Israeli troops kill Palestinian teenager

[bemildred]

A Palestinian teenager has been shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, hospital and security sources said.

Eighteen-year-old Bashir Sufi was on Thursday fatally wounded in the chest and abdomen by soldiers who were guarding the now empty Gaza settlement of Atsmona which lies close to the crossing into Egypt, the sources added.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops fired towards three Palestinians who were trying to infiltrate the security fence around Atsmona, but did not confirm whether any had been hit.

Sufi was the second Palestinian teenager shot dead in two days by Israeli troops guarding the abandoned Jewish settlements in southern Gaza.

al Jazeera

[Violet_Crumble]

1. Clearly he was a grave danger to the settlement...

"The infiltrators were waving Hamas flags, Army Radio reported."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1126145970136


Violet...

[bemildred]

2. If you think about it ...

The Palestinian witnesses report they were scavanging for metal,
and you know what they do with metal when they get it? They try
to make weapons! And in any case they might have grown up to be
some sort of bad persons, Palestinians do that a lot, a clear threat.

But more seriously, it's going to be interesting to see what happens
now. Will Israel leave Gaza alone? Will Gaza leave Israel alone?
What sort of legal governing entity will be instituted in Gaza? Will
an actual functioning economy get up and running again?

Right now I think that what will happen is that we'll have what we
had before but without the settlements and checkpoints and all that
stuff. Maybe some economic improvement will occur. A relief for
both parties, but not enough. The war will go on.

[pelsar]

3. stuiped game...

the kids are playing chicken with the IDF...in a few days the IDF will be gone (there are still soldiers and civilians in the debris of the settlements doing various final things)

and the IDF is protecting them....from the palestenians....which is what the PA is supposed to be doing..keeping the "kids" and the jihadnikim away

so lets see....the PA is not succeeding in keeping parts of its population from trying to sneakinto whats left of the israeli settlements....which will soon be abandoned...and some of those sneakers are armed....or maybe not.....at any rate shots are being fired at IDF posistions.....

doesnt make much sense to me.....if those kids want to play chicken with the israeli army...i believe the risks are pretty clear to all.

[bemildred]

4. Could be so.

The PA appears to be impotent in Gaza, that is true, so how much
can you blame on the impotent PA?

I can't say that I see that killing these kids, playing chicken
or not, is likely to do much good, or to protect anyone. They
have relatives, and those relatives will not forget.

I should make clear that I do understand the argument you are
making, and I know that the boundaries will always be pushed, and
when pushed far enough one can get unexpected explosions, etc.
So judgement is called for, and here is seems to me it was not
exercised well.

To put it another way: it is indeed a stupid game, so should
the IDF play the game?

[pelsar]

5. the IDF

is now preparing to leave....the palestenains who are approaching the tanks, shooting at the soldiers...sneaking in the settlements...

what for?

(and yes the IDF has the right to protect itself while it prepares to leave...i cant believe i even have to write such sentence....)

as far as the PA they are the offical governing body there...they are the address for all of the palestenains actions in Gaza.....no more excuses. Whether or not they can or will not, do anything is totally irrelevant to me.

If they cant...that certainly says a tremendous amount about their ability to have a state....and if they can but arent...that also says a tremendous amount about their ability to have a state....so which is it?

incompetence or lack of will? either way its still their responsability

[bemildred]

7. pelsar ...

(and yes the IDF has the right to protect itself while it prepares to leave...i cant believe i even have to write such sentence....)

I can't believe you had to say that either.

as far as the PA they are the offical governing body there...they are the address for all of the palestenains actions in Gaza.....no more excuses. Whether or not they can or will not, do anything is totally irrelevant to me.

If they cant...that certainly says a tremendous amount about their ability to have a state....and if they can but arent...that also says a tremendous amount about their ability to have a state....so which is it?

incompetence or lack of will? either way its still their responsability

That's all very well, I'm just saying you can't get blood from a
stone. What good does it do Israel or Israelis if they remain free
from fault or guilt and it's all the PA's or the Palestinian's fault
somehow, but the situation continues to decay and the old dream of
Israel continues to fade? That is, I am trying to address a pragmatic
issue rather than the moral one.

[pelsar]

6. double standard? bemildred.....

"The PA appears to be impotent in Gaza, that is true, so how much
can you blame on the impotent PA?"

if you believe that...than seems to me you can also believe that the israeli govt is equally impotent in Hebron and therefore are not responsable for the settlers actions.

which is it: are the governing bodies responsable or are they not?...one standard one answer for both societies

[bemildred]

8. I re-reading that I see that I botched it.

The question is not how much you can blame the PA; of course
you can blame the PA as much as you like, and with some justice
to it too. My point was that blaming the PA at this point
does not accomplish much, it's more of an emotional sop than
something that will have practical effect.

[pelsar]

9. emotional?....

definitly....it will no longer be ambiguous what the palestenains can or cannot do as a society. Though i hope they succeed for purly selfish reasons....if they dont (and it will obviously affect us in a very negative way)...it will also be clear that its their own fault....at least to most israelis (i'm sure we'll be blamed anyway....)

reality and responsability can be a really pain sometimes

[bemildred]

10. Ambiguous to whom?

If the results are postive, perhaps a few minds will be changed.
If the results are negative, I doubt that anybody at all will
change their minds.

[pelsar]

11. the ambiguity.....

perhaps its over here in israel....constant debates on who and what are the palestenians, what they can and cannot do, what happened pre/post oslo, what does the future look like...ad nasueum

with their own society to run....all of those debates fall on the side....it will affect the whole israeli society and how we see the palestenains (the debating will continue obviously, but much will be cleared up) and how the future looks.

like most, i am glad to have dumped gaza, glad the palestenians have a society without us hanging from their necks, hope they make the best out of it....at the sametime, if they shoot at us, i hope the response is overwhelming and out of proportion....so that there will be no "ambuguity" as to the PAs responsabiity.

[bemildred]

12. Well, we agree on most of that. nt