Thursday, January 15, 2009

Israeli Envoy Arrives In Egypt For Ceasefire Talks


Israel's top envoy in the Gaza operation has arrived in Cairo to meet with Egyptian officials who are trying to seal a deal between Hamas and Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza. And although Hamas is also in Cairo, Amos Gilad, the Israeli diplomat, will NOT be meeting with Hamas factions. Here's the entire story from Breitbart:


Israel pointman on Gaza in Egypt for truce talks

An Israeli government spokesman says Israel's point-man on Gaza has arrived in Cairo for truce talks with the Egyptian mediators.
Mark Regev says envoy Amos Gilad will discuss the "parameters of the end game" with the Egyptians. Gilad flew to Cairo Thursday on a private plane.
Regev says Israel wants a total end to Hamas' rocket launches into Israel and an arms embargo on Gaza's militant rulers. Gilad will not be meeting Hamas envoys who are also in town.
Israeli troops pushed further into the densely populated Gaza City on Thursday—the 20th day of the offensive to rout out Hamas militants.
Gaza-based Hamas official Ghazi Hamad says the deeper incursion reflected "pressure" to get his group to accept Egypt's truce proposal.

Now, there's two other aspects to the Israeli demands that aren't mentioned in this article and those are two that are particularly hard to swallow for Hamas - first, the Israelis want to keep their troops at the level of incursion into Gaza at which point the ceasefire is signed and secondly, the Israelis are demanding that an international force be present in Gaza to monitor that no weapons are brought into the Strip.

Considering Israeli movement into Gaza City the last couple of days, I would say it will be just a couple of days before we see a break in these ceasefire talks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Accept a cease fire from hamas when the last hamashole dies, anything prior to that is an exercise in futility. Anything else is simply a time for the asshats to re-arm.

Holger Awakens said...

Shark,

I couldn't agree with you more but I don't think Israel has it in her to go to that length - that's unfortunate, of course. At the same time, I do feel that Israel has set its conditions for ceasefire and I don't think they will bend on them.

:Holger Danske