Non-specialists in political and strategic sciences may not know that until now we do not have a comprehensive theory of victory, “Theory of Victory.” This calls us to think about how Benjamin Netanyahu dealt with his war on Gaza, and whether he can achieve a victory, and what is the relationship of this to the Russian theory of victory in Ukraine? And to be precise, Before that, the Kosovo War. Also, how do the Chinese think about the theory of victory over the Americans if they decide to send their aircraft carriers to the Strait? There is, of course, another nuclear-armed regime in Pyongyang with a completely different theory of victory. Putting these theories side by side may give us clear indications of the fate of Netanyahu and the fate of Gaza, as well as the fate of the American presence in the greater Middle East region from Afghanistan to Morocco.

In Taiwan, the Chinese idea was not to deter the Americans nuclearly; because, simply put, the Americans have more than five thousand nuclear warheads, but their idea was that the Americans have vulnerabilities in the Pacific Ocean and East Asia that make even defining victory in the sense of hegemony in the Pacific Ocean impossible, and thus America may be able to achieve a limited victory and lose. Peace, either in time of war or after war, whether with regard to hegemony in the Asian theater from Japan to Taiwan, or it is losing in the real sense in the areas of weak points in its bases in Akunawa, southern Japan, or in Guam, the Philippines, and South Korea, all of which are areas of weakness that China can exploit, if China does not decide to use its ballistic missiles to strike cities from California to Texas. Here, even the theory of victory in the sense of domination and excessive control remains limited.

I know that the reader is wondering: What does the theory of victory have to do with what is happening in Gaza?

The theory of victory in Gaza is more complex than in Ukraine or Taiwan. In Ukraine, for example, there is the Russian theory of victory, the limited theory, the basis of which is to keep NATO outside Russia’s scope, and for NATO not to have complete control, and Ukraine - according to Putin’s opinion - is not a backyard, but rather the road to the borders of the Tsar’s bedroom.

But it is important to understand the American theory of comprehensive victory, which consequently applies to the Israeli military doctrine. Let us understand whether Netanyahu's victory over Gaza is possible.

The American comprehensive vision of deterrence, which represents the closest thing to the American theory of victory, consists of six elements: The first is that political ties between allies are strong, and this is what the Obama administration tried to confirm. What do political alliances mean as a deterrent? If North Korea noticed that Japan could be separated from South Korea, or from the American political alliance, this would mean that political deterrence would have ended. The second element is maintaining military superiority with conventional weapons (and this is also what America is trying with Israel in our region - Israeli qualitative superiority over the Arabs combined). The third element is the sudden conventional strike force. This happened in the 2003 Iraq War, and perhaps this is why there are now aircraft carriers to neutralize Iran from trying to enter the Gaza war. The fourth element is cyber power and control of space, and this is something that competing countries may not know regarding American capabilities. Fifth, the missile defenses in the theater of operations, and also at the level of America itself (and the intervention of the Israeli Iron Dome in the framework of American territory, as some Americans consider Israel part of the homeland. Sixthly, it concerns the use of nuclear capabilities in the theater of operations, which makes the allies safe and also prevents any war on American territory. This is the comprehensive American theory of deterrence, which can be described as a preliminary outline of the American theory of victory. 

But the recent nuclear use, as Paul Nietzsche, the most important theorist of the 1950s, explained, is like the king in a game of chess: all moves are to maintain the king, but when the king moves, the game is almost over.

Are the six American elements available for Netanyahu to achieve victory in Gaza? I believe that Netanyahu can win the war, but, like the Americans, he will lose the peace for two reasons: The first is historical and relates to the comprehensive reputational contamination that Israel will bear by killing this huge number of children (a Palestinian Holocaust), and the second is the loss of trust with its neighborhood.

So, like America's wars; From Afghanistan to Vietnam, Netanyahu will win some of the war and lose some of the peace, and he may lose in terms of internal cohesion in Israel itself.

Above all, the American theory of victory is linked to victory over traditional countries, and it has failed to deter groups and movements. Most notably, Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, which cost the United States an unforgettable attack on its soil on September 11, 2001.

What applies to Al-Qaeda also applies to Hezbollah and Hamas, with a difference, but here we are talking about the theory of victory against a traditional enemy who has something to lose, but these movements have nothing to lose, and victory for them is just one individual coming out from among the rubble to say that “Hamas” remains.

Above all, if victory is the imposition of sovereignty and dominance over the theater of operations, such as the American presence in Europe or the Pacific Ocean and East Asia, then I do not believe that Israeli hegemony over the Middle East region can lead to results, as the Democratic Peace Group says, as its  Its theorists, such as Michael Doll, or economic interpenetration, as Joseph Nye and Robert Cohen see, or the spread of democracy and the end of history in the Middle East, as Fukuyama sees.

The theory of victory in all its forms, as interpreted by the literature, does not bode well for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and not for Netanyahu alone, but for all Israeli governments for whom victory would be more efficient by withdrawing inside an iron dome to protect itself from Hezbollah missiles, or to remain under an American umbrella as a deterrent to Iran, and I do not think that America will remain in the region forever.

Source: Alsharq Alawsat

Do the people chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” have any idea of the irreparable harm they’re doing to any hope of Palestinian sovereignty? 

For decades, the question of a Palestinian state has come down to two dates: 1948 and 1967. Most Western supporters of Palestinian statehood have argued that the key date is the Six-Day War of June 1967, when Israel, faced with open threats of annihilation, took possession of the Golan Heights, the West Bank, east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.

According to this line of thinking, the way to peace rested on Arab diplomatic recognition of Israel in exchange for the return of these so-called occupied territories. That’s what happened between Egypt and Israel at Camp David in 1978, and what might have happened at Camp David in 2000 if Yasser Arafat had only accepted the offer of full statehood made to him by Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel.

Yet there has always been a second narrative, which dates “the occupation” not to 1967 but to 1948, when Israel came into being as a sovereign state. By this argument, it isn’t just east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights that are occupied by Israel: It’s Haifa, Tel Aviv, Eilat and west Jerusalem, too. For Palestine to be “liberated,” Israel itself must end.

Starting in the 1970s, the 1948ers were known as the “rejectionist front.” More recently, they have become the “axis of resistance.” Membership includes Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Assad regime in Syria and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard — a who’s who of designated terrorist groups and their state sponsors. 

On Oct. 7, the axis of resistance became the face of the Palestinian movement. On Oct. 8, demonstrators around the world chose to embrace that axis. Sometimes they did so unwittingly, believing there was no contradiction between being pro-Palestinian and supporting Israel’s right to exist, or not understanding the implications of the slogans they were chanting. 

But just as often they have done so wittingly. When Mohamed Khairullah, the mayor of Prospect Park, New Jersey, said “75 years of occupation is too long” at an October rally, he was embracing the 1948 narrative. When Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., posted that “75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day” and declined to accept Israel as a Jewish state, she was embracing it. When Judith Butler, a Berkeley professor, told an interviewer that “the roots of the problem are in a state formation that depended on expulsions and land theft to establish its own ‘legitimacy’” and supported a binational state, she was embracing it. When the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter responded to the Oct. 7 massacres with a Facebook post claiming, “When a people have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned, but understood as a desperate act of self-defense,” it was embracing it. When the BBC Arabic service repeatedly described ordinary Israelis as “settlers,” it was embracing it. 

Such embraces have consequences. 

For one, they put a growing fraction of the progressive left objectively on the side of some of the worst people on Earth — and in radical contradiction with their self-professed values. “A left that, rightly, demands absolute condemnation of white-nationalist supremacy refuses to dissociate itself from Islamist supremacy,” Susie Linfield, a professor of journalism at New York University, wrote in an important recent essay in the online journal Quillette. “A left that lauds intersectionality hasn’t noticed that Hamas’ axis of support consists of Iran, famous most recently for killing hundreds of protesters demanding women’s freedom.” For another, they reinforce the central convictions and deepest fears of the Israeli right: that Palestinians have never reconciled themselves to the existence of Israel in any borders; that every Israeli territorial or diplomatic concession is seen by Palestinians as evidence of weakness; that a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would only serve as a launchpad for an intensified assault on Israel; that every criticism of Israeli policies in the occupied territories veils a deep-seated hatred of the Jewish state. 

When the left embraces the zero-sum politics of Palestinian resistance, it merely encourages the zero-sum politics of hard-core Israeli settlers and their supporters. 

A third consequence is that it abandons the Palestinian people to their worst leaders. It’s bad enough that the West has long accepted, and funded, Mahmoud Abbas’ repressive kleptocracy based in the West Bank city of Ramallah. But what Hamas has given the people over whom it rules is infinitely worse: theocratic despotism, soaked in the blood of Palestinian “martyrs,” most of whom never signed themselves or their families up to serve as human shields in an endless — and in the long run, hopeless — battle with Israel. 

It’s fine for Israel’s harshest critics to ask hard questions of Israel’s leaders. But when those same critics stop asking equally hard questions of Palestinian leaders, they are not advocating a cause. 

They are merely submitting to a regime.

The world, including Israel, has a common interest in an eventual Palestinian state that cares more about building itself up than tearing its neighbors down; that invests its energy in future prosperity, not past glory; that accepts compromise and rejects fanaticism. Since Oct. 7, the loudest self-professed champions of the Palestinian cause have advocated the precise opposite. It may be a recipe for smug self-satisfaction, but it’s also how to kill a Palestinian state.

Source: Alsharq alawsat

Haaretz newspaper published a report on Sunday in which it refuted much of the Israeli narrative about the attack carried out by members of Hamas and other factions on October 7th, on military barracks and Jewish towns surrounding the Gaza Strip. The summary of the report stated that the attack was accompanied by many crimes against Jewish and Arab civilians from the population of Israel, but the story about it “was characterized by huge exaggerations, promoted by senior military officials, politicians, and civil society activists, including the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife, and numerous ministries and government departments.”

The report, conducted by journalists Nir Hasson and Lisa Rozobsky, says: “Politicians, officers in the Israeli army, volunteers from ZAKA - the Disaster Victim Diagnosis Association - and activists on social networks have been talking since October 7 about terrible stories committed by Hamas members. Mostly, the talk is about true testimonies based on a lot of evidence, but among the public in Israel and around the world, incorrect stories and narratives are also spreading.” The report warns that this exaggeration of events “provides ammunition for those who deny the massacre.”

The report stated, “The men of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the residents of Gaza who entered Israel committed crimes against humanity. They brutally killed about 1,200 people, most of them unarmed civilians, and kidnapped about 240 civilians and soldiers, including the elderly, children, and teenagers” and women. All of this is undisputed, but (several parties published baseless information about what happened that day).”

Severed children's heads

Among the accounts refuted by the report are those that talked about “finding dozens of bodies of children who had been beheaded.” It said: “This description appeared in a report by the I24 News network, for example, in which the writer described that one of the officers in the field told her that there were more than  40 children who were killed, the vandals beheaded some of them.” He added: “We learned from this network that the reports about the atrocities and the number were based on the testimonies of officers who evacuated bodies in the cover towns,” and that they were collected on a tour of foreign correspondents accompanied by the Israeli army spokesman four days after the outbreak of the war, and that similar numbers were also repeated in Testimonials of ZAKA members.

The report continued: “This description was quoted on social networks, and sometimes the story was changed so that it became (the bodies of children were burned or the bodies of children were hung on a rope). For example, the official channel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published testimonies from Colonel Golan Bach of the Home Front Command, according to which the burned bodies of eight children were found in one of the houses. On the account of the Prime Minister’s Office on the X Network, pictures resembling drawings were published with a comment: (These are terrible pictures of children who were killed and burned by the monsters of Hamas). The post stated that (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed these pictures to the US Secretary of State. (Anthony Blinken).

Similar descriptions were also published by an officer in the Israeli army. A few days ago, the correspondent in “Sabbat Square,” Yishai Cohen, met with Lieutenant Colonel Yaron Buskila of the Gaza Division. “The last one talked about children being hung on a clothesline.” Things similar to his statements were quoted by right-wing man Joel Vaknan in “X”. Cohen commented that after publishing his response, he noticed that the story was inaccurate: “Why would an army officer make up such a terrible story?”

It turns out, according to Cohen, that these descriptions are actually incorrect. During the massacre, Hamas terrorists abused the bodies, especially the bodies of soldiers. There were cases of beheadings and organs being cut off, but National Insurance Institute data on the dead and information collected from the site of the massacre, from leaders in the kibbutzim and from the police, showed that on October 7, one child, Mila Cohen, from Kibbutz Be'eri, and her father, Ehud, were killed.

An undated photo published by the Israeli Forum for Hostages and Missing Families shows Emily Hand (9 years old) from Kibbutz Beeri among 13 Israelis released by Hamas on November 25 (AP)

According to the National Insurance Institute, five other children also died on the same day: Omer Siman Tov Kedem (4 years old) and his twin sisters, Erbil and Shahar (6 years old), who were killed in Nir Oz, and the child Yazan bin Jamaa from Arara in the Negev, who Eytan Kavshtar (5 years old) was wounded by a missile attack, and he was killed along with his parents and brother near Safir College. In addition to them, 14 boys aged 12-15 years were also killed. Three of them were caused by a missile and not in the area of the massacre in the Gaza envelope. Some other children were killed in or near their homes, most likely along with other members of the family. Until now we do not know of a scene in which children from several families were discovered killed together. Hence, it becomes clear that even Netanyahu’s descriptions mentioned in his conversation with US President Joe Biden, according to which Hamas terrorists “took dozens of children, handcuffed them, burned them, and executed them,” are not descriptions that accurately agree with the picture of reality.

Paramedics exaggerations

The report adds that some incorrect descriptions were published by ZAKA members, one of whom spoke about another terrible scene, which was the discovery of the body of a woman he found on Kibbutz Be'eri. Her stomach was open and the fetus that was tied by the umbilical cord was also found stabbed. He repeated this testimony in a conversation with Haaretz, and even said that he saw this scene in the kibbutz, and “there was a lot of blood.” He added: “When we moved her, we saw that her stomach was open, the knife was near her, and the fetus was tied to the umbilical cord. She was shot from behind.”

The paramedic added that he found the woman near the house, and in the safe room he found a 6 or 7-year-old child who had been shot. The Haaretz report confirms that among those killed in Be'eri there were no children aged 6 or 7 years, and that the story of the pregnant woman was completely fabricated.

Netanyahu's wife and the kidnapped pregnant woman

The report touched on another story promoted by Netanyahu’s wife, about which she sent a letter to the wife of US President Jill Biden, in which she said that “one of the women who was kidnapped to the Gaza Strip is nine months pregnant, and that she was born in (Hamas) captivity.” On social networks, a photo of the kidnapped woman, whose name is Netvari Mulkan, was published, and it turned out that she was a Thai citizen.

In a “Magazine” report, Netafari Molkan’s colleagues, her employer, and her family members denied that she was pregnant. When Mulkan was released last Saturday, it was confirmed that she was not pregnant at all. The army also does not yet have any information about a kidnapped pregnant woman. The security apparatus is treating this story as a baseless “rumor.” From the Prime Minister's Office, no answer was received.

Baby in the oven

Another story published a few weeks ago was particularly harsh; The president of the Relief Union Society, Eli Bear, spoke of a child who was put into an oven and burned to death. Bear spoke in these details at a donor conference in the United States. From there, this story spread to the point that it was published at the beginning of this month in the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, in which the child became, according to the report, “several children”, but this story is also incorrect. Mila Cohen was the only child killed in the “massacre,” and the police do not have any testimony about the body of a child that meets these signs.

Source: Arab48

It is difficult to "cleanse" areas of the Gaza Strip of resistance. After 57 days, Shuja'iya is still fighting, not to mention the presence of pockets of resistance in other neighborhoods. The Israeli army entering Khan Yunis without a plan for the “next day” is suitable for a revenge operation and not a step that is supposed to serve a strategy.

The fact that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza surprised Israel and the world with its unparalleled steadfastness over 58 days of the devastating war on Gaza is a fact that won the world’s admiration and attracted the attention of many Israeli and non-Israeli analysts and observers. In this context, Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Nadav Eyal wrote: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) did not surprise Israel in attack (the October 7th operation), but also in defense (its ability to withstand the war), noting that after more than 55 days of war, its end results still seems distant and unclear. 

He pointed out that Hamas surprised Israel in the defense tactics it chose, and that despite the much talk about booby-traps, explosive devices, and ambushes that preceded the ground operation, which the Israeli army neutralized with heavy aerial bombardment, the surprise was that the Hamas leadership “did not succeed or did not want” to engage in Extensive and violent battles with Israeli army units, and they chose the method of hiding and staying away from the clash.

The Israeli journalist says that Sinwar “is betting on time and believes that he and his forces can remain underground more than the Israeli army can remain above it.” At a time when the Israeli army forces, with their enormous numerical and firepower capabilities, are looking for direct confrontation, the majority of Hamas fighters prefer to remain in their trenches. Located in the city of tunnels, which is wider and deeper than what the Israeli security services had expected, while the fighting groups consist of small cells, usually armed with RPG shells, which emerge from the nozzles of tunnels or residential buildings, and strike from close-up at weak points the Israeli fortifications.

This tactic is what explains, perhaps, the presence of the Qassam Brigades in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, despite their entry by the Israeli army and its claim to control them. This is what prompts the political commentator Nahum Barnea to write that it is difficult to “cleanse” the areas of the Gaza Strip of resistance, after 57 days. Al-Shuja'iya is still fighting, not to mention the presence of pockets of resistance in other neighborhoods, noting that the ticking of the clock has increased, not only because of American pressure, but also because of the situation of the civilian population, indicating that it is doubtful that Israel has more than two weeks, a period that does not seem to be sufficient to achieve the ambitious goals announced by the political leadership at the beginning of the war.

Barnea warns that the Israeli army’s entry into Khan Yunis without a plan for the next day is suitable for a revenge operation and not a step that is supposed to serve a strategy, and that it is entering an area crowded with displaced people from the north who lack shelter and constitute a demographic addition to the population of Khan Yunis. He notes the Israeli army’s call for residents to flee towards Rafah, at a time when United Nations data indicate an increasing possibility of the spread of epidemics and the occurrence of a humanitarian crisis.

Barnea concludes by calling for lowering expectations because there will be no victory in Gaza, and it is useful to move as quickly as possible to what he calls the process of “healing, restoring, and returning the kidnapped,” as he puts it.

These conclusions and analyzes coincide with the change in the American discourse expressed by the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, by saying that his country will not allow the victory of Hamas, which was considered a 180-degree shift from the previous rhetoric of eliminating Hamas, and is also added to the skeptical statements of the French President, Emmanuel Macron who stated that with the possibility of eliminating Hamas, considering that achieving this goal would mean continuing the war for ten years. Macron said that the response to Hamas attacks is not to eliminate an entire region or bomb entire civilian infrastructure.

Regarding the difficulties and complications of the Israeli military operation, and its possible arrival at a dead end, Zvi Harel, a military analyst for Haaretz newspaper, writes, pointing out the difficulty of evacuating the population from the southern region, and the inapplicability of the map of the areas circulated by the Israeli army. He says that the government and the Israeli army are now maneuvering in an actual minefield, and it is not known when American patience will run out, which could happen as a result of “a humanitarian catastrophe or as a result of a significant increase in the number of civilian deaths due to Israeli army fire.”

source: Arab48

On Sunday evening, settlers, protected by the Israeli occupation forces, stormed a Bedouin community in the overlook of Wadi Qalt, west of Jericho.

Nader Kaabneh, a resident of the community, said that dozens of settlers stormed five homes belonging to his family, specifically in the area known as the Wadi Qelt overlook, interrogated the citizens, and terrorized children and women.

Kaabneh added that the community is subjected to repeated raids by the occupation forces and settlers, which have increased in frequency over the past 10 days, in an attempt to force residents to evacuate.

The American newspaper "Politico" published that after the "Hamas" movement releases all its prisoners, the administration of the American President Biden will consider its request to Qatar to close the movement's office in the country.

The newspaper reported that "serious internal talks are expected about whether Qatar will be claimed, as stated by three American officials, and the early indications are that Hamas will have to find a new home."

A senior administration official was quoted as saying: "We have made it clear that after October 7, there can be no more business as usual with Hamas... This is a discussion we will continue to have with the partners in the region."

The newspaper pointed out that "Qatar's ambassador to the United States said that the office moved to Doha after a request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas."

According to what "Politico" followed, "If the United States had requested that a Hamas office operate in Qatar, it could effectively order its closure and expel its leadership, and Qatar may reject the request, but American officials and experts say that Doha will comply with Washington's wishes."

And according to the newspaper, "American officials believe that the channel has proven its importance, and some have expressed their fear that Hamas, if expelled, could find a home in a more hostile country such as Syria or Iran, but these fears do not overshadow the prevailing feeling in Washington that the current situation Unsustainable".

The Israeli "Yediot Aharnot" newspaper warned the decision-makers in Tel Aviv against the possibility of launching a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, stating that Israel will not achieve victory over the Hamas movement, even after the Israeli army manages to deliver a strong blow to the movement, eliminating its military capabilities.

In a report prepared by its chief commentator Nahum Barnea and published on Sunday, the newspaper said that "the incursion into Khan Yunis is good for satisfying the appetite for revenge, but without a plan for the next day, it will achieve nothing", confirming that the Israeli army's resumption of airstrikes throughout the Gaza Strip threatens the lives of the prisoners Israelis with the Hamas movement.

It pointed out that the testimonies given by the prisoners who were released by the Hamas movement as part of the recent exchange deal indicated that the raids of the Israeli army actually threaten the lives of the prisoners.

It pointed out that the estimates indicate that "most of the leaders of the Hamas movement and the majority of the Israeli prisoners are in the area south of the Gaza Strip, specifically in Khan Yunis."

According to the newspaper, the experience of the war on Gaza so far has shown that it is not easy to eliminate the resistance, noting that even after 57 days since the beginning of the war, Hamas fighters are still continuing to fight in many neighborhoods of Gaza City, and at the head of it is the Shuja'ia neighborhood.

And the newspaper expected that the war on the Gaza Strip would not extend for more than two additional weeks due to American pressure and the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, pointing out that the occupation army cannot achieve the goals of the war in this period.

Source: Yediot Aharnot + Sama News

On Sunday, the Israeli army announced the start of ground operations north of the city of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli Army Radio said, "There are armored forces in the area that have already begun to move and attack targets belonging to the Hamas movement."

Israeli Army Radio expected that "the army will expand the deployment of its forces in the region and intensify the ground operation."

The official Palestinian News Agency (Wafa) confirmed that “Israeli vehicles penetrated, on Sunday evening, into Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, starting from the eastern border area in the Al-Qarara area, northeast of Khan Yunis, towards Salah al-Din Street.”

It added: "The occupation vehicles are stationed near the Mills Junction amid heavy fire coverage from warplanes and shelling from tanks, artillery, and reconnaissance aircraft."

Earlier, on Sunday, the Israeli army called on residents of a number of neighborhoods in the city of Khan Yunis to evacuate their homes in preparation for bombing them.

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy confirmed on Sunday that the army had begun ground operations south of Gaza, while operations were continuing in the northern part of the Strip.

Speaking to soldiers in the Gaza Division in southern Israel, Halevy said: “Yesterday morning (Saturday) we began the same movement south of the Gaza Strip,” referring to ground operations.

The senior military official added, according to the Times of Israel, that the ground operations in the south “will not be less powerful than the operations in northern Gaza, and will not have fewer results.”

Hamas leaders will confront the Israeli army everywhere.” Halevy explained: “We have the capabilities to do this to the fullest extent, and just as we did it with strength and precision in the northern Gaza Strip, we are also doing so now in the southern Gaza Strip, and we also continue to work to deepen the achievements in the northern Gaza Strip.” Gaza".

Video footage circulated on the Internet showed Israeli tanks in Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, and Hamas also explained that its fighters clashed with Israeli forces in the area.

The Palestinian Citizen Mamoun Amin Awad was forced to demolished his own house in Sur Baher this evening. The Israeli police imposed the demolition on Awad, or that Israeli police would be forced to demolish it, provided that he bears the full costs.

The area of the house is 45 square meters, and it was built by citizen Awad next to his father’s house.

Today, the Israeli police demolished the home of freed prisoner Jihad Attoun and closed the family home of the martyrs Ibrahim and Murad Nimr in response to their implementation of the Ramot settlement operation last Thursday.

It is expected that demolition operations will continue in Sur Baher under the pretext of unlicensed construction in the coming days as part of a series of punitive steps imposed by the Israeli police against the residents of Sur Baher and neighboring Umm Tuba.

A human rights observatory said on Sunday that Israel returned to bombing the Gaza Strip more violently during the 48 hours following the end of the temporary truce in Gaza, accompanied by the announcement of plans for forced displacement from new areas in the south of the Strip.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory stated that the occupation army crushed all forms of civilian life in Gaza and returned the population to the pre-industrial Renaissance stage, turning homes, factories, companies and infrastructure into piles of rubble.

In its report, the Observatory documented that the occupation army committed “mass killing massacres yesterday, Saturday, by targeting entire residential squares, with victims exceeding a thousand people, including dead, wounded and missing, which raises fears of a more brutal approach to impose political and field desires at the expense of civilians’ blood and property.”

This included an intense aerial bombardment with intense fire belts launched by Israel on the areas of Shuja'iya, Jabalia, and Beit Lahia, targeting inhabited buildings and residential squares without warning, destroying them above the heads of their residents, and burying dozens under the rubble.

According to the Observatory for Human Rights, about 2.2 million displaced people in the Gaza Strip struggle to survive every day, and to do so they face a painful reality. For example, thousands line up every day to fill water that is barely drinkable.

Since Israel resumed its attacks on December 1, only limited humanitarian operations have taken place inside Gaza, primarily providing services in shelters and distributing flour in the areas located in the center and south of the Strip.

isolating area

In parallel, there are disturbing reports of Israel imposing a buffer zone in the Gaza Strip, thus annexing new parts of its territory, while this translates into forcing civilians to gradually migrate near the border with Egypt.

The occupation army published on the Internet a map dividing the Gaza Strip into hundreds of small areas, to force residents into forced evacuation, including about 25% of the Gaza Strip.

One of the areas designated for evacuation includes several towns in eastern Khan Yunis (Al-Qarara, Khuza’a, Abasan, and Bani Suhaila), whose residents were ordered to move south to Rafah. These areas represent 19% of the area of the Gaza Strip (69 square kilometers) and were home to about 350,000 people before the war.

The Israeli army also warned residents of the eastern parts of Gaza City (Al-Shuja'iya, Al-Zaytoun, and the Old City) and Jabalia in the north of the Strip to evacuate. The designated areas cover about 6% of the Gaza Strip and are home to about 415,000 people.

Repeated displacement

Saeed Morgan (61 years old) recounted five repeated displacements to different areas with his family of 18 members since their home in the Yarmouk neighborhood in central Gaza City was destroyed as a result of an Israeli bombing that affected an entire residential square on October 25 last year.

So far, the man has lost 5 of his family, including 3 of his daughters, his daughter-in-law, and her infant son, as a result of attacks on areas to which they were displaced, including Al-Falah School in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, south of the city, and now the rest of them are still alive without a shelter or a safe destination for displacement.

Before the new evacuations, the Gaza Strip recorded more than 1.8 million displaced people suffering from massive overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions in shelter centers, including significant increases in diseases such as hepatitis, infectious conditions such as diarrhea and acute respiratory infections, and hygiene-related conditions.

In addition, there are concerns about the lives of vulnerable groups of people in difficult shelter conditions, such as people with special needs, pregnant, newly born or breastfeeding women, people recovering from injuries or surgeries, and those with weakened immune systems.

The Human Rights Observatory concluded that the seven days of the truce clearly demonstrated the severity of the destruction practiced by Israel, which left more than 60,000 Palestinian casualties including martyrs, wounded and missing so far, while within 50 days it destroyed about 60% of the infrastructure in the Strip.

Source: German

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the United States will not stop providing security assistance to Israel during its violent attack on the Gaza Strip.

Kirby said, in an interview with the American Fox News network, that his country “does not set red lines” for Israel during its military operation, but rather “shares its experiences in fighting cities.”

He explained that "the United States must help Israel eliminate the danger coming from Hamas," stressing that "the Israeli army has begun to take measures to be more precise and cautious, which is what Washington encourages it to do."

On the other hand, Kirby said that Washington does not want Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, as “this is not a long-term goal from a strategic standpoint, nor a wise choice for the Israelis,” according to his description.

The American official pointed out the belief of President Joe Biden's administration that "the future of governance in the Gaza Strip must be decided by the Palestinians," but he raised questions about "the form of this matter."

Kirby said, "US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke about the need to reform and revive the Palestinian Authority, so that it is able to meet the aspirations and needs of the Palestinian people," noting that "the American administration knows that the Authority does not do that."

He also spoke about the humanitarian crisis for the residents of the Gaza Strip, stressing that "the White House is aware of it, so it worked to reach a truce to bring aid, including food and fuel, into Gaza."

Kirby explained that "there are 8 or 9 American hostages held by the Hamas movement," and that "the Biden administration is working around the clock to restore the hostage exchange agreement."

American writer Thomas Friedman expressed his extreme caution about Israel continuing its ground invasion of Gaza for fear that it will sink into its mire forever, that all of the “ills” of the Strip will become under its responsibility, and that it will be forced to manage its population, which numbers more than two million people, who are suffering under the weight of a humanitarian crisis.

What is worse in light of a scenario like this - from the writer’s point of view - is that it will tarnish the reputation of the Israeli army, which has been seeking to restore the Israelis’ confidence in it.

He first urged the Israeli political and military leadership to meditate on the adage attributed to Confucius: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves, one for your enemy and the other for yourself.”

Friedman pointed out - in his weekly article in the New York Times - that Israel's declared goal of the invasion was to recover its detained prisoners and to destroy the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and its infrastructure once and for all.

He said that the reason he was cautious about the invasion - to get rid of Hamas forever - was not because of any sympathy for this Islamist movement, but rather “deep concern that Israel is acting out of blind rage” in order to achieve the unachievable goal of “wiping out Hamas from the face of Earth" and without having a plan for what comes next, warning that persisting in this may mean drowning in the mud of Gaza forever.

The writer compared the military operation that Israel is now carrying out in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Hamas attack on it on October 7, and the two wars launched by the United States against Afghanistan and Iraq following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the cities of New York and Washington, “for which we paid dearly.” .

He suggested that Israel follow the example of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which established a “red cell” or “red team,” which is a group of intelligence employees outside the direct military or political chain of command, which is primarily tasked with examining war plans and objectives for Iraq and Afghanistan and subjecting it to the test by proposing contradictory alternatives to the achievable goals of restoring American security and deterrence.

Friedman explained that his proposal is not limited to establishing a red team on how to deal with Hamas in Gaza, but also establishing a “blue team” to criticize the actions of its red counterpart. He added that Israel needs to hold more lively internal discussions because it "has clearly been thrust into a war with multiple and contradictory goals."

In the face of the impasse that Israel faces in transferring its ground war from northern Gaza to its south, Friedman advises the Israeli Red Team to adopt a “hard-line” alternative through which Israel calls for a permanent ceasefire, followed by a direct withdrawal of all its military forces from Gaza on the condition that Hamas returns all the prisoners to it. It has remaining civilians and soldiers, and all its dead, without getting any Palestinian prisoners in return.

The American writer considered this alternative a “clean deal,” noting that Israel reserves the right to bring senior Hamas leaders who planned the October 7 “massacre” to justice in the future.

Confucius “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves, one for your enemy and the other for yourself.”

5 advantages

Friedman identified five advantages that his proposals could bring to Israel through the Red Team: The first is that all pressures aimed at a ceasefire to spare civilians in Gaza from further death and destruction will fall on Hamas, not on Israel. The latter will thus ensure that Hamas will not obtain “any major victory” from this war.

Secondly, the Red Team will respond to the complaints of some - and perhaps many - in Israel that the invasion did not achieve its declared goal, which will mean a victory for Hamas. The response will be that that goal - to begin with - was not realistic, especially with the unwillingness of the right-wing Israeli government to work with the “more moderate” Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to create an alternative to Hamas that runs the Gaza Strip.

Third, the hard-line alternative that the Red Team would adopt would create the same pattern of deterrence for Hamas that was created by the devastating Israeli bombing of pro-Hezbollah communities in the southern suburbs of Beirut in the 2006 war. Friedman said that the party’s Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, “did not dare” to provoke a wide-scale war. The domain has been with Israel ever since.

The fourth advantage - according to the writer - is that among the biggest strategic benefits that may result from Israel’s exit from Gaza, in exchange for a ceasefire under international monitoring, is that it can devote most of its attention to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Fifthly, the Red Team can claim that there is an antidote within Israel that allows it to recover and resume its project of normalizing relations with its Arab neighbors and establishing a stable relationship with the more moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. In Friedman's opinion, Israel will not be able to achieve this unless its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is removed from power.

Blue team

As for the Blue Team - which the American writer proposes - it will wonder what Israel will do if the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, refuses not only to accept a ceasefire, but also to remove 6,000 Palestinians and over from Israeli prisons, declaring his willingness to pay the price for that if Western public opinion stands up to them. The result is that Israel will remain stuck in the mud of Gaza.

This team will say that it has a better idea, which is to lower the level of Israel's war goals, and to declare that its army's goal is not to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth, but rather to significantly reduce its combat ability.

Instead of that goal, the Blue Team announces that Israel will withdraw from Gaza, and establish a zone and forward posts one mile deep within the border with the Strip, to ensure that its border settlements are not subjected to a ground attack again similar to what happened on the seventh of last October.

Finally, this team will undertake the task of informing the Israeli leadership to "stop lying to itself and to the public." According to the article, the author adds that if Israel tries to keep Gaza completely, the latter will not only swallow up the leaders, but also that the politicians will raise enormous doubts in the minds of the general public about the army by providing them with an unachievable goal, as he put it.

In general, Israel needs this type of internal dialogue, where the red and blue teams can remind the leadership that there is no “ideal result” awaiting Israel in Gaza, because “taming” Gaza permanently always remains “a fantasy,” as Friedman believes in conclusion of the article.

Source: New York Times +Aljazeera

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in his recent interview with Politico that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the establishment of two states does not guarantee a calm situation in the region in the future.

He added: "The two-state solution does not guarantee that what we have seen in recent weeks will not happen again... I believe that the West Bank should be handed over to Jordanian control instead of seeking a two-state solution, as a result of which one of the other state will seek and be determined to crush Israel."

Kissinger noted that more active measures are needed from Washington to prevent escalation of the conflict in the region.

Kissinger's death was announced on November 29.

The former Secretary of State gained fame as one of the most influential political figures in the United States, leaving a significant mark in the history of diplomacy.

Kissinger, a major player in global diplomacy during the Cold War and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, launched rapprochement with Moscow and Beijing in the 1970s, relying on a pragmatic worldview that was a kind of American-style “realpolitik.”

Source: Sama News

The Pentagon announced that an American warship and several commercial ships were attacked in the Red Sea on Sunday.

The Pentagon said: “We are aware of reports regarding attacks on the American destroyer (USS Carney) and commercial ships in the Red Sea, and we will provide information when it becomes available.”

The Pentagon did not specify where it was believed the fire came from. The American announcement indicates an escalation in a series of naval attacks in the Middle East, linked to the violent Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip.

The British army had previously spoken about a drone attack and explosions in the Red Sea, without going into details.

The Red Sea witnessed a series of Houthi attacks on ships, as well as the launching of drones and missiles targeting Israel, which is waging war on the Gaza Strip.

The fall of the temporary Gaza truce was expected, although some who do not like to be convinced of the facts were optimistic about a near-miracle after the time of miracles had passed.

However, the glaring truth pointed from the beginning to the need for both sides of the unbalanced war for a “warrior’s rest,” in which both sides claimed tactical victories, recrystallized psychological targeting, strengthened logistical mobilization, and took advantage of the changes imposed on the ground... not to mention trying to give moderation a chance through prisoner and detainee exchange deals.

The Israeli side, which has historically enjoyed an amazing ability to dress up as the oppressed, was undoubtedly able to win the battle in the corridors of political decision-making in most of the world's influential capitals. His achievement was doubled with his victory in the war of financial and communication blackmail, the clearest evidence of which was the arrival of the global billionaire Elon Musk to Israel, humiliating and subservient to Benjamin Netanyahu, after the decision of a group of major international companies to boycott the advertising platform “X” (formerly Twitter), which he owns.

On the other hand, the explosion of global mass movements demanding an end to the Gaza war came as a reaction to the ferocity of the bombing and the horror of the tragedies, rather than because of the skill of Hamas leaders in managing the “public relations” battle regarding what happened on October 7 and what followed. Some of the statements of the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were disastrous, whether in terms of arrogant dealing with the humanitarian catastrophe throughout the Gaza Strip, or in terms of ignorance of the background and details of the war.

On the other hand, the Israeli propaganda “machine” continued to go far from transforming its declared goal of liquidating “Hamas” to the broader practical application of its permanent strategy based on the complete displacement of the Palestinian people, and the actual liquidation of an issue that is impossible to liquidate without eliminating its people. Indeed, even before the fall of the temporary truce, we witnessed a competition between the contents of the Israeli official statements and the threats, intimidation, provocations, fabrications, and gloating published by its electronic army on social media.

Even at the height of the process of exchanging prisoners and detainees, the uprooting and displacement plans were an “open secret,” and there was no doubt among those who were following the “advice” directed to the residents of the northern part of the Gaza Strip to leave it and head south... that the south - which in turn was targeted - was only a temporary stop. His turn will come later.

The words of Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant - and there is no need to dwell long on Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich - were clear and without ambiguity. Although the Arab countries continued to bet patiently on an American position that would rein in the Likud unruliness, the movements and positions of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken were not reassuring. Indeed, they confirmed time and time again that Washington, despite its tendency to be conservative about the outcome of the Israeli war and its results, stands completely behind Netanyahu and his government.

Of course, the ready-made pretext to justify American condemnations of Hamas began with the reference to the October 7 attack, and continued with Hamas keeping a number of hostages who could not be released during the first truce... and perhaps the last.

Of course, what contributed most to ensuring full coverage of American support for Netanyahu was the occurrence of individual operations, some of which Hamas announced it had claimed, in the West Bank. However, despite this, without shy denunciations of the violations of armed settlers, it can be said that Washington ignored the Israeli forces’ repeated violation of the temporary truce by launching killing and arrest operations in a number of areas of the West Bank, to the point that the number of Palestinian detainees, deaths and injuries during the truce period was greater than the number of prisoners released. 

Accordingly, what we are dealing with now is that Washington remains the incubating, supporting and sponsoring force of the Israeli plan, and it seems that it is determined to follow it until its conclusion. Here it explicitly supports the Israeli “dealing” with the residents of Gaza currently, and perhaps the residents of the West Bank in the future, without taking into account the concerns of most of its friends in the region.

It forgets, according to an Arab politician and diplomat familiar with Israeli-Arab relations, that the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank “have practically been living, for about 20 years, in a large prison besieged by Israel.” they are left to their suffering without any political horizon... which was not really a warning of a dangerous explosion to come.

Also, Washington still insists on monopolizing the file of Israeli-Arab relations, even though it has completely abandoned putting forward any peace initiative since 2014, during the days of former Secretary of State John Kerry. Hence, by its reluctance to undertake any serious political effort aimed at peace, it has turned the idea of a “two-state solution” into an absurd and useless distraction. Instead of objective, responsible work to encourage peaceful approaches and strengthen them by giving them political credibility, the region was thrown into the illusion of “Abrahamic understanding,” the benefit of which was to the benefit of one party.

Source: Alsharq alawsat

Wael Muhaisen (51 years old), a resident of the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, who was forced to forcibly migrate with the beginning of the ground battle in the north of the Gaza Strip, to the south, cannot believe that he will be forced again to repeat the tragedy, after the Israeli occupation forces attacked Khan Yunis, where he took refuge. It called on its residents to go to the Rafah border.

Muhaisen, who spent the night in the street, said: “Where do we go?” Don't know where to go? What do they want from us?

Muhaisen is one of about 1,700,000 Palestinians in the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, including hundreds of thousands who were displaced from the north of the Strip, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). They are now in limbo, facing an unknown fate.

The Israeli army unexpectedly bombed the areas of the south intensively after the end of 7 days of the humanitarian truce, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries, destroying residential areas, distributing maps and leaflets, and telephoned tens of thousands of residents of Khan Yunis and other areas of the central and southern Gaza Strip, demanding that they leave to Rafah.

Muhaisen told Asharq Al-Awsat: “They bombed our homes at first, and asked us to move from our homes in the north to the south. Now they are doing it again, bombing and asking us to go to Rafah (the southernmost area of the Strip). Where to after Rafah? to Egypt?".

The Israeli warnings include all those who were also displaced to the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Yunis, an area that the Israeli army maintained throughout 50 days of the war in its first phase that it was the safe area to which residents were asked to go, to the point that UNRWA set up tents there to contain thousands of displaced people.

Muhaisen does not know where to go today, and thousands like him are in the streets after a bombing the likes of which they had not experienced in the past. He said: “There is no room for us, and we do not understand what they want. Anyway, there was nowhere to go. "We will die here."

Israel is now focusing on displacing the residents of the eastern central region (mostly camps) and the entire city of Khan Yunis (east and west) towards Rafah. This threatens to lead to a new, unprecedented wave of displacement, and to exacerbate the catastrophic health and environmental conditions.

Nihal Al-Masry, a resident of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, said that on Saturday morning, she and 7 of her children were forced to go to her sister’s house in the Tal Al-Sultan area, west of the city of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip.

Al-Masry had received a call from a person who identified himself as an Israeli officer who asked her to evacuate her house, on the grounds that it was located in a military combat zone.

Al-Masry asked him how the area could be a combat zone, where there were no armed men, and where there were no fighting or battles taking place, but rather calm, so he ordered her to leave or suffer the consequences.

Al-Masry told Asharq Al-Awsat: “It has become clear what they want. They want us to leave for Egypt. When they said they wanted to take Gaza back 50 years, this is what they are doing today. Complete destruction. They want to destroy everything in the sector. A clear policy of revenge.

The Palestinians say that work to displace the population of the south is continuing, along with work to displace the population of the north, something that began 50 days ago.

The occupation army published a detailed map with numbers of the areas whose residents were asked to go from their areas of residence (such as Al-Shuja’iya and Jabalia), to other areas from which it had withdrawn (Al-Rimal neighborhood and the vicinity of Al-Shifa Medical Complex).

Before that, Israel had asked them all to go to the south, but now the plans have changed for an inexplicable reason.

Anwar Samour, a resident of the Daraj neighborhood, said that they were surprised this morning by leaflets dropped by Israeli reconnaissance planes, asking them to leave their residential areas east and west of Gaza City.

Sammour told Asharq Al-Awsat: “After they destroyed half of the neighborhood and displaced the people to the south, they are now pursuing those remaining in it in order to displace them to the west of the city near the Al-Shifa Medical Complex.” He added: “Our suffering is severe, and our conditions are getting worse from day to day, and we can no longer bear what is happening.”

The Israeli authorities claim that the second phase of the war comes in light of drawing lessons from the first phase, and that asking residents to leave their homes is aimed at preserving their lives and preventing a recurrence of what happened in some areas of the north.

The administration of US President Joe Biden had asked Israel to try to avoid harming civilians, not to allow their displacement, and had asked the Israelis to clearly define the locations of their military operations. But it seems that all of this was not part of Israel's plans, which within two days of the return of the war killed more than 350 Palestinians, and is still expelling residents from region to region to region... towards the closest point to Egypt.

Source: Alsharq Alawsat

Two Palestinian boys were injured by Israeli armed settlers shots this Sunday evening, in the village of Deir Qadis, west of Ramallah.

Local sources reported that settlers stormed the Al-Muhallal area in the village and fired bullets at the citizens, wounding two boys (12 and 14 years old) with live bullets, one in the foot and the other in the thigh, after which they were taken to the hospital.

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The Israeli army announced the launch of a ground operation north of the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

It explained that infantry and armored forces began operating in the area north of Khan Yunis.

Earlier, Israel divided the Gaza Strip into 2,300 residential communities known as squares or “blocks” as part of its new plan for its second round of the war, and asked the residents of Khan Yunis to evacuate before striking it.

According to the American newspaper "The New York Times", this fragmentation turned the entire Strip into displaced people and caused a human crowding that is unparalleled at all.

Source: Sky News

On Sunday evening, the Israeli occupation forces arrested a child and a young man from the village of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqilya.

Eyewitnesses reported that the occupation forces arrested the child Qais Imad Shteiwi (17 years old) and the young man Hassan Nasser Shteiwi (24 years old), while they were working on agricultural land north of the village.

During a visit by senior officers to the headquarters of various brigades of the Israeli army, a disturbing matter emerged.

According to the Jerusalem Post, surveillance camera footage along the border, dating back to October 7, the day the war broke out, has mysteriously disappeared.

The newspaper added that important recordings of the day of the attack launched by Hamas Israel were removed from the central database.

The Israeli army said in an official statement regarding this issue that the videos were not deleted, but were limited to employees authorized to view them.

These videos were captured from various Israeli army surveillance cameras along the Gaza border, part of the military network known as “ZiTube.”

According to the newspaper, it appears that the clips were deliberately deleted to obstruct any in-depth investigations into the events that sparked division within Israel.

A senior reserve officer from one of the battalions recounted the situation: “We were planning to show one of the key figures a video of a particular incident from last week, only to find out that someone had deleted the videos. It was a very embarrassing situation.”

He added: "This later led to doubts about the motives behind these actions, and in the end, special permissions were granted to those who requested to watch the clips. The question that arises here is whether officers at our level need such permissions."

According to the Jerusalem Post, sources within the Gaza Division also revealed a “glitch” in communications recordings since October 7.

According to these sources, “some of the recordings either disappeared or were simply downloaded from the network and transferred based on the directives of commanding officers.”

Communication recordings are usually deleted after a specified period, unless someone intentionally keeps them within the system.

The newspaper quoted the sources as saying that it appeared that someone had made a deliberate choice to either transfer these recordings or delete them to ensure that no one would be able to listen to them.

A Palestinian source revealed today (Sunday) that Qatar and Egypt presented new proposals to return to the humanitarian truce between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip.

The source told Xinhua News Agency that the new proposals aim to agree between the two sides to exchange additional categories of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli detainees in preparation for declaring a ceasefire again.

The source stated that Qatar and Egypt are pressing to bridge the differences between Israel and Hamas by offering to exchange groups of elderly people and the remaining women detained in the Gaza Strip.

According to the source, regional and international parties warned both Israel and Hamas of the dangers of stopping indirect negotiations and limiting themselves to negotiating under fire at this stage, which portends more dangerous developments on the ground.

Yesterday evening, Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, Saleh Al-Arouri, announced that the movement’s official position now is that “there will be no exchange of prisoners except after the end of the war” on the Gaza Strip.

Al-Arouri said, "The remaining prisoners in Gaza are soldiers and civilian men who served in the army, while Israel has decided that it does not want to resume the exchange deal with new standards. The elderly men among the detainees, for us, served in the army, and some of them are still in it."

Before that, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced that negotiations on returning to the truce in the Gaza Strip had reached a "dead end," accusing Hamas of not implementing its obligations regarding the release of the hostages.

A statement issued by the Israeli Prime Minister stated that Mossad Chief David Baring instructed his staff in Doha to return to the country on instructions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to the "deadlock" that the negotiations had reached regarding restoring the humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip.

Israel and Hamas resumed their military operations immediately after the end of the declared truce, while the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides are continuing to return to the truce.

A Hebrew newspaper said on Sunday that the dispute had escalated between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, noting that there were old differences between them, but the war had deepened them.

This came the day after Netanyahu announced, on Saturday evening, that he had proposed to the Defense Minister to hold a joint press conference, but the latter “chose what he chose,” in reference to his refusal in what appeared to be “differences between them.”

Maariv newspaper added, "The Prime Minister preferred that the members of the War Council (Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz) not participate in the major achievement he talked about, which is the return of the kidnapped people (from Gaza)."

It continued that Gallant had indeed been summoned to the meeting, but it happened at the same time that the Office of the Secretary of Defense decided to hold its own press conference and had sent an invitation to the media.

The newspaper said, "The past weeks were difficult and full of complex questions, and Netanyahu relied on the permanent support team that appeared every night: Defense Minister Gallant and Minister Gantz."

It considered that "the lasting general impression was that the two senior ministers were here to give support, weight and legitimacy to the main spokesman, Netanyahu."

It added, "But this time (yesterday) the content was different. The Prime Minister did not only come to deliver messages and answer difficult questions. Rather, he had good news, which is the first major achievement since the miserable failure on October 7."

On that day, in response to “daily Israeli attacks against the Palestinian people and their sanctities,” the Hamas movement launched an attack against settlements in the Gaza Strip, killing 1,200 Israelis, wounding 5,431, and capturing about 239, exchanging dozens of them during a humanitarian truce with Israel, which is holding in its prisons about 7,800 Palestinians, including children and women.

Since October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, which included a 7-day truce, which left 15,207 Palestinians dead and 40,652 wounded, in addition to massive destruction of infrastructure and an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to official Palestinian and UN sources. .

The newspaper explained that this achievement was “the release of 110 hostages from Gaza as part of the deal (with Hamas). This time, Netanyahu preferred not to share this major achievement with the members of the military cabinet, so the two (Galant and Gantz) were not invited.”

According to the newspaper, “Netanyahu’s office claimed that Gallant had already been invited and the invitation had been delivered to his office.”

It believed that "the difference between the accounts of the two offices indicates the gap that exists between Netanyahu and Gallant. The gap that arose long before October 7, and is growing."

Last October, Netanyahu, in a tweet, held the army and intelligence services responsible for failing to anticipate the Hamas attack on the seventh of that month, but he later deleted the tweet and apologized for the matter, under the weight of criticism from inside and outside the government.

Days before that, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper revealed that there were disagreements between Netanyahu and senior army officials regarding assessments, plans and decisions.

Regarding the beginning of the disputes between Netanyahu and Gallant, the newspaper said that the rift between them “arose during (the passing of the government’s plan for the so-called) legal reform. Netanyahu and his entourage suspected Gallant (as an opponent of the plan), and allegations emerged in discussions in the circle closest to the Prime Minister that the Minister of Defense stands with the army and the opposition more than once.”.

It continued: “Since that time, the situation has worsened, shortly before the events of October 7... Today, no one can predict the future, neither on the battlefield, nor in the political sphere. It is possible that the Minister of Defense will retain his position the next day (after the war), and it is possible that “none of the country’s leaders will survive the October 7 disaster?”

There are expectations in Israel that upcoming investigations into responsibility for the failure to confront the events of October 7 will overthrow the Netanyahu government, which has been in power for about a year, and lead to early elections.

The newspaper concluded, "Until the situation becomes clear and the next day comes, two senior officials wearing black will continue their strange duality: leading the war while facing a difficult internal conflict."

On March 26, 2023, Netanyahu’s office announced Gallant’s dismissal from his position; on the background of the latter’s statements in which he called for stopping the judicial amendments proposed by the government, which led to massive demonstrations in the country on the grounds that they limit the powers of the Supreme Court to monitor the executive and legislative branches.

But Netanyahu backed down, and announced on April 10 that Gallant would be retained in his position.

The government media office in Gaza announced today (Sunday) that about 700 Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip during the past 24 hours.

Director of the Government Media Office, Ismail Al-Thawabta, told reporters that Israel resumed its raids after the end of the humanitarian truce on Friday morning, with an increased intensity of targeting of civilians.

Al-Thawabta added that the Israeli army committed 20 crimes against civilians during the past 24 hours, resulting in about 700 deaths and hundreds of wounded who are still trapped under the rubble of buildings.

He stressed that with the displacement of more than a million and a half people, there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip at a time when the Israeli army is practicing forced displacement against residents of new areas by demanding that they evacuate.

This comes as a medical source at the European Hospital in Rafah announced to Xinhua News Agency that the bodies of 9 dead were recovered as a result of an Israeli raid that targeted at dawn today a house in the El Geneina neighborhood, east of the city.

The source stated that two dead and 10 injured were transported as a result of an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in nearby Khan Yunis this morning.
In the central Gaza Strip, security sources said that about 32 people were killed in raids that targeted at least five homes in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps.

The sources also announced deaths and injuries in several Israeli raids that targeted various areas of Gaza City and its north.

The United Nations said today (Sunday) that the Israeli army has warned new areas, including about 25% of the Gaza Strip, of forced evacuation in the past two days.

The Israeli army published on the Internet a detailed map, dividing the Gaza Strip into hundreds of small areas, with the aim of what it said was to facilitate orders to evacuate specific areas before targeting them.

One of the areas designated for evacuation includes towns east of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, namely (Al-Qarara, Khuza’a, Abasan, and Bani Suhaila), whose residents were ordered to move south to Rafah.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the aforementioned areas threatened with evacuation represent 19% of the area of the Gaza Strip (69 square kilometers) and were home to about 352,000 people before the start of the Israeli war.

The Israeli army also issued an order to evacuate the eastern parts of Gaza City (Al-Shuja'iya, Al-Zaytoun, and the Old City) and Jabalia in northern Gaza, for evacuation towards the western areas of Gaza City.

According to OCHA, these areas cover about 6% of the Gaza Strip, and were home to about 415,000 people, many of whom have already been evacuated.

Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee, on his account on the (X) platform this morning, repeated his call to residents of several areas in eastern Khan Yunis to evacuate their residential areas and go to alternative areas.

The United Nations estimates that about 1.8 million people in Gaza, or nearly 80 percent of the population, have become internally displaced.

Nearly 1.1 million displaced people have been registered in 156 facilities affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) throughout Gaza, of whom about 86% are registered in 99 UNRWA shelters in the south.

Another 191,000 displaced people are estimated to be staying in 124 public schools and hospitals, as well as in other places such as wedding halls, offices and community centers, while families host the rest.

OCHA stated that due to overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions in UNRWA shelters in the south, there have been significant increases in some infectious diseases and conditions such as diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, skin infections and hygiene-related conditions, along with disease outbreaks, including hepatitis.

The UN office warned of concerns about vulnerable groups of people suffering from difficult shelter conditions, including people with disabilities. Women who are pregnant, have recently given birth, or are breastfeeding; People recovering from injuries or surgeries; and those who suffer from a weak immune system.

The Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Authority said that the pace of attacks on detainees inside Israeli occupation prisons has been on an escalating curve since the start of the aggression on the Gaza Strip on October 7, in light of a severe blackout by the prison administration.

The Prisoners' Authority explained in a press statement that the occupation prison administration prevents visits from family and lawyers, and completely isolates the detainees from the outside world. During the same period, 6 detainees were dead as a result of severe torture, and the departments were subjected to almost daily raids, during which soldiers severely beat the detainees with batons, rifles, gas, and rubber bullets, which resulted in bruises, and deep wounds, in addition to fractures in their hands and legs.

It pointed out that during the arrest and raid operations, the occupation soldiers deliberately broke down the homes of the detainees and beat them violently from the moment of arrest until the investigation and the end of imprisonment. This included insults, threats, and deliberate neglect of their injuries and health conditions, leaving them without treatment. If a prisoner requested a doctor, the response would be immediately from the soldiers: “Whoever asks to leave the department for treatment will be beaten and die."

The Commission reviewed a number of racist punishments and restrictions to which detainees are subjected, the most important of which are: the absence of aluminum windows on the windows, as the prisoners suffer from the extreme cold, and the available covers are very light and do not protect them from the cold. The detainees tried to close the windows with cardboard, but every time they tried to do so, they were beaten. They raid the room, punish them, and assault them.

It added that the food is very poor in quantity and quality, and is cold and smells bad. The quantity provided to 12 detainees is only enough for four, and the detainees are not allowed to go out to the breaks and they removed all electrical appliances, personal belongings, and clothes, and the prisoners remain in one spare change at all times.

It pointed out that a large number of detainees sleep on the floor, due to the lack of sufficient beds and the increase in the number of detainees in the departments to at least three times the normal number, while the duration of showering does not exceed 10 minutes a day with cold water, and the “canteen” is completely closed.

The Commission stated that this fierce attack on detainees coincides with the absence of the role of human rights and humanitarian institutions in providing the slightest protection and follow-up of their conditions and rights, which are clearly violated on a daily basis and the policy of slow killing is practiced against them.

American Muslim leaders from six swing states, considered crucial in the US presidential elections, pledged to mobilize their communities against the re-election of President Joe Biden because of his support for the Israeli aggression on Gaza, but they have not yet decided on supporting an alternative candidate in the 2024 elections.

The six states are among the few that allowed Biden to win the 2020 elections. Opposition from their large Muslim and Arab American communities may complicate the president’s path to winning the electoral college votes next year.

Jelani Hussein, director of the Minnesota branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said during a press conference in Dearborn, Michigan, when asked about Biden’s alternatives, “We do not have two options, but many options.”

“We do not support (former President Donald) Trump,” he added, adding that the Muslim community would decide how to conduct interviews with other candidates.

Hussein said he was expressing his personal opinions, not those of Kiir.

The so-called “Abandon Biden” campaign began when Muslim Americans in Minnesota demanded that Biden call for a ceasefire in Gaza by October 31. The campaign extended to Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida.

American and Israeli officials reject pressures demanding a permanent cessation of fighting. Yesterday, Saturday, US Vice President Kamla Harris repeated Biden's statement that Israel has the right to defend itself.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Muslim Americans said they did not expect Trump to treat their community better if he was re-elected, but they saw depriving Biden of their votes as the only way to shape American policy.

It is not yet clear whether Muslim voters will turn against Biden en masse, but small shifts in support could make a difference in states that Biden narrowly won in 2020.

A recent poll showed that Biden's popularity among Arab Americans dropped from a comfortable majority in 2020 to 17 percent.

This could be decisive in a state like Michigan, where Biden won by 2.8 percentage points and Arab Americans represent 5 percent of the vote, according to the Arab American Institute.

Tariq Amin, a doctor who represents the Muslim community in Wisconsin, said that there are about 25,000 Muslim voters in the state, which Biden won by about 20,000 votes.

“We will change the vote and make it swing,” Amin said.

In Arizona, where Biden won by about 10,500 votes, pharmacist Hazem Nasr al-Din said that there are more than 25,000 Muslim voters in the state, according to the Center for American Immigration Policy at the University of California, San Diego.

He added, "We will not stand with a man who polluted a blue wave with drops of red blood."

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that since the end of the truce, the Israeli occupation has escalated its targeting of every inch of the Gaza Strip and is committing major massacres even more than in the first period of the aggression.

Al-Qudra continued, “More than 200 died within 24 hours and arrived at hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and the largest number is still under the rubble, and civil defense crews and ambulances cannot reach them.”

He stressed that the occupation committed widespread massacres, especially in the central region or the north of the Gaza Strip, indicating that there are no possibilities to recover the bodies of dead, which is likely to increase the number of dead in the coming hours if the people are able to help the crews in recovering the victims.

Al-Qudra added that the Israeli occupation, since this morning, has been targeting residential neighborhoods in a concentrated manner in all governorates of the Gaza Strip.

He stressed that the Gaza Strip's hospitals are no longer able to deal with the volume and type of infections received from all governorates, adding that the northern regions of the Gaza Strip are no longer able to deal with any cases and infections.

He explained that the hospitals operating in Gaza City and the north are 3 small hospitals and are not specialized or qualified to receive this large and specific number of casualties that arrive after every massacre committed by the Israeli occupation, especially since Gaza City and the areas of the northern Gaza Strip did not receive any fuel or medicine during the truce period. Humanitarian, as the occupation restricted the access of medical aid to the north during the truce.

Al-Qudra continued: “The Israeli occupation wants to keep the health system in Gaza out of service so that it cannot carry out its function of saving the lives of the wounded.”

He explained that the reality is painful in the Gaza Strip’s hospitals, as the bed occupancy rate in hospitals reached more than 171%, while the bed occupancy rate in intensive care rooms reached 221%, stressing: “There is not a single bed in which we can receive the wounded and new patients, and the patients are now sleeping on Land and yards in hospitals, especially in the south.”

Al-Qudra added that the occupation is increasing the horrific massacres to terrorize the Palestinian people, the evacuation of the Gaza Strip, and the forced displacement of citizens, so it is increasing its massacres, expressing his fear of more casualties in the coming hours and days if the Israeli aggression continues its crimes.

The occupation resumed its violent bombing of the Gaza Strip following a temporary humanitarian truce during which a number of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli detainees were released.

The raids launched by the occupation fighters continue, resulting in thousands of martyrs and wounded.

The Director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, warned on Sunday that the situation in the health sector in Gaza was “unimaginable,” and stressed that reports of violent Israeli bombing “stimulate horror.”

Ghebreyesus said, in a tweet on the “X” platform, that “reports about the ongoing hostilities and violent bombing in Gaza raise terror.”

He added: "Yesterday (Saturday), our team visited Nassar Medical Hospital in the south (Gaza Strip). It was crowded with 1,000 patients, that is, 3 times its capacity."

He continued: "(The hospital) had countless people searching for shelter in every corner... Patients were receiving care on the floor, screaming in pain."

He stressed that "these conditions are completely inappropriate and unimaginable in the field of providing health care."

Ghebreyesus concluded by saying: "I cannot find strong enough words to express our concern about what we are witnessing," reiterating the call for a "ceasefire now."

On December 1, a humanitarian truce between the Palestinian resistance factions and Israel ended, concluded with Qatari-Egyptian mediation and lasted for 7 days, during which prisoners were exchanged and limited humanitarian aid was brought into the sector, which is inhabited by about 2.3 million Palestinians.

Since the end of the truce, the Israeli army has attacked more than 400 targets throughout Gaza during the last 24 hours, according to a statement on Saturday. As a result, nearly 200 Palestinians were killed, bringing the death toll as of Saturday afternoon to 15,207, while the number of wounded rose to 40,650, according to the government media office in Gaza.

Since October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, which has left massive infrastructure destruction and an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to official Palestinian and UN sources.

At dawn on Sunday, the Israeli occupation forces launched a massive raid campaign, including large-scale confrontations and arrests, in various parts of the West Bank, targeting many citizens, including 5 girls.

In Hebron, a young man was shot, at dawn today, during the Israeli occupation forces’ storming of the town of Sa’ir, and they arrested 21 citizens, including a female student and a writer, during raids in the towns of Al-Shuyoukh, Sa’ir, Beit Kahil, and Dura.

According to local sources, confrontations broke out with the occupation forces that raided a number of neighborhoods in the town of Sa'ir, during which a young man was injured by live bullets in his feet, and he was transferred to Alia Governmental Hospital.

Local sources reported that the occupation forces stormed the camp and arrested the young man Kayed Abu Shihab after besieging his house. They also arrested the young man Ayoub al-Hindi after raiding and searching his house, and beating his wife.

In Jenin, local sources said: Large forces of the occupation army, reinforced with military vehicles, stormed the city from several directions amidst the firing of gunshots, which led to the outbreak of confrontations with young men.

The sources added that a reconnaissance plane flew over the city and its camp during the storming of the occupation forces, which were deployed in a number of neighborhoods of the city, and deployed their snipers on the roofs of some high-rise buildings.

Confrontations took place between young men and the occupation forces amid heavy gunfire, but no injuries were reported.

Today, Sunday, dozens of settlers stormed the courtyards of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, under the protection of the Israeli occupation police.

The Islamic Endowments Department at Al-Aqsa Mosque said that settlers stormed the mosque from the Mughrabi Gate, carried out provocative rounds and performed Talmudic rituals in the vicinity of the Mercy Chapel.

In the same context, the occupation police tightened their military measures in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and prevented young men from entering it.