Cease fire for now in Gaza

Fox News:
Israel and Hamas agreed Thursday to an unconditional, 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza conflict, set to begin Friday, the United States and United Nations said.

The cease-fire was scheduled to commence at 8 am local time on Friday, and is expected to last for a period of 72 hours unless it's extended, the State Department said in a statement. Military forces will be expected to stay in place during the cease-fire.

"This is not a time for congratulations or joy or anything except a serious determination — a focus by everybody to try to figure out the road ahead," Secretary of State John Kerry said in New Delhi, where he was meeting with Indian officials. "This is a respite. It is a moment of opportunity, not an end."

The U.S. and U.N. said they had gotten assurances that all parties to the conflict had agreed to an unconditional cease-fire during which there would be negotiations on a more durable truce.

Israeli and Palestinian delegations will "immediately" be going to Cairo for negotiations with the Egyptian government to try at reach a more permanent cease-fire, the State Department said.

"This cease-fire is critical to giving innocent civilians a much-needed reprieve from violence," the State Department said in its statement. "During this period, civilians in Gaza will receive urgently needed humanitarian relief, and the opportunity to carry out vital functions, including burying the dead, taking care of the injured, and restocking food supplies. Overdue repairs on essential water and energy infrastructure could also continue during this period."
...
If Hamas has come to the conclusion that its war with Israel is hopeless, then there is a chance of a respite from the fighting.  But the world needs to condemn Hamas for its use of human shields.  If they do not, it will only endanger more civilians in the future.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more