestinian police and health officials say that six people were killed in the Rafah strike and that dozens of others remain trapped in the rubble of a four-story building targeted by Israel.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/21/us-mideast-gaza-kidnapping-idUSKBN0GL0YQ20140821

Senior Hamas official says group abducted Israeli teens

 

A top Hamas official said members of his militant group kidnapped three Israeli teenagers whose deaths in June provoked a spiral of violence that led to the war in Gaza, the first acknowledgement of the movement's involvement.

 

Hamas, which controls Gaza, has up to now refused to confirm or deny Israeli accusations that it masterminded the abduction and killing of the three young men, one of them a joint U.S.-Israeli citizen, in Hebron.

 

"There was much speculation about this operation, some said it was a conspiracy," Saleh al-Arouri told delegates at the International Union of Islamic Scholars in Istanbul on Wednesday, according to a recording of the meeting posted online by organizers.

 

"The popular will was exercised throughout our occupied land, and culminated in the heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades in imprisoning the three settlers in Hebron," he said, referring to Hamas's armed wing.

 

"This was an operation from your brothers in Qassam undertaken to aid their brothers on hunger strike in (Israeli) prisons," he added.

 

Jewish seminary students Eyal Yifrach, 19, and Gilad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, were abducted while hitchhiking in the Israeli occupied West Bank on June 12 and killed.

 

Israel promptly accused Hamas, which is based in Gaza but has a presence in the West Bank, of masterminding the attack and began a crackdown on the group in which over a thousand Palestinians were arrested.

 

Tensions already ran deep in the West Bank after weeks of a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

 

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who is in exile in Qatar, denied knowledge of the abduction but praised its perpetrators.

[Larry]

Wonder why they made the announcement. They proud of what they accomplished?

[Kilmer17]

Well they're getting bombed into the Stone Age for doing it, whether they did or not, they might as well get the street cred for it

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

deleted post.

[visionary]

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/mena/561157-iran-to-send-aid-to-gaza-via-egypt

Iran to send aid to Gaza via Egypt

 

Iran plans to send aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip after Egypt said it would allow the shipment to enter the Palestinian territory, an Iranian diplomatic source said on Friday.

 

The official IRNA news agency said Cairo had agreed to transfer humanitarian aid bound for the coastal enclave, citing a foreign ministry source in Tehran.

 

The source said a first Iranian Red Crescent shipment of 100 tons of medicine and food would be flown "soon" to Cairo.

 

"The package weighs 100 tons and consists of food and medication," IRNA quoted the source as saying.

 

At least 2,092 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since July 8 in the worst fighting in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since a 2000-05 intifada.

 

Sixty-eight have been killed on the Israeli side: 64 soldiers and 4 civilians, the latest a four-year-old boy killed by mortar fire on Friday.

 

Tehran said at the end of July it had sent a first shipment of aid to Cairo that was awaiting authorization to enter the enclave via Rafah in southern Gaza, the only crossing point not controlled by Israel.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/26/us-mideast-gaza-idUSKBN0GM11320140826?utm_source=twitter

Gaza ceasefire takes effect as Palestinians celebrate

 

A ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinians aimed at ending their seven-week conflict in Gaza went into effect on Tuesday and joyous Palestinians streamed into the streets of the battered enclave to celebrate.

 

Minutes before the Egyptian-brokered truce began at 1600 GMT (12.00 noon EDT), a rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed one person in an Israeli kibbutz, or collective farm, near the Gaza border, police said.

 

Palestinian and Egyptian officials said the deal calls for an indefinite halt to hostilities, the immediate opening of Gaza's blockaded crossings with Israel and Egypt and a widening of the territory's fishing zone in the Mediterranean.

 

A senior official of the Islamist group Hamas, which runs Gaza, voiced willingness for the security forces of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the unity government he formed in June to control the passage points.

 

Both Israel and Egypt view Hamas as a security threat and are seeking guarantees that weapons will not enter the territory of 1.8 million people.

 

Under a second stage of the truce that would begin a month later, Israel and the Palestinians would discuss the construction of a Gaza sea port and Israel's release of Hamas prisoners in the occupied West Bank, the officials said.

 

After the ceasefire began, crowds and traffic filled the Gaza streets. Car horns blared and recorded chants praising God sounded from mosque loudspeakers.

 

"Today we declare the victory of the resistance, today we declare the victory of Gaza," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

 

Israel gave a low-key response to the truce.

[Koala]

Border-crossing opened and the fishing zone was extended -- in exchange for absolutely nothing from Hamas. Sure smells like a Hamas victory to me. Good job Netanyahu -- you just pissed off the U.N., killed thousands of innocents, and handed Hamas a moral victory IN EXCHANGE FOR NOTHING!!!!! And yet the Israelis will keep electing this guy because as a whole they are one of the most retarded voting populaces on earth.

[Larry]

I'm not so sure about that. 

 

I'm getting the impression that Hamas didn't exactly generate a lot of goodwill in Egypt.  Rather irritated them, in fact. 

 

Now, whether that means that Egypt will actually stop the flow of weapons to Hamas?  Remains to be seen.  (I'm assuming that Israel isn't letting any in.  So, whatever they're getting, must be coming through Egypt.) 

 

Still, I have no doubt that the Palestinian In the Street thinks they "won". 

[visionary]

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.612631

With truce, Israel talks to Hamas and Islamic Jihad

 

The cease-fire agreement doesn’t give Hamas any victory photos or immediate gains. Though Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah and Hamas representative Izzat al-Rishq both heaped praise yesterday on the Palestinians’ heroism and their ability to stand fast against the Israeli army, Shalah listed the war’s achievements as “keeping the Palestinian problem from being forgotten,” “thwarting the Zionist enemy’s initiatives” and “destroying his deterrent capabilities.”

 

It’s hard to find any significant differences between the current agreement and Egypt’s original proposal, unless there’s a secret annex that hasn’t been published. Opening Gaza’s border crossings, allowing humanitarian aid and construction materials to enter and expanding the coastal fishing zone to six miles were already agreed on a month ago. There’s no commitment yet to building a port and airport in Gaza, and even opening the Gaza-Egypt border crossing at Rafah was left to separate talks between the Palestinians and the Egyptians. At this stage, the agreement largely replicates the understandings reached after the last Gaza operation in 2012. Thus ostensibly, Israel can say it achieved its goals: quiet in exchange for quiet and destroying the tunnels.

 

But this is just a preliminary agreement. The important agreement will come in another month, when both sides return to Cairo to negotiate over core issues like a port and airport, prisoner releases and Gaza’s reconstruction. Over the coming month, the cease-fire’s stability will be tested, and that is the innovation in yesterday’s agreement: The truce is of unlimited duration. Thus for the first time, Israel has agreed to a confidence-building process with the Palestinian government to which Hamas and Islamic Jihad are also parties.