The French newspaper Le Monde said that the African Union withdrew the status of observer member that Israel enjoyed within the organization, and thus Tel Aviv was permanently banned from the institution after a decade of diplomatic efforts and two years of adopting that status, but the newspaper confirmed that Israel nevertheless remains influential in the continent.

The newspaper explained - in a report written by Noy Hoshet Boudin, its correspondent in Addis Ababa - that the unofficial expulsion of the Israeli delegation from the African Union General Assembly with the start of the presidents’ discussions in February of last year left its impact on the relationship between Tel Aviv and the continent, thanks to the efforts of South Africa and Algeria, which were behind the marginalization of the Israeli representatives, although they did not lead to resolving the issue of Israel.

A year after this diplomatic incident, the war on the Gaza Strip put an end to this debate, and “the file related to Israel’s accreditation remains closed,” says a senior African Union official.

The organization suspended Tel Aviv's observer status, and Ebba Kalondo, spokesman for the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, said, "Israel is not invited to attend the summit."

On the other hand, the African Union rolled out the red carpet for Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, who received long applause from the heads of states of the continent, most of which are committed to the Palestinian cause. He said in front of a number of African leaders that “the Palestinians are defending their homeland, just as you in Africa defended your lands against colonialism.”

The Africans condemned the Israeli attack, and the Chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, considered it the “most blatant” violation of international humanitarian law, and accused Israel of wanting to “exterminate” the people of Gaza. Afterwards, the President of the Comoros, Razali Ousmani, thanked South Africa for submitting a complaint to the International Court of Justice to denounce "the genocide that Israel is committing before our eyes."

The judges of the International Court of Justice had ruled in favor of Pretoria, which at the end of December 2023 submitted a request accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Liesl Le Vaudran, a researcher at the International Crisis Group, said, “This is one of the greatest achievements in African diplomacy.” ".

Despite all this, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor expressed her concern “about the presence of Israeli representatives at the headquarters of the African Union in recent days,” after the Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia was seen inside the building, as Sharon Barley, Deputy Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expelled from the African Union in 2023, held secret meetings in the Ethiopian capital, according to several diplomatic sources.

Despite Israel's official ban from the African Union, the division over it has not been completely resolved - according to Le Monde - citing the vote of 7 African countries against the resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza, at the United Nations, on October 27 last year.

Source: Le Monde

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie said on Sunday that the planned Israeli attack on the city of Rafah, in the far south of the Gaza Strip, "is unacceptable because the Palestinians have nowhere to go."

“We believe in Israel’s right to exist, and we also have a foreign policy that revolves around human security, and the protection of civilians is at the heart of everything we do,” Jolie said during a panel discussion at the German Research Center on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“We need an Israeli government that is ready to talk about a two-state solution,” she stressed.

She explained that the Israeli attack on the city of Rafah "is unacceptable because the Palestinians have nowhere to go."

Meanwhile, Jolie said that “Arab countries must normalize diplomatic relations with Israel, which will include a security agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”

The Canadian Foreign Minister concluded her speech by saying: “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot continue waging his war.”

Israel is currently announcing its intention to invade Rafah in the southern region, which is crowded with displaced people, after it forcefully removed the residents of the north and directed them to the south, claiming that it is a “safe area.”

Israel, which killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in its devastating war on the Gaza Strip, forced most of the Palestinians in the northern and central Gaza Strip to flee to the Palestinian city of Rafah, bordering Egypt, amid estimates that it contains about one million and 400 thousand civilians, in light of international warnings of its invasion.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of civilian victims, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction of infrastructure, which led to Tel Aviv being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of “genocide.” ".

Israel estimates that intense military operations in the Gaza Strip will continue for another six to eight weeks, as it prepares to hold a ground exercise in Rafah near the border with Egypt.

This is what four sources familiar with the strategy told Reuters. According to two Israeli sources and two sources from the region, Israeli army commanders believe that they can inflict significant damage on Hamas’ capabilities during this period and pave the way for the next phase of less intense fighting.

An Israeli official said, "There is no chance that the Netanyahu government will respond to international pressure and cancel the operation in Rafah, the last stronghold under Hamas control."

According to the report, the Israeli army is preparing to enter Rafah, but has not yet explained how it will move more than a million people from the city to allow the ground maneuver to continue. An Israeli security official and an international relief agency said that residents may undergo examination before being sent from Rafah to the north, and another Israeli source said that Israel may build a “floating dock” to allow international aid and ships used as hospitals to dock near the Strip.

At the same time, an Israeli official said that residents would not be allowed to return en masse to the northern Gaza Strip. According to regional officials, transferring a large number of residents to the northern Gaza Strip is a dangerous step, given the lack of electricity or water in the area, and there are many unexploded explosive devices.

Israeli air and artillery bombardment continues on the towns and regions of southern Lebanon, with the continued exchange of bombing between Hezbollah and Israel since October 8, 2023.

The Lebanese Agency reported this morning that the villages of the western and central sectors experienced a cautious and tense night, during which flare bombs were fired and reconnaissance aircraft flew as far as the outskirts of the city of Tyre.

The Israeli forces fired heavy machine guns at the area adjacent to the town of Ramiya at dawn today. While the residents of the border villages adjacent to the Blue Line are suffering as Israel deliberately targets civilians and infrastructure as reported by the Lebanese Agency.

The follow-up committee warned the Arab masses and political activities inside the 1948 territories of the war government’s intention to accept the requests of the settler minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, to impose restrictions on the entry of Muslims from inside the Palestinians and Palestinians from Jerusalem to Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan, after imposing severe restrictions on the Palestinians of the West Bank. Of course, the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip were banned, in light of the ongoing war of extermination against them.

The Supreme Follow-up said, “The holy month of Ramadan is a month of worship and piety, but the racist mentality that dominates the Israeli government has made it a month of provocations, threats, oppression, and deprivation of freedom of worship for the owners of the homeland, the holy sites, the first two qiblahs, and the third of the two holy mosques.”

It stressed that these conditions requested by Ben Gvir, and approved by his Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to what is published in the media, are a declaration of all-out war against us, and are a prelude to emptying the Holy Mosque in order for the settlers to control Al-Aqsa Mosque in preparation for its demolition, according to what he seeks. Settlers and extremists in general over the years.

It concluded the follow-up by stressing that Al-Aqsa Mosque, in its entirety, is a sacred place for Muslims alone, and no one else has the right to enter it and manage its affairs, and we will not give up the freedom of entry to Al-Aqsa Mosque, in this holy month, and every day and hour.

Today, Monday, dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, amid heavy protection from Israeli police.

The settlers made provocative tours inside the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and performed Talmudic rituals.

Groups of settlers storm Al-Aqsa on a daily basis except Friday and Saturday.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague begins, until Monday, holding public hearings on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

Today witnesses the opening of the hearings in The Hague and the statement of the State of Palestine.

The sessions come in the context of the United Nations General Assembly’s request to obtain a fatwa from the court on the effects of the Israeli occupation that has continued for more than 57 years, and will continue for six days between 19 and 26 February.

During the sessions, the court is scheduled to hear briefings from 52 countries - an unprecedented number in the history of the court - in addition to the African Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the League of Arab States.

The General Assembly had submitted a request for an advisory opinion from the court in a resolution it adopted in late December 2022 on the legal consequences “arising from Israel’s continued violation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and from its long-term occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at changing the demographic composition,and  character and status of the City of Al-Quds Al-Sharif, and its adoption of discriminatory legislation and measures in this regard.”

The procedures presented before the International Court of Justice differ from the case filed by South Africa against Israel regarding its non-compliance with the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territory during its war on the Gaza Strip, which led to the death of more than 28,000 Palestinians and the displacement of the majority of the population of Gaza.

Although advisory opinions issued by the International Court of Justice are non-binding, they can carry significant moral and legal authority and can eventually become part of the norms of international law, legally binding on states.

The General Assembly had requested a legal advisory opinion on Israeli actions in the occupied territories in December 2003 regarding the construction of the apartheid wall in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. A few months later, in July 2004, the court found that construction of the wall contravened international law and must stop, and that the parts that had been built must be dismantled.

These proceedings provide the Court with the opportunity to provide - two decades after its last advisory opinion - a more comprehensive assessment of the practices of the Israeli occupation, and to advise on the application of international humanitarian law, human rights law, and international criminal law.

Israel was among 57 countries and international organizations that submitted written statements to the court by the deadline it set of July 25, 2023, and decided not to participate in the oral hearings.

It is noteworthy that the International Court of Justice is the main judicial body of the United Nations, and consists of 15 judges who are elected for a nine-year term by the General Assembly and the UN Security Council.

At dawn and Monday morning, the Israeli forces launched a massive arrest campaign in various areas of the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.

In Hebron, the occupation forces arrested: Sajid Al-Laqta, Subhi Abu Zeina, the two brothers Qutaiba and Murad Al-Qawasmeh, the two brothers Muslim and Mohsen Ayoub Al-Qawasmeh, and Raslan Sayuri, after raiding and searching their homes.

It also raided the home of citizen Mansour Siouri and handed over a report to his son Samer for review by its intelligence.

The occupation forces stormed several areas in the town of Dura, south of Hebron, and arrested: Mohsen Younis Al-Masalma, Ahmed Muhammad Odeh Atbeish, Moaz Khaled Al-Faqih, and Muhammad Nasr Al-Rajoub, after raiding and searching their homes.

In Ramallah, the occupation forces arrested Alaa Nimer Sattouf, Muhammad Mbassem Al-Rimawi, and his son Yahya, after raiding their homes in the town of Beit Rima.

In occupied Jerusalem, the young men Muhammad Mazen Abu Sneina, and the two brothers Mahmoud and Arafat Iyad Taha, were arrested after raiding their families’ homes in the town of Silwan.

In Qalqilya, the occupation forces arrested the young man Mahmoud Shteiwi after storming the town of Kafr Qaddum.

While the young man, Issam Abu Adas, was arrested in the city of Nablus.

In Bethlehem, the occupation forces arrested the young man, Nour al-Din al-Harimi, after raiding his family’s home in the Abu Najim area.

On the 136th day of the Israeli war on Gaza, Israel continues to threaten to expand the fighting to include Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, while the number of killed since the beginning of the war has risen to about 29 thousand Palestinians.

Sirens sounded in several locations around the Gaza Strip on Monday morning.

The Israeli Home Front explained that sirens sounded in the settlements of Nirim, Third Eye, and Nir Oz in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army announced the closure of 4 main road axes in the Upper Galilee and the areas adjacent to the border with Lebanon.

The private Hebrew Channel 13 reported that elite Hamas fighters detained in Israeli prisons "suffer severe and difficult procedures and are crowded into very small cells amid hunger, cold and hardship."

This came in a television report broadcast by the channel about the Palestinian prisoners, whom the channel said were “elite” members of the “Al-Qassam” Brigades affiliated with the Hamas movement, who were arrested during the attacks of October 7, 2023.

The channel says, "Prisoners of the Hamas elite suffer from very difficult conditions, as they are always shivering from the cold, and are forced to bend their heads while sitting on the ground. The cell rooms are very small, and the beds are unmade and without covers."

On a daily basis, the jailers play loud songs in Hebrew, including the song “The People of Israel Are Alive,” inside the small cells where prisoners of the Hamas elite are crowded, according to the report.

The report shows the presence of police dogs accompanying the jailers every time they inspect these prisoners.

According to the television report, “More than 5 prisoners are confined in one very small cell, and the food provided to them is very little.”

The truest truth that expresses the position of the current American administration regarding the war on Gaza is that no matter how ferocious and extreme the Israeli war crimes are, none of them will prompt US President Joe to think about stopping the war on Gaza, or even cutting off the supply of American weapons to Israel and the financial support flowing to aid Israel. Israel is waging a war of annihilation, and this appears clear in its position on the upcoming Rafah attack.

This is what was concluded by a report by the American website The Intercept, which accused Biden of carrying out a propaganda stunt to deceive his voters, especially Arabs and Muslims, who are angry about his support for Israel, by broadcasting statements and leaks indicating that he is in disagreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the upcoming Rafah attack, while he is helping him. In its implementation.

On Tuesday, February 13, the US Senate approved sending more military aid (worth $14 billion) to Israel so that it can continue occupying Gaza and bombing the Palestinians there. Biden remains determined to reject global demands to call for an immediate halt to the Israeli military attack on the starving people of Gaza, most of whom lack any means of self-protection.

Biden supplies Israel with more lethal weapons while showing frustration with Netanyahu

However, Biden not only categorically rejected suggestions threatening to stop military sales to Israel, but his administration is currently preparing to send a new shipment of lethal ammunition to Tel Aviv, which it declares its insistence on carrying out the anticipated Rafah attack.

But since conservative estimates indicate that the death toll in Gaza is close to 30,000 people, including more than 13,000 children, White House propaganda officials have begun to worry about the impact on Biden’s chances of winning the US elections in 2024. Therefore, they are making efforts to It strives to promote a general image of the American administration’s sympathy with the people of Gaza, and to market allegations that Biden is fed up with what his friend Benjamin Netanyahu is doing. The campaign has mobilized to bring a measure of coherence to Biden's public discourse to mitigate the effects of his constant disastrous statements, most recently his claim that he had recently met with presidents who had been dead for decades.

Although the International Court of Justice formally accepted consideration of the lawsuit filed by South Africa accusing Israel of possible genocide in Gaza, and although it ordered a set of urgent measures to restrain Israel from committing acts that constitute the crimes of genocide, Tel Aviv did not hesitate to Intensifying its military operations, besieging hospitals, bombing civilian sites, and even preparing for a large-scale ground invasion in Rafah. This is despite the fact that the city harbors more than 1.4 million Palestinians who are trapped in an area not exceeding 65 square kilometers, after Israel ordered them to move there if they wanted safety.

Israel claims to be working on an “evacuation” plan for the area and to evacuate the displaced people trapped in Rafah. The word "evacuation" is in fact nothing but a description of further forced displacement of Palestinians under the threat of death, and it is a terrible thing for efforts now to focus on further terrorizing people instead of making efforts to save them.

The Biden administration has publicly claimed that it will not support an Israeli ground attack on Rafah, yet a transcript of Biden’s recent call with Netanyahu makes clear that the administration qualified this reluctance with a public condition that: “A military operation should not proceed without a credible and implementable plan that guarantees safety and support for civilians.” In Rafah.”

Israel proposes to establish tent cities for the displaced of Rafah, some of which are in Egypt

The American newspaper The Wall Street Journal reported that “Israel proposes to establish sprawling tent cities in Gaza, and that this comes as part of an evacuation plan funded by the United States and its partners in the Persian Gulf before the expected Rafah attack.”

The newspaper, quoting Egyptian officials, said that Egypt will establish 15 camp sites in southwest Gaza, each containing 25,000 tents and a field hospital.

Satellite images revealed that similar facilities are being established, but Egypt was reserved in answering questions about its position on this issue.

These developments indicate that the White House is aware that Israel is likely intent on launching a large-scale ground campaign against Rafah. This invasion may lead to a severe diplomatic crisis between Israel and Egypt, at a time when the White House hopes that Egypt will have an important participation in mediating a prisoner exchange deal and a 6-week truce.

Biden portrays himself as cautious about Israel's behavior, including the upcoming Rafah attack

Over the past four months, the White House issued similar statements expressing its grave concerns about the impending Israeli operations, including the successive Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza, but it quickly declared its support for Israel when it carried out them. The Biden administration has reportedly informed Israel that it supports strikes on specific targets in Rafah, and does not want a large-scale ground campaign.

Given the opportunism that pervades Washington’s policies, some of them claim that the Biden administration is seizing the opportunity of the deteriorating situation in Rafah, and if Netanyahu continues to violate the declared position of the White House, the American administration intends to exploit this to escalate its propaganda campaign and market its claims about its “almost exhausted patience” with Netanyahu's actions, and then use this to promote the fictitious story crafted by the US President's election campaign team, and say that Biden did his utmost to support Israel's right to self-defense, but that he will stop matters at a certain point if Netanyahu exaggerates in exploiting this support.

But evidence indicates that he will support it

However, recent evidence suggests that Biden will support the expected Rafah attack and the Israeli ground campaign on the densely populated city, provided that this is accompanied by some statements of concern and disappointment regarding the military methods followed by Israel, and then claiming that he was able to convince Israel to protect civilians. .

The White House took turns claiming some of this credit for itself, and claiming that it had succeeded in convincing Israel to be less criminal in its operations, and it continued these claims despite the Israeli army’s continued killing of almost countless numbers of Palestinian civilians, according to the American website’s description.

Biden and Netanyahu use similar evasion when dealing with the issue of the Palestinian state and the two-state solution. The American administration is dealing with the matter because it realizes that this issue is the focus of any agreement to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and moving towards this goal allows the White House to claim that it has achieved a triumphant political victory, even if nothing remains of Gaza but ruins.

Therefore, US administration officials have become increasingly interested in talking about the road map linking the establishment of a Palestinian state to ending the war, but Netanyahu strongly rejects any such idea. “Israel will not hesitate to reject any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued after a phone call with Biden on February 15.

Biden is fighting safe battles with Netanyahu

In fact, the Biden administration’s focus on the issue of “recognition of a Palestinian state,” as well as his criticism of the establishment of illegal Israeli settlements, are nothing but safe battles that Biden is waging against the politically weak Netanyahu. Because he realizes that it will not bring him significant consequences, while he does not make any effort to prevent the upcoming Rafah attack.

It has been clear for months that part of Biden's plan in dealing with the genocidal war in Gaza during the American election campaign is to place the lion's share of the blame on Netanyahu's political ship, and hope that this ship sinks at the appropriate time, so that he can use the matter to serve his electoral interests.

But in reality, he saved Israel from an ammunition crisis, and without him, the war would not have continued

American intelligence estimates issued a few days ago indicate that the current Israeli weapons stockpiles do not allow it to continue its war on Gaza for more than 19 weeks, which means that it cannot continue the war at that time unless Washington sends more ammunition.

Accordingly, Biden’s refusal to use his influence derived from being Israel’s primary source of weapons is clear evidence that the vulgar statements circulated by American officials and transmitted by media “leaks” regarding Biden’s growing frustration with Netanyahu are nothing but an electoral ploy, according to the American website.

Whatever “turn” Biden eventually takes to evade the political repercussions of the Gaza war, he will never be able to compensate for the countless opportunities that the past months of war witnessed in which he was presented with Israeli crimes that were worth exploiting to threaten to end military support and stop military sales. Weapons.

In fact, Biden and his companions consciously and deliberately made a decision to continue sending ammunition and weapons to Israel, despite the continuing massacres in full view of the world.

Biden is trying to deceive his voters by scaring them away from Trump

The reason that made the war on Gaza, including the expected Rafah attack, an internal electoral problem for Biden is the protest activity, especially from Americans of Palestinian origin.

The American website says: “It seems that the White House believes that it can save its share of the Arab American vote, and hopes that fears of another term for Donald Trump will motivate them to favor Biden in the elections, and overlook his terrible participation in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

But whatever happens in the November elections, we must never forget that it was Biden, and not the Americans who oppose the Israeli war and American support for it, who strengthened Trump’s chances of winning the upcoming elections, and that this guilt lies only with Biden and the democratic party establishment. 

A report published by the American Time magazine confirmed that the full support provided by President Joe Biden to Israel, despite its ongoing massacres in Gaza, may cause great harm to his electoral path.

The report added that indications are that Biden has lost significant support among Arab-American voters, progressive voters, as well as young people because of his handling of the war on Gaza and his full support for Israel.

The report explained that observers believe that continued American support for Israel, despite what it has been committing for months in the besieged Gaza Strip, may cost Biden support in the swing states that usually decide the electoral outcome.

He continued that the perception that the United States is not using all the tools at its disposal will have dire consequences not only for the Gaza Strip (the death toll alone is close to 30,000), but also for the foreign interests of the United States.

Fixed support

The report confirmed that Biden did a lot in favor of Israel, and he seemed firm in his position despite the warnings of those close to him, noting that Israel did not respond to this by responding to American requests regarding the course of the war on Gaza.

He also stated that despite the United States' influence over Israel, the Biden administration has so far proven that it is "unable or unwilling" to exercise that influence, a fact that has not gone unnoticed either at home or abroad.

Time added that pressure has increased on Washington to impose conditions on its ally Israel in exchange for providing aid, but so far this does not appear to have been achieved.

He said that the public statements of American officials about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as the increase in civilian deaths, were not met with a change in Israel's strategy, which is moving forward with its plan to storm Rafah, despite the White House's warning about this.

Biden is trying to reduce the pressure exerted on him as the elections approach. He has issued an executive order aimed at punishing settler violence, and drafted a memorandum demanding that allies who receive American aid present a reliable and credible plan that guarantees their commitment to international law.

Time quoted Jonah Plank, a former foreign policy advisor to Biden during his time in the Senate, as saying that the tools to exert pressure on Israel exist, but the question is, will they be used? Adding that, with the elections approaching, it seems that the sand is moving inside the United States faster than the president’s initiatives.

Source: Time+Aljazeera

Dozens of citizens were killed and injured, this Sunday evening, as a result of the Israeli continuous bombing of the Gaza Strip for the 135th day.

Medical sources reported that more than 70 citizens were killed, and others were injured, most of them children and women, in bombing carried out by Israeli aircraft and artillery on Al-Nuseirat, Al-Zawaida, and Deir Al-Balah.

They added that the bodies of 16 citizens arrived at hospitals following the continued Israeli bombing of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, while 5 dead bodies, most of them children, were recovered as a result of Israeli bombing on areas in the northern Gaza Strip.

Israeli bombing also targeted the neighborhoods of Al-Shuja'iya, Al-Zaytoun, Tal Al-Hawa, and Sheikh Ajlin in Gaza City, while drones and reconnaissance planes flew at low altitudes over various areas of Rafah.

Medical sources in Gaza reported that the Israeli army committed 13 massacres during the past 24 hours.

In an infinite toll, the number of killed rose to 28,985, the majority of whom were women and children, and the wounded to 68,883, since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October.

A young Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces this Sunday evening, near the Beit Furik checkpoint, east of Nablus.

Local sources reported that the Israeli forces opened fire on the young man, Anas Dwikat, from Nablus, near the Beit Furik checkpoint, seriously wounding him. It was later announced that he died as a result of his wounds.

The same sources indicated that the Israeli forces detained the body of dead Dweikat, noting that he was from the town of Rujib.

Before the death of the young man Dweikat, the Israeli forces closed the Beit Furik checkpoint, east of Nablus, in both directions.

The European Union's High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, said on Sunday that Israel cannot defeat Hamas by fighting.

In a speech during his participation in a symposium held on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Borrell stressed the necessity of presenting a future plan for the Palestinian people based on the two-state solution.

Borrell said, "The West Bank is the real obstacle to the two-state solution, knowing that it is boiling over due to the increasing level of violence against the Palestinians since last October 7."

Food, water, sanitation and other basic needs are in unprecedented shortage for more than a million Palestinians who have fled the Gaza Strip to the southern city of Rafah of the territory, a UN special rapporteur told Anadolu.

"More than a million people are concentrated in Rafah, after fleeing other parts of Gaza. They are in dire need of basic necessities basics of life, whether food, water or sanitation, and the threat of disease exceeds anything we have seen in the conflicts of recent decades around the world, however severe they may have been. been these conflicts,” explained Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN special rapporteur on the right to housing. “There has never been a situation where a population was not even allowed to flee.”Mr. Rajagopal stressed that even Israel does not know where these people are supposed to go, recalling numerous statements from Israeli sources indicating "a desire to expel them entirely from Gaza." Pointing to serious allegations that senior Israeli officials and other leaders plan to eliminate the Palestinian population from Gaza, Mr. Rajagopal stressed that these allegations, considered by some as "ramblings of random people in Israel", cannot be ignored. "Unfortunately, everything we thought impossible becomes increasingly possible. We must judge Israel's actions not by what they say, but by what is actually happening. 

What is happening is that people have been displaced to several times and they were concentrated in Rafah. 

They are being bombed now." Noting that UN rapporteurs have written numerous reports on the "genocidal" dimension of Israeli attacks in Gaza, Mr. Rajagopal noted that they had mentioned a "serious risk of genocide" in their initial report. 

He added that they had issued another report which included the possibility of genocidal acts taking place, stating: "Since then, we have confirmed this fact. What is happening in Gaza constitutes genocide." Commenting on the affair of genocide brought against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Mr. Rajagopal said the interim decision of the highest court of the United Nations was that South Africa, which had filed the complaint, was "largely right" in his request. "The actions taken by Israel to create the conditions in which Gaza becomes uninhabitable for the population living there constitute, in my opinion, acts of genocide, without question. 

Comparing the situation in Gaza to the Bosnian war of the 1990s, Mr. Rajagopal pointed out that the ICJ had also ruled that the massacre of Muslim Bosniaks by Serbian forces in Srebrenica had also constituted genocide. "During the Bosnian War, in the former Yugoslavia, and in this conflict, approximately 8 000 to 9,000 people were killed. If this is genocide, I find it hard to believe that what is happening in Gaza is not genocide." 

Israeli attacks have killed more than 28,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children. Focusing on the issue of Gaza, the special rapporteur said, represents a "complete failure" by the international community. 

The collective action mechanism is completely frozen and the international community 'did nothing."The Security Council or the United Nations General Assembly adopted very weak resolutions which were not implemented. 

Even formally, the International Court of Justice's ruling, while morally and symbolically important, did not order anything concrete that led to specific actions or inactions on the part of Israel. "Crucially, institutionally, I think the world has failed. 

It has failed Gaza. And once again, Israel has shown that it is protected by what I call institutionalized impunity. Israel seems to be protected regardless the transgression. Highlighting that many buildings were destroyed in Gaza following the attacks, Rajagopal said assessments based on satellite data and field reports show that more than 70 percent of homes in Gaza were destroyed or severely damaged, and rendered unusable. 

He added that data from areas such as Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip indicate that 82 to 84 percent of these areas may have been completely wiped out."

"We are talking about a very large level of destruction, the kind that we have not seen in other conflicts, such as in Mariupol, which was the city most seriously destroyed by Russian bombing in Ukraine , or by the conflicts in Syria."Mr. Rajagopal stressed that homes in Gaza were not only destroyed by bombings or heavy artillery attacks, but also by Israeli forces who moved into bombed areas and destroyed homes and public buildings. He stressed that the reconstruction of Gaza will be extremely difficult and will require years of sustained effort, drawing parallels with the reconstruction of other countries destroyed in conflicts. "I wonder how long it will take to clear the rubble in Gaza. The reconstruction of Rotterdam took almost twenty years. By the way, it was under ideal conditions, that is, we were ready to invest a lot, a lot of resources and time to rebuild the city.

"The second thing is more important: we must ensure that the conditions for lasting peace in the region are met before reconstruction can really take place. Otherwise, it is not possible to expect the reconstruction to progress significantly,” he concluded.

Association France Palestine Solidarité

Sources familiar with the Egyptian and regional movements to reach an agreement to stop the war on Gaza and a prisoner exchange deal said, “It seems that the internal political differences in the Israeli government have moved to the regional circles working to reach an agreement.”

An Egyptian source said, in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, that “a high-ranking Israeli security figure affiliated with the camp of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, made contacts with Egyptian officials, following the faltering of the recent negotiations that Cairo received, due to Netanyahu preventing security delegations from going to Cairo to continue negotiating the controversial points regarding the Paris Framework Agreement and Hamas’ response to it.”

The source revealed that "the Israeli security official was keen to stress that progress in any negotiating path to stop the war on Gaza is mainly linked to the position of the Prime Minister, and not to the positions of other parties in the war government or the security services."

The source said, "The communications came after Egyptian officials concerned with the mediation file communicated with the minister in the war government, Benny Gantz, during the past few days, as part of Cairo's efforts to advance efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement."

Cairo contacted Hezbollah to calm the scene and prevent it from sliding into a widespread confrontation

He added, "It appears that the contacts made by Egypt and other regional parties with Gantz angered Netanyahu, who sensed that there were attempts to push Gantz to the forefront, in the face of Netanyahu's insistence on adopting an approach that leads to expanding the circle of conflict and confrontation in the region."

The source continued, "As part of Cairo's efforts at the present time, communication has been made with the Lebanese Hezbollah, in the wake of the recent escalation on the northern front, in order to calm the scene and prevent it from sliding into a wide confrontation." He revealed that Cairo "assured Hezbollah officials of continuing pressure on the Israeli side to prevent the invasion of Rafah, as well as to prevent the expansion of the confrontation on the Lebanese front."

The Egyptian source explained that “the day after the quadrilateral Cairo meeting (last Tuesday), which included the head of the Egyptian intelligence service, Major General Abbas Kamel, the Qatari prime minister and foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, the heads of the Mossad, David Barnea, the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, and the director of the CIA, William Burns witnessed a call between Abbas Kamel and Burns, in order for Washington to play a role in moving Netanyahu’s position and putting pressure on him in parallel with the role played by the mediators with Hamas in order to quickly reach an agreement.”

The source pointed out that "the current situation is not related to the conditions presented, as much as it is related to Netanyahu's position on the idea of negotiating in general, and reaching an agreement at the present time."

Netanyahu wants to continue the war in Gaza

He stressed that "Netanyahu is unwilling to reach an agreement, even if Hamas announces its withdrawal from its conditions, because he wants to end the Gaza scene with a massacre and more blood, to present an image of absolute victory in the minds of the Israeli street, in a way that makes it forget its political and security failure."

The source added: “What encourages Netanyahu to go ahead with his vision and escape forward is that none of the Western powers and even Washington have shown real intentions to restrain Tel Aviv, other than the fact that there are parties in the occupation army that support Netanyahu’s approach to circumvent the military failure and defeat that befell them on July 7.” Last October.

Hamas is committed to a positive approach

For his part, a Hamas leader said that the movement "remains committed to a positive approach to the mediators' proposals and efforts for a ceasefire." He stressed, at the same time, that “it is possible to respond to some of the proposals put forward in the negotiations, but there are clear constants that can never be undone, and we stressed them before the mediators went to the Paris meeting, which are a comprehensive ceasefire, Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza, and reconstruction."

He explained that "what is being leaked in the Hebrew media, regarding taking a step toward negotiations to reach a prisoner exchange agreement and then taking a step back, has the main goal of escaping international and internal pressures, and not portraying the Israeli government as obstructing the agreement."

The leader revealed that “the resistance is currently being subjected to regional and Arab pressures, in order to make concessions and back off some of the conditions it adheres to,” noting at the same time that “these pressures come despite those parties’ conviction of the justice of the proposals put forward by the resistance.” The importance of the cards held by the resistance, particularly the prisoners, as well as its ability to withstand and confront despite the long period of aggression.”

Yesterday, Saturday, the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, said that the movement “responded in a positive spirit with the mediators in order to stop the aggression against our people, end the siege, and allow the flow of aid and reconstruction, but Israel continues to maneuver and procrastinate.”

He stressed, in a statement, that the resistance "will not accept anything less than a complete cessation of aggression, the withdrawal of the Israeli army outside the Gaza Strip, the lifting of the siege, the return of the displaced, especially to the northern Gaza Strip, an end to the starvation policy, and a commitment to reconstruction."

In this context, the Palestinian politician, academic, and former member of the Knesset, Jamal Zahalka, said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, “The ball is now in the Israeli court, and there are severe differences in the war council between Netanyahu and Gantz. The former practically does not want the deal, but he also does not want to show that he does not want it, so he makes statements to the families of detainees in the Gaza Strip that he is making efforts, and that he is ready for a deal, if this deal does not tie the hands of the occupation in military operations.”

He pointed out that “Gantz and Minister in the War Council, Gadi Eisenkot, want there to be a deal, because of the pressure of the families, and the security establishment is also interested in a deal, because the Israeli army is exhausted and wants to rest a little and prepare itself to invade Rafah, and it is actually preparing for this direction, because "There is no indication that Israel will not overrun Rafah."

He explained, “There is an opinion within the security establishment that the issue should be postponed until after Ramadan (starting in the second week of next March) because it is a very charged period, especially in the city of Jerusalem and also in other places, and this will have repercussions and open new fronts as well as concern.” "For the Israeli forces. This is why I see that the Israeli military establishment and the security establishment want there to be no fighting during this period, and this is why they are talking about a 35-day truce, which is less than what they committed to in Paris."

Zahalka continued: “Israeli interactions may result in approval - in the end - of the first phase of this deal, but Israel will not, under any circumstances, accept a commitment to a permanent ceasefire.”

In his turn, Samer Mukhaimer, professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, told Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed, “Egyptian and Qatari efforts are still continuing, because there is no other alternative.” He added, "The continuation of these efforts comes in order to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Rafah, if Israel launches a ground invasion of the region," noting that "they are also continuing with American blessing, as Washington is pushing for a temporary ceasefire, leading to the release of the hostages, but this does not mean that the efforts will be crowned with success.”

Dozens of citizens were killed and injured today, Sunday, as the Israeli warplanes targeted citizens’ homes in Deir al-Balah and al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip, and Khan Yunis in the south.

Local sources said that sraeli warplanes bombed the home of the Al-Baraka family in the Al-Brook area in the city of Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, leading to the death of 8 citizens, including 3 children.

5 citizens were killed and others were injured after the sraeli forces targeted a group of citizens near the Kuwait Roundabout, south of Gaza City.

Medical sources reported that 17 bodies were recovered from under the rubble of the Hamad family home, which was bombed by sraeli aircraft at dawn today in the town of Al-Zawaida.

In the northern Gaza Strip, a number of citizens were injured after the Israel targeted the Al-Dhabous family home near the Beit Lahia cemetery.

To the south, the Israeli warplanes launched raids west of the city of Khan Yunis, and two citizens were killed and others injured, after targeting the vicinity of a school housing displaced people in the town of Al-Qarara, northeast of Khan Yunis.

Medical sources pointed out that an eighth patient was killed in Nasser Medical Complex as a result of the electrical generator stopping and the oxygen being stopped.

In an infinite toll, the number of killed rose to 28,985, the majority of whom were women and children, and the wounded to 68,883, since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on the 7th of last October.

The private Channel 14, which is close to supporters of the Israeli right, said on Saturday evening that the crossroad “794” begins from the area of the “Nahal Oz” settlement in the Gaza Strip, and extends westward into the Gaza Strip almost to the Mediterranean Sea, and it cuts the Gaza Strip’s ties.

It reported that dozens of machines, trucks, and engineering equipment, belonging to the Army Engineering Corps, are currently building stone factories and crushing them to build this road.

The commander of the “601” Battalion, affiliated with the Combat Engineering Corps, Lieutenant Colonel Shimon Orkabi, told the channel: “We are now within the scope of the Netzarim Road (a former Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip), which creates a barrier between the north of the Strip and the central and southern regions to protect the area and penetrate into areas where there is It contains the enemy, preventing movement between north and south and controlling it precisely.”

Israeli forces are destroying all the homes to the right and left of the new road, as shown in a video broadcast by the channel, whose correspondent said that this road indicates that the army is undoubtedly preparing to remain in Gaza for a long time.

Despite mounting regional and international warnings of potentially catastrophic repercussions, the Israeli army is preparing to invade Rafah, the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, where there are at least 1.4 million Palestinians, including 1.3 million displaced persons whom Israel pushed from the north and center of the Gaza Strip to its south, claiming that “ Safe area.”

Since October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that, as of Sunday, left “28,985 dead and 68,883 injured, most of them children and women,” in addition to thousands missing under the rubble, according to the Palestinian authorities.

For the first time since its establishment in 1948, Israel is being tried before the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial body in the United Nations on charges of committing “genocide” crimes against the Palestinians.

European Union foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell said, “The West Bank is witnessing a boiling point and we may be on the verge of an even bigger explosion.”

Borrell stressed on Sunday that the situation in the West Bank occupied by Israel constitutes a major obstacle to reaching a sustainable solution that establishes peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The number of settlers in the West Bank is about 750,000 settlers residing in more than 365 settlements and settlement outposts.

Borrell said at the Munich Security Conference that the European Union must "support the Arab initiative" which stipulates the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The statements of the European Union's foreign policy official come in the wake of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of a plan for international recognition of a Palestinian state following reports about such an initiative reported by the Washington Post, which includes, according to the newspaper, a specific timetable for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The final statement of the African Summit called on Israel to “comply with the decisions of the International Court of Justice to prevent genocide in Gaza.”

The statement, on Sunday, condemned the collective punishment against civilians in Gaza and attempts to forcefully transfer them to the Sinai Peninsula, calling on Israel to respond to international calls for a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and lift the unjust siege imposed on it.

It condemned the brutal war and the use of excessive force by the Israeli occupation army against 2.2 million defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip, calling for an independent international investigation into Israel’s use of internationally banned weapons, and its targeting of hospitals and media institutions.

It also condemned the support provided by some countries for the Israeli occupation and unleashing it to continue its military operations, and demanded the lifting of the unjust siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.

Yesterday, Saturday, the work of the 37th ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union began in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, under the theme of the African Union for the year 2024, “African education suitable for the twenty-first century: building flexible educational systems to increase access to comprehensive and lifelong learning of a quality appropriate to Africa.” 

The summit was attended by leaders of member states of the African Union and representatives of a number of international organizations.

In his speech at the opening of the African Summit, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, affirmed support for South Africa’s position, and demanded the implementation of the decisions of the International Court of Justice, considering its decision a victory for all countries supporting the Palestinian cause.

It said that Gaza is being completely annihilated and its people are deprived of all their rights, calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

He stressed Africa's solidarity with the Palestinian people, stressing the need for the Palestinian people to enjoy full freedom and their independent, sovereign state.

The head of the Egyptian Information Service, Diaa Rashwan, announced today, Sunday, that Cairo has submitted a memorandum to the International Court of Justice regarding Israel’s practices in Palestine, and will plead before the court next Wednesday, February 21.

This came in a statement issued by Rashwan before the court, headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, began holding hearings regarding an advisory opinion requested by the United Nations General Assembly regarding the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Rashwan said, "Egypt will participate in the advisory opinion requested by the United Nations General Assembly from the International Court of Justice (in January 2023), regarding Israeli policies and practices in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967."

He stated that "Egypt submitted a memorandum to the court, and will present an oral argument before it on February 21."

Rashwan explained that the memorandum includes “affirming the illegitimacy of the Israeli occupation, which lasted more than 75 years, in violation of the principles of international humanitarian law, as well as the policies of annexing lands, demolishing homes, and expelling, deporting, and displacing Palestinians, in violation of the peremptory rules of general international law, including the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people and the prohibition of seizing territories through the use of armed force.

The memorandum also includes “the rejection of policies of persecution, racial discrimination, and other Israeli practices, which blatantly violate the principles of international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” according to Rashwan.

He stated that the memorandum and the upcoming Egyptian pleading call on the court to confirm “Israel’s responsibility for all those internationally unlawful acts, which necessitate Israel’s immediate withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories, including the city of Jerusalem.”

They also demand, according to Rashwan, “the Palestinian people to be compensated for the damages they suffered as a result of these internationally illegal policies and practices, in addition to demanding that all countries of the world and the international community not recognize any legal effect of Israeli measures and stop providing support to Israel.”

The court will hold its sessions between the 19th and 26th of this month, and is scheduled to hear briefings from 52 countries, in addition to the African Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the League of Arab States.

In a similar advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the construction of the separation wall in the occupied West Bank was illegal, and demanded that Israel remove it from all Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and its suburbs, with compensation for those affected. But Tel Aviv did not implement what the court requested.

Since October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that has left, to date, 28,985 killed and 68,883 injured, most of them children and women, in addition to thousands missing under the rubble, according to the Palestinian authorities.

On January 26, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocide against Palestinians and improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but it did not order a ceasefire.

The court continues to consider this lawsuit filed by South Africa, accusing Tel Aviv of committing genocide. This is the first time, since its establishment in 1948, that Israel has been subjected to a trial before this court, which is the highest judicial body in the United Nations.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he would rebuke the Brazilian ambassador after Brazilian President Lula da Silva accused Israel of committing "genocide" in the Gaza Strip.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused Israel of committing "genocide" against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, likening what the Hebrew state was doing to the Holocaust during World War II.

Lula told reporters in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the African Union summit, “What is happening in the Gaza Strip is not a war, it is genocide,” adding, “What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has not happened at any other stage in history. In fact, it has happened before.” Indeed, when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.

For his part, Katz said that he would summon the Brazilian ambassador, on Monday, to rebuke him, adding: “The Brazilian president’s statements” are shameful and dangerous... No one will harm Israel’s right to defend itself. I have ordered my staff to summon the Brazilian ambassador to reprimand him tomorrow,” according to his statements reported by the Times of Israel website.

In response to the Brazilian President, Netanyahu, in a statement issued by his office, considered Lula’s statements “shameful and dangerous,” and described them as “a disdain for the Holocaust and an attempt to harm the Jewish people and Israel’s right to defend itself.” He added that “comparing Israel to the Nazi Holocaust and Hitler "Crossing the red line."

He claimed that “Israel is fighting to defend itself and secure its future until complete victory, and it does so with respect for international law,” and announced that he had taken a joint decision with Foreign Minister Israel Katz to summon the Brazilian ambassador to Israel for an immediate conversation and to rebuke him strongly against the backdrop of the statements. .

-

By Thomas Vescovi

This text was initially scheduled to be presented in Brussels on October 14, 2023, as part of a conference on the fight against anti-Semitism. Postponed to March 2, 2024, it is now impossible for me to participate. This article should make it possible to announce this event (poster at the end of the article) in which Nitzan Perelman from Yaani will participate, and to begin reflection.

“Isn’t it anachronistic to be anti-Zionist? How can you be Zionist and left-wing? » As legitimate as they are, these questions illustrate several presuppositions. First, that Zionism was fully realized in the creation and rooting of the State of Israel in the Middle East, without ever experiencing any particular developments. But also that anti-Zionism can only be summed up as a desire to see the State of Israel disappear. Or that organizations could never be both left-wing and colonial.

Respond to a vital emergency

The simultaneous appearance in 1897 of the Zionist movement and the Bund (General Union of Jewish Workers of Lithuania, Poland and Russia) illustrates the urgency for some European Jews to free themselves from anti-Semitism. If in the East, where more than 60% of the world's Jewish population lived at that time, they faced persecution fueled by state racism, in the West the Jews gradually obtained rights which allowed them to live as full citizens and to assimilate into the societies in which they live. However, the founding congress of Basel did not create Zionism, it institutionalized it by developing a “Jewish nationalism”. Indeed, throughout the 19th century, numerous acts, publications and projects followed one another to call on the Jews of Eastern Europe to emigrate, particularly to Palestine, the land of the Hebrews in biblical tradition.

Political Zionism is based on three principles. First, he considers the integration of Jews into their societies impossible. The latter would be caught between currents calling for their physical destruction and a desire within their ranks to fully integrate into European societies through assimilation by detaching themselves from religion, or even from any community affiliation. However, this latter perspective does not prevent anti-Semitism from spreading and threatening the security of Jews, like the anti-Semitic campaign against Captain Dreyfus in France, to which the Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl has assisted. It is from this observation that Zionism demands the creation of a political entity where Jews would be the majority in the hope of living there in security. In other words: the building of a Jewish state, as Herzl explains in his eponymous work published in 1896.

Added to this is a second principle: the existence of a “Jewish people”. Theorized in the context of the rise of nationalism in Europe and the formation of nation-states, the affirmation of a “Jewish people” allows the Zionist movement to claim a right to have a state. However, and this is the third principle, this aspiration is also based on the supposedly original link of the Jews to the “Holy Land” where the “Jewish people” would have historical and almost exclusive rights. If other territories were considered for the realization of the Zionist project, none had as strong a symbolism as Palestine. From then on, imbued with European colonial and orientalist ideas, Zionism saw itself as the owner of Palestine, earning it numerous criticisms from Jewish intellectuals from liberal humanism or Marxism. The latter are logically opposed to the construction of a state for Jews on a land populated overwhelmingly by non-Jewish populations, considering the injustices that such a project entails.

The Zionist movement is not monolithic; several trends coexist. The balance of power in the interwar period allowed the left wing, known as Labor, to impose itself at the head of the Jewish Agency, the Jewish pre-state organization in Palestine. For left-wing Zionists, the accusations of supporting a racist project do not hold up: they see themselves as the defenders of an ideal which can only be anti-racist in essence, since it aims to emancipate the main victims of racism. Above all, they overcome the contradiction between left-wing values and the nationalist and colonial aspirations of Zionism, by demanding “worker colonization”, based on socializing values. Finally, through their confrontation with the United Kingdom, the mandatory power of Palestine, left Zionism even claims its place within the post-1945 decolonial movements. The rallying of the USSR to the partition of Palestine, then to the creation of the State of Israel via the delivery of weapons during the 1948 war, strengthens the left wing of Zionism: if the country which is he standard of the socialist revolution in Europe, the main actor in the defeat of fascism, supports them, then the creation of a Jewish state can only be on the right side of the history of peoples.

From the 1930s to the 1940s, the rallying of European Jewish populations to Zionism was gradual but real. Between the coming to power of anti-Semitic regimes, then the genocide of the Jews, the response of anti-racist organizations was no longer up to par. Those who suffered from anti-Semitism and its violence on a daily basis, and to whom any form of social recognition was refused, could neither trust the societies which had allowed or even supported the accession of anti-Semites to power, nor be satisfied with a liberation brought about by the triumph of a hypothetical Marxist revolution. If until the eve of the Second World War only a minority of European Jews opted for exile towards Palestine, the situation changed after 1945: the utopia of founding a Jewish state on the basis of dignity and justice, when although located on another continent, becomes an attractive and mobilizing ideal, by default. During his hearing in 1947 by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), Ben-Gurion declared: “Who wants and can guarantee that what happened to us in Europe will not happen again? [...] There is only one safeguard: a homeland and a State. »

In addition to the imperialist calculations or interests specific to each winner of the Second World War, European guilt and shock at the scale of the genocide led to the UN vote in 1947 which gave the State of Israel a legitimacy and the Jewish populations a beginning of repair. But to the detriment of the Palestinians, three-quarters of whom are driven from their land and forced into forced exile. They leave history at the moment when the Jews enter it as a people with a state. Israeli historian Idith Zertal speaks of the creation of Israel as an “extra-historical event”, in the sense that “the first event – the Shoah – in a certain way whitewashed the dark side of the second, "that is to say, the conditions and consequences of the Israeli victory in 1948." In Defeating Hitler (2009), Israeli political leader Avraham Burg supports this reflection in the sense that "in the face of the Shoah, everything is insignificant, nothing , and therefore allowed, [...] everything is possible, since we survived the Shoah, and above all... let no one lecture us. »

A colonial and ethnic movement, therefore racist and ethnicist

The Zionists were well aware of the presence of an Arab population on the land they coveted, but they wanted to replace it. Thus, systematically during the mandate period, Arab violence against Jewish immigrants did not precede the separation of the communities, it resulted from it. The Jewish Marxist organizations which worked towards structures based on class criteria, and not ethnic ones, were marginalized by the ethnic line drawn by the Zionist movement, but also by the amalgamation that the Arab population made between these original Marxist Jews. of Europe and the proponents of a colonial project which aspired to dispossess them. With a view to ensuring the immigration of new Jewish populations and their rapid integration, the Zionists worked to develop “Jewish work” (“Avoda ivrit”) requiring Jewish companies not to employ Arabs. It was obviously a question of achieving self-sufficiency and the foundations of a future state, which they achieved.

 Colonialism resting on a racist foundation, Zionism, as a colonial project, naturally produces racism in turn. Zionist literature before and after the creation of Israel abounds with orientalist and racist remarks, making the “Oriental” an intellectually and materially inferior being. This thinking made it possible to legitimize a certain number of practices towards the Arabs of Palestine, including the historic Jewish community, and to envisage the erasure of Palestinians from the landscape, as undesirable squatters of a land which should, from the Zionist point of view, return to its “real owners”.

Added to this colonial racism is the complexity of a national political movement which also aims to be ethnic. Zionism does not aim to liberate all populations present in a territory supposed to accommodate the state project, but to ensure rights and security for a particular group to which integration is impossible except through of a complex religious conversion. Thus, the creation of Israel was not accompanied by the shaping of an Israeli nation based on equal rights where citizenship transcends particularisms, but of a colonial society marked by relations of domination and the distribution of political privileges. , social and territorial on ethnic criteria.

The very principle of a Jewish and democratic state has been questioned since the founding of Israel. The Jewish journalist and political leader Ilan Halevi, involved in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), explained that “the Jewish State, […] is the State which identifies two distinct legal categories of citizens : Jews, and “non-Jews”. It is therefore a state which discriminates between those of its citizens who are recognized as Jews by the Israeli administration […], and its own Arab, Christian or Muslim citizens. » He adds: “Zionism is based on presuppositions which make racism the acceptable norm of relations between groups. »

A norm that does not only concern relations between Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians. In her essay Zionism from the Perspective of its Jewish Victims (2006), Ella Shohat explains that “anti-Arabism is an integral part of Zionist practice and ideology.” Eastern Jews were urged to choose between an Arabness perceived as anti-Zionist, and a Jewishness that could only be pro-Zionist. For the first time in their history, these populations suffered racism, not because of their religion, but because of their culture and their skin color. Zionism, explains Shohat, conceptualized the antinomy between Arabness and Jewishness.

Based on this analysis, there is nothing surprising in the fact that Israeli leaders have always been able to be complacent towards racist and anti-Semitic movements or regimes, as long as they were ready to collaborate with Israel in a convergence of interests. This was the case yesterday with Apartheid South Africa, and today with Modi’s India or Orban’s Hungary.

A policy that threatens the security of Jews

If Zionism has achieved its nationalist objective, via the establishment of the State of Israel, the Palestinians have not disappeared, have returned to History and are now demographically contesting the legitimacy of a state with a Jewish majority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. This is all the more so since the Israeli policy of colonization of the occupied West Bank since 1967 has dashed hopes of seeing the birth of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In this area today live as many Arabs as Jews, around 7 million. How can a state that asserts itself as “Jewish” survive without building a regime that takes the form of apartheid?

Founded by a movement with ethnic and colonial principles, the State of Israel has naturally become an annexationist, ethnicist and supremacist regime, far from the collectivist or socializing pretensions of the proponents of left-wing Zionism. In 2018, the Israeli government passed the so-called Jewish Nation-State Law, institutionalizing apartheid, while in the West Bank religious-Zionist settlers act knowing that their Jewishness guarantees them under Israeli law. impunity and the privilege of living on land stolen from the Palestinians.

Pretending to want to fight against anti-Semitism, certain organizations have worked since the 2000s to limit the right to criticize Israel, or even to censor questions about the legitimacy of maintaining a "Jewish State", and therefore not egalitarian, in a space where the Jewish population is not in the majority. While condemning the importation of the misnamed “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, these organizations are also increasing calls addressed to Jews to stand alongside Israel, to insist that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism in disguise. They thus participate in the dangerous amalgamation between Jew and Israeli, making each Jew the potential bearer of responsibility in the Palestinian drama. However, it is precisely because the ideal of a fully egalitarian state in the Middle East fundamentally contravenes the principles of Zionism that certain Jewish groups in Israel or in the West assert themselves as “anti-Zionists”. Above all, to paraphrase Sylvain Cypel, in his book The State of Israel against the Jews (2020): it is not the disclosure of images of the killings of young Palestinians that fuels anti-Semitism, it is the killings themselves. same practices practiced in the name of the security of a state claiming to act in the name of all Jews.

The ethnic cleansing of 1948, the sub-citizen status of the Palestinians of Israel, the racism suffered by Eastern Jews, the occupation and colonization of the territories conquered in 1967, the illegality of the blockade on the Gaza Strip and the Wall in the West Bank, NGO reports of an apartheid regime, multiple wars waged in the name of "Israel's security" today taking the form of genocidal acts in Gaza: all policies that prevent to imagine security for Jews in the Middle East, since this is only built to the detriment of the fate of the Palestinians. October 7 was, in the cruelest of ways, a reminder of this reality. Therefore, if the scourge of anti-Semitism does not have its roots in Israeli policy or the actions of the Netanyahu government, it becomes undeniable that the anti-racist fight against anti-Semitism loses its credibility by turning a blind eye, or by stuttering, on respecting the rights of Palestinians in the face of the unprecedented tragedy they are going through.

The Israeli government unanimously approved a draft resolution not to recognize a unilateral Palestinian state, and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that “Israel rejects international dictates” related to this file.

The resolution states that “a permanent settlement with the Palestinians will not be reached except through direct negotiations between the two parties, without preconditions.” It stressed that Israel “will continue its opposition to unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state,” and considered that “such recognition after the October 7 massacre will give a reward.” "It is a major threat to terrorism, and will prevent any peace settlement in the future."

The Israeli Prime Minister said that the approval of the new resolution comes after “what was reported in the international community about an attempt to impose a Palestinian state on Israel unilaterally.”

He pointed out that "Israel rejects explicit international dictates regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. Such an arrangement can only be reached through direct negotiations between the two sides, without preconditions."

In addition to the United States, European countries announced that they were considering recognizing an independent Palestinian state in a proactive step that would pave the way for the implementation of the two-state solution, but this was met with rejection from the highest political levels in Israel.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said that Israel prefers not to reach peace agreements with the Palestinian factions, if they would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In turn, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that he would not agree in any way to a two-state solution, and considered that the Palestinian state “constitutes an existential threat to the State of Israel, as was proven on October 7,” in reference to the Al-Aqsa Flood operation.

For his part, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir said that the world wants to give the Palestinians a state and that this will not happen, while Diaspora Minister Amichai Shekli stressed that Israel must resist the American plan and threaten to take unilateral steps such as canceling the Oslo Accords.

Since October 7, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of killed and wounded, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction of infrastructure.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies

The Wall Street Journal said that there is concern within the administration of US President Joe Biden about the imminent financial collapse of the Palestinian Authority, due to the cessation of US funding to it by Congress, as well as Israel’s withholding of tax revenues after the “Hamas” attack on October 7, and thus this collapse threatens America's post-war plans for Gaza, which are essentially based on assuming significant authority there.

The report, prepared by the newspaper's national security editor, Vivian Salama, quotes American officials as saying that the administration is trying to circumvent a law that prevents it from contributing directly to the Palestinian Authority, while also urging allies to provide more to the organization.

American officials said that Palestinian officials have warned that the funds needed to pay salaries and provide basic government services may run out by late February.

They stated that the potential financial collapse of the Authority threatens the United States’ hopes that the Authority will be able to rule Gaza when Israel’s war on the Strip ends.

The newspaper said that early in the war in Gaza, the United States chose to rely on “a revitalized and modernized Palestinian Authority” as the best option, if not the only option, for what it described as “the day after” the end of the war.

American officials said they were concerned that without increased revenues, the organization would not be stable enough to maintain its grip on power in the West Bank, let alone be in a position to play an expanded role.

The financial plight facing the Authority also limits its ability to implement comprehensive reforms that the United States says are necessary to secure support from Israel and the Palestinian public, according to the analysis.

  Israel stopped handing over taxes to the authority

The report stated that in October, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich initially halted the delivery of all tax revenues, which were transferred monthly to the Palestinian Authority, pending the ministry’s approval.

The Israeli government then chose to suspend revenues allocated to Palestinian Authority employees in Gaza only, saying that the money was going into the pockets of Hamas activists.

In response, the Palestinian Authority said it would not accept any partial revenue transfers. The Authority pays the salaries of about 150,000 public sector employees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to its official estimates.

In December, Biden asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a proposal to transfer frozen tax revenues to Norway for safekeeping until an arrangement was reached that would ease Israel's concerns that the money would fund Hamas, according to US officials.

The Israeli government said in January that it had approved the plan, but US, European and Palestinian officials said there were still some sticking points.

  What the Biden administration fears

According to the report, American officials say that if the Palestinian Authority runs out of funds, it will be vulnerable to groups that the United States and Israel consider more extremist and opposed to the settlement.

Officials say that the deteriorating security situation in the West Bank may burden them, amid increasing clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants, as well as attacks by Israeli extremists.

The senior Palestinian official said that the Palestinian Authority has been suffering from a financial crisis since 2020.

He added that the Palestinian Ministry of Finance operates under “the most restrictive budget, which is the worst scenario, as it pays part of public employees and tries to pay off parts of previous debts.”

He added that he hoped international pressure would lead to a rapid transfer of funds.

  Congress and Washington's capabilities

According to the report, Washington’s capabilities to finance the Palestinian Authority have become limited since the passage of the “Taylor Force Act” in Congress in 2018, which suspended US bilateral economic aid to the Palestinian Authority due to its accusation of providing payments to the Palestinians, whom Washington and Tel Aviv accuse of terrorism, and their relatives.

That same year, former President Donald Trump directed the State Department to withdraw $200 million in aid originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza, after a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

Biden reversed the move shortly after taking office, restoring much of the aid, which is not subject to the Taylor Force Act ban on direct aid.

The report indicates continued resistance within Congress to refinancing the Palestinian Authority.

Last January, while Congress was grappling over the foreign aid package approved by the Senate last Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell described the Palestinian Authority as “relentlessly and utterly corrupt,” and objected to including funding for Palestinian aid. 

Some US lawmakers described the United Nations and other international organizations as potential ways to circumvent the Taylor Force Act's restrictions.

  What about the European Union?

The report notes that at the same time, it seems unlikely that US allies in the European Union will enhance financial support for the Palestinian Authority.

It is noteworthy that the European Union’s Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process, Sven Koopmans, said in an interview: “The European Union is already doing a lot, but I do not see that we are about to increase our support financially.”

Koopmaner added that while the Palestinian Authority is often criticized on issues including corruption, it is “an essential partner and we must stand by them and also encourage them a lot to reform and we help them in that.”

He continued: “If the Palestinian Authority collapses for any reason, it will be a disaster for the security situation, for the Palestinians, for the Israelis, and for the region as a whole.”

An eighth patient died today, Sunday, at Nasser Medical Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

According to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, the patient died as a result of the electrical generator stopping and the oxygen being stopped.

The Israeli forces imposed a siege on Nasser Hospital for more than a week, turning it into a closed military barracks.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory said that it documented the Israeli army's use of small drones (quadcopters) to directly fire at Palestinians, killing them and injuring their ranks, as part of the crime of genocide that has been ongoing since the 7th of last October.

The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory confirmed in a statement today, Sunday, that the Israeli army has intensified the use of quadcopters, which are operated remotely electronically, as a tool for killing and causing harm among Palestinians, after their mission was limited to intelligence work.

Euro-Med said that the Israeli army is escalating the implementation of premeditated killings and unlawful executions against Palestinian civilians through sniping and shooting from drones in various areas of the Gaza Strip, in addition to continuing to kill Palestinians on a large scale through aerial and artillery bombardment of residential areas.

It highlighted that the killings, executions, and sniping operations carried out by the Israeli army in shelter centers, hospitals, streets, and populated residential areas mainly targeted unarmed civilians, without them posing a source of any threat or danger, or participating in hostilities in any way.

According to investigations conducted by the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory, the Israeli army is suspected of using small killer drones equipped with machine guns and missiles of the Matrice 600 and LANIUS categories, which are versatile and highly mobile drones, designed for short-term operation, and whose system can automatically explore buildings and draw maps to detect potential targets, it can carry lethal or non-lethal payloads, and is capable of performing a wide range of missions for special forces and military forces.

Euro-Med documented the killing of dozens of citizens as a result of shooting from these types of marches, either through direct shooting towards individuals, or through indiscriminate shooting towards gatherings, where a machine gun is installed under the plane and controlled automatically.

On February 12, Euro-Med documented the killing of two brothers, “Muhib Osama Ezz El-Din Abu Jama” (19), and “Elyas Osama Ezz El-Din Abu Jama” (17), who had physical and mental disabilities, in Al-Shaboura camp in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip. Gaza.

In a statement to the Euro-Mediterranean Monitor team, the father of the two brothers, “Osama,” said: “At night, around 1:45, we heard the sound of gunfire around us. We were in the tents and we did not know what was happening. I went out to see what was happening, and I found everyone running and running away. It was my sons.” They woke up to the sound of gunfire and asked what was happening. I entered less than a minute later, and shooting began above us from a quadcopter, directly at our tent. I was wounded and two of my sons were killed, one of whom was physically and mentally disabled. Then we left the tent and ran so that I could preserve what was left of my children alive.

On the same day, Euro-Med documented the killing of the child, “Mahmoud Alaa Awad Al-Assar” (16 years old), and his sister, “Asmaa Alaa Awad Al-Assar” (21 years old), as a result of shooting towards them from an Israeli quadcopter north of Badr Camp, northwest of the city of Rafah.

On February 8, Euro-Med documented the killing of two Palestinians and the serious wounding of a third as a result of shooting from a quadcopter at a school housing displaced people in the vicinity of the “Al Awda” schools, east of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

It pointed out that a Palestinian civilian was killed on the same day while he was on the roof of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, as a result of gunfire from Israeli quadcopters while he was trying to pick up the Internet signal in conjunction with the Israeli army’s siege of the hospital.

It also documented the killing of Muhammad Diab Abdel Qader Barhoum shortly before noon on Tuesday, February 4, as a result of gunfire from a quadcopter while he was on his way to feed his sheep in the town of Al-Nasr, north of the city of Rafah.

In addition to eyewitness testimonies, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, health sector workers observed that most of the unlawful executions and killings were carried out by strange gunshots, as their specifications differ from usual gunshots, and they leave a different shape on the victim’s body when they penetrate it, and it is believed that the killings were carried out by quadcopter drones.

Euro-Med pointed out that this type of aircraft is also being used to intimidate Palestinians, spread terror among them, and negatively affect their psychological health, due to their constant presence in the airspace.

The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory stressed that the extrajudicial and judicial executions, whether by direct liquidation or sniping and shooting carried out by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians, violate their right to life and prohibit depriving them of this right arbitrarily, in accordance with international human rights law, and are also considered grave violations. According to the Geneva Conventions, war crimes and crimes against humanity according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as crimes in their own right, constitute one of the pillars of the crime of genocide carried out by Israel against the residents of the Gaza Strip since the seventh of last October.

The Israeli forces committed 13 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, claiming 127 dead and 205 injuries during the past 24 hours.

According to the Ministry of Health, a number of victims are still under rubble and on the roads, noting that the Israeli forces is preventing ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.

The toll of the Israeli aggression has risen to 28,985 dead and 68,883 injuries since the seventh of last October.

Two young Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces this afternoon, in Tulkarm camp, after it was stormed and clashes broke out.

The Ministry of Health announced the death of Nabil Atta Muhammad Amer (19 years old) with a bullet to the head, and the young man Muhammad Ahmed Fayez Al-Awfi, 36 years old, and the Israeli forces detained his body.

While the Palestinian Red Crescent confirmed that 4 Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces during their storming of Tulkarm camp, it had previously reported that a child was injured in the head.

According to local sources, the injured were transferred to the Martyr Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in the city.

Loops magazine said that the number of young victims reaches thousands in the Gaza Strip, which has been bombed by the Israeli army for 4 months, and that all children who face severe violence there need - according to UNICEF - psychosocial support and psychological assistance.

To shed light on the physical and psychological suffering of children in the Gaza Strip, the newspaper gave the talk - in a report written by Mary Fiacetti - to humanitarian workers to tell what they saw there.

“A lot of suffering is not only physical, but also psychological,” said Amparo Villasmil, a psychologist at Doctors Without Borders, speaking about what she saw in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip during her recent mission with children there.

The psychologist added, "It is not an exaggeration to say that Palestinian children are exposed to extremely brutal living conditions. Some of them have lost members of their family. They no longer have a routine. All educational activities have stopped, and most of them receive little, and may not receive food, drinking water, or Sanitary facilities and no clothes for the winter.”

The report recalled what the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said, only one month after the start of the Israeli attack, that “Gaza has become a cemetery for children.” Today, more than 3 months later, the situation has not changed, but is even worse, as human losses in the Strip are approaching 30. A thousand dead and about 70 thousand wounded, including a large number of children.

The magazine described the situation of 600,000 displaced children in Rafah, saying that they suffer from tragic living conditions, and they are threatened, along with nearly one and a half million displaced people in the middle of winter, by famine and epidemics, in addition to the “strong” ground military operation that Israel is threatening, noting that 17,000 children There are those who are “unaccompanied or separated” from their families.

Witnesses and victims of severe violence

The magazine pointed out that childhood life under bombardment and in temporary shelters leaves not only physical, but also psychological, effects.

“About 500,000 children were in need of psychological and social assistance in the Gaza Strip before the terrible events that began on October 7, because they had lived through hostilities for years, were exposed to violence and trauma, and had lost a family member or their home,” says Jonathan Crix. It is estimated that almost all children in the region need psychological help.”

The magazine went on to tell the story of the little girl, Razan (11 years old). She was - as Jonathan Crix narrates - “in her uncle’s house with her family when the bombing killed her father, mother, brother, and two sisters, and seriously injured her.” She was transferred several times with her uncle and aunt before arriving to Rafah suffers from high levels of stress and anxiety, and would burst into tears whenever the doors were closed.”

Because stories like Razan's cannot be counted in the Gaza Strip, UNICEF has created recreational activities, explains Jonathan Krekes, where “children play, sing and dance with social workers trained to deal with young trauma victims. It is comforting to see a smile on their faces, and that We see that for an hour or two they manage to escape from the state of despair they find themselves in. It is a moment that takes them back to their childhood.”

UNICEF confirmed that such activities have been carried out with 40,000 children since the beginning of the war, although these efforts do not seem to be futile as long as the fighting continues, especially “when a child tells you that he is afraid at night that something will happen to him, and that he will have to run away again.” How can you reassure him if this danger really exists? Amparo Villasmil wonders.

What kind of adults will they become?

“We believe that without a permanent ceasefire, these children will continue to suffer from trauma, and without a humanitarian ceasefire, our ability to work with them on a large scale will be limited,” says Amparo Villasmil. “When I see children on the streets in these conditions, "I wonder what kind of adults they'll become."

There are many studies that show the impact of trauma on the brain when it occurs at an early stage of development, and on the way a person develops, and the way he interacts with others... What vision will they have of the world after living without a safe place, afraid and after having endured so much? Of sadness and suffering?

The psychologist at Doctors Without Borders fears the emergence of “an entire generation that has no confidence in the world or in itself,” has lost the meaning of life, has difficulties in communicating with others and with oneself, and has a feeling of insecurity that can last throughout life.

Source: Loops+ Aljazeera