The latest round of hostilities between Israel and Hamas ended on Thursday with a ceasefire agreement between the two sides, and, on the face of it, very little has changed after eleven days of violence and almost 250 lives lost. Hamas is still in control inside the Gaza Strip, Israel retains its vice grip on Gaza’s borders. Benjamin Netanyahu is still Israel’s prime minister, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is still irrelevant. This, at any rate, is the picture you get if you look at the conflict through the prism of “two states”, where the issue is friction between the Israeli government in Jerusalem on the one side and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Hamas government in Gaza on the other.
The comment was jarring: Not only has Abbas’ legitimacy been significantly in question since his four-year term expired more than 12 years ago, but he recently announced yet another postponement of long-overdue elections in the territory he purports to lead.
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World must seize the moment to end Israeli occupation
Chris Doyle
May 24, 2021 21:57
A man searches for belongings under the rubble of a building that was destroyed in Israeli air attacks in the northern Gaza Strip. (Reuters)
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Israelis are starting to relax after another Benjamin Netanyahu-Hamas ceasefire. After 11 days of violence, Israelis can restart their lives and get out of the shelters. Next week should also see a return to pre-pandemic normality. That is welcome. But not for one second should anyone suggest this is a ceasefire and calm for Palestinians. This is the typical error of world leaders and politicians, whose energies will fade away within days if the precedent of the many previous wars on Gaza is adhered to.
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