Israel Violates Truce, Palestinian Fighters Retaliate
Jonathan Shockley - 26.11.2006 20:15
Israeli troops were still inside Gaza despite a statement from the army that all had withdrawn.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for firing three rockets and said that since Gaza and the West Bank are a unit, it would not agree to a ceasefire unless Israeli military activity also ended in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli troops were still inside Gaza despite a statement from the army that all had withdrawn, declared the armed wing of Hamas. “(We) reiterate our attacks will continue, ” the group said in a statement posted on its website.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for firing three rockets and said that since Gaza and the West Bank are a unit, it would not agree to a ceasefire unless Israeli military activity also ended in the occupied West Bank.
Israel, despite earlier admissions that the West Bank and Gaza are indeed a unit, said the West Bank was not covered by the deal, and vowed to abide by it.
“The instructions are clear. Anyone violating the national agreement, will be considered to be breaking the law,” said Israeli Lt. Gen. Abdel Razek Almajaydeh
Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, later said that all major Palestinian factions had agreed to respect the ceasefire
"We will have to discuss any violation of this (ceasefire) agreement by Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine," Hamas said, according to Israel army radio.
The truce appears to be an attempt to put an end to the bloodshed, which, since the latest Israeli offensive, has killed five Israelis --3 soldiers and two civilians-- and more than 400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, Palestinian hospital officials and residents say.
The latest wave of the conflict in Gaza started on June 24, when Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, the Muammar brothers, who have since disappeared into the Israeli prison system, joining almost 1000 “administrative detainees” held without charge, and about 9,000 others whose confession, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, was often extracted by torture.
The next day, June 25, Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian fighters, which led to a sharp escalation of Israeli attacks in Gaza, and a huge outcry in the corporate media.
Efforts to exchange Shalit for any Palestinians prisoners failed.
Since Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza in September 2005 until today, the estimates run between 10,000 and 13,000 heavy artillery shells have been fired into Gaza. On the Palestinian side, the estimates are approximately 1,300 crude Kassam missiles have been fired into Israel.
Israeli human rights groups have described Gaza as “The World's Largest Prison Camp”
The poverty-stricken Palestinian population, in number roughly equal to the Israeli population, is in possession of less than 20% of the former Palestine. Israel’s occupation is now in its 40th year.
The US is providing decisive support for Israel to illegally annex valuable lands and the most important resources of the West Bank, while carrying out settlement and infrastructure projects that divide the shrinking Palestinian territories into unviable cantons, virtually separated from one another and from the receding corner of Jerusalem that will be left to Palestinians.
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