Erekat: Israeli bullets are killing the peace process
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 1/6/2009

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekaton has accused Israel of burying the peace process after it escalated military operations in the Gaza Strip and killed over 500 Palestinians.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, said, Saturday, that Israel's offensive against Gaza will not be short, nor will it be easy, Haaretz Israeli daily reported.

Israel's Ministry Of Foreign Affairs had said describing the initial attack "The IDF has attacked dozens of targets affiliated with the Hamas terror organization in the Gaza Strip: command centers, training camps, various Hamas installations, rocket manufacturing facilities and storage warehouses."

Israel's Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni said in a conference yesterday with a European delegation "The idea was to change the equation that Hamas was keeping before the military operation. Before the military operation, the equation was that Hamas targets Israelis whenever it likes and Israel shows restraint. This stopped the day we initiated the military operation. This will no longer be the equation in this region. When Israel is targeted, Israel is going to retaliate. Israel is going to respond because this is an ongoing, long battle and war against terror."

Livni added "We have nothing against the Palestinians. Moreover, in the Annapolis process, we decided to adopt a dual strategy, to launch a peace process with the Palestinians' pragmatic leaders in order to create a vision of peace, to translate the vision of a two-state solution for the benefit of both our peoples: Israelis and Palestinians. Now, as long as Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, as long as it doesn't accept the international community's requirements, and part of that is the vision of two states, it is an obstacle not only to Israel but to the entire international community and to the Palestinians as well."

Livni said "So we changed the equation. Now we have some military objectives within the Gaza Strip, and this is, as I said before, a long battle against terror. I can understand the international community's eagerness to see the region calm. This is our dream as well. This is what we are looking for. Unfortunately, there are those who cannot accept the idea of living in peace in this region."

Livni said "Israel is now working according to the goals we set for ourselves and we will have to ascertain two things at the end of the process: one is that we change the equation, and I think we have already achieved this. We have achieved additional military objectives that we set for ourselves in this operation, and at the end of the day weapons are not still being smuggled into the Gaza Strip in a way that exposes more and more Israeli civilians to the intolerable process of a terrorist organization arming itself through the crossings. In parallel, Israel, of course, as part of the strategy, is advancing the process we all believe in, which serves both Israeli and Palestinian interests – the Palestinians, not Hamas, and that is, of course, the process of trying to express the idea of two states in a peace agreement. Our ability to advance the one process also compels us to fight terror on the other side. One doesn't come at the expense of the other; it works together."

Reporting about the results on civilians of the Israeli attack, the New York Times reported two days ago that "The casualties at Shifa (hospital) on Sunday — 18 dead, hospital officials said, among a reported 30 around Gaza — were women, children and men who had been with children. One surgeon said that he had performed five amputations."

National Public Radio reported today that "Israeli mortar fire on Tuesday hit near a United Nations school in Gaza, killing dozens of civilians who had apparently taken shelter there, officials said. Palestinian medical workers and witnesses said at least 40 people were dead, many of them children."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today spoke out against Israel's "totally unacceptable" attacks against three clearly-marked United Nations schools, where civilians were seeking refuge from the ongoing conflict in Gaza, with a senior official calling for an independent inquiry into the incidents which claimed dozens of lives.
More than two dozen schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are serving as temporary shelters to more than 15,000 Palestinians whose homes have been destroyed or who are fleeing the violence.

Civilians "are seeking sanctuary in UNRWA schools because they have no other place to go and are not able to flee the Gaza Strip," Ban said in a statement

"The Israeli government is burying the peace process by escalating its military actions in the Gaza Strip," Erekat said in a statement, in Ramallah on Sunday, hours after Israel launched a ground operation into Gaza on Saturday night.

"The peace negotiations are buried by the Israeli bullets under the wheels of the tanks and by the Israeli military aggression that completely contradicts with the peace negotiations and the peace process," Xinhua quoted Erekat as saying.

Israel began an offensive on Dec. 27, carrying out hundreds of intensive and unprecedented air strikes on hundreds of targets, which Israel said belong to the Hamas movement.

Mo'aweya Hassanein, chief of emergency and ambulance services in the Palestinian health ministry, had previously said that 514 Palestinians have been killed and over 2500 wounded since the start of the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip.

"The international community should understand that there is a severe and real humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip," said Erekat, adding "the world must move right now to end this aggression."

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Energy Authorities warned on Sunday of a humanitarian, medical and environmental crisis if electricity is kept cut off for more days in the Gaza Strip.

The energy authorities said that the Israeli air strikes and ground operations had destroyed main electricity lines and wires all-over the Gaza Strip, adding that the electricity network in the enclave is completely damaged.

Previous Stories:
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  Tel Aviv mayor denounces violation of Al-Bahr mosque   (12/24/2008)

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