To the editor: Sunday's firestorm over a Palestinian refugee camp in Rafah was a “tragic accident,” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel says the attack killed two Hamas leaders who were hiding near the refugees.
It's the same old story. Hamas terrorists embed themselves among Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. Israel kills dozens of non-combatants in hopes of destroying some Hamas outposts. The world reacts with horror to the slaughter of innocents.
This escalating cycle of violence makes perfect sense for Hamas's propaganda campaign, which uses innocents as pawns for its political purposes. It also makes sense for Netanyahu supporters who show no pity toward Palestinian residents.
Peace can only come when both Hamas leaders and members of the Netanyahu regime are resigned and imprisoned. Only then can the innocents of Palestine and Israel be reconciled to each other as neighboring children of God, equally victims of God's enemies.
David Glidden, Riverside
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To the editor: Today it is increasingly difficult to know who the CEO of the United States really is.
Our president draws “red lines” for a dependent foreign country, and that country's leader mockingly rejects those red lines and continues to inflict mass death and destruction using weaponry gifted to him by our president and paid for with our tax dollars.
Our president not only looks away helplessly; Our Speaker of the House invites the foreign leader to address Congress.
The American people want to know whether our country is actually being run by our elected chief executive, or by a recalcitrant, criminally charged chief executive of a dependent foreign country.
Saif M. Hussain, Woodland Hills
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To the editor: Any civilian casualty in war is tragic: those in Rafah recently, those in Israel on October 7, and those in Dresden, Germany, in 1945.
Shouldn't we have bombed Dresden? Or Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
I am the Jewish daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and a proud defender of Israel, the homeland of my people. I'm not a supporter of Netanyahu either.
Still, I have to ask, why is Israel expected to be the only nation on Earth to guarantee the rights and security of the adversary that savagely attacked it?
This charade would end immediately if Hamas surrendered, stopped firing rockets into Israel, and returned the Israeli civilians they kidnapped on October 7. A legitimate leadership could then be elected in Gaza that could ensure that Palestinian civilians could prosper peacefully in their land.
Jane Drucker, City Study
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To the editor: Tragic mistakes, investigations, clarifications, condemnations, regrets, responsibility and accusations: empty words and actions, none of which will bring back the broken children.
Cease fire, please.
Susan Straughn-Harris, Woodland Hills
