Between the Second Intifada in 2000 until the settlers moved out of Gaza in 2005, 3352 Palestinians (681 children) and 995 Israelis (118 children) were killed.
In July and November of 2001, and January and July of 2002, ceasefires were broken by Israel’s targeted assassination of Fatah and Hamas leaders.
During a ceasefire in June and July of 2003, held up despite mass arrests and provocations, it was eventually broken by a publicly disowned Hamas faction and lead to the assassination of the Hamas ceasefire’s negotiator, Ismail Abu Shanab, described as “one of the most powerful voices for peace”.
This same disowned faction would in 2014 be accused of the kidnapping of three settlers, leading to that summer’s massacre, and the dissolution of the proposed “Hamas-Fatah Unity Government”. Take from that what you will.
Another proposed “10 year ceasefire” in January 2004 was answered with the bulldozing of 40 homes in Rafah and the killing of 5 civilians including an 11 year old boy.
March/April 2004, two months after the offer of “a ten year ceasefire” in return for internationally agreed upon and legitimate Palestinian demands, Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, were assassinated.
This would be the template of Israel’s approach to peace and compromise. Manipulate and destroy. Over and over.
Zionists had plans other than that dirty word “peace”. By 2003, Gaza concentration camp was in the works. It was designed to be struck with full military force to counter human rights organizations whenever Israel vented its spleen against Palestinians. And secondly, because of what zionists described as the “demographic threat”.
“…seal the territory off from the outside world, and simply shoot anyone who tries to break out”
— Arnon Soffer, brainchild of Gaza concentration camp
Shortly after the disengagement in summer 2005, and 6 months before Hamas were elected in to power, Israel and the US had violated the understandings made to ensure the border crossings into Gaza remained open after Jewish settlers left.
“Every aspect of that agreement was abrogated,”
— US Special Envoy John Wolfensohn
50 per cent unemployment and a collapsed economy likely lead to the Hamas election in January 2006.
Israel enabled this.
Importantly, Israel’s blockade pre-existed Hamas’s rise to power and began when Fatah was still the ruler of Gaza.
After Hamas’ election, the blockade was described as “like an appointment with a dietitian. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die.”
— Dov Weisglass, Ariel Sharon’s right hand man in Washington
With this genocidal mindset in front of them, of course Hamas won.
Despite repeated provocations, Palestinians had been largely on ceasefire on and off for almost NINE YEARS out of the TWELVE YEARS since Hamas won elections in Gaza (2005-2017, at time of writing), and bar the 2018 Great March, when 241 Palestinians were assassinated and thousands injured, and infrequent skirmishes, maintained a unilateral ceasefire for around FOUR YEARS until 2023. Even during those skirmishes, over 1000 Palestinians, including 263 children were killed.
“we found that this pattern — in which Israel is more likely than Palestine to kill first after a conflict pause — becomes more pronounced for longer conflict pauses. Indeed, of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%, and it unilaterally interrupted 100% of the 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days.”
“Thus, a pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-kanwisher/reigniting-violence-how-d_b_155611.html
Upon winning the election, and despite the usual bad faith actions of the Israelis in Gaza, Hamas maintained an internationally recognized unilateral ceasefire for close to EIGHTEEN MONTHS from January 2005 to June 2006.
In April 2006, they stopped the use of suicide bombers that had killed 300 Israelis previously.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/apr/09/israel
According to the Israeli press, Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, and his deputy Matan Vilnai…were plotting an invasion of Gaza throughout the…ceasefire with Hamas…they ignored every diplomatic overture from Hamas, including offers of indefinite truces, while they invested their energies in the coming ground invasion. In particular they worked on plans…to “level” Gaza’s civilian neighbourhoods and create “combat zones” from which civilians could be expelled.”
The already in place siege, multiple provocations and assassinations where 183 Palestinians, including 49 children died, didn’t break the ceasefire, but the Israelis succeeded in June 2006 by murdering an entire family on Gaza beach and targeting Hamas leaders. This, without taking in to account the killings of 20 Palestinians in the weeks before.
Operation “Cast Lead” in 2008 wasn’t the beginning of the slaughter in Gaza. There were also two operations called “Operation Summer Rains” (June 2006) and “Operation Autumn Clouds” (November 2006) – quaint names for massacres.
The former resulted in 240 Palestinians being killed. 197 of the total were civilians, 40 of those were children and 12 were women. The latter resulted in around 80 Palestinian deaths.
“According to Defense for Children International – Palestine, during the first year after the disengagement, and during Hamas’ unilateral ceasefire, the Israeli military fired over 15,000 shells into Gaza, conducted over 550 airstrikes on Gaza, and carried out regular military incursions into Gaza. A total of 525 Palestinians were killed and 1,527 injured during these attacks.“
http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/besieged-blockaded-fighting.html
For more than four months after 19 June 2008, Hamas refrained from any military actions that might endanger the negotiated truce or “calm” with Israel.
The total number of rocket and mortar attacks shrank from 245 in June to 26 total for July through October, a reduction of 97 percent.
“Publicly, Hamas leaders have stated time and again that the lull is a Palestinian national interest. On several occasions, Hamas members have arrested Fatah operatives who were involved in firing at Israel and confiscated their arms.”
— Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Even this was not enough for Israel, which violated the truce by imposing a terror-famine in Gaza for most of these months. But despite these violations, Hamas refrained from launching rockets until Israel definitively cancelled the truce on the night of 4-5 November by sending an Israeli commando squad into Gaza, where it killed six Hamas members. Hamas responded with 30 rockets.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-fabricated-rocket-crisis/7927
“During the six months of the cease-fire [agreed on between Israel and Hamas in June 2008], there were 153 violations of the cease-fire by Israel, and 36 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli forces. Most important of all, the economic siege of Gaza continued.”
(PBS News Hour 01/05/09)
Israel was simply buying time to organize another slaughter.
(Ha’aretz; Wiki)
Despite Israel’s refusal to end the siege, Hamas brought rocket and mortar fire from Gaza to a virtual halt for six months, as revealed by a report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) in Tel Aviv. ITIC is part of the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Centre (IICC), an NGO which is close to the Israeli intelligence community.
In the first days after the ceasefire took effect, Islamic Jihad fired nine rockets and a few mortar rounds in retaliation for Israeli assassinations of their members in the West Bank. In August another eight rockets were fired by various groups…But it shows that only one rocket was launched from Gaza in September and one in October.
The report recalls that Hamas “tried to enforce the terms of the arrangement” on other Palestinian groups, taking “a number of steps against networks which violated the arrangement,” including short-term detention and confiscating their weapons. It even found that Hamas had sought support in Gazan public opinion for its policy of maintaining the ceasefire.
On Nov. 4 – just when the ceasefire was most effective – the IDF carried out an attack against a house in Gaza in which six members of Hamas’s military wing were killed, including two commanders, and several more were wounded.
After that Israeli attack, the ceasefire completely fell apart, as Hamas began openly firing rockets into Israel, the IDF continued to carry out military operations inside Gaza, and the border crossings were “closed most of the time”, according to the ITIC account.”
MIDEAST: Israel Rejected Hamas Ceasefire Offer in December
Operation “Cast Lead” began on 27 December 2008 and ended on 18 January 2009. Between 1200 and 1400 Palestinians were killed.
It was yet another example of Israel trampling on any future peace deals. Even a unilateral one:
Post “Cast Lead”, Hamas has largely adhered to a ceasefire that came into effect at the end of a three-week “war” in Gaza in January 2009. However, smaller militant groups such as Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees have continued sporadic rocket fire.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/30/gaza-militants-ceasefire-offer-israel
Sporadic skirmishes occurred between 2009 and 2012, but these skirmishes still resulted in 274 Palestinian deaths, including 37 children. And just 24 Israeli fatalities.
On March 9, 2012, Israel violated an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire and assassinated the head of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees, sparking another round of violence in which at least two dozen Palestinians are killed, including at least four civilians, and scores more wounded.
70% of rockets/mortars were fired from Gaza during three distinct periods of escalation in March, June, and late October of 2012. Each of these escalations correlates with an assassination/killing, incursion, or other Israeli military action.
When Hamas was sticking to it’s unilateral ceasefire that year, even the IDF’s Gaza Division commander recognized Hamas’ attempts at peace, but Israel’s intentions were far from peaceful:
“Hamas is taking action to prevent an escalation and is turning from a terror group to a sovereign movement that is assuming governmental responsibility. They have to worry about feeding and educating people, and every act of terror costs them dearly.
“But the day the decision is made, we’ll know how to bring it to its knees. There will be a (ground) operation in Gaza. The only question is when,” — Colonel Tal Hermoni, the IDF’s Gaza Division commander
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4291966,00.html
On November 14, 2012, two days after Palestinian factions in Gaza agree to a truce following several days of violence, Israel assassinates the leader of Hamas’ military wing, Ahmed Jabari, described by Israeli peace activists as “…one of the more practical actors on the Hamas side”, after a week in which at least six Palestinian civilians are killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli attacks.
He was assassinated just after receiving a draft for a long term ceasefire from Egyptian intelligence to open contact with Israeli intelligence.
On November 15, 3 Israelis were killed as a result of rocket fire from Gaza.
This came after Israel had killed 13 Palestinians, including 3 children and a woman, and injured 115, including 26 children and 25 women since yesterday, 14 November.
Operation “Pillar of Defense” (10 – 21 November) resulted in the deaths of 174 Palestinians.
Hamas again maintained a prolonged unilateral ceasefire from November 2012 to July 2014 (TWENTY MONTHS) despite Israel immediately and continually breaking it on a daily basis throughout that time and tightening the siege even more. Other groups sporadically responded to Israeli provocations.
Throughout 2013 there were a total of “32 rockets and 12 mortars” allegedly fired from Gaza. A 98% drop in numbers from the year before. None were fired by Hamas.
During 2013:
Less than 200 people per day were allowed out of Gaza in the first half of 2013.
Less than one truckload of goods per day were allowed out of Gaza during the first half of 2013.
57 percent of Gaza households are food insecure, and approximately 80 percent receive some form of food assistance.
35.5 percent of those able and willing to work are unemployed – one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.
Due to fuel shortages, there are power outages for up to 12 hours per day in most areas of Gaza.
Only 25 percent of households in Gaza receive running water every day, and then only for a few hours.
Over 90 percent of the water extracted from the Gaza aquifer is unsafe for human consumption, while needed filtration equipment cannot be imported to Gaza.
Nearly 90 million liters of untreated or partially treated sewage is dumped into the sea off of Gaza every day while equipment needed to build new or maintain existing treatment facilities are banned from entering Gaza.
Haz clic para acceder a ocha_opt_gaza_blockade_factsheet_july_2013_english.pdf
38 Palestinians would be killed in 2013, the lowest number since 2000, but still higher than the number of Israelis killed by rockets fired from Gaza over TEN YEARS.
Then came 2014, the year we all thought was to be the worst.
From January 1 to June 12….Israelis killed approximately 30 Palestinians, 4 of them children. None of the Israeli killers were held accountable for the murders. Mainstream media outlets almost never reported on any of these killings. Yet everyone was made aware of the names of the three Israelis allegedly abducted and murdered in June.
http://ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/violence-gaza-14.html
Remember that “Operation Protective Edge” began on July 8.
Hamas did not attack Israel first. Israel bombed the homes of three families and killed two Palestinians (one of whom was 10-years-old) in Gaza before a single Hamas rocket was launched back.
http://imeu.org/article/israels-west-bank-crackdown
Hamas kept to their part of the 2012 ceasefire and hadn’t fired ANY rockets. This fact was admitted to by Israeli and mainstream media.
Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/30/uk-palestinian-israel-idUKKBN0F51CZ20140630
13 MORE Palestinians would be murdered by Israel after the kidnapping of the Israeli settlers and BEFORE the first Hamas launched rockets on June 28 (Times of Israel)
Israel admitted that no rockets had been fired from Gaza by Hamas since 2012 even in the face of severe provocation and constant breaches of the ceasefire agreement.
9 MORE Palestinians would die BEFORE “Operation Protective Edge” was launched on July 8
Three Israeli teens were allegedly kidnapped on June 12th. The bodies would be “found” on June 30th a few kilometres from where they had gone missing. The Israeli government and intelligence service knew they were dead before June 14th when a burnt out car was found with the teenagers’ DNA.
The alleged kidnapping occurred just two weeks after the “Unity Government” between Hamas and Fatah had been set up (that is, it made no sense – it only benefited Israel).
The Israeli government and intelligence agencies knew that a phonecall had been received by police in which one of the Israelis told them that they were being kidnapped. Multiple gunshots were heard on the recording and the families were told that the shots were “blanks”. They also found blood and bullet casings at the scene, but lied to the families by omitting these facts.
IDF officers and police would later admit that they knew they were looking for “dead bodies” from a “very early stage”.
The Israelis would withhold this information to whip up the frenzy necessary to launch the carnage that they did on Gaza even though the alleged kidnapping occurred in the West Bank.
The Israeli Defense Ministry, IDF commander and government claimed that the teens were still alive for weeks afterward and placed a gag order on the media who suggested that they were dead as late as June 29, more than two weeks later.
On June 24, Israel’s propaganda mouthpiece, “UN Watch” called for the teenagers’ mothers to go to the UN to ask for help in finding her son.
They went accompanied by the Israeli Foreign Minister who knew that they were already dead.
The Israeli government and intelligence knew the identity of two of the alleged kidnappers within a day (they were executed in Hebron by the IDF) and that they belonged to a family in the West Bank that had carried out attacks before WITHOUT Hamas leadership approval nor knowledge. And that this was no different. The Hamas leadership denied any involvement.
Members of the alleged perpetrators’ families were arrested the day after the “kidnapping”.
The names weren’t released until June 26th. 14 days after the alleged kidnapping, during which Hamas was constantly accused by the media and Netanyahu.
The Israeli government watched as a Facebook page (which would go on to receive 40,000 likes) was posted calling for the murder of a Palestinian prisoner every hour that the Israeli teenagers were “missing”.
The Israeli government watched as flash hate mobs formed in Jerusalem shouting “Death to Arabs”
The IDF raided 18 houses every day for almost 3 weeks “searching” for the 3 Israelis, even though they knew they were dead.
80 Israeli air strikes on GAZA in June had killed three “militants” and wounded more than a dozen other people.
$3 million in cash and property is stolen by the IDF.
In spite of the Israeli rampage and assassinations, June 28 sees the FIRST Hamas rockets launched from Gaza.
On June 30, the Israeli bodies are found in a “shallow grave” just TEN kilometres from where the burned out car was found.
They lay in a shallow grave on property owned by Marwan Qawasmeh, one of the two men suspected in their kidnapping and killing.
Muhammad Abu Khudair, 16, is kidnapped, forced to drink petrol and burned alive on July 2nd. The day after the three Israelis’ funerals.
“Interrogation of six suspects in death of Mohammed Abu Khdeir reveals group attempted to kidnap 9-year-old boy in east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina day before; one suspect confesses to killing.”
(Ynet News)
“Yishai Fraenkel, uncle of Naftali Fraenkel, called upon Israelis and Palestinians to “refrain from any type of violence” following the deaths of the four young men.
“The life of an Arab is equally precious to that of a Jew. Blood is blood, and murder is murder, whether that murder is Jewish or Arab,” Fraenkel told CTV News Channel in a telephone interview from Israel.
“There’s no justification whatsoever to revenge or do anything as a result of the barbaric murder of my nephew.”
Of course, this interview was ignored and buried.
In the following days and weeks, 2271 Palestinians were slaughtered, including 562 children.
Between then and 2022, another 1,265 Palestinians were killed during “peaceful” times, including the 2018 Great March of Return protests where 266 people were killed, including 50 children, and almost 30,000 injured in one year. 122 had legs amputated and 14 their arms.
(Al Jazeera, 30 Mar 2019)
And this year, 2023, before October 7, 213 Palestinians, including 44 children were killed.
(B’tselem)
Conclusions
That’s the “slow”, horrific history of Israeli occupation. Whenever a peace deal is on or near the table, those holding the olive branch are assassinated, along with scores of civilians and children, to slap it from their hands. And I say “slow” as opposed to the carnage of 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2018. In between, Israel doesn’t let up. But the death toll is at a “manageable” level. Just enough below the mainstream media threshold of when they are forced to begrudgingly draw attention to the area, while painting Israelis as the victims.
In between the carnage, the ugly sore of a concentration camp – which isn’t a slogan – is ignored by them.
This is the perfect formula for “radicalism” in the true sense of the word. “Radical” derived from the latin for “pull out by the roots”. Living under those conditions, who wouldn’t eventually snap and see no other way?
For a five year period after the Second Intifada in 2000, 995 Israelis were killed, and 3352 Palestinians, a ratio of around 3 to 1. Multiple attempts by both Hamas and Fatah to enter ceasefire agreements lead to the assassinations of those proposing them.
When settlers (colonialists) were removed from Gaza, the trap was set for the creation of a concentration camp disguised as “Palestinian autonomy”. From 2005 to Oct 7, 2023, the Israeli fatalities dropped significantly to just 215 over an 18 YEAR period, with many years the figures dropping to single figures: 2009 – 3; 2012 – 4; 2013 – 3; 2020 – 2.
1,509 Palestinians died during just a three year period from 2006 to 2008 and during prolonged ceasefires. With 4317 killed between 2009 and this year.
Now relatively secure, while Palestinians rot of course, they could have tried to resolve issues. But they chose to “kill and kill and kill again” as Gaza concentration camp architect Arnon Soffer says.
The current onslaught will be a multiple of all casualty figures cited here. But when you see the figures, how Israel doesn’t and has never wanted peace using manipulation, assassination and constant provocation, we are where we are today. It doesn’t matter what your opinion is on Hamas, whether a “terrorist organization”, “freedom fighters” or “zionist patsies”. There will always be young men and women willing to take up arms in this situation. If Hamas is “wiped out”, along with thousands of innocents, another group from among the traumatized will simply take over. And zionism depends on this. It’s why they pretended this year to be “taken by surprise”. They need armed groups.
The sad reality is that it takes atrocities, with unimaginable suffering and loss, for mainstream media to focus on this part of the world. Especially when, for the first time since the Gaza siege, it’s Israelis who had experienced death on such a scale. Now, after mainstream media mirrored the Old Testament, Israeli style calls for “an eye for an eye” retribution and the number of Palestinians killed more than triples the Israeli tally, it’s back to business as usual. The mind blowing mantra of “Israel has a right to defend itself” floods the airwaves.
We see that Palestinian civilians mass murdered through war crimes perpetrated are treated as subhuman by the mainstream media in the same way the apartheid state treats them on a daily basis. There are polar opposite scenes of Israeli funerals with mourners embracing in sombre scenes which are in stark contrast with those among the over two million NON Hamas members picking body parts of their children from the rubble to place in plastic bags. And the former being portrayed as the “superior victim”.
How can Israel be acting in “self defense” given what has been lain out here? How can Israel be acting in self defense, portraying itself as a victim, when they have been the aggressor, the constant instigator, and constantly planning to stab in the back anybody who offers a peaceful resolution?
Sources
Gaza is a concentration camp
The lies that brought about the 2014 Gaza massacre
When peace leads to massacre – Israeli treatment of ceasefires
Distortion and fantasy (the Israeli numbers game)
B’Tselem casualty figures 2000-2008
B’Tselem casualty figures 2008-2023
spanishhalyon 