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Gazans Choked in Israeli Noose

Despite promises, Israeli occupation still hasn't ended

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 28, 2008 1:17 PM CST

(Newser) – If the latest Israeli attacks against Gaza prove anything, it’s that the Israeli occupation isn’t over, Peter Beaumont writes in the Guardian. “To be in Gaza is to be trapped. Without future or hope, limited to a few square miles,” the columnist says. “Its borders, land and sea, are defined largely by Israel.”

Three years after Ariel Sharon vowed to withdraw from Gaza, Israel continues to tighten the noose around its 1.5 million residents, Beaumont argues, locking them behind walls and fences, leaving them to scrounge for medical care. But Israel may succeed in achieving what Hamas and Fatah have failed to do: uniting Palestinians against a common enemy.

[Images (2)]

[Quotes (3)]

Israeli soldiers gather at a staging area on the Israel-Gaza Border. Over 280 Palestinians have been killed and more than 600 people wounded since Israel's Gaza offensive began. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A Palestinian protester throws stones at Israeli troops, not seen, during clashes at a demonstration against Israel's military operation in Gaza, in the Shuafat refugee camp. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

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Perhaps in a wider Arab world, becoming more uncomfortable by the day about what is happening inside Gaza, something is changing. And Israel has supplied a rallying point. - Peter Beaumont

Israel has ventured failed experiment after experiment in the attempt to control Gaza. It has tried everything except the obvious—to allow its people to be free. - Peter Beaumont

The death and fear that Gaza's gunmen and rocket teams and bombers have inflicted upon Israel have been returned 10, 20, 30 times over once again. And nothing will change in the arithmetic of it. - Peter Beaumont

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Gazans Choked in Israeli Noose