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Marco Villa
The Palestinian Islamists party-cum-militia Hamas has announced that it will cease firing homemade rockets into southern Israel. The rockets often miss and rarely kill or injure anyone, but have made life difficult for southern Israelis.
Israel cited the rocket attacks as the reason for its genocidal attack against the Palestinians in December 2008 - an attack that killed over 900 Palestinians of whom over 400 were children.
Israel claims Hamas is the aggressor by firing rockets even after Israel uprooted illegal settlers and withdrew its occupying military Gaza. But Hamas retorts that Israeli occupation took on a new mutation as Israel continued to control Gaza’s border, water and air space alongside with its water and power source; and, furthermore, has subjugated the Strip and its 1.5 million inhabitants to a cruel blockade that has made 80% of the population dependent on UN food aid and unemployment reach nearly 50%. And Israel continues to build illegal settlements on the occupied West Bank and ethnically cleanse Palestinians.
The recent move by Hamas - which will entail equal restraint by other Gaza-based militias - may bring about a deal with Israel that will lead to the end of the Israeli-Egyptian blockade and Hamas recognition of Israel’s alleged right to exist, and the movement [?] of the peace process.
Such a deal will most likely be preceded by the release of an Israeli military prisoner and the reciprocal release of Palestinian civilians in Israeli jails, which this week suffered another indignity at the hands of Israel which only proved such how inhumane and cruel Israeli society is:
It seems that imprisoning the detainees under conditions that violate the international law and the Fourth Geneva conventions is not enough, it seems torture, medical negligence and solitary confinement is not enough, an issue that pushed the prison administration to punish cats for befriending the detainees, and ‘providing them with some services. The detainees in the Negev detention camp are taking care of some cats that entered the detention camp, in the Negev desert, through the barbed wires, and are feeding them although they do not have sufficient food. The fact the detainees have some cats as ‘wild pets’ or ‘friends’ bothered the Prison Administration to the level of decided that cats are not allowed. Israeli soldiers manning the detention camp even placed a cat in solitary confinement for a while after suspecting it was helping them, and of course for befriending them. The cats might be guilty to some extent as they reportedly carry some foods and light stuff between the cells, providing some comfort, maybe some food, to the detainees in solitary confinement. The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees in Gaza said that the Ahrar Woledna “We were born free” Website reported that the prison administration in the Negev Detention Camp decided to act against those cats that befriended the detainees. But there are dozens of cats walking around the tents and rooms in several Israeli prisons and detention centers, especially the open-air detention camps like the Negev. No matter what the punishment is, maybe ‘anti-cat fences’ or cat traps, or I really don’t want to know what else, the simple fact here is that the Israeli Prison Administration has been working hard to keep the spirits of the detainees low, to keep them isolated and deprive them from anything that would draw a smile on their faces. |
Source: http://marcovilla.instablogs.com/entry/hamas-to-end-rocket-attacks-on-israel-no-assurance-from-israel-to-end-blockade/