from the article

"Did we do wrong, by rejecting a truce that let the blockade continue?" Mashaal said. "Don't the people of Gaza deserve to live free? ... They want to live free without blockade or occupation, just like all the Palestinian people do."

Why shame on that man! He does not want his people to live in an occupied land, how abnormal! He wants to have supplies, food and necessities available to his people through their borders! The nerve of that man.....

Hamas is wrong for bombing the surrounding area, no doubt. Yet if your homeland was in the same situation, please don't tell me you would not feel the same.

He wants more innocent people to be killed and then he can blame Israel.

He needs to think about his people.

Stop the rockets.

I blame the leadership of Hamas for precipitating this crisis.

If there are tunnels into Egypt, than there may also as likely to be be tunnels into Israel for suicide bombers. Why hasn't that happened yet?

It will be interesting if bigger rockets hit into Israel, as to where these came from and how Israel would than respond to those sources. Hamas will most likely reject anything to the last man woman and child there. Both of these are too proud to back down. I would imagine some type of exodus into Egytp again. Let my people go?

So nobody sees the problem with a ceasefire brokered that allows Israel to continue withholding aid and supplies from the Palestinian people? Even during the last months-long ceasefire, that Hamas adhered to and which Israel broke, the blockade of all goods and services remained in place, as did the day-to-day humiliation and harassment at the hands of IDF and Israeli settlers.
Under those circumstances, what do the Palestinian people get? What is their motivation for further talks?
They either get bombed and hopefully die quickly or are slowly starved and succumb to hunger and disease.

Egypt and a number of other countries are brokering this cease-fire and will be seeing that aid gets in. Thats part of the deal. They also have to make sure that rockets dont get in however.

Originally posted by Britguy
So nobody sees the problem with a ceasefire brokered that allows Israel to continue withholding aid and supplies from the Palestinian people? Even during the last months-long ceasefire, that Hamas adhered to and which Israel broke, the blockade of all goods and services remained in place, as did the day-to-day humiliation and harassment at the hands of IDF and Israeli settlers.
Under those circumstances, what do the Palestinian people get? What is their motivation for further talks?
They either get bombed and hopefully die quickly or are slowly starved and succumb to hunger and disease.

"Another reason Hamas could be refusing the deal is because they might very well have something in the works which a ceasefire would not allow.


I was thinking about that possibility too.

My concern is the fact they were blocking supplies and food during the cease fire. These people have a right to supplies, medicine and food. There has to be a better way.

I don't envy Obama, what a mess he is walking into.

Why should Hamas agree? They are getting what they want! They fired over 3,000 missiles at Israel in 2008! And now Israel is finally reacting. What does Hamas do? The second they see any one with a uniform on they run away. Oh sure a pregnant woman or a little kid they can kill, but any one in a uniform they tuck their tail and run away to find a pile of babies too hide behind. Or run in a UN school and use it as a base.

Originally posted by Wormwood Squirm




Another reason Hamas could be refusing the deal is because they might very well have something in the works which a ceasefire would not allow.

[edit on 16-1-2009 by Wormwood Squirm]

Well, Remember, the Hamas leadership in Syria demanded that they(hamas in Gaza) not dare sigh "ANY"peace deal.

Now, remember, 2 seperate days rockets have come from Lebanon.
(Hezbolla has been seen moving things to a war footing)

Now remember, Syria has moved 10K + men into Lebanon-this was a while ago.
(Syria has taken pot shots from across the golan hights)

You very well might be on to something at that.

[edit on 1/16/2009 by mrmonsoon]

There is no looking back, Pandora's box is opened, I just can't believe that Israel will simply stop, hold it's ground and retreat , truce or none, their actions are just a step towards the much anticipated Iranian conflict and larger war, more slaughter, more actions that will lead to more chaos, two religions and two ideologies clashing as they have for centuries with no endpoint, the problem is that we the U.S. have unfortunately inserted ourselves into the conflict and just as it is erroneously been perceived Hamas is the people and they speak for them all, our support and dollars given by our government to the state of Israel erroneously speak for the United States and all their people and each round that is locked and loaded into an Israeli weapon is a dollar from each one of us that could have been spent here, these are dollars from all people, faiths and backgrounds that pay taxes and if a vote could be cast by taxpayers themselves a great amount of the dollars would not be going to fund arms to any country that misuses it's military power to kill children and women and really violate the tenant of all religious foundation and human rights which need to come above any religious conviction.

I believe human rights are being completely overlooked which is the most unfortunate thing to happen in our time, if these people are truly religous what happened to thou shalt not kill or exhausting all feasible diplomatic actions especially since it is proven Hamas was capable of abiding by the ceasefire in the first place, no rockets were fired during that period which proves that other options could have been pursued, since hearing the real facts that they did not break the ceasfire I cannot listen nor will I listen to anything supporting Israel's reason for attacking Palestine it is simply inexcusable no matter what is brought to the table about how many rockets were fired prior to the ceasefire, there was reasonable evidence the direction chosen could have been completely avoided.