Palestinian factions reportedly set 10 conditions for 10-year truce with Israel

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 16 July 2014

Palestinians sleep at a UN school in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya early on 16 July after evacuating their houses near the border with Israel. Ezz Zanoun APA images

Reports in Israeli and Palestinian media say that the two Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have set forth ten conditions for a ceasefire and ten-year truce with Israel.

Israel’s Maariv said that an unnamed “senior Palestinian official” passed it a copy of the demands, which have been transmitted by the factions to Egypt.

They include an end to all armed hostilities, the end of the siege of Gaza, and the construction of internationally supervised air and seaports.

While Hamas has not as yet officially stated these demands, they are in line with the group’s long-standing policy of offering Israel a multi-year truce.

The reported conditions come after nine days of Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 200 people, injured close to 1,400, and destroyed the homes of 8,200 others. Almost 80 percent of the dead, who include more than thirty children, are civilians, according to the UN.

Yesterday, Hamas refused to respond to a unilateral “ceasefire” declared by Israel that would have left the situation of siege on the Gaza Strip unchanged.

Airport, seaport and an end to violence

The ten conditions were translated by The Electronic Intifada from an Arabic version published by Ma’an News Agency:

  1. Mutual cessation of the war and withdrawal of tanks to previous locations and the return of farmers to work their land in the agricultural border areas.

  2. Release of all the Palestinians detained since 23 June 2014 and improvement of the conditions of Palestinian prisoners, especially the prisoners from Jerusalem, Gaza and Palestinians of the interior [present-day Israel].

  3. Total lifting of the siege of Gaza and opening the border crossings to goods and people and allowing in all food and industrial supplies and construction of a power plant sufficient to supply all of Gaza.

  4. Construction of an international seaport and an international airport supervised by the UN and non-biased countries.

  5. Expansion of the maritime fishing zone to 10 kms and supplying fishermen with larger fishing and cargo vessels.

  6. Converting the Rafah crossing into an international crossing under supervision of the UN and Arab and friendly countries.

  7. Signing a 10-year truce agreement and deployment of international monitors to the borders.

  8. A commitment by the occupation government not to violate Palestinian airspace and easing of conditions for worshipers in al-Aqsa mosque.

  9. The occupation will not interfere in the affairs of the Palestinian government and will not hinder national reconciliation.

  10. Restoration of the border industrial areas and their protection and development.

“Should have been met years ago”

Dr. Ramy Abdu, chair of the independent group Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights (euromid.org), told The Electronic Intifada from Gaza City this morning:

I believe that these requirements should have been met years ago. The core of these requirements are not political but purely humanitarian and legally binding. The international community has called many times for their implementation. Palestinians have the right to move in and out freely like others in the world. They have the right to import and export, to control their borders and airspace. Israel argues that it left Gaza, so it should stop controlling the lives of Palestinians.

Abdu noted that his organization recently published a detailed proposal to establish a maritime link from Gaza to the rest of the world with an international role that could “alleviate security concerns.”

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Comments

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Andrew Muncie replied on

5. Expansion of the maritime fishing zone to 10 kms and supplying fishermen with larger fishing and cargo vessels.

This condition indicates a complete lack of understanding of the Gazan fishing industry, and it seems probable that it's been formulated without any discussion with the fishermen themselves.

10kms, whilst a marginal improvement on the current situation is still entirely inadequate. Fishing in such a restricted area is still barely viable in the short term, and is quite unsustainable in the long term as it results in overfishing and the destruction of breeding stocks. It would also prevent fishermen access to seasonal fish migrations farther from shore which they are traditionally reliant on.

It also ignores all possible sources of law on this issue, which all indicate (at a minimum) a considerably larger area in which Gazans are entitled to fish. The Oslo accords for example stipulated 20 nautical miles.

They've really dropped the ball with this one. Proposing such a minimal condition endorses the idea that a 10km limit would be both sufficient and legitimate, when it would be anything but.

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Marshalldoc replied on

While not a fisherman myself, it's my understanding that the originally agreed-upon limit for Gaza's 'territorial waters' (Camp David? Oslo? - Don't quote me) was 20 Km for the very reasons Andrew cites.

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Emmanuel Tierra replied on

Initial [in one heartbeat] Analysis:

1 Originates from Abbas "International Protections" premise;

1.1 Only Abbas thinks like welfare queen of entitlements due to his 20 year racket of getting paid to doing nothing other than photo ops & using the PA Security Services as he is ordered to do by the Israelis

1.2 Only Abbas thinks that Nation-building is sole responsibility of the UN Community of Nations though donations while Abbas does nothing & Israeli war criminal occupation

1.3 Only the Israelis think that its War Criminal Occupation should be paid for by USA, European Union, & Arab states of being responsible for what the occupying power is mandated to do of careing for the Civilian Population:

1.3 Which the IDF destroys any infrastructure built by UN or Donor nation-states in its next self-idolatrous War Crimes murdering rage fit because Palestinian Resistance will not submit to its breach of 1949 Armistice & systemic contravention of UNSC 242

2 Therefore, its an Israeli source "Economic Peace"
2.1 Quartet Economic Maintenance of occupation Premise:

3 ANALYSIS QUESTION: Was their direct contact with Blair?

4 Attempt to exploit the HAMAS pre-2008 context proposal of "Ten Year Truce"

5 UNSC 242 Compliance is HAMAS Foreign Policy: Post 2012 Assault on UNGA 181 Palestine Gaza & not ten year truce.

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The ten conditions were translated by The Electronic Intifada from an Arabic version published by Ma’an News Agency:

1 Mutual cessation of the war and withdrawal of tanks to previous locations and the return of farmers to work their land in the agricultural border areas

ANALYSIS SOURCE:

2 Release of all the Palestinians detained since 23 June 2014 and improvement of the conditions of Palestinian prisoners, especially the prisoners from Jerusalem, Gaza and Palestinians of the interior

ANALYSIS SOURCE:

3 Total lifting of the siege of Gaza and opening the border crossings to goods people and allowing in all

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Krishna Menon replied on

It's back to square one, as though nothing has happened, how is that going to work. Does Hamas think they will get away with this"buying for time" tactics. This 10 point demand is only the "lull before the storm". If the so called international community cannot see the wood from the tree, and succumb to these demands. They shall reap a wirlwind.

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Vuola Vassilis replied on

Hello, thank you for this useful article. I think in the ten conditions for a truce the second condition (...) بما فيهم أسرى القدس ومناطق عام 48 should be "(...) including Palestinians from Jerusalem and the interior", so it cannot be misunderstood to mean that the Palestinians from the West Bank are left out.

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Ann Hallam replied on

There is absolutely no point in making hopeful demands of Israel - in return for pie-in-the-sky- agreements you will get bare-faced lies, prevarication,
broken promises, pseudo-legalistic wrangling and sheer bullying of any international movement to help you. - look at what happened after Oslo. LEARN THE LESSON.

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.