Futile Hamas/Israeli Ceasefire Talks
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
We’ve seen it all before time and again. Long-suffering Palestinians are victims of world community indifference to their fundamental rights and welfare.
Like Washington, Israel doesn’t negotiate. It demands, offering nothing in return but empty promises consistently beached.
Its agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Straightaway after Hamas and Israel agreed on ceasefire terms to end 50 days of IDF aggression in summer 2014, the Netanyahu regime breached its pledge to ease Gaza’s blockade.
No change in passage of people and goods into and from the Strip was allowed. Farmers in their fields and fishermen in their own waters are aggressively attacked.
Ceasefire was pure illusion. Attacks on Gazans continued. Conditions today are more oppressive than ever.
According to the Gisha Center for Freedom of Movement, the Netanyahu regime “continues to exercise control over nearly every aspect of life in Gaza, including through its control over movement and access.”
“…Israel employs violent enforcement measures against what it perceives as breaches of its directives, including the use of live fire, which results in the death and injury of Palestinian residents of Gaza.”
Isolated under suffocating illegal blockade, Israel created one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises.
Since summer 2014 after weeks of Israeli aggression ended, IDF terror-bombers sprayed Gazan agricultural land with toxic herbicides, extensively destroying crops - an unprovoked act of pure rage against two millions Gazans, a high crime gone unpunished.
From 2010 - 2017, nearly 1,000 attacks on Palestinian fishermen occurred, killing at least five, injuring over 100 others, confiscating scores of vessels and equipment.
Hamas and Israeli officials are reportedly engaged in ceasefire talks, monitored by Egyptian and UN representatives in Cairo - one-sidedly supporting the Netanyahu regime.
Chances for achieving a durable and equitable ceasefire agreement are virtually nil. Israel wants peaceful Great March of Return demonstrations ended to continue repressive blockade unobtructed.
It wants Palestinian kites launched cross-border ceased, flaming or otherwise. In return, it’s offering nothing but empty promises to be breached like every time before.
As long as Washington backs and encourages its high crimes against Gazans and other Palestinians, the Netanyahu regime will continue committing them with impunity - especially given world community indifference to Palestinian rights, welfare and lives.
They’ve suffered under Israel’s repressive boot for 70 years, beleaguered Gazans most of all.
Nothing in prospect suggests any relief as long as world leaders fail to hold Israel accountable for its high crimes too grievous to ignore.
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