'Caged' Gazans given no choice by Israeli leaflets
Civilian deaths continue to mount in Gaza
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Friday, 09, Jan 2009 10:38
Israel has been criticised for dropping leaflets in the Gaza Strip telling civilians to leave their homes.
Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the popular pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, told an audience at the Royal Society of Arts the leaflets did not offer advice on where to go.
It comes as Israel continues its offensive in Gaza, aimed at ending Hamas rocket attacks, which has left over 750 Palestinian civilians dead.
Mr Atwan said he had spoken to his brother who said the situation was "exactly like what happened in 1948".
"People tried to grab some of their belongings and children, and run away. They don't know where to go," he said.
"People are caged. The borders are sealed. When it comes to the Palestinians in Gaza, there is no place to go at all except to face bombs. Bombs from the sea, bombs from the air, bombs from the ground."
Mr Atwan was critical of the daily three-hour ceasefire agreed to by Israel earlier this week, saying it is impossible to move around the Gaza Strip, and warned of the negative impact the conflict will have on efforts to secure a peace agreement with Israel.
"They cannot create peace while this kind of bombardment is continuing," he added.
"Most of my family belonged to Fatah, not Hamas. I phoned them again. They said 'all of us now [support] Hamas'. Hamas is strengthened and al-Qaida is strengthened. The Arab moderates are sidelined completely."
Speaking at the same event, Labour Friends of Palestine chairman Martin Linton said Israel's wider actions in the last few years had threatened moderate party Fatah's control of the West Bank.
"In the last few years, it has become clear that Israel wants to colonise the West Bank," he said.
"In doing so they completely undermine the position of Fatah and all other moderate politicians.
"Unless they stop the expansion of settlements, the West Bank will go to Hamas if we continue in this way."