Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed Yesterday, Friday, November 10, 2023, that the Palestinian leadership will not accept the re-occupation of the Gaza Strip or the cutting off of parts of it under any name.

President Abbas said on the nineteenth anniversary of the martyrdom of the emblematic leader Yasser Arafat: “Our people in Gaza have priority, and we will not abandon them. We will not accept a repetition of the 1948 catastrophe, and our people will not abandon their homeland and land.”

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman condemned the Israeli military aggression and targeting of civilians in the Gaza Strip, and violations of international humanitarian law by the Israeli army.

In a speech before the Saudi-African Summit held in Riyadh, the Saudi Crown Prince stressed the need to stop the bombing and forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza.

This call comes ahead of an emergency Arab summit being held tomorrow, Saturday, in Riyadh, chaired by Saudi Arabia, to discuss the Israeli aggression against Gaza.

For 35 days, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, “during which it destroyed residential neighborhoods on top of their residents,” causing the death of more than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,412 children and 2,918 women, and wounding more than 26,000, and 163 Palestinians were martyred and arrested. 2280 in the West Bank, according to official sources.

The Israeli army is preparing for attacks from Iran and Iraq. As long as the war on Gaza continues, the Gaza Strip will remain the central front, followed by Lebanon. It officially describes the war as “multi-fronts,” and the political level demands humanitarian operations in the Strip in order for the war to continue.

Senior officers in the Israeli army said that preparations are being made for the possibility of attacking Israel from other regions, such as Iran and Iraq, as long as the war on Gaza continues, and they indicated that the Gaza Strip will remain the central front for Israel, followed by the northern front facing Lebanon, according to Israeli media.

They added that the Israeli army is facing attacks, with missiles and drones, launched from Yemen, and yesterday, Iranian militias launched two drones from Syria.

The Israeli military now describes the war on Gaza as “multi-front,” but it is still not an all-out regional war.

The officers pointed out that if the war on Gaza ends within a week or two, "the war goals will not be achieved." This comes in the wake of statements by American officials that the duration of the war is limited, and that this is due to the very high number of civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip.

They added that at the political level, the army was given some breathing room in terms of continuing the war and continuing to recruit reserve forces. The officers said that what was meant was humanitarian operations and others that would allow the war to continue.

The officers continued that the state of alert at the Lebanese border continues, and that it is estimated that this alert will be maintained throughout the period of the war in the Gaza Strip.

They added that the Israeli army leadership realizes that a war in the north requires directing resources to it, but in this case also the Israeli army will be obligated to return to the goals of the war in Gaza.

The Israeli officers pointed out that fighting on all fronts leads to the intervention of major powers, and that Russia recently hosted leaders of the Hamas movement, and that China is moving things behind the scenes, and they form a “bloc” against Israel and the United States.

Today, Friday, Israeli army artillery bombed sites in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah announced that it had targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers at the Al-Asi site. It also mourned 7 of its fighters, saying that they “rose as martyrs on the road to Jerusalem.”

The agency said, "The occupation artillery intermittently bombed the Ramya triangle, Beit Lev Al-Quzah."

This comes after Israeli bombing yesterday, Thursday, targeted the towns of Ramiya, Aita al-Shaab, and Beit Lev, in addition to intercepting several anti-armor shells fired from Lebanon, while Hezbollah announced that it had targeted Israeli army sites.

For a month, the border areas in southern Lebanon have witnessed mutual and escalating bombardment between the Israeli army on the one hand and Hezbollah and Palestinian factions in Lebanon on the other hand, in light of the devastating war that Israel has been waging on the Gaza Strip since last October 7 with absolute Western support. 

The Israeli media raised the idea of Tel Aviv holding negotiations with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) regarding the prisoners it holds, and the opportunities for calm, which has been increasingly talked about in recent days.

Some guests on Israeli television stations, including members of the Knesset (Parliament) and reserve generals, suggested that any process of calm or negotiations must be closely linked to the release of prisoners held by Hamas.

Knesset member Aryeh Adraee said that he did not want to deceive anyone that the defeat of Hamas would be quick, and the leader of the Shas movement added, “It will be a difficult and long task.”

In a related context, Amos Malka, former head of the military intelligence unit, stressed that the goals of the war on Gaza need a longer time, “and the way the army operates requires a longer time.”

Malka called on the political level to provide this sufficient time to the army and intelligence, claiming that they are "excellent in doing the rest."

He believes that there will be certain calms, but he stressed the need for them to be linked to what he called the "kidnapped" in Gaza.

For his part, the former commander of the Negotiations Unit in the Israeli Police, Ofer Shahar, touched on the ongoing negotiations regarding the truce and the prisoners, and said, "We have not known anything like it. Over the previous years, Israel has conducted various negotiations."

He pointed out that negotiations are a long process; It has successes and failures, as well as moments of despair, wondering what the authorities will say to the family of a prisoner or detainee at some point.

As for Uzi Dayan, former Deputy Chief of Staff of the occupation army, he demanded full control of the Gaza Strip similar to Area B in the occupied West Bank. He also demanded the isolation of the Philadelphia “Salah al-Din” axis, which extends 14 kilometers along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

"Then there will be time to put the remaining Hamas men on trial," Dayan claimed, adding, "We will get many Gazans who are considered the 'nuclear' family of Hamas men. These must be identified and arrested, and then they can be used as bargaining chips."

The Oslo Accords signed between the Palestinian Authority and the occupation government stipulates that the West Bank is divided into 3 areas “A”, “B” and “C”, each of which is subject to specific security and political sovereignty. Area “B” constitutes about 21% of the area of the West Bank and is subject administratively. Only for the Palestinian Authority and for the security of the Israeli occupation.

Source: Al Jazeera

Amnesty International said on Friday that Palestinian detainees in Israeli occupation detention centers are being subjected to torture and degrading treatment.

The organization added in a statement, today, Friday, that Israel has widely intensified the use of administrative detention, a form of arbitrary detention, against Palestinians throughout the occupied West Bank.

It explained that Israel has extended emergency measures that allow Palestinian detainees to be treated inhumane and degrading treatment, and has failed to investigate incidents of torture and death in detention centers over the past four weeks.

It pointed out that the testimonies of the released detainees and human rights lawyers, as well as video clips and photos, show some of the forms of torture and other forms of ill-treatment to which the detainees were subjected during the past four weeks.

It stated that these violations include severe beatings and humiliation of detainees, including forcing them to keep their heads bowed and kneel on the ground during a prisoner count and forcing them to sing pro-Israel songs.

Director of the Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa, Heba Morayef, said: “Over the past month, we have witnessed a significant increase in Israel’s use of administrative detention, that is, detention without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely, which was already at its highest level in 20 years even before.” 7 October.

She added that administrative detention constitutes one of the main tools through which Israel imposes the apartheid regime against the Palestinians, and testimonies and video evidence indicate numerous incidents of torture and other forms of ill-treatment, including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation by Israel of Palestinians detained in extreme conditions. Cruelty.

Amnesty International researchers conducted interviews with 12 citizens, including six recently released detainees, three relatives of detainees, and three lawyers handling cases of recent arrests.

Researchers also reviewed testimonies shared by other released detainees and analyzed video footage and images of torture and degrading treatment.

The organization said, "Over the decades, it has documented widespread torture practices at the hands of the Israeli authorities in places of detention throughout the West Bank. However, over the past four weeks, videos and photos have been widely published on the Internet showing horrific scenes of Israeli soldiers beating Palestinians and insult them while arresting them while they are blindfolded, handcuffed and stripped of their clothes, in a chilling public display of torture and humiliation of Palestinian detainees.”

The organization also spoke to two women who were arbitrarily detained for 14 hours in an occupation police station in occupied East Jerusalem, where they were subjected to humiliation and searches after being stripped of their clothes and ridiculed. They were later released without charges being brought against them.

The organization noted that under international law, torture and other ill-treatment committed against protected persons in the occupied territories is considered a war crime, and the detention of protected persons outside the occupied territories, as is the case with Palestinian prisoners from the occupied Palestinian territories detained in Israel, constitutes a violation. of international humanitarian law because it amounts to forcible transfer.

The organization confirmed that "Israel has subjected thousands of Palestinians from Gaza who hold entry permits, most of whom are workers, to a form of arbitrary detention, where they were held incommunicado for at least three weeks in two military detention bases in Israel and the West Bank, and despite the release of... For a large number of them, there is a lack of transparency on the part of Israel regarding the number of those still detained.”

Morayev concluded her speech by saying: “Israel must immediately reverse the inhumane emergency measures imposed on Palestinian detainees, grant them immediate access to their lawyers and families, and all arbitrarily detained Palestinians must be released.”

Morayef urged "Israel to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to conduct urgent visits to prisons and detention facilities and monitor the conditions of Palestinian detainees."

She stressed that "the Israeli judiciary must conduct impartial and independent investigations into complaints of torture and other conditions of ill-treatment, and prosecute those responsible for ordering and carrying out torture in fair trials."

US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. said that if Israel disappeared, Russia, China and the BRICS countries would control 90% of the world's oil, and that would be disastrous for America's security.

In a television interview, Kennedy Jr. discussed the reason for the United States’ support for Israel, stating that “Israel’s situation is delicate, and the reason for its precision is that it is a fortress for us in the Middle East, and it is almost like having an aircraft carrier in the Middle East. It is our oldest ally, and has been our ally for 75 years.” “It was our ally in terms of technology, exchange, and building the Iron Dome, for which we paid a great price, and which taught us greatly how to defend ourselves against enemy missiles on our soil.”

He pointed out that “75% of these military expenditures go to American companies according to the Memorandum of Understanding agreement,” adding: “But if you look at what is happening in the middle now, the closest allies to Iran are Russia, China and the BRICS countries, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now joining the BRICS.” “Thus, these countries will control 90% of the world’s oil.”

He pointed out, "Israel is our ambassador, and its presence gives us ears and eyes in the Middle East. It gives us intelligence and the ability to influence affairs in the Middle East.

If Israel disappears, Russia and China will control the Middle East and control 90% of the oil in the world." This would be disastrous for American national security.”

Source: Sama News

In an analysis considered out of the ordinary in the occupying state, veteran Israeli analyst Nahum Barnea published an article in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in which he asserted: “The war is still raging, and the guns are roaring, but Israel is already covering itself with padded layers to protect itself from true soul-searching.” .

  He continued: “The initial shock has now been replaced by countless tales of heroism and rebirth, along with stories of terrifying and unbearable disasters. One month after the start of the war, not a moment passes without a crying face on the television screen, nor a newspaper page without a heroic story.” .

“Every soldier who is killed is an ‘Israeli hero’, a soldier who has performed an amazing act of heroism, and the moving and exciting displays of volunteer work are over-covered. Look how beautiful we are and how good we feel about ourselves. Beside them are the reports from the front, everything, but everything, heralds great success: victory is on the way.”

He added: “Addiction to tales of heroism also aims to hide and obscure reality. Quiet, we wallow in our own catastrophe and feel admiration and amazement at ourselves.”

The analyst emphasized: “Watch how the stunning fiasco of October 7 is slowly fading into our consciousness, perhaps intentionally. People talk less and less about surprise to Israeli intelligence, and when they do, they ignore the role of the all-knowing and all-capable General Security Service (Shin Bet). They no longer talk about the inability of a strong, equipped and budgeted army, and its inability to save a kibbutz that was occupied for a full 12 hours.”

He pointed out that “a few more thousand Palestinian deaths in Gaza, and the catastrophe will fade further.” The Israeli army wins. The army's corrective experiment, if it is truly as successful as the story they have been telling us so far, can make us forget about failure. Who will hold accountable the great Israeli heroes who present to us the head of Yahya Sinwar on a silver platter, and perhaps even free the hostages? We will forgive them anything.”

The analyst asserted, “The preoccupation with indulging in sadness and patting ourselves on the back aims to cover up black holes, not only about what happened, but about what is happening and, essentially, about what will happen.”

“The first black hole is what is happening now in Gaza: the endless verbiage in the Israeli media almost ignores the horrific bloodbath. Not a word about the Gaza disaster. This does not mean that it is justified or unjustified, it simply does not exist. Ignoring is intentional. There are no reports. There are no pictures...and no mention of the next morning. Packs of words, and no one has yet said what will happen after the great victory.”

He continued: “There is no Israeli who does not want all the information about the hostages and their families, about those who were killed, the bereaved and the missing. 

But mourning and heroism cannot completely dominate public discourse for a month and beyond, nor give way to anything else.”

He pointed out that “besides heroism and rebirth, we must also deal with the disaster and those who bear responsibility for it, already now, before its intensity is weakened by a military victory, real or simulated.” We cannot hesitate to tell the Israelis what is now happening in their name in Gaza.”

He stressed that “the Israeli heroes are killing tens of thousands of people there en masse.” It is okay to justify it, one might say that there is no choice, or even to be happy, driven by bloodlust and feelings of revenge. But it cannot be hidden, not only because the whole world is dealing with that, but because it is a moral duty to look reality straight in the eye.”

He concluded: “A month after the start of the war, Israel is not looking reality directly in the eyes. Therefore, the opportunity for true self-discovery after the war is diminishing. “Maybe we will have to meet again in the next war.”

18 Palestinians were martyred yesterday, Thursday, by Israeli soldiers’ gunfire in the West Bank, which has provided 183 martyrs since October 7, 14 of whom were in the Jenin camp.

Thousands of citizens in the city of Jenin, on Friday, mourned the bodies of 14 martyrs who were shot dead by the occupation army yesterday, Thursday.

The funeral procession set off from Jenin Governmental Hospital towards the center of the city of Jenin, and then into the camp, before arriving at the martyrs’ cemetery in the camp, where 8 martyrs were laid to rest, while 6 martyrs were transported to their hometowns in distributions as follows: The town of Burqin, two martyrs. The town of Al-Yamoun was martyred, the town of Anin was a martyr, and the city of Nablus was a martyr.

In Nablus, today, Friday, the masses of our people in the Nablus Governorate carried the body of the martyr Azmi Hattab to his final resting place in Balata camp, east of Nablus.

In Bethlehem, the masses of our people carried the body of the child martyr, Muhammad Ali Aziyah (17 years old), to his final resting place, in the Aida Camp cemetery, north of Bethlehem.

US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, confirmed on Friday that the United States “has begun work to lay the foundations for building two separate states” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the long term.

Blinken said: “The events of October 7 strengthened our belief in the necessity of a comprehensive peace (between the Israelis and the Palestinians), and this will not be achieved except with the two-state solution,” to which Washington has always expressed its commitment.

These statements came in a press conference from the Indian capital, New Delhi, at the conclusion of Blinken's visit to the Middle East and Indian Ocean region, which is his second trip to the region since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

According to Blinken, the United States is working to “prevent the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and the expulsion of Palestinians, and maintain the status quo in the holy areas, in addition to stopping settler violence, in addition to the commitment to achieve a unified Palestinian-led administration in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are the foundations on which "It will bring about comprehensive peace between the two sides."

He added that he presented these topics to various parties during his visit to Israel, which included the Palestinian territories, in addition to Jordan.

Blinken said: “We have a lot of work ahead of us to lay concrete foundations for building two separate states, and at the same time we are working on another path by providing protection for civilians in Gaza and increasing humanitarian aid to them.”

He stressed the "need to do more" to protect Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, welcoming at the same time Israel's approval of daily "truces" in its war with Hamas in the Strip, to allow the exit of residents from its north.

Blinken continued: “I consider that some progress has been made, but it is very clear that there is a need to do more in terms of protecting civilians and delivering humanitarian assistance to them.”

He added: "The Middle East and Indian Ocean tour had several goals, including alleviating the suffering affecting the Palestinians, working to prevent the conflict from developing to other countries, in addition to returning American and foreign hostages from Gaza."

The US Secretary of State reiterated his rejection of the "forced displacement of the population of Gaza" and the necessity of "not using the Gaza Strip as a platform for launching terrorist attacks against Israel."

The club said in a statement, “The occupation forces arrested at least 90 citizens, including a woman, between Thursday night and Friday dawn, from cities and towns in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

The Palestinian Prisoners' Club announced that the Israeli occupation army arrested at least 90 people at dawn on Friday in the occupied West Bank, bringing the number of detainees there to 2,400 since last October 7.

The club said in a statement, “The occupation forces arrested at least 90 citizens, including a woman, between Thursday night and Friday dawn, from cities and towns in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

He pointed out that the number of detainees in the West Bank has risen to more than 2,400 Palestinians since October 7, and “the arrests were accompanied by systematic acts of abuse against the detainees and their families,” according to the statement.

The Prisoner's Club stated that the Israeli army executed the minor, Muhammad Aziyah (17 years old), after his arrest.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society had previously said that its crews received the body of the boy who was arrested and wounded, before his death was announced.

Arrests are carried out by raiding Palestinian homes during the hours of the night until dawn, and detainees are transferred to temporary detention centers, before being referred to the main investigation centers or prisons.

Since last October 7, the Israeli army has carried out daily raids and incursions into villages and towns in the West Bank and Jerusalem, accompanied by confrontations, arrests, and the firing of bullets and tear gas bombs.

“Biden does not have time. The scenes from devastated Gaza expose him to criticism within his party and portray him as someone who surrendered to the will of an unpopular Israeli government. America’s allies in the region fear for their rule. And the opinion polls are terrible.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed, during an interview with the American Fox network last night, that Israel will continue the war on Gaza until “Hamas collapses, and we are obligated to win.” However, Nahum Barnea, a political analyst in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, pointed out today, Friday, that, “Unfortunately, there is no victory on the horizon. Netanyahu’s statements about a war for a long period are a marketing substitute for a victory that does not exist.”

Barnea added, "The reality that awaits us is different: confrontations with allies, truces, the liberation of prisoners, and blackmail by terrorists." He pointed out, "In light of the increasing strength of the Iranian axis, Israel needs America and its president like it has never needed him before."

The New York Times writer, Thomas Friedman, reported in an article yesterday that US President Joe Biden “will continue to supply the needs of the Israeli army and support military operations in Gaza, only if Israel enters a political process against the Palestinians in the West Bank, with the aim of reaching a political process” to the two-state solution.”

Barnea indicated that Friedman is very close to Biden. But he added, "The current Israeli government does not want and cannot fulfill this condition proposed by the American President. In Israel there is a government that existed before October 7 and it is not qualified for the reality on October 8. The lack of compatibility between the immediate needs and the internal political conditions in Israel creates difficulty. The result is "Increasing American pressure to agree to a ceasefire."

According to Barnea, the Israelis rejected the Americans’ request for a ceasefire and talked about a truce. They said, “The term ‘ceasefire’ gives (Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar) and his soldiers a feeling that salvation is near. The fighting must continue.”

He added, "The hope (in Israel) is that the pressure will be great enough to change Sinwar's positions and allow the release of the kidnapped people in large numbers or the complete exit of Hamas from Gaza."

According to Barnea, “Biden does not have time. The scenes from the devastated Gaza expose him to criticism from the left wing of his party and portray him as someone who surrendered to the will of an unpopular Israeli government. America’s allies in the region fear for the stability of their rule. Opinion polls are terrible, without a relationship with Israel. And there is no "Biden has a reserve of votes."

Barnea added, “Within a week, or two weeks at most, Israel will be forced to agree to a ceasefire. The Israeli army will remain in the northern Gaza Strip, with a limited number of forces in what looks like a security strip. What then? The decision-makers in Israel do not currently have answers.” ".

Barnea pointed to the escalation taking place in the West Bank against the backdrop of settler terrorism in light of the war on Gaza. “The provocations in the West Bank worry the Biden administration no less than the continued shooting in Gaza.”

"Terrible Israeli deficit"

The military analyst in the newspaper "Haaretz", Amos Harel, pointed out that the war on Gaza entered its 35th day this morning, and it is now one day longer than the Second Lebanon War, which ended in describing its results as a "frustrating draw", because Israel was unable to defeat Hezbollah.

He added, "The circumstances this time are much more difficult. Israel began the war with terrible helplessness, following a chilling intelligence failure, on October 7. Everything the Israeli army has done since then, and what it will do as well, is like a desperate attempt to chase an opponent that was far ahead of it."

He continued, "After 2006, and the many battles that followed in Gaza, the security ministers and chiefs of staff of the Israeli army used to talk about the necessity of defeating the enemy quickly. In the air force and the political level, they doubted the capabilities of the ground forces."

Harel pointed out that "the Israeli army suffers losses when Hamas blames the Israeli forces when they stop in place, or when they reach important places for the movement and engage in a stronger defensive effort around them." Officers in the General Staff were quoted as saying, “The area in which the Israeli army operates is the most crowded in which such an operation takes place. In addition to two things that increase the difficulties faced by the Israeli forces, which are the very complex underground tunnels and residential towers, although a large portion of some of them were destroyed by Israeli raids.

He added, "It is worth remembering that victory in the war is achieved when one side stops working, whether through an official declaration or the actual collapse of its systems. Hamas, so far, seems far from that. Its performance in the northern Gaza Strip is being targeted, but not a collapse."

From Arab48

A weekly poll for the Israeli newspaper "Maariv", the results of which were published today, Friday, showed that 59% of Israelis support a "humanitarian truce" in the Gaza Strip, the main condition of which is the return of prisoners and detainees, while 44% of respondents expressed their desire for Israel to remain in the Gaza Strip and reoccupy it.

According to the poll, 39% of the Israelis who participated in the survey required the return of all prisoners and detainees in order to agree to “humanitarian truces,” while 16% agreed to the return of at least part of them.

30% of Israelis opposed the ceasefire, without any relation to the issue of prisoners and detainees. On the other hand, only 3% called for a ceasefire without any conditions. 8% of respondents did not formulate a position on the issue.

The poll also showed that Israelis are divided in their opinion regarding the fate of the Gaza Strip after the war, assuming that Israel will be able to eliminate the Hamas movement, as 41% of them support leaving the Strip, while 33% stipulate that it be transferred to international control, and only 8% support transferring control. On Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.

On the other hand, 44% support Israel remaining in the Gaza Strip and regaining control over it (occupying it), of whom about 22% support security control only, while the other half, 22%, support that this also include the establishment of “civilian towns” (settlements) in Gaza.

Gantz overtakes Netanyahu as prime minister

In response to a question, which of the two is more suitable to head the Israeli government, Benjamin Netanyahu or Benny Gantz, head of the “Hamaneh Hamalakhti” party (the official camp), Netanyahu received a support rate of 26% compared to Gantz receiving 52%, and 22% said they did not know.

The division of participants in the poll shows that 53% of Likud supporters in the last elections believe that Netanyahu is the most suitable, compared to 24% for Gantz, while 23% said they do not know.

As for the supporters of “Hamaneh Hamalakhti” in the previous elections, only 2% believe that Netanyahu is the most suitable, while 98% believe that Gantz is more suitable to head the government, while 90% among the supporters of the “Yesh Atid” party answered that Gantz is the most suitable, compared to Only 1% supported Netanyahu and 9% answered, “I don’t know.”

The results of this week's poll indicate slight changes in the number of seats obtained by each party, with the exception of the "Meretz" party, which decreased by two seats, standing at only four seats.

The opposition parties together get 77 seats, one seat less than last week's poll, while the current ruling coalition gets 43 seats, one seat more than the last poll.

In response to a question about Israelis’ choices for representation in the Knesset if the elections were held today, the “HaMahaneh HaMelekhti” party won 40 seats (39 in the previous poll), Likud 18 seats, Yesh Atid 14 seats, and “Israel Our Home” 9 seats. Shas 9, United Torah Judaism 7, Otzma Yehudit 5, Front and Change 5, United 5, Meretz 4, and Religious Zionism 4, while the Labor Party does not pass the electoral threshold.

Source: Alaraby Al-Jadeed

The administration of US President Joe Biden received stark warnings from American diplomats in the Arab world that its strong support for the destructive and deadly Israeli military campaign in Gaza “will cause the Arab peoples to lose us for an entire generation,” according to a diplomatic cable obtained by CNN, today, Friday. 

According to the American network, the cable highlights the deep concern among American officials about the growing anger against the United States, which erupted shortly after Israel launched its operations against the “Hamas” movement, in the wake of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation carried out by the “Al-Qassam Brigades,” the wing. The movement's military attack took place on October 7, deep inside Israel, leaving more than 1,400 people dead.

A cable from the US Embassy in the Sultanate of Oman, on Wednesday, said: “We are losing badly on the battlefield of messages,” after conversations with “a wide range of reliable and sober sources.”

The cable warned that strong American support for Israel's actions was seen as "material and moral responsibility for what they consider possible war crimes."

The network indicated that this telegram from the American embassy, written by the second-highest American official in Muscat, and distributed to the National Security Council in the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the FBI, in addition to others, provides a special glimpse of the warning about the growing anti-US wave. United States sweeping the Middle East.

Another cable from the US Embassy in Cairo, sent to Washington, also highlighted a comment made by an Egyptian state-run newspaper, stating that “President Biden’s cruelty and neglect of the Palestinians exceeded all previous American presidents.”

The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip continues for the 35th day in a row, with unlimited American support for the Israeli occupation continuing, despite the martyrdom of nearly 11,000 people, the majority of whom are women and children.

A new opinion poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Research, and published on Thursday, showed that about half of Democrats do not agree with Biden’s handling of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which shows a deep division within his party regarding the war.

The poll found that 50 percent of Democrats approve of the way Biden managed the war, while 46 percent oppose it.

Biden's support on the issue among Democrats has fallen slightly from August, when a poll by the center found that 57 percent of Democrats agreed with his handling of the war, while 40 percent disapproved.

The war could complicate Biden's re-election efforts, because he will have to balance factions of his party with very different views on the war and who is responsible for it.

Source: Alaraby AlJadeed

With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defending Hamas in its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip, his country's relationship with the European Union is becoming more complicated after it was already facing difficulties as a result of years of crises and misunderstandings.

When the war broke out in the Gaza Strip after Hamas launched its unprecedented attack inside Israeli territory on October 7, Erdogan sought to play a mediation role.

However, this ambition appears to have been completely dissipated, as Erdogan declared that Hamas is a group of “mujahideen, freedom fighters” and not a terrorist organization as classified by Israel, the United States, and the European Union.

Turkey is officially a candidate to join the European Union, but the negotiations that began in 2005 have been frozen since 2018.

The European Commission indicated once again in its latest report on the status of negotiations with the candidate countries, issued on Wednesday, that Ankara is moving further and further away from the democratic values advocated by the bloc.

However, Brussels does not want to completely cut bridges with this NATO member state, which occupies a strategic location that constitutes a link between Europe and Asia.

A European official explained this week, requesting that his name not be revealed, "What the (Turkish) president is saying raises concern here in Brussels, where we always expect to see Turkey supporting our positions on the foreign policy level."

The Washington Post removed a cartoon depicting a Hamas leader putting civilians in the line of fire, after several newsroom staffers and readers complained that the cartoon was racist.

In the cartoon by the artist Michael Ramirez, a Hamas leader with a large nose and a snarling mouth, holding four terrified children and a frightened woman wearing a veil, he included the phrase: “How dare Israel attack civilians?”

Before the cartoon was removed, a number of employees within the newspaper's newsroom complained to senior editors that the cartoon was racist, according to people familiar with the matter.

The cartoon also sparked a violent reaction from some readers who left comments on the newspaper's website.

Notable critics include Palestinian-American poet Remi Kenazi, who said: “This is the Washington Post. This is the kind of anti-Palestinian racism that is acceptable to publish.”

As for the British leftist activist Owen Jones, he commented: “The drawing is an example of racist dehumanization.”

It is noteworthy that the artist Michael Ramirez won the Pulitzer Prize twice as a cartoonist.

Washington Post apologizes, removes anti-Hamas cartoon after critics called it racist'

'The Washington Post bowed to liberal criticism on Wednesday, deleting an editorial cartoon that criticized the terror group, Hamas, after readers complained it was racist and dehumanized Palestinians.

The cartoon, by Michael P. Ramirez, was featured online and in the Nov. 8 print edition. Entitled, "Human shields," it depicts a Hamas spokesperson saying, "How dare Israel attack civilians," while a frightened-looking woman and four small children remain bound with rope to his body. 

Washington Post editorial page editor David Shipley said he decided to take down the cartoon after it "was seen by many readers as racist." "This was not my intent," Shipley wrote, before apologizing. 

"I saw the drawing as a caricature of a specific individual, the Hamas spokesperson who celebrated the attacks on unarmed civilians in Israel. However, the reaction to the image convinced me that I had missed something profound, and divisive, and I regret that. Our section is aimed at finding commonalities, understanding the bonds that hold us together, even in the darkest times," he wrote.

The paper shared criticism from liberal readers, accusing the paper of promoting "racial stereotypes" and complaining the cartoon blamed Hamas for the deaths of Palestinian civilians, instead of Israel.

"The caricatures employ racial stereotypes that were offensive and disturbing. Depicting Arabs with exaggerated features and portraying women in derogatory, stereotypical roles perpetuates racism and gender bias, which is wholly unacceptable," one reader from Fairfax, Virginia, wrote in a letter to the Post.

"I am a scholar of religion and media; I recognize a deeply racist depiction of the ‘heathen’ and his barbarous cruelty toward women and children when I see it again in Michael Ramirez’s Nov. 8 editorial cartoon. It is in no way informative, helpful or thought-provoking to look at this conflict through the glasses of 19th-century colonialists," Suzanne van Geuns, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University, criticized.

Owen Jones, a self-described "socialist, antifascist" columnist for The Guardian, wrote, "This racist dehumanization is always a precondition for mass murder of the sort currently taking place in Gaza."

One reader from Washington complained the cartoon depicted a "gross mischaracterization of the situation" and "amounted to an attempt at excusing Israeli war crimes."

Another reader from San Jose, Calif., slammed the paper as irresponsible for publishing the cartoon, saying its message enabled "genocide."

"It is the height of irresponsibility for a publication with the history and reach of The Post to publish a cartoon that encourages people to continue justifying the atrocities taking place in Gaza 31 days into its bombardment and after an untold amount of human suffering. To do so while trading in the same grotesque, racist imagery that has jeopardized Arabs’ and Muslims’ safety since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is all the more distressing," she decried.

"What a statement Michael Ramirez made in his Nov. 8 editorial cartoon. I wonder whether he would try to caricature the brutal killing, land dispossession, ethnic cleansing and apartheid oppression that Israel has perpetrated over the past 75 years and continues?" a reader in the paper's comment section wrote. "Let’s see some real bravery, not this self-indulgent, self-righteous parroting of the Israeli government’s line and craven mainstream media mis-coverage."

The paper also shared a handful of online comments commending the cartoon for its depiction of Hamas using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Source: Annahar+Foxnews

Ghassan Zaqtan

In the scene taking shape in the United States, US President Joe Biden appears as an old person in a changing place. His load of ideas is old and his tools are old. The books he read are old and his memories, in which Golda Meir appears as an inspiring figure, now seem outside of time. 

The man who stumbles in his bubble seems, at his best. His conditions, an ambiguous prisoner of his famous expressions that can no longer be refined, expressions such as: “If Israel had not existed, we would have had to create it,” with all the clear envy that this expression conveys for Balfour, the British Foreign Minister who made the famous promise who caused all this chaos, injustice. 

The killing that has not stopped for more than ten decades, or the phrase “You do not have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” which made former Israeli Prime Minister Lapid give him the title of a “strong Zionist” in an emotional moment. The American administration is investing in everything: Biden's Zionism and Blinken's Judaism, who in turn invested his Judaism to justify the extermination of the Palestinians.

An old, dilapidated car on a highway. This is what Biden's order looks like from his space, which is a complex mixture of old age, the passing of time, the urgent desire to renew his presidential term, the specter of Trump, opinion polls, and the search for the Jewish card as a savior from the abyss.

On the street outside the White House fence, things are not going in this direction, and in a clear shift, we can notice the active and vital role played by a cohesive bloc of the Jewish community in America, which is leading successful protests against the policy of the Zionist president and the Jewish minister, and is raising its clear slogan, “Not in our name.” You don't have the right to do that.

This slogan will be raised in the Congress building, in the Statue of Liberty, in full view of the residents of the Oval Office in Washington, D.C., and in the New York train station.

The Jewish protest against the policy of absolute bias towards the Israeli occupation is no longer confined to an Orthodox religious sect (“Anatori Karta”), whose members and rabbis have been raising Palestinian flags in ideological objection to Zionism, and in protest against the existence of Israel itself as a legal sin, but it now includes groups of Young people, democrats, intellectuals, academics and civil society organizations who arrive from liberal positions, civil rights organizations, academic circles and secular culture, or from Israeli leftists who have left Israel in the last two decades, certainly influenced by the courageous and long-suffering persistence of writers and historians such as Ilan Pappe, Gideon Levy and Amira Hess.

This is not entirely new. Opposition trends to the Israeli occupation have always existed in the American Jewish community and to a lesser extent in Western societies, especially among intellectuals, in the form of circles of activists who support Palestinian rights and oppose the occupation, but it is now appearing during the brutal Israeli attack on Gaza and the cries of killing and revenge. 

Launched by the War Council under the umbrella of the “Iron Swords” campaign, it is clearer, more coherent, and more organized, and has an impact on the streets in the United States. “Not in our name” is the cry of the Jews who emerged from the “ghetto” of hatred that the Netanyahu government and successive Israeli governments tried to surround them with and through which they committed their crimes in their name.

The Jewish protest is a strong contribution to lifting the lid on the crimes of the occupation and its illegitimacy. It is a courageous protest that provides a double effect in protecting the widespread protest that continues to expand in the American street against the massacre from ready-made accusations of “anti-Semitism,” and helps in disguising the position of the American administration, which is an accomplice to the genocide. 

Continuing, and strengthening the presence of the democratic Jewish voice with its human culture as a partner in confronting rampant Israeli fascism, the policy of genocide and the ruling apartheid system in Israel.

“Not in our name” is a profound use and awareness of the history of the Jewish catastrophe, and when it is raised in the face of the perpetrators of genocide in Palestine, it turns into a humane interpretation of the phrase “never again.”

From Annahar Alaraby

Netanyahu's fantasies, when he said that Israel would change the map of the Middle East, were not just an emotional act born of his moment, which is what called global affairs specialists to search for the roots of those words. 

So they stopped at the day when Netanyahu delivered his speech before the United Nations General Assembly in 1996, displaying a map of the Middle East, in which Israel’s borders extended, as he put it, from the river to the sea, swallowing Gaza and the West Bank, without any presence of the Palestinians. When the recent crisis erupted, and the bloody, destructive invasion of Gaza, the features of his plan began to appear.

After October 7, Netanyahu spoke twice, once before the mayors of border settlements, saying that Israel’s response to the Hamas attack would change the map of the Middle East. Then he repeated the same phrases in a speech addressed to the Israeli people, saying: What we will do with our enemies in the coming days will be reflected on generations to come.

Perhaps the most in-depth expert on the hidden dimensions of Netanyahu’s thinking is the American thinker David Hirst, whose research has been numerous, including a study entitled “Israel and the Myth of Self-Defense,” and another titled “A New Intifada for a New Generation,” in which he talked about the inevitable emergence of a new generation of Palestinian youth. Those youth will make their own decisions, away from Hamas and even Fatah, and they are the ones whose eyes were opened at the age of eight years since the death of Yasser Arafat.

Hirst's latest study takes an in-depth look at what Netanyahu now intends to change the map of the Middle East, even though Israeli and American officials had preceded him in doing so on previous occasions, and many continued to view their statements as empty talk.

Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres had previously presented the idea in his book “The New Middle East,” but in a different way. This is what called on Netanyahu, at the annual meeting of AIPAC in Washington 20 years ago, to announce his rejection of Peres’ idea. He said: There is no new Middle East. The Middle East is the same Middle East that we know, and he meant by that to implement his idea aimed at emptying Gaza and the West Bank of their population, and forced them to migrate towards Sinai and Jordan.

Here Hearst asks: What is the larger plan that the Israelis are now revolving around? What are the consequences that will come from it? What risks will it pose to the entire region?

Then he refers to the announcement of Israeli Colonel Richard Hecht to journalists that he will advise the Palestinians in Gaza to cross the Rafah crossing into Sinai. This means pushing the Palestinians against their will toward Egypt. If that had happened, as they imagine, the next episode would have been pushing the Palestinians in the West Bank to immigrate to Jordan.

Hearst adds that US President Biden gave a green light to Israel, but Hearst does not believe that America can push the situation into a dangerous game that will have devastating results.

In his analysis of the Palestinians’ position on these plans, he sees that the Palestinians say that the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in itself is a symbol of our national identity, and that the Israelis must look at themselves in the mirror and think about the value of reconciliation according to the principle of equality with a people living in their land. The two, Palestinians and Israelis, can live together. This will not happen unless they become aware that the Palestinians are here to remain, generation after generation.

In light of all this, the components of Netanyahu’s plan will not achieve for Israel what it aspires to. The Palestinians, like any people whose land is occupied, will not leave their land, even under daily and destructive bombing. Sinai is also closed to any transgression of Egypt's national borders, and what results from what is on the mind of the Israeli government will only lead to igniting a conflict that may extend to an area beyond its circle, in which they imagine that they are the only ones who are moving. And Israel will not be the winner of the agreement with the "Gulf."

By Ali Hamada

The daily humanitarian truces in the northern Gaza Strip announced by the White House through spokesman Admiral John Kirby for four hours a day coincide with the intense diplomatic movement taking place at more than one level in the region. 

Calls have multiplied from all sides for Israel to declare humanitarian truces at the very least, and a comprehensive ceasefire at the most. The level of international pressure on the United States has increased to urge it to force Israel to accept a humanitarian truce in the northern Gaza Strip, where tens of thousands of citizens still reside. Of course, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly issued a position stating: “The fighting continues and there will be no ceasefire without the release of the kidnappers.” Strangely, Kirby explained the content of the agreement with Israel on humanitarian truces, saying: “Israel informed us that there will be no military operations during periods of ceasefire.”

In any case, we must wait for implementation, if it takes place, in order to judge the position of the White House, which appears to be imposing a fait accompli on Israel, even without consulting it. Otherwise, what does it mean for Netanyahu’s office to rush to refuse to stop the fighting? Unless it is part of a functional distribution between the two parties in order to improve the terms of agreement on humanitarian truces that could be accompanied by the release of a number of American and non-Israeli hostages as a first stage.

Perhaps it is important to point out the very important meeting that was held in Doha at the invitation of the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, and included both the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, and the head of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, David Barnea. 

The goal of the meeting is to search for ways to reach a deal that would lead to Hamas and the other factions releasing the largest number of hostages, in exchange for a truce that could last for three days or more, according to what the US President said in a statement yesterday. In addition to the above, the crossings were opened to allow aid to enter more widely. Israel knows that the release of hostages will remain an unresolved issue for a long time due to the large number of them.

The Israelis believe that the truces must be extracted from them with great difficulty, and at a great price: the release of the largest number of hostages. But the issue is more complex than that, and the hostage issue may drag on for months and perhaps several years. What is most important of all is that the truces may ultimately lead to emptying the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip of civilians, and this may be preceded by Tel Aviv’s success in closing the last hospitals that are still operating in Gaza City. 

Emptying the northern Gaza Strip of its entire population may pave the way for a long-term street war between Israeli forces and Palestinian factions, and make it easier for the Israelis to carry out a systematic demolition of the city, such that after weeks it will become rubble. Rebuilding will take many years.

Therefore, it is all important to know that the truces, which constitute an opportunity for the attackers to release hostages, and an opportunity for the defenders to catch their breath and reorganize their ranks, will undoubtedly be a step towards the deportation of the remaining civilians in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. It is a delicate equation and the margins for maneuver in it are narrow for everyone.

 source: Annahar Al-araby  

Netanyahu to Fox: Hamas leaders, including Sinwar, are in Gaza, “and we will reach them. Israel does not seek to occupy or control Gaza, nor to displace anyone. Anyone who believes that peace (normalization with Saudi Arabia) is dead is mistaken.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, during an interview with the American Fox network last night, that the war on Gaza is “progressing, and the Israeli army is working excellently,” and claimed that “we are doing everything we can to refrain from targeting civilians.”

He added in response to a question that Hamas leaders, including the movement's head in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are in Gaza City or in the tunnels, and he said, "They are there and we will reach them." He added that Israel will continue the war until "Hamas collapses, and we are obligated to win. This will not be the victory of Israel alone, but the victory of the entire civilized world over barbarism."

Netanyahu considered that "Israel does not seek to occupy or control Gaza," claiming that the goal of the war is "to give the Gaza Strip and the entire Middle East a better future, and this requires defeating Hamas."

Netanyahu indicated that he had set goals and a timetable for the war. I would have liked it to take a short period of time, but we are progressing step by step, and in this way we are reducing the number of deaths among our soldiers and among those not involved in the fighting in Gaza, and we are eliminating the largest possible number of Hamas saboteurs. .

Netanyahu considered that it took a long time for the United States to be able to defeat Al-Qaeda and ISIS, “and I do not think that Israel will need this long of time, but we will make Hamas collapse and it does not matter how long that will take because our future, the future of neighboring countries, and the future of the Palestinians are linked to the side that Will he win this war - the terrorist axis of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, or the forces of progress and prosperity: Israel, the United States and the moderate Arab countries?

Netanyahu claimed, "Israel does not seek to displace anyone. We are trying to evacuate Gazans from the north of the Strip to the south, away from the war."

According to him, “The future of Gaza is clear. Hamas will not exist, the Strip will be demilitarized, will be subject to deradicalization, and will be reconstructed. All of these goals are achievable. We will be able to find (i.e. install) a civilian government to govern Gaza, but in the foreseeable future we have to make sure “In order not to repeat the events of October 7, and in order to prevent the emergence of an entity like Hamas, there is a need for a reliable force to enter the Gaza Strip and kill the killers.”

Netanyahu touched on the contacts that the United States was conducting regarding the agreement to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and said, “I believe that now is the hour of testing, but those who believe that peace is dead are mistaken. I believe that after the victory over Hamas, the conditions will be more ripe.”

Arab foreign ministers concluded their preparatory meeting for the emergency Arab summit scheduled to be held on Friday and Saturday in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to discuss ways to push the Israeli occupation to stop the aggression and massacres it is committing in the Gaza Strip.

In their meeting held yesterday, headed by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, and in the presence of Arab foreign ministers, heads of delegations, and Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, the ministers approved the final version of the draft resolution, which will be submitted to the Arab Summit to consider its adoption.

Hossam Zaki, Assistant Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, said at the conclusion of the preparatory meeting of Arab foreign ministers that the meeting approved the final version of the draft resolution, which will be submitted to the Arab Summit next Saturday.

Zaki explained in statements to reporters at the conclusion of the meeting that the resolution addresses a set of elements of the Arab-Palestinian political position, allows the international community to properly understand the Arab and Palestinian position, and aims to stop the Israeli aggression on Gaza immediately.

He stressed that the summit will adopt the draft resolution to meet the aspirations of the Arab peoples, stressing that there will be an Islamic summit that will follow the Arab summit, where a decision will be taken within the same Arab framework.

At dawn on Friday, the Israeli occupation forces blew up the homes of detainees Muhammad and Saqr Al-Shanter, in Khallet Manna, south of the city of Hebron.

Our correspondent reported that large forces from the occupation army stormed the homes of the family of the detainees Al-Shanter and evacuated them by force, before planting them with explosives, and blowing up the second floor of the first two-story building, which has an area of 400 square meters, and a residential apartment in the second building, which consists of several floors.

He added that the occupation forces brought a bulldozer to the site, apparently to complete the demolition process, and are still imposing a military cordon on the area and preventing anyone from approaching it.

The United Nations Development Program announced yesterday, Thursday, that 50% of the housing stock in Gaza was destroyed in one month as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression since last October 7, which led to the death of more than 11,000 people, most of whom were women and children.

This came in a press conference held by Abdullah Al-Dardari, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Director of the Regional Office for Arab States at the United Nations Development Programme, and Rula Dashti, Secretary-General of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).

The conference was held under the title "The Gaza War, he Expected Social and Economic Repercussions on the State of Palestine."

Al-Dardari reported that 50% of the housing stock in Gaza was destroyed in just one month, and pointed out, for comparison, that Syria lost this percentage of housing stock in its fourth year of war.

In turn, Dashti said that the destruction in Gaza has reached an unprecedented level, and pointed out that 96% of Gazans who cannot access basic services are now suffering from multidimensional poverty.

Dashti stressed the need for the international community to come together to establish lasting peace.

On Thursday and early Friday, Israeli warplanes targeted a number of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Shifa Complex and Al-Rantisi Specialized Hospital for Children.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that a fire broke out inside Al-Rantisi Hospital following the Israeli bombing that targeted it.

Large fires were also recorded in the basement of the hospital and a number of its facilities.

The vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was targeted again by Israeli bombing.

The official Palestinian News Agency, Wafa, reported that the Israeli army launched a series of violent raids in the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, which led to the death of a number of citizens and the wounding of others.

It pointed out that "the bombing caused serious damage to some hospital facilities, as well as cases of panic among citizens who rushed to it, trying to take shelter from the bombing."

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said on Thursday that expanding the scope of the war has become inevitable due to the increasing intensity of the war waged by Israel on Gaza.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry published a tweet by Abdullahian on the “X” website (formerly Twitter), in which he said, “The time for the continuation of Tel Aviv’s crimes is quickly approaching its end.”

The Iranian minister added that the war that Israel has been waging against Gaza for more than a month has clearly shown "the criminal, violent and aggressive face of the Zionist entity in its extermination of women and children in Gaza."

For his part, Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi said Thursday that the escalation of what he described as crimes in Gaza will complicate the situation in Palestine and the region.

Raisi added, during his speech at the Economic Cooperation Organization summit in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, that comprehensive Western support for Israel is an essential factor in the continuation of the war.

The Iranian President also said that Israel is deterred by some countries cutting off their political and economic relations with him.

Iran stressed that it does not seek to expand the circle of war in the region, but it has repeatedly warned that Tel Aviv’s persistence in its comprehensive war on Gaza will lead to the expansion of the confrontation across the region.

Late last month, the Iranian Foreign Minister said that continuing to kill women and children would lead to the loss of patience among the resistance forces and the peoples of the region.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies

American officials warned of the consequences of statistics in underestimating the extent of the disaster witnessed by the Strip

American officials suggested that the death toll in the Gaza Strip may be much higher than the more than 10,000 cases reported by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in the Strip, noting that doubts about the integrity of the statistics issued by the health authorities in the Hamas-run Strip may reduce the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip. The scale of the humanitarian disaster, according to what was reported by the Wall Street Journal.

In a session before a US House of Representatives committee on Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf warned that the announced numbers were less than the truth, stressing, “We believe they are very high,” according to what the American newspaper reported in her words.

She added that in times of war it is difficult to obtain an accurate assessment, "We will not know until the weapons fall silent."

During a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Lev acknowledged that Hamas is “particularly adept” at spreading propaganda and disinformation via social media, but said that based on the feedback they are receiving from a variety of individuals and partners on the ground, “it is "It is very likely that the number will be higher than it is now."

Leaf pointed out that health officials in Gaza do not separate the numbers of civilians and militants killed, explaining that it is difficult to know the true number of deaths as long as the fighting continues, according to what was reported by the Associated Press.

Health authorities in Gaza say that more than 10,800 people were killed there, most of them women and children, following the surprise attack launched by Hamas on Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

The war in Gaza has undermined Ukraine's hopes of holding a peace summit bringing together world leaders in the coming months, according to what Western diplomats told the Wall Street Journal, noting that Ukrainian efforts to do so have begun to lose momentum, as a result of growing tensions in the Middle East.

Dozens of countries, including India, South Africa, Brazil and other major powers that were neutral regarding the war between Ukraine and Russia, sought for several months to focus on some basic principles, such as the sovereignty of states over their territories, which would have formed the basis for peace talks.

But the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has caused new divisions between the United States, other Western countries, some Arab powers, and developing world countries that Ukraine had hoped to bring to its side.

After meetings in Denmark, Saudi Arabia and Malta this year, Ukrainian and European officials hoped to hold a leaders' summit before the end of the year. But it seems that this is no longer likely now, according to what diplomats told the American newspaper.

The Middle East crisis has shifted international attention away from Ukraine, which has captured the attention of policymakers who are now focused on many other challenges, such as releasing hostages held by Hamas, delivering aid to civilians in Gaza, and preventing the escalation and expansion of the conflict in the region.

Ukraine and its supporters hoped to enlist neutral powers, including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and perhaps China, in upholding the principles of sovereignty and political independence of states and avoiding the use of force to resolve disputes.

Russia has been excluded from this process. Moscow said it is open to peace negotiations if they are based on Ukraine first ceding areas of territory that the Kremlin claims to have annexed, while Kiev insists on the necessity of Russia withdrawing from its territory.

It is noteworthy that the momentum of the Ukrainian talks began in the summer, and the meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in August, included more than 40 countries and organizations to hold talks at a high official level, including China, which sent its peace envoy, and the United States, whose national security advisor attended, Jake Sullivan.

Ukraine and Saudi Arabia established a series of working groups on the international impact of the war, and senior Ukrainian officials, led by the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, began regular meetings on the peace track with ambassadors to Kiev.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after the Jeddah meeting in an interview with German media that the talks "increase pressure on Russia to realize that it has taken the wrong path and that it must withdraw its forces and make peace possible."

Even before the war broke out between Israel and Hamas, momentum was flagging. After his arrival in Jeddah, the Chinese ambassador to Kiev stopped attending the weekly meetings chaired by Yermak, according to what three diplomats residing in Kiev told the American newspaper.

Ukraine has struggled to find a large, neutral country to host the talks, with Zelensky pressing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the UN General Assembly in September to host the event.

South African officials later said this was “logistically impossible,” knowing that weeks earlier, South Africa had hosted a BRICS summit in the presence of the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, and the Indian Prime Minister. Narendra Modi and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

From Alhurra

Aisha Al-Basri

In an interview with Radio Monte Carlo International following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, launched by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) against Israel on October 7, 2023, the former French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, put his finger on the most dangerous traps into which the West fell as a result of this. The unprecedented attack. The right-wing diplomat and writer said, “Hamas set three traps for us: one trap of military violence, another that isolated the West, and a third moral one.” While de Villepin’s analysis indicates the danger of the West falling into these traps, one after the other, he does not go far in assessing their effects on the future. The Western system is at a critical period in human history.

De Villepin says at the beginning that the West, by which he means the Israeli occupation and its sponsors (Euro-Americans), fell into the military trap set for them by the Hamas movement, as it lured them with the violence of its attack to the maximum level of violence and terror, while the army cannot solve an issue as serious as the Palestinian issue. 

What the former diplomat did not dare to admit here is that the sweeping Hamas attack humiliated Israel and its supporters, and made them all lose their ability to control the West’s unbridled brutality, to the point that leaders of Israel became unable to hide their intention to annihilate the entire Palestinian people in Gaza.

The Al-Aqsa Flood Operation humiliated the mighty occupying state, and exploded in its society a volcano of crime, revealing its true face to the world, which began to see it as a genocidal state, killing children, bombing civilians, and an unjust nuclear state that had exhausted the reserve of Jewish oppression that it had been feeding on since World War II. Through its absolute diplomatic, military and media support for the Israeli extermination campaign, this appears to be a branch of that tree, and Israel is nothing but a descendant of the European settler occupation that committed genocide on indigenous people from Australia to America, before heading to its last and greatest kiss in Palestine.

The West’s support for the genocide campaign waged by the occupation in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories constitutes a comprehensive violation of all the laws, rights, freedoms and international justice on which the Western system is based.

Speaking about the second trap, De Villepin said that the October 7 attack cornered the West into a bloc that became confrontational with the international community, after the West had had influence in the world for more than five centuries. Here too, the French diplomat did not go so far as to acknowledge that the support of Western governments and their media machinery behind Israel’s crimes today and yesterday is what isolated the West from the rest of the countries. If the Ukraine war had united it in the face of Russia, and created a clear rift between it and many countries, Asian ones in particular, His rapid slide into Israel's trenches gave it the green light for a genocidal campaign, which widened this gap and prompted his isolation even more than before.

One of the consequences of the absolute Western support for Israel's fifth war on Gaza and its rejection of international demands for a ceasefire is that it may further reduce its political and economic influence in many parts of the world in favor of China. While the Gulf and Middle Eastern countries are increasingly open to China, Russia and other Asian powers, the project has faltered. The American plan to link infrastructure in India to the Middle East and Europe via Saudi Arabia and Israel, in light of Saudi Arabia’s freezing of the normalization project with Israel, thus making US President Joe Biden’s dream of blocking the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative out of reach.

The third trap that the October 7 attack set for the West is moral, according to De Villepin, who believes that the problem of double standards has emerged very sharply, and has made the West the focus of urgent questions such as, “You condemn what happened in Ukraine, but you are very shy in confronting the Gaza tragedy.” In fact, this trap goes beyond double standards, and mainly concerns the collapse of the international system (meaning the Western one) based, at least in theory, on law, basic freedoms, and human rights. A regime that Washington and those within its orbit are still using as excuses and bragging about, while they are arming a nuclear occupying state to attack a people who have been suffering under the most horrific occupation in human history for about 75 years.

De Villepin's analysis points to the danger of the West falling into Hamas's traps, and does not go far in assessing its effects on the future of the Western regime

The West’s support for the campaign of extermination waged by the Israeli occupation in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories constitutes a comprehensive violation of all the laws, rights, freedoms, and international justice on which the Western system is based. This causes the West to lose its credibility and rings the end of a human rights system that Washington has been trying since its war on Iraq to replace with rules derived from The law of the jungle, and she calls it the “rules-based international order.”

The Israeli-Western war on Gaza showed that the blocs that were formed within the framework of an international system based on the rule of law after World War II, led by the United Nations, had eroded and reached the peak of their inability after the Security Council turned into a rhetorical platform incapable of issuing a ceasefire resolution. To bring in humanitarian aid, let alone prevent the first televised genocide in human history.

It is true that the October 7 attack on Israel brought calamities on the residents of Gaza, but it may also provide opportunities unless the Hamas resistance stops clashing with the extermination forces, and unless the residents of Gaza are forcibly displaced to the Sinai desert. This is because it forced the countries sponsoring the occupation to talk about ending the occupation and the two-state solution, albeit as an attempt to absorb international anger, and to rely on Israel to return to its genocidal plans as soon as the smoke of cannons and incendiary phosphorus bombs cleared from the skies of Gaza. 

Turning talk about a two-state solution into a political gain depends primarily on the Palestinian people, and the extent of their ability to unite their forces, renew their leadership, and formulate a national project that can be negotiated with the internationally collapsing West, in the name of the resisting Palestinian people.

From Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed

For Israel, violence is not incidental, accidental or coincidental. It is part and parcel of its colonial DNA.

Marwan Bishara

Palestinians look for survivors following an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023 [AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman]

The gruesome scenes of death and destruction in Gaza are a reminder that for Israel, violence is not incidental, accidental or coincidental. It is part and parcel of its colonial DNA. Like the French in Algeria, the Dutch in Indonesia and South Africa, the Belgians in the Congo, the Spaniards in South America and the Europeans in North America, the Zionists have also dehumanized the natives of the land as a precursor to or justification for guilt-free repression and violence. But colonialism must not be conflated with Judaism. If anything, the Jews have historically been the victims of racism for centuries, rendering many of them anti-colonialists.

In 1948, Israel was established on the ruins of another people, the Palestinians. It was made into a Jewish majority state through the deliberate ethnic cleansing of the land’s 750,000 Palestinian inhabitants. Since then, Israel has maintained security through state repression, military occupation, bloody wars and countless massacres against civilians. 

Nazareth, the city of my birth, was one of the few to be spared from ethnic cleansing but only because a military commander named Benjamin Dunkelman, a Canadian Jew who led the 7th Brigade of the Israeli army, refused to carry out his superiors’ evacuation order for this Christian majority city, as he later wrote, mainly out of fear of the international repercussions. 

About 400 other Palestinian towns and villages were not so lucky. They were all depopulated, and a majority was entirely decimated. Their inhabitants were either killed or kicked out. The properties in them were either demolished or confiscated. They were given new Hebrew names. Those Palestinians who tried to return to their homes were either shot or forcibly sent to neighboring countries. 

In his book, Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948, Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli political scientist, writes: “Not since the end of the Middle Ages had the civilized world witnessed the wholesale appropriation of the sacred sites of a defeated religious community by members of the victorious one.” Since then, Israel has set its eyes on the people per se, regardless of its leadership or theirs. Palestinians are seen by Israel either as an enemy from within that must be eradicated or as a demographic threat that needs to be removed. It is no coincidence that since its inception, Israel has established an oppressive regime of “Jewish superiority”. This regime was extended after the 1967 war and occupation to the entirety of historic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. 

Hence the Palestinian cry, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” For decades, Israel has used disproportionate force and carried out countless massacres against Palestinian civilians as a form of revenge, punishment and deterrence. Last month, the Palestinians commemorated the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Qibya, where, in retaliation for a Palestinian attack on an Israeli settlement that killed three people, including two children, Israeli forces under the leadership of Ariel Sharon attacked the West Bank village of about 2,000 inhabitants, killing 69 Palestinians, mostly women and children. 

That same vengeful mindset has been applied 70 years later in Gaza. It is a deterrence strategy, deliberately aimed at harming civilians to distance them from their leaders and the groups fighting in their name. Today, the Israeli propaganda machine is busy collating desperate and angry cries, real and manufactured, from Gaza residents projecting blame on Hamas for bringing Israel’s wrath upon them. 

Israel never accepts an “eye for an eye” in its confrontations with the Palestinians. It insists on a ratio of 1 to 10 or 20 when it comes to its civilian casualties vs Palestinian civilian casualties. Hence, the Palestinian civilian must pay a heavy price in each and every clash, regardless of any moral or legal consideration.

Nowhere is the dissymmetry more pervasive than in Israel’s 56-year military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which by its very nature is a perpetual system of violence against civilians. Generation after generation of Palestinians have had to endure a racist, gruesome and illegal military occupation that has included daily humiliations, collective punishment, land confiscations, and the destruction of lives and livelihoods. For Gaza, this has meant a 17-year siege of the strip through a dreadful and inhumane military blockade, military incursions, bombings of civilian infrastructure and more.

Although Israel claims it has “no choice”, its occupation is in fact driven by strategy, not by necessity. Throughout the past six decades, Israel has controlled the Palestinian territories in part to colonize them through hundreds of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian lands, in part to hold their population hostage until their leaders accept its political dictates, which is by definition a form of state terrorism, which means using violence against civilians for political ends. 

Another important factor behind Israel’s violence against Palestinian civilians, as I explained here, is hatred – hatred that is propelled by fear, envy and anger. 

Israel fears all that is Palestinian steadfastness, Palestinian unity, Palestinian resistance, Palestinian poetry and all Palestinian national symbols. Such fear generates hatred because a state that is always afraid cannot be free. Israel is angry at the Palestinians for refusing to give up or give in, for not going away – far away. They refuse to cede their basic rights, let alone concede defeat. Israel is also envious of Palestinian inner power and outward pride. It is envious of their strong beliefs and readiness to sacrifice. 

In short, Israel hates the people of Palestine for impeding the realization of the Zionist utopia over all historical Palestine. And it especially hates those living in Gaza, as I wrote last year, for turning the dream into a nightmare. 

But the answer in Gaza and the rest of Palestine cannot be more killing and more occupation. In fact, Israel’s ongoing industrial-scale slaughter and nationwide repression of the Palestinians, in retaliation of Hamas’s gruesome October 7 attacks in southern Israel, is both utterly criminal and terribly foolish. Israel has tried to live by the sword for the past 75 years, but it has sowed more of the same insecurity, infamy and anger.

Repeating the same strategy again and again and expecting different results is indeed stupid. If it continues to deny the Palestinians a life and a future, Israel also will end up with no life or future worth living in this Arab region.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said that the Palestinian Authority is the appropriate body to manage the Gaza Strip after the end of the war.

She said before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, “The Palestinian Authority, as we all know, is the only Palestinian government that emerged from the Oslo Accords, and whatever its defects, it is a government for the Palestinians in the West Bank, and we believe that in the end, the votes must be Palestinian aspirations are the focus of governance and security in the post-conflict phase in Gaza.”

She added that the US State Department "is looking into all of these issues now and wants to begin those discussions sooner rather than later," based on the fact that "our Arab partners are strongly focused on issues of humanitarian crises and focused on reaching a ceasefire."

The United States is urging Israel to avoid occupying Gaza if Hamas no longer rules the area, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alarmed American officials when he said earlier this week that Israel would be responsible for Gaza's security for an "indefinite period."

The advisor to the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, confirmed that no one has the right to talk about the management of Gaza after the war, stressing that “we do not allow anyone to talk about the management of Gaza after the war... We are the ones who decide how to manage Gaza, not international forces or anyone else.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced, during his meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the Palestinian Authority’s readiness to take over the reins of government in the Gaza Strip.

Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh stressed that "Jordan will not send any military forces to Gaza and will not accept replacing the Israeli soldier with a Jordanian soldier."