In response to the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip that began on December 27, the United Nations passed a resolution on Thursday calling for an immediate, durable and fully-respected ceasefire. Meanwhile, Egyptian efforts at brokering a renewed ceasefire seemed to stall over who would secure the Egypt-Gaza border. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States refrained from voting on the resolution, which passed unanimously, because it was waiting to see the outcome of Egyptian mediation efforts. Both Israel and Hamas rejected the resolution.
Middle East Progress (MEP) has been covering the ongoing crisis in Gaza for almost two years and has provided continuing reporting on the situation on the ground since June 2007 through interviews with New York Times Gaza-based correspondent Taghreed El-Khodary (here, here, here and here) and Reuters senior correspondent in Gaza Nidal al-Mughrabi.
Following the Hamas takeover of Gaza CAP Senior Fellows Mara Rudman and Brian Katulis wrote “Averting a Deeper Crisis,” answering the question “how to steer a better course?” and in an interview in March of 2008, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt Daniel Kurtzer spoke about how to move forward from Gaza as the Annapolis process took shape.
When a ceasefire was being mediated in May 2008, Ghaith al-Omari, a former foreign policy adviser to Palestinian President Abbas and advocacy director for the American Task Force on Palestine, wrote about the perils of unconditional engagement with Hamas and in an interview, Francis J. Ricciardone, recently returned U.S. ambassador to Egypt, talked about Egypt’s interests with relation to Gaza and what it was doing to implement a ceasefire.
