An anti-occupation member of Knesset, Zehava Gal-On, said Tuesday that the Hamas attack on the Alei Sinai settlement in Gaza, in which two soldiers were killed and 15 residents wounded, underscored the impossibility of defending Jewish settlers in Gaza.
She was quoted by the Tel Aviv-based Haaretz newspaper as saying Wednesday that Israel should unilaterally pull out of the Gaza Strip.
The attack, the first of its kind, took place when two resistance fighters from Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzeddin Al Qassam Brigades, stormed the settlement and opened fire on soldiers and residents. The two fighters were later killed by Israeli commandos.
According to the paper, Gaza settlers have long complained that the army should step up efforts to protect the strip's settlements, where fewer than 10,000 Israelis illegally live among more than a million Gaza Palestinians.
"With respect to Gaza I have no doubt that ... we have nothing to seek there. This is the moment that sweet illusions are bursting like bubbles. ...It is Israel's interest at the moment to prevent killing and to prevent situations like that in which two young people were killed last night. We must look the public honestly in the eye and say that we - with all our military might, and we are big and strong - can't provide a security answer for the people who live there," said the MK.
"Conflicts are not ended by force," she told Army Radio. "Conflicts are ended by compromise, painful compromise," said Gal-On, a Meretz Party member.
"I admit that I once had hopes and that perhaps I today have none," she said, adding that Israel was unable to defend the settlers of Gaza, "even with 6,000 soldiers deployed in the strip in order to defend 6,000 settlers."
Settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are defined worldwide as a form of occupation and a violation of international law.
Palestinians are fighting against 34 years of Israeli occupation of their land, which was conquered in 1967.
Some Palestinians and Arabs view suicide attacks inside Israel as an unacceptable form of resistance, but nearly all agree that military operations against "settlers" and soldiers is a legitimate national liberation struggle – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
