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A British cabinet minister has quit over the government’s policy on Gaza.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who is of Pakistani origin, announced her resignation on Twitter, saying: “With deep regret, I have this morning written to the Prime Minister and tendered my resignation. I can no longer support the govt policy on Gaza.”
She later posted the full letter of resignation to the social networking site.
“My view has been that our policy in relation to the Middle East Peace Process generally, but more recently our approach and language during the current crisis in Gaza is morally indefensible,” the letter said.
Baroness Warsi, who is Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Minister for Faith and Communities, was the first Muslim woman to serve in the British cabinet.
David Cameron, the British prime minister, has come under increasing pressure for his policy on Gaza.
On July 10, the third day of the offensive, Cameron “strongly condemned the appalling attacks being carried out by Hamas against Israeli civilians . . . and underlined Israel’s right to defend itself from them”.
Earlier this week, Labour leader Ed Miliband launched a strongly worded attack on Cameron’s Gaza policy to date, accusing his political rival of a failure in leadership and criticising his “silence on the killing of innocent Palestinians”.
As the civilian death toll in Gaza rose to around 1,800, Cameron, along with the United States, finally on Monday openly criticised a recent strike near a UN school, warning Israel that targeting civilians was “wrong and illegal”.
Meanwhile, a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire brokered by Egypt has gone into effect in the Gaza Strip, with Israel pulling its forces from the Palestinian territory on the 29th day of the offensive.
The start of the truce at 05:00 yesterday was preceded by a barrage of rockets from Gaza, with air raid sirens sounding throughout southern Israel, including in the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba, as well as around Jerusalem.
Israel immediately launched air strikes on Gaza City and on southern and central parts of the Palestinian territory. Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Beit Hanoun in the territory’s north, said he could hear the Israeli air strikes just before the clock struck 8AM local time. “We haven’t heard anything outgoing or incoming since 8AM,” he said.
Tyab said large numbers of Israeli ground forces had left the Beit Hanoun area, and residents were returning. Israeli troops had also left the southern Rafah area, according to Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford.
As well as brokering the truce, the Egyptian government invited Israel and the Palestinians to attend indirect talks in Cairo aimed at securing a permanent end to violence that has killed 1,867 Palestinians as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers.
Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, Israeli military spokesman, earlier said Israeli troops would “be redeployed in defensive positions outside the Gaza Strip and we will maintain those defensive positions”.
He said the army overnight destroyed the last of 32 tunnels located inside Gaza. “Today we completed the removal of this threat,” he said.
Three similar ceasefire agreements have collapsed since the violence began, and Israel had resumed air strikes on Gaza after a patchy and limited seven-hour humanitarian truce ended on Monday, with one attack killing two people and wounding 16.
Both Hamas and Israel earlier confirmed the deal to Al Jazeera, with officials from each side pledging to commit to the truce and warning the other against violating it. “The deal is that we will have a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire,” Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas leader, told Al Jazeera, adding that he hoped Israel could “control itself”. “During those 72-hours there will be a delegation from Israel coming to Cairo. There will be indirect negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli sides for a ceasefire and the lift of a siege on Gaza and other Palestinian demands.”
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, said that Israel was ready to discuss all of the issues on the table, but that it still had concerns.
“Our goals in this operation have always been ultimately defensive,” Regev said.
“If that goal of protecting our people from the rockets and the death squads can be done diplomatically, through this Egyptian agreement, then wonderful. We’ll be looking very closely to ensure that Hamas does in fact . . . live up to its obligations.”
Al Jazeera’s James Bays said the Israelis were unlikely to arrive at the Cairo talks – known as “proximity talks” and conducted by mediators in separate places – until late in the evening yesterday was a religious holiday in Israel. — Al Jazeera
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