Word: rockets
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...attempt to strangle the strip's economy and undermine Hamas' abilty to govern. Human rights groups say the blockade, which prevents Gazans from leaving and goods and aid from entering, has caused a serious humanitarian crisis in the area. Hamas has responded to the siege by regularly raining rockets into southern Israeli towns from Gaza. Despite mutual agreement in June 2008 to a 6-month ceasefire, Israel continued their blockade of Gaza and Hamas responded with sporadic mortar hits. After the expiration of the truce on December 19, a surge of Hamas rocket attacks that wounded one Israeli caused...
...Israel’s defenders say the attacks are a legitimate response to Hamas’ rocket-fire, and a clear case of self-defense. Anyone with a political memory longer than three weeks, however, knows how utterly hollow this statement is in light of the months-long blockade of Gaza. Israeli blockades of fuel, electricity, and food supplies from Gaza, which have been in place for well over a year, have drastically affected homes, businesses and hospitals in a region where 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, the most devastating effects of which are seen...
...Though the U.S. and Israeli administrations paint Hamas’ rocket fire as unprovoked acts of terrorism, they fail to acknowledge the tortuous blockade as an underlying—though by no means invisible—cause of Hamas’ attacks. Moreover, American foreign policy has eliminated any possibilities for diplomacy, leaving Hamas with little option, given a starving population locked within the prison-like Strip. The accepted double standards that enable Israel supporters to support such a catastrophic response to one death under the pretense of “self-defense,” yet censure Hamas...
...martyrdom" would only strengthen Palestinian hatred for Israel and sympathy for Hamas. It didn't matter if Israeli jets bombed Hamas offices, because cinder-block structures could easily be replaced. And it didn't matter if Israel took out Hamas' leaders, because they were also replaceable. "Any moment, a rocket could come through that window and kill me," Rantissi said, "but even before the smoke has cleared, there will be a replacement ready." What the Israelis didn't realize, he concluded, was that "when they win, we don't lose...
...mounting pile of civilian casualties and inevitable humanitarian crisis that accompanies military action in a densely populated urban setting. The longer the Israeli military operation endures, Hamas believes, the more it damages the Israelis' political goal of isolating and weakening the radical movement. A cease-fire that ends rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel won't necessarily be a setback for Hamas; the organization has, in fact, demanded such a truce all along, on the condition that Israel and Egypt open the border crossings that would allow a resumption of normal economic life in Gaza. (The crossings have long been...