In his article published in the New York Times on Monday, October 30, American writer Thomas Friedman, who is close to US President Joe Biden, advises Israel to follow the Indian model in dealing with the Hamas movement, calling on Israel to be patient and think carefully about the consequences of any response or a hasty action against the incursion of Palestinian resistance fighters into its territory. He referred to the infiltration of 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters into India and the killing of more than 160 people in Mumbai in November 2008. Friedman: Israel should have called its military operation in Gaza “Save Our Hostages”.

Friedman begins his article, for which he chose the title: “Please do not get lost inside Hamas’ tunnels.” Friedman called on Israel to be patient and carefully consider the consequences of any hasty reaction to the incursion of Palestinian resistance fighters into its territory, and the heavy costs that any retaliation could entail. 

“I watch the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza today and I think of one of the world leaders I admire most: Manmohan Singh,” he says. He was India’s prime minister in late November 2008, when 10 Pakistani jihadist militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, which is widely believed to be linked to Pakistani military intelligence. They came to India and killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, including 61 people in two attacks. What was Singh’s military response to the events of September 11 in India? He did nothing.”

“Singh never retaliated militarily against the state of Pakistan or the Lashkar-e-Taiba camps in Pakistan. It was a remarkable act of restraint. What was the logic? In his book Options: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy, India’s then foreign minister, Shivshankar Menon, explained, the reason behind this, explaining these key points: “I myself pressed at the time for clear, immediate retaliation” against jihadi bases or against the ISI, “which was clearly complicit,” Menon wrote. “Doing so would have been emotionally satisfying.” "It goes some way towards erasing the shame of incompetence shown by the Indian police and security agencies."

In his comparison between New Delhi and Tel Aviv's handling of the two incidents, Friedman believes that it is useful to reflect on the contradiction between the two countries' responses to the "terrorist" Mumbai operation and what he described as the "massacre" carried out by Hamas.

He said that the narrative of the attack on Israel quickly changed and made Hamas fighters heroes in the eyes of some people. It also forced Israel's new Arab "allies" in the Abraham Accords to distance themselves from the "Jewish state."

The writer believes that it is almost certain that after Israel summons about 360,000 reserve soldiers, its economy will suffer from a recession and shrink by more than 10% on an annual basis during the last quarter of the year, if it takes months to uproot Hamas from Gaza as expected.

The article criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for its haste in developing Benjamin's Plan B, which aims to "wipe Hamas from the face of the earth."

He explained that he closely followed former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's "unique" response to the "terrorist" attacks in Mumbai at the time. He said he immediately called for Israel's response to be goal-focused and thoughtful.

Friedman added to this by saying that Israel should have called its military operation in Gaza “Save Our Hostages,” focusing on arresting and killing the hostage takers, as he put it.

Friedman claims that the Israeli officials he spoke to told him that they knew two things for sure: that Hamas would not rule Gaza again, and that Israel would not rule Gaza after Hamas. They suggest they would establish an arrangement similar to what exists in parts of the West Bank today, where Palestinians in the enclave run daily life, while Israeli army and Shin Bet security teams provide power behind the scenes.

The American writer describes this plan as half-baked, because those Palestinians who will be recruited to implement it will be killed, as he claims, and that Israel will bear the costs of controlling Gaza and providing health care and education to its residents. Then, in his opinion, the cost of occupying Gaza could exhaust the Israeli army and economy for years to come.

He stresses that Israel does not have a viable plan to win or a leader who can overcome the pressures and complications of this crisis, adding that Israel must keep the door open for a truce for humanitarian reasons, and for an exchange of prisoners, which will also allow Israel to wait and think about the consequences of its “hasty” military operation in Gaza. And at the price you can pay in the long run.

Friedman concludes that this delay would also allow Gazans to evaluate what the Hamas attack in Israel did to their lives, their families, their homes, and their businesses.

Friedman ends his article by saying that Hamas has allocated "almost all of its resources to building attack tunnels. Please, Israel, do not waste those tunnels!"

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riyad al-Malki, briefed his British counterpart, James Cleverly, on the official Palestinian position with regard to all the events currently taking place between Palestine and Israel, and discussed ways to avoid further deterioration.

During a telephone call, the two ministers exchanged views regarding the priorities required to be undertaken to stop the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, reach a truce, open humanitarian corridors, bring in humanitarian assistance and provide it with food, water, medicine, fuel, and other basic human needs.

They further stressed during the call the necessity of preventing the recurrence of such a situation, by opening a political horizon that allows the return to the political process.

The two ministers agreed to continue making efforts, each in his own way, to reduce the severity of the violence and stop it, protect the lives of civilians, facilitate the smooth and permanent entry of humanitarian aid to the entire Strip, stop the terrorism of Israeli colonists in the occupied West Bank, as well as to prevent further military incursions of Palestinian residential communities in the West Bank.

Both parties also agreed to continue bilateral and multilateral work, in order to achieve these goals in the near future and to maintain bilateral communication due to its importance at this stage.

T.R.

Hissein Brahim Taha, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), today strongly condemned the continued and escalating Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip, persisting for 23 days in a row.

“This relentless assault has resulted in butchering thousands of martyrs and wounding innocent civilians, including women, children, medical personnel and journalists, in addition to the deliberate destruction of buildings, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and United Nations facilities. Israel still threatens to bomb hospitals, in addition to continuing to prevent access to food, medicine, water, and electricity, which constitutes collective punishment, war crimes, and flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law,” he said in a statement.

The Secretary-General also affirmed the OIC’s rejection and condemnation of “the escalation of acts of murder, incitement, and organized terrorism committed by extremist settler groups and Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian citizens throughout the West Bank, including the occupied city of Al-Quds (Jerusalem). These criminal acts have tragically led to the martyrdom of more than 115 Palestinian citizens since the beginning of the month,” holding Israel, the occupying power, “fully responsible for the continuation of these criminal acts.”

At the same time, the Secretary-General renewed his call on the international community to intervene urgently to force Israel, the occupying power, to stop its brutal aggression against the Palestinian people immediately and to oblige it to respect and implement international law and relevant United Nations resolutions, and to ensure the opening of permanent humanitarian corridors to facilitate the access of medicines and food supplies and basic needs of the Gaza Strip.

Bloomberg said in a report that Israel sent troops and tanks to the northern Gaza Strip in what it describes as the second and longest phase of its war against Hamas, a more cautious approach than it pledged after the October 7 attack that killed 1,400 people, including 311 soldiers, according to Israeli reports.

According to Bloomberg: “Instead of launching a large-scale ground invasion, the army started slowly, taking a day-by-day approach based on casualties, fears of the conflict spilling over into Hezbollah in the north, and internal political pressures on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The campaign is expected to continue.” “Six weeks to six months, according to a number of officials.”

The agency quoted officials, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, saying, “Israel wants to destroy Hamas as an organization and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a source of threat to it.”

The extent to which that goal is realistic remains unclear, according to the agency, which indicated pressure from the United States and other allies on Israel to force it to be more specific about its goals, as well as to draw a vision for what will happen next.

The report explained that the decision to launch a ground invasion actually indicates a shift in focus away from negotiating the hostages, about 230 of whom Hamas has held since October 7. It also indicates the belief that Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, will not resort to the decision to engage in all-out fighting and will be content with short-term skirmishes, and thus a battle will not be opened on two fronts.

Officials say, according to the agency, that the prevailing feeling is that Hamas was trying to buy time, aiming to release a small number of hostages per week while demanding a widespread ceasefire and prisoner exchange.

The agency reported that officials say that the security services have formed a group whose mission is to target every Hamas leader involved in the October 7 attack, “headed by Yahya Sinwar,” and “some of them have already been killed, according to the Israeli army.”

Another goal that is widely discussed, according to the agency, is that Israel will not return the entire Gaza Strip to whoever will eventually rule instead of Hamas. It plans to create a buffer zone to prevent a repeat attack, according to a number of officials.

Israel expressed its intention to besiege the main city in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, and published pictures of tanks on the western coast of the Gaza Strip 48 hours after issuing orders to expand ground incursions across its eastern borders, according to international media.

The agency says: “Israel initially sought not to reveal its current plan in its ongoing war with Hamas fighters, which has been going on for three weeks, as its forces were moving under the cover of darkness and in light of the cut off of communications from the Palestinians, but Israel later announced what it called the “second phase” of Its operations against the Iranian-backed movement.”

Some Palestinian citizens in the devastated and besieged Gaza Strip said that telephone and Internet services began to gradually return on Sunday, after a complete interruption for more than a day, which severely affected rescue operations at a time when Israel announced that it had bombed Hamas targets, especially in the north of the city. Gaza, where its government headquarters and command centers are located, according to the agency.

Hamas said it fired mortar shells at Israeli forces in northern Gaza and bombed Israeli tanks with missiles, downplaying reports that the Israeli army had made notable progress in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israel has tightened its siege and bombed Gaza for three weeks without stopping, leading to the killing of more than 8,000 people, most of them civilians - including more than 3,200 children, according to the United Nations agency UNICEF, while 20,000 people were injured, and more than 35% of the area was destroyed. Gaza strip.

Hamas was able to detain 230 (according to Israeli sources), including at least 100 Israeli soldiers.

Western countries generally support what they say is Israel's right to defend itself, but international anger is mounting over the number of bombing victims, while calls are growing for a "humanitarian truce" to allow aid to reach civilians in Gaza and ease the humanitarian crisis.

The young man, Ahmed Nofal (23 years old), died today, Monday, as a result of wounds he sustained by colonial bullets, on the twenty-fourth of this month, in the village of Ras Karkar, northwest of Ramallah.

The martyr Nofal had undergone several surgeries since his injury, which was described at the time as very critical, and he remained connected to artificial respirators throughout this period, until his martyrdom was announced today.

It is noteworthy that a colonist rammed a Palestinian vehicle carrying four young men near the village of Ras Karkar, before firing live bullets at the vehicle, which resulted in two young men being shot, one in the head and the other in the foot, and they were transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex.

And in Hebron. A young man was killed, Monday afternoon, by Israeli occupation forces’ bullets, after suppressing a student march at the entrance to Yatta, south of Hebron.

Coordinator of the Popular and National Committees to Resist the Wall and Settlements, Ratib al-Jabour, told WAFA that the occupation forces fired live bullets at a student march that reached the Ziv Triangle at the northern entrance to Yatta, which led to the death of a young man and the injury of dozens of people to suffocation.

The Ministry of Health announced that the young man, Fouad Ismail Abu Sobha (23 years old), from the town of Yatta, south of Hebron, was killed by occupation bullets, and dozens suffered from suffocation as a result of inhaling poisonous gas.

Four citizens were injured by bullets from the occupation army during the clashes that broke out at the Ziv Triangle, the northern entrance to the town of Yatta. They were taken to Abu Al-Hassan Al-Qasim Governmental Hospital in the town to receive treatment, and their injuries were described as moderate.

With the death of the young man Abu Subha, the death toll since dawn today rises to five, and since the start of the occupation’s aggression against our people on the seventh of this October, to 122.

Today, Monday, a journalist and a number of his family members were killed in an Israeli bombing that targeted his home in eastern Gaza.

Local sources reported that journalist Nazmi Al-Nadim was killed as a result of the occupation aircraft bombing his house located in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, in addition to the martyrdom of a number of his family members, without further details known at the moment.

With the death of Al-Nadim, the death toll among journalists since the beginning of the occupation’s aggression against the Gaza Strip on the seventh of this month has risen to 35 journalists, while dozens were injured, in addition to the bombing of the headquarters of 50 media organizations.

Today, Monday, Doctors Without Borders called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, to prevent more casualties and allow humanitarian aid to enter the Strip.

The organization added that the Israeli bombing of Gaza intensified in an unprecedented manner until northern Gaza was leveled to the ground, while all parts of the Strip were being bombarded, leaving no safe haven for civilians.

She pointed out that despite the issuance of a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly establishing a humanitarian truce, this did not achieve any results on the ground, as the violent Israeli bombing continued.

Doctors Without Borders called on the international community to take stricter measures to pressure Israel to stop its aggression, noting that civilians are being killed and forcibly displaced from their homes, and water and fuel continue to run out. While the atrocities in Gaza reached an extent that we have never witnessed before.

She continued: Medical aid began to run out in hospitals, and a few days ago, surgeon Muhammad Obaid, who works with the organization in Gaza, described the situation as follows: “Hospitals are crowded with patients. Amputations and surgeries are being performed without the use of proper anesthesia. The morgues have become overwhelmed with corpses.”

The organization pointed out that the communications outage on October 27 limited the crews’ ability to coordinate and provide medical and humanitarian assistance, while those trapped under the rubble, pregnant women about to give birth, and the elderly were unable to request the assistance they desperately needed. In light of this outage, MSF lost contact with most of its staff.

She pointed out that the number of wounded people who need urgent medical assistance exceeds what the health system can bear, as it includes about 3,500 beds. Never before had this number of casualties occurred in such a short period, even during previous Israeli attacks.

The organization confirmed that hospitals are crowded with patients, including Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, and orders issued by the occupation army to evacuate the hospital are an impossible and risky task. The hospital is currently operating at full capacity to provide medical treatment to patients, and shelters tens of thousands of people who have taken a safe haven there. In this context, international humanitarian law stipulates that patients, workers and health facilities must be protected at all times.

For his part, the international president of Doctors Without Borders, Christos Christou, said: Helpless people are living under the weight of horrific bombing, and there is no place for families to flee or hide after the gates of hell have been opened upon them. There must be an immediate ceasefire, and water, food, fuel, medical supplies and humanitarian aid must be re-secured in Gaza urgently.

He added that more than two million men, women and children face an inhumane siege in Gaza, which constitutes collective punishment prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Christo pointed out that the occupation authorities continue to prevent fuel from entering Gaza, even though it is necessary to supply hospitals with energy and operate desalination plants that produce clean drinking water.

He continued: Before October 7, the number of supply trucks crossing into Gaza ranged between 300 and 500 trucks every day, and most of the population relied on humanitarian aid. Today, although the Rafah border crossing is open, only 84 trucks have been able to enter the Strip since October 20, a response that is completely insufficient to meet the ongoing and growing needs in Gaza.

Christo said: We are ready to intensify our assistance in Gaza. We have a team on standby to send medical supplies and enter Gaza to support the emergency medical response when the situation allows. But if the bombing continues at its current intensity, any efforts to provide medical aid will inevitably fail.

60 trucks of humanitarian aid crossed the Egyptian Rafah crossing into the Palestinian Gaza Strip, Egyptian sources reported today (Monday).

The sources told Xinhua News Agency that the Egyptian authorities sent the eighth batch of Palestinian aid this morning to the Al-Auja commercial crossing in central Sinai, in the amount of 60 trucks.

She explained that this quantity of trucks, which is the largest to cross into the Gaza Strip, comes as compensation for the delayed entry of two previous batches.

The sources indicated that the trucks were sent from in front of the Rafah crossing to the Al-Auja crossing in central Sinai to be examined and inspected from the Israeli side, and then sent again to the Gaza Strip through the Palestinian Rafah crossing.

Yesterday (Sunday), 48 trucks of humanitarian aid crossed into the Gaza Strip, including food, water, medicines and medical supplies.

Egypt is making intense efforts to accelerate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip to alleviate the suffering of citizens trapped there since October 7.

Israel still refuses to allow the entry of petroleum derivatives with aid shipments, under the pretext that Hamas may seize them.
Today, the International Committee of the Red Cross delivered a shipment of medical supplies and emergency medicines to the administration of Nasser Governmental Hospital in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

There is big news at this time amid the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia has said that it is ready for talks with Ukraine. However, Ukraine has not yet responded to Russia’s proposal. At the same time, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has made many serious allegations against America. Shoigu said on Monday that the US was stoking geopolitical tensions to maintain its “hegemony”. He also warned about the danger of conflict between major countries.

Addressing the defense forum ‘Xiangshan Forum’ in Beijing, Shoigu also said that the US and its Asia-Pacific allies were undermining stability in the region. It is China’s largest annual event focused on military diplomacy. Shoigu said, “In order to maintain its geopolitical and strategic dominance, America is deliberately weakening the basis of international security and strategic stability.” He said that America and its Western allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ” Threatening Russia with “eastward expansion”. “The aim of Western countries is to escalate the conflict with Russia and increase the risk of confrontation between major countries,” he said. This will have serious consequences.

Russia ready to talk to Ukraine if conditions are right

Regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine, Shoigu said Moscow was ready to negotiate “if the situation warrants”. Zhang Yuxia, China’s second-ranking military officer and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, inaugurated the three-day event in the absence of General Li Shangfu. Shangfu was removed from the post of China’s Defense Minister last week. He has been away from public for two months. The Chinese government has not given the reason for Shangfu’s removal. Military representatives from many countries are participating in this event. China sees this as an opportunity to increase military cooperation with other countries and demonstrate regional leadership.

China expressed displeasure on America

The US delegation was led by Shanti Caress, the Defense Department’s principal official for China-related matters. Zhang said China was “willing to build military-to-military relations with the United States on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and cooperation.” China had suspended military communications with the US in August 2022, expressing unhappiness over the visit of former US Parliament Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. Without naming the United States, Zhang criticized “those countries that continue to create problems around the world.” He also called for a “political settlement on the Ukraine crisis” and “a resolution by all parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Called for stopping the violence and immediate ceasefire. (AP)

It seems that Israel has completed its preparations and expanded its ground and air operations against Gaza, despite all the talk that there is international pressure to prevent a ground attack and hopes to free more hostages held by Hamas. However, politically, it seems that there is no clear post-war plan for the Strip, where most people live. Of two million people under extremely difficult circumstances and without any real prospects. The Israeli government is facing difficult decisions, including regarding the families of the prisoners who are demanding the release of their sons, and at the same time there are calls for revenge for what happened to Israel on October 7, 2023. What are the complications of urban warfare?

4 goals and a number of complications

Carlo Massala, professor of international politics at the German Army University in Munich, said in a recent interview with the ARD news network that the Israeli government, after announcing the military mobilization, set four goals for its ground invasion: First, to undermine Hamas and get rid of the extensive tunnel network to make it It is unable to fight militarily, thus making Israel always safe for the population, and paralyzing its capabilities that allow it to launch more attacks on Israel’s borders from the Gaza Strip, not to mention making every effort to release its prisoners.

As for political analyst Christian Wagner, in an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk, he said that destroying Hamas should not only mean killing the movement’s leaders, but all of its members, and this is impossible and will only happen in the most difficult circumstances. As for its weapons arsenal, the defect lies in the fact that it is not clear the extent of the capabilities of the secret services of the Israeli occupation to discover potential targets, and that determining their locations is difficult in the absence of reconnaissance except by means of marches. All this amid fear that a number of Israeli prisoners may have been housed inside the underground metro in Gaza, which is a dilemma for the army, not to mention the fear of explosive traps and mines. The United States bringing its forces to the region heralds an increase in the intensity of the conflict, and this also exposes the American army to danger.

This logic was also confirmed by Masala, who considered that the Israeli army must maintain proportionality, in the presence of military difficulties that threaten its armed forces, because urban warfare is one of the most complex military operations ever, and because the lives of prisoners are of importance to the Israeli people, explaining that when The Israelis attack partial targets from the air. The problem they face is the difficulty of focusing on Hamas sites.

From another angle, security experts considered that the plans of the Israeli forces are not clear exactly and what a major attack on Gaza will look like. They may rely on deploying groups of pens supported by attacks from the air, and perhaps sending tanks and infantry units to penetrate the ground. In both cases, they are at risk of suffering losses. A huge loss in the number of soldiers, considering that eliminating Hamas cannot be realistic, especially since the movement had plenty of time to prepare for ground confrontations that could take weeks or even months. Comments said that a ground attack is the only means to restore strategic deterrence in the region, and anything less than that would be a victory for Hamas and Iran.

The future of Gaza

Political readings have shown that strategic questions are being raised behind closed doors, including the extent to which Israel is able to achieve its declared goals. That is, at what point can the Netanyahu government declare the success of the ground attack and end the operation? If Hamas is eliminated, who will rule Gaza, especially since Israel does not want to extend its authority over Gaza in these circumstances and has no ability to do so, which it occupied until 2005?

This scenario was ruled out by expert Masala because it is the worst solution ever and will only fuel the movement's activity again. In this context, the scenario of the Strip being managed by the United Nations was also proposed, but Robert Bleicher of the International Crisis Group saw this as unthinkable for the Israelis. As for the third scenario, which is based on the Palestine Liberation Organization taking over the mission from Ramallah, it is illogical because it has become politically weaker than ever before, as it has lost control of Gaza to Hamas since 2007, and is not very popular in the Strip. Regarding the fourth scenario, which requires that Gaza be subject to the administration of an international group with the participation of a number of European and Arab countries, and then hand it over to a civilian Palestinian administration, this is not easy to implement because Hamas has political influence that makes it able to maneuver by imposing such a solution on it without Obligations and guarantees towards the Gaza citizen.

In the face of all these arrangements that involve uncertainty and the difficulty of predicting the development of the situation in slaughtered Gaza, the fear remains that the battle will expand in the Middle East with Hezbollah intervening more forcefully in the war and opening the Lebanon front. This is what worries Europe and the United States, because the political solution For the sector after that, it will not be easy.

Director of the Institute for Peace and Security Policy Research at the University of Hamburg, Ursula Schröder, warned that the Western and global order had reached its end, and the escalation in the region could be the final nail in the coffin of human values, noting, according to what was reported by the newspaper “Die Welt”, that the population in All parts of the world are increasingly becoming victims of violent conflicts, and this is what is happening in Syria, Yemen, Azerbaijan and others, where about 238 thousand civilians died in 2022 as a result of hostilities.

By Youssef Badr

There are those who are pressing to stop the aggression against Gaza, including supporters of the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas", for fear of the expansion of the impact of this war on their lands. This was translated into practice by the visit of Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani to Moscow and his meeting there with a member of the Political Bureau of the "Hamas" movement Moussa. Abu Marzouk, and talk about a ceasefire deal in exchange for hostages.

There are also those who secretly support Israel's plan to eliminate this movement, believing that with its fall, tampering hands in the region will be loosened, which was translated into practice by the political statements and media speeches that sought to distance themselves from the Iranian square, or the Al-Aqsa Flood process was translated into political explanations ignoring the Palestinian issue. Or its conspiratorial view of the plan to get involved in a war with Israel, or its reference to resistance movements as an insinuation or statement of terrorism, or confusion in describing the situation of the Hebrew state between occupation and the right to defense; The positions were mixed with security concerns and challenges for fear of slipping into a square that would take the region back to June 1967, at a time when there was much talk about the new Middle East!

But the occupying state is continuing with its plan to reshape the Gaza Strip in a way that eliminates the resistance movements, even at the expense of the lives of the Palestinian people! The occupation army's plan is still in its first phase, which is based on launching harsh air attacks that destroy neighborhoods and buildings and transform the Gaza Strip into rubble and open land, making it easier for it to carry out a ground invasion without resisting street warfare, in addition to the stifling siege and starvation to push the residents of the Strip into forced displacement and return. Shaping its demographics if it ends up being in favor of the Hebrew state’s plans; Its leaders are buying time to settle their internal affairs and trying to achieve any formal victory, if in the end they are forced to respond to pressure from their Western allies to accept a truce... but the question remains: what comes after that?!

Search for an accused

Israel is not worried about expanding the circle of war with the northern front (Syria and Lebanon on the borders of occupied Palestine). On the contrary, it is looking for an accused to justify its actions in Gaza, or to distract international public opinion with a new front that places it in the image of a victim who is in need of the support of its allies. International parties, so that the picture appears as if what happened in Gaza was a conspiracy carried out by a country like Iran to eliminate the Zionist state, which may help it in the future to evade the rights of the Palestinian people that it ignored, which is what led us to the situation that the region is experiencing now.

The veto battle that took place between Russia and the United States during the UN Security Council meeting, Thursday, October 26, indicates that the West is looking for international approval to criminalize what Israel was subjected to in the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and include it under the name of terrorism. To complete the scenario that the occupation will exploit later to give its plan towards Gaza international legitimacy. Russia removed the name of its ally Iran from the draft US resolution accusing the Islamic Republic of supporting armed groups that it described as terrorist!

Russia, which is waging war on Ukraine, appears to have defended Iran. Because it does not want to expand the scope of the Gaza crisis outside its territory; Officially condemning Iran in the Security Council may divert attention from Hamas and open fire on a bigger culprit, which would harm Russia, which is also facing Western sanctions, especially since Iran has turned into a regional policeman working in its interest in Syria, the South Caucasus, Ukraine, and Africa.

Alliance against terrorism

The role that we have witnessed from French President Emmanuel Macron over the past few days is that of a light-hearted godfather to promote an international project to include the Gaza Strip among the tasks of the international coalition to combat terrorism currently spreading in Syria and Iraq. Although his plan is smart in the eyes of the West, it appears stupid in the eyes of the countries of the region. ; The West seeks to minimize the Gaza crisis and reduce it to “Hamas” after including it on terrorist lists, and the mission of the international coalition is to help Israel implement its plan towards that sector under an international and legitimate umbrella.

But in the eyes of the countries in the region that do not want Hamas to exist, this plan could increase the region’s crisis. When the international coalition fought ISIS, everyone supported it, even if there were those who supported it. But for Hamas, the matter is related to angry people and parties intertwined with this movement, such as Qatar, Turkey, and Jordan. The matter is not limited to Iran.

Although it seemed as if Macron had gone out alone without discussing his partners, in reality he was throwing a stone in the water to prepare public opinion. The visit made by US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, to Qatar on Wednesday, October 25, as well as the tour of US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Wally Adeyemo, to Europe. It indicates the existence of joint Western cooperation to help Israel. If he does not succeed in forming an international coalition to represent its operation in Gaza; He succeeds in helping her in the post-process stage; It guarantees the drying up of the resistance movements’ financing network and supports the Palestinian Authority’s control over the Gaza Strip if Israel obtains what guarantees its security.

Confrontation with the United States!

Another mission of the French moves is to relieve the embarrassment of the United States of America, whose bases and forces in the region were subjected to symbolic attacks by armed groups loyal to Iran. Washington does not want its support for Israel to shift so that the battle with it shifts in a way that makes the crisis facing its administration internally more difficult, as indicated by the continuous communications and warnings from Washington to Baghdad after the attacks on its soldiers, as well as its intensification of security around its force bases in the Gulf, Syria and Iraq.

Thus, the mission of calling on France to form an international coalition is to form a mechanism that guarantees Israel and concerned regional and Western powers that a new front will not be opened in the region, especially by the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthi group, or the Golan Front. If Iran gives them the green light to do so; Because fears of slipping into the Iranian square are everyone’s obsession with aligning themselves with revolutionary Iran in the end.

Therefore, the speech of Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday, October 25, cannot be ignored, as he explicitly sought to transfer the battle with the United States, saying: “America’s hands are stained with the blood of the people of Gaza, and it is in fact managing this crime that is being committed in Gaza.”

As well as the continuous statements by Iranian military commanders, especially by the Revolutionary Guard, warning against a ground invasion of Gaza. Even if it is to save the face of the Iranian regime internally; But the experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria has proven the extent of what Iran can do against American interests.

In practice, managing the battle with America and putting pressure on it could relieve Iran of the dilemma of having to move its allies to confront Israel, and help it achieve its demands to stop the war and bring in aid, especially since the war in Gaza has somewhat shattered the mental image that was formed in the minds of supporters of the Iranian regime who have always heard A call to you, O Al-Aqsa, on the pulpits of their leaders, and now they find that the matter is subject to special calculations more than the calculations of the battle of good and evil! This is what the media machine is currently seeking to fix.

The demands of Western countries to open humanitarian corridors into the Gaza Strip indicate the effectiveness of this pressure. The issue of the hostages for Hamas represents a disturbing and embarrassing issue for the governments of these countries, which prompts them to put pressure on Israel to liberate the hostages by safe means through intermediaries such as Egypt, Qatar, or Jordan, or through specific operations that attempt to achieve a double goal: formal victory and the announcement of the hostages’ liberation.

Likewise, there is corresponding pressure on Iran regarding its nuclear file and the American threat to withdraw from the Sultan of Oman’s plan to reach an informal temporary agreement, according to which Tehran obtained part of its funds frozen abroad, and Washington also overlooked its oil exports, which lessened the impact of Western sanctions, the severity of which threaten the stability of the Iranian regime at home if it faces violent popular protests.

After 1967!

No one wants to return to the history of the June 1967 war. The countries of the region are seeking to overcome this history and its pain and restore what was destroyed by the Israeli aggression against them. But also what Israel is doing is because it believes that history and the region have stopped on that day, and that no one is moving except it. But this mentality is what brought Iran into the region.

If Israel continues to think with the same mentality after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, this means that Iran will tend to expand its presence in the Mediterranean, through rapprochement with a country like Turkey, which has a crisis with the European powers over Cyprus, and also has a desire to achieve a balance. In front of Israel in the eastern Mediterranean region, especially since Turkey feels the need for this balance since the discovery of gas in that region, where German, British, French, and American forces are present to protect its interests and energy fields.

No one also accepts that Israel will continue to have the upper hand, at least there is a desire to balance it, as Turkey is geographically distant from it and manages its foreign relations in a clear and sometimes contradictory pragmatic manner. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, rejected Western efforts to describe Hamas as a “terrorist” movement. Because this harms Türkiye's interests and popularity at home and abroad.

Erdogan's statements coincided with what was said by the Iranian leader, who called on Islamic governments not to repeat Western governments' description of "Hamas" as a terrorist group.

  Also, the plans of the Western powers, which ignore the nature of the Middle East region and believe that Israel is still superior, express a crisis in their thinking. Iran will not allow the Hebrew state to repair the security and psychological defeat it has suffered, thus eliminating its ambitions towards the region.

Likewise, Turkey, which entered into a debate with Western powers because of its supportive support for the Hamas movement, will also not accept sacrificing its interests and regional balance in the interest of Israel’s superiority.

At the present time, the matter is no longer about Arab rights and a return to the 1967 borders; Rather, the matter has become more complicated for Israel, and it has wronged itself. The entry of parties geographically distant from Palestine, such as Iran, Turkey, and the Gulf states, has made the solution to the Palestinian issue a matter of a more complex network of calculations. Perhaps this matter has helped relieve pressure on neighboring countries such as Egypt and Jordan. But he managed the issue in the interests of accounts far from the solution area. The Turkish President called for holding a conference that brings together Israelis and Palestinians, similar to the Astana meeting, to resolve the Syrian crisis, and for Turkey to be a guarantor of any agreement reached. But it will not succeed if Palestine's neighboring countries, such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria, or Lebanon, are ignored, and all it will achieve is serving the agenda of any country that came from afar to support the Palestinian cause!

The government media office in Gaza announced on Sunday evening that the number of martyred journalists as a result of the war launched by Israel on the Strip since October 7 has risen to 35 journalists.

The office said in a statement on the Telegram platform: “35 journalists...the government media office publishes a list of journalists who were promoted as a result of the ongoing occupation aggression against the Gaza Strip.”

The office published the names and photos of the journalist victims, as the list included: “Mohamed Al-Salhi, Ibrahim Lafi, Mohamed Jarghoun, Asaad Shamlikh, Saeed Al-Taweel, Hisham Al-Nawajha, Mohamed Abu Rizq, Aed Al-Najjar, Mohamed Abu Matar, Rajab Al-Naqeeb, Ahmed Shehab, Abdel Rahman Shehab.” , Hossam Mubarak, Hani Al-Madhoun, Issam Bahar.”

The list also included: “Muhammad Baalousha, Abdel Hadi Habib, Ali Suleiman, Anas Abu Shamala, Samih Al-Nadi, Khalil Abu Athrah, Muhammad Abu Zarifa, Muhammad Ali, Iman Al-Uqaili, Muhammad Imad Labad, Ahmed Masoud, Rushdi Al-Sarraj, Muhammad Fayez Al-Hassani, Saed Halabi, Jamal Al-Faqawi, Ahmed Abu Mahadi, Yasser Abu Namous, Salma Mukhaimer, Doaa Sharaf, Salam Mima.”

The Israeli targeting affected the family of the director of the Qatari Al Jazeera channel in Gaza, Wael Al-Dahdouh, as 12 members of his family were martyred, including his wife, son, and daughter, in a bombing that targeted a house to which they were displaced in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Al-Dahdouh received news of the targeting of the house where his family had taken refuge while he was covering the ongoing Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip from the Al-Jazeera office.

Since October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a war on Gaza in which 8,005 Palestinians were martyred, including 3,324 children, 2,062 women, and 460 elderly people, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Hamas killed more than 1,538 Israelis and wounded 5,132, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health, and holds 239 prisoners, according to the Israeli army, including high-ranking military personnel.

Actress Angela Jolie denounced in her Telegram account on Saturday-Sunday night "the bombing of the civilian population in Gaza."

Jolie, who has 14.6 million followers, wrote after denouncing the attack launched by Hamas: “This does not lend credibility to the killing of innocents in the bombing of civilians in Gaza, who have nowhere to go, no food and water... There are more than two million people in Gaza.” "Half of them are children and boys who have been living under a stifling siege for more than two decades, in addition to decades of uprooting and statelessness. Preventing the provision of aid, fuel and water is collective punishment of a people. Humanity demands an immediate ceasefire. The lives of Palestinians and Israelis and the lives of all people in the world are equal." .

The document was prepared by Avigdor Lieberman as Minister of Defense, as part of his then effort to push Israel into a major war against the Gaza Strip under the claim of eliminating the power of Hamas, “and to ensure that the next confrontation between Israel and Hamas will be the last by launching a surprise, pre-emptive strike.”

At the end of 2016, the former Israeli Minister of Security, Avigdor Lieberman, submitted a “top secret” document to the Israeli political and security leadership, and now claims that he warned of an attack that might be launched by Hamas, and that he accurately predicted a Hamas attack on October 7. . The document stated at the time that the goal of the attack was “to eliminate Israel until 2022, and to liberate all the lands of Palestine,” according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, which published the document today, Monday.

The newspaper added that none of the officials who saw this document took it seriously, including the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Israeli Army Chief of Staff at the time, Gadi Eisenkot. It is clear from this document that Lieberman then sought to push Israel into a major war against the Gaza Strip, claiming to eliminate the power of Hamas.

The publication of the document comes in the wake of a tweet published by Netanyahu, the night before last, in which he said that he had not received any warning from security officials, especially the head of the Military Intelligence Division and the head of the Shin Bet, about the Hamas attack on October 7th. Yesterday morning, Netanyahu retracted his tweet and said: “I made a mistake. I apologize,” after severe criticism of him.

The return marches in the Gaza Strip, May 2018 (Getty Images)

The document dealt with assessments of the situation in the Gaza Strip, and Lieberman's position as Minister of Security. It stated that Israel must "ensure that the next confrontation between Israel and Hamas will be the last," and that "only if Israel surprises Hamas with a sudden, preemptive strike" and assassinates most of Hamas' military leaders.

The document added, “Postponing the decision to carry out a pre-emptive strike on Gaza until after July 2017 would be a serious mistake with far-reaching consequences, even worse than the results of the Yom Kippur War (in 1973), with regard to its effects on the home front, on the awareness of the citizens of Israel.” And on the image and status of Israel in the region.”

The document continued, "Hamas intends to transfer the upcoming confrontation to Israeli territory, by pumping large and well-trained forces, such as elite forces, into Israeli territory, occupying an Israeli town, and perhaps several towns, in the Gaza envelope and taking hostages. In addition to targeting them physically, this will lead to... "Severe targeting of the awareness and morale of the citizens of Israel."

The document considered that Hamas had set a goal of eliminating Israel until the year 2022, “during a series of deliberations within the framework of the movement’s ‘Executive Committee’ that took place in Qatar on September 25-27, 2016.” The document stated that Hamas stressed that it needs a "calm-down period" in order to complete building its strength and readiness.

According to the document, “Hamas is interested in making the next war against Israel multi-front, by building other fronts in addition to the Gaza Strip - Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Sinai - and even against Jewish targets around the world.”

The document added that Hamas seeks to expand the ranks of its fighters to “40,000 activists by the year 2020, and strengthening its strength will be in the ground combat system,” and that “in the wake of its increasing economic distress, the movement requested from Iran assistance in the amount of 50-60 million dollars.”

The document stated: “The defensive obstacle being built facing Gaza, and all its means and capabilities, is an important element in the current security strategy facing Gaza, but it cannot constitute a strategy in itself. Contemporary history and past precedents – the Maginot Line, the Mannerheim Line, and the Bar-Lev Line – have proven that walls Fortifications do not prevent war and do not guarantee tranquility and security.”

The document continued: “If Israel waits until it achieves intelligence control and erects a security wall, all of this superiority will be completely reduced in exchange for the increasing strength of Hamas during this period.”

The document concluded that “not taking an Israeli initiative until mid-2017 would be a serious mistake that would lead Israel to a difficult strategic situation. This would lead to an unplanned deterioration, and while in such a scenario Israel would not be able to assassinate the leadership of the military arm.” To Hamas, or worse - for Hamas to open a confrontation at a time convenient for it. I believe that the consequences of such an operation on the part of Hamas would be far-reaching, and in certain respects the consequences would be more severe than the results of the Yom Kippur War.”

Lieberman had resigned from his position as Minister of Security at the end of 2018, and justified this by Israel agreeing to a ceasefire with Hamas and the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip in the amount of $15 million. Netanyahu's office did not comment on Lieberman's document.

Israel refuses the entry of the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Karim Khan, to its territory, after he visited the Rafah crossing yesterday, and spoke about the suffering of the residents of the Gaza Strip due to the war launched by Israel on the Strip, and announced that the International Court intends to investigate “war crimes.” “Committed in Israel.

Today, Monday, the "Israel Hayom" newspaper quoted an official Israeli official as saying, "We know of the Attorney General's desire to visit Israel. Israel's position, like the position of other countries as well regarding the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, is known."

He added, "Israel announced that it has opened a criminal investigation and will exhaust the law with all those responsible for the horrific and criminal events committed by Hamas, which the plaintiff admitted to being so during his visit to Rafah."

Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses said that Israeli army vehicles entered overland today (Monday) to the southern outskirts of Gaza City, amid violent clashes with Hamas fighters.

Sources and witnesses told Xinhua News Agency that dozens of army vehicles entered from the eastern area of the Gaza Strip, advanced at the Netzarim area, reached the main Salah al-Din Street and closed it with tanks in an attempt to cut off Gaza City from the center and south of the Strip.

The sources explained that clashes were taking place in the vicinity of the incursion area between Israeli army forces and Palestinian fighters, while explosions were heard.

During the past few hours, the Israeli air strikes continued non-stop throughout the Gaza Strip.

According to local sources, dozens of Palestinians were killed in the air strikes that occurred during the night and dawn today, but the final number has not yet been confirmed.

For his part, Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee said that army forces continued during the night hours to expand ground operations in the Gaza Strip.

Adraee stated that during the clashes, soldiers eliminated dozens of Palestinian militants who holed up inside buildings and tunnels and tried to target Israeli forces.

He added that during the last twenty-four hours, about 600 targets were struck, including weapons warehouses, hiding and gathering places for Hamas elements, and anti-tank missile launch sites.

In light of the failed attempts to make a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, and the fierce resistance facing its forces on the northern and northeastern borders of the Gaza Strip, the occupation resorted at dawn and this morning to intensify its raids on homes and caused dozens of dead and hundreds of injuries.

On Monday morning, Israeli warplanes continued to bomb civilians by land, air and sea in various areas in the Gaza Strip, in parallel with its forces’ attempt to penetrate deep into the Strip, as the war on Gaza entered its 24th day.

In light of the attempts to make a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, and the fierce resistance facing its forces on the northern and northeastern borders of the Gaza Strip, the occupation resorted, at dawn and this morning, to intensify its raids on homes, causing dozens of dead and hundreds of injuries.

The Israeli raids continued in the early hours of Monday, and military aircraft targeted the Qalibo area in the northern Gaza Strip, the area surrounding the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, and the neighborhoods of Tal al-Hawa, al-Sabra, al-Zaytoun neighborhood, and al-Shuja’iya.

In its escalation against the health sector in the Gaza Strip, it continued to bomb the vicinity of the Al-Quds Hospital affiliated with the Red Crescent, in an attempt to put pressure on its administration, which continues to refuse to respond to the occupation’s requests to evacuate it. The occupation also bombed the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, and it also repeatedly bombed the vicinity of the Turkish Friendship Hospital, which is the only hospital for patients. Cancer in the Gaza Strip, causing severe damage and causing panic among cancer patients and medical teams.

As the massacres against civilians continued, the toll of the aggression rose to 8,005 dead, including 3,342 children, 2,062 women, and 460 elderly people, in addition to nearly 20,000 wounded, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

As a result of the aggression, 116 medical personnel, 18 rescue teams, and 35 media professionals were martyred since the start of the aggression on the Gaza Strip.

Member of the Hamas Political Bureau, Musa Abu Marzouk, revealed this evening, Sunday, an expected visit by the movement’s delegation to Cairo when the consultations reach advanced levels, expected to take place in the coming days.

Abu Marzouk explained, in an interview with Youm7, that the Egyptian side welcomed the visit of the movement’s leadership to Egypt and that there be a permanent delegation of the movement in Cairo to conduct consultations and discussions on various issues.

He stressed that his movement views positively the position of the Egyptian state regarding its rejection of the displacement scenario, and this is an appreciated position that serves the Palestinian people and prevents a new catastrophe.

At dawn on Monday, the Israeli occupation forces arrested 64 citizens from several areas in the West Bank.

From Ramallah, the occupation army arrested 21 citizens, namely: Muhammad Saleh Alyan, Muhammad Ghawanmeh, and the two freed detainees, Fadi Nayef Alyan and Fadi Jamal Darwish, from Al-Jalazoun camp, and the girl Shatha Al-Barghouti from Deir Abu Mishaal, Awni Fares, Musa Hamed, and Saif Khalil Ezzat. Aseed Hassanein Khazna, Baraa Ahmed Khaled, Jumah Hassan Hammad, Baraa Muhammad Al-Saifi, Suhaib Imad Al-Shawareb, Farid Hammad, Mamoun Mahmoud Hamed, the two brothers Muhammad and Abd al-Rahman Raed Hamed, from the town of Silwad, Abd al-Hafiz Awni Zabin, and the liberated detainee Ashraf Wadih Saad, and Youssef. Abdel Wadi, and editor Bakr Atallah Saad from Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya.

From Hebron, the occupation arrested 13 citizens, namely: Qutaiba Al-Nawaja’a, Yahya Omar Abu Sobha, Raed Ibrahim Abu Aram, Ahmed Ali Al-Shawahin, and Zakaria Abu Fanar from the town of Yatta, and from the town of Al-Shuyoukh, they arrested Ahmed Majed and Rasneh, Mahmoud Ayman and Rasneh, Majed and Rasneh, and Majd. Zaki Halayqa and Hassan Shehadeh Ayida, and from the city, Nizam Muhammad Arif al-Rajabi and Haitham Ismail al-Rajabi, and from the town of Halhul, the child Ammar Ali Jamil Mansour (14 years old).

From Jerusalem, the occupation arrested 11 citizens, namely: the child Faisal Al-Rishq from the Ras Khamis neighborhood in the Shuafat camp, and from Al-Eizariya, the head of the Al-Eizariya Youth Club, Atta Yassin Jabr, Muqadheed Abu Rumi, and Omran Al-Shweiki, and from Jerusalem, Ahmed Nidal Al-Rajabi, Fouad Jibril, and Tihama. Jaber, from Silwan, Naim Odeh, and the two young men, Tamer Faisal Qandil, and Mahmoud Hani Qandil, from the town of Beit Surik, north of Jerusalem, after their motorcycle collided with an occupation forces checkpoint at the entrance to the town of Biddu. They also arrested a third young man, whose identity is not yet known.

From Nablus, the occupation arrested 8 citizens, namely: Nasser Al-Din Al-Shaer from the Al-Maajin neighborhood, Omar Al-Hanbali from the Zawata area, Iyad Abu Zahra from the Northern Mountain area, Khaled Al-Sousa, Zaher Musa, and journalist Nawaf Al-Amer from Kafr Qalil, and Qutaiba Hamadna from Asira Al-Shamaliah. And from the house of worship of Abdul Salam Mualla.

As for Bethlehem, the occupation arrested 8 citizens: the two brothers Rajai Muhammad al-Jaafari (23 years old), his brother Raneem (18 years old), Muhammad Abdullah Thawabta and his son Jihad from the town of Beit Fajjar, Raafat Osama Shakarneh from Nahalin, Issa Abdullah al-Arouj, and Faisal. Hassan Al-Arouj from Janata, and Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Sarhan from Al-Ubaidiya, after their homes were raided, searched, and tampered with their contents.

From Tulkarm, the occupation army arrested the two young men, Ahmed Nafi Arafat, and Omar Muhammad Youssef Omar from the town of Faroun. These forces also arrested the young man Muhammad Al-Duwairi (26 years old) from the city of Qalqilya.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr considered on Sunday that the Israeli army's response in Gaza to the attack launched by Hamas was disproportionate, denouncing a "catastrophic" humanitarian situation.

"International law stipulates that the reaction must be proportional. Civilians must be taken into account, and humanitarian law is very clear on this subject. I think this limit has been greatly crossed," Jonas Gahr Sture told public radio NRK.

He pointed out that "about half of the thousands of dead were children," adding that "Israel has the right to defend itself, and I realize that it is very difficult to defend oneself against attacks launched from a densely populated area like Gaza."

The Norwegian Prime Minister confirmed that "rockets are still being fired from Gaza towards Israel, and we condemn this," according to what was reported by Agence France-Presse.

He stressed, "We are friends of Israel and condemn the attack carried out by Hamas three weeks ago. We also demand the release of the hostages, but we must express ourselves clearly. The situation is catastrophic and I believe it clearly violates what we call the rules of war or humanitarian law."

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Ede announced that his country is "ready to assume responsibilities in the peace negotiations in the Middle East," and said in response to a question on a television channel, "Norway is ready if we are asked to do so."

Unlike its Nordic neighbors, which abstained from voting, Norway voted on Friday for a UN resolution that “demands an immediate, permanent and sustained humanitarian truce leading to an end to the fighting.”

The non-binding resolution, which was opposed by Israel and the United States, was supported by 120 members and 14 opposed, while 45 abstained from voting, out of 193 members of the General Assembly.

The recognition by Israeli officials that the level of international legitimacy supporting the occupying state in its aggressive war on the Gaza Strip is declining, is a recognition caused by the war of genocide and the massacres that the occupying state committed and is committing against our people in the Gaza Strip, which affected people, trees and stones, and which were exposed by satellite channels and all other media outlets. This revealed the reality of the occupying state, whose goal is not to eliminate the resistance, led by the Hamas movement, but rather to target safe citizens whose homes were bombed over their heads.
The world's vision of these massacres and the war of extermination led to a change in the positions of a number of countries that support and support the occupying entity, whether on the official level or on the level of the masses of these countries, especially the Western ones. These masses took to the streets in their millions to condemn the Israeli crime and demand that their governments side with them and not continue their support for the entity. The hostile Israeli regime occupies the Palestinian people and practices against them practices that shame all of humanity.
Therefore, large demonstrations took place, the largest in Britain for decades, against the government and its support for the Israeli occupation. Many demonstrators expressed their shame at their government’s support for the terrorist occupying state and its heinous and terrible actions against the safe citizens of the Gaza Strip.
The same applies to the United States, which threatened President Joe Biden that it would not vote in the upcoming elections, and that his position of support and even participation in the brutal aggression against Gaza is a disgrace and disgrace to America, which claims democracy and human rights. 

The masses in France also came out against the position of their government, and called for an end to the Israeli aggression. This public pressure led to the French delegate to the United Nations voting on the draft Arab resolution calling for stopping the war, opening safe corridors, sending aid to citizens, and lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip that has been ongoing for several years. More than 16 years.

This is the tip of the iceberg, and the continuation of aggression, war of genocide, and crimes will increase day after day due to the decline in international support for the occupying state, which will further expose its truth to the world and its racism and arrogance, and perhaps in the future it will force the governments of these countries that support and support the occupying state to change their positions. 

Because the crimes committed and massacres against our people will increase the state of hostility, and this will even push our people to continue their struggle to defeat and leave the occupation.

All hail to the peoples of the world who stood and stand by our people, especially the peoples of the colonial countries who expressed their condemnation of the crimes of the brutal occupation.

No one knows when this war will stop, including the direct parties involved in attack and defense, but the law of life says that it must stop.

During the war, the term “political horizon” and the two-state solution revived remarkably, as no one who gave their input on its developments, whether from the camp supporting the option of Israeli military action, or those who had reservations about it, did not adopt the idea of the inevitability of finding a political horizon, and most of those who spoke about it and a solution The two states are President Biden.

It is not logical, and perhaps not useful, to go too far in proposing detailed scenarios for the political path, while the results of the war have not become clear, not even in an approximate way, so talking about what comes after the war does not go beyond the possibilities.

The first possibility, which rises to the level of automatic axioms, is that the current American administration will make a serious effort to extinguish the burning and latent fires in the Middle East, with a political initiative that is supposed to be fairer and more effective than all previous initiatives from the first Camp David to the recent Oslo, because the American talk The two-state solution, without being accompanied by a tangible effort in this direction, and without seeing its positive impact on the Israeli position, must automatically lead to the second possibility, which is crisis management, which the administrations went to and worked on, after the door to Palestinian negotiations was permanently closed. The door to fighting of varying intensity was opened on the West Bank and Gaza fronts, which produced a severe weakness for the Palestinian Authority until it turned into a burden on its people and those betting on it, and brought the extremists of the right in Israel to power, according to the established rule... The further away the chances for peace are, the higher the chances of the right to rule. Israel.

America's incursion into crisis management policy produced a feeling among the Palestinians that their issue had become merely economic facilities, when Washington talked a lot about aid that should be provided for the well-being of the Palestinians, and then it descended into wishful thinking, when America sponsored many activities under the roof of security understandings between the two sides. Finally, in light of the impact of the destructive war on Gaza, coupled with the war suffocating the West Bank between the army and the settlers, the term humanitarian solutions appeared, which, despite their necessity, especially in Gaza, remain far from what the Palestinians are asking for, that is, a political solution.

What doubles the Palestinians’ anxiety about the policy of managing the crisis instead of treating it in a way that leads to its solution is that it has settled in this place over a long period of time, and several successive administrations have adhered to it, including Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, who made the last attempt at a political solution and announced its failure, blaming Israel. Then The Trump administration is the owner of the initiative that was stillborn due to Palestinian, Arab and international objection to it. Then the Biden administration, which promised during the election campaign to modify paths but failed to fulfill its promise.

The war on Gaza and the West Bank is difficult and extremely cruel to the Palestinians. However, what will be more difficult politically is when America, the godmother of Israel, the settlement, and the remnants of Oslo, returns to the policy of crisis management despite its admission, albeit in a faint voice, that it has created a dangerous vacuum not only on the Palestinian-Israeli track, but also at the regional level. Entire.

The Biden administration has become a direct partner in the war on Gaza, and has mobilized its fleets in the region for fear of expanding the scope of the war, which would ignite the entire region.

The most important outcome of this direct military effort was the strengthening of American influence over the Israeli decision, which was the main obstacle to any progress on the political track, after the far-right government in Israel expanded the scope of its rebellion against many aspects of American policy.

The course of the current war has revealed a deep and wide difference between America and those who are supposed to be its friends, if not its “allies.” They have all taken decisive positions not only by condemning the destructive war on Gaza, but also by declaring the inevitability of beginning an effective political path that will put an end to the wars that are raging or could be raging, in The absence of a lasting and just peace. Will what happened - which is large, costly and dangerous - shift the effort from crisis management to resolving them? This is what will appear before the war stops, as a preliminary premise, and after it stops, as a political path.

What happened on October 7, 2023, and what is happening through this horrific massacre; It is outside the box of the prevailing and usual style, and therefore dealing with it and reflecting on it requires a new language, and it should be thought of using tools outside the box.
There are vocabulary that rolls among this rubble; Such as the missing, those buried under the rubble, the continuous raids, the families that were completely removed from records, the Western alignment behind the state of genocide and ethnic cleansing, the hostages, systematic war crimes, double standards, and the suppression of demonstrations in the cities of Europe, in solidarity with the Palestinians and the victims of Gaza, while being guarded. Pro-Israel demonstrations, under the title “The Right to Expression”!
There are questions that arise in this poisoned mess.. For example: Why does the occupation have the right to defend itself, but the Palestinians do not have the right to do so? Is Palestinian, Arab and Islamic blood, in general, worthless? Did the conflict begin on the day of the crossing, October 7, so that the world would come to the aid of the Israelis? Or did the world itself remain silent in the face of the atrocities of the occupation, its fires, its settlements, its incursions and its violations, for bitter decades, until the victim exploded in the face of her killer? Why didn't the world do anything for us and put Israel above the law? Is this a healthy, civilized, and civilized world that seeks peace, justice, and the preservation of rights, or is it a partner in our annihilation? Why do some Arab officials volunteer and repeat Israel's positions verbatim? Rather, they describe us as barbarians and heinous people? Or are they worse, more severe in words, more cursing a principle, and more hateful to a soul?! In fact, some of them, at the height of the massacre, insisted on economic and security integration with the occupying state! I ask: Are these Arabs and Muslims? I invite them to stare in their mirrors.
The occupying state has nothing but revenge and blatant killing - 700 victims per day - and perhaps it thought that the fires of its settlers, the raids on the Holy Mosque, and its continuous crimes would push the Palestinians to submission... But it realized that the people would not accept the yoke of slavery, Israelization, and orgy, and that a handful of men could To wallow its face in the mud and prove that Israel is an entity fit for defeat. Yes, this entity, which breathes from an external lung, is completely fit to be destroyed, and this is what the shakers and normalizers must realize! Because Israel needs someone to protect it...how will it protect you, you fearful people?
These unprecedented massacres revealed the reality of the world, which is a jungle.
There is no law and they do not grieve! This overwhelming torrent of blood and devastation will put the region on the brink of a regional war, and will generate deep hatred... unless the Palestinian people obtain their rights.
No one wins in war except death, devastation and tragedies. We hate war, and we do not want to be martyrs, displaced, and left in pieces under the rubble...but the occupation has turned our lives into death and ruin, and funeral homes have been open for a century! Under the eyes of the world!
The occupation has been trying, for decades, and seeking, to turn the Palestinian into a “positive victim,” from his point of view. Meaning that he kills, slaughters, skins, confiscates, arrests, and burns...then he wants the Palestinian to remain silent and bow his head! But if he rises up, resists, fights, and responds... the occupation will make him extremely uncomfortable, and will exaggerate in killing and destruction... until he retreats and does not repeat his attempts... which makes some people cry out for help, lash out, and demand “calm down” and “withdrawal of pretexts”, so that the occupation does not continue its frenetic, bloody madness. 

Waiting for a political solution - which will not come - and thus their logic demands that we surrender, and even wants us to dig our graves with our own hands and sew our shrouds with our fingers! Perhaps I will stand with those calling for calm if the occupation listens, takes care, or stops its desecration of holy sites, burning towns and trees, and confiscating land, but it continues its criminality and arrogance, and I ask, gentlemen, what is the solution? Do we watch the occupation commit its atrocities and crimes, because we are “weak,” “we have no help,” and “we cannot fight with it”? Then he will resolve the conflict, complete his plans, and implement his projects, and he will devour the country and control Al-Aqsa! is not it! In a time of Arab and Islamic silence and Western hypocrisy!
I know that we are between two blades, but fighting and confronting the occupation is a necessary matter, because it is feasible, and it exaggerates the occupation on many levels, curbs its settlers, limits settlements, preserves the sanctities, restores the Palestinian cause to the forefront, mobilizes the international street, stirs up stagnant water, and costs the adversary. Huge losses. Every Palestinian must practice “resistance” appropriate to his circumstances and situation, from comprehensive peaceful resistance to what is guaranteed by international laws.
We will stand with any political proposal that empowers us with our rights, but we will not be complacent or respond to any formula that perpetuates and legitimizes the occupation, deepens its control, and keeps us under its yoke. We will not provide any “free” consent, under the pretext of pressure, power imbalance, or feeling small. Our issue is the issue of generations, even if the conflict is being initiated on the horizon of the guillotine!
Their speaker says: After we get rid of those in Gaza, you will have a state, O Palestinians! And we will call for a two-state solution. I remind everyone that during the 2002 invasion of the West Bank, America announced that it would establish a state for us, but it justified that the Palestinian leadership at the time - the symbol Yasser Arafat - was an obstacle that must be removed so that the state could emerge! Abu Ammar died as a martyr. Did George Bush Jr. give us anything? They repeat the same lie, and seek to deepen the cracks in our one body. Let us be careful! Because doubting each other will weaken us. Rather, we must all stand behind a comprehensive political initiative, different, serious, and subject to time and conditions, adopted by the M.T. F. the only legitimate representative, and we must prepare to restore our true unity, under the umbrella of national legitimacy. Otherwise, after the war and whatever the outcome, we will be facing each other, the disagreement and division will expand, and our land will be furnished with cracked glass that will make our feet bloody, without exception.
Those who support the killer are murderers like him, and they are the ones who incite conflict, deepen hatred, and destroy human principles and human values. They are responsible before the human conscience and before history... but, unfortunately, they believe that they are racially superior to other people, and they do not give weight to any law or Moral agreement or balance. What is strange is that they talk about values and claim the law. It is a forest, gentlemen. It is the forest of the savage white, who inherited the characteristics of the “Hundred Years” wars, the “Rose,” the “Inquisition,” the “Hiroshima bombing,” “two world wars,” and “the phenomena of fascism and Nazism.” “The extermination of one hundred million Native Americans,” “McCarthyism,” “The Crusades,” and “The colonialism that plundered the wealth of Africa and Asia..”

Crime is a mechanism that feeds itself and justifies itself... meaning that the more crime increases, the more its appetite opens up to kill, crush, erase, and destroy, and it finds pretexts on its own to justify what it does, without hesitation! The advocacy is often ready to defend this killing, without calculation or scrutiny, and it also finds those with precedents and interests to support it...so much so that they bend the neck of the sacred and positive texts, and say what they did not say! Or they invent weak justifications that they escalate to become decisive reasons.

This white racist who is biased towards Israel is a distillation of all this fascist black history, and it is an extension of that bloodiness wrapped in silk and so-called elegance.. Israel is only one of the manifestations of this barbaric, uncontrolled history. That is why it will seem “natural” for Israel to behave with such bloody sadism and arrogance. It is clear that Israel, with all this genocide, wants to maintain the image of the victim, which is why it attaches all the terms “terrorism and ISIS” to its opponents, and this is what explains its demonization of the Palestinians, and its portrayal of them as backward, barbaric, and murderous barbarians, and this is what provides them with additional reasons to kill them, too! But this forbidden blood will accumulate, and it will become a deep, turbulent lake, pulling into its depths all those who put their fingers on the trigger of extermination, all those who burned children and orphaned them, all those who supported this pagan slaughterer, all the blue-blooded people who will drown in their abhorrent racism, and all the hypocrites who will fall into Its lowest point. We tell them that this people who never raised the white flag are the same people who broke the day and destroyed the steel towers! He returned with the songs to the homes... so demolish them, because we will restore them more perfect and more beautiful. And kill... Pregnant women in Gaza alone will give birth to ten thousand babies every month. So pay attention! The matter you are asking about has been decided.

The “Six Hour War,” which was initiated by the military field command of the Hamas movement and those with it, and launched at the dawn of October 7, under the name “Al-Aqsa Flood,” comes as a Palestinian response to the shameful June 1967 war, which Israel is keen to call the “Six-Day War.” ». Its repercussions may extend to Saïs-Picot, who cut off the Levant and Greater Syria, and to the Balfour Declaration and the overall results of the First World War.
Israelis are mistaken when they believe that America (and the West with it) protects and defends them. America defends America's role and interests, its role at the head of the global system, which is reeling and on the verge of collapse these days. Israel, in this context, is nothing more than a tool, and perhaps the most important among America’s tools in this era.
I am not a historian. But everyone who reads history knows the fact that whoever dominates “the land of Palestine” (from a distance, in most of the eras, if not in all of them) dominates the world and imposes the world order. This has been the case since the beginning of recorded history, and this is the way it is until now, and for the following eras and eras as well.
The facts of recorded history prove this fact. This was the situation since the time of the Assyrians and Babylonians, and it continued in all subsequent eras, the eras of the Pharaohs, Persians, Greeks and Romans. This was the situation in the Umayyad era and the Abbasid era, and throughout the two hundred years of the Crusades.
In order not to delve deep and far into history, we content ourselves with recording that “the land of Palestine” was under Ottoman domination when this empire controlled the largest part of Europe, from Vienna to Budapest. When the Ottoman Caliphate collapsed in World War I, Britain inherited hegemony over Palestine, and the “empire on which the sun never sets” began preparing to hand over control of Palestine to the racist Zionist movement. Britain succeeded in achieving its plot, and continued to have a very influential role in global decisions, until 1956, when it committed the folly of participating in the “tripartite aggression” with France and Israel, without prior coordination with America, and the two most important results were:
- The alignment of interests between the United States (Eisenhower) and the Soviet Union (Khrushchev) and Britain’s loss of its sole role in everything “East of Suez.”
Britain’s handing over of the “keys of hegemony” over the land of Palestine to America, and Britain’s (practical and undeclared) renunciation of any independent role in its foreign policy, and its commitment to what America decides. An example of this is: the two wars on Iraq, the story of fabricating the “lie of the era” that Iraq possesses unconventional weapons, and much more.
With the transfer of control over the “land of Palestine” to America, alone, the first impression was American admiration for the Israeli military performance, and what resulted from this admiration in starting to rely on Israel as a “strategic ally” of America, signing the relevant agreements with it, and providing it with all the equipment it could absorb. And weapons, to enable it, initially, and to encourage it, later, to initiate the “Six Day War.”
The “Six Hour War” (Al-Aqsa Flood) falls into this level and historical context, which had to be narrated and recorded, to be a guide for us on how to read it and anticipate the radical change it may bring about and result from, in the entire picture of the future status of “the land of Palestine.” ».
It is important to realize that the Hamas attacks (on October 7th) did not occur in a vacuum, and that these attacks do not justify for Israel the mass killing taking place in Gaza.
Whoever said that “the land of Palestine” is “the navel of the Earth” was right, and any event in it overshadows all other events. Who has heard any news about what has happened and is happening in terms of events, developments and fighting in Ukraine, since the outbreak of the “Six Hour War” at dawn on October 7? I only heard one piece of news: that the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, asked to arrange a visit to Israel, to show solidarity with it, and the Israeli response was that the time was not appropriate to receive him. This is because everything that is happening there is large and dangerous, but it is limited to its impact on Europe: its east and west, NATO, and the Russian Federation. As for the news of Palestine and its land, the news of “the navel of the globe,” it affects the entire body of the world in its dimensions.
We move from narrating this history to the events of our days. Due to the limited space available, we limit the treatment to two topics:
First: Israel lost its nerve when Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, said at the emergency session of the Security Council: “It is important to realize that the Hamas attacks (on October 7th) did not occur in a vacuum, and that these attacks do not justify for Israel the mass killing it is witnessing.” Gaza". The resurrection of Israel stemmed from this statement. Its Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, criticized and rejected Guterres' statement, and canceled a meeting with him, which was scheduled before that statement. Israel's representative to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, outbid his minister and "demanded that the Secretary-General of the United Nations resign...immediately!"

Guterres attributed the events of October 7 to accumulations since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. This is what Israel does not accept. Our problem with the Israeli occupation and colonialism is that it wants to fragment events and developments according to its whims and moods, regardless of the objective facts and the interconnection of events between cause and effect, between action and reaction. If, whoever it is, what is happening today is linked to what came before it, as stated in Guterres’s speech, Israel will lose its nerve. By the way: Guterres’s link to the developments taking place these days is not accurate at all. The roots of these events extend from the siege of the Gaza Strip, to what came before it... to the colonization of the Gaza Strip in 1967. It extends to the “Nakba” of 1948, and the transformation of more than 75% of those currently residing in the Gaza Strip into refugees who were expelled from villages, cities, and Bedouin settlements of the “Gaza Brigade” and other Palestinian brigades. It extends to the Balfour Declaration in 1917; It leads to the establishment of the racist Zionist movement in 1896.
When these matters are put into perspective, Israel flees back 2,500 years, and uses the myths of their Torah, which makes God, Glory be to Him, and more correctly, it makes the God of their myths, a land and real estate broker, giving Abraham (and not Abraham of Hebron) “the land of Palestine.” “For him and for his descendants from his wife Sarah” only! How can we discuss those who return to the legends of the ancients?
The second topic: We learned from political science books that the state builds an army and military force to protect its interests and deter those who want to violate its borders and harm its citizens and interests. Which means that if the state resorts to using its army, it means the failure of its policy. This is proven by the reality of the actions of the Israeli occupation and colonial state. It is a continuing failure of all Israeli policies.
We have mercy on all our martyrs as a result of these continuing criminal Israeli attacks, and we feel pain with all the wounded and injured, may God help them, but we remember with joy and pride the victory of the Algerian revolution, and the liberation and independence of Algeria. This revolution came from the brotherly heroic Algerian people, one and a half million martyrs. The revolution against the hateful French colonialism lasted for about eight years, specifically: 2803 days, from its launch on 11/1/1954 until the day of its declaration of independence, which means that on each day of its glorious revolution, it sacrificed from 350 to 530 martyrs. May God have mercy on all the martyrs of our Arab nation.
If I were to end these lines on a personal note, I would say: I was in Beirut the day I received the news of my father’s death in Sakhnin, in November 1973. I was very sad.. and I said to those who were with me: My greatest consolation with my father’s death is that it took place after the Sixth War. October, and he did not die as a result of the June 1967 war.
Congratulations to every Palestinian and Arab who witnessed and followed the 7th of October.
"Arab Jerusalem"

The families of Israeli prisoners and detainees in the Gaza Strip confirmed their agreement to an all-for-all exchange deal (for the release of all Palestinian prisoners).

The families of the prisoners said in a press conference: “We agree to the all-for-all exchange deal (the release of all Palestinian prisoners)... There is a national consensus on completing a deal that stipulates the release of all detainees in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners.”

The families of the Israeli prisoners added: "We demand that the deal be completed immediately and we fear for the lives of the prisoners from the military operation and bombing of Gaza."

They continued: "The Israeli government must bear responsibility for the safety of the prisoners in Gaza."

On Saturday, the leader of the Hamas movement in Gaza, Yahya Al-Sinwar, confirmed that they are “immediately ready to conclude an exchange deal that includes the release of all prisoners in enemy prisons in exchange for the release of all prisoners held by the resistance.”

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that everything in their power will be done to release the “kidnapped citizens,” indicating that this is one of the goals of the war that Israel is waging against Gaza.

Netanyahu said during a meeting with representatives of the families of prisoners held by the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip: “We are continuing to intensify efforts, and we are seizing every opportunity to return the family to their “homeland”... This is an integral part of the objectives of the operation that we previously set.. and the work continues, "I'm not sure people understand the magnitude of it."

According to the Israeli Prime Minister, the greater the pressure on Hamas, the greater the chances of returning the prisoners to their homes. He said: “We will exercise and exhaust all possibilities to return them to their homes. The key is the degree of pressure. The greater the pressure, the greater the opportunities.”

On Saturday, Hamas announced its readiness to release all captured Israeli civilians, with the exception of military personnel whose release requires special negotiations.

On Thursday, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced that it estimated that the number of Israeli prisoners “killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israeli bombing and massacres reached approximately 50 people.”

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Sabah confirmed that the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip for the twenty-third day in a row by the Israeli army is a “war of revenge, not a defensive one,” reaffirming his country’s position of rejecting normalization with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is established.

The Kuwaiti minister said in a press conference today that today is the 23rd day of the war on the Gaza Strip, “and we are witnessing a war of revenge, not a defensive one, by the Israeli occupation forces. We are also witnessing collective punishment and war crimes.” He wondered, “How can more than three thousand children be killed and this action not be "War crime."

He stressed, "The Palestinian issue is our first issue, and there is no ambiguity. It is a constant topic over 60 years of time, and Kuwait has not deviated from this line at all," stressing his country's position of rejecting normalization with Israel, "unless an independent Palestinian state is established on the borders of June 4, 1967." In accordance with international resolutions.”

Regarding a parliamentary proposal regarding banning normalization and dealing with Israel, Sheikh Salem said that Kuwait has had a law prohibiting cooperation with Israel since 1964, and it is in effect until today, indicating that the position of the government, the council, and the Kuwaiti people, young and old, is consistent and there is no disagreement regarding the Palestinian issue.

The Kuwaiti Foreign Minister also stressed his country's categorical rejection of displacing or expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
He expressed his regret at the double standards in dealing with what is happening in Gaza by some countries, hoping that influential countries with the UN Security Council would stop the war.

Sheikh Salem Al-Sabah said that Kuwait has three demands: stopping the war immediately, bringing aid into Gaza, and a final solution to the Palestinian issue based on the establishment of a Palestinian state in accordance with international treaties on the 1967 borders. Otherwise, the cycle of violence that we see currently will be seen in the future.

For the twenty-third day, the most violent confrontation between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) continues after the Palestinian movement launched an unprecedented attack under the name “Al-Aqsa Flood” against Israel, to which the latter responded by declaring a state of war and launching a large-scale military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the name of "Iron swords."

For people far from Gaza, the past fortnight remains mostly beyond comprehension. The myth of the invincibility of the Israel Defense Forces has been one of the most enduring ever spun. To see the images of Israelis running for their life; of Kibbutzim taken over and bodies on street corners; to hear of Israeli soldiers and civilians taken as hostages; and to realize that the army was missing in action, these are a further nail in the coffin of the myths about colonial Israel, with multiplying reports on IDF responsibility for killing some of the Israeli victims.

The terrifying bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital and the murder of over 500 people sheltering there, is but the latest war crime in a an incredibly long list; Israel’s lies about this terrifying crime were soon disproved. Israel is out of control in its brutal attempt to exact retribution for the humiliating defeat that the IDF was dealt by Hamas on 7 October. 

A Palestinian mother hugs the dead body of her child at En-Neccar hospital after the Israeli airstrikes which continues on its 15th day in Rafah, Gaza on October 21, 2023. [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency]

After the atrocities committed by some of the attackers against Israeli civilians in border communities, far greater atrocities have been committed by the IDF bombing and targeting 2.3 million helpless, and half of them now homeless, Palestinian civilians in Gaza. There is a distinct feeling of a step-change, as the tanks encroach and the aircraft, artillery and drones crush Gaza into rubble. What is the game-plan, apart from mass-murder? Is there one? Many of Israel’s former military leaders are warning against this latest genocidal act, which is more than one can say for the leaders of the West queuing up to cheer Israel on in its indiscriminate, illegal murder of civilians.

The truth is, as I argue in my recent book An Army Like No Other (Verso, 2020) that the Israel Defense Forces have never won a battle clearly since 1967, and never fought against another regular army since 1973. When fighting small resistance groups, like the PLO (1982, Lebanon) Hezbollah (2006, Lebanon) or Hamas (2008/9, 2012, 2014 Gaza, and numerous other battles) the IDF’s success was rather limited, proving that a small guerrilla group numbering a few thousand fighters can delay, hamper, harm or even defeat a huge modern army equipped with the latest technology. 

Such small, highly motivated and innovative organizations know the territory, while the IDF is technology-reliant, too cumbersome to negotiate successfully small theatres of war like the Shouf Mountain range in Lebanon or Gaza City, dependent on complex supply lines, and despite the great investment in personnel, armaments, communication and logistics, clearly unprepared for fighting against armed groups; this army has been turned into a huge and brutal colonial police force, and like many before has fought unarmed men, women and children for too long. It is no longer trained to fight a war, and continuously underestimates the ability of its enemies, like it did in 1973, exactly five decades ago. The attitude of its military and political masters, combining Jewish supremacism with extreme Islamophobia, certainly does cloud judgement. Ironically, the IDF proved unable to protect Israeli Jews from attack; the so-called Jewish State is the only one in which Jewish life is in mortal danger.

Then again, Israel itself is not in great shape after almost two decades of Netanyahu’s rule. At least half the population has been opposing the government and its judicial coup, accurately describing the other half as fascists, although arguably both sides share such an identity, both being devoted to what is clearly an illegal apartheid state and to the subjugation of the Palestinians. The pilots and officers who marched against Netanyahu since January are now bombing civilians in Gaza or waiting in their armored vehicles to attack and destroy the enclave. 

So, whatever divides Israelis – the judicial coup, government corruption, the disappearance of human rights, turning Israel into a religious state – they are united in their approach to Palestine and its people: settle, subjugate, confiscate (the land) and expel; get rid of as many Palestinians as possible, whenever possible. This was clear from the first moment of the Hamas attack, when the so-called Israeli Left criticized Netanyahu for being soft on Hamas, not for the brutal occupation, settlements and cruel illegal blockade. This should not surprise anyone. After all, Israel was built on colonial violence led by a left-wing army.

Like other colonial regimes, Israel is mainly invested in separating the indigenous population from its land, and such projects are essentially militarized real estate operations, as seen in North and South America, Ireland, Nazi Germany, South Africa, Algeria and many other places. Indigenous populations have no choice; it is fight or die in most situations, clearly so in Palestine. 

Colonial projects do not define their boundaries, but, on the contrary, surpass and extend their control, avoiding clearly drawn and accepted borders. So it is with Zionism; as its population grows, Israel advances to grab more land, in the fashion and rationale described by Adolf Hitler as Lebensraum, “the territory which a group, state, or nation believes is needed for its natural development.” (OED) The national “living space” achieved by violent military means, linked to expulsion, ethnic cleansing or genocide.

Most people would assume that such violent enterprises were all abandoned after 1945 and the defeat of Nazism. The facts prove otherwise: Israel may be an untypical colonial project, which started during the early 1900s, but its ethnic cleansing stage got going in 1947, just after the UN resolved to divide Palestine, offering the Zionists 55 per cent of the country, an outrageous injustice. 

Israel, though, fought to take over 78 per cent of Palestine, expelling 750,000 Palestinians in the process, and in 1967 gained control of the whole country, expelling another 250,000 Palestinians. Since then, it has used every conceivable means to dislodge the remaining Palestinians from their land: land theft, illegal settlements, daily brutalities, mass arrests, arbitrary killings, mass expulsion of villages and towns, holding thousands of Palestinians without charge under “administrative detention”, extra-judicial executions, and a cruel apartheid state controlling the whole of Palestine and using the Palestine Authority as its indigenous police force to subjugate the Palestinians.

In Gaza, this became much worse as early as 1971, but even before 1967 Israel subdued the people of the enclave by brutal military excursions throughout the 1950s and 1960s (250 Palestinians killed by the IDF in Khan Yunis in 1956, for example). Now has come the latest phase of the Zionist project, under the most extreme right-wing, brutal and Islamophobic government Israel has ever elected.

Zionism has always been incendiary – intentionally inflaming situations and using outbursts as casus belli – and this looks to have been the case on 7 October. We have heard from various corners, especially the Egyptian security services, that urgent, numerous and specific warnings were delivered to the Israeli intelligence services about Hamas intentions, but all were ignored. Netanyahu is under fire from leftist circles for this, but it is unlikely to have been an error of judgement, like in 1973. More and more voices are sharing a more sinister but likely narrative, that Netanyahu chose to ignore the warnings because he welcomed a surprise attack which could be used as casus belli for taking over the whole Gaza Strip.

The truth may be discovered after the war, as this is a live wire for many of his political opponents in Israel, but in the meantime, the Nakba 2.0 genocidal bandwagon is in full swing, with US and UK navy strike groups sent to support Israel and its increasing number of war crimes. Of the more than half a million refugees who moved to the south of the enclave under pain of death, how many will ever see their homes in Gaza City again? It is rather likely that those who survive will never be allowed back but will be pushed further south into the Sinai desert. 

This plan has been discussed openly even before January this year, and is now referenced daily by the Israeli government; there they are, without food, water, fuel, medicines, as so many Jews were during the Holocaust, and they are likely to die from bombing, starvation, illness and epidemics in the largest ever refugee camp. If Israel succeeds in this genocidal enterprise, the West Bank is likely to follow, with the extreme neo-Nazi settlers just waiting in the wings to go on a murderous rampage. As opposed to the Holocaust, this is done in the full view of everyone on earth, with the West cheering Israel forward, as Western media aids and enables the atrocities.

Western reactions are themselves a war crime – US President Joe Biden and his western colleagues are braying for Palestinian blood by cheering on Israel’s attack and invasion of Gaza, by referring to “Israel’s right to defend itself”, as if this mighty militarized power, with total support from NATO and the West, is some tiny enclave suffering a sudden and unprovoked attack by a superior military power for no apparent reason. Such dishonest narrative inversions have been used numerous times before, but never so flagrantly.

There has been much talk in the past two decades about the non-existent “Judeo-Christian civilization” or “tradition”. 

The only such relationship which is evident historically is that of anti-Semitism, historical Christian racism and hatred towards Jews. But now we are witnessing the rise of a real Judeo-Christian alliance, that of Islamophobia, focused on Palestine and the Muslim world, long being fingered for Islamic extremism and harboring terrorists. In the UK, the leaders of such Islamophobic partnership are very evident, from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, sending the Royal Navy to protect Israel, to Labour leader Kier Starmer, who forbade his MPs to partake in pro-Palestine action: they face the sack if they participate in demonstrations, the largest of which to-date was held in London last Saturday, when more than 350,000 people marched for an end to the slaughter in Gaza.

Sunak and Starmer were joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has rejected the description of Israel as an apartheid state, despite the leading Israeli and international human rights organizations saying that the state has passed the legal threshold for such a label to be appropriate, including B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Such deluded politicians and public figures are likely to legislate against any further demonstrations for Palestine and peace, as Germany and France have done already.

Thus, as these lines are typed, in the cold light of day, and covered by all world news networks, we are watching this massive operation of genocidal ethnic cleansing roll forward, with no political leader in the west calling for a ceasefire, let alone for stopping the carnage altogether. Most of my own family was murdered in the Nazi Death Camps in Poland, mainly in Auschwitz and Treblinka, without anyone doing much to stop it. But then, it was all done in great secrecy and where no one could intervene. 

This current exercise of genocide is public and includes all of us as hypnotized by-standers, unwilling and distressed witnesses to the criminality of the West and its stranglehold over international politics. I wish I could believe in future justice, and the prosecution of this line-up of war criminals, from Netanyahu to his Western partners, but how likely is that? Blair and Bush have never faced justice for their crimes in Iraq twenty years ago, have they? The heart cries in agony and despair over such cruelty and indifference of the so-called political leaders of humanity, as we can but stand by and watch helplessly.

Source: Middle East Monitor

Israeli Professor Haim Bresheeth-Zabner is a founder member of Jewish Network for Palestine (UK)

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, on Sunday accused Israel of committing a “moral and legal violation” in the war in the Gaza Strip, stressing that the court works to implement international law and investigate all crimes in Gaza or Israel.

Khan said in a press conference held in Cairo after his visit to the Rafah border crossing from the Egyptian side, "I was not able to enter the Gaza Strip, but we saw, as everyone saw on television, the tragedies that innocent civilians were exposed to."

He added, "Children in the Gaza Strip, who were supposed to play and have fun with their friends and go to their schools to learn and hope for a better future, are going through unimaginable experiences, and no one can imagine the pain and terror. Many of them were killed and injured."

He considered that "it is horrifying to see the corpses and bodies of young children filled with dirt, and we stand silent and emotionless over these dead."

He continued, saying, "We cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering that innocent people are experiencing. The law must be applied to provide protection for all people and not for a specific group."

He stressed that any violation of civilian rights or attacks on safe places such as mosques, churches and hospitals will be condemned under international law as they are legally protected places.

He believed that Israel was committing a moral and legal violation in its war in the Gaza Strip, stressing that Israel must realize that any attack that affects civilians must be responded to within the framework of the law.

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court explained, “We are working to implement international law, investigate all crimes, and obtain evidence regarding the war in the Gaza Strip or those committed in Israel on October 7,” referring to the Hamas attack.

He appealed to the citizens of the world to send all information that might be useful in investigations into the war in the Gaza Strip.

Khan said that for more than two years, he and his team have been working on the Palestinian issue and trying to reach solutions as much as possible, pointing out that "the investigation into the situation in Palestine is very important to us, and the situation in the Palestinian territories cannot be overlooked."

For the twenty-third day, the most violent confrontation between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) continues after the Palestinian movement launched an unprecedented attack under the name “Al-Aqsa Flood” against Israel, to which the latter responded by declaring a state of war and launching a large-scale military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the name of "Iron Swords", which has so far claimed the lives of 1,400 Israelis and more than 8,000 Palestinians.

Eight incidents of violence against Palestinians are recorded every day, including intimidation, theft, and assault, according to the British newspaper “Daily Mail” and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), while the actual volume of daily attacks on Palestinians is much higher...

On October 12, 200 Bedouins in Khirbet Wadi al-Siq, east of the city of Ramallah, left their lands and took refuge in the nearby village of Taybeh after the Israeli army gave them one hour to leave.

Bedouin shepherds left their homes, walking with their livestock, after dozens of settlers, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, arrived in the village. Representatives of Khirbet say that the army did not respond to several requests to postpone the evacuation.

Abu Bashar, who took refuge with dozens of families in Taybeh in the middle of the West Bank, confirms, “We are paying the price for what is happening in their country,” in reference to the war that has been ongoing since October 7 between Israel and Hamas.

The Hamas movement launched a surprise land, air and sea attack on Israeli towns on the border with the Gaza Strip, killing 1,400 people on the first day of the attack, according to the authorities, who reported that Hamas fighters also detained about 230 prisoners. Israel responded with intense bombing of Gaza, and he was martyred since At that time, more than eight thousand people were in the Gaza Strip, half of whom were children, according to the latest toll announced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

The West Bank is also witnessing an escalation in violence, as more than 100 people were martyred in confrontations between Palestinian youths and the occupation army, and more than 490,000 settlers live in the West Bank in settlements considered illegal under international law.  

Eight incidents of violence against Palestinians are recorded every day, including intimidation, theft and assault, according to the British newspaper “Daily Mail” and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), while the actual volume of daily attacks on Palestinians is much higher than that.

As for Alia Mlihat, who lives in the Bedouin village of Al-Ma’rajat between Ramallah and Jericho, she confirms, “We no longer sleep. This is a nightmare.” Mlihat fears for the residents of her village of displacement. She says, “Since the beginning of the war, we have begun to see settlers carrying more weapons (...) It is very difficult.” ".

She added, “We ask ourselves what will happen (...) We are experiencing a second Nakba because of the settlers and the army.” Mlihat comes from the Negev desert, from which they were displaced or left in 1948 for the West Bank.

In the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, 7,607 people have been displaced since the start of the current war, more than half of whom are children, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. About 1,100 people have also been displaced from their lands during the past year and a half.

As for Abu Bashar, who only wants to return to his home, “I have no other place to go (...) All our things are there, the mortar that we buy in large quantities, the tractors, and the solar panels.” A week after their displacement, the army allowed the residents to return to collect their belongings, but when When they arrived, they found everything destroyed.

Abu Bashar says, “They destroyed everything...bags of animal feed were thrown on the ground.”

Agence France-Presse monitored looted homes, empty wardrobes, broken cots, torn curtains, papers, shoes and toys scattered on the ground. The AFP crew noted the presence of civilian cars in and around Khirbet, with the Israeli flag raised on a number of them.

Abu Bashar asserts that all he wants is for them to let him live in peace, as he can no longer bear it. He adds, "There is a long-term plan to expel us and seize our land. They took this opportunity to do so while everyone was watching what was happening in Gaza."

Israeli human rights activist Guy Hirschfeld explained to AFP that settlers have been intensifying their efforts to expel Palestinians from their lands since the beginning of the war.

He added, "The settlers are exploiting the war to end the cleansing of Area C of non-Jews," referring to the lands classified as "C" or "C" according to the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as these lands constitute 61% of the territory of the West Bank.

Hirschfeld points out that an area of 150 square kilometers in the West Bank has already been emptied of population, and he adds, “Here they cleared 150,000 dunams of non-Jews,” considering this “ethnic cleansing of this area.”

The settlers enjoy strong support from the far-right government coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The head of the West Bank Protection Coalition, Allegra Pacheco, says that the occupation army, which is deployed in large numbers in the West Bank, “does not always interfere in settler violence.” The head of the coalition, which is a group of non-governmental organizations that coordinate humanitarian aid, adds that “the presence of settlers usually leads to an escalation of violence.” .

The occupation forces had demolished a commercial store in Jerusalem under the pretext of not having a license in the town of Sur Baher, south of Jerusalem, in addition to a house in the town of Jabal al-Mukabber. They also demolished a house in Sheikh Jarrah.

As part of these increasing violations, the occupation forces forced a Palestinian citizen to demolish his house in the town of Beit Hanina under the pretext of not having a permit, and settlers also attacked the residents of the Al-Sawwaneh neighborhood.

In Hebron, the occupation authorities were notified by a military order to seize and seize more than two dunums of land in the town of Surif. They also bulldozed lands and uprooted more than 25 trees. A settler accompanied by the occupation army fired live bullets at citizens, and a number of citizens were injured after The settlers attacked them in Masafer Yatta, in addition to dozens of other attacks in various places in the West Bank, according to the weekly settlement report issued by the National Office for Land Defense and Settlement Resistance.

Source: Arab48

American veto. A Russian "veto"... and the number of victims in Gaza rises by hundreds after hundreds of children and women. Everything goes out of service: communications and the Internet, after water, electricity, medicine and fuel. The UN Security Council is ineffective, and the UN General Assembly’s resolutions are non-binding. Why this and that “veto”: The American suggests, evasively, a ceasefire for short, intermittent periods. The Russian is manoeuvringly requesting a broader ceasefire. Both of them know in advance that Israel does not accept either formula, under the pretext that the truce benefits Hamas, and does not care if it benefits Gazan civilians. It launches air and missile attacks on them, without distinguishing between them and the fighters, and aims to get rid of them all, deploring that this be called genocide or War crimes prohibited by international law that you have never recognized.

No "humanitarian truce" then, but rather waiting for a ground attack. This is what the Western countries decided, because the Israeli-American duo ruled out a “truce,” and thus excluded “humanity.” So the Europeans started playing with words, as they wanted to “deliver aid” to please some of their communities, but they did not agree to a ceasefire in line with the policies they aligned themselves with. Between interests and condoning crime, they chose to remain silent about successive massacres. The three weeks were not a time for consciences, nor for rules and customs, but for killing, destruction, displacement, and deprivation of the necessities of life in implementation of collective punishment for those who refuse to submit to the occupation. If this is not total destruction, what is it? Diplomats at the United Nations suddenly discovered that they no longer knew their Western colleagues who had been turned upside down, as if history began for them and stopped on “October 7.” Convincing them of the simplest legal rules became impossible, and they began to end every discussion by saying, “Let us let the Israelis take revenge, and then we talk".

This is not a double standard, but a single standard, and without any rational, moral, or even political standards, as if excluding Israel from international law is the rule and not the other way around, or as if the occupation of Palestinian land and the persecution, killing, abuse, and uprooting of its people are the only evidence that there is something in this world. Its name is “international legitimacy” that exists and is achieved. When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it was keen to separate it from the West Bank and keep it besieged and exist only on the map of UNRWA and other UN organizations. It is now separating it from the world to devote itself to the great massacre under the cover of darkness and in isolation from any witnesses. 

Israel and the United States decided after that that the Arabs were not concerned with the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, or the issue they described as “central,” nor even with the feelings of their societies or the facts of history and geography, but rather with the only available “game,” which is “normalization” with Israel. 

Governments have become false witnesses in the face of atrocities, fabrication and fraud to undermine any peace settlement and perpetuate the Israeli occupation, and in the face of the madness of hatred, fanaticism and racism that has emerged from the practices of the Israeli extreme right and its settlers, as if the Arabs had rejected the agendas of political Islam and terrorism represented by its “Al-Qaeda”, “ISIS” and Iranian branches in order to welcome the agendas of Ben Gvir, Smotrich and others, or to be tools in protecting Benjamin Netanyahu from prosecution on corruption charges.

Israel acts in disregard of any regard for the Arabs, as if it took a license from them to “eliminate Hamas,” just like the American and Western support it received. But Gaza and the people of Gaza are not abbreviated as “Hamas” in the Arab world. It is true that most Arab countries do not approve of the methods of operation of this movement and are not reassured by its close connection with Iran. However, the Arab position rejects the excessive brutal violence in Israel’s response to the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation. 

In view of the Israeli violations in the West Bank, the pressure to displace Gazans to Sinai, and the escalation of talk about Jordan as an “alternative homeland” for the Palestinians of the West Bank, the Arab position may change radically towards Israel, because it has begun to display hostility and intentions to destabilize neighboring countries, including those that signed Peace agreements with it.

Israel did not respond to calls from major Arab countries for a ceasefire and to bring the necessary aid into Gaza, and even Washington did not have the courage or wisdom to give the humanitarian side any chance. This reveals the extent to which the historical distance has returned between the Americans and the Israelis, on the one hand, and the Arabs, on the other hand, over the “central issue,” in the interest of advancing Arab rapprochement with China and Russia. Most importantly, it reveals how Arab visions of “peace” as a future option were met with ingratitude and deception. Because the Arabs will not, and cannot, return to the option of war, the Americans and Israelis do not consider themselves obliged to do justice to the Palestinians, neither with the “two-state solution” nor with anything else. Although the US President and members of his administration reiterate their adherence to this “solution,” the policy they are implementing has shown that they are feeding an “illusion” while leaving Netanyahu and the group of extremists in his government in charge of the Palestinian fate. This cannot create a stable future in the region.

In the face of the strategic dilemma that Hamas poses for them in Gaza, America and Israel will have no choice but to try concluding a deal/settlement with Iran, the party that recently demonstrated that it was able not only to seize control of the Palestinian issue and bring it back to the forefront through Hamas, but also to form a threat to Israel and returning the regional conflict to the cycle of wars, with its willingness to reach an understanding if its interests are met. 

The American President had warned Israel of “emotional” mistakes committed by America - militarily - in its wars on terrorism after the events of September 11, 2001, and it would have been more appropriate for him to consider what finally happened on October 7, 2023, as a result of Israeli policy errors and political mistakes. A catastrophe committed by successive American administrations, and it was even more dangerous during the era of Barack Obama, who lent Iran regional gains and did not receive any return from them, neither for America nor for its allies and friends in the region.

Unlike the United States, which became a direct partner in the Gaza war, including its condonement of crimes against defenseless civilians, Iran distanced itself from any responsibility, and Western countries helped it in this to maintain a negotiating line that seems necessary now, whether for the release of foreign detainees held by Hamas. Or later to settle the war in light of the situation that Hamas will be in after its fighting and the blows it will be exposed to. 

Therefore, Washington was forced to amend a draft resolution that it submitted to the Security Council, deleting the demand that Iran stop arming its militias and even the clause requesting recognition of “Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism.”

Source: Annahar