LIMITED NEGOTIATIONS BUT UNLIMITED WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST
LIMITED NEGOTIATIONS BUT UNLIMITED WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Summary/Abstract: Gaza – controlled by Hamas1 since June 2007 - is a nightmare for Israelis for more than half of century. The Israeli offensive launched December, 27, 2008, after Hamas forcefully took control in that territory, in June 2007, renewed a six month truce expired on December, 19, 2008. Hamas leaders promised again the Israel’s deletion from the map2 , but Israeli officials excluded any truce in the next days. Israel, as the Israeli president Shimon Peres declared, wants to reach to a “terrorism cessation”, “not to a truce” with Hamas in Gaza. During the three weeks’ offensive at least 1.203 Palestinians were killed, 410 children and 108 women, more than 5.300 people were injured and the damages to the Gaza infrastructure – as the Palestinian Central Bureau for Statistics states – 476 million dollars. On December, 25, 2008, Russia expressed its support for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, contested by the Islamist movement Hamas and also for the peace process with Israel which Moscow wanted to accelerate hosting an international conference for the Middle East, in 2009. The area’s actual conjecture may bring back into the agenda Fatah forces, a lesser radicalized group than Hamas and even to officialise the position of the main Palestinian opposition party for Hamas.

• Details
• Contents