Consensus behind Resistance demands in Gaza: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Joe Catron, member of the International Solidarity Movement from Gaza, about the Israeli army carrying out new airstrikes on the Gaza Strip as the Tel Aviv regime’s military offensive against the Palestinians in the besieged coastal sliver continues unabated.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Tell us about the situation. You are on the ground in Gaza and of course the following of three-day ceasefire again we are seeing Israeli attacks. Tell me what do you think it will take to actually end this, end this particular rampage, the onslaught that is still going on by the Israelis although it appears today that more and more Gazans are out and about?

Catron: It does appear that more people are out and about today. I think many at this point in the offensive have looked at the numbers who have been killed in their homes and concluded that they are not necessarily any safer staying at home than they would be going in the streets and caring about their normal business. So it is certainly a bit quieter at this point than it was in the early days of the offensive.

In terms of what it will take to end the offensive, I think that Israel has been forced to temper its behavior slightly due to the overwhelming international condemnation it has faced. Today is of course a global “Day of Rage” for Gaza called by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement activists here in the Gaza Strip. There are demonstrations taking place all across the world and these kinds of activities are being reflected in the positions taken by some governments, perhaps the governments are being forced to take.

We have heard a rising level of criticism of Israel’s crimes in the Gaza Strip that we wouldn’t have expected as recently as 2012. Both people and the governments are being much more outspoken. Whether that process will continue enough to force Israel to reach fair agreements, equal bilateral truce we might say as opposed to a unilateral one with the Palestinian resistance groups here, that is something that remains to be seen.

Press TV: Joe, what are you finding on the ground there overall the perspective of Gaza is there of course obviously tired of the bombardment but do you find that the majority of them are willing to hold fast to the demands of the resistance or are they basically just ready to acquiesce and just give and say enough is enough because of the overwhelming onslaught and the cost that they are paying, the price that they are paying?

Catron: I always have to say at the beginning of answering these kinds of questions that I am not a pollster and I am also not a spokesman for anything. However, my personal experience in having a range of conversations with people here over recent weeks has been that there is nearly a universal consensus behind the demands of the resistance.

I think every Palestinian I have spoken to in the Gaza Strip agrees that they cannot return to the way things were in which a stifling siege, enforced with gunfire and bombing raids impoverishes an entire population. This is Israel’s idea of a ceasefire when in which the Palestinians cease firing while Israel will be free to fire on and it will and this is what happened following the 2012’s ceasefire agreement while the Palestinian resistance groups held their fire for months, Israel not only continued its crippling siege but enforced with gunfire against fishermen at sea and farmers and others in their fields by the separation barrier as well as occasional strikes against targets here.

And there is as I said broad agreement that this is not an option for the future going forward and that any ceasefire must be a genuinely bilateral one not a unilateral ceasefire which by definition I think it is what any ceasefire under the siege would be.