Children, play nice...
God I love this: Hamas, the leading group in the Palestinian government, claims to be obeying a 'cease fire' while for months, have been firing dozens of homemade (qassam) rockets into Israel (usually resulting in no damage, though it somestimes does kill or wound Israelis.) Now that's one hell of an interesting cease fire.
A shell recently blows up on a Palestinian beach, killing a family of 7 civilians. Human Rights Watch and others claim it was an Israeli shell and initially Israel officially even expressed regret for the incident and stopped shelling in response. However, after an entire day long investigation (what length!), Israel now claims it could not have been an Israeli shell, despite the fact that Israel was shelling 250 meters away from the where the family was beaching, and thus in the end, there doesn't appear to be a straight story as to where this shell magically came from.
(Now why would a family attempt to enjoy a nice day on the beach while areas 250 meters away are being shelled is a little strange to me...)
Hamas declares that the 'cease fire' is no longer in effect (thus, most likely, there will be government sanctioned suicide bombers attacking Israel.)
Israel decides all of a sudden to target airstrikes at two Palestinian militants (men from Islamic Jihad). They get their targets, but kill 7 civilians, including two children, and wound nearly 30 civilians in the process.
Oh, and in the meantime, the two major political factions in Palestine, Hamas and Fatah, are busy having fun with each other (or rather engaging in constant gun battles with each other, and the occaisonal setting of the prime minister's office on fire http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5073548.stm ) on a daily basis via a power struggle that started ever since Hamas won elections.
It just can't get better than all this.
Oh wait, it does: the Palestinian government, with the EU and USA withholding funds until Hamas actually acknowledges that there exists a country called Israel, is so bankrupt that it can't even pay most of it's own government employees.
A shell recently blows up on a Palestinian beach, killing a family of 7 civilians. Human Rights Watch and others claim it was an Israeli shell and initially Israel officially even expressed regret for the incident and stopped shelling in response. However, after an entire day long investigation (what length!), Israel now claims it could not have been an Israeli shell, despite the fact that Israel was shelling 250 meters away from the where the family was beaching, and thus in the end, there doesn't appear to be a straight story as to where this shell magically came from.
(Now why would a family attempt to enjoy a nice day on the beach while areas 250 meters away are being shelled is a little strange to me...)
Hamas declares that the 'cease fire' is no longer in effect (thus, most likely, there will be government sanctioned suicide bombers attacking Israel.)
Israel decides all of a sudden to target airstrikes at two Palestinian militants (men from Islamic Jihad). They get their targets, but kill 7 civilians, including two children, and wound nearly 30 civilians in the process.
Oh, and in the meantime, the two major political factions in Palestine, Hamas and Fatah, are busy having fun with each other (or rather engaging in constant gun battles with each other, and the occaisonal setting of the prime minister's office on fire http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5073548.stm ) on a daily basis via a power struggle that started ever since Hamas won elections.
It just can't get better than all this.
Oh wait, it does: the Palestinian government, with the EU and USA withholding funds until Hamas actually acknowledges that there exists a country called Israel, is so bankrupt that it can't even pay most of it's own government employees.