Today, Friday, hundreds of people were killed and wounded in the ongoing Israeli bombing of several areas in the Gaza Strip.

This morning, the Israeli bombing focused on Gaza City, where the largest number of dead, as local sources confirmed that at least 15 killed and dozens of injuries were reported in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, east of the city, as a result of Israeli drones firing at citizens in the streets, a large number of whom were civilian children and women, noting that ambulances were unable to reach the dead and wounded, as a result of the continued bombing.

The occupation artillery also bombed six inhabited homes in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, which led to dozens of dead, ten of whom were transferred to Al-Baptani Hospital. The occupation artillery also fired dozens of shells at homes in Al-Zaytoun near Salah Al-Din Street, leaving dozens injured.

In the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, Israeli warplanes destroyed the popular stall market, in addition to ten inhabited homes, resulting in 9 dead and 25 wounded.

In the Al-Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City, the occupation artillery shelled, for the second time, Fahmi Al-Jarjawi School, where four dead and nine wounded, most of them children.

The Al-Sahaba area in the Al-Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City was subjected to missile bombardment from warplanes and artillery from tanks, which led to the death of 20 dead and dozens of others. The occupation forces also arrested 25 citizens between the ages of (15-55 years), after the occupation forces ordered them to take off their clothes.

In the Al-Nasr and Sheikh Radwan area, north of the city, a number of persons died after the neighborhood and its inhabited homes were exposed to heavy fire from drones, missile strikes from warplanes, and artillery shelling, at a time when none of the ambulance vehicles were able to reach them as a result of the continued bombing.

In the Palestine Mosque Square area in Gaza City, according to eyewitnesses, the occupation army carried out field executions, executing at least 5 citizens, including an elderly man, and arrested 15 citizens, after stripping them of their clothes.

In the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, a number of people were killed and a number of citizens were injured, as the occupation warplanes bombed several inhabited homes in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals. Tanks also stormed the UNRWA school square in Jabalia, and opened indiscriminate fire towards citizens, resulting in dozens of casualties. Injuries, and the occupation army transported dozens of displaced people, including children.

In the Sheikh Zayed Towers area in the town of Beit Lahia, artillery bombed with dozens of shells a number of buildings, residential apartments and surrounding houses, which led to a large number of dead and dozens of injuries.

Five were killed and dozens were injured, at dawn on Friday, in an Israeli bombing that targeted a school housing displaced people in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

At dawn today, at least 4 martyrs, including children, were killed, and others were injured in the occupation bombing of the Abu Nasr family home in the Western Camp, west of Khan Yunis. They were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city.

The occupation artillery shelling since last night and dawn today on several neighborhoods in the city of Khan Yunis also resulted in dozens of killed and wounded.

The occupation aircraft also bombed a residential square near the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, resulting in dozens of killed and wounded, who were transferred to Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital in the city.

The occupation aircraft bombed residential neighborhoods and homes in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Nuseirat, and Jabalia, resulting in a number of injuries.

The number of killed as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since the seventh of last October has risen to 18,787 dead and about 50,900 wounded, an infinite toll.

Various comments were quick to welcome President Joe Biden's criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, Israeli crimes, and what the US president called "indiscriminate bombing" in the war on Gaza. Israeli retaliation in response to the Hamas operation, which led to the killing of 1,200 Israeli civilians and soldiers, exceeded all the rules of “self-defense,” and Biden was forced to say that these actions were beginning to harm Israel’s image in the world and make it lose international sympathy.

The comments went in search of motives for Biden’s criticism, and whether it stems from concern for the image of Israel and its Prime Minister Netanyahu, or is it from concern for the image of the United States, whose position in support of Israel has faced international criticism, as was evident from its isolation in the United Nations General Assembly after it voted against a resolution “Not binding” on the ceasefire, and it was the only country that voted with a veto on the same resolution in the Security Council, and it became accused by broad Arab circles of “participating” in the war on Gaza through its full support and provision of weapons to Israel.

Biden expressed full sympathy for the Israeli operation in Gaza, and supported its goals of eliminating the Hamas movement and recovering the hostages that the movement took in its attack on October 7, despite the acknowledgment by American strategic experts who served in previous administrations of the difficulty of recovering the hostages without a ceasefire, as well as the difficulty of eliminating Hamas based on the experiences of past wars with it. Biden also provided Israel with the weapons and ammunition it requested and requested additional exceptional budgets from Congress for this.

That political and military cover is what made it easier for Israel to continue the war. During the past two months, it was clear the extent of the destruction being inflicted on the Gaza Strip, and the high numbers of civilian casualties, most of whom were women and children, who the Israeli newspaper Haaretz estimated constituted two-thirds of the death toll. The goals of the Netanyahu government were known and declared in this war, which were not limited to revenge against Hamas or the recovery of hostages. Netanyahu openly aimed to empty the Gaza Strip of its residents and displace them to Egypt via the Rafah crossing, a goal that was not achieved as a result of the Egyptian government’s courageous and strong stance against this plan. Netanyahu’s positions rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state and his boasting that he was the only politician in Israel capable of preventing it were well-known, and President Biden knew them just as he knew Netanyahu’s rejection of the Oslo Accords, and the insistence of his government, which includes fascists and extremists, to expand settlement in “Judea and Samaria” so as to ensure the impossibility of establishing it. Palestinian state.

Therefore, it is difficult to say that it was new policies of the Israeli government that prompted Biden to direct his recent and frank criticism of its racist members, whom he described as the most extremist in the history of Israel. For this reason, Biden's statements seem directed at the voting base in the United States in the last year of his term, and as part of his preparation for the renewal battle against Donald Trump, more than they aim to rescue Netanyahu from his predicament and seek a solution to the long conflict with the Palestinians. The reactions to the war in Gaza and to the images of child victims, the destruction of homes, and people being thrown into tents in the rain, all of this began to push the ranks of the Democratic Party in the United States to raise their voice against the support provided by Biden and his administration for Israel’s campaign against Gaza. Polls indicate that 63 percent of Democratic Party voters reject Biden's policy, while some of them tend to abstain from voting, or vote for independent candidates, or for Trump, which constitutes a major loss for Biden in states where Arab and Muslim communities constitute a significant size of the voters, such as Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Florida, and others.

It is difficult for Biden's recent statements to change the positions of members of these communities, especially since it is unlikely that his criticisms will fall on deaf ears among Israelis. Netanyahu, his foreign minister, and military leaders were quick to confirm that the war on Gaza was continuing “with or without international support.” They know that Biden is in the final year of his term, and that he needs Jewish votes in the United States more than they need him, even though prominent figures among the American Jewish community criticize Netanyahu’s policies, and are aware of the extent of the harm they are causing to Jews with the rising wave of indiscriminate anti-Semitism. (Like all racist waves) among Jews who support Netanyahu or those who sympathize with the Palestinian cause from a moral and humanitarian standpoint.

Moreover, Biden's calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state or the revival of a negotiation process between the Palestinians and Israel do not constitute a concern for Netanyahu and his group. This is because Biden has not been concerned with this issue since he entered the White House, and his argument was that the Barack Obama administration, in which he was second-in-command, did not succeed in any positive action in this regard after Obama collided with Netanyahu and decided not to press for any settlement, Contrary to what previous Democratic presidents, such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, did.

Adding to Israel's lack of concern about any pressure that Biden could exert is that he is in the final year of his term, and pressure from American lawmakers has begun to surround him due to accusations that he used his position as Vice President during the Obama era to facilitate business deals and commissions for his son Hunter in China and Ukraine.

Hence, Biden's criticism seems directed at investing in the Democratic voter in the United States, who is dissatisfied with the absolute support for the war on Gaza. As for Israel's leaders, they are the last to be concerned about these criticisms, as Netanyahu said: "We will continue with what we are doing, and we do not care about all of that."

American and Western officials have raised concerns that Occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may turn his personal problems into a regional nightmare, according to what was reported by the American network “NBC” on Thursday, December 14, 2023.

American and Western officials told the network their concerns that “Israel does not have a coherent position or political plan once the military campaign ends.”

While the network confirmed that “the American intelligence community believes that Iran is not seeking a direct war with Washington,” it fears that Netanyahu will drag it into this confrontation.

Earlier Thursday, an opinion poll conducted by the Hebrew newspaper Maariv revealed that 43% of Israelis do not approve of the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with America regarding the management of the war.

According to Maariv newspaper, “36% of Israelis consider Netanyahu’s behavior toward America to be correct.”

Visit of an American official

On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant informed US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan that dismantling Hamas “needs more than a few months.”

This came during their meeting in Israel, where Sullivan arrived for a two-day visit.

The Hebrew Channel 13 quoted Gallant as telling Sullivan: “Dismantling Hamas will take more than a few months, and it will be a long war.”

For his part, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, in a statement, a copy of which was sent to Anadolu, that Netanyahu met with Sullivan in Tel Aviv.

Sullivan is scheduled to meet later in the day with the Israeli Military Ministerial Council in Tel Aviv, according to the same source.

According to a statement issued by the White House on Wednesday, Sullivan will also meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

According to multiple reports, Sullivan is expected to convey to the Israeli government the vision of the administration of US President Joe Biden regarding the high casualties among Palestinian civilians and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli attacks.

On Tuesday, Biden said that Israel had begun to lose international support due to its “indiscriminate bombing” of the Gaza Strip, and called on Netanyahu to change his government, because it “does not want a two-state solution.”

Since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, the Biden administration has provided Tel Aviv with the strongest possible military and diplomatic support, and used its veto in the UN Security Council to prevent the issuance of a resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire.

As of Thursday, the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has resulted in 18,787 deaths and 50,897 injuries, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure and an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to Palestinian and UN sources.

Source: Arabic Post

This is not the first speech by the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, since October 7, but it is the most important among all previous speeches, not only because of the phrases it contains with important connotations, but because of the circumstances and developments that have occurred since the start of the war, until now, and the changes that have occurred on international positions towards the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

Aside from the traditional phrases that are consistent with the state of aggression, and the bitter talk about the images of suffering that the Palestinian people are going through in Gaza, under killing and bombing, the most important phrases that Haniyeh said are related to the desire to engage in a deep political dialogue about the future of the Palestinian issue.

The Movement is ready

The speech of the highest-ranking political official in the Hamas movement included the following:

“We affirm that we are open to discussing any ideas or initiatives that could lead to an end to the aggression, and putting the Palestinian house in order at the level of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and all Palestinian institutions, leading to a political path that secures the right of the Palestinian people to their independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Aside from the language and the various meanings it can carry, this phrase - and in the context of the surrounding events and developments - carries a message that says: The movement is not nihilistic, and it is ready to embark on a political path after the noise of battles subsides and the clamor of armed clashes stops.

It is likely that Haniyeh wants to give the United States, and President Biden in particular, a strong card to wave in the face of his stubborn ally Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government, especially after Biden announced positions rejecting this government and its extremist positions, and its inability to deal positively with the vision of the United States of America to solve the Palestinian issue, which adheres to the two-state solution.

It is certain that Ismail Haniyeh and the Hamas leadership are thinking, for their part, about the day following the cessation of the aggression against Gaza, and how the conditions of the Strip, which was subjected to a barbaric campaign that focused on spreading death and destruction throughout the Strip, and making it an uninhabitable place for life, will be arranged, making it the responsibility of managing the Strip - and its reconstruction, dealing with the disastrous state it has reached is a worry for Hamas, as well as for all followers and observers, and all countries interested in resolving the Palestinian issue and ending the bloody conflicts.

This comes in light of the heroic epic waged by Hamas and its armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, which impressed the entire world with its ability to withstand and inflict the heaviest losses on the ranks of the Israeli occupation, which did not succeed in achieving any of its goals that it set before the start of the aggression, despite seventy days of bombardment: air, ground, and sea, as well as continuous incursions and systematic destruction operations.

Haniyeh's confidence in the defeat of aggression

Perhaps this is what makes Haniyeh confident that the aggression will be defeated, and to point out repeatedly and strictly that it is an illusion to talk about any arrangements in Gaza without Hamas or the resistance. These are not just empty words, rather they are based on undeniable facts, as the resistance is still inflicting huge losses on the ranks of the enemy and its invading vehicles.

Also, international patience - especially the American one with the atrocities committed by the occupation against children and civilians - is beginning to run out, and President Biden’s statements - in this regard - do not bear interpretation, and the enemy’s home front is no longer able to bear an endless war.

If the issue of prisoners is added to this, which is the strongest card held by Hamas and the resistance in this battle, the outcome of all of this leads to an almost certain result, which is that the stage of searching for political and negotiating alternatives is about to begin.

Perhaps this is exactly what Ismail Haniyeh wanted to precede by saying: The movement is ready to discuss any ideas, and at the same time it is also a message to the Palestinian interior that Hamas will not allow its political opponent - who is located in the Ramallah, and who sits by watching the massacre in Gaza - to take the lead in talking about post-aggression arrangements, or post-Hamas even if he tried to appear to reject the aggression and refuse to exclude Hamas.

Source: Aljazeera

The scenario of a ceasefire based on a truce agreement - as happened in previous wars on the Gaza Strip - does not seem realistic at all in the context of the final scene of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle. No political leadership in Israel dares to sign an agreement or grant a commitment - even through a third party - that would result in understandings with the party carrying out the events of October 7. There is a huge psychological complex and dimensions that Israel cannot bear, and one of its consequences would be to recognize the other party in any agreement.

The final scene of this crazy war on the Gaza Strip is complicated by the impossibilities that cannot be achieved. The Israeli army achieving a clear victory over the Hamas movement - according to what the leaders of the occupation army say - is impossible, whether the military operation lasts long or short.

This is due to operational reasons and not emotional readings. Hamas's handing over of its prisoners - without an exchange deal that meets the Palestinian ambition to whitewash the prisons - is impossible, and it is unimaginable for Hamas to take such a step, even if the prisoners became missing.

Also, turning this war into a war of liberation at this stage is considered the third impossibility, as the West Bank did not benefit from the battle of “Al-Aqsa Flood” in building a deliberate movement for it in light of this situation, or breaking the stalemate in the West Bank towards a real project to confront settlement and occupation. At this point at least.

As for the fourth impossibility, it is that every war has an end. If we are talking about the fact that Gaza is not Ukraine - whose area exceeds 600 thousand square kilometers - then Israel is also not Ukraine, as its existence cannot tolerate long wars with an unclear end.

In the event that no fundamental achievement is achieved for Israel, it has no choice to save face but to resort to the scenario of a unilateral cessation of hostilities without a ceasefire, while retaining the right to persecute and assassinate, and without the cessation of hostilities entailing any obligations.

In the face of these current impossibilities, there is only one realistic scenario, which is Israel declaring, in agreement with the United States of America, a cessation of hostilities without declaring a ceasefire, and without reaching a truce, with regional approval. This option is ripe for either the Law of coincidence or the complexities of the facts on the ground.

There is no possibility on the horizon for any other scenario for the next stage. This option seems to be the most acceptable, as Hamas will not accept any truce that does not guarantee a clear lifting of the siege and a full pledge to clean up the prisons.

The law of coincidence reinforces the approach to this realistic scenario through what Israel has become accustomed to in previous wars and in its previous conflict with the Palestinians, waiting for what is called: the “golden mistake” or “golden information.” During the prolongation of its military operations and its intense attack, it is waiting for information to arrive by chance, through an error resulting from the use of technology, or being forced to change locations, or other means, about a leader or leaders in the first row to be eliminated. This is considered a major moral achievement for the Israeli army.

Then Israel can go to stop hostilities, while offering a meal of achievements to its audience, and then reserves the right to assassinate, and to carry out rapid military operations as necessary after that, thus keeping in the minds of the Israelis that the war has not ended and that the slogans it raised are still proceeding according to a well-thought-out plan.

As for the realistic scenario - which will lead to the same result - it is that the current zero-sum equation must stop at some point, and therefore, even though it is not clear what the time limit granted by the American administration to Israel is, in all cases it has approached, and all indications indicate it will not exceed a few weeks, no more.

In the event that no fundamental achievement is achieved for Israel, it has no choice to save face but to resort to the scenario of a unilateral cessation of hostilities without a ceasefire, while retaining the right to persecute and assassinate, and without the cessation of hostilities entailing any obligations.

This scenario is not considered bad for Hamas at all, as it means that it will not have any obligations, and it is implicitly understood that the flame of resistance will continue. What happened is considered a prelude to a long liberation war, and in the context of the natural state of resistance factions with their enemy, which is intermittent or continuous clashes, hit and run and work as much as possible in the entire occupied territory of Palestine.

This scenario also lays the foundation for building a cumulative state of resistance and struggle against the occupation without any other obligations, which is the state of mind closest to Hamas’ combat doctrine and the natural logic of things. But it is certain that the fragility of the situation in this case will be regionally worrying, especially for Egypt, as it will sustain the thunderbolts of explosion.

In such a scenario, it would be easier to achieve an honorable prisoner exchange deal, much more than in any other scenario. The two parties will complete this deal in light of a cessation of fighting, but without ceasefire obligations. Which means the scenario of the possibility of returning to fighting, and this is acceptable, is consistent with the Hamas movement’s decision not to negotiate over prisoners under fire, and also with the movement’s official position of calling for an exchange deal, then returning to fighting if the occupation is determined to return to completing the war.

However, this more realistic path has multiple scenarios, some bad and some good, and they are as follows: for Israel to stop hostilities unilaterally and maintain its control over parts of the Gaza Strip. This does not require approval or rejection from the other party, which is the Hamas movement. Because the announcement will be one-sided.

But this means that the period of calm will be limited to take a breath, and fighting will soon be renewed until the last soldier leaves the sector through hit-and-run operations, whether the matter is related to a limited presence on the border strip in agricultural lands - which is the closest to reality scenario - or the presence inside residential areas in the northern Gaza Strip, where the situation will be more complicated.

The occupation army also has a high ambition to stop hostilities, as it is in control of what is called the “Philadelphia axis”, which is the border strip of the Gaza Strip with Egypt. While emphasizing that nothing in the outcome of the battles is impossible, achieving this is very difficult, and it is closer for the imagination, even if the occupation forces reach it at some point, the resistance cannot make them settle there.

The cessation of hostilities without a ceasefire may result in political understandings, and may not be in the three basic files for any understandings, which are: governance in Gaza, prisoners, and weapons.

There are two assumptions for Hamas that it cannot give up: giving up its weapons and being complacent in the exchange deal, while Hamas is very flexible on the third topic, which is ruling Gaza. Quite the opposite, one of Hamas’ undeclared goals in this war may be getting rid of civilian rule in the Gaza Strip. Hamas movement put this scenario on the table, and previously discussed it with the Palestinian Authority and the factions, but did not receive a response.

A number of its leaders also issued clear statements in this war that the responsibility of civilians in the Gaza Strip is the responsibility of UNRWA and the United Nations.

Hamas has been aspiring for years to emulate the Lebanese model of separating the resistance from the government, but it does not want a government that stabs it in the back, and this is the thorny issue in the Palestinian situation.

The formation of a new leadership in the Gaza Strip may be marketed as a concession extracted from the Hamas movement, and this constitutes a regional solution, especially for Egypt, and one of the intersections of truce solutions that Netanyahu can market at some point with American approval.

As for the form of this government - whether it is closer to Hamas’ vision or closer to Israel’s vision - it depends on the results of the field, which is likely to be in accordance with the perspective Hamas aspires to, especially since the formation of this government will be a kind of loyalty on the part of Hamas to its popular base in that this new government is a gateway to lifting the siege and reconstruction.

The scenario of a cessation of hostilities without a ceasefire - although it appears in its immediate moments to not carry any vision related to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip or a pledge to lift the siege - nevertheless, strategically, it reflects the short-sightedness of the leaders in Israel who enjoy absolute narrow-mindedness and fatal strategic blindness. At that moment, it can be said that they had taken the first line in transforming the battle of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” into actual, continuous and accumulated foundational work towards true liberation in the coming years.

Source: Aljazeera

For 70 days, the Israeli occupation continues its bombing and attacks on Gaza, which led to the death of about 19,000 Palestinians and the injury of more than 50,000 others, in addition to the widespread destruction inflicted on the besieged Palestinian Strip.

But the matter was not limited to that, as there is also what can be described as the systematic theft of Gazans’ money, which was previously indicated by the Israeli “Yedioth Ahronoth” which said that since the beginning of the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army seized 5 million shekels, which was transferred to the financial department at the Ministry of Defense.

The newspaper explained that the “Spoils Unit” in the Army’s Technology and Logistics Division confiscated money that was seized, among other things, in the strongholds of the Hamas movement and the homes of what the occupation describes as wanted persons in Hamas areas, noting that the confiscated funds also include American, Jordanian, Iraqi and other currencies.

The occupation soldiers not only stole the Palestinians’ money, but also broke into their homes, tampered with them, and seized what they could of their property and belongings, as shown by video clips circulated on social media platforms of Israeli accounts that they published and bragged about.

In this clip, an Israeli soldier is shown destroying a Palestinian library in the Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip, while other soldiers were laughing in the background.

Recently, a video clip of an Israeli soldier playing the guitar and singing over the rubble of the rubble of homes that were destroyed in Gaza after its residents were displaced from their homes also spread on social media platforms.

This soldier is called Matan Cohen, and he himself published the video in which he appears playing amidst massive destruction around him.

But the surprise was what a Palestinian musician named Hamada revealed - later through a post on the Instagram platform - where he confirmed that the musical instrument belonged to him and that it was the “last memory” of his father who died in 2014, which prompted the soldier to delete the clip from his account.

Hamada wondered, denouncing, "Isn't it enough that they take our loved ones, our homes, our families, and even our music and memories? Where does the injustice stop?!"

Another video clip circulated by activists on social media platforms showed an Israeli soldier bragging about having a silver necklace that he had looted from Gaza to give to his girlfriend.

The matter is not limited to Gaza, where the occupation soldiers published scenes showing them riding motorcycles that they stole from residents in the Jenin refugee camp, as part of the daily attacks launched by the occupation forces on cities and camps in the West Bank.

It is noted that these clips published by Israeli soldiers bragging about their looting and theft of Palestinian property are later deleted because they raise controversy, even among official Israeli circles, which quickly announce their disavowal of these actions, claiming that they “do not represent the values and morals of the Israeli army.”

This barbaric behavior of the occupation soldiers towards the Palestinians was not limited to the ongoing war in Gaza (the Al-Aqsa flood). The occupation soldiers had previously stolen Palestinian homes during previous Israeli battles and military operations in the Gaza Strip, including what the Maariv newspaper highlighted years ago. At the beginning of her investigation, she asked, “Did IDF soldiers steal money from Palestinian citizens during military operations?”

The investigation stated that residents of the Al-Fukhari area in the Gaza Strip accused fighters of the Golani 51st Battalion of taking advantage of the curfew imposed on residents to steal sums of money from their homes that were left unattended.

According to the evidence obtained by Maariv, the thefts occurred on July 26, 2007, during an operation carried out by Golani forces throughout the village east of Khan Yunis. The operation lasted several hours, during which the soldiers stayed in the homes of the Palestinians.

The newspaper explained that the army forces arrived in the village late at night, and the soldiers took the residents out of the homes and searched them, then gathered each family in one closed room, then searched the rest of the house, and settled inside it until the activity ended. It was said that at this point, while the owners of the house were tied up, the thefts occurred.

Source: Al Jazeera + Israeli press + social networking sites

Politico said that the United States has a trove of information about Israel's conduct in the war, allowing it to assess whether Israel is adhering to the laws of war.

The American website quoted - from informed sources - that while American officials say that they are not currently making judgments on whether Israel is adhering to the laws of war, Washington has already collected detailed intelligence information that allows it to make this assessment in the future.

According to these sources, the information available to the United States is intelligence and detailed assessments related to the military movements and tactics of both Israel and Hamas since the start of the war, including data on targeting, the weapons used, and the potential number of deaths on both sides.

Politico reported from these sources that the intelligence information was shared with members of Congress in several briefing sessions, including a session with the intelligence committees, and that some of this information related to Israel’s use of unguided and unintelligent munitions in its war on Gaza.

Indiscriminate bombing

The website said that Biden was most likely relying on information when he spoke about the indiscriminate Israeli bombing, and it appears that his administration has information in this regard.

He added that State Department officials are also collecting reports on possible Israeli violations through a previously disclosed system, called the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidelines, or CHIRG, according to Josh Paul, who resigned from the department over concerns about its approach to the war.

Some officials in the department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs have asked the State Department's legal wing "to provide information about their potential exposure to international law as a result of approving these sales," Paul said.

Source: Politico

Israeli media quoted an Israeli political official as saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Mossad chief David Barnea full freedom to work to release detainees held by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli official indicated that Netanyahu's instructions to the head of the Mossad include meeting with mediators with the aim of "liberating" the detainees.

For his part, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, "We will do everything we can to spare the kidnapped people from any danger during our operations against the tunnels."

Yesterday, Wednesday, the Association of Families of Israeli Detainees in the Gaza Strip called on the Israeli government to work on a new prisoner exchange deal.

The Association of Families of Israeli Detainees - in a sit-in in central Tel Aviv - expressed increasing concerns about the fate of their children in the wake of the Israeli army’s talk of “recovering” the bodies of two detainees.

The families called on the Israeli government to move quickly and set a new course to release their families, accusing the Red Cross of "moving slowly in light of the great danger facing detainees in Gaza."

Disagreements and waiting

Israeli Channel 13 reported that disagreements were plaguing the War Council regarding a new exchange deal to return more detainees held by Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza.

The channel explained that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant believe that they must wait for any indication from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) that it is interested in an exchange deal, “which did not happen,” according to the channel.

Channel 13 added that Israeli War Council member Benny Gantz believes that Israel must find an opportunity to move the negotiation process forward again.

Last Monday, Israeli media reported new moves to conclude a prisoner exchange deal between the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and Israel, indicating that the conditions are ripe, and that Tel Aviv is ready to listen to the mediators’ proposals regarding a new exchange deal.

The families of Israeli detainees in Gaza escalated their pressure on the Netanyahu government in previous times by organizing a protest march from Tel Aviv to the Prime Minister’s Office in occupied Jerusalem, to demand practical steps to return their children.

A state of anger also prevailed among the families of the Israeli prisoners when they met earlier with members of the war council led by Netanyahu, and some of them withdrew from the meeting in protest at the failure to answer their questions.

A temporary truce began last November 24, lasting 7 days, between the Hamas movement and the Israeli occupation, mediated by the State of Qatar and Egyptian-American coordination, during which 80 Israelis were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

A US intelligence report revealed that unguided “stupid” bombs constitute about half of the air-to-ground munitions used by Israel in its attacks on Gaza.

On Thursday, the American CNN network published details of the report, citing three sources it reviewed.

According to the report, between 40 and 45 percent of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions that Israel used in its attacks on Gaza were unguided bombs, while the rest were precision-guided bombs.

The news indicated that unguided bombs pose a greater danger to civilians, especially in a densely populated area such as Gaza, because they are less accurate and do not target a specific target, indicating that Israel uses these munitions, which has led to a high number of deaths among civilians.

In this context, experts confirmed to CNN that the use of unguided bombs negates Israel's argument that it is trying to reduce civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip.

Brian Kastner, senior crisis advisor at Amnesty International's Crisis Response Program, stressed that he was deeply shocked and concerned about Israel's use of unguided bombs, saying it was "a huge problem that causes harm to civilians."

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said that Israel has begun to lose the support of the international community with its indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must change his government to find a long-term solution.

On the same morning, Biden stressed in a call with Netanyahu the need for Israel to be more sensitive about not targeting civilians in Gaza.

The United Nations has warned that Israel's filling of tunnels in the Gaza Strip with salt water would cause serious harm to civilians and the environment.

This came in a statement published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Thursday, commenting on reports emerging about Israel pumping seawater into tunnels belonging to the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.

The statement indicated that Israel's filling of the tunnels in Gaza with salt water could have serious negative effects on human rights, some in the long term, adding: "In this case, products necessary for the survival of civilians may also be at risk."

He also stressed that filling the tunnels with salt water could also cause widespread, long-term and serious environmental damage, and said: “Civilians must be protected.”

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing American officials, that Israel had begun implementing its plan to flood Gaza's tunnels with seawater.

American officials reported that the process of flooding the tunnels with seawater "is taking place through 7 different pumping systems, and is expected to last weeks."

The American CNN network said that an assessment by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Israel dropped 29,000 ground-to-air missiles on the Gaza Strip.

It stated that the evaluation concluded that nearly half of the munitions dropped by Israel on Gaza were unguided and inaccurate bombs, or known as "dumb bombs."

The network quoted an occupation army spokesman who refused to comment on the type of ammunition used in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli occupation army announced that the Air Force carried out more than 500 air strikes this week in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli raids have caused the death of more than 18,500 Palestinians since the start of the aggression on October 7.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv on Thursday, during a visit aimed at discussing the duration of the war on Gaza and its aftermath.

Sullivan held a one-on-one meeting with Netanyahu, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, without details about the course of the meeting. The American official also participates in a meeting of the Israeli War Council.

Netanyahu had preceded his meeting with Sullivan by saying that international pressure would not stop military operations in the Gaza Strip, expressing his hope to reach a consensus with Washington regarding the status of the Strip after the war.

As for the Israeli Defense Minister, he told Sullivan in a separate meeting that “dismantling” the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) requires “a long period extending more than several months,” according to a statement issued by his office.

Israeli media said that Gallant also told Sullivan that the war would continue and that Israel needed continued American support.

They also discussed returning Israelis to settlements near the border with Lebanon after the displacement of tens of thousands of them due to mutual bombing with Hezbollah.

For more than 9 weeks, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that, as of Thursday evening, has left 18,787 martyrs and 50,897 wounded, according to the Ministry of Health in the Strip.

American support

Israel ignored calls for a ceasefire, supported by the United States, which supplies it with thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition via an air bridge, and provides it with political cover, as it used its veto in the UN Security Council a few days ago to block a resolution calling for an end to the war.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Sullivan will discuss with the Israelis the need for their strikes to be more accurate, as he put it.

For his part, US President Joe Biden said the day before Tuesday that Israel had begun to lose international support due to its "indiscriminate" bombing of Gaza. He also called on Netanyahu to change his government because it "does not want a two-state solution."

On the other hand, the American magazine Politico quoted a source close to the office of US Vice President Kamala Harris that she believes that Washington should be more strict with Netanyahu.

The source added that Harris called for her country to be more forceful in seeking long-term peace and achieving the two-state solution.

According to the magazine, Harris told her colleagues in the administration that she wanted the White House to show more concern about the humanitarian damage in Gaza.

It also urged officials, including the US President, to show more sensitivity towards Palestinian civilians.

The Palestinian telecommunications companies Paltel and Jawwal confirmed on Thursday evening that telecommunications and Internet services had completely stopped in the Gaza Strip.

The two companies said in a statement: “We regret announcing a complete interruption of all communications and Internet services in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing aggression.”

It is noteworthy that these two companies are the main ones in Gaza.

This is the fifth time that the Gaza Strip has been subjected to a complete interruption of communications services, during the devastating Israeli aggression that has continued for nearly two months.

A video spread on social media platforms of occupation soldiers performing a Talmudic prayer on the occasion of what they call “Hanukkah” over loudspeakers in one of Jenin’s mosques after storming the camp.

This passage comes to refute what Israel boasts about, that it seeks to preserve the holy places of all monotheistic religions and provide them with protection. Last year, the Israel Arabic account of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a tweet in which he said:

“Terrorism affects the sanctity of the dead prophets, not just innocent civilians in Israel. The irony is that Israel is striving to preserve the holy places of all heavenly religions and provide freedom of worship, especially in the blessed month of Ramadan in Al-Aqsa Mosque, while the hand of terrorism reaches the sanctity of the grave of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him.”

The extremist Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, posted the video clip on his Facebook page, and the clip began to spread among the audience on social media platforms around the world, and sparked a state of anger and denunciation. Tweeters considered the movement provocative, and said that the occupation soldiers knew that “the Palestinian resistance will not fight them inside the houses of God because of the sanctity of fighting there and for fear of destroying them.”

Bloggers commented on the video that it was a blatant violation of divine religions and international law, noting that Israel had crossed all red lines by violating human rights and the sanctity of sanctities.

Palestinian pages circulated a video clip that they said was of the destruction caused by the Israeli occupation soldiers in the Jenin Mosque.

The government media office in Gaza had published a report in which it said that the number of mosques completely destroyed reached 88, and the number of mosques partially destroyed reached 174, in addition to targeting 3 churches, during the aggression that has continued for more than 69 days on the Strip.

Jews all over the world celebrate the “Hanukkah” holiday in memory of the so-called “victory of the Hasmoneans” in their revolution against the Greeks during the “Second Temple” period, according to the claim of the Jews who claimed that the Greeks oppressed rights and prevented Jewish worship, and their “revolution” resulted in the occupation of... Jerusalem and the replacement of Greek rule with Jewish rule.

The number one priority of the State of Israel must be to bring home the hostages – all of them.   The State of Israel failed to protect its citizens who were massacred and taken hostage. It is the moral responsibility of the State of Israel to bring them home.  Hamas and its leader, YehyaSinwar, made it very clear in the first days of the war some 10 weeks ago that the deal on the table is all of the hostages in exchange for all of the Palestinian prisoners. Sinwar has made it his life’s goal to empty the Israeli prisons. He said it in his first public speech after his release in 2011 and has repeated it in every important speech over the past 12 years. This mission is more important to him than his own life. At the beginning of the war there were about 5,600 prisoners. Now there are more than 7,600 and the number grows every day. Of those prisoners there are 559 who were sentence to life in prison for murdering Israelis.  Some of them are on multiple life sentences for killing many Israelis. Most of these people are very dangerous because they have no regrets for what they did and many of them would probably intend to continue to do what they did in the past. There are an additional 130 terrorists who were caught in Israel on October 7, 8 and 9.  These are brutal murdering terrorists as well.  There are more than 2500 administrative detainees who have been arrested without charge and imprisoned without trial. Only about 500 of the 7600 prisoners are from Gaza. Before October 7 about 25% of the prisoners were identified as being members of Hamas.

Yes, there are clear and present dangers to releasing these people. There is more and present danger to the lives of the Israeli hostages left in Gaza - every day that they are there is a risk to their lives.  That is why the “all for all” deal must be made. If it becomes clear that Israel has decided to sacrifice the hostages, as it now appears to be so, and they are killed in Gaza, this kind of blow to Israeli society is one that we will not heal from. It will take many years, if ever, to get over the realization that the government of Israel allowed its innocent citizens to be killed in Gaza because it would not make a deal with Hamas.

Yes, this will be a victory for Hamas and for Sinwar that no one wants to grant him.  But it will be a very temporary victory, because the war effort will continue immediately after the hostages come home. Hamas must not be allowed to continue to control Gaza even one day after the war.  There is no victory for Israel if the hostages remain in Gaza. There is no victory for Israel of Hamas continues to control Gaza after the war.  Sinwar will face his wish to become a shaheed – this we can promise him. This deal must be on the table now. To mitigate the risks, the released prisoners should be sent to the West Bank and not to Gaza. In the West Bank they can be more easily monitored and watched and if need be, rearrested or if they try to engage in terrorism, they can be eliminated. Yes, there are risks and 7600 released prisoners are a lot of people. But let’s face reality, Israel arrests Palestinians every night. In 2014, Israel rearrested 68 Palestinians who were released in the Shalit deal.

Without resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and enabling Palestinians to have the right of self-determination, personal and national dignity and ending the Israeli occupation, there is no shortage of Palestinians willing to fight and die and be arrested for their cause of liberation. So immediately when this horrible war is over, we have to get into the hard work of ending this conflict and doing it much more seriously than ever before. October 7 has to be our wake-up call – for Israelis and for Palestinians.

The Gaza Humanitarian Catastrophe

Facing the immediate humanitarian disaster in Gaza – with about 2 million people who have once again become homeless without homes to return to because Israel has bombed them into rubble. Winter is here now with rain, flooding, and cold, and people having to live in make shift tents with no proper sanitation. There is a shortage of food, and very little potable water. People are still being bombed, even within the so-called safe areas. Hospitals are not functioning because most of them have been bombed. Schools that are still standing are serving as shelters for tens of thousands of homeless people. Objectively speaking, there is little doubt that war crimes have been committed by Israel.  Whole families have been killed in their homes. Thousands of orphans are facing life without homes and families. This is a disaster. So many innocent people have become victims of this war. They need to place blame on Hamas, no doubt, but Israel is also to be blamed and held responsible for this humanitarian catastrophe.

On days before the war, more than 500 trucks of goods entered Gaza on a daily basis.  Now all trucks entering, much smaller in numbers, are filled with food, water, medical supplies and other urgent basic human needs. There is no economy left in Gaza. The aid trucks are providing the most basic needs to deal with the crisis of 2 million homeless people. Israel has agreed to open the Kerem Shalom crossing for the purpose of allowing more trucks to go through security clearance. That is a step in the right direction, but the trucks return to the Rafah crossing bottleneck before entering Gaza. Once in Gaza, the trucks face Hamas gunmen who confiscate a lot of the aid which should be going to the civilian population. Israel must set up its own humanitarian aid corridor at Kerem Shalom crossing, and at least one crossing in the north of the Gaza Strip – perhaps Erez to bring the aid directly to where it is most needed. Israel should make this crossing efficient and the IDF should accompany the aid trucks to the points of destination that Israel told the population they would find safe zones. Israel should distribute the aid to the people in need.  This should be done because it is the right thing to do and because we always have to remember that there will be a day after the war where two million Palestinians will still be living in Gaza as Israel’s neighbors.

In support of its war on the Palestinians, Israeli propaganda has adopted a single accusation against any person or entity that now criticizes its policy: anti-Semitism. That is, hatred of members of the Jewish religion. It relies on ancient, rooted evidence: Spain, which returned to Catholicism for centuries, expelled them from it, along with the Muslims, and the horrific Inquisition that it invented to punish them for their beliefs. To the stifling ghettos and bitter ghettos they had tasted; Beginning with the Russians, then with the rest of the Eastern European countries, until it extended to the Western ones. Its climax was the organized, studied, and “scientific” Holocaust, which was led by the Nazi German mind, led by Hitler. This last injustice wiped out millions of Jews, displacing them and scattering them. So it had a name: the Holocaust, or the Holocaust, or Jewish victimization. It is the single word, or the most frequently mentioned argument when Israeli propaganda talks about its enemies, the anti-Semites: that they do not acknowledge that we have been wronged throughout history.

The Holocaust in many ways occurred in Germany during World War II. Documenting it, announcing its evidence, and the testimonies of its survivors were among the most powerful dynamics that made the Zionist project successful in Palestine. The Holocaust, that unique crime in human memory, became, after all, the “moral” base on which Israel built its legitimacy. That the Jews have been oppressed throughout history, that after the Holocaust they reached the peak of their suffering, that they, like other peoples, have the right to have a homeland in which they can be safe, and to be free from the ghettos, anti-Semitism, and hatred that the Europeans inflict upon them...etc.

Because of the new oppression that the founding of this State of Israel brought upon us, we were unable to see the Jews as anything but evil in essence. Basically evil. Eternally evil, they could not have known injustice, persecution or the Holocaust.

At this moment, it is difficult to imagine that your perpetrator was once a victim. This is a spiritual effort, sought by calm, reassured souls, exempt from the immediate horror of war and its scourges.

Therefore, in the 1990s, when a French writer, named Roger Garaudy, emerged denying the Holocaust, denying its organization and planning, and accusing the Zionists of collaborating with the Nazis... we were filled with joy. He was celebrated in some Eastern capitals and invited to them. Damascus, Amman, then Beirut. In the latter capital, he was received by two left-leaning forums, the Arab National Forum and the Permanent Conference Against the Zionist Cultural Invasion. It was a symposium in which he spoke, a trip to the south, and a tour of Beirut and the Lebanese mountains. In recognition of his “political and cultural approach,” and his “spiritual faith and courage,” he earned during this visit the title “Sheikh Roger Garaudy” (see the nickname “Abu Ali Putin” for the Russian president, after Syria and Ukraine).

Subsequently, Garudi's book, “The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics,” was translated into Arabic by the publishing houses Al-Shorouk in Cairo and Al-Kitab in Damascus. In 1998, he was invited to the International Book Fair in Cairo, and was welcomed by prominent Egyptians, such as Muhammad Hassanein Heikal, Naguib Mahfouz, and Sheikh Muhammad Tantawi. Arab donations were collected to pay the costs of the trial held against him in France, as it was forbidden to deny the Holocaust. But it also turned out that he relied in his book on only two references, by two historians who all wrote about Holocaust denial. When Roger Garaudy's other positions developed and led him to support far-right parties, we did not care. We continued to admire him, even though we had forgotten him all these years. We forgot Garaudy, perhaps because someone came to take his place, and forcefully, amid the dust of the grinding war that Israel is waging against the people of Gaza and the Gaza Strip.

The massive demonstrations taking place in Western capitals and cities fill our hearts with joy, despite sorrow. They cannot believe that Palestinian flags are flying in these spots, with demonstrations, sit-ins, and cultural and networking events. Many groups, progressive, liberal, leftist, minorities, Native Americans (First Nations), participate in this, which resembles a peaceful, Western popular uprising for Palestine. But also, in these activities in support of Palestine, there are participants from the “supremacist” category, white supremacists from the far right, some of whom have Nazi tendencies. These are the strongest electoral stock for Donald Trump in the previous and next two presidential terms. Groups known for their hostility toward Jews and Arab Americans alike. They hate the Jews, because they see them as potential communists, the owners of money and banks, who control the media and Hollywood, carry out suspicious business operations, and have no conscience...and their control over all these sectors aims to “exterminate whites.”

Recognizing the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews is the only way to stop the blackmail practiced by Israeli propaganda against any party that supports the Palestinians, regardless of its tone.

Here are some representatives of thoSupremacistsists": Jackson Henkel. A young man in his early twenties, an influencer, with two and a half million followers. From the extreme conspiratorial right. The number of his followers has increased these days as he defends the Palestinians, glorifies Hamas and Hitler, and attacks Israel. Just like his two companions, Cath Yewd and Lord Pipo. Their social and Internet activity floods the network with their positions and statements “to the point that everyone forgot their previous anti-Muslim and anti-Arab words” (according to one American commentator).

As a reminder, their icon, Donald Trump, is not much different from them. In his election campaigns, he is enthusiastic about his "supremacist” audience, who raise banners reading: “The Jews will not take our place.” He supports them and praises their actions. He denies himself an anti-Semite. He says, "I am the least person in the world that you could describe as an anti-Semite." But in reality, he uses all the anti-Semitic clichés, encourages them, tolerates them.

On the contrary, there are positions that characterized the German government, which was heavily involved with Israel in this war. And it didn't budge. The secret behind this German “persistence”? The same Holocaust complex that we are dealing with. A few words sum up the former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She visits the remains of the Nazi Holocausts in Germany, and says, at the conclusion of one of them in Auschwitz: “To remember the crime, to name its perpetrators, to honor its victims and restore their dignity... This is our responsibility. And to be aware that this responsibility is at the core of our national identity.” Its clear doctrine was: Israel's security, for Germany, was "the state's interest." Her successor, Olaf Scholz, maintains this doctrine, declaring from Tel Aviv, days after the “Al-Aqsa Flood”: “Germany has only one place: to be at Israel’s side (...) Our own history, our responsibility in the Holocaust, oblige us “By ensuring Israel’s existence and security. This responsibility is our compass” (At the same time, Germany is the most generous European with the Syrians fleeing Bashar al-Assad. It receives a million and a half of them...).

A true and just peace will recognize the injustices of Palestinians and Jews alike

Thus, it is easy for us to deny the Holocaust and fall into anti-Semitism, not as Netanyahu presents it as an excuse for killing and destroying Palestinians, but from the perspective of the current moment, so it is difficult to acknowledge it. At this moment, it is difficult to imagine that your perpetrator was once a victim. This is a spiritual effort, sought by calm, reassured souls, exempt from the immediate horror of war and its scourges.

But also: Recognizing the Holocaust is a fundamental human act, which facilitates understanding the human transformation from perpetrator to victim. I mean that our history, as human beings, is full of victims who turned into executioners. The Jewish Holocaust, which had the greatest credit for establishing the State of Israel, provided full legitimacy for the transformation of the Jewish victim into the executioner... is only one of its stories. This recognition is the only way to stop the blackmail practiced by Israeli propaganda against any party that supports the Palestinians, regardless of its tone. Thanks to it, our imaginations navigate the depths of the suffering of others. This is an act that may happen after the end of the war and the start of negotiations, and at a later stage, during the work to establish a single democratic Palestinian Jewish state... Its day will come, no matter how late it is. At that time, we must say that the Jews were once victims. For Israel to respond that the Jews under its rule had turned into executioners, it would atone for its sin (An Israeli writer asks: How has the Nakba covered the Holocaust in the American media since October 7?)

A true and just peace will recognize the oppression of Palestinians and Jews alike. The first is new and the second is old. Otherwise, this peace will remain fleeting, falling, like the one before it, into the category of impossible peace and permanent wars... written on our foreheads.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday that "more European countries are now seeking a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip."

Speaking to the press before the European Council meeting in the Belgian capital, Brussels, Borrell said, “During today’s meeting, the leaders will discuss the war in Ukraine.”

He added: "We will also discuss the situation in Gaza."

The European official added: "Despite some different trends among member states, more and more European Union countries today support the ceasefire in Gaza."

Regarding today's European Council meeting, Borrell said, "Attendees will have to take into account last week's vote in the United Nations General Assembly calling for a ceasefire in the besieged Strip."

He stressed that "Europeans must start thinking about how to deal with the problem using a political approach."

Borrell continued, saying: “We must focus on the political solution to the Palestinian issue once and for all,” referring to the implementation of the principle of the two-state solution.

US Vice President Kamala Harris urged Washington and President Joe Biden to be more sympathetic to Palestinian civilians and show more concern for the humanitarian damage in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is locked in a bloody battle with the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, according to a report published by the American newspaper Politico.

Harris stressed, according to the report published on Thursday, that her country “should be tougher with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and be more forceful in seeking to achieve long-term peace through the two-state solution.”

The newspaper, which was quoting a senior official in the US administration and sources close to Harris, said that the latter argued during internal talks about the war on Gaza that the time had come “to begin making plans for the next day in order to deal with the wreckage of the war as soon as the fighting ends.”

The newspaper confirmed that Harris's statements "reveal the extent to which senior Democratic officials are struggling to walk a cautious line regarding the war between Israel and Hamas, especially since the conflict has shaken the Democratic political alliance internally and externally."

The newspaper added, "Harris urged Biden, in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, to condemn Islamophobia at the same time as he spoke against anti-Semitism. In confirmation of this, the Washington Post reported last month that Harris persuaded Biden to add a line He condemned Islamophobia in his speech on October 10, about the outbreak of war.

The newspaper continued: “Since then, Biden, Harris, and other administration officials have become increasingly willing to criticize Israel’s approach to fighting Hamas, and this became clear this week when the president issued a stark warning to the Israeli government about the potential political consequences of its fierce military attack. He also condemned what he called” "Indiscriminate bombing," and called on Netanyahu's hard-line government to change its methods.

She noted that "Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken rebuked Israel for the toll its military operation had on ordinary Palestinians, with Austin warning that Israel risked a 'strategic defeat' if it insisted on these heavy civilian losses."

In this regard, Harris recently spoke about Israeli military tactics in tough terms after meeting in Dubai with leaders from Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, where she reiterated that Israel “has the right to defend itself, but what matters is how it carries out this mission. Too many have been killed.” "Of innocent Palestinians. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering, and the images and videos coming from Gaza, are devastating. It is truly heartbreaking," she said.

In response to her statements, Politico newspaper quoted Wael Al-Zayat, CEO of the Islamic advocacy group Emgage, as saying that Harris “uses stronger language against Israelis who should refrain from harming civilians, and she is a woman of color who is in tune with various issues of racial and social justice,” while one considered that Pro-Israel Democrats said the administration's "record on shipping weapons to Israel and seeking more aid from Congress was more important than any rhetoric from senior officials."

Kamala Harris had confirmed in previous statements that her country would not, under any circumstances, allow the “forced deportation” of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, just as she called on Israel more than once to do more to protect Palestinian civilians.

She stressed the need for regional consensus and support for post-war Gaza, calling on the international community to "allocate significant resources to support short- and long-term recovery in Gaza."

Our entire history has never witnessed a war like this. It is a war of complete conformity, a war of complete silence, a war of blind support. It is a war without opposition, without protest, and it is a war without rejection, and without a rejecting parliamentary bloc, neither at its beginning nor at its climax. It is a war by consensus, a war with the support of the comprehensive Israeli public, the public from one end to the other (and this does not include the Arab citizens who are prohibited from dissent). It is a war without question marks, but rather it is a war without an iota of doubt.

Is the war that resulted in the deaths of about 20,000 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them innocents, the war that resulted in the destruction of the homes and lives of almost the entire population of the Gaza Strip, the most just war in the history of Israel? Is a war that causes such horrific suffering to more than two million people the most moral of Israel's wars? If the answer is no, then how come we do not hear a voice here calling for an end to the bloodbath? Rather, how can we not find a voice that rejects the war, given the increasing bloodshed from Israeli army soldiers, and how has the following question not yet arisen: Hatam and for how long?

Israel's wars, for the most part, were wars of choice. At first, it was supported by almost all of Israeli society, but opposition soon began to emerge, after the terrible costs and futility of military action became clear. When these wars ended, many of our ranks became against them. The opponents of this war, with a reactionary effect, became too numerous to count. This is what happened in the two ridiculous Lebanon wars, and this is what happened in all the attacks against the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. These wars, all of them, were shorter than the current war, the end of which no one can predict. Here we are in a war that everyone supports, and no one is asking questions about. The media is brainwashing with an intensity we have never seen before: The media appears to be a chorus of pretenders of integrity, if I do not want to describe them as a chorus of chants of the Soviet Red Army. This is the chorus that reaches day and night in the studios, but whoever has doubts starting to seep, perhaps, into his heart, will not dare to speak about them publicly. Well, “Together we will win!” [The slogan that Israel raises for this war].

This is the course of a war that broke out as a result of a “barbaric and criminal” attack, but nothing has curbed this war since its outbreak. There are no limits to this war, and on the other hand, there is no controversy or opposition to it. The credibility of this war at its beginning, in the eyes of Jewish Israelis, justifies everything that will happen during it. But now, after two terrible months, doubts may be starting to creep in.

You will not find anyone among Arab society who is not shocked by the horrific scenes coming from the Gaza Strip, as their victims are their brothers and members of their families, and they, unlike the Jews, are watching what is happening in the Gaza Strip, an exposure that the Jews are deprived of, thanks to the miserable and propaganda media. But "Israeli Arabs" cannot protest. The current government threatens Arabs more than all its predecessors, brutally muzzles people, and throws citizens into prisons. Now, “Israeli Arabs” live in terror, terror from the authorities, and terror from the Jewish street, a terror the likes of which we have not seen since the 1948 Nakba.

In the Jewish street as well, and despite the complete and overwhelming agreement on the legalization of war, with all the crimes it entails, there are certainly those who have begun to realize the atrocities committed by Israel, but the fear of revenge is great here as well, due to the terror imposed by the current government, the Israeli street and “The Awakened” [the prevailing description of the Israeli “leftist” figures who declared that they had “awakened” from the illusions of coexistence, after the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation]. The result: war without opposition.

Even in Putin's Russia, there are more anti-war manifestations in Ukraine than in supposedly democratic Israel. This does not mean that we equate the two wars in terms of the justice of their endeavors. The crime in Ukraine was infinitely more horrific, but the means used in the two wars, and their results, made them more similar than before. We are witnessing horrific manifestations in both, and immeasurable suffering of millions of innocent people, all in the name of achieving absurd goals.

The suffering in the Gaza Strip will bring nothing to Israel. Winter is approaching, and this suffering will be two and three times greater than it is now. Israel has never, throughout its existence, sown such devastation, nor has it killed such a number of children and the elderly in its entire life, as it did in this war. At a time when Israeli public discourse focuses on military achievements, whether real or imagined, along with the insistence on wallowing endlessly in Israeli suffering, and the insistence on focusing on the suffering of Israelis alone, not others, and in addition to all of this, pounces on any appearance from the manifestations of opposition to the war, the conclusion becomes clear: on the Israeli side, this war can be continued indefinitely, and the entire population of the Gaza Strip can be killed, and its entirety destroyed, forever. Thus, this act becomes the most moral and the most just.

Source: Haaretz

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said yesterday, Wednesday, that an idea cannot be defeated on a battlefield, in the context of his talk about Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza. When asked during a press conference about the United States’ view of the possibility of eliminating Hamas militarily in the way that Israel seeks, Miller said, “It is certain that the current military leadership of Hamas can be defeated militarily. There are leading figures who planned the October 7 attacks, and there are those who carried out the individual attacks.” "They are sheltering with civilians in Gaza now. These people can be found and brought to justice. This is a military goal that we believe can be achieved." He added, "However, an idea cannot be defeated on the battlefield. Therefore, Israel, other countries in the region, the United States and every country around the world that wants to be a responsible player must come up with a better idea. 

That is why you have heard Secretary Blinken repeatedly say And once again, at the end of this conflict there must be a legitimate answer to the aspirations of the Palestinian people.” Miller was asked about the possibility of the Authority running any future Palestinian state, in conjunction with an opinion poll published by the Associated Press on Wednesday, which showed that 90% want the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to step down. He said, "We believe that. It is clear that the Palestinian Authority is not in a position to administer Gaza, and to provide security, police, and other guarantees." 

He continued, "We believe that the Palestinian Authority is the representative of the Palestinian people, and that a Palestinian Authority that is renewed, reformed, and reorganized is the way forward toward the reunification of the West Bank and Gaza Strip." Speaking about the United Nations General Assembly’s vote on Wednesday regarding a ceasefire in Gaza, Miller said, “I think what can be drawn from this vote is that it is clear that the world wants to end this conflict, and it is a goal that we share. We want this conflict to end". 

He pointed out that the United States expects every country that supplies it with weapons to use them “in full compliance with international humanitarian law and the laws of war, and Israel is no exception.” Miller was asked by reporters whether Washington was assessing the extent of Israel's compliance with the conventional arms transfer policy, which the Biden administration approved in February 2023. This requires the State Department to determine that those weapons are unlikely to be used in genocide, crimes against humanity, or other violations. Geneva Conventions or serious violations of international law. Miller said that the State Department had not taken such a decision, and reiterated the American position that Israel could make more efforts to reduce the harm to civilians in the Gaza conflict.

On Wednesday evening, December 13, 2023, a Hebrew channel published what it said was an Israeli timetable for the aggression against the Gaza Strip, showing that violent military operations may end at the end of January 2024.

Israeli Channel 12 said that Israel has entered the third month of the war, and the American administration is pressuring Tel Aviv, saying that the “hourglass” for the aggression is about to run out, and the visit of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to Israel aims to discuss the time frame for ending the war.

According to the Israeli timetable, published by the channel, “it is expected that by the end of January 2024, Israel will end the phase of violent fighting.”

America is pressing to end the war on the Gaza Strip by Christmas, that is, the beginning of January 2024, but in light of the current situation, Tel Aviv does not see that as possible, according to the Israeli channel, which indicated that the Israelis say that a few more weeks will be needed after the end of the fighting, to complete the withdrawal of forces from the heart of Gaza and deploy them in the defensive lines, some inside the Strip and some outside it.

As for the second phase, the channel said that it is expected to be longer, and includes “the completion of the elimination of the Hamas movement.” Estimates indicate that it may extend until the end of 2024, and include the destruction of the movement’s military capabilities, through operations and raids by the Israeli army.

It added: "The most important thing is that Israel aims to maintain security control (over Gaza) in the foreseeable future."

The channel considered, "This seems to be a realistic timetable that both Israel and the United States can agree on, but in addition to that, the Americans see great importance for the humanitarian issue of the people of Gaza."

Tel Aviv plans to agree to reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing, to bring aid into the Gaza Strip, as a thank you to the Americans, according to the Israeli channel.

On Thursday, December 14, 2023, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan arrived in Tel Aviv to hold talks on the war on the Gaza Strip, in light of the increasing intensity of disputes between the American administration and the Israeli occupation government.

Israeli occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on continuing the war on the Gaza Strip, despite American pressure and popular protests around the world.

On December 12, 2023, US President Joe Biden said that Israel was “losing the support of the international community” as the death toll in Gaza rose.

On Wednesday, December 13, 2023, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the toll of the Israeli aggression on the Strip had risen to 18,608 dead and 50,594 injured, since last October 7, stressing that the occupation had committed hundreds of massacres against civilians, as a result of the bombing of their homes and shooting them in the street.

A member of the Hamas political bureau, Musa Abu Marzouk, said in an interview published by the Al-Monitor website, today, Thursday, December 14, 2023, that Hamas “seeks for us to be part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and we said that we will respect the organization’s commitments.”

He added, according to what was reported by the American website: “Israelis must obtain their rights, but not at the expense of others.”

The Hamas leader defended the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the killing and capture of hundreds of settlers and soldiers.

According to the newspaper, Abu Marzouk said: “The kidnapping of women and children was a mistake,” and in response to a question about not releasing them immediately, he explained that “Israel is bombing Gaza relentlessly.”

Abu Marzouk rejected the Israeli occupation’s allegations that his movement committed “sexual violence” during the operation, describing them as “mere lies.”

When asked what the October 7, 2023, attacks achieved for the people of Gaza, Abu Marzouk said: “Many goals,” including returning the Palestinian issue to the international agenda. “Everyone is talking about a Palestinian state,” he said.

Abu Marzouk pointed out that Hamas is still seeking to establish a state on the 1967 borders, referring to the political document issued by the movement in 2017, which talks about a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, but it did not reach the point of recognizing “Israel” or supporting it. "The two-state solution."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the return of the Palestinian Authority and says that Israel “will not repeat the Oslo mistake,” referring to the 1993 agreement, which established the Palestinian Authority and aimed to pave the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

For its part, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, said it would only help govern Gaza as part of a broader peace plan to create an independent state.

Abu Marzouk, who was a permanent resident of the United States, spent nearly two years in a federal prison in New York on suspicion of “terrorist” activity, before being deported to Jordan in 1997.

The 72-year-old now lives in exile in the Qatari capital, Doha, where he heads the international office of the Hamas movement.

The war between Israel and Hamas—now in its ninth week after a brief cease-fire—has made talk of peace processes and hopes for final-status agreements seem more remote than ever. But the brief pause in fighting and the successful hostage exchange brokered with the assistance of Qatar—along with Egypt and the United States—suggested that there is space for diplomacy even amid a brutal war.

Rather than seeking blueprints for a permanent peace deal, which seems far-fetched given the current Israeli and Palestinian political leadership, Foreign Policy asked a range of experts two narrower questions:

•  What will Gaza look like one year from now?
•  What single policy could any actor in this conflict pursue that would make it less likely that this war will end like so many others, with the same security threats remaining and key political grievances unresolved?

Netanyahu Should Step Aside

By Ehud Olmert, former prime minister of Israel

1. Israel’s campaign in Gaza will continue until Hamas’s military capabilities are eliminated. It’s hard to guess how long it will take, but if we are to be honest, it will take longer than Western societies are prepared to accept, longer than what their leaders, and above all U.S. President Joe Biden, a close friend of Israel, are willing to tolerate.

2. Exactly for this reason, it is imperative that Israel already provide, at this stage, a picture of what comes next after the army has completed its work. It should be based on the following principles and assumptions: 

Israel has no intention, desire, or ability to stay in Gaza at the end of the military campaign. When the war is over, Israel must withdraw all the way to the border. No force connected to the Palestinian Authority or the Arab states will be willing to enter Gaza when the IDF withdraws. All moderate Arab countries wish to see the destruction of Hamas, which is a destabilizing force for their own regimes. The brutal killings perpetrated by the group on Oct. 7 were, by the standards of these countries, a disgrace to Islam and its values. But none of these countries want to be seen as lending a hand to Israel’s military campaign. Therefore, if the United States and other allies of Israel are unwilling to allow Israeli forces to remain in Gaza, there is no alternative but an international force from NATO states, under the auspices of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, through which the Security Council will rebuild the civilian authorities and governing systems in the Gaza Strip for a period of approximately 18 months. Then, and only then, is there a possibility that the security apparatus of the Palestinian Authority can replace the international force in Gaza.

In parallel with this effort—and starting now—Israel must offer a political horizon for the end of the military campaign. The state of Israel must announce that immediately after the cessation of the military campaign, talks will begin with the Palestinian Authority based on a two-state solution—which is the only political horizon that can offer stability, cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians, and cooperation between Israel and the moderate Arab states within the framework of the Arab League peace initiative.

There is no doubt that the Netanyahu government is unwilling, unable, and unprepared to make such a bold move. For this reason and others, the government needs to step aside immediately.

Palestinians Need a Path to Sovereignty

By Zaha Hassan, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

1. Israel’s war on Hamas—and its parallel campaign against the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza—will continue for many months as Israel attempts to degrade the military capabilities of Hamas and pursue an apparent plan to drive Palestinians into smaller enclaves to the south. This would effectively be an annexation more extensive than the previously existing “access-restricted zones” around Gaza’s land border with Israel and its maritime area—which comprise approximately 24 square miles.

Before this war, Palestinians had been totally or partially denied access to approximately 35 percent of Gaza’s cultivable land and 85 percent of the coastal waters used for fishing. In the minds of many in Israel, shrinking Gaza will facilitate the “New Middle East” that the Israeli prime minister spoke about at the U.N. General Assembly in September—one in which Palestinians and their national aspirations apparently don’t exist.

Expanding and deepening normalization between Israel and Arab governments, however, will be challenged by the devastation and killing wrought by Israel’s bombardment and blocking of supplies necessary to sustain Palestinian life in Gaza. Israel, unfazed by international outrage, will also likely move to consolidate control over the West Bank and create conditions there to encourage the flight of the population into the crowded urban enclaves or outside of the occupied territories altogether.

In the short to medium term, the apartheid reality in which Palestinians live will worsen as it becomes married to conditions aimed at permanent Palestinian displacement. Though Israel may be counting on the Arab Gulf states, Egypt, and the U.N. to put what remains of Gaza back together again—as was the case after past Israel-Hamas fighting—this is unlikely without a Palestinian governing body willing to take over governance of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority needs a pathway to a political solution to take on Gaza, but for now, no conceivable Israeli coalition will countenance meaningful Palestinian sovereignty.

2. No single party holds the cards to change the path that Israelis and Palestinians are currently on. It will require sustained and concerted collective action on the part of the international community.

First, the U.N. Security Council—the five permanent members in particular—must be willing to take on its duty to preserve and protect international peace and security and to impose sanctions on Israel for its gross violations of the rights of Palestinians, including their right to self-determination as confirmed by U.N. General Assembly resolutions and the International Court of Justice in its 2004 advisory opinion on the wall of separation inside the occupied West Bank.

The international community could move to strictly enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 (adopted in 2016), which called on all states to not recognize Israel’s changes to the pre-June 1967 green line separating Israel from the occupied Palestinian territory, including Israel’s illegal annexation of Jerusalem in an effort to distinguish between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. This would intensify and accelerate international and regional efforts aimed at ending Israel’s occupation and realizing a political solution based on international legitimacy.

This kind of international engagement will take years before it bears fruit—but it is the only way to change the dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians.

Biden Should Outline New Terms for Peace Talks

By Daniel C. Kurtzer,  a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel.

1. A war without a political goal is a war defined by anger and vengeance. While Israel’s bombing campaign has been directed at locating and destroying Hamas tunnels, hideouts, and arms depots, the effect of that campaign on civilians has been brutal. Before talking about how the war ends, the bombing should end, and Israel should pursue an alternative strategy against Hamas. Israel should also stop promising that it will destroy Hamas. This empty declaration puts Israel in a position where it either must back off a stated goal and look weak as a result, or else it must maintain an unending presence in Gaza in search of the elusive last Hamas fighter. Substantially degrading Hamas’s ability to operate from Gaza is a more realistic military objective than declaring an intention to eradicate the organization altogether.

The critical corollary to this military goal is the political horizon that needs to follow the end of the war. At some point, the Israeli major ground offensive will end, and Gaza will be left with hundreds of thousands of homeless, hungry, sick, and injured civilians who will be living under no government and with no internal security. They will also be living with no hope, ready to be recruited into violent resistance movements, including Hamas 2.0 or worse.

2. There are, thus, at least two necessary ingredients for the political horizon after the fighting stops, and both Israel and the international community should start planning for these immediately.

First, a process and timeline should be developed that addresses immediate postwar requirements related to de-escalation, stabilization, and interim governance. Who will be responsible for security? Who will govern on an interim basis to provide basic services and to manage the humanitarian crisis? Who will pay and be responsible for reconstruction? And how will these essential tasks help militate against a repeat of the wars we have seen in Gaza since 2006? 

The second ingredient for postwar planning is to develop a political process aimed at securing an end of the Israeli occupation and the ability of Palestinians to choose their future through self-determination. If the Palestinian people choose to establish an independent Palestinian state in the territory occupied by Israel since 1967, then an accelerated process of peacemaking must be launched.

The problem is that neither Israel nor the Palestinians are in a frame of mind to pursue these intertwined goals. Not only is Israel still absorbing the shock of Oct. 7, but its ruling coalition is also too extreme and too invested in expanding Israeli control over the territories. The Palestinians in Gaza are shellshocked and battered by the Israeli response to Oct. 7 and unable to focus on anything but that. And the Palestinian Authority is challenged to govern even the West Bank, let alone take responsibility for Gaza while promoting a political endgame.

This means that the onus will fall on outside parties, foremost among them the United States. The United States must secure Israel’s commitment to stop—and reverse—its settlement activities and onerous occupation practices, and it must secure the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to clamp down on violence while reforming itself. The United States should also articulate terms of reference for future negotiations that narrow the differences between the parties’ positions to a point where bridging solutions are possible.

Palestinians Need a New Government

By Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations

1. It is impossible at this point to see a multinational formula that will protect Israeli security and prevent the reestablishment of Hamas military power in Gaza. Coalitions of the willing will lack willing participants; Egypt will not take responsibility; no Israeli would trust a U.N. force, and rightly so (see, for example, UNIFIL in Lebanon).I therefore expect that a year from now, Israel will be playing the central security role. It will not be occupying Gaza and policing every street, but it will, from outside, intervene often to hit Hamas and prevent its efforts to rebuild. Everyone will complain—but no one will take on that responsibility except Israel.

2. Palestinians have been cursed by their leadership since the British chose Haj Amin al-Husseini as the grand mufti in 1921 and more recently since the Oslo Accords handed Palestinian society to Yasser Arafat. There is no Palestinian state today because Arafat turned down each opportunity to get one, just as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has. Arafat refused or was unable to change himself from a guerrilla and terrorist into a serious, sober national leader in the way that South Africa’s Nelson Mandela did; Abbas has lacked the legitimacy and the courage. Only once has any serious effort been to reform Palestinian politics, and that was the effort by former U.S. President George W. Bush starting in 2002. 

That was when efforts were made to sideline Arafat, he was forced to take on a prime minister, an empowered finance minister (Salam Fayyad) was pushed in, and Fayyad became prime minister under Abbas. Simultaneously, work began (under a U.S. general) to build a professional and reliable Palestinian security force. Those who wish the Palestinians well, whether in an independent and sovereign state, in a future entity of some sort linked to Israel or Jordan, or in their current situation, must wish them a decent, honest, and competent government. But in recent years, there have been no efforts to build one—not by Israel, the Arab states, or the United States.

No kind of progress toward peace and prosperity for Palestinians is possible unless such a government is built. It isn’t a magic wand that will solve all problems, nor will it be quick or easy. But it’s a prerequisite for any sort of improvement in Palestinian life and Israeli-Palestinian relations, so it should return to the top of the agenda.

There is no point in restarting a peace process, continuing a public embrace of a so-called two-state solution, or hoping that this war will end better than previous ones did unless one has a serious plan for governance and security in the Palestinian territories.

The U.S. Should Withhold its Veto Power

By Omar M. Dajani, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team and a professor of law at the University of the Pacific

1. One year from now, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will still be living in tents as a second winter approaches, mired in the gap between the international community’s good intentions and the courage it lacks to confront Israel. This predicament will feel familiar to Palestinians—and not just because the conditions resemble those suffered by their great-grandparents during the Nakba of 1948-49.A pattern has emerged over the past 20 years: Following Israel’s punishing assault on West Bank cities in 2002 and its increasingly devastating wars on Gaza in 2008-09, 2014, and 2021, international donors pledged billions of dollars for reconstruction, but failed repeatedly to follow through on their promises, allowing Gazans to sink deeper into poverty and despair. The issue each time was not just financial. Again and again, two deeper problems crippled efforts to rebuild.

Severe Israeli restrictions on movement and trade between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and across their international borders prevented Palestinians from obtaining necessary building materials and stymied attempts to revitalize their economy. These restrictions, which Israel began to impose well before Hamas assumed power in Gaza, are driven only partially by security concerns. As the Israeli human rights organization Gisha points out, the policy of separating Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from one another is also motivated by Israel’s effort to annex West Bank territory, along with a desire to maintain a Jewish majority in the areas that Israel sees as coming under its sovereignty.

Even if Israel succeeds in forcibly ousting Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip, the annexationist agenda of its far-right leaders—and the separation policy through which it is being advanced—are unlikely to be abandoned absent the kind of sustained international pressure that has so far been wanting.

Past efforts to rebuild Gaza have also faltered because they have been disconnected from a credible political horizon. Gaza is part of Palestine. It can only succeed if it is reintegrated, economically and politically, with the West Bank. The profound legitimacy crisis that has hobbled the Palestinian Authority—and perpetuated the schism between Fatah and Hamas—is in part a crisis of hope: Palestinians have lost confidence in their leaders’ ability to deliver freedom, dignity, and equality.

2. If the Palestinian Authority is somehow to assume the helm of government in the Gaza Strip pending a peace settlement, as Biden has advocated, it can do so only if its legitimacy has been buoyed by an internationally mediated peace process that Palestinians can believe in. The international community’s weak-kneed attempts over the past decade to persuade Israel to embrace the values necessary to sustain such a process—such as equal partnership and mutual self-determination—provide little cause for optimism in the year ahead.

But if Biden’s commitment to securing “equal measures of freedom, opportunity and dignity” for Palestinians and Israelis is more than cruel rhetoric, there are ways that the United States can signal that it is serious about doing things differently this time. Perhaps none is more consequential, symbolically and practically, than how it uses its veto in the United Nations Security Council. Undoubtedly, attempts will be made in the coming months to use the Security Council to press for a permanent cease-fire, for Israeli action to bring a halt to escalatory actions such as settler violence, for an end to movement restrictions, and even for the deployment of an international peacebuilding and stabilization mission on the ground.

Biden, who has established extraordinary credibility among Israelis, is uniquely positioned to communicate to them—and their leaders—that there are lines that may not be crossed. Withholding the veto, and explaining why, would be a powerful first step.

Israel Should Annex Part of Gaza

By Eugene Kontorovich, the director of the Center for the Middle East and International Law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School

1. How the war will end depends in part on who wins. Israel, of course, has the power to win militarily if left to its own devices. But Hamas has learned to turn Israel’s strengths into weaknesses, and to turn its own weaknesses—such as a total disregard for the lives of its own civilian population—into diplomatic pressure on Israel. Hamas’s strategy is based on martyring the people of Gaza so that Israel’s allies compel it to end the war while the Hamas leadership is still intact. If that happens, Hamas will be seen as having won a great victory, and both it and other Islamist groups will be encouraged to launch medieval pogroms against Israel, leading to larger and more destructive confrontations. If, however, Israel succeeds in defeating the organization, it clearly will not allow any other force or faction to maintain security in Gaza. United Nations peacekeeping and international security presences have a dismal record of failure in the region, as UNIFIL’s failure to disarm Hezbollah in Lebanon reminds Israel on a daily basis. Nor will Israel allow the implantation of a regime led by Fatah, the other major Palestinian faction, which has power in the West Bank. Thus, in a year, Gaza will likely be experiencing a period of “de-Hamasification”—identifying terror perpetrators and supporters to determine who is suitable to participate in the future governances of the territory.

Hamas has had four significant and countless lesser campaigns against Israel since it took control of Gaza in 2007, after Israel’s withdrawal in 2005. The Israeli disengagement in 2005 and false doctrines of international law have given Hamas an insurance policy: No matter the degree of its atrocities against Israel, it will come out of any conflict with no less territory in Gaza than before. Yes, Gazans pay a significant price, but Hamas does not see that as a cost. Hamas may lose men, but it gains honor, and it is guaranteed at least a territorial draw.

2. To change the calculus—and this is true for groups such as Hezbollah that also threaten Israel’s existence—there must be a permanent price for initiating aggression and committing mass atrocities, as Hamas did, and has been doing, since Oct 7. Hamas went to war to push Jews out of their territory. Its members must see that losing their war of aggression has a permanent territorial cost. 

Thus, Israel should permanently annex a narrow Gazan buffer zone—such as the largely uninhabited strip right along the northern border with Israel, from which Hamas has constantly fired rockets at Israeli cities. Israel’s annexation of the largely unpopulated Golan Heights from Syria’s genocidal Bashar al-Assad regime provides a precedent. This is not the kind of solution that the international community favors. But Oct. 7 shows the failure of the assumptions of international diplomacy.

Don’t Allow Israel to Continue Flouting International Law

By Diana Buttu, a lawyer and analyst based in Haifa and former legal advisor to the PLO

1. Israel’s brutal bombing of the Gaza Strip has revealed the futility of international legal norms. Since the start of the war, Israeli officials have made clear in public statements that they would condone war crimes as they re-invaded the besieged Gaza Strip. These statements have been matched by action: In the span of seven weeks, Israel has killed more than 15,000 Palestinians according to the Gaza Health Ministry, most of them civilians; it has decimated the entire infrastructure of the Gaza Strip, and it has even attacked hospitals—all illegal under international law.

Given the tepid international response, I expect that, in a year’s time, Israeli forces will remain in the Gaza Strip as statements of so-called grave concern and disingenuous calls for a two-state solution continue emanating from international capitals.

2. At the end of this war, the leaders of the world must finally take tangible action to end Israel’s brutal occupation. Israel has been coddled for decades as it continues to flout international law. Instead of using the international system to support Palestinians, world leaders (and the United States in particular) have allowed Israel to crush Palestinians. 

Let me be clear: Palestinians engaged in negotiations only to find that Israel expanded settlements and stole more land, all with the U.S. government looking on or telling us to agree. We engaged in a process seeking recognition for Palestine’s statehood only to find Washington threatening to cut its funding to U.N. agencies that recognize Palestine.

We engaged in a grassroots boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) effort to hold Israel accountable, only to find countries around the world passing laws to block those boycotts. We tried peaceful protest, particularly in Gaza, where they saw that the weekly protests were met with brutal Israeli military force and the world doing nothing whatsoever to stop the onslaught. We have tried using the U.N. Security Council only to find the United States exercising its veto to protect Israel and its brazen misdeeds (in fact, Washington has exercised its veto more often for Israel than for any other issue).In short, the world appears to have hoped that Palestinians would simply accept living under a repressive and violent system of military rule as our land is stolen, with new Israeli settlements built, our children imprisoned, and with many of us caged into cantons. Obviously, that does not work and will not work in future.

Israel must face stern consequences for its flagrant and ongoing war crimes. Short of that caliber of policy change, the world will find itself in this same position yet again. At the end of this war, Biden and other world leaders must finally take tangible action to end Israel’s brutal occupation.

Israel Must Agree to a Palestinian State

By Peter R. Mansoor, a professor of military history at the Ohio State University

1. The war in Gaza will take several months to play out, and during this period, Israeli air and artillery strikes will pound Palestinian buildings and the tunnel systems underneath them. Provided that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) achieve their goal of destroying Hamas, they will be compelled to undertake a challenging counterinsurgency operation to subdue the remnants of Palestinian militant organizations amid a sullen and uncooperative population.

A year from now, the IDF will still be enmeshed in Gaza, ferreting out Hamas operatives while the Israeli government attempts to find willing partners—the United Nations? Neighboring Arab states?—to take over security responsibilities in the Gaza Strip.

2. The broader world community will assist in providing humanitarian support to the Palestinian people, but more robust reconstruction aid will not be forthcoming without progress on an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty, which would require Israel to agree to the creation of a Palestinian state and for the Palestinian people to agree to the existence of Israel and forgo the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their pre-1948 homes. 

Regrettably, neither prerequisite seems to be in the cards. In the meantime, Gaza City and other urban centers in the Gaza Strip will look much like other cities that have witnessed the horrors of war—bombed-out buildings, rubble-strewn streets, and battered infrastructure will litter the cityscapes. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees will eke out an existence wherever they can find shelter. The world community will rage against Israel, the attacks of Oct. 7 all but forgotten amid the destruction and death.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (or his successor) needs to seek out willing partners for peace among the Palestinian people and negotiate a final peace accord on the basis of a two-state solution, ceding East Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state and offering compensation in lieu of the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their pre-1948 homes in Israel.

The chances of the Israeli government adopting such a plan are admittedly slim, but any other conceivable policy will merely delay the next onset of hostilities. By destroying Hamas, military operations in Gaza can create the conditions for a peace settlement, but only if that settlement provides the Palestinians with political sovereignty and hope for a brighter future.

A Global Crisis Requires a Global Solution

By Daniel Levy, the president of the U.S./Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator

1. Gaza will be reeling and recovering from Israel’s devastating destruction long beyond one year from now, and that’s if Israel is unsuccessful in efforts to ethnically cleanse large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza permanently. Governance is likely to be weak as well as heavily dependent on and led by U.N. agencies and aid groups. A residual Israeli military presence and attendant Palestinian resistance is very plausible. 

The marches of return undertaken by Palestinians in Gaza from 2018-2019 along the border fence could be repeated, and even if not, the sentiment will likely not only prevail, but also intensify as newly displaced Palestinians look beyond their destroyed refugee dwellings in the Gaza Strip to their original pre-1948 family homes inside what is now Israel.

2. There is no silver bullet. Change is necessary in Israel and is unlikely to be exclusively self-generated. Absent external pressure—and being held accountable and forced to face real choices—Israeli politics will remain stuck or worse. External levers of pressure will need to move beyond the U.S.-led Western monopoly—exposed in all its inadequacy and complicity during this current devastation.

Palestinian politics is crying out for renewal, too—to unify and represent its people with greater authenticity, urgency, and effectiveness in challenging the permanent denial of their rights. The Palestinian Authority conspicuously fails to do that. What’s needed is a new international architecture and new ideas. Arab and regional states have a role to play, albeit with internal divisions that complicate that reality. So a third vector needs to emerge. This cannot be BRICS itself (the bloc consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and six new members), but should come from within some of those BRICS plus countries. The Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries have formed a seven-state follow-up group addressing the immediate crisis—who have already visited the capitals and met with leaders from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—that points a way forward.

The Israeli political and public arena has to feel that decisions on its position toward the Palestinians cannot be indefinitely postponed and subject to the whims of the latest ascendant domestic extremists. That, in turn, requires a new incentive and disincentive structure, creating costs and consequences for the entrenching of apartheid rule and a gradual erosion of Israeli impunity.

The situation requires a timetable for decisions to be made, for consequences to be imposed, and for choices to be clearly framed: either two-state parameters on the 1967 lines (genuine sovereignty without residual occupation and Bantustan components) or an acknowledgement that an Israeli created one-state reality requires equal political rights—thereby moving beyond partition.

There is a need to create an international architecture that is capable of carrying forward this new approach. That will involve Washington and the West; the Arab states; and should also include the broader global south, led for instance by the incoming G-20 chair Brazil along with other weighty actors, such as Indonesia and South Africa. Rather than being excluded, China should play a central role.

The first major peace process, launched in Madrid in 1991 was co-chaired by the United States and the Russian Federation, a power then in decline. While difficult to choreograph, a new process should be co-chaired by the United States and China, the latter having demonstrated diplomatic appetite and receipts in the Middle East, given its role on the Iranian-Saudi front.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is now a global crisis; its resolution requires a global architecture.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Thursday that he had decided to prevent those responsible for violence committed by settlers against Palestinians from entering Britain.

“By targeting and killing Palestinian civilians, extremist settlers undermine the security and stability of both Israelis and Palestinians,” Cameron said in a post on the X platform.

He added, "Israel must take stronger measures to stop settler violence and hold perpetrators accountable. We will prevent those responsible for settler violence from entering the United Kingdom, to ensure that our country cannot be home to people who commit these acts of terror."

For its part, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates welcomed the decision of British Foreign Minister David Cameron, and demanded the application of international law on colonialism to protect the two-state solution.

In a press statement, the Foreign Ministry considered the decision an important step in the right direction towards full compliance with international law and international legitimacy resolutions related to the Palestinian issue, on the path to lifting the historical injustice that befell the Palestinian people as a result of the continuation of this long-term occupation.

It called on all countries to take more anti-colonial decisions, as it is fundamentally illegal and illegitimate, in order to protect the two-state solution.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan arrived in Israel on Thursday to hold talks on the war on Gaza.

Israeli Army Radio said that Sullivan arrived in Tel Aviv, without further details.

The White House said in a written statement, on Wednesday, a copy of which reached Anadolu, “National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will travel to Israel on Thursday, December 14 and Friday, December 15, to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his war cabinet, and President Isaac Herzog, to discuss the latest developments in Israel and Gaza.”

Israeli Channel 12 said earlier Thursday that Israel would present to Sullivan during his visit what it said was a timetable for the war on the Gaza Strip.

According to the Israeli timetable, “it is expected that by the end of next January, Israel will end the phase of intense fighting.”

Despite foreign political pressure and popular protests around the world, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on continuing the war, hoping to end Hamas' continued rule of Gaza since the summer of 2007, and eliminate the military capabilities of the movement, which asserts that it resists the occupation and defends the Palestinians.

According to the channel, “It is estimated in Israel that the phase of completing the elimination of Hamas will extend over most of 2024, and includes the destruction of its military capacity through operations and raids by the Israeli army.”

She added, "In addition to the time frame of the war, among the issues that Sullivan will discuss are the fate of Gaza after the war, the role of the Palestinian Authority, the transfer of clearance funds (taxes) to the Authority, and the entry of Palestinian workers from the West Bank into Israel."

The Ministry of Health announced, this afternoon, Thursday, the death of the boy Musa Ahmed Musa Khatib (17 years old), shot by the Israeli occupation forces, bringing the death toll of the ongoing aggression against the city of Jenin and its camp to 12 dead.

Local sources said that the occupation forces shot the boy while he was in front of Jenin Governmental Hospital, wounding him with a bullet in the chest, and his death was later announced.

With the death of Khatib, the number of dead in the city of Jenin and its camp since dawn today has risen to four, and since the start of the aggression three days ago to 12.

Most neighborhoods in the city of Jenin are witnessing violent confrontations between young men and the occupation forces, who fire live bullets at them, especially in the vicinity of the Interior Directorate, Nazareth Street, the Old City, and the vicinity of Jenin Governmental Hospital and the eastern neighborhood, while the occupation forces continue to destroy citizens’ homes in the Jenin camp and commercial stores using “energy” shells. ".

It is noteworthy that Jenin hospitals are subjected to a fierce attack by the Israeli occupation forces, which besiege them, obstruct the arrival of the wounded, search and arrest staff working there, and also attack ambulances, shoot at them, search them, and obstruct their movement.

The American website Axios attributed American officials to telling the site that the Biden administration has once again suspended licenses to sell more than 20,000 American-made rifles to Israel due to concerns about attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank.

The decision to send the arms deal for further review by the State Department indicates that the Biden administration remains concerned that the Israeli government is not doing enough to curb extremist settler violence.

In the first week of the war it was waging on the Gaza Strip, Israel requested these rifles for “civilian first response teams in Israeli villages near the borders with Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, where these teams, made up of local residents, receive weapons and training from the Israeli police to be the first responders in the event of a terrorist attack occurred,” according to the report.

But the Biden administration dealt with caution with the Israeli request, according to Axios, who explained that this was due to fears that the far-right Minister of National Security who supervises the police, Itamar Ben Gvir, would distribute rifles to extremist settlers in the West Bank, according to American officials.

The Biden administration and Congress did not approve export licenses for American defense companies until they were certain that the weapons would not go to civilian teams in Jewish settlements.

But the website revealed that several weeks after approving the deal, the US State Department decided to slow down the process and subject the licenses to a new review, US officials said.

In a related issue, American officials said that the Biden administration currently has no plans to impose conditions on the military aid it provides to Israel, despite increasing calls from Democratic lawmakers and human rights organizations to stop providing weapons, unless Israel does more to protect civilians in Gaza.

Heavy rains doubled the suffering of the displaced in Deir al-Balah, as the winds destroyed some tents erected at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city located in the central Gaza Strip.

Video footage shows displaced children trying to keep rainwater away from their tents.

"Hell on Earth"

Amin Adwan, who was displaced from Beit Hanoun and now lives in a tent in Al-Aqsa Hospital, says: “The water flooded our tent, which affected our ability to sleep. We tried to search for nylon covers, but we did not find anything, so we had to use stones and sand to prevent water leakage.”

The Israeli war on Gaza entered its sixty-eighth day on Wednesday, and according to the latest toll published by the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli bombing led to the death of 18,412 people, about 70 percent of whom were women and children.

More than two months after the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, 85% of the population of 2.4 million people were displaced, and the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, likened the situation in Gaza to “hell on earth.”

According to OCHA, 100 trucks loaded with aid have entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since Monday evening, in addition to 120,000 liters of fuel, which, according to the office, remains much less than the needs.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said many people were still missing under the rubble.

The Ministry of Education said that 3,714 students were killed and 5,700 were injured since the start of the Israeli aggression on October 7 in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Education explained in a statement issued today, Thursday, that the number of students who were killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the aggression reached 3,679 students and 5,429 wounded, while in the West Bank, 35 students were killed and 271 others were injured, in addition to 82 being arrested.

It indicated that 209 teachers and administrators were killed and 619 were injured in the Gaza Strip, two were injured, and more than 65 were arrested in the West Bank.

It pointed out that 278 government schools and 65 affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) were bombed and vandalized in the Gaza Strip, which led to 83 of them being severely damaged and 7 completely destroyed, and 38 schools in the West Bank were stormed and vandalized.

It confirmed that the Israeli targeting of schools affected 90% of school and government education buildings, which were subjected to direct and indirect damage, in addition to 29% of school buildings that could not be operated because they were exposed to total demolition or severe damage.

The Ministry added that 133 government schools were used as shelter centers in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli occupation authorities continue to carry out widespread arrest campaigns in the West Bank, specifically in the Jenin Governorate and its camp, which is subject to comprehensive aggression. Since the start of the military operation on the morning of December 12, and until today’s date, the occupation has arrested hundreds of citizens, the majority of whom were released after being subjected to interrogation. Field operations and abuse operations in Salem camp. We point out that in light of the continuation of the military operation and the arrest campaigns, we were not able to confirm the exact numbers of detainees in Jenin Governorate and its camp, knowing that this arrest campaign is the highest since the years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

In the rest of the governorates of the West Bank, the occupation arrested (17) citizens last night and until dawn today, including a girl from Hebron and former prisoners. The arrest operations were concentrated in the town of Beit Ummar/Hebron, and the rest of the arrests were distributed among the governorates of Tubas, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nablus, And Ramallah.

During the arrest campaigns, the occupation forces continue to carry out widespread raids and abuse, severe beatings, and threats against detainees and their families, in addition to field investigation operations, sabotage and destruction of citizens’ homes, and direct shooting with the aim of killing, in addition to widespread sabotage operations that affected the infrastructure, as is happening in Jenin Governorate.

Thus, the total number of arrests after October 7 rose to more than (4,400), and this total includes those who were arrested from homes, through military checkpoints, those who were forced to surrender themselves under pressure, those who were held hostage, or those who were arrested and subjected to field investigation, knowing that recently, the occupation forces have been focusing on field investigation operations, where they arrest many citizens, with the aim of investigating them on the ground, and then release them later, after carrying out abuse and torture against them.