provinceorstate:gaza strip

In nearing deal with Israel on Gaza, Hamas wins achievements through military resistance

Netanyahu, who has no clear goal on Gaza, prefers to be weak on terror and not find himself in an endless war in the Strip

Amos Harel
Aug 15, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-netanyahu-government-warming-to-prospective-cease-fire-with-hamas-

The two sides clashing in the Gaza Strip, Israel and Hamas, seemed to be closer on Tuesday evening than anytime during the past few months to “the small arrangement” – a full cease-fire that includes a halt to all acts of violence, alongside the first easing of the blockade on Gaza.
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If the efforts to broker the deal by the United Nations and Egyptian intelligence work out, and optimism in Israeli defense circles could be heard for the first time on the matter Tuesday evening, then it is possible that quiet could return to the border between Israel and Gaza for at least a few months.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has examined the possibility of calling early elections over the past few days, because of the coalition crisis over the law on drafting the ultra-Orthodox, along with other considerations. A stable cease-fire in Gaza would allow Netanyahu to conduct the election campaign from a position of relative stability, without having to continually fight back against the accusations that he has abandoned the residents of the south to rockets and incendiary kites.
>> Hamas is exploiting Netanyahu’s unwillingness to go to war | Analysis

Minister of Defense Lieberman, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chief of Staff Eisenkot at the graduation ceremony for officers’ course at Training Base 1.Ariel Hermoni / Ministry of Defense
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The negative side of the understandings with Hamas for Netanyahu is that he is in practice negotiating with Hamas. His denials haven’t convinced anyone. Netanyahu knows exactly to whom the mediators are delivering his answers. It has happened in the past too, under Ehud Olmert’s government after Operation Cast Lead, and on Netanyahu’s watch too, after both Pillar of Defense and Protective Edge. But it seems that this time it is even clearer and more unforgiving.
It will also be a victory from Hamas’ point of view. The organization began escalating the tensions along the border with mass protests on March 30, from a position of deep distress. The understandings are expected to ease the Israeli pressure on the Gaza Strip and give Hamas breathing room. At the same time, the understandings promise Hamas another achievement: being identified as an important and legitimate partner for regional agreements. And Hamas achieved all this through military resistance, in complete opposition to the line taken by its rival Palestinian camp, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.

The step that is now coming together was woven by the United Nations special envoy for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, with the active help of Egyptian intelligence. The latest round of violence, which came last week, sped up the renewal of contacts and may have even advanced the willingness of the two sides to reach an agreement.
It seems that Netanyahu has chosen the least bad option. It is very possible he will spare the lives of dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians, who could very well have died in a wide-scale military conflict in Gaza in the next few months. Because Netanyahu never set a clear and attainable goal for himself for an attack on Gaza, he is willing to endure criticism from both the left and right on his demonstration of weakness in the face of terrorism, and not find himself in the middle of a war whose end, the how and why of it, would be a riddle to him.

» Palestinian Man Dies From Serious Wounds He Suffered On May 14
IMEMC News - August 13, 2018 3:30 AM
▻http://imemc.org/article/palestinian-man-dies-from-serious-wounds-he-suffered-on-may-14

http://imemc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WisamYousefHijazi-e1534118058425.jpg

Palestinian Medical sources in the Gaza Strip have reported that a seriously injured young man has died from his wounds, on Sunday at night.

The sources said that Wisam Yousef Hijazi, 30 , was shot by Israeli army fire on May 14th , during the Great Return March procession, east of Abasan al-Jadeeda town, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

Hijazi remained in a critical condition due to his injury, and was referred to an Egyptian hospital, but succumbed to his wounds at Rafah Border Terminal, between Gaza and Egypt.

Wisam was from Bani Sohelia town, east of Khan Younis.

According to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA), published on August 9th 2018, 172 Palestinians; including 140 men, 2 women, 28 boys (children) and 2 girls (children), have been killed in the Gaza Strip since March 30th

#Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

Palestinian protesters in Gaza: Don’t wound us – kill us -

How many of the young people protesting at the Gaza border fence hoped the soldiers facing them would pull the trigger and end their lives? Unfortunately, many

Amira Hass
Aug 13, 2018
Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-palestinian-protesters-in-gaza-don-t-wound-us-kill-us-1.6366805

“A person who was shot in the leg and had his leg amputated weeps. Not because his leg is gone, but because the soldier didn’t kill him.”
How many of the young people protesting Friday at the Gaza border fence hoped the soldiers facing them would pull the trigger and end their lives?
Many. Many more than is reported or than the Palestinians are prepared to or can admit publicly. 
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“A person who was shot in the leg and had his leg amputated weeps. Not because his leg is gone, but because the soldier didn’t kill him,” said someone who came out of the Gaza Strip for a few days. He told of a 30-year-old man who went up to the fence a few times, was wounded a few times, until he got lucky and the soldier on the other side finally killed him. We’ll get to the women too, soon enough, but we’re treading carefully.
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What is the ratio between the number of those seeking to continue protecting the principles of the Palestinian struggle – by protesting at the border fence – and the number of those using the patriotic-nationalistic mantle to commit suicide, knowing that Islam prohibits “ordinary” suicide?
>> Hamas is exploiting Netanyahu’s unwillingness to go to war | Analysis
We don’t know. Israel doesn’t allow us to enter the Gaza Strip to ask these questions and seek answers. Phone calls are not enough, and so we depend on reports from people coming out – Palestinians and foreign journalists.
>> No Fuel, No Gas: Israel Clamps Down on Gaza Over Airborne Firebombs
Perhaps the protesters are motivated simultaneously by the two goals, and their distance from the fence shows the ratio between their desire to die and their fight for freedom? But many people who are very far from the fence come to see what’s going on, one foreign reporter said. That’s not a struggle, it’s a kind of pastime, because there’s nothing else to do and the sea is full of floating excrement. This journalist, who has known the Gaza Strip for more than 20 years, concludes: When everyone has to find ways to survive, there’s no room for thinking about the national struggle. 
Many of them are young people who go to the fence to be wounded, thinking that Hamas will pay them, and then they can pay their debts at the grocery store or pay their rent for two months. It’s true: Hamas pays the injured a one-time payment of $200, I’m told. But only if the injury was serious.

Someone who was slightly injured and went to a Hamas office to ask for money was turned away. Someone else was fortunate – his injury was worth compensation, then he went to the fence to be wounded again, and received compensation again. 
But the wounded quickly discover what they did not take into consideration at first: Injuries have their own costs (beyond pain and disability). Surgery is covered. But medications are lacking, so their family goes deeper into debt to pay for them, or not. And then the flesh is infested with worms and it rots. And that’s not a metaphor.
Some people deluded themselves that their family would receive large compensation if they were killed, or that payment for injury would come on a monthly basis. They still think it’s like the second intifada, when Saddam Hussein and Iran sent money for these purposes and the Palestinian Authority bore the burden. Those days are gone forever. 
On Ramadan the young people went on the marches because a nourishing meal to break the fast was waiting for them, provided by Hamas. On other days they would receive a sandwich and a drink at the protest tents. Yet they are at risk even if they are not standing next to the fence, but rather are some distance away, near the tents, as attested to by a journalist who was standing near the tents last week when a bullet fired by one of our heroic soldiers flew right past his ear.
Over the weekend, written proof emerged of the mixture of a death wish and commitment to the struggle. Abdallah al-Qatati, 20, was a volunteer paramedic who went every Friday to rescue unarmed people wounded by the strongest army in the region. Ten days ago he wrote a Facebook post, and people who shared it said it was his last: “As on every Friday, I go to the border, but this Friday is different. I’m going like any young revolutionary protecting his homeland and his land. We don’t care about the goals of the march or the goals of any organization in this march. What is important to us is our land and our dignity. And in short, we are fleeing unto death. In the hope that the second death will be more merciful than the first. And that’s the end of the story.” 
In other words, life in Gaza is also death, of a different kind. On Friday, an Israeli soldier shot the medic al-Qatati and killed him.
And now to the women protesters: Since they are few, this could seem like an accusation, or scorn, which will draw protests. But a Palestinian woman who spoke with women who go to the fence says she believes that few of them do it for national reasons, or that gradually the national reasons gave way to personal-economic reasons. Some of them went to be wounded and receive compensation. One went to be close to her son who was protesting. And many went to die – one whose husband refused to give her a divorce, another who was unmarried and felt that society considered her damaged goods, a third who was a victim of family violence and a fourth who couldn’t stand the poverty, the constant chasing after a shekel for milk and drops of water from the faucet. We are familiar with the phenomenon of women in the West Bank who committed suicide-by-soldier. 
Poverty in Gaza has reached unimaginable, indescribable levels, even for people who are allowed to go in and see it. The despair growing there behind the iron wall that Israel has built is still seeking the lexicon with which it can be depicted.

The late Inas and Bayan Khammash
Haaretz.com - Gideon Levy - Aug 12, 2018 2:50 AM
Imagine the reaction if Hamas had killed a pregnant Israeli woman and her baby daughter. But Inas and Bayan were Palestinians from Dir al-Balah

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-late-inas-and-bayan-khammash-1.6365468

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6365470.1534030949!/image/4175247254.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/4175247254.jpg

For Uri Avnery

While the thirst for blood overtook social media; while commentator Shimon Riklin tweeted, “We want you to kill terrorists, and as many as possible, until the cries of their families overcome their sick murderousness”; while Minister Yoav Galant, a man whose hands are stained with a great deal of Gazan blood, declared with Biblical lyricism, “I’ll pursue my enemies and catch them, I won’t come back until they’re finished”; while Yair Lapid was writing, “The IDF must hit them with all its force, without hesitating, without thinking” – while all this was happening, Inas and Bayan Khammash were killed.

They were mother and daughter. Inas was 23, in her ninth month of pregnancy; Bayan was an 18-month-old baby. They were killed when a missile hit their home, a rented apartment in a one-story building in Dir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip. The father of the family, Mohammed, was seriously wounded.

Their killing didn’t slake the thirst for blood on social media in the slightest. It barely earned a mention in the mainstream Israeli media, which were far more concerned by the cancellation of a wedding in Sderot. That’s always Israel’s order of priorities.

It’s not that the suffering of residents of Israeli communities near Gaza shouldn’t be given abundant coverage, but the complete disregard for the victims on the other side, even the killing of a pregnant mother and her daughter, is an act of collaboration with wartime propaganda. The complete public indifference to every killing, coupled with the thirst for blood that has become politically correct, is also evidence of an unparalleled nadir.

It’s not hard to imagine what would have happened, both in Israel and abroad, if Hamas had killed a pregnant Israeli woman and her baby daughter. But Inas and Bayan were Palestinians from Dir al-Balah.

Are there still any Israelis who glanced for a moment at their own loved ones and imagined the atrocity of killing a pregnant mother with her baby in her arms? Does the thought still pass through anyone’s mind here that Inas and Bayan were a pregnant mother and her baby daughter, like the neighbors across the way? Like your daughter and granddaughter. Like your wife and daughter.

Can thoughts like these still arise even for a moment, given the onslaught of dehumanization, propaganda and brainwashing, which justifies any killing and blames the entire world, with the sole exception of those who committed it? Given the media, most of which just wants to see more and more blood being spilled in Gaza, and even does everything in its power so that blood will actually be spilled? Given the usual excuses that the Israel Defense Forces never intend to hit a pregnant woman and her daughter, they merely happen to do so, again and again and again and again?

Given all this, is there still any chance that the killing of a mother and daughter will shock anyone here? That it will touch anyone?

For almost 12 years, Gaza has been closed to Israeli journalists on Israel’s orders, and Israel’s fighting media accepts this submissively, even gladly. How badly I wish I could go to Inas and Bayan’s house right now, to tell their story and, above all, to remind the reader that they were human beings, people – a very difficult thing to do in the atmosphere of today’s Israel.

On one of our last trips to Gaza, in September 2006, photographer Miki Kratsman and I went to the Hammad family’s house in the Brazil refugee camp in Rafah. A huge crater had opened up a few hundred meters from the miserable tin shack we entered. In the dim room, we saw nothing but a crushed wheelchair and a crippled woman lying on the sofa.

A few nights earlier, the family heard airplanes overhead. Basma, then 42 and completely paralyzed, was lying in her iron bed. She quickly told her only daughter, 14-year-old Dam al-Iz, to rush to her so she could protect the girl with her own body. A concrete roof crashed down on them and killed Dam, her only daughter, who was lying curled up in her mother’s arms.

Ever since Inas and Bayan were killed, I’ve been thinking about Dam al-Iz and her mother again.

» Palestinian Dies From Serious Wounds Suffered Friday
IMEMC News - August 11, 2018 9:53 AM
▻http://imemc.org/article/palestinian-dies-from-serious-wounds-suffered-friday-2

The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that a man died, on Saturday at dawn, from serious wounds her suffered, Friday, after Israeli soldiers shot him with live fire during the Great Return March.

The Health Ministry said the man, Ahmad Jamal Suleiman Abu Louli, 40, was shot with a live round in the pelvis, east of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

http://imemc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AhmadAbuLouli-e1533970383380.jpg

On the same day of his serious wounds, the soldiers killed two Palestinians, including a medic, and injured 307 others; 85 of the wounded were shot with live fire, and five remain in critical conditions.

#Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

Gaza : deux Palestiniens tués par des tirs israéliens, mais la trêve semble tenir
AFP / (10 août 2018 21h22
▻https://www.romandie.com/news/ZOOM-Gaza-deux-Palestiniens-tu-s-par-des-tirs-isra-liens-mais-la-tr-ve-semble-tenir/944436.rom

Deux Palestiniens ont été tués vendredi dans la bande de Gaza par des tirs de soldats israéliens lors de manifestations et de heurts le long de la barrière de séparation, sans que la trêve fragile instaurée entre le Hamas et Israël paraisse remise en cause.

Les protestations du vendredi étaient considérées comme un test des intentions du mouvement islamiste Hamas et de ses alliés dans l’enclave palestinienne sous blocus, après un sévère accès de fièvre jeudi.

Environ 2.000 Palestiniens ont manifesté et brûlé des pneus à l’est de la ville de Gaza, a constaté un journaliste de l’AFP.

Avec d’autres rassemblements ailleurs le long de la barrière israélienne, quelques milliers de personnes en tout se sont déplacées, loin des mobilisations antérieures qui ont pu réunir des dizaines de milliers de Gazaouis.

Un secouriste de 21 ans, Abdallah al-Qatati , a succombé après avoir été atteint à la poitrine à l’est de Rafah (sud de la bande de Gaza). Il s’agit du 2e secouriste au moins à avoir été tué par les tirs israéliens depuis le 30 mars. Un autre Palestinien Ali Al-Aloul, 55 ans, a également été tué vendredi par l’armée israélienne.

Par ailleurs, 307 Palestiniens ont été blessés -certains par des gaz lacrymogènes-, dont deux journalistes et cinq secouristes, a indiqué le ministère local de la Santé. Au moins 131 d’entre eux ont été blessés par balles.

#Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour (20ème semaine)

L’armée israélienne a bombardé aujourd’hui ce centre culture Al-Mishaal à Gaza

Video: Building a theater audience in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
The Electronic Intifada 16 January 2018
▻https://electronicintifada.net/content/video-building-theater-audience-gaza/22956
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=179&v=dvhPy_d1mNs

Palestine’s Theater was founded in 2011 by director Edrees Taleb in Gaza City.

The troupe brings together 25 actors from all over the Strip, to rehearse and perform plays for the public.

There is no dedicated playhouse in Gaza, so the troupe rehearses and performs at the Said al-Mishal Establishment for Culture and Sciences in Gaza City.

The troupe faced obstacles in starting the group and generating interest in their plays.

Actress Hanan Madi said that not all families are encouraging, “but once they understand it and realize it’s reasonable, they no longer object.”

The project wasn’t successful from the outset, according to Taleb.

“But after I insisted that people attend, my audience grew. They come, pay tickets and try to enjoy a comedic performance to try to take their minds off of life in the Gaza Strip, from electricity cuts to other things.”

Video by Ruwaida Amer and Sanad Abu Latifa.

#Gaza

 » Israeli Army Kills One Palestinian In Northern Gaza
IMEMC News - August 9, 2018 1:27 AM
▻http://imemc.org/article/israeli-army-kills-one-palestinian-in-northern-gaza

http://imemc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AliGhandour.jpg

Israeli soldiers continued, on Wednesday night, the bombardment of several parts of the Gaza Strip, killing one man in northern Gaza, and wounding at least eight others.

The Health Ministry in Gaza has confirmed that Israeli soldiers killed Ali al-Ghandour, 30, in northern Gaza, and wounded at least two others, one seriously.

The slain Palestinian, and the wounded, were moved to the Indonesian Hospital, in northern Gaza.

The Palestinians who were attacked were in a car which was struck by a missile fired by an Israeli army drone.

The Health Ministry added that Israeli missiles also mildly injured three Palestinians in Gaza city, before they were rushed to the Shifa Medical Center.

#Palestine_assassinée

Two Palestinians killed during Israeli shelling in Gaza
Aug. 7, 2018 11:55 A.M. (Updated : Aug. 7, 2018 5:02 P.M.)
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=780629

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Two Palestinians were killed on Tuesday morning during an Israeli shelling targeting a Hamas military post in the northern besieged Gaza Strip.

Local witnesses confirmed that the Israeli artillery fired two shells targeting a Hamas military post in northern Gaza killing two Palestinians.

The two Palestinians were pronounced dead on the site before being transferred to the Indonesian Hospital.

Witnesses identified the two killed Palestinians as Ahmad Murjan and Abed al-Hafez al-Silawi.

Sources confirmed that Murjan and al-Silawi were members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement.

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Israeli Army Kills Two Palestinian Fighters In Gaza
August 7, 2018 9:20 PM
▻http://imemc.org/article/israeli-army-kills-two-palestinian-fighters-in-gaza

Al-Qassam said the two fighters, Ahmad Abdullah Morjan, 23, and Abdul-Hafeth Mohammad Seelawi, 23, where killed in an Israeli bombardment in northern Gaza.

It stated that the two fighters were part of a military training in “Asqalan” center, one of its training locations in northern Gaza, and that many Palestinians, including political leaders of Hamas, were in attendance.

Al-Qassam said that the training including the use of sniper fire, and explosives, and the fighters were practicing techniques when the Israeli army fired a shell at them, killing the two fighters.

“Israel is coming up with false allegations to justify its serious crime,” Al-Qassam said, “We hold the occupation fully responsible for this attack.”

The Israeli army said the two Palestinians “opened fire at Israeli soldiers,” and published a video of the two fighters reportedly firing at soldiers, while Hamas said the allegation has no basis, as the fighters were training, and firing fixed targets.

#Palestine_assassinée

Amid Deadly Israeli Crackdown on Gaza Protests, Chomsky Says U.S. Must End Support for “Murderers”
Democracy Now! July 30, 2018
▻https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/30/amid_deadly_israeli_crackdown_on_gaza

https://www.democracynow.org/images/story/60/43160/full_hd/H1_Razan-Gaza.jpg

(...) NOAM CHOMSKY : The official program—official—was to keep Gaza on what was called a diet, barely enough to survive. Doesn’t look good if they all starve to death. Notice that this is occupied territory, as recognized by—even by the United States, everyone but Israel. So, here’s a population kept in a prison, in an occupied territory, fed a diet to keep them at bare survival, constantly used as a punching bag for what’s called—what calls itself the most moral army in the world, now reaching a point where within a couple years it will be uninhabitable, yes, and in addition to that you have sadistic acts like highly trained snipers killing a young Palestinian woman medic when she’s tending a patient, and what the doctor just described.

What do we do with it? We actually react to that. The United States has reacted. It’s reacted by very sharply cutting its funding to the one organization, UNRWA, U.N. organization, that keeps the population barely alive. That’s our response, along with, of course, overwhelming support for Israel, providing with the arms, diplomatic support and so on. One of the most extraordinary scandals, if that’s the right word, in the modern world.

Can we do something about it? Sure, of course we can. Gaza should be a thriving Mediterranean paradise. It has a wonderful location, has agricultural resources, could be marvelous beaches, fishing, sea resources, even has natural gas offshore, which it’s not being allowed to use. So there’s plenty that can be done. But we’ve—the U.S. has preferred, under repeated-administrations but much worse now, to, as usual, support the murderers.
(...)
AMY GOODMAN: And, Noam, the solution that you say that is very straightforward and simple?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Very straightforward. Live up to the terms of the November 2005 agreement. Allow Gaza to reconstruct. Open the entry points to Israel and Egypt. Rebuild the seaport that was smashed. Destroy the—rebuild the airport that Israel destroyed. Allow them to reconstruct the power plants. Let them become a flourishing Mediterranean site. And, of course, permit—remember that the famous Oslo Agreements required, explicitly, that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank be a unified territory and that its territorial integrity must be maintained. Israel and the United States reacted at once by separating them. OK? That’s not a law of nature, either. Palestinian national rights can be achieved, if the U.S., Israel are willing to accept that.

i24NEWS - Flottille/Gaza : la Norvège exhorte Israël à s’expliquer
Mis à jour le 01/08/2018 11:34:08
▻https://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/international/moyen-orient/180717-180801-bateau-intercepte-a-gaza-la-norvege-demande-des-explications-a

https://cdn.i24news.tv/upload/image/9fac9d658e17d060d32039f0a9d7c1f12077aea2.jpg

(...) Le ministère norvégien a indiqué dans un communiqué que ses diplomates en Israël avaient fourni une assistance consulaire à cinq Norvégiens qui faisaient partie des 22 passagers et membres d’équipage à bord du navire « Awda » ("Retour", en arabe) qui battait pavillon norvégien, arraisonné par la marine israélienne.

« Nous avons demandé aux autorités israéliennes de clarifier les circonstances concernant l’interception du navire et de fournir les bases juridiques de l’intervention », a déclaré le porte-parole du ministère norvégien.

« Il s’agit du premier navire norvégien envoyé à destination de Gaza pour aider les Palestiniens. C’est un bateau pacifique, en aucun cas il ne menace la sécurité d’Israël », a estimé le chef de ’Ship to Gaza Norway’ qui a organisé l’expédition, Torstein Dahle. (...)

#Flottille #Gaza

As U.S. pushes for Mideast peace, Saudi king reassures allies |
Reuters

▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-paelestinians-usa-saudi/as-u-s-pushes-for-mideast-peace-saudi-king-reassures-allies-idUSKBN1KJ0F9

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has reassured Arab allies it will not endorse any Middle East peace plan that fails to address Jerusalem’s status or refugees’ right of return, easing their concerns that the kingdom might back a nascent U.S. deal which aligns with Israel on key issues.

King Salman’s private guarantees to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his public defense of long-standing Arab positions in recent months have helped reverse perceptions that Saudi Arabia’s stance was changing under his powerful young son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, diplomats and analysts said.

This in turn has called into question whether Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam and site of its holiest shrines, can rally Arab support for a new push to end the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, with an eye to closing ranks against mutual enemy Iran.

“In Saudi Arabia, the king is the one who decides on this issue now, not the crown prince,” said a senior Arab diplomat in Riyadh. “The U.S. mistake was they thought one country could pressure the rest to give in, but it’s not about pressure. No Arab leader can concede on Jerusalem or Palestine.”

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Palestinian officials told Reuters in December that Prince Mohammed, known as MbS, had pressed Abbas to support the U.S. plan despite concerns it offered the Palestinians limited self-government inside disconnected patches of the occupied West Bank, with no right of return for refugees displaced by the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967.

Such a plan would diverge from the Arab Peace Initiative drawn up by Saudi Arabia in 2002 in which Arab nations offered Israel normal ties in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in 1967.

Saudi officials have denied any difference between King Salman, who has vocally supported that initiative, and MbS, who has shaken up long-held policies on many issues and told a U.S. magazine in April that Israelis are entitled to live peacefully on their own land - a rare statement for an Arab leader.

The Palestinian ambassador to Riyadh, Basem Al-Agha, told Reuters that King Salman had expressed support for Palestinians in a recent meeting with Abbas, saying: “We will not abandon you ... We accept what you accept and we reject what you reject.”

He said that King Salman naming the 2018 Arab League conference “The Jerusalem Summit” and announcing $200 million in aid for Palestinians were messages that Jerusalem and refugees were back on the table.

FILE PHOTO: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud attends Riyadh International Humanitarian Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia February 26, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser
The Saudi authorities did not respond to a request for comment on the current status of diplomatic efforts.

RED LINES

Diplomats in the region say Washington’s current thinking, conveyed during a tour last month by top White House officials, does not include Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, a right of return for refugees or a freeze of Israeli settlements in lands claimed by the Palestinians.

Senior adviser Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has not provided concrete details of the U.S. strategy more than 18 months after he was tasked with forging peace.

A diplomat in Riyadh briefed on Kushner’s latest visit to the kingdom said King Salman and MbS had seen him together: “MbS did the talking while the king was in the background.”

Independent analyst Neil Partrick said King Salman appears to have reined in MbS’ “politically reckless approach” because of Jerusalem’s importance to Muslims.

“So MbS won’t oppose Kushner’s ‘deal’, but neither will he, any longer, do much to encourage its one-sided political simplicities,” said Partrick, lead contributor and editor of “Saudi Arabian Foreign Policy: Conflict and Cooperation”.

 Kushner and fellow negotiator Jason Greenblatt have not presented a comprehensive proposal but rather disjointed elements, which one diplomat said “crossed too many red lines”.

Instead, they heavily focused on the idea of setting up an economic zone in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula with the adjacent Gaza Strip possibly coming under the control of Cairo, which Arab diplomats described as unacceptable.

In Qatar, Kushner asked Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to pressure the Islamist group Hamas to cede control of Gaza in return for development aid, the diplomats said.

One diplomat briefed on the meeting said Sheikh Tamim just nodded silently. It was unclear if that signaled an agreement or whether Qatar was offered anything in return.

“The problem is there is no cohesive plan presented to all countries,” said the senior Arab diplomat in Riyadh. “Nobody sees what everyone else is being offered.”

Kushner, a 37-year-old real estate developer with little experience of international diplomacy or political negotiation, visited Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Israel in June. He did not meet Abbas, who has refused to see Trump’s team after the U.S. embassy was moved to Jerusalem.

In an interview at the end of his trip, Kushner said Washington would announce its Middle East peace plan soon, and press on with or without Abbas. Yet there has been little to suggest any significant progress towards ending the decades-old conflict, which Trump has said would be “the ultimate deal”.

“There is no new push. Nothing Kushner presented is acceptable to any of the Arab countries,” the Arab diplomat said. “He thinks he is ‘I Dream of Genie’ with a magic wand to make a new solution to the problem.”

A White House official told reporters last week that Trump’s envoys were working on the most detailed set of proposals to date for the long-awaited peace proposal, which would include what the administration is calling a robust economic plan, though there is thus far no release date.

Editing by Giles Elgood
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

» Health Ministry: “Israeli Soldiers Kill Two, Including A Child, Injure 246, In Gaza”
IMEMC News - July 27, 2018 10:23 PM
▻http://imemc.org/article/health-ministry-israeli-soldiers-kill-two-including-a-child-injure-246-in-gaz

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has confirmed that Israeli soldiers killed, Friday, two Palestinians, including one child, and injured 246 others, among them eleven who suffered serious wounds, 10 women, 4 medics, one journalist and 19 children.

The Health Ministry said an Israeli army sharpshooter shot Majdi Ramzi Kamal Satri, 12 , with a live round, east of Rafah city, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, during the Great Return March procession. The slain child is from the Shaboura refugee camp, in Rafah.

It added that the soldiers also shot Ghazi Abu Mustafa, 45, with a live round in the head, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

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Ghazi is the husband of Lamia Abu Mustafa, a nurse who never left the medical tents hundreds of meters away from the parameter fence, providing medical aid to wounded Palestinians.

He was injured a month ago by Israeli army fire, while helping wounding Palestinians, and received treatment by his wife and other medics, and today was fatally wounded by the army.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said the soldiers injured, Friday, at least 246 Palestinians, including eleven who suffered life-threatening wounds, in addition to four medics, one journalist and nineteen children.

#Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

Palestinian killed, others injured on 18th ’Great March of Return’ Friday
July 27, 2018 4:27 P.M. (Updated: July 27, 2018 5:47 P.M.)
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=780526

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GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — One Palestinian was killed and at least ten Palestinians were injured with Israeli live bullets on the 18th Friday of the “Great March of Return” in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza confirmed that Ghazi Muhammad Abu Mustafa, 43, succumbed to wounds he sustained with a live bullet in the head earlier Friday in eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

A Ma’an reporter said that two Palestinians were injured at the eastern borders of Gaza City, while another was injured at the return camp of eastern Khan Younis.

Israeli forces suppressed Palestinian crowds at return camps using live bullets and tear-gas bombs.

Sources added that Israeli soldiers were not deployed at the borders, but that only armored military vehicles were seen.

Meanwhile, an Israeli drone fired at least one missile targeting a group of Palestinians in eastern al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City; no injuries were reported.

The “Great March of Return” protests were launched by thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza — which has suffered from a decade-long Israeli siege — who took to the borders to demand their right of return as refugees to their original homelands, now in present-day Israel.

#Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

» Updated: Israeli Army Kills Three Palestinians In Gaza
IMEMC News - July 25, 2018 11:04 PM
▻http://imemc.org/article/at-least-3-palestinians-reported-killed-in-israeli-bombing-of-gaza-strip

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Dr. Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesperson of the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, has confirmed that Israeli soldiers killed, on Wednesday evening, three Palestinians, and injured one, after the army fired artillery shells into several areas in central Gaza Strip, and east of Gaza city.

Dr. al-Qedra said the three slain Palestinians have been identified as Ahmad Monir al-Basous, 28, ‘Abada As’ad Ferwana, 29, and Mohammad Tawfiq al-‘Ar’ir, 27; the three, from the Sheja’eyya neighborhood in Gaza, were killed by Israeli artillery shells east of the city.

Dr. al-Qedra added that one Palestinian suffered moderate wounds in an Israeli bombardment of a site in northern Gaza, and was rushed to the Indonesian Hospital.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in an official statement that the three fighters are members of the group, and vowed retaliation.

#Palestine_assassinée #GAZA

The world isn’t flat - Opinion
The dangerous nation-state law declares the intention of its authors: To teach generations of Israeli Jews that the world is flat and entrust them with the mission of expelling and wiping out a nation

Amira Hass
Jul 24, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-world-isn-t-flat-1.6310944

From a balcony in Ramallah, surrounded by friends and acquaintances, the nation-state law shrinks to its proper ludicrous proportions. The creationists erased a nation from the written text.
And yet, nine indisputable representatives of that nation sat and joked, turned serious, reminisced, traded political gossip about senior Palestinian Authority officials, voiced fears and concerns, made predictions and retracted them. What a privilege it was for me to sit among them and enjoy what is so natural to them that they don’t even categorize it — a rootedness and a belonging that don’t need verbal trappings; a zest for life; unimaginable strength and courage.
They were born in a village that was destroyed; in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip; in Damascus, Jaffa, Nablus, Ramallah, Nazareth, Acre. They’re the first, second and third generations of the 1948 refugees. Some are third-class citizens — fifth-class, now — of the state that robbed them of their homeland. Some returned to their homeland after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 and settled down in the West Bank, subject to Israeli military orders.
>> Planted by Netanyahu and co., nation-state law is a time bomb exploding in Israel’s face | Analysis ■ By degrading Arabic, Israel has degraded Arabs | Opinion ■ Israel’s contentious nation-state law: Everything you need to know >>
All are members of the same nation, regardless of what is written on their identity cards. They escaped Israeli bombings in Beirut and in Gaza; they lived under Israeli-imposed curfew, siege and house arrest; they were jailed in Israeli prisons for political activity; they were interrogated by Israel’s Shin Bet security service; they raised themselves from poverty; they wandered, studied, worked in left-wing organizations.

All of them have lost relatives and close friends, killed by Israel or in civil wars in the Arab countries where they used to live. All of them treasure the silent, pained gazes of their parents, who told them about the home that was lost 70 years ago.
Some of them also became bourgeois. Which doesn’t spare them the checkpoints; the Israeli expressions of racism and arrogance; the forced separations from relatives who cannot go (from the Gaza Strip) or come (from Syria); the fears for the future.

Not far, yet very far from there — under a lean-to in Khan al-Ahmar — women sit on thin mattresses placed on the ground and talk about the attack by police officers two weeks ago and a wedding party that is scheduled for this week. The strength and courage of these women from the Jahalin Bedouin tribe are equally evident. There, in those heartbreaking shelters, Israel’s greedy racism is also an immediate issue, broadcast by the spacious houses of the settlement of Kfar Adumim.
How do they live like this, with nonstop threats and aggression from bureaucrats, soldiers, policemen and settlers who covet the little that remains to them? Where do they get the strength to live in crowded conditions that are hard to get used to, without electricity or running water — which are the minimum conditions for community life — with shrinking pasturage and shrinking income, and yet not give in to the expellers’ orders? Their strength comes from that same rootedness and natural sense of belonging, which the deniers of evolution, the drafters of the nation-state law, are incapable of understanding.
For over a month, this community, which is threatened with a new expulsion, has been hosting mass public events — press conferences, rallies, speeches, delegations. There’s an element of exploitation and ostentation here on the Palestinian Authority’s part. Yet at the same time, another process is taking place, one that is very political: Palestinians from both urban and rural communities are liberating themselves from the alienation they used to feel toward the Bedouin.

» Young Man Dies From Serious Wounds Suffered On June 8
IMEMC News - July 23, 2018 8:05 AM
▻http://imemc.org/article/young-man-dies-from-serious-wounds-suffered-on-june-8

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The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has reported, on Monday at dawn, that a young man died from serious wounds he suffered, on June 8th, after Israeli soldiers shot him with live fire.

The Ministry said the young man, identified as Karam Ibrahim Arafat , 26, was shot during the “Great Return March” procession, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

It added that Arafat, from Abasan al-Saghira town, southeast of Khan Younis, was shot with a live round in the head, and remained in a critical condition until he succumbed to his serious wounds.

#Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

Assassinat de deux scientifiques palestiniens en Algérie
Dimanche, 22 Juillet 2018 - 20:56 - Nessma
▻https://www.nessma.tv/fr/article/deux-scientifiques-palestiniens-tues-en-algerie-2183

Des sources médiatiques algériennes ont confirmé l’assassinat d’un scientifique de la famille Al Farra et un médecin de la famille Al Banna, sachant que les deux étaient Palestiniens, de Khan Younès au sud de la bande de Gaza.

L’ambassade palestinienne en Algérie a annoncé à la famille Al Farra à Khan Younès la mort de leur fils Suleiman Mohamed Al Farra (33 ans) et du docteur Mohamed Hameed Al Banna.

Selon les conclusions préliminaires des autorités, ils sont morts soit par étouffement soit par électrocution.

Le mystère entoure la mort des deux scientifiques.

Israel hits several areas across Gaza, Presidency warns of escalation
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=780467

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GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Israeli warplanes carried out several airstrikes reportedly targeting Hamas sites across different areas of the besieged Gaza Strip on Friday evening.

Israeli airstrikes targeted the al-Rawda site of the al-Qassam Brigades in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood in southeastern Gaza City, the military wing of the Hamas movement, injuring several Palestinians.

A Ma’an reporter said that Israeli warplanes also targeted two sites in western Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip with 11 missiles; no injuries were reported.

The airstrikes came after the Israeli army declared the beginning of a widespread attack across the Gaza Strip in response to fire opened at Israeli soldiers in the eastern Gaza Strip earlier.

Four Palestinians were killed earlier Friday, including three al-Qassam fighters, while the fourth was killed during “The Great March of Return” protests.

Meanwhile, Israeli naval forces opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats injuring 1 fisherman.

A Ma’an reporter said that Israeli forces also opened fire at the fishermen forcing them to head back to shore.

#GAZA

» Israeli Army Kills A Fourth Palestinian In Gaza
IMEMC News - July 20, 2018 8:09 PM
▻http://imemc.org/article/israeli-army-kills-a-fourth-palestinian-in-gaza

Palestinian medical sources have confirmed that Israeli soldiers killed, Friday, a fourth Palestinian, in the Gaza Strip, after it killed three others earlier.

The Health Ministry stated that an Israeli army sharpshooter shot Mohammad Sharif Badwan , 27, with a live round in the chest, east of Gaza City.

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Badwan is a member of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas; he was killed while unarmed and participating in the Great Return March procession, east of Gaza city, when the soldiers attacked the protesters with live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, high-velocity gas bombs and concussion grenades.

Dr. Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesperson of the Health Ministry in Gaza, said the soldiers also injured 120 Palestinians, including 50 who were rushed to hospitals in the coastal region.

One of the wounded Palestinians in a journalist, identified as Zaki Awadallah, who was shot by the army east of Gaza city.

Also on Friday, the soldiers killed three Palestinian fighters, and injured many residents, after the army fired missiles into two sites run by the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in Rafah and Khan Younis, in the southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

#Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

» Israeli Soldiers Kill Three Palestinian Fighters In Gaza– IMEMC News
July 20, 2018 7:32 PM IMEMC News & Agencies
▻http://imemc.org/article/three-palestinians-killed-in-israeli-bombing-raid-on-gaza

Israeli soldiers killed, Friday, three Palestinian fighters, and injured many residents, after the army fired missiles into two sites run by the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in Rafah and Khan Younis, in the southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

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Sha’ban Abu Khater

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Mahmoud Abu Farhana
The Al-Qassam Brigades issued a statement mourning Sha’ban Rajab Abu Khater, and Mohammad Riyad Abu Farhana , from Khan Younis, in addition to Mahmoud Khalil Qishta , from Rafah.

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Mahmoud Qishta

It said that the fighters were killed when the army fired missiles at observation posts in Rafah and Khan Younis.

The Brigades vowed fierce retaliation to the serious Israel

Sha’ban Abu Khater

i escalation, and said the “Israeli crimes are foolish acts, will cause Israel to pay dearly.”

The bodies of the three Palestinians were severely mutilated by the Israeli missiles, and their remains were moved to the filed clinic, east of Khan Younis.

Following the attack, Palestinian fighters exchanged fire with Israeli soldiers along the border areas, while the army fired more live rounds, in addition to several shells into northern Gaza.

Furthermore, the soldiers shot a child, 14 years of age, with a live round in the head, east of Khan Younis, during the Great March Procession, and fired many live rounds at homes, east of Abasan, east of Khan Younis.

#Palestine_assassinée #marcheduretour

 » Israeli Army Kills One Palestinian, Injures Three, In Rafah
IMEMC News - July 19, 2018
▻http://imemc.org/article/israeli-army-kills-one-palestinian-injures-three-in-rafah

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An Israeli military drone fired, on Thursday afternoon, a missile at Palestinians east of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, killing one, and wounding three others, including one who suffered serious injuries.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said the Palestinian, identified as Abdul-Karim Radwan , 22, died from his serious wounds in a hospital in Rafah, despite all efforts to save his life.

It added that three other Palestinians were injured by the Israeli missile, including one who suffered serious wounds, and is currently on life support.

Media sources in Gaza said the slain Palestinian is an officer with the Field Control Department of the Palestinian Interior Ministry.

Furthermore, three armored Israeli military bulldozers advanced approximately 50 meters into Palestinian lands in southern Gaza, and placed sand hills. (...)

#Palestine_assassinée

Hamas delegation in Cairo: More media show for ‘century deal’ than substance | MadaMasr

While ‘a way out’ of the US economic deal was among the delegation’s aims, the refusal of key Hamas political figures to attend makes outcomes of the talks ‘meaningless.’

▻https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/07/14/feature/politics/hamas-delegation-in-cairo-more-media-show-for-century-deal-than-substance

A Hamas delegation left Cairo on Friday night after spending four days in the Egyptian capital, pushing for a temporary resolution to the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip and a way out of the United States’s “deal of the century” with the “least amount of damage” possible, according to a source close to the Palestinian movement’s Gaza-based leadership.

Despite the seeming stakes of the Cairo agenda, a second high-ranking Hamas source minimized the significance of the talks between Egyptian General Intelligence Director Abbas Kamal and the Gaza delegation that is headed by Saleh Arouri and composed of Hamas political bureau members Moussa Abu Marzouk, Ezzat al-Risheq, Khalil al-Hayya, Hossam Badran, and Rawhi Mushtaha.

The second source, who is close to representatives of the Hamas leadership abroad, tells Mada Masr that Cairo extended an invitation to Hamas senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh and the movement’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar. However, neither accepted the invitation, with Haniya calling the visit “worthless,” according to the source.

For the second Hamas source, the visit’s objectives were twofold: “probing” and “staging a media show to suggest to the Americans that the key to Gaza remains singularly in Hamas’s pocket.”

» Israel Reduces Fishing Zone For Gaza, Closes Crossing
IMEMC News - July 17, 2018 2:22 AM
▻http://imemc.org/article/israel-reduces-fishing-zone-for-gaza-closes-crossing

The Israeli Authorities have decided, on Monday evening, to close Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, and to reduce the fishing zone allotted for the Palestinians in Gaza, from six to only three nautical miles.

Engineer Raed Fattouh, the chairman of the coordination committee for the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip, said the Israeli side has officially informed the Palestinians that it is closing Karem Abu Salem Crossing, which is used for the entry of goods into the coastal region, until further notice.

Fattouh added that Israel cited “security considerations” for shutting the crossing down, and said that only limited types of food supply, and medicine, will be allowed through.

The decision came only one week after Israel decided to significantly decrease the amount of goods, food and medicine entering the Gaza Strip, as one of the measures meant to pressure the Palestinians into halting the Great Return March processions.

The decision includes decreasing the fishing zone to the fishermen in Gaza from six to three nautical miles, also until further notice, and for the same “reasons.”

#GAZA

We should be saluting the Gaza Strip
The spirit of Gaza is unbroken by any siege and breathing life into the desperate and lost cause of the Palestinian struggle
Gideon Levy | Jul 15, 2018 2:28 AM Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-we-should-be-saluting-the-gaza-strip-1.6270636

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6270906.1531610818!/image/1352132233.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/1352132233.jpg

Were it not for the Gaza Strip, the occupation would have been long forgotten. Were it not for the Gaza Strip, Israel would have erased the Palestinian problem from its agenda and continued on blithely with its crimes and annexations, with its routine, as if 4 million people were not living under its heel. Were it not for the Gaza Strip, the world would also have forgotten. Most of it already has. This is why we must now salute the Gaza Strip — mainly the spirit of the Gaza Strip, the only one that is still breathing life into the desperate and lost cause of the Palestinian struggle for liberty.

The resolute struggle of the Gaza Strip should also spark admiration in Israel. The handful of people with a conscience who still remain here should give thanks to the unbroken spirit of the Gaza Strip. The spirit of the West Bank crumpled after the failure of the second intifada, as did the spirit of the Israeli peace camp — most of which shattered long ago. Only the spirit of the Gaza Strip stands steadfast in its struggle.

And so, anyone who does not want to forever live in an evil country must respect the embers that the young people of the Gaza Strip are still trying to stoke. Were it not for the kites, the fires, the Qassam rockets, the Palestinians would have entirely exited the awareness of everyone in Israel. Only the World Cup and the Eurovision Song Contest would hold any interest. Were it not for the blackened fields in the south, there would be a huge white flag fluttering not only over the Gaza Strip but over the entire Palestinian people. Seekers of justice, including in Israel, cannot wish for this kind of submission.

It’s difficult, even insolent, to write these words from tranquil and secure Tel Aviv, following one more sleepless and nightmarish night in the south, but all days and nights in the Gaza Strip are much more difficult due to Israel’s inhumane policy, supported by most of its citizens, including people who live in the south. They don’t deserve to shoulder the burden but every struggle exacts a price from innocent victims, who we wish do not become casualties. One should remember that only Palestinians are being killed. On Saturday, the 139th victim of Israeli fire along the border died. He was 20. On Friday a 15-year-old boy was killed. The Gaza Strip is paying the full price in blood. This doesn’t cause it to desist. That is its spirit. One cannot but admire it.

The spirit of the Gaza Strip is unbroken by any siege. The evil ones in Jerusalem shut down the Kerem Shalom border crossing, and Gaza shoots. The malicious ones in the Kirya government complex in Tel Aviv prevent young people from receiving medical treatment in the West Bank in order to save their legs from being amputated.

For years they have been preventing cancer patients, including women and children, from receiving lifesaving treatment. Only 54 percent of requests to leave the Gaza Strip for medical reasons were approved last year, compared to 93 percent in 2012. That is wicked. One should read the letter written in June by 31 Israeli oncologists who called for a cessation of the abuse of Gaza women with cancer whose applications for exit permits take months to process, sealing their fates.

The 31 rockets fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip Friday night are a restrained response to this malice. They are no more than a muted reminder of the fate of the Gaza Strip, addressed to those who think that 2 million people can be treated like this for over 10 years while continuing as if nothing was happening.

The Gaza Strip has no choice. Nor does Hamas. Any attempt to pin the blame on the organization — which I only wish was more secular, more feminist and more democratic — is an evasion of responsibility. It wasn’t not Hamas that closed the Gaza Strip. Nor did the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants close themselves off. Israel (and Egypt) did it. Every hesitant attempt by Hamas to make some progress with Israel is immediately answered by automatic Israeli refusal. Nor is the world willing to talk with them, who knows why.

All that’s left are the kites, which might lead to another round of merciless bombing and shelling by Israel, that Israel of course does not want. But what choice does the Gaza Strip have? A white flag of surrender over its fences, like the one the Palestinians in the West bank raised? A dream of a green island off the coast of the Mediterranean, which Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz will build for them? The struggle is the only path remaining, a path that should be respected, even if you are an Israeli who might be its victim.

#GAZA