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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel threatens to cut Gaza supplies over rockets |
| 2007-09-04 |
| They finally catching on? JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon on Tuesday threatened to cut electricity, water and fuel supplies into Gaza if militants in the Hamas-ruled territory continued to fire rockets into Israel. On the eve of a meeting of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet to discuss the situation in Gaza, other senior ministers also called for stepping up pressure on Gaza residents in a bid to stop the fire. "It is unthinkable to continue to furnish Gaza with electricity, water and fuel while Israeli citizens are live targets of these rockets," Ramon, a close ally of Olmert, told the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily. "We have to draw a line for the Palestinians. We have to make it be known that for any rocket fire, we will cut for two or three hours the supplies of water, electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip," he said. Environment Minister Gideon Ezra told public radio that he was also in favour of such a measure. Israel, which withdrew settlers and troops from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, continues to provide nearly all utilities for the impoverished territory. Militants in Gaza regularly fire rockets and mortar shells into Israel, with most of the projectiles falling in open spaces. On Monday, seven rockets were fired from Gaza, with one exploding near a nursery school in the southern town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of the fire. Trade and Industry Eli Yishai said Israel should exert growing pressure on Gaza's impoverished population in order for them to hamper the rocket launchers. "We should make it clear to the population that firing rockets against Sderot in fact damages the Palestinians. If the rocket launchers are not bothered by pressure from the outside, they should worry about inside pressure," Yishai told AFP. The ultra-Orthodox minister said Israel should use "an orderly and gradual plan" to stop the rocket fire and weapon smuggling into Gaza, but nevertheless rejected an extensive military operation. Gaza has been ruled since mid-June by the Islamist Hamas movement, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, after its fighters overran security forces loyal to moderate president Mahmud Abbas. Israel has been unable to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza, despite regular military operations in the overcrowded coastal strip. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #12 NETANYAHU > Israel may need to send in sizable ground units to control Gaza-based/induced violence, i.e. a "ground invasion". |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-09-04 23:03 |
| #11 Peace, as the west defines it, is not possible with muslims. Either you become a muslim or you are the target of perpetual jihad, with intermittent truces when muslims are weak. Once that sinks in, it becomes pointless to do tit for tat retaliation. The only productive solution is to take land and drive any muslims off of it, to use it for our benefit and power, then rinse and repeat. When this Administration stated this is a generation long conflict, they were being optimistic. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-09-04 21:35 |
| #10 Israel, oxygen... you forgotten oxygen! |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-09-04 20:28 |
| #9 Cut them off and let them eat their own. Lord knows they have done everything possible to earn it. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-09-04 20:09 |
| #8 You've been sayin' this for a long time now, 'moose and you were one of the very first to do so. Keep hammering on it. Short of flat-out expulsion, this is one of the only things that will ever inspire peace or bring a conclusion to hostilities through eviction. Either way, there must be an end to this tedious farce. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-09-04 19:38 |
| #7 While it is a baby step in the right direction, it will not work. This is because electricity, water and fuel supplies mean far less to Arabs than land. That is, if Israel wants them to stop their attacks, it must first take a small slice of Gaza, extend the wall around it as "no man's land", then tell Hamas and the Gazans that for each subsequent attack, Israel will take another small piece of land. If they cannot abide just taking it, then they should pay fair market value to its owner for it. However, more than anything else, they must make it clear that the land will NEVER be returned, and that NEVER is non-negotiable. No matter if the Paleos become peaceful, or offer anything else, that land is gone for good. Unless the Israelis do this, then there will never be peace. And the Arabs make it abundantly clear that land is the only thing they care about. They harp on it continually. They want MORE land. But their weakness is that they are terrified of having LESS land. For them, to LOSE land means that they have failed their god in the only thing that matters. Allah really doesn't care about anything, compared to land. And knowing this, Israel can take land for peace, HAS to take land for peace, because it is the ONLY way they will ever get peace, other than killing every single Arab. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-09-04 19:30 |
| #6 Sounds like somebody's taking them seriously. And quite seethily, I must say... Gaza – Ma'an – The "Buraq army" unit of the Al-Aqsa Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah warned on Tuesday that if Israel deprives the Gaza Strip of water and electricity, the Israeli power generating station at Ashkelon will be bombarded. Announcing the start of operation "roaring sea waves" in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, they said they would respond to Israeli threats to assassinate Palestinian resistance fighters. They threatened to undertake "qualitative operations" and to continue launching home made projectiles against Israeli targets. Also on Tuesday the Al-Mujahideen Brigades, another of the units of the Al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for launching a home made projectile at the Israeli town of Sderot. However, there have been no reports from the Israelis that a projectile hit Sderot. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-09-04 15:59 |
| #5 This is the first particle of sense I've heard from this government. |
| Posted by: Titus Hayes4699 2007-09-04 15:41 |
| #4 What do the terms UNSC, sanctions bring to your mind, Ebbang Uluque6305? |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-09-04 15:25 |
| #3 It's just incredible that it's taken them this long to figure it out. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-09-04 14:40 |
| #2 Omelette grew some eggs? No, the message is just becoming a little less scrambled. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-09-04 14:16 |
| #1 Omelette grew some eggs? |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-09-04 13:49 |