International newspapers and websites shed light on various topics, most notably the obstacles that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu places in the way of efforts to conclude a prisoner exchange deal, and the disastrous environmental conditions in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Jerusalem Post quoted sources as saying, “Netanyahu is actively obstructing reaching an exchange deal with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), even though the concession made by the movement could lead to the return of the detainees as soon as next week.”

The sources added that Netanyahu seems more confident that the Republican candidate, former US President Donald Trump, will win the upcoming US elections, and therefore he feels less pressure to respond to the demands of President Joe Biden.

The Maariv newspaper covered the issue of religious Jews (Haredim), and Anna Barsky asked whether recruiting the Haredim would lead to Netanyahu losing his government coalition.

The author suggested that this issue would also divide the extremists into two groups: “between the Hasidim, who will respond to the conscription orders in the hope of obtaining a later exemption, and the Haredim, whose leaders are discussing the option of severing ties with the Israeli army and ignoring the conscription summons that it will issue to their youth.”

As for the French newspaper Le Monde, it focused on the catastrophic conditions experienced by the residents of the Gaza Strip, especially in terms of the accumulation of waste and the spread of toxic rats and reptiles, in addition to sewage polluting the lands and causing unpleasant odors that make the air unfit for breathing.

The newspaper quoted Gazans as saying: “If we are not killed by bombing, we will die a slow death.”

On another topic, writer Patrick Wintour in The Guardian pointed out that the British Labor Party is facing the first internal pressures to change the government’s policy towards Israel.

He added that the beginning of these pressures were demands to refinance the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), stop arms sales to Israel, and drop the appeal submitted by the previous government to the International Criminal Court requesting to issue an arrest warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister.

On the other hand, Foreign Policy published a joint article by Tony Caron and Daniel Levy, the former Israeli negotiator, in which they said, “The time has come to marginalize Israel’s participation in international sports.”

The two writers believed that boycotting Israeli football could achieve what other boycott efforts have failed to do, which is to weaken Israel's sense of legitimacy.

They added that the sports boycott is not a magic solution to end the genocide, but it draws the attention of ordinary Israelis to the abnormality of their reality in the eyes of the world.

Source: Al Jazeera