It is said that Hamas seized full control of the Gaza Strip early Friday. Masked Hamas fighters overran all strongholds of Abbas’s rival Fatah faction. Hamas says they have taken control of the President’s Headquarters.
Below, as other eyes see it as well. What is the discipline required for peace here? What concessions from all sides? Bush, as of this afternoon after Abbas plea for US troops to help, said the equivalent of, Sure, but we’ll have a hard time scaring up any troops up right now.
Below are three brief reports on this issue, and one brief description of Gaza from Nov 2006
a Palestinian News Report, Today
a USA Bush News Report, Today
an Israeli News Report, Today
15 minues ago from Palestinians: Their View. Today.
Hamas PM says works on, urges end to killing
14 Jun 2007 23:11:12 GMT
GAZA, June 15 (Reuters) – Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader dismissed as prime minister by the Palestinian president, said on Friday his government would continue to function and he urged an end to reprisal killings by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“The existing government will carry out its tasks in the best possible way,” Haniyeh said in a broadcast in the early hours after Hamas forces routed presidential supporters in Gaza.
“I call on my brothers in Hamas to declare a general amnesty and to guarantee people’s lives,” he added.
He blamed the past week’s violence on security chiefs from President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah faction in Gaza and accused them of having persecuted Hamas Islamists:
“They have committed crimes … They have killed people just because they were bearded and because of their affiliations.
“They have abducted men and executed them before the eyes of their families,” Haniyeh said.
“The situation reached an intolerable level and they have pushed people into reactions that have brought things to where they are now.”
He also left a door open to talks, although Hamas officials have said previously this week that a condition for discussions with Fatah is that Hamas should have a leading say in security decisions for the Palestinians.
“I call for a national and comprehensive dialogue to begin immediately and on the basis of national rights,” Haniyeh said.
Gaza has become increasingly anarchic over the past few months, with clan rivalries complicating the tensions between the two main political factions. One element of that has been the kidnapping of foreigners, which has forced many aid and other organisations to limit their work in Gaza.
The US Holds. Today.
U.S. sticks by Palestinian president
GAZA FIGHTING
By Anne Gearan, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The violent crisis in Gaza has led the White House to reconsider tentative plans for President Bush to give a major address this month on his hopes for Mideast peace.
Bush’s speech would mark the fifth anniversary of his call for a separate, independent Palestine alongside Israel. He was the first U.S. president to back that notion so fully and publicly. But his administration has taken heavy criticism for letting the peace process drift while conditions worsened for the impoverished Palestinians.
On Thursday, the administration gave hearty support to beleaguered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas amid the deadly chaos in the Gaza Strip and insisted that Washington will not give up on hopes for Mideast peace.
Israel Bows Out. Today
By Aron Heller
1:39 p.m. June 14, 2007
JERUSALEM – Israel’s defense minister vowed Thursday not to let Hamas’ near-takeover of Gaza spill over into violence against the Jewish state, but decided against taking action that would complicate the volatile situation, such as launching an invasion.
Officials said that when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meets President Bush in Washington next week, he will instead recommend a policy aimed at preventing Hamas from capturing the West Bank.
The Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Olmert favors cutting contacts between the two Palestinian territories, which are separated by 25 miles of Israeli territory.
Defense Minister Amir Peretz convened his top security officials to discuss possible Israeli reactions to the Gaza fighting but decided, for the time being, to stay out of the conflict. He issued a vague warning that Israel would not allow the violence to reach it, participants said.
An Eyewitness at Gaza. Not Today, But 7 Months Ago.
Novemeber 11, 2006
Nightmares
How Gaza offends us all.
by Jennifer Loewenstein
November 11, 2006
Each night in Gaza City that first week in November, explosions sounded in the northeastern corner of Gaza: a succession of bullets, booms, bombs, canon fire. On the first night of the onslaught we could still see lights from Beit Hanoun 10 miles from us blinking and twinkling as if nothing were really happening; it was all a dream-fireworks, a distant celebration perhaps.
But then, by the second night only a swath of blacked out space lay in the place of Beit Hanoun, electricity-less and water-less as the booms continued unabated for an hour or more and the hum of the pilot-less drones circled round again and again above us, above Beit Hanoun, above Gaza, automated people-monitors taking stock of the activity below.
Nobody from Beit Hanoun could leave by day to get to work without announcing to the tanks and the drones that he was prepared to sacrifice his life for a semblance of normalcy. All men between the ages of 16-35 were rounded up onto trucks and hauled away for “questioning”. What will happen to them and their families? Will anyone follow up? Will they add to the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, left to rot while their wives and children, sisters, brothers, parents go on struggling to survive?
There lies Gaza stretched 28 miles long in a tumbledown graying, decaying heap, yawning, tired, wretched, full of garbage. Tape gauze over your nose to avoid the smell of sewage and burning trash. Try not to notice the metal-shuttered shop fronts, the empty stores, the proliferation of horse- and donkey-carts clopping along the streets for lack of fuel, the ribs of the tired beasts jutting out from their bellies as boys whip them along to keep going.
The joke is the cerulean blue sky illuminating the rubbish tip, the palm trees and purple flowers beaming in the November sun – natural non-sequiturs, like the box of fresh chocolates offered to the journalists filming the woman’s wounded son as she yells out her frustrations and horror at the Americans and the Israelis who are killing her family. Why? She asks. Why, why, why?
Ask Mark Regev, Israel’s eager, hideously sincere government spokesperson. On CNN’s international news he tells us in earnest that this is Israeli self-defense. The Qassam fire into Sderot and Ashkelon must stop. Israelis have the right to defend themselves. The “operation” in Beit Hanoun will not stop until the Qassams stop. Each word drivels out of his mouth into a bubble of obscenity for everyone watching from the vantage point of Gaza.
Verbal pornography, sado-masochistic jargon from the prince of Hasbara leaks onto the dust like poisonous bile bought, paid for and sought after by the lords of power and their occupying machinery.
The shoddy, home-made Qassams hiss like cornered alley cats when they are fired into the skies. Stupid and bestial, they zing across the border like crazed beasts not knowing where they are going. They’ll dash forever like this until the occupation of Palestine ends. The Gazans know this, Hamas knows it, Fatah knows it, the PFLP knows it; In Israel, Labor and Likkud know it, Meretz knows it, Yisrael Beiteinu knows it, Shas knows it; Peretz, Olmert and Lieberman know it, Sharon knew it, the Israeli people know it, official America know this, so 40 years after 1967 and 58 years after 1948, why is the occupation not yet over?
Because Israel does not want it to end. Because Israel wants the land and the resources without the people. Because you have to eviscerate a culture in order to maintain total control over it. Because the United States says that’s just fine with us, you serve our purpose well. You help make the war on terror convenient. You help fit Iraq into the scheme. You’ll help us with Iran as well. Who the hell cares about a million and a half poverty-stricken Gazans and their dust, their sand, their stinking, crumbling heap of a disaster area homeland?
What a terrible shame it is that Gazans have not yet attained the status of Human in the eyes of the Western powers, for the resistance there will continue to be an enigma until this changes. For now, however, the slaughter will continue unabated.