Hamas links truce to end of Gaza border blockade

Palestinians are seen through the shattered windshield of a car as they inspect the site of an Israeli airstrike on the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on November 18, 2012. Two people were killed, one of them a child, when an Israeli missile hit a beachfront refugee camp in Gaza City. / MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images

Updated 11:23 p.m. ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Gaza's Hamas rulers are aiming high in the conditions they place on stopping rocket fire into Israel in indirect cease-fire talks launched this weekend. Emboldened by Arab support and confident in their arsenal, the Islamists say calm can only come if Israel opens the gates of the tiny, closed-off territory.

The question is how far Hamas will go to reach that long-sought goal, which Israel opposes out of fear of an influx of weapons to Gaza militants. After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and relinquished control of the territory's border with Egypt, militants dramatically stepped up the import of weapons through smuggling tunnels.

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For now, public opinion in Gaza appears to support continued rocket attacks on Israel. However, Israeli aircraft have already struck hundreds of Hamas-linked targets in Gaza and Israel is threatening to escalate its military offensive. On Sunday, a new tactic of bombing the homes of Hamas operatives claimed the lives of at least nine children.

The indirect contacts between Israel and Hamas began Sunday, the fifth day of Israel's massive bombing campaign meant to halt more than a decade of intermittent Gaza rocket attacks on Israel.

An Israeli envoy was whisked from the tarmac at Cairo's international airport to talks with senior Egyptian security officials. The top Hamas leader in exile Khaled Mashaal held talks with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who also spoke by phone with the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh.

Hamas' demands, as presented by Mashaal, include open borders for Gaza and international guarantees that Israel will halt all attacks on Gaza, including targeted killings of the movement's leaders. The assassination of Hamas' military chief last week after days of smaller exchanges between the two sides marked the start of the Israeli offensive, the most intense since a three-week-long war four years ago.

The political wind of the Muslim Brotherhood told CBS News they hope to have a truce by Monday morning, correspondent Clarissa Ward reports. Morsi said earlier this weekend he hoped to have a truce by Sunday morning, but that has not happened.

The Islamists view the current round of fighting as an opportunity to pry open the borders of Gaza, which slammed shut in 2007, after Hamas wrested control of the territory from its political rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In response to the takeover, Israel and Egypt — then under Morsi's pro-Western predecessor Hosni Mubarak — sealed off Gaza to disrupt Hamas rule.

"We will not accept a cease-fire until the occupation (Israel) meets our conditions," said Izzat Rishaq, a senior Hamas official who is involved in the cease-fire efforts in Cairo.

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Free movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza is seen as vital for Hamas' continued control of Gaza.

Both Israel and Egypt's new leader have eased access to the territory since 2007, but many restrictions remain. But even Morsi — who is sympathetic to Hamas as a fellow member of the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood — has resisted Hamas calls for open trade between Gaza and Egypt. Morsi fears such ties could undercut attempts to set up a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, the territory on the other side of Israel, where Abbas has partial control.

Open Gaza borders, including an end to Israel's naval blockade of the territory, would also heighten Israel's concerns about weapons smuggling into Gaza.

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[Husseindela]

Interesting... according to CBS there is hardly any mention of the rockets falling in populated areas in Israel and the death and panic it causes to millions of people. Even though the terrorists who are bombarding Israel are aware of the fact that Israel will do everything in it's power not to hurt civilians. The terrorists are called by the news "militants",and no mention what pain they cause in Israel. Any other country including the "USA" would have cleaned out Gaza and used as a demilitarized zone. Israel should do the same clean out the whole area and put a stop to this murderous act.

[tvwatcher5345]

where do the rockets that hamas uses? do they originate in iran? are they then shipped accross iraq to hamas?? thank you pro-israeli neocons for pushing for the removal of saddam in iraq...israeli's fate may lie in the fate you created when you pushed for the removal of saddam

[ahrats]

Hamas is a terriorist group, what garrentee they will not attack Israel, NONE? Shooting rockets to kill your neighbor or a foreign country is an act of WAR. So if the people who peforms this act are attack and has some of it own citizen killed, that is collateral damage for attacking another country in the first place. Hamas hides amongist the surrounding people for cover causing this collateral damage, hoping the rest of the world will feel sympathy for them, they are still TERRIOIST. Egypt better be careful which friends you support, terriorst groups will only bring you down with them. What has Hamas ever built, promoted, or said that was for the betterment of their fellow men, the Israelies are our part of their fellow men. Hamas why do you buy rockets from Russia & Iran to attack Israel instead of food, building materials, better infastructure to make Gaza a better place to live. If you give sympathy to Hamas you are giving smypathy to the devil himself.

[RearThis]

Hamas demands to lift the blockade in exchange to stop firing rockets.

Would you agree if El-Qaida demand the removal of all metal detectors at airports, in exchange to a promise never to hijack a plane and crash it into a building?

[looneytoonsindville]

Hamas must think the Israeli's are stupid. If the Iranians can secrete this many high tech missiles into Gaza under the current blockade, what would they be able to do if it were lifted? I don't think there is anyone in Israel, either Jewish, Muslim, Christian or otherwise, who is THAT stupid!

[rwsmith29456]

Israel has the Strip closed off because they are afraid of Hamas getting weapons to attack Israel so Hamas attacks Israel to prove that Israel should allow weapons into the area. Ummm???

[Olsonic]

Brilliant Hamas logic: We will launch hundreds of rockets at you over the course of several months (years?) until you inevitably get so fed up that you retaliate, then we will become outraged by the scale of the retaliation that we apparently never expected (despite seeing it several times before), then we will decide that even though our citizens are clearly suffering because our "militants" enjoy provoking a you (a military power) while apparently ignorant of the obvious fact that we cannot adequately defend our countrymen against a retaliation by you (citizens who you would think, in principle, we should actually have an interest in protecting) that now is the time to demand that you remove the protective barrier that you installed in 2007 to prevent the obscene volume of our religious nut-jobs from walking into Israeli bakery's with C4 and a detonator and killing your citizens because we think the creator of the universe entitled us to your land.

Brilliant.

Please look @ this list and notice the volume of suicide attacks pre-2007 and ask yourself what you would do in Israel's shoes right now, in a week that has been punctuated by rocket-attacks from Hamas and retaliations by Israel. : Option A) Remove the gaza border blockade and hope Hamas will play nice (despite the fact that you've been launching air strikes all week and clearly upsetting the locals, and despite knowing that Hamas can't control all of the nut-jobs that would love to spur Hamas' authority and spill fresh blood.). Option B) Invade The Gaza Strip, a 120 square mile region about the size of Hingham, Weymouth, Quincy, Cohasset and Scituate combined and remove every rocket you can find, keep the blockade, improve your anti-rocket air defense system in place until you can effectively ignore the rocket attacks.


hmmmm.... If your role in government is to protect your citizens, it's clear the only option is B.. I'm sorry Hamas, STOP LAUNCHING ROCKETS INTO ISRAEL

[subsailor911]

Well put, OLSONIC.

[blackhawk-up]

Israel is acting with surgical precision (yes, people do die). HOWEVER, if Israel were as bad as their rivals say, they'd load their Merkava's with canister rounds and flechette rounds and, together with aircraft dropping cluster bombs, napalm bombs, and delayed timed explosives, then blast away.

Hmm, well, that sounds like what their rivals would definitely do if they had the same weapons, as history has shown repeatedly. Just count the number of bombers who killed Israelis while they were at bus stops, shopping centers, etc.

[FlyingGoat]

Targeting families, regardless of how "surgical", is a war crime. Arguing that Hamas is committing war crimes as well by targeting Israel cities in no way excuses those crimes the Israeli military is committing.

[bread58]

Seriously, people, look:

The Civil Rights Movement started in 1955. In 10 years, they achieved their aims; the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965).

If the Palestinians would publicly abandon violence and declare that they have adopted non-violent non-cooperation, they would have a nation-state within 10 years, probably less. And had they done that back in the 1950s, they'd be celebrating their 50th birthday as a nation today. Because when you blow up innocent civilians--especially schoolchildren--the rest of the world says, "To h*ll with you and your cause. Whatever moral high ground you might have otherwise have had, you've now flushed it down the toilet. And as a result, I don't have to care about you or your cause, because you have proven yourself to be immoral."
Martin Luther King, Jr. knew this. He maintained the focus on non-violence not because he wanted to be everyone's friend, but because he knew that it was the only way, in the end, to have the final triumph. Palestinians, take note. Non-violence is the path to nationhood.

[bread58]

Yeah, that's right. I'll tell you what I think...