The ceasefire called by the Palestinians is not a ceasefire, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Friday, quoted by the Jerusalem Post as telling Army Radio.
"Just this morning five mortar shells fell, and shots were fired in three places," Ben-Eliezer said.
”Israel will continue with its policy of restraint, even though the ceasefire called by Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat does not exist,” Ben-Eliezer added.
Ben-Eliezer made his remarks at a Labor party meeting in Haifa, Army Radio reported.
However, Israel continues with its incursions into PA-controlled lands, most recently in Rafah and Hebron on Thursday.
Israel also assassinated Ashraf Bardaweel, a Fateh activist in Nablus, whose car was blasted on Tuesday. Bardaweel died of injuries on Thursday.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, Reuters reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 88 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. The June 1 suicide bombing raised that toll by at least 20. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 450 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Paletinian dead were children.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” – Albawaba.com
