According to Western diplomats familiar with the situation, Hamas has recently been submitting proposals to Israel for a long-term military ceasefire in exchange for an end to the crippling economic blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Details vary, with some saying the deal would be five years and others saying it was 15 years, but Hamas would agree to end all military operations “above and below ground” in Gaza in return for being allowed by Israel to import construction material, and build a civilian airport and seaport.
Since 2007, the Israeli economic blockade has kept all but a trivial amount of humanitarian aid from entering the strip, and two major Israeli invasions have occurred since then, leaving much of the strip in ruins and forbidding them a return of construction material.
Gaza briefly had an airport, near Rafah, which opened in 1998. Israeli warplanes destroyed the buildings in 2001, and bulldozed the runways in 2002. During the current blockade, ships are barred from entering or leaving the strip, and at times attacked by the Israeli Navy for getting too close.
While border crossings with Israel are vital for getting construction material into Gaza to rebuild in the near term, the strip’s economic future is clearly in much safer hands if it is allowed to have a civilian seaport and airport, and forge ties with the rest of the world.
They may want to wait for Netenyahoo to lose the election, jehova willing.
They may want to wait for netenyahoo to lose the election, jehova willing. It's not like he's a reliable partner for peace.
Good luck finding someone there who actually is, instead of just pretending to be.
Wasn't Rabin, sort of?
A world fooled? — Or a world greedy selfish?
For who really believes that Hamas is a greater terrorist then Empire USA Israel? Actually hardly a soul, for nuke terrorized to death were 220,000 in Japan for all the world to see, to know and to be terrorized into submission by it. For then in just three short years came all those white European Jews to create terrorist Israel and give Empire USA all-out fear driven expansion over the Middle-East, surely the world loves the glory of it, most all gaining more wealth because of it, surely greed is the lubricant that gets things done in it.
The last thing that Israel wants is peace.
It shouldn't be forgotten that Hamas was in fact enabled by and financed initially by Mossad, to attack internally the PLO!
Another one of those infamous blowback operations, that the CIA and Western Intelligence agencies seem to manage so well!
Hamas has offered peace along those terms for years. Israel doesn't want peace. It wants total supremacy.