The American Wall Street Journal said that the war on the Gaza Strip generated destruction comparable to the most destructive campaign in modern history, confirming that Israel dropped 29,000 bombs that destroyed approximately 70% of the homes in the Strip.

The newspaper added that the Israeli bombing completely destroyed or damaged half of the buildings in the Strip, in addition to the bombing of Byzantine churches, historic mosques, factories, shopping centers, luxury hotels, theaters and schools.

It stressed that the bombing, which targeted the water, electricity, communications, and health care infrastructure, made them all beyond repair.

It also said that the occupation destroyed olive groves, citrus trees, and greenhouses.

The Israeli air, land and sea bombardment continues in various parts of the Gaza Strip for the 85th day of the aggression, leaving dozens of killed and wounded, amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe.

Dozens of citizens were killed, and others were injured, in an occupation artillery shelling on a group of residents on Jaffa Street, east of Gaza.

The Israeli warplanes bombed a house in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, leaving a number of wounded.

East of the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip witnessed violent artillery shelling, while the occupation warboats fired heavy shells at the beaches of the central and southern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli artillery continues to fire its artillery shells east of the Bureij camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip, which has been witnessing intense bombardment by air and land for four days, resulting in injuries and forcing citizens to flee towards Deir al-Balah.

The Israeli tanks also fired several shells in the middle of the Jabalia camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, while warplanes launched a series of violent raids on the city of Khan Yunis in the south, which led to the death of a citizen and the injury of another, as a result of the bombing of a house for the Al-Aqqad family, southeast of Khan Yunis.

The World Health Organization has expressed its deep concern about the increasing risk of the spread of infectious diseases in the Gaza Strip, due to the continued massive displacement of people along the southern Gaza Strip, with some families being forced to flee more than once, and many taking refuge in crowded health facilities.

In an infinite toll, the toll of the ongoing Israeli aggression against Gaza by land, sea and air since the seventh of last October has risen to more than 21,500 dead and about 55,000 injured, in addition to thousands of missing persons, the majority of whom are children and women.

A journalist and a number of his family members were murdered, and others were injured, at dawn on Saturday, in an Israeli raid on the Nuseirat camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

Local sources reported that Israeli occupation aircraft bombed the home of journalist Jabr Abu Hadros in the Nuseirat camp, leading to the death of him and a number of his family members.

The Israeli occupation has continued its aggression against the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since the seventh of last October, which has led to the death of more than 21,500 citizens, the majority of whom are children and women, in addition to about 55,000 injured, and thousands of missing, in an infinite toll.

Friday, the United Nations Security Council convened to discuss the situation in the Middle East, with a specific focus on Palestine.

Khaled Khiari, the Deputy Head of Political Affairs for the Middle East at the United Nations, delivered a briefing highlighting the concerning and deteriorating situation in the region. He reiterated the UN Secretary-General's call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for humanitarian reasons.

The UN official warned of the ongoing risk of regional escalation of the conflict, with potential devastating consequences for the entire area, given the involvement of multiple stakeholders.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed profound concern earlier today about the continued extension and regional expansion of the conflict, warning of potentially destructive consequences for the entire region.

In a statement, Guterres pointed to a continuing risk of a broader regional conflict, the longer the conflict in Gaza persists, given the danger of escalation and misjudgment by multiple actors.

He added that the escalation of violence in the occupied West Bank, including intensified operations by Israeli occupying forces, the increase in casualties, and settler violence, is extremely alarming.

By Ayman Jazini

Antonio Guterres did it. But no one else did it. We waited for what he said from many capitals, some in the East and some in the West, and some were the last and the first, between us.

We have waited since the seventh of last October to hear a voice proclaiming the truth, but nothing reached our ears, or the ears of this deaf world, except his voice. Only António Guterres, in this big forest called the world, did it.

From the edifice of the United Nations, whose Secretary-General he holds, and at the Security Council meeting, Guterres said with a full mouth that what Hamas did in Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” “did not come out of nowhere.”

Beyond that, he expressed concern about the “clear” violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza, stressing that “no party to the armed conflict is above this law.” He added that what Hamas did "does not justify the mass killing taking place in Gaza," and "the Palestinian people have been subjected to a stifling occupation for 56 years."

A history of positions

Guterres's statements did not go unnoticed by the Israelis, as Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen responded sharply to him, reminding him of the killing of Israeli civilians in the attacks launched by Hamas on Israel.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, also called on him to resign, and wrote on his page on the X website a post in which he declared that he was not fit to lead the United Nations because he "showed an understanding of terrorism and murder."

Guterres' positions on what is happening in Gaza are neither his first nor his only ones. He had previously taken many positions in support of justice when he was Prime Minister of Portugal, and he actively participated in international efforts to resolve the East Timor crisis.

Guterres' positions on what is happening in Gaza are neither his first nor his only ones. He had previously taken many positions in support of justice when he was Prime Minister of Portugal

During the period in which he served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015, he contributed to improving the organization’s performance and increasing the number of its affiliates and workers in areas of conflict and tension. The conflicts in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Yemen led to a significant increase in activities. UNHCR, the number of displaced people and refugees due to wars and conflicts rose from 38 million in 2005 to 110 million displaced people and refugees in May 2023.

Guterres also settled negotiations on the transfer of sovereignty over Macau, a Portuguese colony, to Chinese control in 1999, after 12 years.

The most prominent of Guterres' stances, away from politics, is his stance on homosexuality, as he repeatedly stated that he "does not like homosexuality," saying that it "disturbs him."

Semi-biography

He is António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres. He was born on April 30, 1949. A Portuguese politician who served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 until 2002. After that, he served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 until December 2015. He served for a period as President of the Socialist International, and is currently the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Since January 1, 2017.

Guterres studied physics and electrical engineering at the Higher Institute of Technology of the University of Lisbon. He took up teaching there with the rank of assistant professor after his graduation. Three years later, he moved into politics, joining the ranks of the Portuguese Socialist Party in 1974.

Guterres as Prime Minister and Secretary-General

During his presidency of his country's Council of Ministers, Guterres tightened his grip on his country's budget, reducing its deficit, reducing the inflation rate, raising labor market participation rates, especially among women, improving tax collection, and expanding investment in the educational sector.

The most prominent position of Guterres, away from politics, is his position on homosexuality, as he repeatedly stated that he “does not like homosexuality,” saying that it “disturbs” him.

This was in his country the day he came to power there. Today, during his tenure as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Guterres seeks to return this comprehensive and reference international institution to exercising its assigned role: maintaining international peace and security.

Guterres' positions and statements give hope that the United Nations will return to the foundations on which it was founded in 1945, soon after the end of World War II. The Charter of the United Nations defines the purpose of its establishment as maintaining international peace and security by taking effective collective measures to prevent and eliminate threats to peace, developing friendly relations between states based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. Without discrimination based on race, gender, language or religion, in addition to being a center for coordinating the actions of states in achieving these common goals.

But unfortunately, the events that followed World War II, especially the Cold War, the conflict between the global poles, and then the United States of America’s sole leadership of the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union, marginalized the role assigned to it and what was expected of all the peoples of the world, especially the weak and oppressed Third World ones.

What Guterres is doing, and what he is seeking, today more than ever, calls for the necessity of expanding the powers of this international organization, and giving it what helps it implement its decisions, to achieve a safer, more secure, more stable, just, and happier world. As for our Arab region, only the implementation of international resolutions issued by this organization, starting with Resolutions 194 and 242, all the way to Resolution 1701, which Israel violates every day, in front of the entire world, is capable of returning rights to their owners and bringing peace to the region.

On Friday, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak published an opinion article in which he analyzed the war on Gaza, the future of the Strip, and who will rule it the next day.

Ehud Barak said in the article published by the Israeli Channel 12, “Despite the clear American support and the openness of many countries in the region to study new ideas to solve the problem in Gaza at the beginning of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu systematically avoided any discussion about what will happen here in the end.

Barak added, “October 7, 2023 is the most dangerous event in the history of Israel, which led to the killing of 1,300 people and the kidnapping of 250 others, in addition to humiliation, inefficiency, and dysfunction in the state’s systems.

The former Israeli Prime Minister stressed that this created a multidimensional and unprecedented crisis of confidence.

He reported in the context that the security apparatus quickly came to its senses and immediately went to war with Hamas.

What has been accomplished so far?

Ehud Barak stated that after about three months of fighting and in difficult circumstances, the Israeli army achieved great achievements, stressing that the goals of the war are still far from being achieved.

The former minister added that Hamas still controls the Rafah and Al-Mawasi areas, where more than one and a half million people are concentrated, and they are the absolute majority of the citizens of the Gaza Strip.

He claimed that Hamas' military capabilities were severely damaged in the areas where the Israeli army was operating, stressing that the movement still maintains significant operational capabilities in parts of the Gaza Strip that have not yet been destroyed.

He stated in his article that there is no concrete agreement on the table regarding the hostages, noting that Hamas is demanding “an end to the war,” which should not be agreed upon as a condition of the deal.

He also touched on the confrontation with Hezbollah, where he confirmed that serious damage had occurred on both sides, and the matter could expand into a comprehensive conflict if Israel was forced to use force to remove Hezbollah from the border if the attempt to reach a political agreement regarding the implementation of Resolution 1701 failed.

"The next day"

In the face of these circumstances and in order to achieve its goals, Israel had to, from day one, discuss the broad outlines of the “next day” with the Americans and with them, or through them, with Egypt, Jordan, the Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

He stated that these neighbors are part of the “moderate axis” formed by the United States in front of the “rebellious axis” that includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others.

In this context, the former minister cited an old Roman proverb that says, “If you do not know which port you are seeking to reach, the wind will not reach you,” and this applies to the Israeli government these days.

What does Israel want?

Israel, and rightly so, is not prepared for Hamas to continue to rule Gaza and pose a threat to its citizens, and seeks to undermine its military and governmental capabilities and replace it with another party. On the other hand, Israel does not intend, with the exception of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, to remain permanently a civilian ruler in Gaza and accept 2.2 million Palestinians under its responsibility, due to the consequences that this will have, indicating that the Palestinians are not moving anywhere.

He continued, saying: "Those who believe that it is possible in 2024 to embark on the 'voluntary migration' of millions of Gazans - a euphemism for the word 'transfer' - are daydreaming."

"The right scheme"

Who can take responsibility? No Arab ruler, even a friend of Israel, would agree to do this on a regular basis.

The most likely solution is a joint Arab force from countries that have peace or normalization agreements with Israel, as well as Saudi Arabia. For example, a force led by Egypt and supported by the United States and the Arab League. The force takes control of the Gaza Strip from Israel with the end of the reduction of Hamas’ ruling powers for a limited period ranging between six months and a year. With the possibility of extension.

During these months, the force will gradually work to return the Gaza Strip to civilian control and management by the “reinforced Palestinian Authority.” The force can also continue to work alongside the Palestinian Authority for an additional period of time, which will allow the dismantling of the remaining Hamas operational capacity, especially missiles and weapons.

“Taking into account Israel’s perimeter security needs, freedom of action, security supervision against the entry of weapons, etc., the “moderate axis” countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, can be a factor in financing reconstruction and infrastructure projects in Gaza, including an electricity and water station. A locality and a port under security supervision,” according to the proposal that Barak sees.

Outline

The Israeli minister added, saying: “These are the broad outlines of the reasonable solution, which is almost the only one, and whoever tries to thwart it will be responsible for Israel remaining stuck in the mud of Gaza for many years, a situation that will be very destructive and bloody, or the alternative is the return of Hamas to power or dangerous chaos under the control of tribal gangs.” 

He continued, saying: “The solution could mature in some differences regarding this or that detail, as a result of the required negotiation and coordination, and it is clear that the Palestinian Authority must achieve a real leap in the ability and will to move, and it is also clear that the government apparatus will contain many residents.” Gazans include technocrats with an Islamic background, but those who were not involved in any armed activity.”

Ehud Barak stressed that there is no ideal solution, stressing that a practical alternative must be chosen that erases Hamas from being an organization with military capabilities on the border with Israel, and this plan is capable of passing this test, in reference to the proposal that he explained previously.

In this regard, he pointed out that even if Netanyahu promised something along these lines, there would not be a single person in the White House or in any of the regional capitals who would believe him.

What's the solution?

The painful conclusion is that the only reasonable outlines that meet the Israeli, American and regional interests of the “axis of moderates” cannot be in a single surrender with Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel, and with Ben Gvir and Smotrich as ministers.

Barak stressed that the continuation of this government’s rule will inevitably lead to the loss of the opportunity to adopt the only possible plan and to fall into one of the two things, “the shameful descent from the tree” without achieving the goals of the war in Gaza, with the increasing risk of fire in the north and dangerous friction with the United States, while blaming the situation. Shame on the Israeli army and security forces on the one hand, and on President Biden on the other hand, for taking a wild gamble in the form of trying to drag the United States against its will into a regional conflict with Iran, indicating that none of it should be allowed to happen.

He concluded his article by saying: “Reality is knocking on the door and demanding an answer: Where are we heading? We need to decide, and it is not possible that the person who bears the main responsibility for the abyss into which we have fallen will also be the person who will direct our path from the abyss to the sunlit landscape.” The time has come for new elections, the people, and only the people can decide who will be entrusted with the steering wheel, and what path is chosen to achieve the goals of the war, restore Israel’s stability, achieve security and restore self-confidence and confidence in the leadership,” indicating that the path of correction will not Be short or easy.

European Union Foreign and Security Policy Commissioner Josep Borrell said on Friday that the Israeli army, which has a duty to protect civilians, continues to cause “heavy civilian casualties” in the Gaza Strip.

This came in a post by Burrell, through his account on the “X” platform.

Borrell pointed out that the attack on the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip was one of the “deadliest bombings.”

He added, "The attack led to the displacement of another 150,000 people."

Borrell called for an urgent “temporary cessation” of clashes.

On Thursday, the Israeli army acknowledged that an air strike it launched on Al-Maghazi camp on December 24 led to the death of dozens of innocent Palestinians.

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said: “The army refers to the attack launched by the Air Force on Sunday/Monday night, in the Maghazi refugee camp, which led to the killing of dozens of uninvolved civilians, and admits that the attack caused damage to buildings near the target of the attack, which harmed civilians.” .

Since last October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, which as of Friday left “21,507 martyrs and 55,915 injured, most of them children and women,” massive infrastructure destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to the Gaza Strip authorities and the United Nations.

The administration of US President Joe Biden, for the second time in a row, bypassed Congress in the decision to approve an emergency deal to sell weapons to Israel, which continues its war on the Gaza Strip in light of increasing international criticism.

The US State Department announced on Friday that Secretary Anthony Blinken informed Congress that he had taken a second emergency decision to sell military equipment worth $147.5 million to Israel.

It added: “Given Israel’s defense needs, Blinken informed Congress that he exercised his delegated authority in the existing state of emergency that required immediate approval of the sale.”

The ministry stated in its statement that “the United States is committed to Israel’s security, and it is important for American national interests to ensure Israel’s ability to defend itself against the threats it faces.”

The decision means that the purchase will bypass congressional review of foreign military sales.

These decisions are rare, but not unprecedented, and come when the US administration sees an urgent need to sell weapons without waiting for the approval of the Legislative Council.

Blinken had made a similar decision, on December 9, by agreeing to sell approximately 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel, worth more than $106 million.

Both moves came as President Joe Biden's request for a nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs remains stalled in Congress.

Some Democratic representatives indicated that the proposed US aid amounting to $14.3 billion to Israel would be made conditional on concrete steps to reduce the number of civilian casualties in the Gaza war.

The US State Department sought to confront any possible criticism of the sale deal for human rights reasons by saying that it is in constant contact with Israel, to emphasize the importance of reducing civilian casualties to a minimum.

(AP)

On Friday, Axios revealed details regarding the ongoing talks to release hostages held by Hamas in exchange for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza.

The website quoted three Israeli officials as saying that Qatari mediators informed Israel that Hamas had “agreed in principle” to resume talks on a new agreement, to secure the release of about 30 hostages held in Gaza, in exchange for stopping the fighting for several weeks.

Israeli officials, according to Axios, hope to obtain further clarification over the weekend, to find out whether Hamas is actually serious about the new agreement. An Israeli official said that the Qatari message is still very preliminary, “but it is positive because for the first time since... "The end of the previous deal, Hamas indicates that it is ready to return to the negotiating table."

Twelve weeks after the attack launched by Hamas fighters on towns in southern Israel, which they say killed 1,200 and took 240 hostages, Israeli forces turned large areas of the Gaza Strip into rubble.

Almost all of the Strip's 2.3 million residents have been displaced from their homes at least once, and many are now fleeing for a third or fourth time, often taking refuge in makeshift tents or huddled under tarpaulins and plastic in the open.

On Friday, the health authorities in Gaza announced that 187 Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids during the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 21,507, or about one percent of the Strip’s population, and it is feared that thousands of bodies are still buried under the rubble of destroyed neighborhoods.

Mediation efforts undertaken by Egypt and Qatar to negotiate a ceasefire have not yielded fruit since the collapse of a week-long truce at the end of November.

This Friday evening, settlers seized an (unoccupied) residential tent belonging to a citizen in the Burj area in the northern Jordan Valley.

The official responsible for the settlement file in Tubas Governorate, Moataz Bisharat, said that a group of settlers dismantled a residential tent belonging to the citizen Muhammad Fares Sobeih, with the aim of seizing it.

The head of the Department of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Devi Sridhar, confirmed that the warning cries issued by international relief organizations regarding the conditions in Gaza are extremely terrifying, and indicate the existence of major fears of unprecedented tragedies occurring against civilians in the besieged Strip.

Sridhar said - in an article in the British newspaper The Guardian - that the war on Gaza set many records, especially with regard to the destruction of health care facilities and infrastructure.

She added that during this war, schools, hospitals, their workers, and ambulances were targeted, as well as medical relief organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children, and international agreements such as the Geneva Convention were not respected.

Most deadly to children

The head of the Department of Public Health at the Scottish University of Edinburgh added that this war is also described as the deadliest for children, as about 160 children were killed every day last month, according to the World Health Organization.

It is also the bloodiest war for journalists in 30 years - as Sridhar explains in her article - and she adds that these deaths are likely to be only the beginning, as public health experts know that a large number of children are likely to die due to the spread of diseases.

Sridhar said that families can hardly find clean water or usable toilets, in addition to the absence of food and medicine and the absence of a trained medical team with complete medical equipment, highlighting that these are the basic needs that any human being - especially infants and children - needs to survive.

She also mentioned that diarrhea rates among Gaza children inside the camps - according to the World Health Organization - exceeded the normal level by more than 100 times at the beginning of last November, which means the possibility of dehydration and immediate death.

warning

Sridhar warned that nearly a quarter of the population of Gaza may die within one year unless something changes in the Strip, highlighting that this number is approximate but depends on data using the terrifying real numbers of deaths in similar conflicts. She stressed that international organizations are trying to sound the alarm. The danger, and World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris was quoted as regretting that “the world seems to have lost its moral compass.”

For its part, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that "the lack of water, food, medicine and protection poses a greater threat than bombs to the lives of thousands in Gaza."

Sridhar said that she has been working in the field of public health for two decades, and has not heard similar warning cries from relief organizations, which indicates that there are major fears of unprecedented tragedies occurring against civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Source: Guardian

The death toll from the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza on land, sea and air since October 7 has risen to 21,507 dead, in addition to 55,915 injured, according to what the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip confirmed.

During the last 24 hours, 187 people were killed, and hundreds were injured, as a result of the continued bombing by the Israeli occupation forces, by land, sea and air, of various areas of the Gaza Strip, for the 84th day in a row.

Today, the Israeli army announced the killing of an additional officer in Gaza, and the serious wounding of two soldiers, bringing the total number of its announced deaths since the start of the war to 502, including 169 officers and soldiers killed since the start of the ground incursion on October 27. He also announced the start of his attack on Khirbet Khuza'a for the first time since the start of the war, and stated that his forces were "working to impose their operational control over the region."

The occupation aircraft, artillery, and gunboats targeted a number of civilian homes, above the heads of their residents, and mosques, in central and southern Gaza Strip. The occupation warplanes and artillery also continue to bomb large areas of Khan Yunis Governorate, specifically the eastern region.

On Friday, South Africa submitted a request to the International Court of Justice to initiate proceedings against Israel for carrying out acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the international court announced.

South Africa asserted that “Israel’s actions and omissions bear the character of genocide because they are accompanied by the requisite specific intent to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza as part of the broader national, racial and ethnic group, that is, the Palestinians,” the International Court of Justice said in a statement.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Friday that Israeli occupation forces opened fire on one of its aid convoys in the Gaza Strip.

UNRWA Director in Gaza, Thomas White, wrote on the X platform, “Israeli soldiers opened fire on an aid convoy as it was returning from northern Gaza via a route designated by the Israeli army. The commander of our international convoy and his team were not harmed, but one of the vehicles was damaged.”

He added, as reported by Agence France-Presse, "Aid workers should never be a target." A UNRWA source told Agence France-Presse that the incident occurred on Thursday afternoon.

In this context, the head of United Nations humanitarian operations, Martin Griffiths, criticized the conditions for delivering aid to Gaza, and wrote on the “X” platform that “convoys are targeted by gunfire, and there are delays at crossing points.”

He denounced the fact that humanitarian workers “are themselves displaced and being killed,” while also recalling that “traumatized and exhausted populations” are crowded into “an ever-smaller piece of land.”

He lamented that there were "three levels of inspection before trucks could enter. Confusion and long queues. A growing list of products prohibited from entering."

Griffiths stressed that "the fighting must stop," warning of "an impossible situation for the people of Gaza and for those who come to help them."

The Journalists Syndicate said that the Israeli occupation forces continued their crimes against Palestinian journalists in all the Palestinian territories, in all criminal forms, including killing, wounding, chasing, confiscating, detaining crews, and preventing them from working.

A statement issued by the union’s Freedoms Committee, today, Friday, said that yesterday, Thursday, the occupation aircraft targeted the home of photographer journalist Ahmed Maher Khair al-Din in the Beit Lahia project in the northern Gaza Strip. His cousin, the journalist Muhammad Khair al-Din, was also martyred, and this morning the specialist in maintaining press cameras was martyred. Abdullah Hammad as a result of the bombing on his house in Deir al-Balah.

On Friday afternoon, the occupation also targeted a group of journalists with tear gas bombs, beatings, abuse, and preventing them from covering the city of Jerusalem while they were covering the occupation forces’ prevention of worshipers from reaching Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Wadi al-Joz area. Among them were known as: Diala Johan, Rami Al-Khatib, Nader Baybars, Christine Rinawi, Izzat Jamjoum, Maram Al-Bukhari, and Baraa Abu Ramoz. Ghassan Eid, Fayez Abu Rmeileh, Latifa Abdel Latif, and Jihad Al-Muhtaseb. Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda newspaper correspondent, Diala Jweihan, was subjected to abuse and assault by pushing by the occupation soldiers and expelled from the Bab al-Amoud area despite displaying her International Federation of Journalists card, as the occupation soldiers informed her that she was prevented from being present or photographing.

In the city of Dura, south of Hebron, a group of journalists were subjected to a series of violations and persecution by the occupation army, which assaulted Wafa Agency photographer Mashhour Al-Wahwah, his fellow driver for the agency, Ahmed Qazzaz, and the Palestine TV crew consisting of Jihad Al-Qawasmi, photographer Iyad Al-Hashlamoun, and reporter Farah Abdeen, and detained the Al-Jazeera crew consisting of Reporter Muntaser Nassar and photographer Ahmed Amr beat them and seized press equipment, and the Al-Ghad satellite crew, consisting of reporter Raed Al-Sharif and photographer Jamil Salhab, as the occupation fired bullets at them and prevented them from covering.

An informed source revealed to the "Novosti" agency that there are plans by the Israeli government to settle a large number of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in Egypt under the pretext of ensuring their safety during the active phase of the war.

The source said: “According to available information, the Israeli government has plans to resettle a large number of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in Egypt under the pretext of ensuring their safety during the active phase of the military operation and the reconstruction of the Strip after the conflict.”

He pointed out that "in the first stage, we can talk about transferring at least 100,000 people to the territory of a neighboring country."

He added: "In the future, it is planned to deport several more batches of Gaza residents in this way. At the same time, it is clear that West Jerusalem is not interested in their return."

According to the source, “to ensure the approval of Cairo, which is currently categorically opposed to such a scenario, the intention is to involve Washington in the matter.”

The source concluded, "In exchange for the green light from Egypt, the Americans are said to be committed to paying the costs of building and operating the refugee camps, and will also provide Egypt with a large package of financial aid, which is a strong boost in the context of the economic difficulties that this country is going through."

Last Monday, the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's talk about working with countries to pass a voluntary immigration plan for Palestinians is "ridiculous and an attempt to market illusions."

Earlier, Israeli media quoted Netanyahu as saying during a Likud Party session that he is pushing for voluntary migration of Gaza residents to other countries.

Source: Sama News

The young man, Mahmoud Othman Warni (18 years old), was killed by occupation bullets during confrontations in the town of Al-Eizariya, southeast of occupied Jerusalem, while other Palestinians were seriously injured, and others were arrested by the occupation forces during their raids on towns in the occupied West Bank, today, Friday.

In the town of Tuqu', southeast of Bethlehem, a young man was injured by live bullets during confrontations that broke out with the occupation forces.

In detail, the confrontations centered in Khirbet al-Deir, during which the occupation forces fired live bullets and tear gas bombs, resulting in the injury of a young man (20 years old) with a bullet in the abdomen, which was described as serious, and he was subsequently transferred to the hospital.

In the village of Al-Taybeh, west of Jenin, a young man was injured by live bullets fired at him by the occupation army near the apartheid wall erected on citizens’ lands.

According to medical sources at Ibn Sina Hospital, the young man was shot in the main artery in the thigh area, and his injury was described as critical.

In Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqilya, a child was killed by live bullets and dozens suffocated during the occupation forces’ suppression of a march in the town.

The occupation forces stormed the town after the start of the weekly march, and fired live bullets, stun grenades, and toxic tear gas at the participants, which led to a 16-year-old boy being shot in the abdomen. He was transferred to Qalqilya Hospital to receive treatment.

Dozens of citizens suffocated as a result of inhaling toxic tear gas, and were treated on the field.

In Al-Faraa camp, south of Tubas, three people were injured by live bullets, and 5 others were arrested during the Israeli occupation army’s storming.

Medical sources reported that the occupation forces wounded the young man, Anas Nasr Sawalma, with live bullets in the hand, before attacking the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance, which was transporting him to the hospital, and arresting him.

Two other young men were also injured, one of whom was shot in the chest and the other in the feet, and they were transferred to the Turkish Tubas Governmental Hospital to receive treatment.

The director of the Prisoners' Club in Tubas, Kamal Bani Odeh, reported that during the storming of the camp, the occupation forces arrested five people, including boys.

Israeli special forces stormed Al-Faraa camp in the morning, then sent in additional reinforcements from the Hamra military checkpoint, and violent confrontations broke out as a result of the occupation, which besieged a house inside the camp, targeted it with a missile, and demanded that those inside it surrender themselves.

4,840 detainees in the West Bank since October 7

In a related context, the number of detainees from the West Bank in Israeli prisons since October 7 has risen to 4,840 Palestinians, following the arrest of 20 people today, Friday.

This came according to a joint statement issued by the Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.

The two institutions said in the statement that the Israeli authorities “arrested 20 citizens at dawn on Friday, which brings the number of detainees in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, to about 4,840 Palestinians since last October 7.”

According to the statement, the new arrests were distributed in the governorates of Tulkarm, Tubas, Ramallah, Hebron, Jericho, and the city of Jerusalem.

The statement indicated that the Israeli army launched an arrest campaign that targeted dozens of young men in the town of Deir Abu Mishal, west of Ramallah. They were investigated in the field and the majority of them were later released.

This tally does not include arrests carried out by Israeli forces inside the Gaza Strip, according to the same source.

The campaign of arrests and raids was accompanied by "extensive harassment, severe beatings, and threats against detainees and their families, in addition to field investigations, widespread sabotage and destruction of citizens' homes, and direct shooting to kill," according to the statement.

The new case brought by the newly formed March 30 Movement increasing concerns over European nationals participating in Israel's war on Gaza.

A Lebanese-Belgian activist is attempting to take dual Dutch- and Belgian-Israeli soldiers serving in Gaza to court for alleged involvement in war crimes as Israel continues its devastating war on Gaza.

Dyab Abou Jahjah announced on 25 December in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the newly formed March 30 Movement (30-3), had officially filed a complaint against Dutch-Israeli citizen and Israeli soldier Jonathan (Yonathan/Yonnie) Ben Hamou.

According to Abou Jahjah the complaint specifically notes that Ben Hamou, as part of the Israeli army action in Gaza, has allegedly engaged in war crimes and genocide. This includes alleged acts of deliberately targeting civilian areas, engaging in collective punishment and targeting noncombatants as part of broader Israeli action in Gaza.

According to Israeli and international media reports, including the Associated Press, Ben Hamou was wounded in action in Gaza, losing his leg to a Hamas rocket launcher during battles in the besieged enclave. An interview with Ben Hamou by Gilad Perez in Rotterdam-based daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad identified him as half-Dutch, his mother from the city of Rotterdam.

The article states that Ben Hamou is a lieutenant in officer training and not a reservist.

What appears to be Ben Hamou's account on Instagram contains numerous pictures of himself on the frontlines in Gaza. Speaking to The New Arab, Abou Jahjah stated that the case intends to "put an end to the impunity of Israeli war-crime and genocide perpetrators," of which "thousands of European nationals" are participants.

He emphasized that it was the intention of 30-3, which he is chairman of, to "initiate legal proceedings against all Israeli soldiers holding dual Belgian or Dutch citizenship," with the movement planning to collaborate with other European organizations to expand the reach of the initiative.

As well as taking European citizens to their respective national courts, 30-3 will also be represented in the upcoming elections in the city of Brussels under the banner 'VIVA Palestina', with the movement aiming to use "a combination of legal, political, and lobbying strategies that we hope will lead to a significant reevaluation of Belgium and the Netherlands' relations with Israel." "This is a long-term commitment," he stated.

 In the UK, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has previously asked the UK government for clarity on the legality of British nationals fighting in the Israeli army, warning that British nationals could be complicit in war crimes. There are two known cases of British nationals who have been killed fighting in Gaza so far.

The New Arab has reached out to the Israeli embassy in the Netherlands for comment but has not received a response by publication time. 

Israeli's military operations in the Gaza Strip, which have been ongoing since the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel, which killed 1,139 Israelis, has been described as a human "catastrophe" by the UN's General Secretary, with international law experts warning Israeli action could amount to genocide in the enclave.

Israel has killed 21,320 Palestinians according to figures from Gaza's health ministry, with a further 55,603 being wounded. Half of all buildings in the enclave are either damaged or destroyed, with close to two million people being displaced as a result.

Israel's blockade of Gaza has led to a severe deterioration of conditions in the enclave, with shortages of many basic necessities, including food, water, and medical supplies such as anaesthesia.

Israel has also been accused of deliberately targeting civilians, including journalists, with The New Arab's Diaa al-Kahlout being rounded up alongside hundreds of Palestinians for interrogation. 105 Journalists have been killed by Israel in Gaza since the beginning of the war.

By Shalom Lipner

Israelis are still reeling from the devastating effects of the most colossal intelligence and operational failure in their country’s 75-year history. Israel’s long-held assumption that “smart fences” and the generous flow of foreign money would keep Hamas contained has unraveled. The October 7 raid on southern Israel left staggering numbers of victims—almost 1,200 dead, thousands wounded, more than 240 abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages, and hundreds of thousands displaced. Israel’s national trauma will endure for the foreseeable future. 

In the immediate aftermath of the assault, the Israeli government declared an emergency mobilization of the Israel Defense Forces, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu committing to “finish” a war that Israelis “didn’t want.” Now approaching its three-month mark, Operation Swords of Iron—as the Israeli military action in Gaza was initially dubbed—continues unabated, after a brief hiatus in late November during which 105 civilians were freed from Hamas captivity. Netanyahu has announced that the campaign’s aims are to eliminate Hamas, recover all the kidnapped Israeli citizens, and ensure that no element in Gaza can threaten Israel again. But the timetable for the completion of the ambitious IDF offensive remains nebulous, as do the contours of a feasible endgame for Gaza.

What is abundantly clear, however, is that Israel’s latitude to pursue its stated war objectives would be vastly constrained were it not for the emphatic support of the United States. As the fighting persists and gaps emerge between the U.S. and the Israeli positions, Israel has strong reasons to invest in keeping its primary alliance intact. To ensure that its bond with the United States survives this war, Israel must not only manage the current military campaign judiciously but also tackle domestic political problems and determine once and for all how it plans to settle its conflict with the Palestinians.

SWITCHING GEARS

The present chapter in the decades-long relationship between Netanyahu, who returned for his latest stint as Israel’s prime minister last December, and U.S. President Joe Biden got off to a rocky start. Biden—who has often recalled signing a photo for Netanyahu with the words “I don’t agree with a damn thing you say but I love you”—waited four conspicuous weeks after his inauguration before calling the Israeli leader. Many viewed the delay as payback for Netanyahu’s procrastination in congratulating Biden for defeating President Donald Trump in 2020. (When Netanyahu finally called Biden, Trump blasted the prime minister for exhibiting a lack of loyalty.)The Biden administration made no secret of its dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s choice of coalition partners from Israel’s extreme right—most notably, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—promising to hold the prime minister personally accountable for the actions of his government. It was not long before Washington acted on that pledge. In January 2023, when Ben-Gvir ascended the Temple Mount, a sensitive religious site that houses the al Aqsa mosque, during his first days in office, U.S. officials sharply condemned the move and eschewed direct engagement with Ben-Gvir. Tensions escalated later that same week, after Justice Minister Yariv Levin unveiled controversial plans for a drastic overhaul of Israel’s judicial system.

Fallout from the apparent disconnect between the U.S. and Israeli governments was particularly embarrassing to Netanyahu, a politician who prides himself on a superior understanding of American politics. The premier was left waiting by his mailbox for a coveted invitation to the White House; he is the first Israeli prime minister in more than 50 years to have been denied an Oval Office meeting during the first year of his term. Smotrich, for his part, was treated as persona non grata when he visited Washington in March. He and Ben-Gvir have been shunned by bipartisan congressional delegations to Israel and, together with other members of their factions, excluded from the guest list for the annual Fourth of July reception hosted by the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.

Clashes between the Netanyahu government and the Biden administration over the intended transformation of Israel’s judiciary also spilled regularly into public view. In January 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken—on his first trip to Israel since the country’s November 2022 election—added quality time with civil society representatives to his itinerary, giving a morale boost to critics of Netanyahu’s agenda and delivering a not-so-subtle hint of U.S. concern about the fate of Israeli democracy.

Israel’s latitude would be constrained were it not for emphatic U.S. support.

The White House expressed similar misgivings. Speaking in June at a celebration of Israel’s 75 years of independence, Vice President Kamala Harris pointedly highlighted “strong institutions, checks and balances, and . . . an independent judiciary” as pillars of democracy in both the United States and Israel. Eli Cohen, Israel’s foreign minister, retorted hours later that Harris probably had not even read the proposed law and that she would not be able to identify a single component of the reform that “bothers her.”

The brutal events of October 7 reset this caustic cycle. Animosities between Biden and Netanyahu did not disappear, but sympathy for Israel’s predicament overrode lingering disagreements. Biden, arriving in Israel on October 18 as the first-ever U.S. president to visit the country amid a war, promised the people of Israel that the United States would “stand with” them. “We’ll walk beside you in those dark days, and we’ll walk beside you in the good days to come,” Biden vowed.

On the whole, U.S. officials have maintained their backing of IDF operations in Gaza, deferring often to Israeli prerogatives. Blinken, asked on December 10 when he expected the IDF to conclude its military campaign, responded bluntly, “These are decisions for Israel to make.” On December 8, casting a veto of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, the U.S. deputy ambassador reasoned that such a halt would “only plant the seeds for the next war, because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace.” Washington has issued periodic admonitions, such as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s assertion on December 2 that “protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral duty and a strategic imperative.” But such comments have not diluted the overall impact of a U.S. policy that—as Austin also confirmed—upholds “Israel’s bedrock right to defend itself.”

Biden has preferred to embrace Israel in public and convey U.S. reservations in private conversations with Israeli leaders, evidently reckoning that this strategy grants him more influence over Israel’s calculus than a confrontational approach would. The president’s personal appeals have yielded some results by, for example, helping persuade Israel to abort plans for a preemptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the days after Hamas’s initial attack. Skeptics of Biden’s methods point to the scale of the destruction the IDF has inflicted in Gaza, despite the efforts of U.S. backroom diplomacy—but the United States is also acting on its vested interest in Israel’s success at routing Hamas, which Washington has designated as a terrorist organization. Either way, Israel has benefited significantly from its ally’s friendship.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

The United States’ attachment to Israel has evolved gradually since President Harry Truman’s recognition of the Jewish state on May 14, 1948. It was not until the 1960s, under President John F. Kennedy, that Washington began to provide military hardware to Israel. Shipments of Hawk antimissile batteries were soon followed, under Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon Johnson, by M-48 Patton battle tanks, A-4 Skyhawk light attack aircraft, and F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers. The first explicit U.S. pledge to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge—an assurance of Israel’s military superiority over its rivals—came in a 1982 letter from President Ronald Reagan to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.U.S.-Israeli cooperation has been turbulent at times, but it has maintained a steady upward trajectory. U.S. security, diplomatic, and economic assistance has bolstered Israel’s position in a volatile region. Having a “big brother” over its shoulder has enabled Israel to punch above its demographic weight and geographic size, projecting strength well beyond its borders. And the United States’ commitment to Israel has endured through both Democratic and Republican presidents, including the most recent holders of that office.

As president, Trump formally acknowledged Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. His actions affirmed a broad consensus among Israelis and sent a formidable message to neighboring countries about U.S. support for Israel. Trump’s “Vision for Peace, Prosperity, and a Brighter Future for Israel and the Palestinian People”—a plan that most Israelis expected to fail—never led to U.S. acceptance of the Netanyahu government’s aspiration to extend Israeli sovereignty throughout the West Bank, but it became the catalyst for the Abraham Accords, which brought Israel’s surreptitious ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain into the open. Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the United States and an engineer of the deal, explained the logic in 2021: “The reason it happened, the way it happened, at the time it happened was to prevent annexation.”

This is not to say U.S.-Israeli relations were without problems. In 2017, Trump divulged Israeli intelligence to Russia, possibly revealing sensitive collection methods. He repeatedly accused American Jews who vote for Democratic candidates of being “disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel,” not only entrenching Israel as a wedge issue and jeopardizing bipartisan sponsorship of close U.S.-Israeli ties but also stoking anti-Semitism. And his unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal without an alternative plan to stymie Iran’s race to acquire nuclear weapons only accelerated Tehran’s progress. Netanyahu encouraged Trump’s decision at the time, but that move has, arguably, made Israel less secure today.

Despite early frictions, the Biden administration’s support for Israel since October 7—expressed in words and deeds—has been uncontestable. U.S. civilian and military officials have been constant fixtures in Israel, often participating in consultations with Israel’s war cabinet. The United States has sent Israel multiple airlifts of bombs and other munitions to replace its depleted inventories. Washington has also intervened to block UN Security Council resolutions that would sanction Israel or insist that the IDF end its mission in Gaza, called attention to the plight of the hostages being held by Hamas, and worked to secure their freedom. It has demanded that other countries condemn the acts of sexual violence that Hamas’s fighters committed against Israeli girls and women.

Speaking at the White House on October 10, Biden warned Israel’s enemies not to join forces with Hamas. “To any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation,” he said, “I have one word: Don’t.” Among the chorus of world leaders who have urged similar caution, Biden was the only one who deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups and other military assets to reinforce the warning. The president’s steadfast support has been all the more remarkable as the United States enters an election year, given the vocal criticism of Biden’s Israel policy in some quarters of his own party.

Biden has preferred to embrace Israel in public and convey U.S. reservations in private.

On the other hand, differences have begun to emerge between U.S. perspectives and Israel’s operational priorities. As the fighting in Gaza continues, the United States has lobbied on behalf of “tactical humanitarian pauses,” which—as happened during the truce from November 24 to December 1—would give Hamas time to reestablish internal lines of communication and reposition its forces for additional attacks on IDF troops and missile launches on Israeli cities. (Israel’s government has been amenable to these pauses, another of which is now under negotiation, only for the sake of facilitating hostage releases.) Hamas has also exploited U.S. appeals for Israel to allow more food, fuel, and other aid into Gaza. Although civilian needs are pressing, the terrorist group has been caught commandeering this aid to sustain its hold on power. Biden’s objections to “indiscriminate bombing” by the Israeli Air Force and to the high numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza have compelled Israel to recalibrate the IDF offensive, which some Israeli leaders allege has prolonged its duration and exposed Israeli soldiers to heightened danger.

Overall, however, Israel has gained much from its partnership with the United States. The Abraham Accords advanced the formal integration of Israel into the Middle East, altering the regional map in ways that enhance Israel’s security. Although combat in Gaza has slowed the pace of normalization, Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE have all indicated that they do not intend to abandon their connections with Israel. And Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, in a meeting with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on December 13, expressed interest in the idea of eventually joining their ranks.

The United States’ material and political cover has also been essential to Israel’s ability to restore its lost deterrence after the disaster of October 7. “You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself—but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to,” Blinken said in a message to the Israeli people on October 12. The secretary’s precise balance between validating Israel’s independent capabilities and reaffirming the United States’ commitment to its welfare illustrates why Israel cannot afford to lose its best friend.

NO GUARANTEES

Israelis have always attributed staunch U.S. support for their country to a set of shared values—including freedom, pluralism, and democracy—and interests, such as the promotion of peace and stability. That ground is shifting now, especially as younger Americans express dramatically less affinity for Israel than older generations. Joe Biden, who has asserted often that “you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” may well be the last Democratic president with impeccable pro-Israeli credentials.

This trend should, and does, worry Israel. The stark reality is that the country has no viable alternative to the succor of the United States. Hedging its bets, as other Middle Eastern countries have done, by building relationships with China and Russia—permanent members of the UN Security Council that have both taken the side of Hamas—is not an option for Israel. And lately, even Biden himself has begun to qualify his statements about the war in Gaza. In a speech on December 12, he affirmed that “Israel’s security can rest on the United States,” but he added that Israel is “starting to lose” its support in other parts of the world. Harris, meanwhile, has advocated a “tougher” line in Washington’s dealings with Netanyahu.

Rather than trying to close this distance from the United States, Netanyahu might actually be seeking to spark a row with Washington in order to improve his own job prospects as his approval ratings plummet. “A prime minister who cannot withstand American pressure should not enter the prime minister’s office,” Netanyahu announced to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on December 11. But engaging in public brawls with the United States is the last thing Israel needs right now. To avoid a future in which Israel is forced to resist existential perils without recourse to U.S. military arsenals or UN Security Council vetoes, Israeli policymakers must change tack.

Israel has no viable alternative to the succor of the United States.

First, they must take care in prosecuting the Gaza campaign. The inclusion of opposition party members in the war cabinet was a responsible step in that direction. As the war proceeds, the IDF should pursue its aims—which Israelis overwhelmingly endorse—as quickly as possible while minimizing collateral damage and the injury of innocents. To that end, the IDF chain of command should be meticulous in identifying legitimate operational targets, authorizing attacks only when those standards are met. It should also continue to implement ethical protocols for combat. Demonstrating professionalism and integrity will help Israel avoid a repeat of the 2006 war in Lebanon, when the absence of an unambiguous Israeli victory prompted U.S. President George W. Bush to conclude that Israel “mishandled [its] opportunity” to land a decisive blow against Hezbollah and its masters in Iran and Syria.

Israel desperately needs to prioritize national security over politics. A supplementary 2023 budget passed on December 14, which was meant to cover the unanticipated expense of the war in Gaza, diverted precious funds to unrelated bureaucracies—including the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage and the Ministry of Settlement and National Missions—to satisfy key constituencies of the Netanyahu coalition instead. There is widespread concern that the 2024 budget will follow the same pattern of allocating resources for political patronage to religious parties at the same time that the United States is being called on to help offset the costs of the war.

Netanyahu also canceled cabinet votes to approve the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority and to allow Palestinian laborers from the West Bank to return to work in Israel—the IDF; the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency; and the National Security Council all favor the employment measure, under certain stipulations—in order to avoid tangling with hard-line ministers whose incendiary statements and actions he generally tolerates. The prime minister’s own use of inflammatory rhetoric to shore up his lagging poll numbers, moreover, is sowing divisiveness while Israelis mourn their dead. Repairing Israel’s broken social contract, which had previously enabled its diverse society to coalesce around shared Jewish and democratic principles, and holding new parliamentary elections as soon as the security situation permits are two obvious ways to restore confidence in the country’s elected leadership among both Israeli citizens and Israel’s external backers.

Israel desperately needs to prioritize national security over politics.

Finally, and most urgently, Israel needs to formulate a clear position on the Palestinian issue. When the state of Israel was created 75 years ago, it had to fight off threats to its survival; today, Israel’s stewards must articulate a coherent vision of its ultimate destination. Otherwise, they will struggle to convince the United States and other countries to remain by Israel’s side. Netanyahu must lift his embargo on genuine discussion—within his government and with the Biden administration—of what will come after the Gaza conflict, and define not only what Israel will not countenance but also what outcomes it will accept. The prime minister has rebuffed attempts to have this conversation for fear of destabilizing his ruling coalition. Biden has expressed his frustration with this situation, commenting on December 12 that Netanyahu “has to change,” but the “government in Israel is making it very difficult.”Whether Israel wants one state, two states, or something else, its leaders and citizens need to decide on a course soon. They should recognize also that, no matter what their decision—and it is their decision alone to make—it will have consequences not only for Israel itself but also for its essential relationship with the United States. If the United States were to become sufficiently disenchanted with Israeli policies that Washington imposed conditions on the provision of U.S. military assistance, Israel could find its operating environment drastically restricted. The Biden administration’s recent delay of the export of more than 20,000 M-16 rifles intended for Israeli civil defense teams because of U.S. concerns about settler violence in the West Bank could be a harbinger of further impediments.          

With Hamas vowing to replicate the savagery of October 7 until Israel is “annihilated,” Hezbollah escalating its attacks across Israel’s border with Lebanon, Yemen’s Houthis disrupting Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, and Saudi Arabia still dangling the prospect of normalization, Israel’s next moves could be the difference between deepening violence and progress toward peace.

Today, Friday, the Lebanese Hezbollah continued to fire rockets and shells towards the Upper Galilee regions and bombard Israeli military sites adjacent to the border, while the Israeli army bombed many sites in southern Lebanon, where it said it launched a "massive attack."

Alarm sirens sounded in the north of the country today, after a drone coming from Lebanon was suspected of “infiltrating” the country’s airspace, before the Israeli army said that this was the result of a false alarm.

Yesterday, Thursday, the Israeli army announced the launch of intense air and artillery bombardment on towns and areas in southern Lebanon, targeting “infrastructure” and Hezbollah sites, and claimed that shells were fired from these sites towards Israel.

It also said that he targeted a "cell" during an attempt to launch anti-tank missiles, and another while it was inside a building from which shells were fired earlier today.

On the other hand, Hezbollah announced that it had targeted several Israeli sites “with appropriate weapons, causing direct hits.”

Israel developed a document entitled “Red Lines” following its imposition of the siege on the Gaza Strip, in the year 2007. This document included what foodstuffs are allowed or prohibited to be brought into the Strip, through very precise calculations of the minimum amount of daily calories that must be allowed. By entering the Gaza Strip without causing famine, according to what the Haaretz newspaper reported today, Friday.

Subsequently, Israel conducted calculations about the weekly and monthly quantities of food supplies, and thus the number of trucks allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. According to the document, 170.4 trucks can be entered daily, of which 68.6 trucks whose load is equivalent to the amount of local agricultural production will be reduced, bringing the number of trucks that can be entered into the sector to 101.8 trucks.

At the time, the commander of the Israeli military unit, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Occupied Territories, admitted that calculating the exact amount of food supplies was aimed at “ascertaining” that there would be a famine due to a shortage of food supplies. The number of trucks increased following the aggression on Gaza at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, and the list of food items also expanded.

Israel has continued to rely on these “red lines” and the “calorie list” that it has included since 2007, even though the population of the Gaza Strip this year was approximately 1.4 million people, while their number has now risen to about 2.3 million people.

After Israel launched the war on the Gaza Strip, on October 7, it prevented food trucks from entering the Strip until October 21, and then allowed only 20 trucks to enter per day, while their number was about 500 trucks before the war.

The number of shipments allowed to enter the Gaza Strip increased in recent weeks, then doubled in the wake of pressure exerted on Israel by the American administration. The newspaper pointed out that "with a simple calculation, the Israeli woman fulfills the conditions of the non-starvation threshold that she set in 2007."

However, following the war, the Gaza Strip lost its full capacity to produce local agricultural, marine, or any other foodstuffs, which were complementary to calculating the quantities of foodstuffs allowed for entry.

In the past, Israel claimed that it was allowed to wage an “economic war against the enemy,” while it now claims that imposing the siege on the Gaza Strip is an existential goal to protect the “direct enemy,” that is, the Hamas movement, and that this “economic war” helps Hamas collapse. But by severely restricting the number of trucks loaded with food and medicine, it “describes the entire population of the Gaza Strip as an enemy. Thus, it is taking away the basis of its claim,” according to the newspaper.

The newspaper referred to other countries in contemporary history that sought to starve civilian populations, including Nazi Germany through the plan of its leader, Adolf Hitler, which caused the death of 4.2 million citizens from starvation in the Soviet Union. This happened in Cambodia as well. In 1945, the United States implemented what it called a “starvation campaign” against Japan.

The strict siege imposed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE on areas in Yemen controlled by the Houthis, who now support Gaza, also caused the death of tens of thousands of Yemenis from hunger and epidemics, describing this as "the most dangerous humanitarian disaster in contemporary history."

In addition, there is the starvation of millions of people in South Sudan, the deadly siege of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and the Syrian regime’s siege of cities such as Homs, Daraa, and Aleppo, causing the death of tens of thousands from starvation.

The newspaper concluded that “Israel is not concerned about the moral aspects of its methods of warfare, including starvation, but as if it is fighting a war that is expected to last for a long time, it must study all the time the legitimacy of this in the international arena, especially in the United States. And the number of calories that will enter To the Gaza Strip will dictate the number of days during which Israel will continue the war, without being considered a war criminal.”

A former advisor to the Israeli delegation from the 1990s "explodes" the current government's narrative

Daniel Levy is a former member of Israel's negotiating team, a Middle East analyst, and commentator - and here he uses his expertise to discuss a two state solution, apartheid, the current onslaught - and what the hell happens next.

In a strange shift, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted as saying that Israel’s war on Gaza is identical to Moscow’s military operation against Ukraine.

The comments, attributed to Russia’s top diplomat, were cited by Russia Today in an interview on Thursday with RIA Novosti.“The goals declared by Israel for its ongoing operation against Hamas militants in Gaza seem nearly identical to those put forward by Moscow in its campaign against the Ukrainian government,” RT quoted Lavrov as saying. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 21,320 Palestinians have been killed, and 55,603 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7. Palestinian and international estimates say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children. 

Many international law experts have accused Israel of carrying out a genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip. 

‘Denazification’? 

But according to Lavrov, the Israeli and Russian goals are more or less the same, which include  “demilitarization” and “denazification”. It is unclear how Lavrov, who has historically defended the rights of Palestinians, and earlier in the day, spoke for the need for justice in Palestine, believes that Israel’s action in Gaza includes “denazification”. 

Lavrov’s comments seem like a bizarre contradiction to statements made by top Russian politicians and officials. These comments included a comparison made by Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 13 between the Israeli siege on Gaza and the Nazi siege on Leningrad during World War II. Additionally, Russia’s own ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, has made similar comparisons in strongly worded statements against the Israeli war. 

Yet, according to RT, Lavrov believes that “the fight against Nazism is what historically unites Russia and the Middle Eastern country (Israel).” 

His words exactly, according to RT, were: “Therefore, we need to be very careful about our common history with Israel and, above all, the history of the fight against Nazism. This is the main thing that unites us historically.” 

Lapid Bad, Netanyahu Good 

Lavrov went on to criticize former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid who condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This was unfair,” Lavrov said, in reference to Lapid’s position. The Russian foreign minister compared that to the position of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has “not allowed himself to make any statements regarding Russia, despite international criticism and finding himself in ‘a difficult situation’.” 

Lavrov reiterated his country’s position that only a ‘two-state formula’ will bring an end to the Middle East crisis, but without explaining how Moscow can play a part in turning it into a reality.

‘Greatly Offensive’ 

“Lavrov’s position, if the quotes attributed to him by RT are accurate, is bizarre and greatly offensive, to say the least,” Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian political analyst, said. “Bizarre because it is entirely inconsistent with Russian foreign policy since the start of the Israeli genocide on Gaza, and objectionable because it resembles some kind of a political nod for Israel to continue with its lethal war on Palestinian civilians without worrying about a strong Russian response,” he added. Baroud also said that “Arab governments and Palestinian Resistance groups must demand clarification from Russia following these offensive statements and inquire if they represent an official change of policies regarding Israel and the Palestinian fight for freedom.”

Source: Palestine Chronicle

A public opinion poll in Israel showed a decline in the popularity of the right-wing Likud Party headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a poll conducted by the Israeli Channel 13 indicated that Likud would obtain only 16 seats in the Knesset (Parliament) “if elections were held today.” Likud currently has 32 representatives in the 120-seat Knesset.

According to the poll, “If (parliamentary) elections were held today, the “National Unity” party, headed by Minister in the Military Ministerial Council Benny Gantz, would have been the largest, winning 38 seats compared to 12 in the current Knesset. As for the “There is a Future” party, headed by Yair Lapid, it would have maintained It ranks third in the Knesset, with 15 seats, compared to 24 in the current Knesset.

In recent months, public opinion polls indicated a decline in the Likud Party's popularity.

Israeli Channel 13 said: “The collapse of Likud has continued since the outbreak of the war, and if the elections were held today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party would have won only 16 seats, that is, only one seat more than Yair Lapid’s party.”

The channel pointed out that "if the elections were held today, the parties forming the government would have won only 45 seats, compared to 64 currently."

In addition to Likud, the parties forming the government include Shas, United Torah Judaism, Jewish Power, and Religious Zionism.

To form a government in Israel, it is necessary to obtain the confidence of at least 61 representatives in the Knesset.

On the other hand, the opinion poll indicates the possibility of the opposition parties obtaining 71 seats, and the coalition of the Democratic Front for Peace and the Arab List for Change obtaining 4 seats.

The poll showed that if Netanyahu were replaced as head of the Likud by former Mossad head Yossi Cohen, the party would win 23 seats, compared to 33 for the National Unity Party.

The channel reported that the poll was conducted by Israeli pollster Camille Fox, and included a random sample of 700 Israelis, with a margin of error of 3.7%.

The possibility of holding parliamentary elections does not appear on the horizon in light of the ongoing war on Gaza since last October 7, but Israeli estimates indicate the possibility of Israel returning to the ballot boxes after the war.

Since last October 7, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, which as of Thursday left 21,320 dead and 55,603 injured, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to the Gaza Strip authorities and the United Nations.

On Friday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich rejected the idea that the United States and its President Joe Biden would control the fate of Israel, stressing that he would not release the Palestinian Authority’s funds as long as he was in government.

“We respect the United States and its president, but we will never leave our fate in the hands of foreigners,” Smotrich said, adding: “Not a single shekel will go to terrorists in Gaza as long as I remain in office.”

This comes as American media revealed a “difficult” phone conversation that Biden had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, last weekend, regarding the decision to withhold part of the taxes it collects for the Palestinian Authority.

An American official told Axios that this part of the call was one of the "difficult and most frustrating conversations," noting that it was "a sign of the growing tensions between Biden and Netanyahu."

According to the site, Netanyahu is facing pressure from the Biden administration to release the funds, and opposition from Smotrich, who threatened to resign, which could put the coalition government in danger.

According to officials, Biden asked Netanyahu to accept the proposal that he himself had put forward several weeks ago, which is to transfer the withheld tax revenues to Norway for safekeeping until an arrangement is reached that would allay Israel’s fears that the money would reach Hamas.

An American official said that the Palestinian Authority had already accepted this proposal, but Netanyahu backed down and said that he did not think this was a good idea anymore.

According to the officials, Biden told Netanyahu that he must confront extremists in his government coalition on this issue, just as he is dealing with political pressure from Congress over the war in Gaza.

Smotrich had issued a "final ultimatum" to Netanyahu, threatening to resign from the government if the clearance funds were transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

This comes at a time when Israeli Ministry of Defense officials recommended transferring the funds deducted by Israel to the Palestinian Authority, and allowing workers from the West Bank to enter to work in Israel, in response to American requests to prevent the situation in the West Bank from exploding.

From yesterday evening until Friday morning, the Israeli occupation forces arrested at least (20) citizens from the West Bank, including a child, with the continuation of systematic arrests and the comprehensive aggression launched by the occupation against our people.

The arrests were distributed across the governorates of Ramallah, Tulkarm, Hebron, Jericho, Ramallah, and Tubas, in addition to Jerusalem, where a number of family members of the martyr Ahmed Alyan, who died last night, were arrested.

In addition to the arrests recorded, the occupation stormed the town of Deir Abu Mishal/Ramallah, and carried out field investigations with dozens of citizens, in addition to storming citizens’ homes, which was accompanied by widespread sabotage and destruction, while the occupation continued to arrest three citizens from the town.

It is noteworthy that the total number of arrests after October 7 amounted to about (4,840), and this total includes those who were arrested from homes, through military checkpoints, those who were forced to surrender themselves under pressure, and those who were held hostage.

The latest opinion polls in the West Bank and Gaza Strip show a significant rise in the popularity of the Hamas movement, and a greater popular rally around the line of armed resistance. Despite the hideous massacres and massive destruction caused by the Israeli occupation in its aggression against the Gaza Strip, it has failed miserably in isolating Hamas and the resistance forces from the Palestinian popular incubator

Supporting the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood:
The poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the results of which were released on December 13 and included the opinions of the public in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, showed that 72% of Palestinians believe that Hamas’s decision to attack and launch the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle on 7 Last October was right.

62% believe that Hamas will emerge victorious from this battle, and 72% expect that Hamas will succeed in returning to ruling the Gaza Strip after the war, despite “Israel’s” declared intention to eliminate it.
This is consistent with a large majority of 73% believing that “Israel” will not succeed in causing a second Palestinian Nakba, and an overwhelming majority of 85% affirming that “Israel” will fail to displace the population of the Gaza Strip.
It is noteworthy that these results, which show high confidence in Hamas and the resistance, came in the context of a poll in which people’s opinions were taken at the height of a fierce aggression against the Gaza Strip in which “Israel”, whose army is considered among the most powerful armies in the world, allied itself with major powers, led by the United States, against resistance forces that have very little military capabilities compared to their enemies, and live in a poor, besieged environment.
These opinions were also taken after more than 20,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children and 4,000 women, were murdered, 36,000 others were wounded, and about two-thirds of the population of the Gaza Strip were displaced, and at a time when 56% of the respondents from the Gaza Strip stated that they do not have enough food for a day or two, and 64% of them confirm that a member of their family was killed or wounded in this war.

Between the performance of the Ramallah Authority and the performance of Hamas:
According to the same poll, 60% of the Palestinian public prefer Hamas to control the Gaza Strip after the war, while 16% prefer the Palestinian Authority to control a national unity government, but after excluding President Mahmoud Abbas, and only 7% prefer a Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas, which is a percentage Shocking for the Authority, and for President Abbas, as the National Unity Government was widely popular, and 72% of the public were satisfied with Hamas’ performance during the war on the Gaza Strip, while only 14% were satisfied with the Authority’s performance, and were satisfied with the performance of Yahya Al-Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza. 69% were satisfied with the performance of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, compared to only 11% who were satisfied with the performance of President Mahmoud Abbas.
On the other hand, 68% of the public believe that the Palestinian Authority has become a burden on the Palestinian people, and 58% even support the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority itself. Only a minority of 20% supports pursuing the path of peaceful negotiations in order to end the occupation, while there is a majority of 69% who support a return to the intifada and armed resistance.
There are 88% calling on President Mahmoud Abbas to resign, and this percentage rises among the people of the West Bank, where Abbas has authority, to 92% and this is a desire that was repeated in previous polls, but it reached a high peak in this poll.

Perhaps this explains what is being circulated Arab and internationally these days, that President Mahmoud Abbas is no longer qualified to continue leading the next stage, and that an alternative must be searched to replace him. Some circles are even discussing the possibility of releasing the Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prisons as he is the only one qualified to unite Fatah's ranks in the face of the rise in Hamas's popularity.

Presidential and legislative elections:
In line with the results of the poll, if presidential elections were to take place in a competition between Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas President Ismail Haniyeh, Haniyeh would receive 78% of the votes compared to only 16% for Abbas, and there is no chance for Fatah to win the presidential battle unless Marwan Barghouti participates in it, as he will get 47% compared to 43% for Haniyeh and only 7% for Abbas.
If legislative elections take place, 51% will elect the Hamas (Change and Reform) list, compared to 19% who will elect the Fatah list, and all other lists will receive only 4%.
It is noted that 25% have not yet decided, and when this percentage of undecided people decide, they will most likely choose (as previously experienced) between Hamas and Fatah, which means that the chance of the Hamas list reaching a percentage exceeding 60% is very high.
Perhaps this indicator, which exceeds the percentage of decisiveness, and which the Hamas movement has reached for the first time, gives a strong indication of the extent of the impact of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, and the extent of the popularity enjoyed by the resistance work when it takes its strong and effective form.

Wrapping around resistance:
This poll shows that the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has failed to break the will of the Palestinian people, and that the massacres committed against civilians and massive destruction have not been able to separate the armed resistance from its popular incubator.
The aggression also had adverse repercussions that increased the Palestinian people’s support for the resistance, the desire to sacrifice and avenge the martyrs increased, and the crimes of the occupation turned into fuel for the revolution and its continuation.

This poll reinforces the general Palestinian trend, which appeared in previous polls, which has lost hope in the path of a peaceful settlement, and has begun to see no real opportunity to achieve the “two-state solution” in light of the escalation of Israeli religious and nationalist extremism, and the expansion of Judaization and settlement programs. They believe that the only language the occupation understands is armed resistance.

This poll strongly, and with increasing frequency, raises the issue of the legitimacy of the current Palestinian leadership, which has lost the confidence of the Palestinian street, as it has become necessary to agree on a transitional leadership to prepare for real elections, to rebuild the Palestinian legislative and executive institutions on fair and sound foundations, and in a way that honestly expresses the will of the Palestinian people.

In recent years, American youth’s support for the occupation has declined, while their support for the Palestinian cause has increased, especially among university students, whose campuses have been a strong center of activity for the “Boycott Israel and Divestment Movement - BDS,” which resists the occupation, settler colonialism, and Israeli apartheid in order to Real freedom, justice and equality in Palestine, Reaching the right to self-determination for all the Palestinian people in the homeland and the diaspora.
A few months ago, an opinion poll issued by the Pew Research Institute indicated that the feelings of American youth (between 18 and 29 years old) towards both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have changed significantly, as “61% of them now look positively at the Palestinians, while the percentage towards the Israelis is 56% “.
Since the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” the hysterical Israeli reaction, and the continuation of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, new slogans have spread among American youth, led by “from the river to the sea,” “apartheid,” “land theft,” and “ethnic cleansing” instead of previous slogans focused on “Israel’s right to exist,” “striking terrorists,” and “anti-Semitism,” while the vigils and demonstrations supporting the Palestinian side increased compared to those supporting the occupation, which prompted the American jurist (Richard Goldwasser) to say: “Israel is against “You are about to lose a generation of Americans, and this means the loss of America.”
Later, the latest poll in the United States (conducted by Harris Insight & Analytics and the Center for American Affairs at Harvard University), which the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth described as “dramatic,” revealed that “51% of young Americans believe that the preferred solution to Palestinian/Israeli conflict is the end of the State of Israel and its handover to Hamas and the Palestinians,” while “60% said that “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” can be justified by the plight that the Palestinians are experiencing,” and the majority of Americans between the ages of 18-24 and 25-34 years also indicated that they “believe that Israel is committing genocide.”
On a complementary level, American voters’ support for American military aid to the occupation decreased. According to a new poll conducted by Quinnipiac University and published by the American newspaper The Hill, only 45% of registered voters said that they support the United States sending additional military aid to the occupation, and this is a decrease from a previous poll conducted last November, when “54% of registered voters said they wanted to provide additional military aid to the occupation.”

The poll also showed “Americans’ dissatisfaction with their country’s support for the occupation as the war on the Gaza Strip continues.” It is known that this new poll came just one day after a group of Democrats in the US House of Representatives sent a letter to President Joe Biden in which it said: “We are deeply concerned about the current military strategy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza and the increasing number of civilian deaths and the humanitarian crisis is unacceptable and is not in line with American interests, nor does it advance the issue of security for our ally, Israel.” It also said, “58% of Democrats and 48% of independents said they oppose aid to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.”
All of these numbers are astonishing, as are their implications, which reflect a major fact that there are historical transformations taking place within the United States (and others, of course, throughout the world) and will have significant political consequences in terms of shedding light on the Palestinian narrative of the conflict (at the expense of the old/new invented Israeli narrative) and also in terms of revealing the ugly face of the Israeli occupation. However, things always depend on their endings. What is required now is to maintain, and even increase, the momentum of these transformations through a thoughtful plan that we develop and follow up on its implementation in a way that ensures the continued shining of the sun of the Palestinian cause and the decline of the “sun” of the occupation and its state.

The Wall Street Journal revealed in an investigative report published on Friday that Israel launched an air strike last October 31 on the Jabalia camp, “aiming to kill Ibrahim al-Biyari, the leader of the Hamas battalion in the camp, who Israeli intelligence believed was directing the battles against the forces” which claimed the lives of dozens of innocent Palestinians in the camp,” according to what the Israeli army told the newspaper.

The newspaper says, "But targeting Al-Biyari was not without a price, as the attack resulted in the killing of at least 126 people, who were left under the rubble of destroyed buildings, in one of the attacks that was considered one of the bloodiest in the Gaza war, according to the "Air-Wars" organization. “It is a non-profit organization associated with the University of London that investigates the killing of civilian victims in conflict zones.”

The newspaper report describes how “the alley-like streets and closely packed buildings in the Block 6 neighborhood of the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza were filled with people on the afternoon of October 31. Some stood in a long line in front of the local bakery, while others were crammed more tightly than usual into small apartments.”

At approximately 3:30 p.m., Israeli warplanes dropped several large bombs in a tight pattern on the neighborhood. Satellite images showed that the explosions completely destroyed a rectangular block, leaving deep craters where more than a dozen buildings had stood. The strike killed Ibrahim Al-Biyari, the Hamas battalion commander in Jabalia, who Israeli intelligence believed was directing a nearby battle, and dozens of other operatives, according to the Israeli military.

The newspaper explains, “The decision to bomb a crowded urban neighborhood in the middle of the afternoon to kill an enemy commander was a signal early in the war that Israel was willing to use overwhelming force against the Hamas leadership, even if it meant risking large numbers of civilian casualties.

The newspaper notes that in the days and weeks that followed, Israeli forces penetrated deeper into Gaza, seeking to dismantle Hamas in response to the armed group’s surprise attack on October 7, which left more than 1,200 people dead in Israel. The Israeli attack has taken a heavy toll, with an estimated 21,000 people killed, according to Palestinian health officials, drawing condemnation from human rights groups and other countries. The Biden administration, a staunch ally of Israel, has repeatedly informed the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that its military operation is causing too many civilian casualties.

Based on an investigation conducted by the newspaper, based on interviews with survivors and senior officers in the Israeli army, the air strike in Jabalia shows that Israeli military planners made “a series of miscalculations based on insufficient information” that led to much greater destruction and loss of life than they expected.

The newspaper reached “three important results,” as it described it:

1- Israel decided not to warn civilians in the area of an imminent air strike by sending phone messages for fear of giving the militants time to evacuate the area.

2- The Israeli army used at least two of the largest bombs in its arsenal instead of smaller munitions.

3- Air Force commanders tried to limit collateral damage by directing bombs between buildings, using fuses to delay detonation so they could penetrate roofs, destroy tunnels and topple buildings standing above them.

The Israeli occupation army confirmed in a statement to the newspaper that it “adheres to international law, directs its strikes at military targets and invests significant resources to reduce harm to civilians,” which is refuted by the newspaper’s report.

In a written statement, the occupying army said that it "is committed to international law, directs its strikes at military targets and invests significant resources to reduce harm to civilians." The statement added that the army "does not launch attacks except when the expected harm to civilians is not excessive compared to the expected military advantage, based on the information available before the attack."

The newspaper quotes an occupation army official as saying that the "fog of war" prevents knowing the details.

The war is approaching its third month, as Israeli tanks advanced deep into a town in the central Gaza Strip, Thursday, after days of relentless bombardment that forced tens of thousands of already displaced Palestinian families to flee in a new wave of mass exodus, according to Reuters.

Israeli forces bombed the area surrounding a hospital in the heart of Khan Yunis, the main city in the southern Gaza Strip, where residents fear a new ground incursion into the lands crowded with families who were displaced during the war that has been going on for 12 weeks.

The Palestinian health authorities said earlier that 210 Palestinians were confirmed killed as a result of Israeli attacks during the past 24 hours, bringing the war death toll to 21,320 people, or approximately one percent of the population of the Strip. It is feared that there are thousands more dead under the rubble.

By Mouin Rabbani

Senior Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, are again publicly advocating the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. Their proposals are being presented as voluntary emigration schemes, in which Israel is merely playing the role of Good Samaritan, selflessly mediating with foreign governments to find new homes for destitute and desperate Palestinians. But it is ethnic cleansing all the same. 

Alarm bells should have started ringing in early November when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other Western politicians began insisting there could be “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza”. Rather than rejecting any mass removal of Palestinians, Blinken and colleagues objected only to optically challenging expulsions at gunpoint. The option of “voluntary” displacement by leaving residents of the Gaza Strip with no choice but departure was pointedly left open. Ethnic cleansing, or “transfer” as it is known in Israeli parlance, has a long pedigree that goes back to the late-nineteenth-century beginnings of the Zionist movement. While the early Zionists adopted the slogan, “A Land Without a People for a People Without a Land”, the evidence demonstrates that, from the very outset, their leaders knew better. More to the point, they clearly understood that the Palestinians formed the main obstacle to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This is for the simple reason that to them a “Jewish state” denotes one in which its Jewish population acquires and maintains unchallenged demographic, territorial, and political supremacy. Enter “transfer”. As early as 1895 Theodor Herzl, the founder of the contemporary Zionist movement, identified the necessity of removing the inhabitants of Palestine in the following terms: “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country ... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” David Ben-Gurion (née Grün), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and later Israel’s first prime minister, was more blunt. In a 1937 letter to his son, he wrote: “We must expel the Arabs and take their place”. Writing in his diary in 1940 Yosef Weitz, a senior Jewish National Fund official who chaired the influential Transfer Committee before and during the Nakba (“Catastrophe”), and became known as the Architect of Transfer, put it thus: “The only solution is a Land of Israel devoid of Arabs. There is no room here for compromise. 

They must all be moved. Not one village, not one tribe can remain. Only through this transfer of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel will redemption come”. His diaries are littered with similar sentiments. The point of the above is not to demonstrate that individual Zionist leaders held such views, but that the senior leadership of the Zionist movement consistently considered the ethnic cleansing of Palestine an objective and priority. Initiatives such as the Transfer Committee, and Plan Dalet, initially formulated in 1944 and described by the pre-eminent Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi as the “Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine”, additionally demonstrate that the Zionist movement actively planned for it. 

The 1948 Nakba, during which more than four-fifths of Palestinians residing in territory that came under Israeli rule were ethnically cleansed, should therefore be seen as the fulfilment of a longstanding ambition and implementation of a key policy. A product of design, not of war. Historical Christmas footnote: the Palestinian town of Nazareth was spared a similar fate only because the commander of Israeli forces that seized the city, a Canadian Jew named Ben Dunkelman, disobeyed orders to expel the population. He was relieved of his command the following day.

That the Nakba was a product of design is further substantiated by the Transfer Committee’s terms of reference. These comprised not only proposals for the expulsion of the Palestinians but, just as importantly, active measures to prevent their return; destroy their homes and villages; expropriate their property; and resettle these territories with Jewish immigrants. Weitz, together with fellow Committee members Eliahu Sassoon and Ezra Danin, on 5 June 1948 presented a three-page blueprint, entitled “Scheme for the Solution of the Arab Problem in the State of Israel”, to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to achieve these goals. According to leading Israeli historian Benny Morris, “there is no doubt Ben-Gurion agreed to Weitz’s scheme”, which included “what amounted to an enormous project of destruction” that saw more then 450 Palestinian villages razed to the ground.

The understandable focus on the expulsions of 1948 often overlooks the fact that ethnic cleansing remains incomplete unless its victims are barred from returning to their homes by a combination of armed force and legislation, and thereafter replaced by others. It is Israel’s determination to make Palestinian dispossession permanent that distinguishes Palestinian refugees from many other war refugees. After 1948 Israel put out a whole series of fabrications to shift responsibility for the transformation of the Palestinians into dispossessed and stateless refugees onto the Arab states and the refugees themselves. These included claims that the refugees voluntarily left (they were either expelled or fled in justified terror); that Arab radio broadcasts ordered the Palestinians to flee (in fact they were encouraged to stay put); that Israel conducted a population exchange with Arab states (there was nothing of the sort); and the bizarre argument that because they’re Arabs, Palestinians had numerous other states while Jews have only Israel (by the same logic Sikhs would be entitled to seize British Columbia and deport its population to either the rest of Canada or the United States). More importantly, even if uniformly substantiated none of these pretexts entitles Israel to prohibit the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes at the conclusion of hostilities. It is, furthermore, a right that was consecrated in United Nations General Assembly 194 of 11 December 1948, which has been re-affirmed repeatedly since.

In 1967 Israel seized the remaining 22 per cent of Mandatory Palestine – the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. Depopulation in these territories operated differently than in 1948. Most importantly Israel, in addition to prohibiting the return of Palestinians who fled hostilities during the 1967 June War, and encouraging others to leave (by for example providing a daily bus service from Gaza City to the Allenby Bridge connecting the West Bank to Jordan), during the summer of 1967 conducted a census. Any resident who was not present during the census was ineligible for an Israeli identity document and automatically lost their right of residency. As a result the population of these territories declined by more than twenty per cent overnight. Many of those thus displaced were already refugees from 1948. Aqbat Jabr Refugee Camp near Jericho for example, until 1967 the West Bank’s largest, became a virtual ghost town after almost all its inhabitants became refugees once again in Jordan. So many Palestinians from the Gaza Strip ended up in Jordan that a new refugee camp, Gaza Camp, was established on the outskirts of Jerash. 

The occupied Palestinian territories would not recover their 1967 population levels until the early 1980s.Within the West Bank there were also cases of mass expulsion. These included the town of Qalqilya, which was additionally slated for demolition but to which its residents were later permitted to return. Those of ‘Imwas (the Biblical Emmaus), Bayt Nuba, and Yalu in Jerusalem’s Latrun salient were less fortunate. They were summarily expelled (many today live in Ramallah’s Qaddura Refugee Camp), their villages demolished and annexed to Israel, and replaced by Canada Park, so named because the project was completed with donations from the Canadian Jewish community. Within Jerusalem’s Old City the historic Mughrabi Quarter, abutting the Haram al-Sharif, was summarily razed to make way for a plaza astride the Wailing Wall. With many residents given only minutes to evacuate their homes, several were killed when the bulldozers went to work. According to Eitan Ben-Moshe, an engineer who oversaw the atrocity, “We threw out the wreckage of houses together with the Arab corpses”.

In subsequent years Israel employed all kinds of administrative shenanigans to further reduce the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Until the 1993 Oslo Accords, for example, an exit permit from Israel’s military government was required to leave the occupied territories. It was valid for only three years, and thereafter renewable annually for a maximum of three additional years, for a fee, at an Israeli consulate. If a Palestinian lost an exit permit, or failed to renew an exit permit prior to its expiration for any reason (including bureaucratic foot-dragging), or couldn’t pay the renewal fee, or failed to return to Palestine prior to its expiration, that Palestinian automatically lost residency rights. Separately, Israel over the years deported numerous activists and community leaders, primarily to Jordan and Lebanon. During the late 1960s and 1970s it also exiled Gaza Palestinians accused of resisting the occupation, along with their families, to prison camps in the occupied Sinai Peninsula. Among those who spent time there was the iconic Palestinian leader Haidar Abdel-Shafi.

A particularly notable case of administrative deportations occurred in 1992, after Israeli special forces botched an operation to rescue an Israeli soldier who had been seized by Hamas to exchange him for their imprisoned leader, Shaikh Ahmad Yasin. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered the summary deportation of approximately 400 Palestinians, many of them prisoners affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad (PIJ), none accused of involvement in the incident that led to Rabin’s frenzied rage. In contrast to previous deportations, which were considered permanent, these were for one- and two-year terms. In its rush to carry out the deportations under cover of night, Israel expelled a number of Palestinians who were not on its list, and left behind others who were. Needless to say the mass expulsion was, as always in such matters, approved by Israel’s High Court of Justice after minor modifications. It ruled, among other things, that this was not a collective deportation but rather a collection of individual deportations. Perhaps more significantly the deportees were stuck in an inhospitable no-man’s land, Marj al-Zuhur, because Lebanon refused to facilitate the deportations by receiving them. During their involuntary residence in Marj al-Zuhur, assistance came primarily from Hizballah, and it was during this period that relations between Hamas, PIJ, and Hizballah were solidified.

With the focus in recent years on the intensified campaigns of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, it is often forgotten that for decades the primary target for depopulation was the Gaza Strip, and particularly its refugee population which accounts for approximately three-quarters of the territory’s residents. Even before it occupied Gaza in 1967, Israel regularly promoted initiatives to achieve the “thinning” of its refugee population, with destinations as far afield as Libya and Iraq. Not without reason, Israel’s leaders felt uncomfortable with the presence of so many ethnically-cleansed Palestinians within walking distance of their former homes. After 1967 it encouraged Palestinian emigration from the Gaza Strip to not only foreign countries but also the West Bank. In 1969 Israel even devised a scheme to send 60,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Paraguay with offers of lucrative employment. The plan was negotiated between Paraguay’s military dictator Alfredo Stroessner and Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency. It was of course purely coincidental that shortly thereafter Mossad discovered it no longer had the resources to hunt Nazi fugitives in Paraguay, which had been their destinations of choice. The scheme was discontinued when several of its victims, upon realizing the promise of a new life of comfort was all a sham, shot up the Israeli embassy in Asuncion, killing one of its staff. In the decades since, “transfer”, often presented as the encouragement of voluntary emigration either by providing material incentives or making the conditions of life impossible, has become increasingly mainstreamed in Israeli political life. In 2019, for example, a “senior government official”, quoted in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, expressed a willingness to help Palestinians emigrate from the Gaza Strip. Mass expulsion has been gaining its share of adherents as well, and it is a position that is today represented within Israel’s coalition government. 

As has the idea that “transfer" should include Palestinian citizens of Israel. Avigdor Lieberman for example, several years ago Israel’s Minister of Defense, is an advocate of not only emptying the West Bank and Gaza Strip of Palestinians, but of getting rid of Palestinian citizens of Israel as well. As one might expect from a minister in charge of the Israeli military, he is also an advocate of “beheading” disloyal Palestinian citizens of Israel with “an axe”.

Against this background Israel saw the attacks of 7 October as not only a threat but also as an opportunity. Fortified with unconditional US and European support, Israeli political and military leaders immediately began promoting the transfer of Gaza’s Palestinian population to the Sinai desert. The proposal was enthusiastically embraced by the United States, and by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in particular. As ever hopelessly out of his depth when it comes to the Middle East, he appears to have genuinely believed he could recruit or pressure Washington’s Arab client regimes to make Israel’s wish a reality. Given Egyptian strongman Abdel-Fatah Sisi’s economic troubles, the fallout of the Menendez scandal, and looming Egyptian presidential elections, it was suggested to him by the Washington echo chamber that it would take only an IMF loan, debt relief, and a promise to file away Menendez to bring Cairo on board. As so often when it comes to the Middle East Blinken, armed only with Israel’s latest wish list, didn’t have a clue his indecent proposal would be categorically rejected, first and foremost by Egypt.  The fallback position is opposition to “forcible displacement” at the point of a gun, while anything else is fair game. This includes reducing the Gaza Strip to rubble in what may well be the most intensive bombing campaign in history; a genocidal assault on an entire society that has killed civilians at an unprecedentedly rapid pace; the deliberate destruction of an entire civilian infrastructure, including the targeted obliteration of its health and education sectors; the highest proportion of households in hunger crisis ever recorded globally and the real prospect of pre-meditated famine; severance of the water and electricity supply leading to acute thirst, widespread consumption of non-potable water, and termination of sewage treatment; and promotion of a sharp rise in infectious disease. One Israeli soldier has already died of a fungal infection resulting from the collapse in sanitation he helped bring about in the Gaza Strip. How many Palestinians have been consumed by similar illness we do not know, but it is reasonable to assume that children and the elderly are hit particularly hard.

In other words, if desperate Palestinians seek to flee this seventh circle of hell to save their skins, that’s considered voluntary emigration, their choice. If they cannot remain in the Gaza Strip because Israel has made it unfit for human habitation with US weapons, that is a voluntary choice that will be respected. And the US and Israel are only here to help, like Mother Theresa determined to assist every last one of them whether they like it or not. Danny Danon, a member of parliament who was previously Israel’s envoy to the United Nations (the guy who sounds like Elmer Fudd), recently held up the mass displacement of Syrians to multiple shores during the past decade as an example to be emulated. “Even if each country receives ten thousand, twenty thousand Gazans, this is significant”. Asked about Danon’s proposal at a Likud meeting on Christmas Day, Netanyahu responded, “We are working on it. Our problem is [finding] the countries that are willing to absorb [them].” As an editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz put it on 27 December: “Israeli lawmakers keep pushing for transfer under the guise of humanitarian aid”.

Not to be outdone by the politicians, the Jerusalem Post ran an opinion piece entitled “Why Moving to the Sinai Peninsula is The Solution for Gaza’s Palestinians”. “Sinai”, its author Joel Roskin enthused, “comprises one of the most suitable places on Earth to provide the people of Gaza with hope and a peaceful future”. Not individual Gazans, but “the people of Gaza”. Notably, such proposals consistently take it as a given that those departing will never return. One waits with baited breath for the European Union is expected to respond to these calls for mass expulsion with further investigations of Palestinian textbooks.

While ethnic cleansing has been intrinsic to Zionist/Israeli ideology and practice from the very outset, it also has a flip side: the 1948 expulsion of the Palestinians expanded what had been a conflict between the Zionist movement and the Palestinians into a regional, Arab-Israeli one. The second Nakba Israel is currently inflicting on the Gaza Strip similarly appears well on its way to instigating the renewal of hostilities across the Middle East. As importantly, the 1948 Nakba did not defeat the Palestinians, who initiated their struggle from the camps of exile, those in the Gaza Strip most prominently among them. It would take a Blinken level of foolishness to assume the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip would produce a different outcome.

Mouin Rabbani is a Dutch-Palestinian Middle East analyst specializing in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestinian affairs