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‘Can Gaza be thrown in the sea?’ asks Israeli politician

August 1, 2017 at 11:04 am

Palestinian fishermen pull rough rays out of the sea after they return from fishing as two weeks long fishing ban ends in Gaza City on 6 April, 2017 [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

The chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee in the Israeli parliament has asked if the Gaza Strip can be “thrown in the sea,” Shehab news agency reported on Monday. His question echoes that of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Avi Dichter made his comment on Israel’s Channel 2 TV. “In 1992, before Oslo, there was a bloody wave of attacks from and in Gaza,” he explained. “At one of the meetings, Rabin entered and suddenly asked: ‘Let me know, can the Gaza Strip be cut with a saw and thrown in the sea?’”

Read: Israeli officials warn of deteriorating situation in Gaza

According to Dichter, Rabin was serious when he asked the question, and his staff did not know how to answer him. “All of them looked at me because I was the Shabak [internal security agency] chief in Gaza and I said: ‘Mr Prime Minister, we are working on this.’”

#EndGazaSiege

Gaza was really a very big problem, he added. “Currently, we are in a completely different age. Gaza is a treacherous and bad geographic region. Simply, it is very dangerous to Israel.”