Israel on Wednesday morning officially accepted the terms of the Egyptian-brokered truce with Hamas, which is scheduled to take effect on Thursday at 6:00AM.
According to the truce, Hamas is responsible to prevent any and all rocket attacks, including the actions of other terrorist factions operating in Gaza. Any firing of rockets into Israel will be deemed a violation.
Israel has agreed to halt all targeted strikes and other counter-terror offensive operations in Gaza in return.
The agreement was approved by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak despite objections from the intelligence community and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, warning the truce period will permit Hamas to restock and use the opportunity to fortify itself for the next round of warfare with Israel.
Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad, who played a pivotal role in shuttle diplomacy talks with the Egyptians, stated the truce is in no way a peace agreement.
The prime minister’s spokesman, Mark Regev, stated that talks towards obtaining the release of Gilad Shalit are expected to intensify. The talks are expected to resume next week after Israel opens border crossings and lifts the blockade of good to Gaza. (Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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5 Responses
Israel shouldn’t have agreed to anything until Gilad Shalit was released.
Peace in the Middle East is a chimerical phantasm.
A truce with Hamas is an asinine conception.
Olmert will risk the lives of Israelis to maintain control over his position!
truce? look at the picture – these people are foaming at the mouth for jewish blood – just what, besides making us lower our guard and satisfying the liberal crazies, will a truce accomplish?
any truce is a sham, and as the Gabi Ashkenazi says, is just an oportunity for Hamas to restock and recruit.
I honestly belive that Israel needs to bomb large parts of Gazza and frighten them into stopping the bombings. Israel gets slammed by the media whatever happens. They should issue a public statement over all airwaves saying that if 1 single rocket is fired into Gazza, a certain amount of hours later, 1/4 of Gazza City will be flattened.
That would give all civilians time to leave their homes and Israel will accept and rehouse all civilians in the Palestinian part of the (Fatha controlled) West Bank.
That way Israel is clearly not targeting Civilians and could turn the civilians against Hamas. It wouldn’t take long before either Gazza City is flattened and deserted, giving Hamas nothing to rule over, or the Palestinians to turn on Hamas!
We have to fight terror with terror. They don’t understand any other message. Enough is enough!