How pathetic that we even talk about this. Why do we supply them with power? Only a pathetic country and Government will do such a thing. It seems they care more about the Palestinians then of their own citizens in Sderot. No wonder that nobody respects us anymore. Look at Syria and Iran, everybody is running around in circles around them falling over each other in order to accommodate their requests and policies. At the same time nobody respects Israel and the never ending list of requests to us are growing.

palestinians elected Hamas so let them face consequences of bad choices. rights must go together with responsibility

We are pathetic! We have the will, power, means, $$$ to end this BS problem once and for all. But what does Omert do, turn the lights out. As if that is going to stop the rockets from falling. Gaza needs a major invasion but we don't have Sharon and Mofaz to do the job. We have Olmert struggling for power and Barak a total failure in the military. We deserve what we have!

Ringel-Hoffman abuses several terms and concepts that show she has bought the Palestinian media spin (or actually believes what Jimmy Carter wrote in his book). The two sides are in a state of war. Thus, there is no "siege". The Palestinians in charge of Gaza and their supports (ie: Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other groups) have repeatedly attacked the border crossings and carried out multiple attacks on the borders and ports, killing and maiming many innocent people. She also ignores the fact that Hamas is supported by lots of money (Iranian and other), that is spent on weapons as well as food and medicines. Ringel-Hoffman falls into the politically correct trap of simply blaming all the Palestinian woes on Israel. Since the occupation of Gaza is over, the new buzzword is "siege". Yet she doesn't call on Hamas to open peace negotiations. Why? Because she already knows that Hamas does not want peace with Israel. Instead of demanding peace from the Palestinians, she walks into the leftist cesspool of demanding that Israel cure all the Palestinians ills. Sorry Ringel-Hoffman, that simply does not and will not work. Countering kassams with a blackout is much more humane than what is legitimately called for - a retaliatory artillery campaign.

Israel wants to get its point across, it should be the other way around.Launch a Kassam, you get 15 min of power the next day. launch 2 , 24 hours off no questions asked.No concurrent outages either. Let them launch 8,thats 4 days, period. Then tie the mortar fire in with the water. It will stop soon enough.Barak,You was hard line when young,you still can be. Your people deserve better. If they wont accept peace,make them beg for surrender.

Just admit it; you secretly want to kill all of the Palestinians and take their land, not in the name of some sick religion, but for a Zionist colonialist-facisim that wants control of the middle-east and eventually the world. Do it with Jewish blood and not ours please.

If the Palestinians who are innocent of any involvement in terrorizing Israel (and they tell us there are many!) are inconvenienced by not having electricity, maybe they should take some steps to stop the terrorism. For example, they could stop educating their kids on the glory of killing Jews, and they could depose the leadership that is allowing / encouraging the terrorism. Aren't they a democratic society now? There is a clear cause and effect here. When the terrorism stops, lots of things would improve for the Palestinians.

I disagree with Ariella Ringel-Hoffman that not every Gazan is a legitmiate target. Firstly because we are not talking targeting Gazans for killing we are talking about targeting Gazans for inconvinience of electricity for short periods of time for the purporse of pressuring the population to stop their support of targeting Israelis for killing. We are not taking about depriving them of food, water or medicine. I would much rather have every Gazan Child sit in the dark than one Child of any religion murdered by a Rocket. I much rather have every Gazan without cigarettes, gas for their cars, new clothes, and electricity than an injury to anyone by their rockets. The fact is the Gazan voted for this they voted for Hamas by a majority to try to destroy Israel and Israel should do everything in its means to stop this and hold the Gazan's responsible. If the Gazan's wanted the rockets to stop they would stop them and if Israel gives them enough reasons to have them want the rockets to stop they would eventually.

I think Israel has the right to cut of the electricity to the enemy, even if they do not stop launching qassams. Can you imagine Great Britain supplying fuel and electricity to Germany when this country was bombing London?

you will definitely be able to spot the launching of Qassams in the darkness. Then you can drop big bombs in retaliation.

Treat the strip as 100% enemy. No trade whatsoever with Gaza. No border crossings. Let them build the seaport, open the border with Egypt airport and if they use it to smuggle weapons against Israel bomb them just like you would with any other enemy. Use free and extensive fire against all enemy combatants. If those combatants chose to operate out of built-up then clearly they will be civilian casualties. Sound good to you?

Yes that's why Israel spent billions of shekels evacuating Gaza in 2005. As a matter of curiosity how many US soldiers do you think fight in Israel?

Since when did "we " have to act so soft with terrorists.We are meant to be the spearhead against terrorism , so why are we still pandering "them" (Hamas et all ) like spoilt children ?.Any other civilised country would have taken this kind of action long ago .Do it , do it ,NOW !!

Answer this question for me as you appear to be a fairly thoughtful person. Hypothetically speaking, Monday morning Israel lays down all weapons and demands peace, What do you think would happen to the Israeli people? Hypothetically speaking, Monday morning all Pals lay down their weapons and demand peace. What do you think would happen? I believe that if you answer honestly you will have to reassess your assumptions of who is doing what to whom..

All we want is to stop all the violance but we can`t find another solution than to cut off the electricity because guess what... there`s nobody to talk to- all we want is to live in OUR country with peace but you don`t live here Miss Philips so you have no idea what it`s like to suffer this violance and see our children get killed by the kattiyushas- now tell me do u think it`s normal if you have children and you see them being killed in front of your eyes?? So Missy we are not talking here about starving children if you were smart enough you would know that Israel is even donating food to the palestinians so don`t you talk to me about starving children!!!!!!!!!

Darn! She knows what we're up to! Yes. We want all their land so they can cry for it, get it back and use it as a platform to launch more attacks. Do some research on the khartoum conference after the six day war and you'll see that all the arabs want is perpetual war..Hope fully we'll finish them off in less days than six next time....That is way too long!

Sunuvagun, Ms Phillips, but what are you doing sullying yourself by reading a zionist media outlet? (ok, apologies to Ynet, as Yediot probably considers themselves to be an "israeli newspaper" and not a zionist tool for world domination). Somehow, your posting doesn't sound like you read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but rather the protocols of the factory of Jim Beam. However, your typing is much too coherent for that. Yes, you're right. We zionists intend to take over Oregon, enslave all of you, and ship the 20% of the zionists who live below the poverty line her in the zionist entity to take over your jobs!!! Bwaaa haaa haaaaaa! Today Oregon, tomorrow Rhode Island!!!!

Glad you think so. Just curious, are you concerned about the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and Burma or just the conflict in Israel? You one-sided gawker. It's pathetic. We're tired of your ilk, and not to worry, the Jews have learned to stand up for themselves. We don't need your approval. have a fun time visiting this JEWISH website. it's a Jewish thing, you wouldn't understand.

Let's talk starving children. How many are living in poverty in the states? How many homeless? How many do you think WON'T make it through winter? And what have YOU done about it? How many are starving in Iraq because of AMERICANS? How many homeless? How many sick with no medical care? Have you protested for them?? So quit complaining about Israel. There's worse atrocities going on in the world; all you need to do is look out the window to see them.

how many are starving in iraq because of american?[steve]...these american soldiers are in iraq to help out.blame the iraqis------sunni and shiites are killing each other?the usa occupied my country decades ago,but they didn't hurt us.it's iraqi people's fault and not americans.

Well, I disagree with Ms. Ringel-Hoffman.. Sderot has been attacked too many times already. The current situation where people don't feel protected within Israel is unacceptable. Now, since Hamastan is right over the fence from Sderot, even more rockets are coming in. Now, they are going into the Negev. Israel has the right to protect herself from threats against civilians as well as to its territorial integrity. Hamastan cannot be allowed to get into a position where it can attack. Period.