At dawn on Monday, the Israeli occupation forces arrested 4 citizens in Qalqilya and Ramallah.

In Qalqilya, the occupation forces stormed the house of citizen Ziad Daoud in the Jaidi neighborhood of the city and arrested Donia Daoud, the mother of the young man Tariq Daoud, to pressure her son to surrender himself.

The occupation forces raided the Al-Naqar neighborhood, a commercial store near Abu Ali Iyad Square, and a residential building near Fattouh Sweets in the center of Qalqilya, and set up ambushes and checkpoints in its vicinity.

In Ramallah, the occupation forces arrested: Amr Saleh Abd Hamed (20 years old) and Moataz Ali Hajar, after raiding their homes in the town of Silwad, and arrested the young man Muhammad Abdel Aziz Thabet Hamayel (20 years old) from the village of Kafr Malek, east of Ramallah, after... Raiding and searching his family’s home.

A number of citizens were killed and injured as a result of the occupation aircraft continuing to bomb various areas in the Gaza Strip for the 255th day in a row.

Here are the latest developments: The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the death toll in the Gaza Strip had risen to 37,347, since the start of the Israeli occupation aggression on the 7th of last October.

It added that the number of wounded rose to 85,372, the majority of whom were children and women.

It indicated that the occupation committed two massacres that led to the death of 10 citizens and the injury of 73 others during the past 24 hours.

They were killed and at least 13 others, including women and children, were injured as a result of Israeli raids on a house in the Zarqa neighborhood, north of Gaza City.

In addition, local sources reported that Quadcopter drones fired towards agricultural lands in the Al-Hakar area in Deir Al-Balah, while sounds of violent explosions were heard in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, coinciding with the flight of Israeli warplanes in the area.

Earlier today, health sources in the Gaza Strip reported that 3 citizens, including a woman, were killed and others were seriously injured as a result of the occupation bombing of a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City.

Last night, the Civil Defense in Gaza reported that its crews recovered two martyrs from the Bir Canada area in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, west of Rafah, following the occupation’s bombing of the area. The occupation warplanes also targeted a house in the vicinity of the Emirati field hospital in central Rafah.

The Israeli occupation forces have continued their aggression against the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since October 7, 2023, resulting in the death of more than 37,337 citizens and the injury of 85,299 others, an infinite toll, as thousands of victims are still under the rubble.

Palestinian American writer Ramzi Baroud believes that Western capitals’ support for Gaza has a profound and dangerous impact on the United States’ leadership of the West and the international system.

In a report on the American “Counterpunch” website, Baroud recounted the incidents of support for Gaza from some Western countries and other countries of the world, in violation of Washington’s wishes. This includes Spain joining South Africa in the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide, as well as Spain, Ireland and Norway’s recognition of the State of Palestine.

He described these facts as a departure from long-established Western policy led by the United States.

Threatening international bodies

He added that Washington has supported Israel for many decades, whether a Republican or Democratic president is at the helm of American power, and has been so biased towards Israel that it recently did everything in its power to support the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, by providing Israel with the weapons necessary to carry out its crimes, and threatening the legal and political bodies. The international community that tried to hold Israel accountable for its crimes.

He stated that this reality imposed a political dilemma for Europe, which often blindly followed the steps of the United States - or its wrong steps - in the Middle East, a rule that has continued since the end of World War II, and which witnessed a few historical exceptions, such as the challenge of former French President Jacques Chirac imposed the consensus imposed by the United States when he strongly rejected Washington's policies in Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 war, but these rifts were eventually repaired, as the United States returned to its role as the undisputed leader of the West.

Crossing the moral line

Baroud stated that Gaza has become a major breaking point for Western unity, as the West was divided over support for Israel immediately after the events of October 7, and the United States, and to some extent Germany, continued to commit to supporting the Israeli war, while many European countries expressed strong positions. Recently, Israel has been accused of genocide and has united with countries of the Global South with the aim of holding Israel accountable, which is a major shift that we have not seen in many years, which means that the scale of Israeli crimes in Gaza has exceeded the moral limit that some European countries can tolerate.

The legitimacy of the international system

The writer explained that the important matter lies in the issue of the legitimacy of the international system and the future of the West, as Western leaders do not hesitate to formulate their language in this way. In a recent article, former Irish President Mary Robinson spoke on behalf of the “Group of the Elders” and warned of the “collapse of the international order.” She said, “We oppose any attempts to delegitimize” the work of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, through “threats to take... Punitive measures and sanctions.

The writer added that signals about the collapse of the legitimacy of the international order established by the West have been issued by many other parties in recent months, including the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan.

The writer explained that Washington succeeded, for a long period at least in the eyes of its allies, in maintaining a balance between the collective interests of the West and formal respect for international institutions.

The writer concluded his report by noting that it is now clear that Washington is no longer able to maintain this balance, which has forced some Western countries to adopt independent political positions, the future results of which will be influential.

Source: American press+ Al Jazeera

Former Israeli Minister of Justice, Gideon Sa'ar, who today serves as a member of the Knesset and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, revealed, according to what was reported by the Hebrew newspaper (Haaretz), the existence of an Iranian plan aimed at eliminating Israel, after dragging the entity into a war of attrition that weakens it. Through Hezbollah, the Ansar Allah group in Yemen, and what he called the Shiite militias in Iraq, according to Sa’ar, who resigned from the current government, where he was a minister without a portfolio.

 Moreover, the newspaper stressed that the former Minister of Defense and head of the Yisrael Beytenu party, Avigdor Lieberman, said in closed sessions that Iran is preparing for a new Holocaust within two to three years, he said, noting that Lieberman is a member of the Knesset subcommittee. The Israeli Committee for Intelligence and Security Services Affairs, which is the most secret committee in the occupying state.

 In the context of its report, the newspaper pointed out that Sa’ar and Lieberman warned against the Iranian plan to destroy Israel and remove it from the map, because, apparently, they were asked to warn against this plan, adding that the two have very close relations with the highest officials in the Israeli security system, According to the newspaper.

 According to the newspaper, the third man who has begun to warn of the Iranian plan is former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who even his most staunch political opponents acknowledge is the number one military man in the history of the entity. He also previously held the position of Commander-in-Chief of the occupation army and was Minister of Security.

 Barak, told Yossi Warter, political correspondent for the Hebrew newspaper, that the Islamic Republic of Iran will launch an attack to exhaust Israel within less than half a year to a year, from all fronts and with the participation of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iraqi militias. In addition, Barak stressed the possibility of The outbreak of a third intifada, and in the course of his speech, Barak stressed that the war of attrition aims to collapse and fall Israel, and then eliminate it and erase it from the map, according to Barak’s statements.

The Israeli Minister of Security previously explained that what happened on the seventh of last October did not bring destruction to Israel, but rather blatant damage to the morale of the Israelis. However, the Hamas attack, the most dangerous in the history of Israel, caused very disastrous results, and what we are dealing with is Today, he is in danger of disappearing, because the threat has become existential, as he put it.

 The former Israeli Prime Minister also stressed that Iran has become a country on the threshold of a nuclear weapon, and its direct attack against the entity last April, via missiles and drones, broke its psychological barrier, and based on that, Tehran is working to remove General Qassem’s plan. Soleimani, which calls for Israel to be surrounded by enemies from all sides, with the aim of destroying the Hebrew state, as he said.

Barak, who is the most decorated soldier in the entity, pointed out that unifying the fronts against Israel and exhausting it will continue until it is subjugated and eliminated, adding that the current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is not able to face this dangerous challenge, because he has become isolated from reality, and there are no A way to fix it, he says.

Barak added: “Israel is living in a rolling and developing crisis, the end of which is still far away. It is the most dangerous and severe crisis it has witnessed since its beginning. The crisis began on October 7th, through the most horrific failure in the state’s history, and it continues with the war that is turning out to be the most failed in our history, as a result of strategic paralysis at the top of the pyramid. Victory is not a stone’s throw away. Until we reach that point, our prisoners will return in shrouds, or their fate will be like the fate of Ron Arad, the Israeli pilot whose traces disappeared in Lebanon in 1986 and the Hebrew state knew nothing about him.

He concluded by saying: “Given these facts, abandoning the hostages again means destroying the moral base of society and the state, and the phrase ‘consolidated victory’ is nothing but a slogan empty of content, from the beginning,” according to his statements.

 It is worth noting that Barak, who is over eighty years old, has retired from political life, and has no intention of running for any position, also due to his advanced generation.

9 Palestinians, including 6 children, were killed and others were injured on Sunday, the first day of Eid al-Adha, as a result of an Israeli bombing of a house in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian medical source said: “9 killed, including 6 children, arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah (center), as a result of the occupation aircraft bombing a house in the Bureij camp.”

Earlier, eyewitnesses reported to Anadolu’s correspondent that medical teams recovered a number of dead and wounded (without specifying their number), including an infant, as a result of an Israeli plane bombing a house in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Witnesses explained that the bombing destroyed the house and caused damage to neighboring houses.

They also indicated that medical teams and civil defense are working to search for more victims and those injured as a result of the Israeli attack.

This year, Eid falls while Israel has continued, since October 7, to wage war on the Gaza Strip. It left more than 122,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, placed Tel Aviv in international isolation, and led to prosecution before the International Court of Justice.

Israel continues its war on the Gaza Strip despite two UN Security Council resolutions to stop it immediately, and orders from the International Court of Justice to end the invasion of Rafah, take measures to prevent acts of “genocide,” and improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday attacked the military leadership of the Israeli army after it announced a “tactical truce” in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, “without coordination with him,” he said. He stressed that this truce was “unacceptable,” and that he “heard about it through the media.”

Netanyahu added that “Israel is a state that has an army, not an army that has a state,” and stressed that “there are those who want to change the goals of the war (on the Gaza Strip), similar to the two resigned ministers,” referring to Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, who resigned from the emergency government last week, considering They "want defeatist decisions."

Without coordination

Israeli Channel 12 quoted Netanyahu as saying today during the weekly government session that he often "made decisions to undermine the capabilities" of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), "but they were not always acceptable at the military level."

Earlier on Sunday morning, Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee announced, through his account on the Shalom (Kerem Shalom) to Salah El-Din Street and its north.”

Netanyahu said that the political leadership in Israel was not informed of the statement published by Adraee, nor was it coordinated with them regarding it. He announced the opening of "an investigation into how such a statement came out without coordination with the political level."

However, Netanyahu said that there are indeed “short truce periods on short axes” to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza, “but not in the manner announced by the army spokesman.”

Army explanatory statement

At the same time, Israeli Army Radio said that Defense Minister Yoav Galant did not know in advance of any tactical truce in the southern Gaza Strip, and added that the army was forced to issue an explanatory statement in which it indicated that there was no tactical cessation of military operations in the southern Gaza Strip.

In response to Adraee’s statement: The army said in a statement on its account on the To transport humanitarian aid only."

While Netanyahu asked his military secretary to inquire about the army’s statement, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that the decision had not been presented to the Ministerial Council, and described it as a “foolish and evil decision,” and stressed that whoever issued it should be dismissed.

Haaretz newspaper quoted a source in the Israeli army who denied the claim that the decision to declare a tactical truce was taken without the knowledge of the political leadership. The source confirmed that it was Netanyahu who instructed the leaders of the security services to increase aid to Gaza, on the eve of an upcoming debate in the International Court of Justice, which will consider the case against Israel.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies

On Sunday, the highest judicial body in Israel ordered an immediate freeze of the State Comptroller’s investigations into the failure of the Israeli army and the Shin Bet intelligence service in relation to the events of last October 7, according to Hebrew media.

The private Hebrew newspaper Maariv said that the freeze will be in effect until the hearing, which will be held next July.

The court justified its decision by “the complex security reality, and giving great weight to the confidential opinions of security officials,” according to the same source.

The Israeli occupation army announced on Sunday that a new soldier in its ranks was killed in battles in the southern Gaza Strip.

In the same statement, the occupation army announced the name of the eighth victim who fell in an armored ambush in the Tal al-Sultan camp in the city of Rafah, on Saturday, in which 8 soldiers and officers were killed.

Israeli Security Minister Yoav Galant acknowledged on Sunday that Tel Aviv paid “extremely high prices” during its battles in Gaza, against the backdrop of the announcement of the killing of 11 soldiers, 8 of whom were in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.

This came in a speech when he visited the forces deployed on the Gaza Strip border near Rafah, according to a statement by the media office of the Israeli Ministry of Security.

Gallant said: "Here on the border in Rafah, I came to closely examine the difficult events that occurred yesterday, in which we lost 11 fighters, 8 of whom were here in this sector in the Rafah area."

UN human rights experts have strongly condemned the massacre committed by Israeli forces in Gaza during a hostage rescue operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp, which resulted in the killing of at least 274 Palestinians, including 64 children and 57 women, and the injury of nearly 700 others.

On June 8, Israeli occupation forces, with the help of foreign soldiers, entered Nuseirat disguised as displaced persons and relief workers in a humanitarian truck. These forces violently raided the region and attacked the residents with intense ground and air attacks that spread terror, death and despair.

According to survivors, the streets of Nuseirat were filled with the bodies of the dead and wounded, including children and women, lying in pools of blood. Experts said that the walls were covered with human remains scattered due to multiple explosions and bombed houses.

They said that with the health sector in Gaza destroyed, the wounded who were taken to hospitals were forced to wait for medical treatment on the floors.

According to the United Nations, the experts said: “While we are relieved by the safe return of the four Israeli hostages held by Palestinian armed groups eight months ago, the Israeli attack on the Nuseirat camp is abhorrent in its excessive violence and devastating impact.”

They particularly condemned the Israeli forces for their treacherous disappearance of a humanitarian aid truck coming from the US-built dock, which was intended to facilitate humanitarian aid. The experts said: “Wearing civilian clothes to conduct a military operation constitutes treachery, which is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and amounts to a war crime.”

They added, "These methods expose relief workers and the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid to greater danger and reveal an unprecedented level of brutality in Israeli military actions."

The World Food Program has already announced it will stop operations from the pier due to "security concerns."

The experts said, "The significantly high death toll among Palestinians affected by the rescue operation confirms Israel's blatant disregard for Palestinian lives." “Under international law, all civilian lives must be equally valued and protected, and no life is worth more than another.”

Experts noted that Israel had the opportunity to free the hostages without further bloodshed eight months ago, when the first ceasefire agreement was presented. Instead, Israel has systematically rejected ceasefire proposals, preferring to continue its assault on Gaza, which has even led to the deaths of Israeli hostages. And all the while, Israel claimed it was engaging in military operations to rescue them. “Using the pretext of seeking to rescue hostages to justify excessive use of force exposes Israel’s criminal actions, including through humanitarian camouflage, and tells us they have reached a whole new level,” the experts said.

“The military operation in Nuseirat stands out as one of the most heinous acts in the devastating Israeli offensive against the Palestinian people since October 7, which has led to the killing of more than 36,000 Palestinians, the injury of more than 80,000, and the displacement and starvation of two million people in Gaza, while the violence against... The Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem also continue unabated.

The experts pointed out that UN Security Council Resolution No. 2735 is a way out of this horror, and reiterated their call for an arms embargo against Israel to end violence against Palestinians by Israeli forces and settlers.

They said: “Although it is already late, we hope that this resolution will pave the way for lasting peace for the Palestinian people and freedom for hostages held by Palestinian armed groups and for thousands of Palestinian hostages arbitrarily held by Israel.”

Medical sources announced on Sunday that the death toll from the occupation aggression against the Gaza Strip had risen to 37,337 citizens and 85,299 injured, the majority of whom were children and women, since October 7.

The same sources added that the occupation committed 3 massacres that led to the death of 41 citizens and the injury of 102 others during the past 24 hours, pointing out that thousands of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads and ambulance crews cannot reach them.

The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed on Sunday that the movement’s response to the ceasefire proposal is consistent with the foundations of US President Joe Biden’s speech and the UN Security Council’s resolution regarding the Gaza Strip.

This came in a speech by Haniyeh on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, which fell today, days after official American accusations against Hamas of moving away from the proposal presented by Biden at the end of last May.

On June 10, the Council adopted a draft American resolution calling for a ceasefire, and Hamas welcomed it at the time and said it would deal with it positively.

Last Tuesday, the Palestinian resistance factions handed over to the mediators the response to the three-stage Israeli proposal presented by Biden.

Thousands of Israelis demonstrated on Saturday in several areas to demand a prisoner exchange deal with Palestinian factions, early elections, or the dismissal of the government.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that thousands of Israelis in several areas, including Tel Aviv and Netanya (central), Haifa and Karkur Junction (north), demonstrated to demand the conclusion of an exchange deal for the release of all prisoners detained in Gaza.

The newspaper noted that "the demonstrators demanded early elections or the dismissal of the government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu."

The pace of demonstrations is expected to increase in the coming hours.

In this context, on Saturday, hundreds of Israeli demonstrators closed the “Amaad” intersection near the city of Safed (north), in protest against the government’s policies, which they accused of ignoring the residents of the northern regions in light of the exchange of bombings with the Lebanese “Hezbollah” since October 8, 2023.

The official Hebrew Broadcasting Authority said that hundreds of Israeli demonstrators closed the "Amiad" intersection near the city of Safed, chanted against the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, and accused it of ignoring the residents of the northern regions.

According to the commission, the demonstrators accused the government of letting "the north burn."

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the families of Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip demanded an end to the war as part of an exchange deal with the Palestinian factions that would return all of their children.

The families of the prisoners said in a press statement in front of the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Tel Aviv, broadcast by the official Broadcasting Authority: “We demand a commitment to ending the war within a deal that brings everyone back.”

The prisoners' families said: "The continuation of the war leads to loss of life among detainees and soldiers."

They continued: "Our children were indeed killed and abandoned by an irresponsible government, but there are detainees alive who can be saved."

The families of the prisoners called on the Israelis to participate in the demonstrations expected to be organized on Saturday evening in several cities, to pressure the government to conclude an exchange deal.

The American newspaper, The Washington Post, shed light on President Joe Biden’s options after the Hamas movement’s response to the recent proposal regarding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and a prisoner exchange deal.

The newspaper said in an article written by Jason Wellick entitled: “After Hamas’s recent reservations about the ceasefire, there are two options before Biden,” saying, “Biden must refrain from plugging the gaps during the negotiations and forcing Israel or Hamas to submit to the American will.”

It continued by saying: “Hamas’ recent reservations about Biden’s proposal for a truce and the prisoner agreement supported by the United States should not be a surprise to everyone,” considering that “Sinwar knows that stopping the fighting will not prevent Israel from resuming its efforts to eliminate Hamas after the prisoner exchange deal.”

It added, "Even if Sinwar obtains asylum in another country, the Israeli intelligence services are able to pursue him, and at the present time, Hamas does not have much incentive to withdraw from the scene."

The writer confirms that what is surprising is that the Biden administration has made diligent efforts in formulating a diplomacy that is doomed to failure, and that so far it seems committed to the same path, which prompted US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, to ask during a press conference whether Hamas was “in good faith.” But at the same time, he said that he was “determined to try to bridge the gaps” in the negotiations.

The writer points out that “Israel has a political and strategic need to eliminate Hamas as a fighting force in Gaza, and Hamas also has an existential need to survive so that it can continue fighting later.” The writer believes that the Biden administration has been working for months on the assumption that this can be overcome. "The contradiction was accompanied by complex diplomacy, and the result was an expected failure to reach a truce."

The writer adds, "It is time for Biden to stop closing gaps and using his power to force one side or another to submit to the American will. This means either providing full support for the Israeli military goal of eliminating Hamas, or explicitly demanding an end to the war that leaves Hamas in power." .

The writer asserts that "the first option would be the natural one, as Biden could announce that his administration spent months working with Israel to reach generous ceasefire offers, and that he was hoping for good faith on the part of the Hamas leadership, which would justify him announcing that Israel has... With full American support for its military goal of destroying Hamas’ military capabilities, eliminating its leaders, and completely disarming the Gaza Strip, whatever the cost.”

The second option, according to the writer’s opinion, is “an attempt to impose a permanent ceasefire on Israel with Hamas remaining as the ruling force in Gaza, which justifies Biden declaring that this war lasted for a very long period and caused the death of a very large number of innocent people, and Hamas rejected the agreement.” Stopping the fighting, because it believes that Israel will resume the war after it stops, so Hamas can be pledged not to allow Israel to resume the war, and if it does so, it will cut off its military supplies and diplomatic support.

Writer Jason Wellick concludes his article by noting that either of these two options, namely “resorting to completely eliminating Hamas or forcing Israel to accept the continued power of Hamas, will be politically difficult for Biden, as the first would increase the anger of his vocal critics on the anti-Israel left.” The second would lead to a more severe bipartisan backlash compared to what happened when he threatened to cut off the supply of weapons to Israel if it entered Rafah. It is time for Biden to make a choice and defend it politically: Israel’s terms, or Sinwar’s terms.

Adam Miyashiro & Nozomi Nakaganeku-Saito

The shared experience of settler-colonial dispossession and western military aggression helps explain why Okinawans see themselves in Palestinians

In the past two weeks alone, Israel has perpetrated three massacres in Gaza that managed to shock the world and trigger widespread condemnation.

Flooding social media were scenes that the head of Unrwa called "hell on earth" and Doctors Without Borders described as "apocalyptic".

A raging inferno engulfing a camp for displaced Palestinians, a headless child, dismembered limbs, and scores of maimed and burnt bodies appeared against a soundtrack of explosions and the piercing screams of terrified women and children.

Even those who have closely followed the daily horror show in Gaza over the last eight months - the mass civilian casualties and total destruction of its infrastructure - could not fathom the savagery of dropping a 110kg bomb on plastic tents.

Yet for US officials, the 26 May Rafah tent massacre, which killed 45 people and injured more than 200 others, did not cross President Joe Biden's "red line" for halting weapons shipments.

With no accountability, Israel has continued its genocidal campaign in Gaza unabated - as part of a settler colonial project to eliminate native Palestinians that began seven decades ago.

The following week, on 6 June, an Israeli air strike on al-Sardi Unrwa school killed around 40 displaced Palestinian civilians, including children. Two days later, on 8 June, the Nuseirat camp was brutally assaulted by land and air, killing 274 Palestinians.

The harrowing attacks have placed a spotlight on the role of US-supplied weapons and munitions in perpetrating a war that has killed at least 37,296 Palestinians and injured more than 85,000 others since 7 October 2023.

Indeed, US weapons shipments are key to Israel's genocidal violence - and they reveal the sprawling network of the US military war machine that connects settler colonial and militarist violence on two occupied lands, Okinawa and Palestine.

Shared weapons systems

All three recent strikes on Palestinian civilians in Gaza were carried out using US-manufactured weapons.

Both weapons experts and images captured revealed that the explosives used in Rafah and the UN school were US-made GBU-39 small-diameter bombs (SDB). The GBU-39 is a 110kg guided air-to-surface munition manufactured by defence contractor Boeing since 2005.

Since 7 October, the US and Israel have worked on various deals to manage the exchange of weapons and the aircraft systems to carry them

According to the US Air Force's fact sheet, the F-15E Strike Eagle is the only aircraft outfitted with the SDB weapons system. Future platforms designated for SDBs include the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-117, B-1 Lancer, B-2 Spirit, F-22 Raptor, and the F-35 Lightning II.

The SDB is one of several weapons used in the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Golden Horde programme, which was launched in 2021.

Intended to advance Networked, Collaborative and Autonomous (NCA) weapons capabilities, the programme uses two weapons systems: the Collaborative Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (CMALD) and the Collaborative Small Diameter Bomb I (CDSB-I), the latter being a modified version of the GBU-39 SDB.

Since 7 October, the US and Israel have worked on various deals to manage the exchange of weapons like the SDB and the aircraft systems to carry them.

In January, the two nations signed a massive arms deal that included the supply of F-35 and F-15 fighter jets, the two systems equipped or designated for the SDB weapons system. In April, the US Congress approved an additional $26bn in aid to Israel, including $5bn to bolster air defences and bundle weapons shipments.

'Arsenal of democracy'

One weapon that has been frequently mentioned since Israel declared war on Gaza has been the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM for short.

Manufactured by Boeing, JDAM was developed in 1993 after the Gulf War and uses GPS locators to counter the effects of dust clouds in targeting systems. It can convert unguided "dumb bombs" to guided "smart bombs", meaning that the bombs can be remotely controlled and navigated.

The Israeli military has relied on it in Gaza since October and has killed hundreds of Palestinians in densely populated areas.

Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupation fire in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, west of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, while the occupation army announced the killing of two officers and a soldier during the battles in the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera's correspondent said that the Israeli army targeted ambulances while they were trying to recover the bodies of dead in the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah.

The correspondent said earlier that the occupation army bombed the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood, west of Rafah, with artillery.

For its part, the occupation army said that there is no ceasefire in the southern Gaza Strip, and that fighting in Rafah continues.

The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, said that it had caught “a Zionist force penetrating the Saudi neighborhood in Rafah in a precise ambush,” confirming that it had blown up a vehicle and killed its members.

The occupation army announced on Sunday that two officers from the Eighth Brigade were killed in battles in the northern Gaza Strip, and it also announced that a soldier from the 601st Division of the Corps of Engineers was killed during battles in the Gaza Strip.

Yesterday, the occupation army announced the killing of 8 soldiers in Rafah in an ambush by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). One of them was Captain Waseem Mahmoud, who is deputy company commander in the 601st Engineering Battalion.

The Al-Qassam Brigades announced yesterday that its fighters were able to kill a group of Israeli soldiers in an ambush in a combined operation against occupation army vehicles penetrating the Saudi neighborhood of Tal al-Sultan, west of the city of Rafah.

In this regard, Israeli Army Reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik said, “What is happening in Rafah is a disgrace. We are not actually fighting Hamas. Rather, they are bombing the roads and we are killing.” He added that they have reduced the army’s capacity in 20 years, “until it is no longer able to defeat Hamas.”

Brick also stressed that the war in Gaza has lost its purpose and is continuing only for the benefit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the same context, an Israeli officer told the Walla website that the operation in Rafah had become the center of criticism in the field, and that it should have been carried out in a different way. The website indicated that there is a feeling among reserve officers that there is no clear goal for many of the missions in the Gaza Strip.

The website stressed that "the pattern of the Rafah operation is proceeding incompletely and should have been completed faster."

On the other hand, the leader of the Israeli Labor Party, Yair Golan, said that Israel must oblige everyone to bear the burden of military and security service, pointing to an unprecedented security crisis that Israel is going through.

Source: Al Jazeera

The American Counter Punch website confirmed that the United States is no longer able to maintain the balance between protecting its interests and the interests of the West, and the required respect for international institutions.

The website added in a report that this situation prompted a number of Western countries to adopt political positions independent of American logic, the political results of which are supposed to be influential in the future.

The report stated that the joining of a number of countries - some of them Western - to South Africa's lawsuit at the International Court of Justice against Israel on charges of genocide revealed a difference in opinions within the Western system in dealing with this sensitive issue.

The division increased after the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, submitted requests to the court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Galant on charges of committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

Western sanctions

The report shows that Washington was quick to denounce the decision, and the US House of Representatives approved imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court because of its position on Israel’s leaders.

The writer continued that, given the enormous influence exercised by Israel and its allies in Congress and in the media, it is clear that Tel Aviv is more influential in American domestic politics than Congress. Consequently, American military and political support for a country accused of mass murder and genocide continues.

He stated that the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, spoke on behalf of the “Group of the Elders,” and warned of “the collapse of the international order,” and said: “We oppose any attempts to delegitimize” the work of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, through “threats to take punitive measures and sanctions.” .

According to the report, signals of the collapse of the legitimacy of the international order established by the West have been made by many other parties in recent months, including UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

The writer mentioned that Karim Khan himself referred to this in his statement regarding the request to issue arrest warrants against Israeli war criminals.

The report highlighted that these developments have placed Europe facing a major political dilemma, as it has always blindly followed the steps of the United States in the Middle East.

He continued that the war on Gaza constituted a major breaking point as it divided the Western unity that emerged after October 7, as the United States - along with Germany - continued to support Israel clearly, while the positions of many European countries, which began to unite with the countries of the South, wavered. With the aim of holding Israel accountable.

The report commented on this by saying, "It is a major transformation that we have not witnessed for many years, which indicates that the scale of Israeli crimes in Gaza has exceeded the moral limit that some European countries can bear."

Source: American press

The Israeli occupation authorities continue to detain 9,300 citizens in their prisons, including at least 75 women and about 250 children.

The Prisoners' Club noted, in a statement issued today, Sunday, that this number of detainees does not include all detainees from Gaza, whose number is estimated in the thousands, and the occupation prison administration had announced the detention of 899, under the classification of (unlawful combatants).

He pointed out that the number of administrative detainees is more than 3,400.

He explained that among the total detainees are about 600 detainees, including those serving life sentences and those against whom the occupation demands life sentences.

Today, Sunday, the Israeli occupation forces arrested three citizens from the town of Al-Khader, south of Bethlehem.

According to local sources, these forces stormed the town and arrested: Omar Mahmoud Issa (22 years old), Alaa Yahya Ezzat Issa (21 years old), and Ouda Tayeh Issa.

Israeli occupation Prime Minister Netanyahu said: “We paid a heartbreaking price in our just war to defend the homeland,” according to his allegations.

Netanyahu added in his statements on Saturday, “We are fighting to preserve our existence and our future, and we are fighting to return the detainees.”

On Saturday, the Israeli occupation army acknowledged the killing of 8 soldiers when a military vehicle exploded in Rafah, after they were struck by a machine installed by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas.

The occupation army admitted that among the dead was a deputy company commander in the 601st Engineering Brigade.

The Al-Qassam Brigades announced the implementation of a complex ambush against the occupation vehicles penetrating the Saudi neighborhood area in Tal al-Sultan, west of the city of Rafah.

Al-Qassam confirmed that a D9 military bulldozer tower was targeted with an Al-Yassin 105 shell, causing it to ignite and leaving the bulldozer crew dead and wounded.

Al-Qassam indicated that upon the arrival of the rescue force, a “Nimr” troop carrier was targeted with a “Al-Yassin 105” missile, which led to its destruction and the killing of all its members.

Earlier, the Hebrew website Hadashot Bazman reported that 8 soldiers and officers of the occupation forces were killed in Gaza, at dawn on Saturday, after an anti-missile was fired at an armored vehicle.

Hebrew media confirmed that the vehicle exploded immediately and was completely engulfed in flames. The eight were killed instantly and burned inside the vehicle.

On Saturday evening, the Israeli occupation forces bombed several areas southwest of Gaza City.

According to local sources, Israeli gunboats bombed, in conjunction with heavy gunfire from occupation vehicles, the areas of Tal al-Hawa and Sheikh Ajlin, southwest of Gaza City.

He added that Israeli warplanes flew heavily and at low altitude in the airspace of Gaza City.

The Israeli occupation forces have continued their aggression against the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since October 7, 2023, resulting in the death of more than 37,296 citizens and the injury of 85,197 others, an infinite toll, as thousands of victims are still under the rubble.

Hamas is willing to commit to the 'full and complete ceasefire' touted by Biden - but Washington continues to throw its full support behind an intransigent Tel Aviv

It takes a lot to get the diplomats of the Middle East to agree on anything. The behaviour of one man over the last eight months of the war in Gaza has, however, forged a consensus rare among such a group: Antony Blinken cannot be trusted. 

The US secretary of state’s powers of turning reality on its head have raised the eyebrows of even practised cynics. It is a complaint that resounds from Doha to Amman, Cairo, Tel Aviv and Ankara. 

Blinken is currently engaged in what one of his predecessors, James Baker, called “dead cat diplomacy”. Baker’s pupil, Aaron David Miller, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “The objective is not to reach a deal but to ensure if it fails, the dead cat is on other’s doorstep.”

The dead, or dying, cat of the moment is a ceasefire deal in Gaza that holds. 

Indisputably, Hamas is closer to accepting this deal than Israel is. The evidence for this is mounting. Hamas signed a ceasefire deal presented by Egypt and Qatar, under the gaze of CIA Director Bill Burns, which would have ensured a permanent halt to the war. 

When Israel and the US walked away from it, Hamas welcomed the principles declared in President Joe Biden’s speech, in which he urged Israel to accept a “full and complete ceasefire”. It had the same reaction to the US-sponsored UN resolution. 

Those principles are clear: that a permanent ceasefire should exist after an initial exchange of hostages; that there should be a full withdrawal of Israeli troops; that the people of Gaza should be free to return to their homes; that there should be no change in the territory or demography of Gaza; and that its people should have full access to humanitarian aid, alongside reconstruction efforts.

Sticking point

Israel disagrees with each and every one of these principles. It has said consistently that no ceasefire should prevent the achievement of its war aims, which include the dismantlement of Hamas as a military power and as a government of Gaza. It continues to block aid through its land border crossings and has no intention of lifting the siege, especially after the war ends.

More critically, it has made no commitment to sticking to a ceasefire should negotiations between the first and second phases of the prisoner and hostage exchange fail. 

This is the crux of the matter. There has been only one substantive issue preventing a ceasefire deal since the first exchange of prisoners and hostages last November.

Israel has yet to give any official response to either Biden’s speech or the UN resolution. Blinken is doing all the talking for it. How curious, then, that Blinken, on his latest Middle East tour, placed all the blame on Hamas for not yet accepting the deal. 

The talks are stuck on Israel’s refusal to accept an upfront commitment to a permanent ceasefire. It is on Israel that Blinken should be applying all of Washington’s pressure.

This is not in US interests. Netanyahu is perfectly logical in his conclusion that Biden is weak and getting weaker by the month

And yet, Blinken declared: “Israel accepted the proposal as it was” - a comment that flies in the face of repeated public statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casting doubt on the deal, in addition to recent remarks from National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, who said it would take another seven months to destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“Hamas could have answered with a single word - yes,” Blinken said, surpassing himself in a brazen attempt to turn the truth on its head. 

Hamas has now given its formal response, and Middle East Eye has seen a copy of that reply.

There are changes to the document, which are not, as it claims, minor - although they are more compatible with what Biden and the UN resolution said, than the Israeli position is. Hamas has included the Philadelphi Corridor in the list of areas that Israeli forces should withdraw from in the first 42-day stage of the deal. It also insists that prisoners to be released by Israel are in accordance with Hamas’s list, which includes high-profile resistance leaders such as Marwan Barghouti.

Shielding Israel

The most substantial change is to the wording of paragraph 14, which deals crucially with the transition from stage one to stage two, and the key question of whether any party can withdraw unilaterally from this process and go back to war. 

Paragraph 14 used to say that the temporary cessation of violence would continue into stage two “so long as the negotiations on the conditions for implementing stage 2 of this agreement are ongoing”, and that the guarantors of the deal would make “every effort to ensure that those indirect negotiations continue until both sides are able to reach agreement”.

The revised version from Hamas says the temporary ceasefire would continue “until a sustainable calm” is announced, by which is meant a full cessation of military activities on both sides, and that negotiations would continue until the two parties reach an agreement on an exchange of prisoners. 

In addition, Hamas now demands that Israel lift its 17-year siege of Gaza and withdraw all its forces in the initial stage of the ceasefire deal.

These key changes address the meaning and substance of Biden’s speech and the UN resolution. But Israel will be implacably opposed to them, as they mean that once the first set of hostages and prisoners has been released, Israel will not be able to back out of a permanent ceasefire. 

It does not take a genius to see that shielding an Israel that has no intention of abiding by Biden’s words, let alone the UN’s, is not doing anything to advance US goals. 

These are clear: Biden’s overwhelming personal political interest as an ageing president, seeking re-election while not always being able to read his teleprompter, is to shut this war down as soon as possible. He has even more interest in doing so before it spreads, as it shows every sign of doing, to Lebanon and then the wider region. 

Blinken is doing the opposite. He is letting Washington get dragged ever deeper, and with more direct military involvement, into a regional quagmire of Netanyahu’s creation. 

Only one party benefits from a continuous war in Gaza and a new front opening up in Lebanon, and that is the Religious Zionist extreme right. Netanyahu cannot abandon that party. Benny Gantz’s defection from the war cabinet would be nothing politically next to Itamar Ben Gvir’s exit. The moment that happens, Netanyahu knows he has a challenger for the leadership of the ruling right-wing coalition.

That sinking feeling

Accordingly, Netanyahu has responded to every failed round of negotiations by going on the military offensive. 

After his rejection of the ceasefire deal hammered out during the debacle in Cairo and Doha, and amid the increasing possibility of being served with an international arrest warrant for war crimes, his response was to launch the offensive on Rafah.

Here again, the Israeli national interest called for caution. He showed no hesitation in jettisoning the support of the Egyptian army, which if he thought about things strategically, as a real leader should, he would realise that Israel will need after this conflict is over.

Egypt’s generals could make life painful along Israel’s eminently porous 200-kilometre border with Sinai, by releasing the brakes they apply on the drug smugglers and warlords who roam the desert. 

Instead, Netanyahu has humiliated them - and adding insult to injury, deprived them of a personal source of hard currency by closing the Rafah border and occupying the Philadelphi corridor.

The unwritten understanding between them was that any such closure would be temporary. But Netanyahu has now broken that understanding too, leaving the generals with egg on their face. Not a wise thing to do, in this region. 

Similarly, Netanyahu’s response to Biden’s speech was to launch a hostage rescue in Nuseirat camp, whose beneficial effects on domestic public opinion lasted all of 24 hours. 

Wild jubilation at the release of four hostages - Israeli networks interrupted their recorded programmes on Shabbat to go live - gave way to sober reflection on the total cost of this operation.

It was not repeatable. It was not a replacement for negotiations. Israel lost a special forces police officer in the extraction, and if Hamas is to be believed, three other hostages as well.

State of chaos

But more puzzling still was the US claiming a decisive role in the hostage release. As the Palestinian death toll soared past 270, you might have expected National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to distance himself from such a disaster. He did the opposite, taking credit for what he termed a “daring operation”.

The exact part that US intelligence or their hostage release team played in this operation is not known. Israeli helicopters were, however, captured on camera taking off and landing on the beach, a few metres from the pier the US Navy built to provide aid for Gaza. 

Centcom, the US military command that oversees the Middle East, said that while Israel used an area south of the US-built pier as a landing zone, “the humanitarian pier facility, including its equipment, personnel, and assets were not used in the operation to rescue hostages”.

As things stand, and with the active complicity of Blinken, the gap between Israel and Hamas will not be bridged

But a US defence official, speaking with Middle East Eye, said Israel’s use of the beach, with the pier a stone’s throw away, “implies we were part of it”.

Furthermore, the US would have been notified of Israel’s exfiltration plan via the beach because it maintains an air defence system at the pier.

US cooperation with a hostage release operation that killed more than 270 Palestinians, and possibly also a further group of hostages, puts US policy on hostage release in a state of total chaos. 

Its policy goal is to persuade Israel of the obvious truth that the hostages themselves, and their families, scream often and loudly about: the only killer of hostages is Israel’s continuing bombardment. 

US military involvement in such a murderous operation does the opposite. “Israel’s argument has always been that it doesn’t need a ceasefire to rescue hostages,” Frank Lowenstein, the former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the Obama administration, told MEE. “The rescue operation is likely to deepen Israel’s resolve on that.”

US weakness

This is not in US interests. Netanyahu is perfectly logical in his conclusion that Biden is weak and getting weaker by the month.

He is fundamentally unable or unwilling to apply a brake to Israel’s offensive. He threatened very publicly to withhold heavy bombs for Netanyahu’s offensive on Rafah. Netanyahu went ahead with it anyway, and Biden backed down.

Channel 13 recently reported that “significant progress” had been reached towards “understandings” that would allow the suspended shipment to arrive in Israel in the near future: “Within the framework of the understandings being developed between Washington and Tel Aviv, Israel will be forced to make commitments to Washington that it will not attack with certain bombs that will be supplied by the Biden administration, in populated areas, including populated areas in Rafah.”

So Israel can have the heavy bombs Biden promised to withhold, and continue with the operation in Rafah that Biden warned it not to proceed with.

At every stage in this eight-month war, US diplomacy has showed its weakness, and it bears a heavy responsibility for where this has now landed both Israel and US forces in the region. 

As things stand, and with the active complicity of Blinken, the gap between Israel and Hamas will not be bridged, even though the truth is that that the gap between the US and Israel is much larger than that between the US or the UN and Hamas.

Both Hamas and the US, and the 13 other members of the UN Security Council that voted for the resolution, want an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Israel is in a minority of one in making sure that does not happen, knowing that neither Blinken nor Biden has the political capital left to stop it. 

A new low

To carry on the war in Gaza is to ensure that the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah will continue, with each side striking deeper into each other’s territory. The surest method of de-escalation on the northern border is to secure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

I cannot think of any other time during the 76 years of this bitter conflict, when an Israeli leadership has been so obdurate in pursuing war aims that are unachievable - and a US president so weak and powerless to stop it.

James Baker or George Shultz were giants of diplomacy and resolve compared with the likes of Blinken. 

I previously thought that the combination of Netanyahu and former President Donald Trump had brought the situation to an all-time low. But I was proved wrong; worse was to come.

All the concessions Israel got during Trump’s presidency - the Golan Heights, the moving of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the Abraham Accords - pale into insignificance compared with the backing Biden has given Israel to pursue and continue its war on Gaza with this savagery, and for this long. 

It proved to be the combination of Netanyahu and a Democratic president that led this conflict to its most dangerous and murderous moment.

It is time to make clear that you seek to build your own country with honor and dignity – not in place of Israel, but next to it

This is an open letter to Palestinian readers. I already know I will be passionately attacked and criticized by many Palestinians for what I am writing. I have been engaged in bridging between Israelis and Palestinians for 46 years and believe me I have heard it all. I remain dedicated to the basic principle that peace can be made between the two peoples who live on the land between the River and the Sea.

Throughout all of these years, Israelis have spoken mostly about peace, while Palestinians have spoken mostly about ending the occupation and achieving freedom, equality, and dignity. Israelis and Palestinians don’t speak on the same frequencies and, of course, there is no symmetry between them. Israel is a strong state in existence for 76 years that is recognized by 165 countries and that maintains economic and security ties with even more. Israel is a challenged democracy but, at least so far, it is still a democracy.

Palestine, which Israel occupies with a harsh military occupation, is not a fully recognized state and has had a divided political leadership for 17 years. Palestine has a weak economy largely limited by Israeli restrictions. Palestinian lands are confiscated by Israel to build illegal settlements. Thousands of Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails. Palestine lacks democracy and has no accountable government. To put it bluntly, Israel is strong, Palestine is weak.

Throughout the 46 years that I have been working across the conflict lines, I have heard from Palestinians that because Israel is the occupier and because Israel is strong, it needs to take the first step toward the Palestinians. This argument would be valid in a world where everything that happens is based on what is just. But that’s not how the world has ever worked and I would wager that it will never work that way – especially after October 7.

The Gaza War is the worst of all of the Israeli-Palestinian wars: More people have suffered, been killed, and had their homes destroyed than ever before. This war must be the last Israeli-Palestinian war. We cannot allow this conflict to continue. I fully recognize that there are now more justified reasons to hate the other side than ever before. Supporters of peace on both sides are at a new low point and there are almost no leaders in Israel or Palestine who dare to speak about peace, or ending the occupation or any kind of positive future. In fact, there are almost no people on both sides that I would even call leaders.

Change happens when new voices appear and break the sound barrier by saying things that have not been said in the past. Nelson Mandela cracked the core of Apartheid by stating that he was not seeking revenge, that in the new South Africa whites and blacks would live together with security and dignity. Mandela was victorious because he did not see the white South Africans as his enemy. He understood that the fear inside of white South Africans was the enemy and that to beat that fear he had to speak to the inner heart of white South Africans.

The same is true here in Palestine/Israel. Israelis know there are 7 million Palestinians living on the land. They know the Palestinian people are not going to leave (notwithstanding Jewish Israeli extremists, some of them in the government, who have plans for this to happen). The overwhelming number of Israelis feel trapped in a reality that they do not want. Israelis don’t want to live in fear of their Palestinian neighbors. But October 7 increased their fear, with good reason, to heights that make the notion of ever living in peace seem like science fiction.

Any reasonable Israeli knows that Palestinians have hard lives. Many of them know that Israel is a major cause of the hard lives that Palestinians live. Many may even recognize that the root cause of our terrible reality is the occupation. But very few Israelis believe that Palestinians are truly prepared to live in peace next to Israel. Most Israelis truly believe that the ultimate goal of all Palestinians, not only Hamas, is to destroy Israel. When Israelis are willing to listen to Palestinians, what they hear more often than not is the narrative of victimhood. They also hear from Palestinians that Israel is the victimizer. At the same time, Israelis feel themselves to be the victims and that Palestinians who sanctify death, not life, are the victimizers. The victimhood competition is fierce and ongoing. This common narrative has been in play for more than 76 years and its only achievement has been to maintain and escalate the conflict.

How are we going to break this horrible cycle? I believe the breakthrough will be made by coherent, rational, and compelling Palestinian voices speaking peace. Again, in an ideal world, it should come from the stronger side, but we don’t live in such a world. I know some Palestinians who speak out unreservedly, accepting a measure of responsibility for Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, which were done in their name too, and denouncing the death and destruction Hamas perpetrated on that horrible day. They speak about moral red lines that have been crossed and they remind Israelis that Israel has also crossed too many moral red lines in this conflict.

They say to Israelis that they as Muslims have to recognize that Jews have always been in this land and that Jewish history, memory, and religion are attached to this land between the River and the Sea. But they also remind the Israelis that Jews were never here alone – there were always others living in the land and today those others are the Palestinians. With courage and honesty, these people say that Palestinians have never had the leadership they need, that for the past 100 years, they’ve had three unworthy leaders, Hajj Amin al Husseini, Yasser Arafat, and Mahmoud Abbas, all of whom failed to bring independence, peace and dignity. They say they need new, younger leadership that is not corrupt, believes in democracy and freedom, and speaks the language of peace.

I know these voices exist in Palestine. I have heard people who understand that Israel will never have security unless Palestinians have freedom and dignity and that Palestine will never have freedom and dignity unless Israel has security. These people speak to the hearts of Israelis and say we recognize the suffering of the Jewish people. We understand the traumas that Jews have experienced throughout the ages, including and especially during the Holocaust. We do not seek to kill the Jews or to destroy Israel. We seek to be free from Israel’s occupation and to build our own country with honor and dignity – next to Israel, not in place of Israel.

These Palestinian voices would be wise to declare that ousting Hamas is necessary not only for Israel and Jews, but for the sake of Palestinian aspirations for freedom and dignity. They would be wise to say that in a Palestinian state, there can be only one political authority with a monopoly on the use of force, the legitimate government. In fact, they could simply restate what appears in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence (November 15, 1988):

The State of Palestine is to be a peace-loving state, in adherence to the principles of peaceful co-existence. It will join with all states and peoples in order to assure a permanent peace based upon justice and the respect of rights so that humanity’s potential for well-being may be assured, an earnest competition for excellence be maintained, and in which confidence in the future will eliminate fear for those who are just and for whom justice is the only recourse.

Those inspiring words of Mahmoud Darwish should be the north star for Palestinians representing a new generation that will not forget the past, but will have one eye focused on the future with clarity of purpose, a moral code of justice, and a keen sense of reality. These Palestinians know that in order to achieve the goal of freedom and dignity, it is not enough to be right, you also have to be smart, and that being smart means defeating Israeli fear, not Israel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The writer is the Middle East Director of ICO - International Communities Organization - a UK based NGO working in Conflict zones with failed peace processes. Baskin is a political and social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to peace between Israel and her neighbors. He is also a founding member of “Kol Ezraheiha - Kol Muwanteneiha” (All of the Citizens) political party in Israel.

Israeli expert on China, Yuval Weinrib, expressed his shock at the significant expansion of what he described as a wave of anti-Semitism on social media in China after the October 7 attack, and spoke of a number of examples of popular condemnations directed at Israel.

He said in an interview with a writer in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Ayelet Shani, that “the responses on Chinese social media to the Hamas massacre are in fact a wave of anti-Semitism. It is not anti-Israel, but anti-Semitism.” He demonstrated this by saying that the Israeli embassy in Beijing By uploading content about the war, but the surprise was that the responses included support for Hitler.

Deep transformations

He explained the profound shift in how the Chinese viewed Israelis. Before October 7, “China was one of the safest places to say you're Israeli, Jewish. Every Israeli who spoke Chinese and explained that they were from Israel was always responded, 'Wow, you're Jewish,'” he explained. "You're the smartest in the world." This is something the Chinese learn from childhood. They think we have some kind of superpower, and there are books that teach people how smart Jews are. The writer calls this type of treatment “positive anti-Semitism.”

He added, “Now, I do not know whether the government encouraged this matter on its own initiative, or turned a blind eye, which in China means authorization, but what happened after October 7, according to the writer, is that “positive” anti-Semitism became Negative hostility, on the most shocking levels imaginable, he says.

In this regard, the writer makes some comments such as: “If there are 8 million Jews in Israel, we can open a large soap factory there!” There are other comments such as: “The Jews control the world through the United States,” “They are persecuted.” The people of Gaza because of the United States.”

In further evidence of the transformation, the Israeli expert cited an example of some Chinese publishing a picture of some neighborhoods on social media showing a highly developed place, with skyscrapers, opposite a neighborhood that was bombed in Gaza, on which was written the sentence “Muslims in China versus Muslims in Israel or Gaza.”

Not Chinese

The Israeli expert stopped at the Chinese dealing with two incidents, the first related to the Israeli prisoner Noa Argamani, whom the occupation forces succeeded in recovering on June 8 from the Nuseirat camp, and whom he said was half Chinese, stressing that “the online discourse in China was to disavow her background.” And deny it.”

He added, "It drove me crazy, because at first I thought that this would be a strong card for Israel, but I discovered very quickly that it was not just a card of any kind. Rather, they turned it against us, and they described our attempts as efforts on our part to engage in manipulative and provocative behavior, and they claimed She is not Chinese at all. It is true that her mother is Chinese, but she herself does not have Chinese citizenship. She is an Israeli citizen.”

The second incident was that an Israeli embassy employee was stabbed in Beijing a few days after October 7. “The event was barely reported,” he said. “I was completely shocked by the anti-Semitism on social media, even though I was well aware.” They have not changed since the 1950s. China was one of the first countries to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization, and it has always supported Palestine at every opportunity and in every international institution.”

Ban "shadow"

When asked about his experience with the Chinese government’s control over media outlets such as the “Douyin” application, the Chinese version of “Tik Tok,” and the Weibo application, which is similar to the Chinese platform With the Palestinians without its permission.

He gave an example of the harassment he faced due to his attempts to publish videos of Israeli detainees in Gaza, saying, “I received a message saying that this conflicts with “community values,” because it prevents showing blood on the platform. By the way, there is already such a law, but I did not notice it. There is a problem with showing the blood of Gazans there. I tried to upload content that explains that Hamas is a terrorist organization, and it turns out that this does not comply with “community values” either, but the content is not always blocked, as most of what I experienced after October 7 is known as “shadow bans.” "It means you upload the content, but it doesn't get any exposure, that's all."

The expert stressed that the Chinese approach to the conflict in the region is what drives its dealings with the media regarding Palestinian and Israeli content, as Beijing wants to “eliminate American hegemony over the world and establish a new world order, and they see that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gives them a lot of popularity, without risking anything.” “The Islamic and Arab street is with China, and other countries in the global south, which China claims to lead, identify with it.”

Huge effect

To confirm the great influence of social media in China, and the volume of views that anti-Israel content receives, he cited an example of a well-known social media influencer who was selling cosmetics in a store, where he “caused a huge stir on the Douyin platform, when he himself, on Chinese Singles’ Day, managed to... From selling $2.5 billion worth of beauty products directly in less than 24 hours,” he noted, noting that he “obtained 300 million views during that, which is more than the views of any international sporting event, with the possible exception of the FIFA World Cup.”

Although the Israeli researcher criticized the state of freedom in China and the restrictions on means of communication, he called on the Israeli government to benefit from that experience, saying that the fact that “the Chinese government is doing bad things in 1001 regions does not mean that it is not right or is not doing the right thing in other things. There are "Also a lot can be learned from the Chinese not by copying and pasting, but by knowing what is correct and what is appropriate."

"If there is something we can learn from the Chinese, it is that ultimately TikTok and Douyin are known for the fact that their algorithm is able to adjust content to the user in real time. The Chinese have realized that users may be changed by the content they receive," he added.

Source: Israeli press

In Israel now, the left is not viable, and there is no party or coalition of real size that can be called center-left, and what there is is a coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, extending from the right to the far right, and a coalition led by Benny Gantz, extending from the center to the right, Which means that identifying the differences between Gantz and Netanyahu represents a major challenge.

With these clarifications, journalist Ezra Klein began an episode of the podcast (The Ezra Klein Show) - on the New York Times - in which he discussed with Israeli journalist Amit Segal the exit of Benny Gantz from the war government, and whether there is a new security theory emerging in Israeli politics.

Ezra Klein said that he was content to deepen his reporting on the Israeli right, in a lengthy conversation with Amit Segal, who many consider to be the political analyst with extreme right-wing roots, and the most influential on the right, and who has a book published in English entitled “The Story of Israeli Politics.”

The conversation began with the resignation of Benny Gantz, and Segal said in his readings of Israeli politics at this moment, that the coalition that leads Israel was formed a year and a half ago without Benny Gantz, and it can survive without him, and perhaps Gantz’s exit will strengthen the coalition, because he came from abroad with contradictory ideas about how to manage it. Conflict and war.

Bad message

Segal explained that the dismantling of this unity government sends a very bad message to Israel’s enemies and its allies alike, based on his deep belief that when Israelis unite, it is easier for them to defeat their enemies, indicating that the dispute between Netanyahu and Gantz is not what people imagine, regarding the establishment of the state. Palestinian or financial cohesion, because they do not differ on the essence, which is supporting Israeli institutions.

The right-wing journalist concluded that the Israeli left disappeared after the events of October 7, because the Israelis saw that the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005 did not lead to a new balance in which everyone could live happily and freely, but rather to more tense times. .

People in Israel are very upset because they have tried everything - says Segal - and this means that we will likely see more soldiers fighting in the north and south in the coming years, and there will be a number of deaths. It will not be a permanent war, but perhaps a permanent state of continuous operations. .

Segal claimed that Gaza was not besieged, citing that the city was beautiful and lacked nothing, but Ezra Klein rejected that idea, and described what had happened in Gaza since 2005 as an organized and very difficult containment policy, and he ended that point of the dialogue by stating lists of what was allowed to enter. To Gaza and what is rejected published on the Internet.

All Palestinians are the same

Returning to security theories, Segal said the issue had been politicized in Israel. “To be honest, I don’t think a different government would act differently under these circumstances,” Segal said. “Gantz and Netanyahu voted exactly the same way in 91 consecutive meetings of the war cabinet.” Which means that there is a consensus in Israel on administration, not ideology.”

When asked about cutting off tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority, Segal claimed that 7% of the Authority’s budget goes into the pockets of those he described as killers of Israelis. He said that the attempt to create a distinction between Hamas and Fatah ignores the dark basic facts that put them in a different position.

Segal explained that the reason why Fatah does not act against Israel or cooperate against Hamas is that they fear that, the moment Israel withdraws, Hamas will throw them from the roofs of Ramallah and Hebron, indicating that the time may come when they want to live with us, but he did not comes after.

Segal stated that Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon are three completely different cases, but there is one principle that most Israelis accept - according to his opinion - which is that the only guarantee for the lives of Israelis is to have an Israeli soldier everywhere, and that is from the perspective of security and not from the perspective of mutual cooperation.

The Hezbollah problem

When asked if the Israelis were more concerned about what Hezbollah represented, Segal said that this was a real problem, because Israel could cut off Hamas’ lifeline from Egypt, it could destroy every tunnel it saw, and it could kill the largest possible number of “terrorists” - according to his perception - but This is not the case with Lebanon, as it can never cut off the lifeline of Hezbollah, because Lebanon is linked to Syria and then to Iran, and therefore you cannot eliminate Hezbollah, especially since Lebanon is not like Gaza and the West Bank.

The far-right journalist acknowledged that Hezbollah, from a tactical point of view, wants to sympathize with Gaza, but the tragic lesson that emerged from the past decade is that periods of peace do not mean a peaceful future, and they spend them preparing for the final mission, which is to destroy Israel, indicating that there is an arena in Tehran has a clock counting down to the year 2040, when Israel will be eliminated.

When asked: How do you see the kind of tension between Israel’s international legitimacy and the support alliances it needs to confront this threat and the way this resource is now being depleted in Gaza and the West Bank? “I think the world values strong countries, and October 7 was a terrible display of weakness,” Segal said, “so Israel has to wrap up the Gaza issue, and then take a year off to build a new army with new personalities, and perhaps to go to elections, and build a coalition that reflects Consensus on the real threats to Israel.

Building this strong army will help Israel build cooperation - according to Segal - both with the United States with the possibility of the return of Donald Trump and with moderate Islamic countries, and the elections may stop the earthquake that is occurring in Israel these days.

The Israelis were confused

In Israel, there are two types of feelings, where “two tectonic plates” are colliding. The first is that Israel is moving from left to right, so that people no longer believe in the two-state solution and unilateral withdrawal. The second is that the Israelis, who are moving from right to left, and have voted for Netanyahu and his allies, They no longer want to see them because of failure.

These people are angry with Netanyahu because he failed to be as strict as they wanted, so they want change, and Netanyahu gives them the right but does not give them change, while Gantz gives them change, but does not give them the right because he is from the center movement or the center left.

So Israel is still waiting for a new party to come. Something between Netanyahu and Gantz that reflects these two values will gain significant ground politically, perhaps becoming the largest party in Israel.

But at the same time, when the Israelis are forced to choose between Netanyahu and international pressure, they choose Netanyahu, as US President Joe Biden wants to stop the war while Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar continues in Gaza, and most Israelis do not want that. Biden still believes in the two-state solution, and 70% of Israelis oppose it.

Segal pointed out that the essence of the matter lies in the sentence that Yair Lapid, the head of the opposition, usually says to Netanyahu, “Stop fighting with the Americans in public, do it behind closed doors.” But Netanyahu believes that dealing with a hostile American administration is a public appearance because the American public will always More supportive of Israel than the Democratic American administration.

Source: New York Times+Al Jazeera

Israeli media quoted the former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Division, Tamir Hayman, as saying, “Israel’s militarily strong image is declining, and its status as a regional power has become questionable, in addition to facing the risk of isolation.”

Hayman stressed, according to the Israeli media, that if a comprehensive war breaks out in northern occupied Palestine, it “will not be like any other event experienced on the home front in Israel.”

Regarding the war with Lebanon, Hayman said: “Before we decide to launch a comprehensive war in Lebanon, we must determine how it will end, and what will push Hezbollah to accept a ceasefire, as failure in a broad war against Hezbollah would put Israel in a situation worse than the current situation.” Present".

In the same context, political affairs commentator on the Israeli Kan channel, Gili Cohen, stated that the security and military institutions in the occupation entity believe that “in order for Nasrallah to stop his attacks in the north, he must first of all end the operation in Rafah, and then strive to A prisoner exchange deal, this is the only thing that pushes him to cease fire towards Israel.”

In the same context, the military affairs commentator in Cannes, Roi Sharon, pointed out that “if we can reach an agreement with Hezbollah without going into a war on the northern border, then this is certainly better, because the war in the north is a different opera.” Exactly in terms of the damage that will occur on the Israeli home front, in terms of the economy, and the number of deaths.”

For his part, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak confirmed the failure of the war against Hamas, stressing the need to stop it, saying, “The war against Hamas is a failure and must be stopped and the prisoners returned with a political agreement. One million demonstrators and 50,000 sit-ins must be mobilized in front of the Knesset, to oblige the government to go on... Direction of the transaction.

The Israeli "Army" also reported that it had detected two missiles landing in the "Meron" area on the northern border with Lebanon, noting that its planes bombed a Hezbollah military building in Kafr Kila, southern Lebanon, last night.

A teenager was killed and two citizens were injured, this Saturday evening, during the Israeli occupation forces’ storming of the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus.

The Ministry of Health announced, in a brief statement, the death of the child Sultan Abdul Rahman Sultan Khatahtbeh (16 years old), as a result of being hit by occupation bullets in Beit Furik.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society had announced that its crews in Nablus dealt with three injuries with live bullets in Beit Furik, one of which was in the chest and was described as very serious, while a 45-year-old citizen was injured by live bullets in the thigh, and a 16-year-old child was injured by live bullets in the foot, and they were transported. To the hospital.

The association added that the occupation forces attacked the driver of the Beit Furik municipal ambulance and smashed the vehicle's windows while he was trying to reach an injured person in the town.

Local sources reported that the occupation forces stormed the town of Beit Furik amidst live bullets, wounding three citizens, including the child Khatahtbeh, who was later declared dead.

Since the start of the comprehensive Israeli aggression against our people on October 7, 2023, 547 citizens have been killed in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, including 134 children, and more than 5,200 others have been injured.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed that about 3,000 children in Gaza suffer from malnutrition and face the risk of death due to being deprived of the necessary treatment as a result of the continued attack on Rafah.

“Horrific images from Gaza show children dying in front of their families due to continuing shortages of food and nutrition supplies and the destruction of health care services,” said UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khader.

She added: "With hospitals destroyed, treatment halted, and supplies scarce, we expect more children to suffer and die."

The United Nations World Food Program reported that 9 out of 10 children in the Gaza Strip suffer from severe food poverty.

The program explained in a series of publications on the “X” platform that “the hostilities and restrictions imposed on aid have caused the collapse of food and health systems.”

Data from the Ministry of Health in Gaza indicate that the health sector has collapsed, and what remains of it serves no more than 15% of those wounded and injured in military operations. It has become unable to serve those suffering from chronic diseases, and unable to treat epidemic diseases caused by overcrowding in health centers. Sheltering and destruction of the sewage system.

According to the data, the number of martyrs among health sector personnel in Gaza reached 500, hundreds were injured, more than 310 were arrested, while 9 hospitals remained partially operational out of 36 hospitals, and 130 ambulances were destroyed.

Since dawn on Saturday, 19 citizens were martyred and at least 50 others were injured in raids by Israeli occupation aircraft that targeted 3 homes in the Al-Shuja’iya and Al-Tuffah neighborhoods, east of Gaza City, while Israeli artillery intensified its bombardment of areas west of Rafah.

Israeli army forces have continued to attack the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air since October 7, 2023, killing more than 37,000 people and wounding more than 85,000 others, according to data from the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Medical sources announced today, Saturday, that the death toll from the occupation’s aggression against the Gaza Strip had risen to 37,296 and 85,197 injured, the majority of whom were children and women, since the seventh of last October.

The same sources added that the occupation committed 3 massacres that led to the death of 30 citizens and the injury of 95 others during the past 24 hours, pointing out that thousands of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads and ambulance crews cannot reach them.

According to a detailed report, the American newspaper "Washington Post" revealed that the operation to rescue the detainees led to a hideous massacre, in which 300 citizens were killed, most of whom were children and women, and at least 600 Palestinian citizens were injured (most of whom were also children and women), on June 8. In Nuseirat camp, I relied on a huge amount of intelligence provided by the United States to Israel.

According to the report, since October 7, the United States has intensified the collection of intelligence information about everything that exists in Gaza, including pursuing fighters and members of the Hamas movement using different, but accurate, methods, and gave Israel an unusual amount of drone footage and satellite images. Industrial, communications interceptions, and data analysis using advanced software, some of which is supported by advanced computer programs, and artificial intelligence, according to what current and former American and Israeli intelligence officials told the newspaper.

“The result is an intelligence-sharing partnership of a rare magnitude, even for two countries that have historically worked together in areas of common interest, including combating terrorism and preventing Iran from manufacturing a nuclear weapon,” according to the newspaper.

It is noteworthy that in a press conference at the White House last month, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Washington “provided an extensive array of assets, capabilities, and expertise.” In response to a Washington Post report dated May 11, Sullivan said that intelligence "is not restricted or conditioned by anything else. It is not limited. We are not withholding anything (from Israel); we are providing all the assets, all the tools, and all the capability."

Other officials, including lawmakers in Congress, are concerned that intelligence provided by the United States could make its way into data warehouses used by Israeli military forces to launch air strikes or other military operations, and that Washington has no effective means of monitoring how Israel Uses US information.

According to the newspaper, “The Biden administration has prevented Israel from using any intelligence information provided by the United States to target regular Hamas fighters in military operations. The intelligence information will be used only to locate the hostages, eight of whom hold American citizenship, in addition to the senior leadership of Hamas - including Yahya Sinwar, The architect of the October 7 attacks, and Muhammad Deif, the field commander of the Al-Qassam Forces, the military wing of Hamas, both men were classified by the State Department in 2015 as terrorists.

Three of the eight American detainees have been confirmed dead, and their bodies are still being held in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.

According to the Washington Post, the United States provided some of the intelligence that was used to locate and ultimately rescue four Israeli hostages last week in an operation that killed more than 270 Palestinians and wounded 600 others, most of them women and children, according to health officials in Gaza. Which makes it one of the bloodiest events in the war that Israel has been waging for more than eight months.

Current and former officials told the newspaper that before the October 7 attacks, the US intelligence community did not consider Hamas a priority target. This changed almost immediately after the October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,100 people, including 311 soldiers, and the taking of more than 250 hostages, according to official Israeli statements.

Members of the US Army's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) began working alongside CIA officers at the agency's station in Israel, according to US officials. One US official said that members of the Defense Intelligence Agency have begun meeting with their counterparts in the country “on a daily basis.”

The State Department also sent a special hostage envoy who met publicly with the key Israeli official overseeing hostage rescue efforts. FBI agents are also working in Israel to investigate Hamas attacks on American citizens and assist in hostage recovery efforts.

In the first weeks of the war, the Israelis responsible for locating hostages in the Gaza Strip, considered one of the most densely populated places in the world, requested specific information from the United States to help fill in gaps in what they knew from their own sources, current and former American and Israeli officials told the newspaper. . This included specific information, as well as techniques and expertise to analyze large amounts of images and overlay different images to create more detailed images, including 3D images, of the terrain in Gaza.

A senior Israeli official, who refused to provide details, said that the Americans provided “capabilities that we did not have before October 7.” But a second senior Israeli official noted that the United States had provided highly detailed satellite images that Israel lacked.

Sullivan, the White House National Security Advisor, confirmed that American forces did not participate in the mission to rescue the four hostages. “There were no American forces, and there were no American forces on the ground participating in this operation,” he said. “We did not participate militarily in this operation,” Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program last Sunday. He noted that “we provided "General support to the Israel Defense Forces so that we can attempt to bring home all hostages, including the American hostages who are still being held."

Al-Quds learned from an informed source, who requested anonymity, that “there are dozens (several dozen), and perhaps nearly a general, of American Special Forces present in Israel, meters away from the Israeli border with Gaza; some of them are from the army, and some are from the CIA’s special forces.” “In addition to a significant number of specialized American contractors who spent many years in Iraq and Afghanistan - and even Syria, who have developed, with the help of artificial intelligence, previously unknown technical means of locating hostages.”

The source, who had worked in this field in a number of Arab and African countries, said, “It is certain that Israel would not have been able to carry out this operation without American intelligence and tools,” but, according to him, “I do not believe that regular American forces (from the army or the CIA) They participated in the battle, because the American rules of engagement reject civilian loss on the scale of what we saw last Saturday (among Palestinian civilians in the Nuseirat camp), but Israel does not have similar red lines.” He added, "This does not mean that elements of contractors (mercenaries) with American security companies (such as Blackwater), whether they are American citizens or from Australia and Britain, did not participate; I believe that they most likely participated."

According to official US sources, as well as intelligence, this support consisted of members of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), an elite special operations force with deep experience in hostage rescue operations. American officials said that members of the group have been working in Israel, in partnership with American intelligence officers, since the start of the war.