After the collapse of at least eight temporary ceasefires, it looks as the ‘permanent’ ceasefire between the Israeli Defence Force and Hamas is holding. So it is time to take stock of the consequences of the 50-day conflict.<\/p>\n
What was the cost?<\/p>\n
In Gaza, more than 2,100 were killed, most of them civilians, including about 500 children. \u00a0Some 18 alleged informers were publicly executed. At least 11,000 were injured. More than 17,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged. Around one third of the population of 1.8 million has been displaced.<\/p>\n
On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers died and five civilians – including a four-year old boy – were killed. Hundreds of families living near the Gaza border had to be relocated to safer homes further north. The firing of thousands of rockets from Gaza forced many Israelis to seek protection in shelters again and again.<\/p>\n
What was achieved?<\/p>\n
Israel launched the attack originally to stop the rocket assaults. The IDF claims that the weapons stocks of Hamas and other militant groups have fallen to less than a third of their pre-war levels of around 10,000 rockets either by being fired or by being destroyed in air strikes. Hundreds of Hamas men, including three top commanders and a civilian ‘money man’, have been killed. As the conflict went on, the IDF added the destruction of tunnels to their war aims. Dozens have been found and blasted. The Israeli Government claims that it has achieved a period of “quiet” and safety.<\/p>\n
For the people of Gaza, there is now an undertaking to open border crossings with Israel and Egypt to allow humanitarian aid and construction materials to enter the enclave. Also the fishing zone is to be extended to six miles off the coast. Hamas claims that it has shown its ability to resist Israeli aggression and calls the outcome a “victory”.<\/p>\n
But really what has been achieved?<\/p>\n
The latest ceasefire terms are almost identical to those agreed at the end of the previous war 21 months ago. Prior to that conflict, we had the Israeli invasion of Gaza in January 2009 that was supposed to stop the rocket attacks and destroy Hamas.<\/p>\n
Unless there are now negotiations and agreements on much more fundamental issues, the easing of border restrictions will simply lead to the smuggling into Gaza of more rockets that, at a tim e of tension, will be fired into Israel which will attack with disproportionate force and we will have yet another war in this seemingly endless cycle of violence.<\/p>\n
There has to be significant concessions and compromises by both sides. The Egyptians, the Qataris and US Secretary of State John Kerry deserve thanks for their patient brokering of the current ceasefire – but the negogiating has only just started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After the collapse of at least eight temporary ceasefires, it looks as the ‘permanent’ ceasefire between the Israeli Defence Force and Hamas is holding. So it is time to take stock of the consequences of the 50-day conflict. What was the cost? In Gaza, more than 2,100 were killed, most of them civilians, including about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15464"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15474,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15464\/revisions\/15474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}