Update: Long Term Ceasefire Reached in Latest Gaza War

[Mustapha]

It's interesting that these Palestinian protesters set up shop for their protest at a BBC broadcasting location. You'd think they'd confide in their leaders instead of looking for international help.. but oh, wait, their leaders are comfortably in another country poking the beast with a stick and using citizens/children as martyrdom bait.

It would all be over tomorrow if Israel agrees to terms on a separate, free Palestinian state.

Israel doesn't have to bomb Gaza, you can blame Hamas all you want, but Israel should take responsibility for all the innocent people they kill with their American made weaponry. The Israeli rockets are much more powerful and Gaza doesn't have Iron Dome protecting them.

Netanyahu doesn't want peace, the conflict is what keeps him in power.

[taxi]

It would all be over tomorrow if Israel agrees to terms on a separate, free Palestinian state.

Israel doesn't have to bomb Gaza, you can blame Hamas all you want, but Israel should take responsibility for all the innocent people they kill with their American made weaponry. The Israeli rockets are much more powerful and Gaza doesn't have Iron Dome protecting them.

Netanyahu doesn't want peace, the conflict is what keeps him in power.

I disagree.

There's a very large portion of Palestinian society that wants all of Israel destroyed. To say the conflict could be finished by either side relenting to the other is fairly short sighted. There are large groups on either side that want everyone gone.

I also don't think Israel should feel guilty or losses moral ground because they have built a missile defence system to protect their people. Hamas has yet to build bomb shelters for their people. They have (had?) a vast network of underground tunnels lined with concrete though.

[Mr. Ambien]

I disagree.

There's a very large portion of Palestinian society that wants all of Israel destroyed. To say the conflict could be finished by either side relenting to the other is fairly short sighted. There are large groups on either side that want everyone gone.

I also don't think Israel should feel guilty or losses moral ground because they have built a missile defence system to protect their people. Hamas has yet to build bomb shelters for their people. They have (had?) a vast network of underground tunnels lined with concrete though.

I never understood the logic that because Israel has bombs and have barely competent air defence system (that mainly work against most of extremists or Hamas crappy rockets) that they should be doing nothing to that, but it is clear to me with settlements, the lack of seriousness of the Israeli government to combat this, and overall, Israel's half-assed "peace" talks, which at best came almost close to the UN partition plan (minus Jerusalem, which is kind of a big deal), Israel is basically using it's military advantage for nothing useful in bridging/ending the conflict.

[key2thecup]

[Brick Tamland]

This will come as a shock (said no one ever)

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alanjohnson/100283063/hamas-manipulated-and-intimidated-the-media-in-gaza-why-was-that-kept-from-us/

[Hugor Hill]

Italian journalist, among others, killed.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-conflict-journalist-simone-camilli-among-6-killed-after-gaza-bomb-disposal-goes-wrong-1.2735053

An Associated Press video journalist and a freelance Palestinian translator working with him were killed Wednesday when ordnance left over from Israeli-Hamas fighting exploded as they were reporting on the aftermath of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Simone Camilli and Ali Shehda Abu Afash died when an unexplodedbomb believed to have been dropped in an Israeli airstrike blew up asGazan police engineers were working to neutralize it in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.

......

Dangerous place to make a living.

[Hugor Hill]

A producer getting their knickers twisted over politics. Wonder if he went through business school like I did to understand that putting politics in his line of work is bad business.

I mean, I fully expect actors/actresses to say what they think, clearly Hollywood is full of people who wish to use their status for whatever means suits them, but Voight is right, as much as it pains me to say.

Do you think that Hollywood, or any other forms of art, often contain politically motivated work? Blatantly or subtly?

The answer should be yes.

Hollywood actors speaking out against Israel, especially in somewhat extreme terms like Cruz/Bardem did, will do damage on their careers. Even Spanish and other European producers will have to think twice before casting either one of them if they want their North American releases to have good chances of success.

[drummer4now]

I think the first part is true..

[Mr. Ambien]

Do you think that Hollywood, or any other forms of art, often contain politically motivated work? Blatantly or subtly?

The answer should be yes.

Hollywood actors speaking out against Israel, especially in somewhat extreme terms like Cruz/Bardem did, will do damage on their careers. Even Spanish and other European producers will have to think twice before casting either one of them if they want their North American releases to have good chances of success.

They just need to be more subtle like Charlie Sheen or Mel Gibson.

I think the first part is true..

"Finish Hamas off?"

"Naaaaah"

[Guest]

Hamas has been in power for only 8 years?

In the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, Hamas won a decisive majority in the Palestinian Parliament,[10] defeating the PLO-affiliated Fatah party.

Israel vacated their settlements in Gaza back in 2005.

This recent trouble has been caused by the Hamas.

Maybe you should research more before you blast others in this thread.

Hamas has been around longer than 8 years; that was beside my point however. The thrust of my post was to say that Hamas serves as a perfect symbol that allows the Greater Israel movement to cling to and justify their actions. Before Hamas, it was "insert figurehead", that allowed the continued settlement and use of force.

[DonLever]

The latest Gaza war is over for now. I am sure will be another in the future. There always is.

from WSJ:

Israel has agreed to an open-ended cease-fire in its seven-week military confrontation with Hamas, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday.

The official said Hamas' demands for a seaport, an airport and the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails would be discussed in coming days in indirect talks in Cairo, along with Israel's demands for the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators would aim to reach a detailed accord within a month, the official said.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said earlier Tuesday the Islamist movement had agreed to an Egyptian-brokered deal to end the fighting.

The latest truce went into effect at 7 p.m. local time, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Fighting between Israel and the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip continued in the hours leading up to the accord.

Israeli warplanes destroyed one high-rise building in Gaza City and severely damaged another, further escalating its pressure on Hamas.

Residents of the 15-story Al Basha Tower and the 17-story Italian Complex were evacuated after receiving telephone warnings of the imminent airstrikes. The callers, some speaking only rudimentary Arabic, were assumed by residents to be Israeli military personnel.

The attacks leveled the Al Basha Tower, an office building, and razed all but a quarter of the Italian Complex, a mixed-used development. Israel said the buildings were used by Palestinian militants as command centers.

Twenty-five people were wounded in bombing of the shops, offices and apartments that made up the Italian Complex, said Ashraf al-Kidra, a spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry

[theminister]

Good. Lasting peace in Israel! Finally!!!

I'm sure this one will last.

Sure of it.

[DonLever]

(Reuters) - An open-ended ceasefire in the Gaza war held on Wednesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced strong criticism in Israel over a costly conflict with Palestinian militants in which no clear victor emerged.

On the streets of the battered, Hamas-run Palestinian enclave, people headed to shops and banks, trying to resume the normal pace of life after seven weeks of fighting. Thousands of others, who had fled the battles and sheltered with relatives or in schools, returned home, where some found only rubble.

In Israel, sirens warning of incoming rocket fire from the Gaza Strip fell silent. But media commentators, echoing attacks by members of Netanyahu's governing coalition, voiced deep disappointment over his leadership during the most prolonged bout of Israeli-Palestinian violence in a decade.

true "After 50 days of warfare in which a terror organization killed dozens of soldiers and civilians, destroyed the daily routine (and) placed the country in a state of economic distress ... we could have expected much more than an announcement of a ceasefire," analyst Shimon Shiffer wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's biggest-selling newspaper.

"We could have expected the prime minister to go to the president’s residence and inform him of his decision to resign his post."

Netanyahu, who has faced constant sniping in his cabinet from right-wing ministers demanding military action to topple Hamas, scheduled a news conference for Wednesday evening, expected to be his first public remarks since the Egyptian-mediated truce deal took effect on Tuesday evening.

Palestinian health officials say 2,139 people, most of them civilians, including more than 490 children, have been killed in the enclave since July 8, when Israel launched an offensive with the declared aim of ending rocket salvoes.

Israel's death toll stood at 64 soldiers and six civilians.

The ceasefire agreement called for an indefinite halt to hostilities, the immediate opening of Gaza's blockaded crossings with Israel and Egypt, and a widening of the territory's fishing zone in the Mediterranean.

A senior Hamas official voiced willingness for the security forces of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the unity government he formed in June to control the passage points.

Both Israel and Egypt view Hamas as a security threat and are seeking guarantees that weapons will not enter Gaza, a narrow, densely populated territory of 1.8 million people.

Under a second stage of the truce that would begin a month later, Israel and the Palestinians would discuss the construction of a Gaza sea port and Israel's release of Hamas prisoners in the occupied West Bank, possibly in a trade for the remains of two Israeli soldiers believed held by Hamas, the officials said.

Israel has in recent weeks said it wants the full demilitarization of Gaza. The United States and European Union have supported the goal, but it remains unclear what it would mean in practice and Hamas has rejected it as unfeasible.

COMPETING VICTORY CLAIMS

"On the land of proud Gaza, the united people achieved absolute victory against the Zionist enemy," a Hamas statement said.

Israel said it dealt a strong blow to Hamas, killing several of its military leaders and destroying the Islamist group's cross-border infiltration tunnels.

"Hamas's military wing was badly hit, we know this clearly through unequivocal intelligence," Yossi Cohen, Netanyahu's national security adviser, said on Army Radio.

But Israel also faced persistent rocket fire for nearly two months that caused an exodus from a number of border communities and disrupted daily life in its commercial heartland.

"They are celebrating in Gaza," cabinet minister Uzi Landau, of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party in Netanyahu's coalition, told Israel Radio. He said that for Israel, the outcome of the war was "very gloomy" because it had not created sufficient deterrence to dissuade Hamas from attacking in the future.

Nahum Barnea, one of Israel's most popular columnists

[Mr. Ambien]

This will surely simmer things -- in the name of peace, right Israel?:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29008045

Israel has announced plans to expropriate 4 sq km of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

The decision to appropriate land south of Bethlehem is believed to be the largest seizure by Israel in 30 years.

The military-run local administration said it was a response to the kidnapping and killing of three Jewish teenagers in the area in June.

Palestinians said diplomatic action should be taken against Israel. The US urged Israel to reverse the move.

'Counterproductive' move

The decision was announced on Sunday by the Israeli army department charged with administering civil affairs in the West Bank.

The takeover of the land in the area of Gush Etzion clears the way for expansion of a settlement named Gevaot.

Local Israeli settlements said they hoped to build on the land, which Palestinian officials said included many olive groves.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the world community should hold Israel accountable for "the ongoing Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem", according to the AFP news agency.

Meanwhile, a US state department official was quoted by Reuters as describing the Israeli move as "counterproductive to Israel's stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians".

The Palestinians want their state to include all land captured by Israel in 1967, but some 500,000 Jews now live in more than 200 settlements and outposts in the West Bank - including East Jerusalem.

The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

[Gurn]

Rinse, lather and repeat. Nothing changes except for more dead people.

[taxi]

This will surely simmer things -- in the name of peace, right Israel?:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29008045

It was not in the name of peace. The Israeli government stated this was in direct response to the actions of Hamas.

Hamas has declared the last round of violence a victory. It gives the Israeli politicians no choice but to prove them wrong. I'm not sure why one side is constantly expected to move towards peace and the other can build a series of tunnels into Israel.

[drummer4now]

It was not in the name of peace. The Israeli government stated this was in direct response to the actions of Hamas.

Hamas has declared the last round of violence a victory. It gives the Israeli politicians no choice but to prove them wrong. I'm not sure why one side is constantly expected to move towards peace and the other can build a series of tunnels into Israel.

Do these tunnels span 4 hectares on peoples property? Did Hamas settle in peoples villages where the tunnels are located? Did Israel just bomb the frack out of Gaza? Yes they did..

I dont understand your rationale for this one.. So just because one stupid group that has history of proclaiming victory even though they lose most of their civilian population and time after time get pounded back to the stone age..

You're telling me Israel should do the same thing? Wasn't destroying Gaza enough for Israel?

These settlements are illegal.. and only add to the fire.

[Buddhas Hand]

It was not in the name of peace. The Israeli government stated this was in direct response to the actions of Hamas.

Hamas has declared the last round of violence a victory. It gives the Israeli politicians no choice but to prove them wrong. I'm not sure why one side is constantly expected to move towards peace and the other can build a series of tunnels into Israel.

Do you really believe this ?

To quote from a new york times article , " The timing of the land appropriation suggested that it was meant as a kind of compensation for the settlers and punishment for the Palestinians".

Not only are israels settlements illegal they are a genuine obstruction to peace.

[taxi]

Do these tunnels span 4 hectares on peoples property? Did Hamas settle in peoples villages where the tunnels are located? Did Israel just bomb the frack out of Gaza? Yes they did..

I dont understand your rationale for this one.. So just because one stupid group that has history of proclaiming victory even though they lose most of their civilian population and time after time get pounded back to the stone age..

You're telling me Israel should do the same thing? Wasn't destroying Gaza enough for Israel?

These settlements are illegal.. and only add to the fire.

To answer a few of your questions:

1) The site of this land grab was a site where Arab nationalists massacred hundreds of Jews in the 1910-1940s. So yes this was a place where Arabs had settled in someone else's village.

2) The tunnels and rockets span far far greater than 4 hectares (which is actually quite small). The bottom 1/4 of Israel is barely inhabitable due to the tunnels.

And it's not "one stupid group". It's the democratically elected government. Hamas is not a fringe group. They spent the last years planning and constructing the infrastructure for a major attack on Israeli soil. At that point the politicians, who have a duty to protect their citizens, have no point but to make a stand against Hamas.

This is a nasty move, but it's inevitable.

[taxi]

Do you really believe this ?

To quote from a new york times article , " The timing of the land appropriation suggested that it was meant as a kind of compensation for the settlers and punishment for the Palestinians".

Not only are israels settlements illegal they are a genuine obstruction to peace.

"illegal". Has anything Hamas done been legal?

Not to mention what is going on next door with ISIS, who is a very similar group to Hamas. Do you honestly think the Israeli public is going to look at that, look at the tunnels, look at Hamas' statements and not strike back.