Israel – With the bombing of Israel, can the Islamic militant group known as Hamas and the Israeli government negotiate a cease fire and put an end to the battling or will these two groups declare full fledged war against each other.
Journalists Ibrahim Barzak and Ian Deitch of the Associated Press reported on November 17th, 2012, in their article “Israel bombards Gaza Strip, shoots down rocket” that Israel has retaliated to the bombings of the Hamas by bombing the Hamas Prime Minister’s headquarters as well as a broadcasting station used by the Hamas.
Peace negotiations between the Israeli government and the Hamas were gaining steam, but will the retaliation of Israel against the Hamas push the two groups towards war? Because of all the rockets being sent back and forth from these two groups, peace talk has been difficult, but will save thousands of lives that would be lost if a war were to erupt.
According to Barzak and Deitch “so far, a total of 48 people have been killed during these rocket fights, 15 of which were civilians and more than 400 civilians have been injured.” Now would be the time to resolve these two groups’ problems because as more fighting goes on, the more and more people will die which will make it progressively harder for these groups to resolve their problems. As more people die, the more the Hamas will want revenge on the Israeli government and vice versa, which would put peace talks on hold. As the death toll rises, the groups will be more focused on killing each other than trying to resolve their problems.
In his article “Israel Targets Hamas Headquarters” published by ABC News, journalist Alexander Marquardt reports that Israeli warplanes also dropped bombs on Hamas police stations and the homes of top Hamas leaders. The goal of the Israeli government is to target all Hamas sites that are known to contain weapons or meeting places for top military Hamas officials. Israel believes that there are over 900 of these Hamas locations and are now targeting them in an effort to stop Hamas from sending missiles to Israel.
One problem that the Israeli government faces is destroying Hamas weapons without harming civilians. Israel has bombed the known areas that contain weapons used to attack them but Hamas has launched some of its missiles from civilian houses that harbor these weapons. Because Israel does not want to harm innocent lives, it is highly considering sending in ground troops to raid these civilian houses that contain these dangerous weapons. This way, Israel is destroying the weapons that have been used to kill its own civilians without harming the Hamas’ civilians.
With more and more victims succumbing to the battle between these two groups, hopefully the Islamic militant group and the country of Israel can settle their differences before any more innocent lives are harmed or else this could be the beginning of a very long war.
