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Executioner, victim put on equal footing: Hamas

— Photo: AP

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a house after it was hit in an Israeli missile strike in the Maghaze refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, on Wednesday.

DUBAI: After five days of attacks on Gaza by Israel and retaliation by Hamas through rocket fire, the focus has shifted to diplomacy with a ceasefire as the objective.

Israeli Cabinet which met on Tuesday night appeared divided between an option of ordering a ground offensive and a 48-hour “humanitarian” ceasefire that the French had proposed.

According to the Israeli media, Defence Minister Ehud Barak became the strongest advocate for examining international ceasefire proposals, contrary to the positions adopted by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

A statement by the European Union proposed that there “must be an unconditional halt to rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel and an end to Israeli military action.” Analysts point out that Israelis are looking for a formulation that would assure them that a halt to rocket attacks by Hamas would become a durable exercise. The Hamas, on its part, is pressing on an arrangement that would prevent Israel from closing border crossings with Gaza unilaterally.

Hamas, on Wednesday, rejected international truce proposals in their present form as they did not address its concerns. “The current efforts aimed at ending the combat and installing a ceasefire put the executioner and the victim on equal footing,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum in a statement. “International and Arab efforts must focus on ending this aggression, opening the border crossings and rebuilding Gaza,” he observed.

Observers say influential members of the Israeli establishment might be inclined to agree on a 48-hour ceasefire for two reasons.

First, inclement weather is expected over Gaza for the next two days.

This could hamper operations, especially as maintaining surveillance over Hamas activities under cloud cover in Gaza would become difficult. Second, faced with growing international criticism and sustained rocket attacks by Hamas, Israel needs more time to consider the fall-out of a full-scale land offensive.

On Wednesday morning, Hamas fired 28 rockets, one of which tore into an empty school building in the southern city of Beersheba.

In West Asia, Turkey and Qatar have taken the lead to engineer a ceasefire.

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