Word: gaza
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...prime minister Ehud Barak announced an indefinite suspension of the peace process Friday after Israel's deadline for the latest cease-fire to take effect was greeted with the worst violence in two weeks. Nine Palestinians were killed and 67 were wounded in clashes throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, the AP reports that the most vicious clash began minutes after Israel's 4 p.m. deadline, when Palestinian militiamen fired on Israeli soldiers, and four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded when the Israelis returned sustained fire rather than the single-shot bursts that had been the pattern...
...Although Israel has never tried to formally annex the West Bank and Gaza after capturing them in 1967, it began confiscating Palestinian land and building Israeli settlements from the 1970s onward in order to create "facts on the ground" in any future peace negotiations. Those facts on the ground now include some 120,000 Israeli settlers dotted throughout the West Bank and a further 5,000 in Gaza - territory that Israel, by the logic of the Oslo peace process, ultimately intends to cede to a Palestinian state. Needless to say the settlers, who are predominantly armed ideologues laying claim...
...wrote in an e-mail message. "However, the State of Israel is committed to reducing the amount of casualties in this unfortunate conflict, and we are proud of this commitment. This came shining through when the Israelis gave the [Palestinian Authority] three hours notice before they bombed Ramallah and Gaza City so that they could defend Israel's safety with minimal loss of life...
...been equally, and as openly, scornful of the cease-fire. Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who has played a central role in organizing the current intifada, publicly dismissed the Sharm el-Sheik agreement Tuesday, and vowed to continue to fight to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat may have to look long and hard to find a constituency of Palestinians with any faith in the agreement he brought home this week, and yet that agreement requires that he deploy his security forces to rearrest the hundreds of Hamas activists freed from Palestinian prisons in recent weeks...
...Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, however, simply withdraws Israeli troops from the entrance to every Palestinian town. As long as they remain dotted throughout the West Bank and Gaza, protecting Jewish settlements built after 1967 that are viewed as illegal by Palestinians, the soldiers will be a magnet for Palestinian rage. That fact has suited Arafat these past three weeks because it has given him leverage to counter pressure from the U.S. and Israel to sign away Palestinian claims on the Temple Mount. But despite Arafat's having made his point and agreed to a cease-fire, his political authority, even...