Following a meeting between Hamas leaders and Israeli insurgents, Gaza militant groups have announced that they will agree to ceasefire if Israel stops its attacks on the Palestinian territory. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed thusfar in the recent attacks. An Islamic Jihad leader said "everybody confirmed that they respect the national consensus by calming things with the Zionist enemy".
Israel, too, says that they have encountered terror and rocket attacks. Prime Minister Netanyahu has claimed that Israel would "act with great force and great determination to put a stop to it." Israel has yet to comment on the ceasefire request. An Israeli commander in Gaza claimed that there was currently "anarchy" in Gaza. "We are prepared for any possibility, the goal is we won't in the end permit a situation where it is impossible for civilians to live here," says the commander.
Hamas has not been able to obtain support from all militant groups however. If the situation were to exacerbate, there is no doubt that the Palestinians would have more casualties than the Israelis. In the war two years ago, 1300 Palestinians were killed, while only 11 Israelis were.
This is only one of many historic examples of Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Having discussed this topic in Model UN ad nauseum, whether it was on Security Council or UNDP, I know it is difficult to take sides and to think of a possible solution. And it is not necessarily appropriate to take a side and completely disregard the other side. Although I know bias is going to play its way into comments on this post and I am not dissuading you from discussing your opinion, please be polite and evaluate both the Palestinian side and Israeli side to the best of your ability. This is a very sensitive topic and to see that the conflict has gotten worse this past week is undoubtedly worthy of a blog post.
2 comments:
(Hamas has not been able to obtain support from all militant groups however. If the situation were to exacerbate, there is no doubt that the Palestinians would have more casualties than the Israelis. In the war two years ago, 1300 Palestinians were killed, while only 11 Israelis were...)you said.
First I want to thank you for this note.
Secondly, it seems that the extract of which I just mentioned summarizes the pain of the Palestinians. Since facing each victim "Israeli", dozens or even thousands of Palestinians lost their lives, and nobody can change that cold-blooded Killing
I find that Israel has a wonderful system of Democracy and focuses on multiple human rights issues that I think are important to grow a free thinking society. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Israel is only taking a fraction of the casualties of war.
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