Hamas announces 6-month truce with Israel

[BeautifulBurnout]

Originally Posted by Sean

What the hell?

Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya said the group remained committed to the six-day-old ceasefire with Israel and it had called on all Palestinian groups to respect it.

However, he said that Hamas would not act as Israel's "police force" in confronting militants who breached the truce.

So taking responsibility for and doing what you can to stop rockets being launched from Palestinian territories into Israel is considered acting as "Israel's 'police force'", and you'll have none of it? That's just some brazenly flawed thinking. You're the ruling party, Hamas! It's your freakin' responsibility to make sure attacks aren't being launched on Israel from your territory!

I wish they'd tell us more about the Israeli raid in Gaza that supposedly sparked the rocket attacks. What were the goals that motivated it? How did the raid unfold that two people were killed? Who were the two people killed...militants or civilians?

Yeah - here is Al-Jazeera's take on it, which will evidently give a pro-Palestinian account. The West Bank seems to be the sticking point. Still doesn't give any details about who the two men in Nablus were that were killed.

This is the kind of bizarre political-speke that I just can't get to grips with:

Mark Regev, an Israeli goverment spokesman, insisted that Hamas bore responsibility for any attack from Gaza since "unfortunately, it seized power there one year ago".

He said that the attacks violated "two cardinal points of the understandings reached through Egypt, namely that the truce applies only to the Gaza Strip and not to the West Bank and that it concerns all armed groups".

So is Israel saying that, because the ceasefire doesn't apply to the West Bank, it is ok for them to take military action in the West Bank, but not ok for Al-Quds to respond, presumably from the West Bank? This whole process is set up to fail if that is their understanding of it.