The petition demands Netanyahu’s ouster from power, and will be published in the United States and directed first and foremost to the American political arena: “Netanyahu is not qualified, fundamentally and morally, to lead Israel into war, and he poses an imminent and existential danger to the state.”

A petition published today, Friday, and signed by 26 former Israeli security officials and 17 civilian officials, called for the ouster of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to the “failures of the current war” on Gaza, and accused him of having “his hands stained with the blood of the dead” Israelis who were killed in an attack. 7 last October.

The political analyst in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Nahum Barnea, published this petition and indicated that it would be published in the United States as well, at the end of this week.

Among the signatories of the petition were the former chiefs of staff of the Israeli army, Moshe Ya’alon and Dan Halutz, the former heads of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo and Danny Yatom, the former heads of the General Security Service (Shin Bet), Nadav Argaman and Yaakov Perry, and the former Inspector General of Police, Assaf Hefetz. It was also signed by three Israeli Nobel Prize winners.

Most of the petition signatories in the past expressed their opinions against Netanyahu before October 7, and some of them participated in the protests against the “judicial reform” plan initiated by the Netanyahu government with the aim of weakening the judiciary.

Barnea pointed out, “The issue is not the list of names of the signatories, but rather the timing: the protests that were brought into a deep stagnation on October 7 are seeking to return to the center of public discourse. The arguments have changed, but the goal has not changed.” The petition is addressed to the President of the State, Isaac Herzog, and the Speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, “but it is directed first and foremost to the American political arena.” This petition was initiated by Jeremy Levin, the former general manager of the Israeli pharmaceutical company “Teva”, who holds dual American and Israeli citizenship.

To the saying that was repeated throughout the protests against the weakening of the judiciary, that Netanyahu seeks to destroy democracy, was added another saying, which is that he is guilty of the failure of October 7. “His hands are stained with the blood of the dead, and he is fundamentally and morally unqualified to lead Israel into war, and he poses an imminent and existential threat to the State of Israel,” the petition stated.

Barnea pointed out, “These are very strong statements, and they come at the height of a war and at the height of a battle in Congress and American public opinion over emergency aid to Israel. President Biden wants to give Israel $14 billion, and this is a huge amount, and Israel needs it more than any time in the past.” .

He added, "Members of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are delaying ratification by claiming that American-made bombs are killing thousands of civilians in Gaza. Young voters are threatening to abstain from voting in the elections because of Biden's strong support for Israel."

He added that any American president did not fear that his support for Israel would cost him a price at the ballot box. "The opposite happened: in an election year, presidents feared entering into a confrontation with Israeli governments. The fear was of losing donations and losing Jewish voters in central states. Israel was a place of consensus. The situation is no longer like this now."

According to Barnea, “Netanyahu, the man and everything he represents, is at the heart of the debate. The hostility to him in domestic American discourse goes beyond the discussion of the war. Like Putin, he is considered a hero of one party, the Republican, and a burden in another party, the Democratic. Netanyahu’s stated refusal to trade "In Biden's plan to end the war, he is pushing administration officials to the conclusion that he cannot work with him. For them, they are not qualified. And in internal deliberations in the White House, they are now looking for a way to talk to the political establishment and public opinion in Israel over Netanyahu's head."

Barnea concluded, "The petition calling for Netanyahu's ouster warns of the damage he is causing to relations with the United States. The petition will find listening ears in the White House."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken anticipated today's decision in The Hague regarding the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel "for committing genocide in Gaza" by speaking with his South African counterpart, Naledi Pandor.

Blinken stressed to Pandor that the United States supports Israel's right to "ensure that the October 7 terrorist attacks are never repeated," according to a White House statement.

He noted in the statement that Blinken and his South African counterpart discussed “the need to protect civilian lives, ensure the continuation of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, and work for a lasting regional peace that guarantees the security of Israel and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”

The South African government is awaiting the issuance of the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the lawsuit it filed against Israel, today, Friday.

On January 11-12, the International Court of Justice in The Hague conducted a trial in South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel on charges of violating the Convention on comprehensive genocide in the Gaza Strip.

A decision by the International Court of Justice against Israel would increase political pressure on it, and observers expect that it could serve as an excuse to impose sanctions on it. According to what American media reported yesterday.

The Israeli forces stormed several Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, and confrontations took place between the occupation army and Palestinian youth during the raids.

France condemned the bloody bombing of a United Nations shelter center in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, calling on Israel to “comply with international humanitarian law,” according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The French Foreign Ministry stressed the need to "protect United Nations sites and humanitarian workers whose work is essential for the civilian population in Gaza," recalling that "protecting civilians is both a moral duty and an international obligation."

Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, Thomas White, said that two tank shells hit a United Nations building in Khan Yunis on Wednesday, where thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing 13 people.

On the 112th day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, Israeli forces are still committing one massacre after another and targeting civilians throughout the Strip.

The Israeli forces blew up facilities and homes west of the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army focused its bombing on Khan Yunis during the past days, and also targeted hospitals there, and two days ago bombed a center for sheltering displaced persons affiliated with UNRWA, which left dozens of killed and wounded, and received widespread UN and international condemnation.

Medical sources reported that at least 70 Palestinians were killed in Israeli bombing on the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis during the past 24 hours.

Today (Friday), United Nations judges will issue their ruling on a request submitted by South Africa to impose emergency measures against Israel, which faces charges before the International Court of Justice of committing genocide crimes in connection with its military operation in the Gaza Strip, according to Reuters.

The ruling that the court will issue today will not address the main accusation in the case, that is, whether genocide occurred, but will focus on the urgent intervention requested by South Africa.

Among the measures that South Africa called for was an immediate halt to the Israeli military operation that destroyed vast areas in the Gaza Strip and claimed, according to health authorities in Gaza, the lives of more than 25,000 people.

Israel is asking the court to dismiss the case in its entirety. An Israeli government spokesman said yesterday (Thursday) that they expect the UN court to “drop these false and misleading accusations.”

South Africa said two weeks ago that the Israeli air and ground attack aims to “destroy the population” of Gaza.

Israel rejects these accusations and says it respects international law and has the right to defend itself.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces accusations from within Israel of leading the country into artificial regional crises, through a possible confrontation with the mediators who have been working between Tel Aviv and the Hamas movement, even before the outbreak of the current war, in addition to their involvement since the beginning of the crisis in negotiations about prisoner exchange deal.

Although the relations between the extremist Netanyahu government with both Egypt and Qatar were marred by many “pent-up” tensions during the current war period, these differences have come to light for the first time, and they are differences that are not far from the Israeli dispute with the American administration, which also works with Cairo and Doha in the mediation negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli media focused on Netanyahu leading Israel to regional crises, noting that the differences had reached the point where Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi refused to respond to his calls, while Qatar attacked him publicly, in response to statements made by Netanyahu against Qatar. Media reports expected that a third crisis would emerge with Jordan, after it was leaked that the Israeli Ministry of Energy was studying the possibility of “not extending the water agreement with Jordan.”

Meanwhile, American media reports reported that Israeli soldiers have continued to work since November to establish a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip. The Wall Street Journal quoted soldiers as saying that they had received orders to clear an area one kilometer wide along the border, as part of an Israeli plan to create a security buffer zone inside Gaza.

In a related context, attention is turning today to the International Court of Justice, which will issue, from its headquarters in The Hague, its decision on the possibility of imposing emergency measures on Israel following accusations from South Africa that the Israeli war in Gaza constitutes genocide.

Benjamin Netanyahu calling Qatar's mediation role on behalf of Israeli hostages 'problematic' drags his wartime behavior to a new low – which is saying something for the man who doesn't understand terms like 'public decency' or 'accepting responsibility'

There's an old story about a guy who murdered both his parents and then asked the court for leniency. "On what grounds?" asked the judge. "I'm a grieving orphan," the crying man replied.

That's the story with Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatar. The prime minister's coarse attempt to deflect responsibility on to the Gulf state, blaming the Qataris for actions he should be held accountable for, is typically transparent and cheap. Except that his comments, leaked to the media on Tuesday, were not merely just another political statement. These words were reportedly uttered in a meeting with the agonizing, dejected families of the Israeli hostages.

Qatar "is essentially no different from the UN or Red Cross, and in a certain sense is even more problematic. ... They have leverage over [Hamas] ... because they finance them," casually declared the man who pressured Qatar into funneling funds to the terror group in Gaza.

Netanyahu's timing was critical – right at the moment when a delicate deal to free the hostages is being mediated. Qatar has a vital role to play in securing their release, and even if his mendacity is a familiar trait, he seems to have gone too far this time.

The conventional political wisdom in Israel is that Netanyahu himself (or his office) leaked his words in order to disrupt a hostage deal. Not only are the families convinced it was Netanyahu who leaked the conversation; the White House is also convinced he did it deliberately.

Such a deal, along the contours that include a prolonged cease-fire, could mean the end of the war without toppling Hamas. That could mean the end of his governing coalition.

The chutzpah of what Netanyahu said is astounding. For six years, he encouraged Qatar to fund Hamas. Not one payment since 2017 was made without Israeli consent. When Qatar was reconsidering its policy in 2018, Netanyahu implored it not to. All that time, he was being briefed by the Mossad that there was concrete evidence showing that Hamas had been abusing the Qatari funds, which totaled over $1 billion over a six-year period. It used them for arms, rocket manufacturing and the construction of its vast network of tunnels.

However, that did not dissuade Netanyahu or force him to reconsider his policy. On the contrary: he doubled down on it. On October 7, that flawed and reckless policy exploded. But this is Benjamin Netanyahu we are talking about here – a man who has never recognized terms like responsibility, accountability, public decency or morals. So he blamed the IDF chief of staff, then the intelligence branch, then the Shin Bet security service, then U.S. President Joe Biden.

Now he has found a convenient new nemesis: Qatar. Yes, Qatar funded Hamas. Yes, that makes the Gulf state extremely unpopular. But no, it did not supply arms, rockets, explosives or build tunnels.

Netanyahu's statements are irresponsible, a livid Qatar responded, saying it was "appalled" by the remarks. The Qataris added, though, that they will not let one man sidetrack them from what they are doing.

The prime minister also realizes that Qatar will be part of the reconfigured Middle East. He is equally aware of the strategic relationship between the United States and Qatar. Neither of these things fit into his "permanent war" concept for the region. Seeking confrontation with America regarding postwar Gaza and a possible diplomatic process has been his objective since November. Blaming Qatar for Hamas' savage attack is consistent with that: both, in his mind, enable him to frame October 7 not as his debacle but as a greater conflict.

Hamas leader Osama Hamdan said on Thursday, January 25, 2024, that the movement will adhere to any ceasefire decision issued by the International Court of Justice “as long as Israel adheres to that,” according to what he stated in a press conference.

Hamdan also considered that "Washington's repeated call for the occupation to protect civilians, relief personnel and facilities of humanitarian organizations in Gaza since the beginning of the aggression is nothing but empty and cheap media propaganda amid the continued support and partnership for the Israeli occupation and its supply of weapons."

On the other hand, the leader of the Hamas movement stressed that "the only chance for the soldiers captured by the resistance to return alive to their families will not be until after a comprehensive cessation of the aggression against our people."

Regarding the expected decision to be issued by the International Court of Justice (based in The Hague) on Friday, regarding the “genocide” case filed by South Africa against Israel, Hamdan said, “Hamas will adhere to any ceasefire decision issued by the court as long as the enemy adheres to that.”

The Hamas leader added: “The continuous attacks by Netanyahu (the Israeli Prime Minister) and his government on our Arab countries, the latest of which is our sister Qatar, expresses bankruptcy and political failure in the face of the torrent of international criticism.”

Earlier Thursday, the far-right Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, criticized Qatar, which is mediating indirect negotiations between Tel Aviv and Hamas for the exchange of prisoners and the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza since last October 7.

Smotrich's criticism comes in response to a tweet by Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari in which he said, "Netanyahu is obstructing Qatar's mediation efforts between Tel Aviv and the Hamas movement, if his statements regarding the efforts made by Doha are correct," according to the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation.

In a leaked recording broadcast by Hebrew Channel 12 on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that he did not thank Qatar publicly because it “did not exert more pressure on Hamas,” and he criticized Qatari-American relations, calling for pressure on Doha.

On Tuesday, Al-Ansari confirmed that mediation efforts between the Palestinians and Israel “are still underway to reach a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners,” while mediation and Qatari efforts continue to ensure the entry of aid and medicine into the Gaza Strip.

Regarding Egypt, Hamdan praised its position “rejecting any Israeli plans to occupy the Philadelphia axis (the border with the Gaza Strip) and to displace our people from the Strip.”

Diaa Rashwan, head of the official Egyptian Information Service, said in a statement, “Any Israeli move towards occupying the Philadelphia or Salah al-Din Corridor in the Gaza Strip will lead to a serious and serious threat to Egyptian-Israeli relations, and Israel’s persistence in marketing these lies is an attempt to create legitimacy for its endeavor.” To occupy the Philadelphia Pass or the Saladin Pass.”

The official Israeli Broadcasting Corporation also reported that Israeli officials informed Egypt that they are planning to carry out a military operation in the Philadelphia axis area, which is the border area between the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.

The Director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called on Thursday for a ceasefire and a “real solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an emotional appeal to the Executive Council of the United Nations organization in which he described the conditions in Gaza as “hellish.”

Ghebreyesus' emotions flowed as he described the conditions in the Gaza Strip, which is being subjected to Israeli strikes in which more than 25,000 people were killed.

Ghebreyesus endured the war at a young age, and his children hid in a bunker during the bombing in the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea between 1998 and 2000.

He said, before the Executive Board of the World Health Organization in Geneva during a discussion on the health emergency in Gaza: “I am a true believer, because of my own experience, that war does not bring a solution, but rather more war, more hatred, more suffering, and more destruction.” "So let's choose peace and solve this issue politically."

British doctors document their observations in the Gaza Strip: hell on earth

He added, "I think you all said about the two-state solution and so on, and I hope that this war will end and move to a real solution," before he broke down, describing the current situation as "at a loss for words."

Israel's representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Merav Elon Shahar, said in statements sent to Reuters that the WHO director's comments represent a "complete failure in leadership."

She added, "The Director-General's statement was an embodiment of everything that has been wrong with the World Health Organization since October 7. There was no mention of hostages, nor of the rape and killing of Israelis, nor of Hamas' military use of hospitals and its despicable use of human shields."

She accused the World Health Organization of "colluding" with Hamas, saying that the organization turned a blind eye to Hamas' military activities in Gaza's hospitals.

In the same speech, Ghebreyesus warned that more people in Gaza would die from hunger and disease. "If you add all that up, I think it's not easy to understand how hellish the situation is," he said.

(Reuters)

BY MICHAEL ARRIA  

The week, a federal court in Oakland will begin hearing arguments in a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of failing to prevent a genocide in Gaza. The case could bring U.S. support for the Israeli assault on Gaza to a halt.

This week, a federal court in Oakland will begin hearing arguments in a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of failing to prevent a genocide in Gaza.

The claim was filed against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in November. The legal effort was taken on behalf of two Palestinian organizations and eight Palestinians living in the United States.

The effort is backed by almost 80 human rights organizations across the globe.

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“For the last five weeks, President Biden and Secretaries Blinken and Austin have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with an Israeli government that has made clear its intention to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza,” said CCR senior attorney Katherine Gallagher after the suit was filed. “As neighborhood after neighborhood, hospital after hospital, and sheltering displaced Palestinians were bombed, while subject to a total siege and closure that denies 2.2 million people basic necessities for life, they have continued to provide both military and political support for Israel’s unfolding genocidal campaign while imposing no red lines. The United States has a clear and binding obligation to prevent, not further, genocide. So far, they have failed in both their legal, moral duty and considerable power to end this horror. They must do so.”

The suit charges the administration with violations of international law, codified in the 1948 Genocide Convention.

“Immediately after the Hamas attacks and the launch of the Israeli assault on Gaza, President Biden offered ‘unwavering’ support for Israel’s military campaign, which he and administration officials have consistently repeated even as mass civilian casualties escalated, Gaza was sealed and basic necessities for life cut, alongside Israeli genocidal rhetoric,” reads the complaint.

The document goes on to detail Israel’s historical oppression of Palestinians, the brutality of the bombing, and

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the human rights groups Defense for Children International–Palestine (DCIP) and Al-Haq, two organizations that have documented Israeli human rights violations for years.

Plaintiffs also include Great March of Return founder Ahmed Abu Artema, 24-year-old intern physician Dr. Omar Al-Najjar, and Defense for Children field researcher Mohammed Ahmed Abu Rokbeh. All of these clients currently reside in Gaza, where they have been subjected to Israel’s ongoing assault and siege. Rokbeh is currently living in a tent along with his wife and four children.

Plaintiffs Mohammad Monadel Herzallah, Laila Elhaddad, Waeil Elbhassi, Bassim Elkarra, and “A.N.” are Palestinians living in the United States with family members back in Gaza.

At the time of filing, the plaintiffs had already collectively lost over 100 family members as a result of Israel’s bombings.

In December, the Biden administration filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming that the court was being asked to rule outside of its jurisdiction.

“Even if the political-question doctrine did not preclude judicial review here (which it does), Plaintiffs still cannot overcome another jurisdictional hurdle—their lack of standing,” reads the motion. “Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries are the result of the military and other activities of an independent foreign sovereign, Israel, over which this Court has no authority. There is no order that is within this Court’s jurisdiction to fashion that could provide effective relief to Plaintiffs—namely, preventing Israel from taking the sovereign actions it chooses to take to respond to the October 7th attack. Plaintiffs therefore cannot meet the causation or redressability prongs of the standing requirements.”

In reaction to the government’s response, several of the plaintiffs submitted declarations detailing additional harm and deaths sustained after the original filing. Attorneys also submitted a declaration from Josh Paul, a former State Department official who quit his position over Biden’s Gaza policy.

“The United States provides and transfers to Israel a vast amount of military critical technologies and 

capabilities..the United States is aware that these military critical technologies and capabilities will be used in ways that are contrary to U.S. law and Israel’s own commitments to the U.S. under applicable processes and agreements, and other requirements including international law,” it reads.

“If the court rules in our favor, the judge could order the U.S. government to stop providing military and diplomatic support to Israel while the court considers the case. Given the urgency and the hundreds of Palestinians killed every day, we are hoping that will be the case.” DCIP Advocacy Officer Miranda Cleland

In a recent development, the court granted motions for the Jan 26 hearing to be in person and for clients to be able to present live testimony. Testimony will also be presented by Barry Trachtenberg, a genocide scholar who submitted an expert brief in the case. 

DCIP Advocacy Officer Miranda Cleland told Mondoweiss that the historic hearing could potentially have an immediate impact on the administration.

“If the court rules in our favor, the judge could order the U.S. government to stop providing military and diplomatic support to Israel while the court considers the case. Given the urgency and the hundreds of Palestinians killed every day, we are hoping that will be the case,” she said. “This would send a very strong message not only to the Biden administration itself but also to members of Congress. If the federal court system takes the assertion of genocide seriously, that should put all U.S. government officials on notice that they, too, could be held to account for their role. And if the government actually follows the court order, that further isolates the Netanyahu government.”

Earlier this month South Africa filed a petition to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), calling for Israel to be investigated for war crimes in Gaza.

“Israel has now killed in excess of 21,110 named Palestinians, including over 7,729 children — with over 7,780 others missing, presumed dead under the rubble — and has injured over 55,243 other Palestinians, causing them severe bodily and mental harm. Israel has also laid waste to vast areas of Gaza, including entire neighbourhoods, and has damaged or destroyed in excess of 355,000 Palestinian homes [more than 60% of Gaza’s housing stock], alongside extensive tracts of agricultural land, bakeries, schools, universities, businesses, places of worship, cemeteries, cultural and archaeological sites, municipal and court buildings, and critical infrastructure, including water and sanitation facilities and electricity networks, while pursuing a relentless assault on the Palestinian medical and healthcare system,” reads part of the country’s 84-page application to The Hague. “Israel has reduced and is continuing to reduce Gaza to rubble, killing, harming and destroying its people, and creating conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group.”

The Biden administration has been publicly dismissive regarding the South African effort, with National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby calling it “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”

However, the ICJ will rule on whether it will grant emergency measures to stop the war in Gaza on the same day that the Oakland hearing begins.

“Perhaps the most monumental part of this case is that Palestinians will be testifying in federal court to the impact of the Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians,” explained Cleland. “Just a couple weeks after the first ICJ hearings, it is a big deal for courts to take Palestinian rights seriously, and no matter how the judge rules on Friday, this case creates a public record of Biden’s complicity.”

TAREQ S. HAJJAJ

Even in areas like Rafah, where the Israeli ground invasion has not reached, Gaza’s society has been decimated. Its economy no longer exists and basic goods can only be found on the black market where they cost ten times their prewar price.

She wakes up in the early hours of the morning every day, attempting to light the green wood that had been chopped the day before so she could prepare breakfast for her family of six. All of them are crammed into a single tent on the sidewalk in Rafah.

She sets the wood in the middle, between three rocks arranged in a triangle made to serve as a base for a cooking vessel. She attempts to light the wood using discarded pieces of plastic and nylon as kindling. Smoke starts to swell from the pile, rising into her eyes and causing them to water. Behind her, inside the tent, her husband lies on the ground with their children, save for the little one beside her, who is fascinated with the fire and tries to get closer to it. She waves him away, holding him back from the fire and telling him off.

That a woman should be forced to sit on the side of the road and build a fire to prepare breakfast for her family, a rite usually regarded as mundane and reserved for the privacy of the home, but which she is now forced to do out in the cold with thousands of other strangers around her, is anything but normal in Gaza.

Amnah Qaddoum, 48, fled from Gaza City to Rafah after an arduous journey of displacement from one place to another. Before the war, Amnah used to work at a nursery for a modest salary that was barely enough to meet her own needs, but it helped to supplement her husband’s income as a taxi driver in Gaza City. His taxi was bombed early on in the war, taking away the family’s main livelihood.

During the war, Amnah and her husband, Ismail, have lived off the food aid that arrives in Gaza through UNRWA. The breakfast she is preparing includes an UNRWA-issued can of fava beans that she heats up and prepares alongside a can of hummus. The meal will be all the family eats for the whole day, to be followed by some cheese sandwiches handed out by UNRWA in the evening. With no other money to speak of, their situation is similar to that of the thousands of other families who cannot meet any of their basic needs beyond the already scant aid that arrives.

Erasing an economy, destroying a society

The most dramatic effects of the war are undoubtedly the scale of human death, displacement, and bodily and mental harm. Yet outside the constant bombardment and immediate threat of death, the most important feature of this war is that it is underwritten by the destruction of an entire society. Among other consequences, what this means is that Gaza essentially no longer has an economy, and what has arisen in its stead is a series of black markets that exploit the gargantuan humanitarian needs created by the war. These black markets sell basic subsistence goods for astronomical prices.

In Rafah, there is still a street resembling a marketplace, with produce vendors and markets for the trade or sale of humanitarian aid. Commercial items like potato chips, chocolate, milk, and sugar also sometimes enter Gaza, invariably finding their way to this market.

Yet due to the rapid hyperinflation that has resulted from the extreme shortages imposed by Israel’s starvation plan, these goods now cost ten times their prewar price. A kilogram of sugar that used to cost 3 shekels (less than a dollar) is now sold for 25 shekels, if available at all. The price of diapers has gone from 15-25 shekels to 100-125 shekels; coffee from 30-50 shekels to 250 for the cheapest kind; children’s biscuits from half a shekel to 7 shekels; a pack of cigarettes from 19-20 shekels to 100-110 shekels. This month, a 25-kilogram bag of flour cost 400 shekels (100 dollars), but after slightly more flour started to arrive in Rafah as humanitarian aid (which is not the case for northern Gaza), the price of flour went down to only double its prewar price, now costing only 50-60 shekels.

A liter of diesel that used to cost 7 shekels now costs 70-90 shekels. The 12-kilogram propane cylinders that used to cost 50 shekels to fill are now available on the black market for 250-300 shekels. Even firewood, which used to cost half a shekel per kilogram, has now risen to 4 shekels per kilogram, given the unprecedented demand for it as the only available alternative fuel source to fend off the winter cold. Legumes such as lentils, a traditional staple for poor families, have jumped from 6 shekels per kilo to 30-35 shekels per kilo.

For families like Amnah’s, this uncontrollable inflation has rendered what little money they do have devoid of any value.

“In these circumstances where we’re sitting out in the cold, with fumes surrounding us from cars running on cooking oil instead of diesel, and with garbage and waste around us, we’re all getting sick,” Amnah tells Mondoweiss. “I can’t buy even a bar of soap to maintain the cleanliness of my family.”

In the earlier days of the war, even though we couldn’t find food to eat, we were still safe in our homes,” she continues. “Now our home is the street.”

As she speaks, the sound of coughing children coming from inside the tent is clear. It barely stops as our conversation continues.

She goes on to say that the cold is coming close to killing her family, and that she is unable to keep her children warm, lying down on the ground with nothing underneath them but a thin blanket. 

When they first fled their home in the north, the weather was still warm, and they did not need to take heavier clothes with them. With winter in full force, Amnah has attempted to find and buy some jackets at the market.

“The prices are hard to believe,” Amnah says. “It’s not that they’re a little expensive. It’s that they are unfathomable. A small jacket for my 8-year-old son costs 150 shekels, and I have three other children. If I were to buy jackets for all of them at that price, it would be the entire salary that I used to make before the war. Now I don’t even have that amount of money.”

“My children say they haven’t eaten meat in months and miss it,” she continues. “But meat is now 150 shekels per kilo, and I can’t afford to buy it for them now.”

Families that didn’t have stable sources of income before the war and relied on aid from the World Food Program have had it worse since the war. These families are the vast majority of Gaza’s residents, and most of them are now refugees in Rafah.

Public sector workers under attack

Other families are supported by breadwinners who have comparatively stable salaries, such as employees of the Palestinian Authority (PA) who receive a monthly salary, or employees of the Hamas government in Gaza. Since the war, however, neither of these government employees have been receiving their salaries consistently, if at all. On top of all that, Israeli warplanes continue to bomb all money-changing offices and ATMs that distribute salaries to employees of the Hamas government, even though they are merely civilians who happen to have public sector jobs, like school teachers and healthcare workers. Most recently, Israeli forces targeted the Firwala company in Khan Younis, which had been distributing late salaries to employees from previous months.

Alaa Suboh, 41 years old and a father of four, fled Gaza City to western Rafah by the coast. Had it not been for the war, camping in this area temporarily for the night would have been considered recreational, with a seaside view that was the envy of many a Gaza resident. Today, that same view is marred by the sea of tightly packed tents stretching along the coast, with entire families crowding around meager fires for warmth without proper clothing. This is made all the worse by the icy coastal winds that cut through the encampments and spare no one.

Alaa had been living a comfortable life, receiving a stable salary as a teacher at the Azhari College, part of the PA-affiliated Al-Azhar University. 

“Life was good,” Alaa tells Mondoweiss. “Even when prices would rise somewhat, we were able to survive. But this time, the rise in prices has become too expensive even for the rich.”

“Gaza has not imported any new goods during the war,” he continues in anger. “So why are prices so high now? It would have been better if we all took into account the circumstances of the war, and merchants should have refrained from raising prices. Or if they were going to raise prices, they could have at least raised them by a reasonable margin, even if double. We would have accepted a doubling of prices. But we can’t accept a tenfold increase.”

This month, Alaa and his fellow PA employees received their salaries with a 40% pay cut, only exacerbating the effects of the price hikes.

Yet, in spite of the unprecedented rise in prices in Rafah, the effects of inflation are not nearly as important as the effects of scarcity and the difficulty of obtaining food and medicine. Pharmacies open their doors, but their shelves are empty. Grocery stores are similarly sparse. The largest supermarkets in the area sell one or two shipments of a single commodity per day — unloading a newly arrived shipment of salsa on one day, for instance, then unloading a shipment of something else on another. Otherwise, all supermarket shelves remain empty.

“Even water is hard to come by now,” Alaa says. “The amount I now pay to buy drinking water per day is the same as the amount I used to pay per month.”

“I never thought that quenching your thirst would come at such a steep price,” he laments.

A report published by the French newspaper L'Express confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by rejecting peace and focusing only on his political future, is leading the region and the entire Middle East to the brink of abyss, and this explains the impasse that Israel is experiencing.

Writer Corentin Pennarguear added that Netanyahu emerged as a rising star of the Israeli right with his complete opposition to the Oslo Accords and the establishment of a Palestinian state. He benefited from the support of many for his theses and later won the elections after the killing of Yitzhak Rabin. He became the youngest prime minister in the history of Israel, and shaped the country according to his faith and personality.

Express quoted political scientist Liran Harsgor from the University of Haifa - as saying that many Israelis see Netanyahu as a cat with 9 lives, as his political career always seems to be on the verge of collapse, but every time he finds a way out.

Pennarguear added that Netanyahu is a politician "capable of manipulating public opinion in an unparalleled way, but he has never faced such a disastrous situation before, with extremely poor popularity."

The edge of the abyss

Express added that the Middle East is on the brink of abyss, as Netanyahu rejects any idea of stopping the war or negotiating with Palestinian leaders.

The magazine quoted Mairav Zonszein, a specialist in Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the International Crisis Group, as saying, “This impasse is the result of 20 years of drift by the Israeli right and the killing of the peace process. It is also the result of one man’s conviction that only military action can achieve peace.” Results".

The magazine said that Netanyahu has never hidden his fight for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and he also previously stressed that dividing the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is “an essential part of our strategy.”

According to Express, Netanyahu believes that power is everything at any cost, and he led his election campaign in July 2019 on the basis of this. The Likud Party published giant posters showing Netanyahu shaking hands with Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin, “as the Israeli leader approached all illiberal leaders who despise Western democracies.”

In December 2022, after Netanyahu was rejected by all other parties, and was tried in 3 corruption cases, he decided to ally with the far right to form the government.

The magazine continued that Netanyahu was always keen to present himself as “the protector of Israel,” but what happened on October 7 made everything collapse, according to Mairav Zonszein, as he waged a war that seemed legitimate to his supporters.

The French magazine added that an opinion poll conducted by the Dialogue Center showed that 9 out of 10 Israelis attribute responsibility for the events of October 7 to the mistakes of the Netanyahu government, while only 4% saw him as the right man to lead the country.

Dangerous game

According to Express, Netanyahu is playing a dangerous game with the Americans during the era of his old friend, US President Joe Biden, who in 2014 summarized their relationship by saying during a meeting of the Jewish Federation of North America: “He has been a friend for more than 30 years.”

It adds that the US President criticized "the most extreme measures of this government, such as reforming the judicial system or supporting settlers in the West Bank," but without attacking Netanyahu at all.

But the war on Gaza - continues Xpress - is exhausting Biden's patience, as his support for the Israeli attack cost him several points in the opinion polls, a few months before the presidential elections.

Express says that Netanyahu also faces great international weight in The Hague, before the International Court of Justice, where the country born from the Holocaust finds itself accused of genocide crimes. In addition to the killing of more than 24,000 Palestinians, the accusation is based on statements by Israeli political leaders, who call for war crimes to be committed in Gaza every day.

In light of Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing the war, the French magazine quoted Mairav Zonszein as saying that the current war on Gaza “is a war without end. No one knows what victory will look like, and no one knows what the end of the war will look like, especially since Netanyahu has every interest in continuing it.” .

According to Mairav Zonszein, it is clear that Israeli society was shocked by October 7, but this war is creating generations of trauma among the Palestinians. She added, “We are not witnessing the elimination of Hamas, but rather we are witnessing the birth of something much worse,” as she put it.

Source: French press

The American newspaper "The New York Times" said that Israel has declassified more than 30 orders issued by the war government and military leaders that it claims "refute the accusations against it of committing genocide in Gaza."

The newspaper added that Tel Aviv says that "the orders instead show its efforts to reduce deaths among Palestinian civilians."

The declassification of these documents, which the American newspaper says it has seen, comes after South Africa based its accusation on statements made by Israeli leaders, which it described as inflammatory and indicated as “evidence of intent to commit genocide.”

South Africa filed the lawsuit accusing Israel of "violating the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" within the framework of the agreement concluded in 1948 as a global response to the Jewish Holocaust.

The New York Times stated that the mission of the Israeli government defense force is to prove that everything that some officials said “was overruled by executive decisions and official orders issued by the Israeli War Council and the army’s high command.”

The nearly 400-page defense file includes what Israel claims is evidence that it sought to wage war against Hamas and not a campaign of genocide against the Palestinians.

On Thursday, the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial body affiliated with the United Nations, announced that it would issue a historic decision on Friday in the case against Israel.

The decision to be issued on Friday will only decide on South Africa's request for emergency measures and not on the basic issue of whether Israel committed genocide, an issue that will take years to decide.

A decision by the International Court of Justice against Israel would increase political pressure on it, and observers expect that it could serve as an excuse to impose sanctions on it.

It is possible that the court will order Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza, which it launched following Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” on October 7, 2023.

Orders issued by the International Court of Justice that decide disputes between states are legally binding and cannot be appealed, but the court does not have broad authority to enforce its rulings.

The 1948 Genocide Convention does not only define genocide as the killing of members of a particular ethnic or national group, according to Ganina Dale, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, who stressed in an interview with the newspaper that “everything depends on intent.”

Therefore, both South Africa and Israel focus "not only on what the leaders and soldiers did, but also on what some of them said."

The Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" said, citing an informed source, that Tel Aviv and the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" have reached understandings on most of the terms of a prisoner exchange agreement between the two sides.

The source of the Israeli newspaper also explained that the truce between the resistance and the occupation will last 35 days and will include the release of all Israeli detainees in Gaza in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners and providing humanitarian aid to the Strip.

The newspaper added that the criteria for releasing the prisoners have already been determined, but their identity is still under discussion. However, it pointed out that the only outstanding issue is a ceasefire at the end of the truce or not, and said that this is a Hamas demand that Israel rejects.

The Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" also added that "there may be other minor changes in the broad outlines of the agreement, but the main problem that needs to be solved relates to the absolute ceasefire that Hamas insists on."

Earlier Thursday, the American newspaper "Washington Post" quoted informed officials as saying that the director of the CIA, William Burns, will meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in Europe in the coming days. To discuss ways to reach an agreement regarding Israeli prisoners in Gaza and a long-term truce in the Strip.

The sources said that Burns is expected to travel to Europe for talks and meet with Israeli intelligence chiefs David Barnea, Egyptian Abbas Kamel, and Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani.

Meanwhile, Reuters quoted an informed official, on Thursday, that the directors of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) will meet with the Qatari Prime Minister in Europe at the beginning of the week. To discuss a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of prisoners.

Egypt and Qatar were key interlocutors between Israel and Hamas, and the two countries helped secure an initial halt to the Gaza aggression and the release of Israeli prisoners in November.

But tensions between the Israelis and Qataris reached the brink of the abyss, after an audio recording of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was leaked in which he did not hide his “disappointment” with the Biden administration. Because it does not put more pressure on Doha.”

Nicaragua announced, on Thursday, that it had submitted a request to the International Court of Justice to participate in the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel before the court.

This came in a statement published on the Nicaraguan government website.

The statement stated that Nicaragua had submitted a request to the International Court of Justice to be included in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel on the grounds of violation of the United Nations Genocide Convention in Gaza.

It added that Nicaragua wanted to be a party to "all possible legal consequences" that might arise from the court.

It added, "Nicaragua wants to demonstrate its intention to fulfill its commitment to prevent genocide, and to contribute to the punishment of those who committed genocide."

The statement said that Nicaragua informed the International Court of Justice that it wanted to intervene in the course of the entire case as a state if its request was accepted.

It explained, "Nicaragua believes, as the international community has stated, that Israel's actions clearly violate the rules of the Genocide Convention."

It continued, "The genocidal intent and the inhumane statements made by the highest Israeli authorities against the Palestinian people are also indicators of this."

The statement called for an "immediate" halt to Israeli military attacks against the Palestinian people.

It added, "Nicaragua calls on Israel once again to fulfill its international legal obligations. We also affirm that the occupation must end, and we call for the creation of the necessary conditions for the establishment of a sovereign and independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders."

Press sources in Washington reported that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Bill Burns, will go in the next few days to meet with the head of the Israeli Mossad, the head of Egyptian intelligence, and the Qatari Prime Minister in Europe in the coming days to discuss efforts to reach an agreement to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza. American officials told Axios.

According to what the site attributed to an Israeli official, “The meeting is very important for efforts to reach a breakthrough in the talks on a new agreement that includes a two-month pause in exchange for the release of all hostages held by Hamas.”

The official said that Israel hopes that the meeting will encourage the Qatari and Egyptian mediators to put more pressure on Hamas and delve deeper into the details of the potential deal to reach compromise solutions.

American officials acknowledged that reaching an agreement may be the only way that could lead to a ceasefire in Gaza.

The expected meeting will include Burns, Mossad Director David Barnea, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, and Egyptian Intelligence Chief Abbas Kamel.

Israeli officials say that the director of the Israeli Shin Bet security service, Ronen Bar, and General Nitzan Alon, who is in charge of the Israel Defense Forces in the hostage case, will also participate in the meeting.

According to the website: “A senior Israeli official directly involved in the talks said that the impression is that there is a desire on all sides to reach an agreement and that momentum has built.”

But the official said that Hamas must realize that Israel will not agree to its (Hamas) demand that Israel commit to ending the war as part of the hostage deal. The official also said that Hamas' demand for the number of Palestinian prisoners it wants to release as part of the deal is too high.

The official said that the role of the mediators is to clarify this to Hamas. Each of them does it in a different style. We want to see them not only as facilitators, but as more active mediators who propose creative solutions,” according to the website. .

On Thursday, the Israeli occupation army asked the displaced people in the largest shelter center run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, to evacuate the place on foot, giving them until Friday afternoon.

According to local sources, the army warned the displaced people at the UNRWA training center located in Khan Yunis of the necessity of evacuating it on foot, before five o’clock in the afternoon on Friday, local time.

This warning comes a day after Israeli artillery targeted a building in the center, killing 12 displaced people and wounding 75 others, according to a statement by UNRWA.

The occupation army made phone calls with displaced people inside the center, asking them to evacuate.

A number of displaced people who were able to leave the center and arrived in Rafah safely said that they "went out holding their ID cards so that the army could identify them."

They added, "The army set up barriers in the corridors that it said were safe, to conduct security checks for the displaced."

"More than 50 vehicles and tanks also gathered in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa University, the Al-Qadisiyah site, and the UNRWA training center west of Khan Yunis."

Earlier Thursday, the Israeli army dropped paper leaflets on several neighborhoods in Khan Yunis, demanding that their residents evacuate.

The army said in the leaflets: “Residents of the Khan Yunis area in the Al-Nasr, Al-Amal, City Center and Camp neighborhoods, in Blocks 107-112: For your safety, you must move immediately to the humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi, via Al-Bahr Street.”

In a statement, UNRWA said on Thursday, “The violent fighting in/around Khan Yunis, over the past three days, has caused loss of life and damage to the city’s infrastructure, including the largest UNRWA shelter in the southern region of the Strip, the Khan Yunis Training Center.” ".

It explained that, on Wednesday, for the second time in a week, the center was subjected to Israeli bombing, which led to casualties among the displaced people residing inside it.

It indicated that Israel bombed this center despite “its shelter for about 30,000 displaced people, in addition to the clear signs that it is a United Nations facility, while its coordinates were shared with the Israeli authorities, as is the case with other UN facilities.”

It considered the bombing of the center a "clear disregard for the basic rules of war."

The UN agency called for the necessity of "taking all measures to protect civilians."

It added, "Hospitals, clinics, medical teams, and UN facilities must be protected, as is clearly stipulated in international law."

Since last Monday, the Israeli army has launched a series of intense air and artillery raids on Khan Yunis, and in the vicinity of the hospitals located there, amid a ground advance of its vehicles in the southern and western regions of the city, which prompted thousands of Palestinians to flee the city.

On Tuesday, the Israeli army claimed to have “completed the encirclement” of the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, announcing that “the 98th Division carried out, over the last 24 hours, a large-scale attack in Khan Yunis.”

Israel’s government is widely understood to be the most extreme in its history, stuffed with religious bigots and self-declared fascists, and is currently carrying out a genocidal, scorched-earth policy against the 2.3 million Palestinians of Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who needs the slaughter to continue to keep himself out of jail, has boasted that he is more determined than ever to prevent a Palestinian state from emerging.

Gaza’s destruction – in which more than 100,000 Palestinians have so far been either killed or seriously wounded, and two-thirds of the enclave’s homes pounded into ruins – appears to be integral to that strategy.

And yet, extraordinarily, Keir Starmer, Britain’s opposition leader, has chosen this moment to declare that, from now on, the Labour Party’s policy on Palestinian statehood will be dictated to it by the pariah state of Israel. 

Reversing Labour’s stance under his two predecessors, Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, who promised to immediately recognise a Palestinian state on winning power, Starmer told a meeting last week that such recognition would occur only as “part of a process” of peace talks involving Israel and other states.

Some 139 nations have recognised Palestine as a state at the United Nations, but Britain – as well as the United States – is not among them. 

Labour’s shadow Middle East minister, Wayne David, expanded on Starmer’s remarks to explain that Israel would have a veto. A two-state solution would only ever come to “fruition in a way which is acceptable to the state of Israel. That is the way to bring about peace.”

Starmer’s Labour is insisting that Israel remain firmly in the driving seat, even as Gaza is made uninhabitable and its population subjected to an entirely man-made famine – and when Palestinians need international solidarity more desperately than ever, while Israel needs to be hit with tough sanctions, not endless indulgence, to end its genocide.

Starmer has not just broken with a decade-old Labour policy. He has abandoned his own declared support for Palestinian statehood. 

In the summer of 2021, as Israel engaged in one of its regular bouts of violence against Gaza, the Labour leader pressed the prime minister of the time, Boris Johnson, to lobby for recognition of a Palestinian state at that year’s G7 summit in Cornwall. 

Starmer noted that Palestinian statehood was the only way “to stop the expansion of illegal settlements” designed to pre-emptively eat up the territory needed for such a state. It was, the Labour leader added, also the way “to get a meaningful peace process back up and running”.

Why are the Palestinians less entitled to statehood now that Israel is carrying out genocide on part of their territory? Buoyed by the destruction of Gaza, Israel’s Jewish settlers are rampaging across Palestinian territory in the West Bank even more aggressively than they were in 2021. 

Three years ago, international recognition of Palestinian statehood, according to Starmer, was the cudgel needed to get an intransigent Israel talking. Now the Labour leader treats a Palestinian state quite differently, as an obstacle to negotiations. 

The order is being reversed: statehood, according to Starmer’s new position, can only come about through peace talks, even though Israel utterly rejects any talks with the Palestinians.

Starmer is treating his party and voters like fools. 

Last weekend, in an apparent effort to placate growing discontent, Starmer called Netanyahu “wrong” for rejecting Palestinian statehood. But that only served to underline the utter depravity of his new policy.

Making the same point to the Jewish Chronicle last week, David acknowledged that the Israeli government was resolutely opposed to ending its decades-long military occupation of the Palestinian territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 

Palestinian statehood would therefore “require a different mindset from leading politicians in Israel”. That would happen “over a long period of time”, with “many complex issues to be sorted out”, said David.

Starmer and his ministers appear not to have noticed that, on average, 250 Palestinians are being killed by Israel each day in Gaza, with many more likely to starve to death. They may not have the luxury of waiting “a long period of time”. 

But Israeli officials will be delighted with their veto. If their genocidal statements are any indication, they believe things will be considerably simpler once some two million Palestinians are either dead or ethnically cleansed, dispersed to the far corners of the globe.

Appetite for genocide

Starmer’s Labour is back to joining the ruling Conservatives – as well as Washington – in resuscitating the make-believe “peace process” politics of three decades ago, as though the past 30 years never happened.

The more “moderate” Israeli politicians Labour wants to cultivate simply do not exist. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history. He has presided over so many rightwing coalition governments – each more extreme than the last – precisely because the ultra-nationalist right is hugely popular with Israeli voters. 

And though Netanyahu may be in personal political trouble – chiefly for failing to stop Hamas from breaking out of the Gaza prison on 7 October – he is not some outlier in his fervent opposition to Palestinian statehood. He is fully in the mainstream.

What the past three months have proven decisively is that there is zero appetite in Israel for an agreement of any kind with the Palestinians, even with the quisling Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas. Quite the reverse. There is fervent support across the Israeli political spectrum for wiping the Palestinians out. 

Benny Gantz, the opposition leader to Netanyahu, who now serves in his war council, is helping to oversee the bombing and military siege that is starving Palestinians in Gaza. 

President Yitzhak Herzog, formerly leader of Israel’s supposedly leftwing Labor party, has declared that no Palestinian in Gaza is innocent, making him effectively cheerleader-in-chief of the genocide.

When even “moderate” Israeli politicians back genocide, who does Starmer imagine he is going to engage with in Israel for peace talks? Or is his real goal to let Israel do as it pleases indefinitely? 

Cynical makeover

The reality is that Starmer has simply given a cynical makeover to the position he announced immediately after the 7 October break-out – when the nature of Israel’s genocide began to take shape.

Starmer threw his weight behind the “complete siege” announced by Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, that has denied more than two million Palestinians food, water and power. Even though famine and lethal diseases were the inevitable outcome, the Labour leader described the policy as “Israel’s right to defend herself”.

Collective punishment is expressly illegal under international law.

When quizzed on whether he approved of Israel cutting off telecommunications to Gaza, effectively plunging the enclave into darkness as Israel intensified its slaughter, he said he felt unable to “adjudicate on each and every issue”.

And yet, notably, Starmer felt quite capable of adjudicating on – and naming – the Russian military’s crimes after it invaded Ukraine, and demanding that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin “face justice” at the Hague.

Israel is known to have killed at least 25,000 Palestinians in Gaza so far – a majority of them women and children, with many thousands more under rubble. Israel has destroyed almost all critical infrastructure, including the health sector. And yet no one in the Labour leadership dares refer to these actions as war crimes, let alone genocide. 

It was not always thus. Starmer, in his earlier role as a high-profile human rights lawyer, understood only too well that what Israel is doing today qualifies as genocide. 

At a 2014 hearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), he made the case that Serbian forces had carried out a genocide in besieging the Croatian city of Vukovar for three months. He described a city reduced to rubble, enduring a “sustained campaign of shelling, systematic expulsion, denial of food, water, electricity, sanitation and medical treatment”.

Those are the very conditions being inflicted on Gaza, but this time on a far greater scale.

Four years ago Starmer was also unhesitant in terming Serbia’s 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in Srebrenica an “inhuman genocide”. Those crimes, he added, should “help us find the courage and conviction to stand up and say, never again”.

How quickly Starmer’s “conviction and courage” have failed him in Gaza.

A blank cheque

This is all of a pattern with Starmer and his team. 

The Labour leader rejected calls for a ceasefire when many tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties could have been avoided. Even now he insists on a “sustainable” ceasefire that has become code in Washington for allowing Israel to keep the slaughter going for as long as it wishes.

In a similar vein, he hung leftwing Labour MP Zarah Sultana out to dry last week after she confronted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the House of Commons. 

She urged Sunak to listen to government officials and “de-escalate” spiralling tensions in the Middle East, which have led to Britain and the US striking Yemen over Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships. She pointed out that de-escalation could only be achieved through an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Sunak responded with dog-whistle Islamophobia, telling the Muslim MP she should “call on Hamas and the Houthis to de-escalate the situation” – and thereby implying that she was their representative in the UK.

Characteristically, Starmer no more came to Sultana’s defence than he has Gaza’s. 

Labour Party officials have been warned not to attend Palestinian solidarity marches, and its branches are reported to have been banned from debating issues related to Israel or Palestine. Dozens of Labour councillors have quit over Starmer’s position on Gaza. 

This week a Labour MP, Tahir Ali, was forced to apologise, under pressure from party whips, after accurately describing Sunak as having “blood on his hands” for approving the sale of weapons to Israel despite receiving advice from the Foreign Office that Israel was breaking international law in its attack on Gaza. A Labour spokesman said Ali's remarks were "clearly inappropriate". 

Now, having approved of the Israeli government’s siege, Starmer is giving Israel a blank cheque to keep the Palestinians stateless indefinitely, unprotected from Israel’s genocidal impulses. 

Lisa Nandy, his shadow international development secretary, led a march against antisemitism in Manchester at the weekend. The protest’s barely veiled message was that opposition to genocide in Gaza is driven by Jew hatred.

Standing next to Nandy was Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, who used a column in the Sunday Telegraph to make that point explicitly. The headline declared: “Accusing Israel of genocide is a perverse moral inversion”.

This is the same Mirvis who earlier this month extolled “our heroic soldiers” – apparently unaware that they are Israeli, not British, soldiers – for doing the “most outstanding thing possible” in destroying Gaza.

Arms sales complicity

Equally, Starmer has done nothing to hold the British government to account – the very purpose of an opposition party – for its continuing supply of weapons to Israel.

Last week, Middle East Eye reported that David Cameron, the foreign secretary, had approved arms sales despite his officials repeatedly raising “serious concerns” through November and December that Israel was breaking international law.

That makes Starmer as complicit as the British government in Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza – and in genocide too, should the ICJ at the Hague back South Africa’s pending case against Israel.

Indeed, the Labour leader may have been among those named in a criminal complaint filed last week to the Metropolitan Police by a UK group identifying senior British politicians as complicit in Israeli war crimes.

The Met’s war crimes unit was already gathering evidence on Israeli leaders and Britons who have travelled to Israel to take part in potential war crimes, as part of an existing investigation by the International Criminal Court.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians has asked that the Met’s investigation be expanded to include British politicians, public figures and commentators who may have “aided and abetted” Israel’s crimes in Gaza through support, encouragement or incitement.

Stalling tactic

Starmer’s indecent political manoeuvring over the past three months has only made clearer what has long been true: that the “peace process”, and its proclaimed two-state goal, is viewed by western establishments entirely cynically. It is nothing more than a diversion and stalling tactic.

Once, support for two states provided a necessary cover story: of good intentions behind which Israel could hide its bad faith as it stole the very land that was supposedly about to serve as the basis for a Palestinian state.

Now, support for two states is providing the cover story as Israel commits genocide. The aim is to distract western publics from what is staring them in the face: that an Israeli state levelling Gaza and seeking to ethnically cleanse its population is not in the business of conceding Palestinian statehood.

A Palestinian state, viable or otherwise, will happen only if Israel’s hand is forced. Anything less is simply time-wasting as Israel eradicates the Palestinian people under cover of fighting Hamas.

This week, China indicated that it might call Washington’s bluff by using its seat on the Security Council to insist on “concrete steps” – rather than endless talks about talks – towards “full membership for Palestine in the UN”.

Should Beijing follow through, Washington, with a veto at the Security Council, would be forced to show whether it really is serious about advancing a two-state solution. 

Starmer’s seriousness would be exposed too.

In truth, his complete abandonment of the Palestinians at a moment when they are being butchered and starved has done even more damage to Labour than Tony Blair did in backing Washington’s illegal 2003 war on Iraq on false pretences. 

Blair hollowed out Labour as a vehicle for advancing an ethical foreign policy. Starmer has hollowed it out as a vehicle for even mobilising opposition to the horrors of a genocide. 

Starmer has thereby set the stage for a toxic brew of alienation, bitterness and despair that will destabilise British politics for the foreseeable future.

Dr Alon Ben-Meir*

My recent article, “Why the Two-State Solution is the Only Viable Option to the Exclusion of Any Other,” solicited many different reactions. It became clear to me that many who read it have succumbed to the pervasive narrative that such a solution is simply unrealistic. I vehemently disagree.

In the article, I argued that the two-state solution is the only viable option to bring closure to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not surprisingly, the reaction of many of those who read it fell generally into four categories. One group argued that this is not the right time, given the Israel-Hamas war, and it will take another generation before Israelis and Palestinians can reconcile and begin peace talks.

The second argument is that the Palestinians will never accept Israel’s right to exist even if they established a state of their own, as they are bent on Israel’s destruction. The third category believes the whole idea of a two-state solution is akin to satire and does not warrant serious consideration. The final group argues that the conflict is endemic and irreconcilable, and thus, the whole notion of a two-state solution is illusionary and will never happen.

What is troubling about these views is the resignation that any renewed peace negotiation will be futile because everything that has been tried before to reach a peace agreement did not work. I vehemently disagree because this conflict, which has already inflicted so much death and destruction on both sides over the past 75 years, simply will never go away and will continue to haunt them for generations until they face their current disastrous reality.

This is not the right time

For those who claim this is not the right time, I ask, when is the right time? Do the Israelis and Palestinians need more time to inflict hundreds of thousands more casualties before waking up to their tragic existence? More time to poison another four generations with enmity and venom toward the other? More time to dehumanize the other, to make the killing and savagery of innocent people casual?

More time to squander billions for training, procuring military hardware, and preparing the young to die in the next war? More time to conspire and collude to terrorize the other?  More time for millions to suffer, feel threatened, and live in fear and agonizing uncertainty? More time to deepen the hatred, animosity, and distrust to make reconciliation impossible? And more time to shatter the dream of the vast majority on both sides to live in peace and security?

Now is the time to end the conflict because more time will make it even more intractable and exact an ever-higher price in blood and precious resources, and as the conflict continues, they will still face one another in war or in peace because their coexistence in one form or another is inescapable.

The Palestinians are bent on Israel’s destruction

There are indeed many extremist Palestinians, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who are committed to Israel’s destruction and will not abandon their plan to destroy Israel even if the Palestinians establish a state of their own. But then, 75 years later, they have nothing to show for it. There is no Palestinian state and they are subjected to occupation under which they are losing ground every passing day.

They never had the means to pose a clear and present danger to Israel and will never acquire a military edge over Israel. The Israel-Hamas war is only demonstrating Hamas’ calamitous miscalculation, as their savagery of innocent Israelis will end up eviscerating the movement to the point of no return.

Surely, there will still be fanatics who revel in self-deception, believing they can still destroy Israel, but here is where it will end in self-deceit. The Palestinian Authority, a multitude of Palestinian moderates, and the leading Arab states have long since accepted Israel’s existence. This goes back to the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, representing a major transformation from the Arab League’s Khartoum Resolution of September 1967, known for its three Nos—no negotiation, no recognition, and no peace.

The Abraham Accords further attest to the Arab states’ attitude toward Israel, which has not been lost on the Palestinians. Even Hamas’ own charter, updated in 2017, accepts a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders—a recognition, albeit implicit, that Israel does and will continue to exist.

The idea of a two-state solution is akin to satire

Others who read the article refer to the idea of a two-state as satire and intimate that only the naïve would still advocate for such a foolish proposal. Well, I do not find the continuing death of Israelis and Palestinians by the thousands funny, nor do I view the indiscriminate killing of Israeli men, women, and children by Palestinian terrorists amusing. I do not think that the occupation and the frequent Palestinian casualties in the West Bank are a laughing matter, nor do I find the horrifying savagery and mutilation of women by Hamas hysterical.

I do not believe wars that cause so much havoc, destruction, tragic loss of life, and starvation of children are humorous, nor do I see the continuing suppression of Palestinians under occupation as comical. I do not find the indoctrination of Palestinian youth to hate and violently resist the Israelis hilarious, nor do I find the Israelis’ view that the Palestinians are a perpetual mortal enemy entertaining.

This madness must stop, and nothing will stop it unless Israel and the Palestinians agree on a two-state solution. However doubtful many on both sides are about such an end-game, no one has come up as yet with a realistic alternative to end four generations of bloody conflict.

The two-state solution is an illusion

Finally, there are those who claim that the two-state solution is nothing but an illusion that will never come to pass simply because neither Israel nor the Palestinians will ever agree to share the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, which each considers to be exclusively theirs. To make their case, they submit that for the past seven decades, nothing has worked—incentives, compromises, pressure, persuasion, peace negotiations, the threat of violence, mediation, international conferences or UN resolutions, summits, or interim agreements—and there is nothing left that can facilitate a solution.

For all they know, it is illusionary to think that the conflict could end with a two-state solution because it is endemic and has become an intrinsic module of Israeli and Palestinian DNA.

I disagree with this argument, which assumes that there are conflicts that simply cannot be resolved. There are ample examples of violent conflicts that ended peacefully. Whereas past efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed, sometimes it takes a major explosion to shake the dynamic of the conflict fundamentally.

Hamas’ unprecedented gruesome attack and Israel’s unparalleled retaliation have done exactly that. They dramatically upended the dynamic of the conflict and created new conditions between the two sides, making it impossible for them to simply return to the status quo ante, which has never been sustainable.

The ultimate defeat of Hamas as a political force offers a historic opportunity to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that must not be missed. Unlike any other time in the past, the two-state solution is now back at the front and center of any future Israeli and Palestinian discourse and is seen as the only viable option. It will take, though, new, courageous, and visionary leaders on both sides to seize this generational opportunity.

It will, of course, take some time before both sides act, but the time of reckoning has arrived.

*Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. [email protected]   Web: www.alonben-meir.com [IDN-InDepthNews]

By Seevali Abeysekera*

The destruction of Gaza by the modern-day equivalent of a medieval killing machine called the IDF has not only highlighted the absolute barbarity and bloodlust of the state of Israel, but also exposed the grotesque values of its sycophantic acolytes in the West and other parts of the globe.

That Israel has finally shown the world the true face of Zionism should have come as no surprise to anyone willing and able to understand the fundamentals of Zionism through an impartial and objective lens. All the evidence that any impartial, objective observer required to assess the true face of Zionism was already available long before HAMAS opened the gates of hell on 7 October 2023.

An impartial, objective observer who studied the history of Israel would have concluded that its standard modus operandi has always been to hoodwink and persuade the world that it was a liberal secular democracy instead of the settler colonial apartheid racist nation which has systematically carried out a policy of ethnic cleansing since its creation in 1948.

This masquerade was so convincing that the majority of the supposedly civilized and enlightened world accepted, in its entirety, the narrative Israel presented since 1948. The narrative is that of a liberal secular democracy whose citizens believe in the same core values that all other secular democracies have enshrined as part of their core society values – the rule of law, equality, and equal justice for all its citizens.

The Judeo-Christian world. . .

The Judeo-Christian world had convinced itself that Zionist Israel was no different to them in terms of believing in secular, multicultural values and the acceptance of a universal legal system where all citizens were deemed equal.

The Judeo-Christian West refused to accept the prima-facie evidence that was obvious where a country which defined itself as a homeland only for a particular ethno-religious group was, in its very definition, racist!

The Judeo-Christian West refused to accept, as racist, the prima facie evidence which showed that Israel had multiple levels of citizenship and rights for its citizens based on their ethnicity or religion.

The Judeo-Christian West refused to accept as racist the prima-facie evidence where Israel had a legal system which entitled any Jew, born anywhere in the world, to automatic citizenship and rights to be in Israel and yet deprived the indigenous Palestinians, both citizenship rights and any rights of return to those exiled since 1948 or 1967 due to the first and second Nakba’s.

The Judeo-Christian West refused to accept, as ethnic cleansing, the prima facie evidence that showed the mass expulsion or transfer of the Palestinian population out of Israel in order to accommodate white Jewish settlers from America and Europe.

Or perhaps the Judeo-Christian West did accept all of the above but gave Israel special dispensation to carry out its policy of ethnic cleansing as ”recompense” for the evil that was the Holocaust?

Or perhaps the Judeo-Christian West did know all of the above and allowed it to happen because here was the last bastion of settler colonialism, which the white Judeo-Christian West had been forced to give up as a result of the end of empire?

Whilst Israel has always been an apartheid racist state masquerading as a secular democracy, the conceptual, racial, and special infrastructure of systemic ethnic cleaning was formulated during the decades following the Oslo peace process. This was required to provide the facade of a potential two-state solution and was done with the direct support of America, Great Britain, and the EU.

Since 7 October 2023, however, there is no need for the facade of a two-state solution, and Israel has embarked on a near textbook case of ethnic cleansing and genocide, designed to cleanse or eliminate a population of 2.3 million in Gaza, with the same process now unfolding in the West Bank.

As described in my previous piece, the contrast between European settler colonial genocides of the previous centuries and Gaza is the technology that live-streams the unfolding horrors directly to our living rooms, PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide

The ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza continues unabated as it is protected by the diplomatic cover provided by the West. Taeli narrative that Palestinians are” human animals” who deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth.

Whether this is his cover is enhanced by the unquestioned support from Western mainstream media who are eager to promote the Isrdue to the ownership of the media organisations controlling the narrative or purely down to the anti-Palestinian racism that appears to have metastasized amongst vast swathes of the Western media remains to be seen.

Great Britain and the EU will continue to protect Israel, providing direct and indirect diplomatic, political, military intelligence and media support, ensuring that Israel remains above international law. This will continue until Israel decides to either retreat from Gaza due to losses in manpower and machinery, make Gaza uninhabitable for human life, or ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians by forcing them to flee as refugees to Egypt or drown in the waters off Gaza. America,

In addition to the criminal complicity of the West, the Arab nations and India, too, have” blood on their hands” for their indifference to the slaughter of the Palestinians and even support for Israel, which has been grotesque.

The near obliteration of Gaza is systematic and designed to deliberately turn it into an almost uninhabitable landscape where Palestinians would either be reluctant to return or be physically prohibited from returning to what are the ruins of their homes.

This Israeli strategy of the destruction of Gaza is called the ”Dahiya Doctrine”, which encompasses the complete and total destruction of the civilian infrastructure deemed to be hostile as a measure calculated to pressure enemy combatants and endorses the employment of “disproportionate overwhelming force” (compared to the amount of force used by the enemy) to secure that end.

The “Dahiya Doctrine” was named after a suburb of Beirut, which in 2006 was obliterated by Israel in response to Hezbollah inflicting heavy losses on the IDF during Israel’s invasion of Southern Lebanon.

The Dahiya Doctrine is explained as one where if Israel cannot defeat an enemy on the battlefield, then those civilian areas from where the enemy combatants come should be destroyed using overwhelming force in order to inflict enormous civilian casualties and the near destruction of civilian infrastructure. This is done to remind the enemy combatants that their families will pay the ultimate price.

This strategy was referred to as” collective punishment” when used by the Nazis during World War 2, but the term is not used today as that will imply, quite rightly, in my opinion, that Israel’s modus operandi is either similar to or the same as that as used by the 3rd Reich.

Israeli academics, diplomats, politicians, and commentators are now very candid and open in their demand for the IDF to ethnically cleanse Gaza of all Palestinians and, once that is accomplished, to rebuild Gaza as an integral part of Israel with an entirely Jewish population.

If that is not a textbook definition of ethnic cleansing, what is?

However, they first need to flatten Gaza, ethnically cleanse the population or “transfer” as the Israelis refer to that process and defeat the Palestinian resistance on the battlefield. They will achieve their first objective due to their cutting-edge weaponry and the Dahiya Doctrine.

They will, however, not achieve the second and third objectives as neither will the Palestinian population of 2.3 million allow themselves to be ethnically cleansed, and, for all the military technology available to them, the IDF is taking huge casualties amongst the rubble of Gaza. The Palestinian resistance, many wearing Adidas track bottoms and flip-flops, are inflicting huge casualties on the IDF, both in human and material terms.

According to Israel’s figures there are more than 20,000 soldiers listed as ”disabled” with more than 5,000 having had amputations of various limbs. 9,000 plus Israeli soldiers are receiving psychotherapy and are having multiple PTSD-related conditions, and will not return to combat. The official IDF death toll in Gaza at the moment is around 200, but according to most commentators, the actual death toll is much higher and is not disclosed for fear of affecting the morale of the armed forces.

Severe trauma

Israeli soldiers on the ground have reported severe trauma and inability to fight due to the brutality they have both been a part of and witnessed. The impact on Israeli society of ex-soldiers having serious mental issues will be a lot worse than what happened in the USA post-Vietnam. Israel is also a fraction of the size of America in terms of population and land mass.

The rate of attrition of Israeli armour, especially the much-vaunted Merkava main battle tank, which was supposed to be the gold standard compared to all other main battle tanks in the world, is equally horrendous. There are daily YouTube clips uploaded by the Palestinian resistance fighters of Merkava tanks being blown up using locally made shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons. Each tank has four crewmen, and each armoured personnel carrier (APC) has up to eleven soldiers.

It is estimated that Israel has lost more than 200 tanks and APCs since the Gaza ground invasion.

What is certain is that the Palestinian civilian death toll will continue to rise as the bloodlust amongst all sections of the Israeli population—soldiers, politicians, diplomats, commentators, and the public—is not only grotesque but almost deranged.

What is, however, truly revealing is not so much the blood lust amongst Israelis. To those who have always understood what Zionism meant in reality, the Israeli desire for revenge and bloodlust is not at all surprising. They have had a set of values inculcated from the cradle which has convinced them of their entitlement, and those delusional set of values, together with the narrative that Palestinians are essentially lesser human beings, or ”human animals“ as multiple Israeli politicians have called them, has made Israelis what they are.

What is truly revealing and depressing is the revolting double standards being applied by the West in their response to the indiscriminate slaughter and ethnic cleansing that Israel is openly engaging in. Whilst the response of conservatives within the West is predictable as their mindset is predominately based on a combination of Judeo-Christian values, ignorance, prejudice and outright racism, what is shocking is the response of the left, who pontificate about the sanctity of human life, are supposedly more enlightened, always promoting multicultural values and advocate peace and harmony whenever an opportunity arises.

However, when it comes to Israel and Zionism, all the pretentious values promoted by the left have been found to be nothing more than repugnant sanctimonious humbug, and their moral bankruptcy has been proved to be absolute. At least the conservative alt-right never pretended to be anything but an integral part of the Eretz Yisrael.

What is equally revealing is just how many academics, scholars and media personalities in the West are openly encouraging the indiscriminate slaughter and ethnic cleansing in Gaza on the grounds that the 2.3 million Palestinians caged in Gaza represent an existential threat to Israel.

For them, the decapitation of tens of thousands of women, children and even babies on incubators is justifiable on the grounds that they represent the ultimate threat to Israel and Zionism.

Whilst we cannot change their repugnant and revolting views, at least the fake mask of being civilized human beings they have always worn has finally been removed forever.

Once the indiscriminate slaughter in Gaza stops, the West, including the Christian church and the obligatory NGO, will shed their crocodile tears, pretend they care and spout out weasel words about how sorry they are for the loss of innocent lives.

Until 7 October 2023, America, Great Britain, and the EU extended their protective cover for Israeli apartheid, racism, settler colonialism and state terrorism whilst upholding liberal and humanitarian facades. Since 7 October 2023, however, America, Great Britain and the EU have stopped pretending that they care about the Palestinians.

Despite the UN and indeed government agencies within America, Great Britain and the EU describing what is happening in Gaza as catastrophic, apocalyptic, and destruction greater than that in Germany during the Second World War, the American, British, and European conscience is unshaken in their commitment to Israel and Israeli actions.

What is happening to Palestinians—non-white, olive-skinned and predominantly Muslim—does not and will not result in rage and shock amongst the Americans, British and Europeans. Their rage and shock are reserved for when their colonial violence, typically reserved for those they have categorised as not their own (non-white), rebounds and hits them. 7 October 2023 is a classic example of how settler colonialism and oppression rebounded with a vengeance.

The standard operating procedure to deflect any criticism of Israel is to accuse those who point out the truth about Israel as being  ”antisemites“.

Do all those who …

Do all those who accuse Saudi Arabia or Syria of barbaric actions against their people get called Islamophobic?

Do all those who accuse Sri Lanka of discriminating against the Tamils get called anti-Sinhalese?

Do all those who accuse Myanmar of discrimination and violence against the Rohingya get called anti-Buddhist?

Do all those who accuse India of discrimination against Muslims get called anti-Hindu?

Do all those who accuse China of brutality or worse against the Uighur get called anti-Chinese?

The answer is a resounding NO!

Why, then, are those who point out that Israel is an apartheid racist settler colonial nation that systematically brutalizes and oppresses the Palestinians called” anti-Semitic “?

Are the Palestinians the only people in the world who have no rights?

The settler colonial aspect of Israel

Or does, as described above, the settler colonial aspect of Israel require America, Great Britain, and the EU to align themselves with Israel as they consider Israel to be the last bastion of colonialism, which is, after all, how America was created, and which was how both Great Britain and the EU enriched themselves?

The Palestinians, olive-skinned, non-white and mostly Muslim, are simply expendable human collateral who need to be eliminated in order for the last great bastion of white settler colonialism to exist and prosper.

If the answer is not as suggested above, then the answer is influence, money, and power.

Have the West, the Arabs, the Indians, and many others been bought and paid for by the Zionist lobby that, quite literally, seems to control not just our actions but our very emotions to the point that we are all morally bankrupt?

*Seevali Abeysekera is a retired UK businessman who scribes a blog on current affairs and reflections and thoughts of his own life journey. seevaliabeysekera.wordpress.com [IDN-InDepthNews]

By Norman Solomon

Zen wisdom tells us that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Yet it’s easy to fall into the illusion that when we see news about the Gaza war, we’re really seeing the war. We are not. What we do routinely see is reporting that’s as different from the actual war as a pointed finger is from the moon.

The media words and images reach us light years away from what it’s actually like to be in a war zone. The experience of consuming news from afar could hardly be more different. And beliefs or unconscious notions that media outlets convey war’s realities end up obscuring those realities all the more.

Inherent limitations on what journalism can convey are compounded by media biases. In-depth content analysis by The Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

Close to invisible for the U.S. public

What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza—what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized—has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media. And yet, what’s going on now in Gaza is “the most transparent genocide in human history.” With enormous help from U.S. media and political power structures, the ongoing mass murder—by any other name—has become normalized, mainly reduced to standard buzz phrases, weaselly diplomat-speak and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly what the top leadership of Israel’s government wants.

Extraordinary determination to keep killing civilians and destroying what little is left of Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza has caused extremes of hunger, displacement, destruction of medical facilities, and expanding outbreaks of lethal diseases, all obviously calculated and sought by Israeli leaders. Thinly reported by U.S. media outlets while cravenly dodged by President Biden and the overwhelming majority of Congress, the calamity for 2.2 million Palestinian people worsens by the day. “Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege,” the United Nations declared this week. The UN statement quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”

Israel is waging a war toward extermination

Israel is waging a war toward extermination. But for the vast majority of Americans, no matter how much mainstream media they consume, the war that actually exists—in contrast to the war reporting by news outlets—remains virtually invisible. Of course, Hamas’s Oct. 7 murderous attack on civilians and its taking of hostages should be unequivocally condemned as crimes against humanity. Such condemnation is fully appropriate, and easy in the United States. “Deploring the crimes of others often gives us a nice warm feeling: we are good people, so different from those bad people,” Noam Chomsky has observed. “That is particularly true when there is nothing much we can do about the crimes of others, so that we can strike impressive poses without cost to ourselves. Looking at our own crimes is much harder, and for those willing to do it, often carries costs.”

With the U.S.-backed war on Gaza now in its fourth month, “looking at our own crimes” can lead to clearly depicting and challenging the role of the U.S. government in the ongoing huge crimes against humanity in Gaza. But such depicting and challenging is distinctly unpopular if not taboo in the halls of government power—even though, and especially because, the U.S. role of massively arming and supporting Israel is pivotal for the war. “For the narcissist, everything that happens to them is a huge deal, while nothing that happens to you matters,” scholar Sophia McClennen wrote last week. “When that logic translates to geopolitics, the disproportionate damage only magnifies. This is why Israel is not held to any standards, while those who question that logic are told to shut up. And if they don’t shut up, they are punished or threatened.”

Further normalizing the slaughter are the actions and inaction of Congress. On Tuesday evening, only 11 senators voted to support a resolution that would have required the Biden administration to report on Israel’s human-rights record in the Gaza war. The sinking of that measure reflects just how depraved the executive and legislative branches are as enablers of Israel.

The horrors in Gaza are being propelled by the U.S. war machine. But you wouldn’t know it from the standard U.S. media, pointing to the moon and scarcely hinting at the utter coldness of its dark side.

Or what happens when legal proceedings at the ICJ expose Western media bias and Israeli state propaganda.

This month, the world watched South Africa initiate International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings on the genocidal acts Israel committed in Gaza. In a two-day session on January 11 and 12, the court heard the extensive evidence the South African legal team had gathered to support their case against Israel, and the rebuttal by the Israeli team.

The hearings were historic for two reasons. First, this was the first time that Israel’s decades-long aggression against the Palestinians was articulated in detail for the world to hear, without having to pass through the distorting lens of Western media or politicians. Second, this was the first time that Israel was substantively held to account in public under international law, without being shielded from such accountability by its Western backers, as it has been for the past century.

The unprecedented nature of the hearings drew international attention. The media around the world covered the proceedings extensively, often with live feeds of both presentations. But in the West, once again an anti-Palestinian media bias became apparent.

Channels like the BBC were accused of not fully showing the South African presentation, while broadcasting more of the Israeli one. American, Canadian and British newspapers were chastised for not featuring the ICJ case on their front pages.

The bias was clearest in the glaring parallels between the main points in Israel’s presentations to the court – which reflected the longstanding main themes of Israeli propaganda – and the reporting of Western mainstream media, with some exceptions. Indeed, Western coverage of the war has been skewed since day one.

The US progressive publication The Intercept did its own analysis of three leading US newspapers – The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times – and found that their reporting “heavily favoured Israel”. It said that they “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict; used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians; and offered lopsided coverage of antisemitic acts in the U.S., while largely ignoring anti-Muslim racism in the wake of October 7.”

According to the Intercept’s analysis, the word “slaughter” was used in reference to Israeli deaths vs Palestinian deaths in a ratio of 125 to 2; the word “massacre” in a ratio of 60 to 1. Anti-Semitism was mentioned 549 times, while Islamophobia just 79 times.

This anti-Palestinian bias in print media “tracks with a similar survey of US cable news that the authors conducted last month that found an even wider disparity,” it concluded.

Many other such studies and examples of Western media bias towards Israel are now available.

Tweeting the Intercept report, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, asked a pertinent question: “After months of western media misrepresenting or not reporting the unfolding genocide in Gaza and all sort of int’l law violations against Palestinians: I have a question. Don’t journalists have codes of conducts and professional ethics to abide by and be held accountable to?”

To answer her question: They do, in principle. But in practice, journalists and their media managers and owners operate in the context of most Western media playing a central role in the continuing legacies of Western-Israeli settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide against the Palestinians.

Consequently, the majority of citizens and politicians are convinced that they must support Israeli policies, even if these include settler-colonial brutality and apartheid.

It is no surprise that American, and most other Western, public opinion in the last half-century or so heavily sided with Israel over the Palestinians – because citizens mainly heard Israeli perspectives that dominated the news media and the statements and policies of their governments.

Over the past three months, however, the war in Gaza has revealed just how much Israeli state propaganda shapes US policy and the media’s dominant narrative of events. As Norman Solomon, media critic and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, put it in a January 18 Common Dreams article:

“What is most profoundly important about the war in Gaza – what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed, and traumatized – has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public … With enormous help from US media and political power structures, the ongoing mass murder – by any other name  – has become normalized, mainly reduced to standard buzz phrases, weaselly diplomat-speak, and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly what the top leadership of Israel’s government wants.”

This dual legacy of the US’s distorted reporting and dysfunctional state policies is no longer as potent as it used to be, as the global public reactions to the ICJ genocide hearing have shown.

The global protests in solidarity with Palestine revealed that Israel and its Western protectors and media parrots, who repeat largely discredited Israeli propaganda arguments, can no longer convince global audiences to the same extent they did in the past. This is due to Israel’s own brutal actions, but also the changed global information system.

The world now sees daily on social media and some alternative media Israel’s genocidal actions and apartheid policies. The ICJ presentations and thousands of associated articles, commentaries, webinars, public talks and other events across the world exposed these Israel-Palestine realities.

Changed information flows have caused serious concern in Washington, as well as Tel Aviv, because decent, justice-loving citizens reject the US’s fervent support for Israel’s military brutality – and many say they are likely to reject voting for “Genocide Joe” Biden in the presidential election this November. This is what happens when ordinary citizens see the full story of events in Palestine – for the first time in modern history.

A new US opinion poll confirms that likely voters are more inclined to vote for candidates who supported a ceasefire in Gaza, by a 2-to-1 margin (51-23 percent). Among young and non-white voters, who are crucial for a Democratic win, between 56 and 60 percent said they would back ceasefire supporters.

But the growing awareness of what is going on in Israel-Palestine has had an impact well beyond US politics. As South African journalist Tony Karon noted in an article in The Nation on January 11: “So Israel is waging a classic colonial war of pacification of a native population resisting colonization – at a moment when much of the global citizenry is producing the receipts of centuries of Western violence and enslavement, demanding justice and a reordering of global power relations. Standing up for Palestine has become shorthand for that global struggle to change how the world is ruled.”

Indeed, the intense global support for Palestine, which peaked during the ICJ hearing, represents the Global South challenging the political and economic hegemony of the North. People across the world are saying they support justice and will continue to resist Western colonial forces that have ravaged scores of societies for half a millennium.

 Aljazeera

Israel said on Thursday that it expects the International Court of Justice to “drop” the charges against it in South Africa’s lawsuit for genocide in Gaza.

Israeli government spokesman Elon Levy said in a briefing to reporters via the Zoom platform: “We will wait for what the court says.”

Levy added: "We of course expect it (the court) to completely dismiss the false and misleading accusations made by South Africa."

The International Court of Justice said in a statement on Wednesday that it “will issue its order on Friday regarding the request to indicate interim measures submitted by South Africa in the case related to the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.”

It added: "A plenary session will be held at the Peace Palace in The Hague, during which Judge Joan Donoghue, President of the Court, will read the court order."

On December 29, 2023, South Africa filed an “application to institute proceedings against Israel regarding alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide with respect to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” according to a court statement.

“In its application, South Africa also requested the Court to indicate interim measures in order to protect against further grave and serious crimes and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention” and “to ensure that Israel complies with its obligations under the Genocide Convention not to participate in Any acts of genocide."

Public hearings were held on South Africa's request on January 11 and 12.

South Africa is asking the court to issue nine interim decisions, including ordering Israel to immediately cease military operations in Gaza, and not to take steps that would enhance any military operation in Gaza by any group under its control.

It also calls on South Africa to take all necessary measures to prevent genocide against Palestinians, to refrain from any action that falls within the scope of Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, and to ensure that displaced persons return to their homes and have access to humanitarian assistance, including food, water, fuel, medical materials, adequate hygiene, and shelter. And clothes.

Also take the necessary steps to punish those involved in acts of genocide, preserve evidence of genocide and not prevent international personnel and other officials from accessing Gaza for this purpose, submit regular reports to the court on the implementation of the aforementioned measures, and refrain from actions that would complicate or prolong the case. Extend it.

Zvi Barel

Joseph Borrell, the European Union's foreign relations chief, had an important takeaway when he said how the war should be ended and the conflict resolved. He said during a speech last Friday at the University of Valladolid (University of Valladolid) in Spain, where he received an honorary doctorate, “We believe that the two-state solution must be imposed from the outside, in order to reach peace. This is despite the fact that Israel repeatedly confirms its opposition to this solution.” In order to prevent it, they went so far as to even establish Hamas. The government of Israel funded Hamas to weaken the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian Authority.

Israel was not the one that established Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority is not Fatah, but Borrell does not need to go into marginal details. Borrell has an organized plan focused on preparing the way for an international conference to examine the appropriate methods and tools required to reach a two-state solution. It was presented during the European Union foreign ministers' meeting held last Monday in Brussels, in which the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan participated, as well as the representative of the Arab League and Foreign Minister Israel Katz. Borrell has issued harsh statements against Israel. He said, "The other solutions they [meaning the Israelis] have are to make all the Palestinians leave the country? To kill them all? The way they are destroying Hamas is not the appropriate way. They are sowing hatred for generations to come." These sharp statements come from a foreign minister who has not recorded any notable achievements in the field of the European Union's external relations.

The idea of holding an international conference to discuss a solution to the conflict was not invented by Borrell. It was raised by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas more than two months ago during his meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. This conference, under international sponsorship, and American in particular, could be evidence that the American administration actually intends to advance the two-state solution, and thus achieve the basic condition set by the Palestinian Authority in order for it to be prepared to bear responsibility for the Gaza Strip after the war.

The United States has not yet expressed its willingness to hold such an international conference. Simply holding it could put it on a collision course with Israel. Washington, which coined the term “renewed Palestinian Authority,” has not yet presented the list required for this renewal - the things that Abbas must do to obtain a certificate from the White House, and most importantly, whether the authority will actually be “renewed,” and whether the United States is able to force Israel to grant The Palestinian Authority has the powers to administer Gaza, and under what conditions?

According to sources in the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian journalists, the American envoys who met with Abbas spoke to him about the need to appoint a deputy with powers, in addition to purging the authority of corruption, and including young groups in the leadership of the PLO. They stressed that in any composition or structure of power, Hamas cannot be a partner.

Hamas leaders conducted irregular dialogues on this issue with PLO officials, with the aim of reaching understandings regarding the framework within which Hamas could join the organization. However, the Hamas leadership still rejects the two basic conditions put forward by Abbas for Hamas to join: pursuing peaceful resistance against the occupation, instead of armed struggle, and recognition of international resolutions, including the Oslo Accords, which includes recognition of Israel. These conditions were rejected last July, when the Palestinian factions met in Egypt with the aim of advancing reconciliation, and there are no indications of any changes in the movement’s position. Despite this, the official Palestinian position was and still is that Hamas, during and after the war, is an integral part of the Palestinian people, and must be represented in the PLO as a movement.

This position contains fundamental contradictions, as the leadership of the PLO does not currently have any response to the intellectual differences regarding the issue of the final solution. While the organization recognizes Israel and aspires to a two-state solution, Hamas is in a completely different position. More than 3 months after the war, Hamas published an 18-page document, entitled “This is our story - why the Al-Aqsa flood?” In it, she explains the reasons that prompted her to plan and initiate the attack on Israel. This document is political, and is not directed to the Palestinian public, but rather to Arab and international public opinion. There is no need to address the flawed details and facts it contained, or the efforts made to describe the “horrific crimes” as mistakes, or even a failure to control the forces. In addition, it could have been expected that the document would include any direction regarding the future role that Hamas wants to play in the future, or at least the political vision.

In the final part of the document, Hamas presents eight demands. They all address the continuation of the armed struggle, calling on the international community and the Arab countries to boycott and punish Israel, pushing for a ceasefire, and in particular curbing all plans that aspire to shape the future of Gaza, according to the ambitions of the Zionist occupier, and “no one has the authority to impose His care lies with the Palestinian people, with the exception of the Palestinian people themselves.”

There is no mention in the document of participation in the PLO, the required political solution, or willingness to discuss the two-state solution equation. As Palestinian journalist and researcher Hisham Dibsi asked in an article published on the Lebanese website “Janoubia”: “Is Hamas even capable of reaching any solution outside the framework of Palestinian legitimacy, or will it continue to conduct separate negotiations with Israel and the United States, under Qatari sponsorship?” Dibsi, who strongly criticizes The “Hamas” document presents the position of “Hamas” as one that prefers the “historical right” to the “political right.” This is an important distinction that clearly illustrates the gap between the position of the PLO, which is ready to adopt political solutions that require giving up “historical rights” to control all of Palestine, This includes the right of return for refugees, and the position of Hamas, which sees preferring the right to a Palestinian state as a concession to historical rights.

Language is unable, no matter how eloquent, to bridge these ideological positions that prevent both Hamas and the PLO from building a practical and applicable common denominator that could push towards joint administration of the promised State of Palestine. At the same time, as long as the organization and its leaders, including the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, remain committed to the political and institutional partnership with Hamas, calls for a two-state solution will remain empty. Therefore, the American demand for the Authority to carry out administrative reforms that enable it to be a partner in the management of Gaza, is heading towards the comfortable tactical path, but it ignores the intellectual and ideological separation between the PLO, especially Fatah, and Hamas, which makes the chances of its success slim. This is at a time when Israel, the United States, and the international community in general still embrace the principle that there is no place for Hamas as a partner in the administration of the Palestinian state, especially the administration of Gaza. It must be remembered that all countries that now oppose Hamas, as a component of any future Palestinian administration, maintain political and economic relations with governments in Iraq, and also in Lebanon, where “terrorist” organizations are an integral part of its legitimate political system.

Jewish Rabbi Moshe Friedman said that what Israel and the United States are doing against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip represents an “unprecedented process of genocide,” stressing that capable countries must intervene by force to stop this massacre.

Friedman, who is a conservative Haredi Jew, stressed - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - that his religious and humanitarian duty requires him to raise his voice and do something to stop what is happening, because history “will condemn everyone who remained silent in the face of the bloodbath flowing in the Gaza Strip currently, which exceeds all the massacres of history.” Including the Holocaust.

The former chief rabbi of the Jews of Austria refused to compare what is happening in the Gaza Strip to the massacres witnessed previously in history, and said that the German city of Dresden, which was subjected to massive bombing shortly after World War II, had escape ports, while Gaza had none.

Moreover, Friedman adds, the German city had food, drink, and health services despite the lack of a mechanism to transfer what it was exposed to to the rest of the world, while Gaza was denied everything.

Immediate intervention is required

From this standpoint, what Gaza is currently being exposed to, in Friedman’s opinion, “is completely different from what happened in the past, and should not be dealt with through descriptions or manipulation of words, but rather through the intervention of the world or parties capable of delivering aid by land, sea and air to keep the Palestinians there alive.”

In addition, making these comparisons does not serve the peace process in the first place, from Friedman’s point of view, “because the children in Gaza will gain nothing from these approaches, and they need immediate action to save their lives.”

Friedman said that world governments are required to intervene immediately and unconditionally "to relieve civilians and children trapped in this massacre, without playing with words in order to slow down time."

Counterfeiting the Torah

Regarding the view of some Israelis on the extermination of the people of Gaza as an application of biblical texts, Friedman said that “there is no comparison between what happened in the Torah against the Amalekites and what is happening in Gaza,” stressing that “the extermination of the Amalekites is restricted by conditions, because the Hebrews (during that massacre) forbade besieging the Amalekites” from all directions."

He added, "The siege was imposed on the Amalekites from three sides, while the fourth left them as an escape hatch. Any comparison between the annihilation of Gaza and what happened to the Amalekites is wrong. Moreover, at that time there were no such images of genocide that amounted to complete erasure from the map."

Moreover, the theological and modern opinion of Friedman “was unanimously agreed upon in the time of Chief Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (in Andalusia) that the conditions of what happened to the Amalekites were no longer suitable for repetition,” adding that “the great rabbis believe that implementing the Amalekite conditions requires the existence of two Jewish and Palestinian states so that a decision can be made.” What should be done, while emphasizing that the Palestinians are not Amalek.”

He stressed that from the biblical perspective, the State of Israel “has absolutely no relationship with the current entity, even if this entity amends its policies.”

In view of these biblical data, Friedman asserts that some people issue arbitrary rulings to exterminate an entire race claiming that they are the Amalekites, even though the truth is quite the opposite, according to Friedman, who stressed that “history will condemn all those who hesitated to save these innocents, and those who aborted attempts to save them. Because what is happening is a bloodbath that history has never witnessed before.”

The Court of Justice will not stop the massacre

Friedman expressed his concern about the appointment of the former president of the Supreme Court in Israel as a member of the International Court of Justice, which is examining the case brought by South Africa, because he said publicly that “the killing of 5,000 Palestinians is a legitimate act if it leads to the liquidation of 5 members of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).” .

He added, "This biased statement carries a prejudgment that requires the immediate removal of this judge from the court, and this did not happen despite the fact that the Court of Justice in The Hague is more stringent than all European courts."

Friedman stressed that he is “not comfortable with the work of the court in its entirety,” adding, “Everyone knows that its ruling against Israel will not be implemented and will not provide anything for the people of Gaza,” adding, “There are forces that are biased toward Israel, and others that support the Palestinians, and the latter can intervene forcefully to save people regardless of the positions of others.” .

Regarding the Palestinian tragedy in general, Friedman said that it will not end on its own and that others must end it, adding, “All international and humanitarian forces must put an end to what is happening in Gaza so that it will be the beginning of what is to come, because the occupation will not end on its own.”

History condemns Biden

He said that history will condemn US President Joe Biden for what he does and does not do regarding this genocide, and that he must not place obstacles in the way of those who try to stop what is happening if he is afraid of stopping it, adding, "What is happening will have catastrophic repercussions on the entire world."

He concluded by saying that he does not want to distract attention from what is happening in Gaza by talking about other matters, stressing that what concerns him now is "pushing the world towards saving the innocent people who are helpless."

Source: Al Jazeera

A team of more than 600 lawyers from around the world submitted evidence to the International Criminal Court as part of a case they filed against Israel on charges of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip.

This came in two separate meetings held by lawyers with the court’s Public Prosecutor’s Office and its Victims Department.

This team, led by French lawyer Gilles Defer, submitted to the International Criminal Court last November a 56-page lawsuit demanding the opening of an investigation into the incidents attributed to the occupation army in Gaza since the seventh of last October.

The text of the lawsuit traces the threads of the case from its beginning, starting with the period of the British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, then the Nakba of the Palestinian people, the various Israeli-Arab wars, the Oslo Accords of 1993, the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip and Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, then the ongoing war on the Strip.

The submission of new evidence in the case file comes a day before an expected decision by the International Court of Justice regarding the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel on charges of committing genocide in Gaza.

The United Nations court said that it will hold a plenary session at the Peace Palace in The Hague, during which the president of the court, Judge Joan Donoghue, will announce the order of the committee consisting of 17 judges.

The court may issue an order to Israel to stop its war on Gaza within the framework of so-called "temporary measures", in order to protect the Palestinians of Gaza until the essence of the case is decided, which may take years.

Since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that, as of yesterday, Wednesday, left 25,700 martyrs and 63,740 injured, according to data from the Ministry of Health in the Strip.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies

The Palestinian Environmental Quality Authority said that 66% of the people of the Gaza Strip suffer from the spread of water-borne diseases such as cholera, chronic diarrhea, and intestinal diseases, due to the lack of potable water and the closure of all water desalination plants as a result of the ongoing Israeli occupation aggression.

It explained, in a statement, that the Israeli occupation’s bombing of sewage lines and their flooding leads to a health and environmental catastrophe, especially the Sheikh Radwan Pool, whose level has reached a critical level, due to the accumulation of rainwater and the leakage of wastewater into it.

It pointed out that some areas suffer from a lack of containers, and residents of other areas experience a complete disruption of waste collection services during the raids, stressing the need for urgent intervention to improve waste management and ensure continuity of service, and for the international community to pay attention to the situation in Jenin Governorate and provide the necessary support to improve the infrastructure. It ensures the provision of basic services to citizens in the face of these humanitarian challenges.

Geneva - The Israeli army has killed 94 university professors, along with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students, as part of its genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, ongoing since 7 October 2023, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement issued on Saturday

According to Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli army has targeted academic, scientific, and intellectual figures in the Strip in deliberate and specific air raids on their homes without prior notice. Those targeted have been crushed to death beneath the rubble, along with members of their families and other displaced families.

Initial data indicates that there is no justification or clear reason behind the targeting of these people, said the Geneva-based human rights organization.

Those targeted include 17 individuals who held professor degrees, 59 who held doctoral degrees, and 18 who held master’s degrees, the rights group stated. Due to challenges with documentation brought on by movement difficulties, the disruption of communications and the Internet, and the existence of thousands of unaccounted-for/missing individuals, Euro-Med Monitor estimates suggest that there are additional numbers of targeted academics, including those with advanced degrees, whose deaths have not been tallied.

The targeted academics studied and taught across a variety of academic disciplines, and many of their ideas served as cornerstones of academic research in the Gaza Strip’s universities. The rights group added that given the systematic and widespread destruction by Israeli forces of cultural buildings, including institutions of great historical significance, it is highly likely that Israel is intentionally targeting every aspect of life in Gaza.

Israel systematically destroyed every university in the Gaza Strip in stages over the course of the more than 100-day attack. The first stage included the bombing of the Islamic and Al-Azhar universities. The other universities suffered similar assaults; some, like Al-Israa University in southern Gaza, were totally destroyed after initially being used as military barracks. The Israeli media released a video clip on Wednesday 17 January, capturing Al-Israa’s explosion. The explosion occurred 70 days after the Israeli military transformed the school into barracks and, later, into a temporary detention facility.

According to preliminary estimates, the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of university students, reported Euro-Med Monitor. The rights group pointed out that destroying universities and killing academics and students will make it more difficult to resume university and academic life when the genocide ends, saying it may take years for studies to be resumed in an environment that has been completely destroyed.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 4,327 students have been killed and 7,819 others injured, while 231 teachers and administrators have been killed and 756 injured during the ongoing attacks. Meanwhile, 281 state-run schools and 65 UNRWA-run schools in the Gaza Strip have been completely or partially destroyed.

Ninety per cent of state-run schools have been subjected to direct or indirect damage, and about 29% of school buildings remain out of service as a result of their being completely demolished or severely damaged. There are 133 other schools being used as shelter centres in the Strip.

Israel’s widespread and intentional destruction of Palestinian cultural and historical properties, including universities, schools, libraries, and archives, demonstrates its apparent policy of rendering the Gaza Strip uninhabitable, Euro-Med Monitor warned. The attacks are creating an environment devoid of basic services and necessities and may eventually force the Strip’s population to emigrate.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor stressed that the targeting of civilian objects by armed forces, particularly those that are historical or cultural artifacts protected by special laws, is not only a serious breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but falls under the purview of the crime of genocide.

“He’ll keep some of the hostages forever,” Jacob Nagel said. “This will be his insurance policy that no one will kill him." But Gershon Baskin expects a fight to the death.

A Wednesday NBC report echoed recent assessments that the IDF is likely closing in on Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, but experts differed in their estimations of when Sinwar expects to meet his end and on what terms. 

The report comes after the IDF found cages deep under Khan Yunis in which hostages are believed to have been held, a possible indication of the whereabouts of the terrorist leader, who is believed to have surrounded himself with hostages as human shields.

“It is a fair assumption that Sinwar and Hamas leadership were close to where those hostages were kept— and then they all moved on,” said Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies thinktank. “I think being close to hostages has saved his life more than once.”

The article noted, however, that “Israeli forces… cannot rule out the possibility that [Sinwar] may have crossed into Egypt through a tunnel.”

Does Sinwar want to make it out alive? 

Different defense analysts and Israeli leaders gave different assessments of Sinwar’s end-game with respect to his own life and the lives of the hostages.

“He’ll keep some of the hostages forever,” Jacob Nagel, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is quoted as saying. “This will be his insurance policy that no one will kill him.”

Gershon Baskin, the Israeli diplomat and former mediator between the Jewish State and Hamas, said he is more inclined to expect a fight to the death.

“This is not Yasser Arafat in 1982 escaping to Beirut with the Palestinian Liberation Organization,” Baskin said, citing Hamas’s religious fundamentalism. 

“I believe Sinwar knows he will die a martyr,” he added. “This is Hamas’s distorted version of Islam. Life on earth is short, and paradise is eternal.”