Haaretz Editorial

Cease-fire. Release the Hostages. Establish a Palestinian State. There Is No Other Way

Der Text diese Editorial erschien am 14. April 2025 in der hebräischen und in der englischen Ausgabe und ist online zugänglich. Wir stellen hier einige Passagen online und verweisen insbesondere auf den letzten Abschnitt!:

On Wednesday, the Israeli military bombed an apartment building in Gaza City’s Shujaiyeh neighborhood. The target of the strike was Haytham Sheikh Khalil, whom the Israel Defense Forces identified as the commander of Hamas‘ Shujaiyeh battalion.

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In the current war, the principle of proportionality has been cast aside. Killing dozens of civilians in order to assassinate a junior Hamas commander is not seen as unusual, even though it is very likely a war crime.

Additional values and principles were thrown away along with proportionality: purity of arms, compliance with international law, consideration of the suffering of innocent civilians and of what happens after the war is over.

Since Israel resumed fighting, more than 1,500 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including at least 500 children. The dead include 15 first responders whom IDF soldiers shot at close range and buried in a mass grave.

On Sunday morning, the IDF hit a building within the Al-Ahli Hospital complex in Gaza City, destroying the surgery building and the oxygen generation facility for the intensive care units.

All of this is happening alongside an explicit policy aimed at starving the residents of Gaza. For six weeks, the Strip has been completely closed to all food and aid deliveries.

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This brutal policy toward the civilian population has forever tarnished the reputation of Israel, and we will pay a heavy price for it – in overt and covert boycotts, economic damage and the erosion of international legitimacy and of the moral and humanitarian foundations of Israeli society.

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French President Emmanuel Macron stated the obvious last week: „The only path possible is a political one,“ and declared his support for the establishment of a Palestinian state. This statement was met with an embarrassing tantrum and obscenities on social media from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair.

But Macron is right, and it is now that the truth must be told: The only way Israel can survive as a democracy and not as a pariah state is through an immediate cease-fire, hostage release agreement and diplomatic negotiations that will ultimately lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. There is no other way.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.