Ismail Haniyeh open letter to the world.

CAIRO — Ismail Haniyeh, the sacked premier of the Palestinian national unity government and the de facto premier of Gaza, insists that Israel's onslaught against the heavily-populated territory is politically-motivated. "Despite its frantic efforts to conceal it, the root cause of Israel's criminal war on Gaza is the elections of January 2006, which saw Hamas win by a substantial majority," Haniyeh wrote in an open letter addressed to the people of the West and published in The Independent on Thursday, January 15.

"What occurred next was that Israel alongside the US and the European Union joined forces in an attempt to quash the democratic will of the Palestinian people," he stressed.

"They set about reversing the decision first by obstructing the formation of a national unity government and then by making a living hell for the Palestinian people through economic strangulation.

"The abject failure of all these machinations finally led to this vicious war."
He refuted Israeli claims that the military offensive aims at ending rocket attacks.
"Palestinians are appalled that the members of the European Union do not view this obscene siege as a form of aggression.

"Despite the overwhelming evidence, they shamelessly assert that Hamas brought this catastrophe upon the Palestinian people because it did not renew the truce," said Haniyeh.
"Yet we ask, did Israel honor the terms of the ceasefire mediated by Egypt in June? It did not. The agreement stipulated a lifting of the siege and an end to attacks in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

"Despite our full compliance, the Israelis persisted in murdering Palestinians in Gaza as well as the West Bank during what became known as the year of the Annapolis peace."
Haniyeh criticized world silence to the killing of more than 1030 Palestinians, half of them women and children, in 20 days and Israel's use of banned weapons.

"How many more international treaties and conventions must Zionist Israel breach before it is held accountable?

There is not a capital in the world today where free and decent people are not outraged by this brutal oppression. Neither Palestine nor the world would be the same after these crimes."