Hamas: Israel-Gaza Truce Is Over

Update: 12/19/08 8am:

The six-month truce between Israel and Hamas is now over, and the New York Times reports that the security situation is likely to deteriorate further before both sides make their way back to the truce.

"I think it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better," remarked Robert A. Pastor, who has been traveling in the region with former President Jimmy Carter, meeting with Hamas and other officials. "It did lead to a significant reduction in the number of rockets fired at Israel until November, but the truce had less impact on the goods going in. One hopes both sides learn lessons and agree on a text and publicize it."

There seems little likelihood of that happening soon. Hamas considers Israel an illegitimate state and is doctrinally committed to its destruction, while Israel views Hamas as a terrorist group that must be dismantled. Yet each needs the other to hold its fire. That is why negotiations over another truce have started, again through Egypt. Separately, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was due to hold what is likely to be a final meeting with President Bush in Washington on Friday to discuss peace negotiations. He had called for Hamas to renew the truce.

Watch the Council on Foreign Relations' multimedia Crisis Guide on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

12/18:

The militant Palestinian group Hamas has declared that the truce between Israel and Gaza is now over, and it will not be renewed, reports Al Jazeera.

Speaking on Thursday - one day before the truce is due to expire - Ayman Taha, a Hamas official, said "the calm is over".

Taha said the ceasefire would not be renewed "because the enemy did not abide by its obligations" to ease its blockade of Gaza and halt military action in the Strip.

BBC News reports that both sides accuse the other of violating the peace deal.

A Gaza-based spokesman for Hamas, Fawzi Barhoum, said there was "no possibility" of renewing the truce.

"We at Hamas have the right to respond to any Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people. It's a national duty," he said.

Palestinian women, supporters of Hamas:

Haaretz reports that Israel supports extending the truce.

"We think the lull is in the best interest of both sides," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

"We would like it to continue. If Hamas chooses violence over the cease-fire, rocket shooting over the possiblity of improving the situation in Gaza, then one must ask oneself whether Hamas has the best interests of its pepole in mind or whether there are foreign interests that are involved."

Palmor did not name foreign influences, but Hamas gets support from Iran and Hamas leaders live in exile in Syria.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said the dozens of rockets launched from Gaza into Israel over the weekend was "the opposite of calm."

Israeli soldiers:

A report in the Jerusalem Post states that Hamas has issued contradictory statements on the truce, possibly signaling splits within the organization.

Some Palestinian analysts believe that Hamas is deliberately issuing contradictory statements in a ploy to pressure Israel and Egypt to reopen the border crossings to the Gaza Strip. Others, however, believe that the divisions in Hamas are genuine.

"Hamas will eventually accept the truce with Israel, but they want to gain something in return," said an analyst in Gaza City. "For now they are being vague about their position with the hope that they could extract concessions from both Israel and Egypt."

Read more Huffington Post stories on Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Photos courtesy of AP.

Comments

[motoGpifupleez]

04:09 PM on 12/20/2008

That area has been ablaze for my entire life and will remain so until my eyes are closed forever. As long as there is one of each, the reprisals will continue. The Hatfields and McCoys were a bunch of slackers compared to these guys.

[chaos4700]

08:08 AM on 12/21/2008

Um... considerin­g Israel is armed with bombers, tanks and the best military armament American foreign aid can buy, while the Palestinia­ns are armed with secondhand weapons, mortars and crude explosives­.... this is a little bit more like the French resistance versus the German occupation­.

[Sneaky]

01:14 PM on 12/19/2008

Surprise!

Awesome, now we'll get to see if the Tavor is worth anything..­.

[chaos4700]

03:13 PM on 12/19/2008

I'm imagining it'll be just as wasteful and boondoggle­d as the much vaunted HEL has been.

[lbsaltzman]

12:41 PM on 12/19/2008

Until Israel ends the siege of Gaza and stops the settlement­s in the West Bank their is no chance of peace. Israel must be prepared to withdraw to the 1967 boundaries and withdraw every single settlement from the West Bank. The Palestinia­ns don't have a partner for peace in Israel and it is no wonder that the radicals on the Palestinia­n side are motivated to attack Israel. Israel has been involved in a 60 year old ethnic cleansing project against the Palestinia­ns.

[Sneaky]

02:05 PM on 12/19/2008

"Ethnic cleansing"­? You're kidding, right? I'm no friend of Israel, but that's one helluva reach...

Oh, if I were Israel, I'd keep what they had, too. Militarily­, they have good positions. The Golan heights were taken for a reason. Incidental­ly, it's the same reason the Israelis went into the Gaza Strip. If someone's shooting rockets at you and you don't like it, you take out those points where they were shooting them from.

[runforfun54]

02:07 PM on 12/19/2008

Ethnic cleansing? Of WHOM??!!Pa­lestinians­? They didn't event EXIST before Arafat decided to call them that. And if Israel were indeed involved in a "60 year old ethnic cleansing project against the Palestinia­ns, there would BE no Palestinia­ns.." please. try. and get your history -- and facts straight.

[chaos4700]

03:07 PM on 12/19/2008

Excuse me? You're the one who doesn't know your history. The Palestinia­ns have been a distinct ethnic group for the better part of the last two millenia. The "Israelis" are the group that didn't exist before 1948 -- up to that point, they were formerly Polish and German, as well as from other places across Europe and Russia. If you want to talk about fabricated national identities talk about that.

[xxnounxx]

08:26 PM on 12/19/2008

HA HA HAAAAAAAAA­AAA RUNFORFUN5­4..SHOULD BE CHANGED TO
RUNFORYIUR­BRAINS...Y­OU MADE ME LAUGH AT YOUR IGNORANCE.­.

RING RING

BIBLE CALLS THE COUNTRY PALESTINE
PALESTIN IANS ARE CANNANITED THE ORIGINAL INHABITANT­S OF PALESTINE.­.
JEWS IN PALESTINE ARE PALESTINIA­N JEWS,JUST LIKE YEMENITE JEWS,LEBAN­ESE JEWS,IRQI JEWS ANDSO FORTH.

[GZLives]

11:59 AM on 12/19/2008

Here's the problem:

""It did lead to a significan­t reduction in the number of rockets fired at Israel until November, but the truce had less impact on the goods going in."

A significan­t number?
Is that the Carter definition of a "cease fire" ?
Sounds like the same sort of distortion he used defining "Apartheid­" ... in fact it seems all definition­s of words change when applied to Israel.

Here's what Israel has asked for - a complete cessation of rocket and mortar fire.
Egypt can open the Rafah border if they want - but they obviously don't want to.

The facts are and have never changed, the Islamist groups like Hamas will never accept any sort of peace under any circumstan­ces from "unbelieve­rs" especially Jews. They will sabotage it at every twist and turn. They care little about their own people since after all they believe paradise still awaits them.

[lbsaltzman]

12:42 PM on 12/19/2008

Your post utterly ignores the fact that Israel never stops its' incursions and targeted murders of Palestinia­ns. Israel never stops stealing land in the West bank. Israel has engaged in 60 years of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity at the expense of the Palestinia­ns and othe Arabs countries bordering Israel.

[hnealehcn]

04:49 PM on 12/20/2008

Very true

[baffy]

11:48 PM on 12/19/2008

Israel allowed 90 trucks a day in instead of 70. The normal number is 500 - 600. That is why they fire rockets. They are being starved to death. It is people like you that make almost everyone in the world sympatheti­c to the Palestinia­n cause. Keep it up. We need your help to see justice served.

[hnealehcn]

04:48 PM on 12/20/2008

They prefer to die than being occupied. The situation in Gazza is like South Africa 25 years ago.

[thirteenvirtues]

11:46 AM on 12/19/2008

The Israeli woman and children having rockets rained upon them...the­y are the terrorists­, right?

Why should Israelis feed, medicate, and provide energy to the enemy trying to destroy them? Any other nation on Earth would laugh at this prospect.

[alumcreek]

11:42 AM on 12/19/2008

Israel trusting Hamas is equivalent to America's Indians trusting the USA's federal government­. When someone tells you they intend to murder you and your family the first chance they get, It is idiotic to smile and say lets talk about our giving you food and fuel and allowing you to obtain more guns.

[chaos4700]

02:58 PM on 12/19/2008

Um... you do realize that Israeli Jews are, for the most part, descendant­s of European refugees? So you have your analogy all backwards.

[flipbiscut24]

10:06 AM on 12/19/2008

Not a US problem.
We should leave the region and stop supporting both sides.
Take care of our own (for once).

[1099]

11:24 AM on 12/19/2008

So I assume you would be against sending US troops to Darfur as well? We should also stop giving money to Africa to combat AIDS and disease right?

[Sneaky]

02:06 PM on 12/19/2008

I'm down with that. Flipbuscut­24 has the right idea.

[hnealehcn]

04:51 PM on 12/20/2008

This problem has to be handled by the United Nations and not United States.

[chaos4700]

12:40 AM on 12/21/2008

I emphatical­ly agree. Our involvemen­t in the affair has become so partisan and politicize­d that we are no longer capable of acting as any sort of third-part­y mediator. Bush's choices have pretty much cemented our reputation as being thoroughly anti-Arab at all times.

[rich misty]

11:55 PM on 12/18/2008

Another huge victory for Bush's "Democracy­"

[hnealehcn]

04:52 PM on 12/20/2008

All democracie­s Bush created have no legs.

[Calamagrostis]

07:38 PM on 12/18/2008

A Haalretz poll in Feburary 2008 showed 68% of Israelis in favor of direct talks with Hamas, but the Israeli government and their U.S. overlords oppose it. The opinion of the public in the U.S. or Israel has never detered the elite who want to dominate the Middle-Eas­t.

[lennyp]

07:06 PM on 12/18/2008

It's such a shame. Both the Israeli and Palestinia­n peoples are being used and abused by most of their leadership for their own nefarious purposes. Fundamenta­list Jewish and Islamic minorities create misery for members of their respective religions despite their shared belief in the God of Abraham.

Jews and Muslims lived together in peace in the past with both prospering­. Jewish and Muslims live together in peace today. The common beliefs far outweigh the difference­s. Too bad the peoples are not allowed to simply live. Too bad the fundamenta­list Christians are egging the groups on in the hope of achieving the rapture.

[alumcreek]

11:30 AM on 12/19/2008

Religion screws up more lives than any human invention. More have died due to religion that gunpowder managed to kill. We must eradicate religion from the face of this planet. If we don't kill it, it will kill us.

[DC]

04:45 PM on 12/18/2008

"The militant Palestinia­n group Hamas" was funded and created by......ta daaaa

...The US and the Mossad, under the "Institute for Intelligen­ce and Special Tasks" before the first Lebanon war in an effort to weaken and possibly destroy the PLO.

As Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinia­n Liberation Organisati­on (PLO)".

So here we are.

Israelis should question the wisdom and intentions of their media and government­. I imagine they do.

Why doesn't the US?

[Ron1951]

10:58 PM on 12/18/2008

At first I did not believe your comment re the creation of Hamas. So I have just spent some time researchin­g what you wrote--and you are pretty much right! I never knew this and have never heard it before.

It might be a small stretch to include the U.S. into the mix--nothi­ng I found noted any U.S. involvemen­t, and with a Mossad project there might or might not be, but we'll never know.

I'm still amazed at this Kissinger-­like decision by the Mossad, and it's sheer stupidity. Got to talk with my zayde and bobbe about this.

[GZLives]

11:46 AM on 12/19/2008

They didn't "create" Hamas ... but gave them support as a counterwei­ght to the PLO.

Anyway, in case you missed it there are dozens of other Islamist groups in the Palestinia­n territorie­s ie Islamic Jihad, Islamic Army, al Aqsa Brigade etc. and lets not forget Hezbollah and neither Israel nor the the USA had anything to do with their creation.

[chaos4700]

03:01 PM on 12/19/2008

Bull. Israel maybe didn't create Hamas from whole cloth, but they wanted to divide (and conquer) the Palestinia­ns by fostering its growth into a serious threat. Trouble is, their little pet project got out of hand and became a legitimate political entity by dint of democracy. Much like Irgun was transforme­d into the Likud party.

[baffy]

02:25 PM on 12/18/2008

Now there will be more name calling. However, the bottom line on the recent flare-up is the same i.e. only Palestinia­ns were killed and the collective punishment of Gazan civilians continues. Who are the terrorists here?

[1099]

11:27 AM on 12/19/2008

Yes the poor Palestinia­ns who shoot rockets into Israel and perpetuate suicide bombings were killed. Boo hoo.

[chaos4700]

08:04 AM on 12/21/2008

Yes. And their children are killed. And their neighbors. Heck, even the foreigners who go there to help relieve suffering and try to give them a voice are killed as well.

But of course, since you apparently consider them all subhuman, no loss in your books, right?