Gaza Quotations

I feel a freedom when I start running. If I don't train, I feel like everyone else in the Gaza Strip.

The Oslo Accords in 1993 determined that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are a single territorial entity which cannot be divided. Immediately, the United States and Israel set about separating the two and making sure that they would not be united.

In my 20 years as a photographer, covering conflicts from Bosnia to Gaza to Iraq to Afghanistan, injured civilians and soldiers have passed through my life many times.

I have a coach but there's nobody at my level in Gaza. I have to do most of my training sessions on my own.

Obviously this is the world descending into worse and worse standards of targeting civilians both in state violence in Iraq, Gaza and so on and the terrorist retaliation.

The one thing that I'm absolutely sure about is that the people of Gaza aren't going anywhere. And neither are the people of Israel.

Israel’s days without Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip are gone and will not return.

I would like Israel to be a Jewish state, and therefore not to annex over 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel, which will make Israel a bi-national state.

We should demand his blood not from the Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves. Let us make our reckoning today.

Based on the Gaza precedent, Israel should not simply be expected to withdraw from territory and let it devolve into a state of anarchy. The West Bank is simply too close to Israel's major population centers and infrastructure to allow it to become another launching pad for rockets.

I don't think Hamas will be satisfied simply ruling the Gaza Strip.

We don't have a state, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Gaza is under siege and the West Bank is occupied. What we have in the Gaza Strip is not a state, but rather a regime of an elected government. A Palestinian state will not be created at this time except in the territories of 1967.

We of course will say we claim sovereignty of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza district. Others will come, and they will say we claim sovereignty. What can be the outcome?

One wonders what exactly Israel did to earn Arab enmity between 1948 and 1967, when Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria.

In November 2008, the day of the presidential election, Israeli military forces invaded Gaza and killed half a dozen Hamas militants. Well, that was followed by a missile exchange for a couple of weeks in both directions.

Of course terror has a role in the disengagement. It convinced us that Gaza was not worth holding onto and awakened us to the demographic danger. It took two intifadas for a majority of Israelis to decide that Gaza is not worth it.

Nothing is going through to Gaza at the moment and private food supplies are drying up.

My main concern is safety and security. I will go on Wednesday myself to Gaza to assess the risk ... We would never deploy if there's a real risk of kidnapping or them being prevented from doing their work.

I have given an order to plan for the evacuation of 17 settlements in the Gaza Strip.

If they want peace, they must know that what is happening in the Gaza Strip must happen in the West Bank and east Jerusalem,

I think Israel will think one thousands times before invading Gaza.

Mr. Arafat cannot accept less than 100 percent of the 1967 border of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Several suspects were arrested after they tried to cut through the border fence in an effort to enter the Gaza Strip.

From the U.S. point of view, negotiations are, in effect, a way for Israel to continue its policies of systematically taking over whatever it wants in the West Bank, maintaining the brutal siege on Gaza, separating Gaza from the West Bank and, of course, occupying the Syrian Golan heights, all with full U.S. support.

From this moment on, all entrance and stay in Gaza is prohibited for Israelis by law. Tomorrow morning from very early, the plan is to go into Gaza and ask them to kindly come with us.

From now on, ... responsibility for what happens in Gaza falls on the Palestinian Authority.

When I negotiated the ceasefire in Gaza with President Morsi, he was, you know, very involved.

Under our commitment to the national agreement made in Cairo to a cooling down period until the end of 2005, the movement announces it has stopped its operations from the Gaza Strip against the Zionist occupation.

It is in everybody's interest that the model of Gaza will work ,

It is an important day in our people's history in Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, where all settlements will be removed out of our lands forever,

Palestinians are afraid that (the withdrawal from) Gaza is going to be first and last,

It convinced us that Gaza was not worth holding on to and awakened us to the demographic danger. It took two intifadas for a majority of Israelis to decide that Gaza is not worth it.

We can sell non-alcoholic beer in Gaza very easily.

We are disengaging from Gaza but if they want to see the continuation of the peace process, the Palestinian Authority must take firm action... If such action is not taken, they put in danger the whole peace process.

We are in favor of elections and we are in favor of toppling the government but we will not join the extreme right in toppling the government over the peace process, ... We don't want to punish the government for the pullout from Gaza and I don't think we should hitch a ride on the extreme Right.

I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won't happen, and a solution must be found,

We have before us an opportunity to relaunch the peace process, an opportunity provided in the aftermath of the disengagement in the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank ,

The area is overrun with terror. They still haven't reconciled with the new situation. The Palestinians do not have a reason to fire rockets into Israel because the last soldiers and the last of the settlers left the Gaza Strip over five months ago, but the terror attempts continue without any break.

Most of the conversation focused on Gaza and they (the Americans) believe that events in Gaza will dictate the future of the peace process,

Most of the conversation was about Gaza. What happens in Gaza is, to their mind, what will dictate the future of the peace process,

My brothers, we are living these days in historical joy, a great joy, with the dismantling of settlements out of the Gaza Strip,

We need to expose the lies and educate the Palestinian public that Israel is not the enemy. Israel actually helps the people of Gaza more than anybody else. We need the average Palestinian to see this clearly.

We know very well that the Gaza Strip has to be open to the outside world, but are not going to allow it to be transformed into a terrorist arsenal,

We have at the moment a unique chance to answer the call of a younger generation, particularly of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, who want jobs, who want education, who want a stake in prosperity. We can do so by encouraging the economic development of this region so we have long-term prosperity for all.

Whoever thinks that Gaza needs to be recaptured understands nothing, ... We do not need to be inside Gaza.

The people of Gaza are trapped. Israel has sealed the border, and they have no way to leave the Gaza Strip to do business.

The people of Gaza must see improvement in their lives after the withdrawal. They must be able to believe in themselves and see hope for this important development,

Tomorrow, Monday, September 12, 2005, the Israeli army's 38-year presence in the Gaza Strip will come to an end, ... We are leaving with our heads high.

We are continuing to reap the disastrous ramifications of Sharon's Gaza withdrawal. All the bad guys are converging in Gaza, where they now have a safe haven, and they are poised to attack us.

We are leaving with our heads held high. The decision to leave Gaza was made out of strength, and with it comes a hope for a better future.

We want to continue implementing the agreement over borders and movement between Gaza and the West Bank, and we hope these measures will be completed by the date on which we agreed, December 15.

We don't intend to ease up until they (the militants) understand we have a deterrent policy, ... We have made it clear that we won't allow this (rocket fire) to go on. The Gaza Strip will shake.

The dangerous outburst of violence with numerous fatalities may kill off the sprouts of confidence that have emerged between the two sides in the course of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank and may endanger prospects for further progress toward a settlement.

The fact that some of these Arab states are willing to make this public is heartening, and it's a fair response to the Sharon government for the courage which the Sharon government has shown in moving out of Gaza and those four West Bank settlements,

We left Gaza and they continue to shoot at us from there, so if we leave another area will we have quiet? Israel will have to go back in, like a zipper -- go in, go out -- in the absence of a Palestinian leader ready to put an end to the militias.

While on one hand we are carrying a disengagement (from the Gaza Strip), we have to strengthen our hold on (West Bank) settlement blocs,

Those who think that after the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, there will be withdrawal number two or number three are mistaken about this government.

We completed today the evacuation of the Israeli presence from the Gaza Strip.

We consider the presence of the settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip illegal. Until the time that they will leave, they should be disarmed.

We would like to see the Gaza model succeeds,

We found solutions both sides can live with. The challenge was to find a successful balance between the very real security threats faced by Israel, while providing maximum movement in and out of Gaza for the Palestinians. I think it's a win-win agreement.

Unless he takes control of things, as he's expected to do, this will raise increasing concerns on our part whether we really have a counterpart in the Gaza Strip to take control after we leave.

Unless something is done very quickly... it becomes very difficult to see the transformation of Gaza into a peaceful and well-governed place,

We refuse the establishment of a state only in Gaza. Gaza is part of the occupied areas. A viable Palestinian state to live in peace beside Israel is only a state set up on the 1967 borders

And the sad truth is that, today, unfortunately, the Palestinians are just not up to the challenge of policing their own border and preventing extremist, terrorist elements from coming in to the Gaza Strip,

Believe me, the pain I feel with this act is the full realization that we must do it, ... We cannot hold onto Gaza forever, more than a million Palestinians live there... crowded in refugee camps, poverty and hotbeds of hatred with no hope on the horizon.

Disengagement will not solve the massive economic problems the Palestinians are facing, ... Gaza should have much freer access to the outside world.

What is happening is very dangerous ... They are expanding the borders of Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. Who will accept that? Who will accept swapping Gaza for Jerusalem or for the West Bank?

When Israel announced its operation, it said it was a limited operation. It did not announce it was reoccupying parts of the Gaza Strip from which it had withdrawn,

Israel will not and should not leave until it is clear that the West Bank can be policed by Palestinians and that the region will not be a source of terrorism against Israel, as Gaza and South Lebanon became when Israel left there.

To pull out of Gaza is not a policy, it is a step. Whether it is a step in the right direction toward a two-state solution or at least a step toward hope, we don't know.

While we are happy the Israelis have left Gaza ... we really have no hope for the future here in the West Bank,

I spoke on the phone with President Abbas last night. We have agreed to meet tomorrow evening in Gaza to present him the final government list.

I spoke to the heads of the defense establishment and once again reiterated the order that there is no restriction on our operations to stop the attacks on the communities inside Gaza and along the border with Gaza. We don't intend in any way to allow this situation.

The situation in the West Bank and Gaza involves a military occupation amid urban guerrilla warfare, analogous to the British security measures in Northern Island, that hopefully will end with a cease-fire.

There are lands in eastern and northern Gaza still under occupation, ... There are differences and agreements over borders.

There are lands in eastern and northern Gaza still under occupation, ... We need to renegotiate the details and get back to the real border.

The withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria...is not merely a geographical pullout, but the beginning of a process of withdrawal from Zionism.

The withdrawal from Gaza should be seen as a first step, because we also have to deal with the issue of the West Bank.

The World Bank will focus on developing Gaza Strip potential economy as well as on the bilateral economic relationship between Israel and the Palestinians,

What happens in the West Bank is very much on our mind, ... For us, the Quartet, it's Gaza first and then the next stage will be the West Bank, not Gaza first and Gaza last.

We all were hoping after the withdrawal the economic recovery will be enhanced. What has happened is exactly the contrary, ... In the current situation, Gaza is really like a big prison.

We have decided to suspend the offensive operations that we launched last week in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel ,

We do not promise our people to turn Gaza into Hong Kong or Taiwan but we promise them a dignified and proud life behind the resistance in defense of their honor, their land and their pride.

After 38 years, we are leaving Gaza in order to enable the Palestinians to run their own lives ... Now it is their turn to show they can run a normal life, a normal economy, have a new beginning.

The terminal will open on Friday and Saturday to students and Palestinian nationals so they can leave or return to the Gaza Strip while waiting for the problem to be sorted.

Under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas , the Palestinians are soberly welcoming this important stage in their history. His continued leadership will be needed at a time of rising expectations in Gaza and mounting concern in the West Bank.

Evacuating the Gaza Strip is a plan that will be carried out and all orders have been given to ensure that there will be no fire at the time of the evacuation, and I believe not after that either,

Without this Jihad (fighting) and this steadfastness, we couldn't be able to achieve the liberation of the Gaza Strip.

There are house demolitions and destruction all over the West Bank and Gaza. Just yesterday in Gaza they demolished three towers under the pretext that they were built close to a settlement.

The parties have now had the habit of cooperation in the Gaza withdrawal, and it is our hope that they are going to continue to build on that.

We attach vast importance to Egyptian activity in the Gaza Strip and along the border, but I don't intend to allow Egypt to become a mediator between Israelis and Palestinians,

The U.S. should support the historic Gaza withdrawal as a first step toward a final settlement: a permanent Palestinian state in Gaza and nearly all of the West Bank.

This is a decision of the movement across Gaza and the West Bank including those in the jails.

This is of fundamental importance in ensuring that Gaza does not in the future stay as a prison, it opens up economic and social relations,

Increasingly this is how Gaza will have to earn its living, as opposed to be being supported by the international community.

If Palestinian attacks from Gaza continue after our withdrawal, Israel's response will be very harsh, very painful, ... This is not a threat. It is a statement.

I'm hopeful that in the next few days we can reach understandings that can allow the maximum possible flow. It's in everyone's interest, including our own, that Gaza will be a success story.

If rocket attacks continue and reach an untenable level, including long-range attacks, we will take the necessary steps, which could include the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip.

In real terms, all U.S. policy likely comes down to now is making sure the violence in Gaza does not spill over.