The Middle East: A region in turmoil A A A (resize font) Jerusalem (CNN) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been crystal clear about the goals of Operation Protective Edge. Destroy Hamas tunnels, end its rocket-fire (and that of Islamic Jihad), and bring about sustainable quiet for the people of Israel by demilitarizing Gaza. Those aims were restated by Netanyahus spokesman, Mark Regev, as the latest ceasefire came into force Tuesday. We dont want to see that terrorist military machine rebuilt, he told CNN. We have to make sure that Gaza stays demilitarized. After nearly a month of combat, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) say they have destroyed 32 offensive tunnels. Hamas stocks of rockets have been depleted (by about two-thirds), its launch facilities hit hard, the IDF says. But how do you define demilitarized? Hamas short-range mortars killed more Israelis than its rockets -- does Israel insist on those being surrendered? How would they even be found? And by whom? Sustainable quiet will depend on factors Israel can influence, but not control: Above all its willingness to offer the 1.8 million people of Gaza a future that is something better than an open prison. Its estimated around two-thirds of Gazans have never left the Strip; Palestinian writer Amir Nizar Zuabi speaks of a desperate fatalism after nearly a decade of conflict. We, who were attacked from the sky, from the sea, from the fields, who had one-ton bombs dropped on our heads in pointless rounds of killing, have turned our back on life, he wrote in Haaretz this week. Can they turn again -- and glimpse a future in which they can sell their produce in foreign markets and travel freely, in which they can find work, build homes and see their children receive an education without the overhanging fear of the next bombardment? Such a possibility was envisaged in the agreement that ended the last conflict in 2012 and provided for opening the crossings and facilitating the movements of people and transfer of goods, and refraining from restricting residents free movements and targeting residents in border areas. But the agreement was not implemented. Israel had committed to holding indirect negotiations with Hamas over the implementation of the ceasefire but repeatedly delayed them, partly because of domestic political considerations, writes Nathan Thrall, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, in the London Review of Books.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 07:48:25 +0000
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