Word: gaza
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...conflict - periodic incoming rocket fire and the alerts that attend it, the more sustained outgoing artillery barrages - have fallen silent. But the peace won't last. A few hours later, loudspeakers emit the booming call - "shachar adom" [red dawn] - that warns residents a rocket has been launched from Gaza. They have 20 seconds to get to their bomb shelters. "It's a routine," says Pnina, 59. "Unfortunately, we are getting used...
...Five kilometers away, in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, Safia and Mohammed Ghaben are also accustomed to leading lives under siege, to the thuds and booms of artillery shells fired into Gaza by the Israeli army in retaliation for rockets launched by Palestinian militants toward villages such as Netiv Ha'asara. Though Israel says the barrages are aimed at punishing militants, not civilians, the shelling is a constant source of fear. And for some, like the Ghabens, the sound of artillery discharges is a reminder of an incurable pain...
...When Israeli settlers and soldiers pulled out of the Gaza Strip last August, many people on both sides dared to think that tranquility would follow. But since Hamas was voted into power last January, international aid to the Palestinian Authority has been suspended and hope for negotiations between the two sides has faded. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has pledged to withdraw from parts of the West Bank, and to complete construction of a security wall to separate Israel from the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the near-daily exchanges of rockets and artillery between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza...
...this was the case even before the events of June 8, when an Israeli air strike killed Jamal Abu Samhadana, a leading militant in Gaza, and the next day, when seven Palestinian civilians were killed and more than 30 wounded by an explosion while they picnicked on the beach near Beit Lahiya. The aftermath of the beach explosion was filmed by a local cameraman, whose pictures of a young girl wailing for her fatally wounded relatives generated intense scrutiny. The source of the beach blast is being fiercely-debated - Palestinians say it was an incoming Israeli artillery shell...
...Rather than moderate its behavior, the latest string of events may have tipped the balance in Hamas toward the hardliners. Those within Hamas that had argued for restraint and some form of coexistence with Israel - not to mention warned that permitting ongoing rocket fire from Gaza was a road to disaster - are now being drowned out by those calling for a resumption of violence. The images of the family destroyed by the Gaza beach explosion have darkened the mood on the Palestinian street, where there is a growing appetite for revenge for Hamas to tap into. And as long...