Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Thursday that “violence” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip had declined by two-thirds, but said this was insufficient to justify easing blockades on the Occupied Territories, Israel Radio reported, cited by Haaretz newspaper.
Peres also said that the “continuing terror activity poses a greater threat to the future of the Palestinian people than Israel.”
He added that if the Palestinians did not organize into one military body, “the competition between the different military groups will harm the both the Palestinians' existence and prospects for the future,” the paper quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, Peres said that the expected visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region next week would help strengthen the ceasefire, signed between the Palestinians and the Israelis, under the auspices of the US last week.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, CNN reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 112 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. 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 458 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 Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded, and well over 500 killed.
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
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