Israel
No telling in Jerusalem this morning that Israel resumed war and poured hell on Gaza last night. In the Muslim Quarter of the Old City shopkeepers receive pallets of soft drinks, and spilled coke runs red-brown down the Via Dolorosa. A couple of streets away the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is very quiet. A few men chant lowly in the tomb of Christ.
Thirty-three hostages and 1,900 Palestinian prisoners were freed in the ceasefire agreed in January, but the promised talks afterwards about a permanent end to the war went nowhere. Donald Trump said last December that there would be ‘hell to pay’ if Hamas did not return the hostages by his inauguration, and that is why the deal between Israel and the terrorists was done. Neither side was really ready to end the conflict: Benjamin Netanyahu wants to finish Hamas; Hamas refuses to disarm.
Israel is shelling Gaza again and three kilometres away in Sderot a man named Escapov is pleased.
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