The health conditions in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip have worsened due to overflow of sewage and contamination of drinking and usage water, which has led to the spread of diseases during the ongoing Israeli war since the 7th of last October.

In the alleys of Jabalia, sewage water appears leaking into citizens’ homes and shelter centers, with the work of the Jabalia municipality completely halted due to Israel’s destruction of its equipment during the bombing.

Residents in the city of Jabalia are suffering from the spread of diseases as a result of these difficult health conditions, as the Israeli siege continues.

Palestinian Mohsen Abu Faraj (34 years old) describes the situation in the city of Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, as “catastrophic.”

He told Anadolu: “Sewage mixes with the potable water that we drink and use for food, which leads to the spread of diseases.”

He added: "Children in Jabalia suffer from various diseases due to sewage leaking into homes."

He stressed that the streets and homes are filled with unpleasant odors as a result of overflowing sewage.

He pointed out that the residents of Gaza, "if they do not die as a result of the war, will face death due to water pollution."

Meanwhile, Palestinian Nimr Abdel Wahed (46 years old) said: “The epidemic spread in Jabalia due to the leakage of sewage.”

He added to Anadolu: "My child is sick, and many of the city's children also suffer from diseases caused by water pollution and sewage leakage."

Last January, the Palestinian Environmental Quality Authority revealed that 66 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip suffers from the spread of diseases transmitted by polluted water, including cholera, chronic diarrhea, and intestinal diseases.

In turn, the mayor of the town of Jabalia, Mazen Al-Najjar, announced that Israel has destroyed more than 70 percent of the water wells suitable for drinking and use since the beginning of the war on the seventh of last October.

Al-Najjar said in an interview with Anadolu Agency, “Municipality crews stopped providing services to citizens in the Gaza Strip after Israel destroyed 23 of their vehicles during the past week, which led to them burning.”

He added: "The water that is extracted by residents using primitive methods is polluted, and this has led to an increase in cases of complex and difficult diseases in Palestinian society, which we have not seen before."

Al-Najjar added: "The people in the Gaza Strip are suffering from real famine, in light of the shortage of food and nutrients as a result of the imposed siege and war on Gaza."

He pointed out that "the destruction of vehicles and the targeting of infrastructure, in addition to the continued bombing and war on Gaza, led to a major deficit in providing necessary services to citizens in the town of Jabalia, which includes thousands of displaced people."

He added: "Since the beginning of the war, we have not been able to obtain diesel supplies to the municipality, which has increased the complexity of providing services in light of the power outage."

He explained that the power outage led to an increase in cases of overflow of sewage collection ponds in the northern Gaza Strip.

He pointed out that the municipality has communicated with international institutions, led by the Red Cross, to provide the fuel necessary to operate water collection stations and pump drinking water to citizens.

Al-Najjar confirmed that the town of Jabalia includes 40 gatherings of displaced people as a result of the massive destruction caused by Israel in the towns of Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

He pointed out that residents and displaced people suffer from a lack of basic resources such as food, drink and fuel, which makes their suffering exacerbated by the war.

The mayor appealed to international and human rights institutions to provide the necessities of life for the residents of the northern Gaza Strip who suffer from hunger and in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

As a result of the war and Israeli restrictions, the residents of Gaza, especially the Gaza and North governorates, are on the verge of famine, in light of a severe scarcity of food, water, medicine and fuel supplies, with the displacement of about two million Palestinians from the Strip, which has been besieged by Israel for 17 years.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip that has left tens of thousands of civilian victims, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction of infrastructure, which led to Tel Aviv being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of “genocide.” Collective.”

The United States, Cyprus, the UAE, Britain, Qatar, and the European Union issued a joint statement today (Thursday), in which they stressed that there is no alternative to land routes through Egypt, Jordan, and entry points from Israel to Gaza to deliver aid on a large scale.

The statement published by the US State Department regarding ministerial consultations to push the establishment of a sea corridor to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza added that opening the port of Ashdod to humanitarian aid would be welcome and an important complement to the sea corridor that is being worked to establish.

It added that senior officials will discuss the possibility of establishing a joint fund to support the sea corridor to deliver aid to Gaza and coordinate in-kind and financial contributions to its continuation.

It said: “The ministers stressed that the sea corridor can and should be part of ongoing efforts to increase the flow of humanitarian aid and commercial goods to Gaza through all possible ways, including increasing land routes and continuing airdrop operations.”

The statement stressed the need for Israel to open additional crossings to deliver more aid to Gaza, including the northern Gaza Strip.

Emile Badarin

Through both their statements and their silence, leading European thinkers have exposed western racism

“En brera” is an Israeli expression that is used to depict the persistent destruction, ethnic cleansing and now genocide of indigenous Palestinians as acts of self-defence for which there is no alternative. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) recently affirmed the “real and imminent risk” arising from South Africa’s allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

This did not unfold in a vacuum. Such outcomes are inherent to the settler-colonial structure of elimination imposed on Palestine by Euro-American imperialism. As detailed in South Africa’s application to the ICJ, decades of Israeli colonialism led to the state reaching its genocidal moment.

In 2006, Patrick Wolfe, a distinguished scholar of settler-colonialism, considered genocide to be plausible in Palestine. He saw compelling indications of genocidal dynamics through Israel holding the Palestinian population captive in what resembled “reservations” or a “Warsaw Ghetto” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Although universally recognised as the crime of all crimes, genocide represents just one of many atrocious manifestations of settler-colonial violence, which is leveraged to seize land and dispossess indigenous owners.

There is an army of not just soldiers, but also philosophers and ethicists who moralise and justify colonialism as acts of en brera, or “no choice”. This notion is deeply entrenched in Euro-modern/colonial knowledge, which has criminalised and deprived colonised peoples of ontological resistance, so that their souls, psyches and identities can be reshaped to suit the colonisers’ schemes, as Frantz Fanon reminds us in Black Skin, White Masks. 

This mechanism of self-vindication denies colonised peoples the rights to self-defence and resistance to preserve and reclaim their humanity. Instead, it transfers guilt onto the victims.

The Spanish conquistadors considered the “deaths and calamities” they inflicted on the indigenous peoples of South America as their “own fault” for standing in the invaders’ way. Philosopher Georg Hegel asserted that Africans were guilty because of their innate “contempt for humanity”, which made them susceptible to being “shot down by thousands in war with Europeans”. 

Similarly, Israel holds Palestinians condemnable for “having forced” Zionist settlers to kill them, as suggested by former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Truth versus propaganda

In the 21st century, leading European thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory insist on reminding us of the indivisibility of Euro-modern ethics and coloniality. Jurgen Habermas, a prominent European philosopher, and others expressed solidarity with Israel in mid-November while genocide was clearly unfolding in Gaza. 

Habermas based his stance on the contrived accusation that Hamas intends to “eliminate Jewish life in general”, implying that Israel had no choice but to “retaliate” in the manner it has. Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist group in the UK and other countries, has on several occasions affirmed that it “does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine”.

Other critical philosophers, including Seyla Benhabib, have echoed Israeli allegations on the killing of babies, burning people alive and ritual murder, which have been debunked as fabricated propaganda. 

Truth, facts, proof, objectivity, context and history apparently have no place when Euro-colonial interests are at stake. 

This knowledge system, whether by justification or through silence, echoes the historical pattern of colonial atrocities across the Global South

Amid the clamour of dehumanisation, Palestinians, like all colonised peoples, have been stripped of the rights to ontological resistance and self-defence. Palestinian life has come into conflict with white supremacy and the West’s desire to atone for its own antisemitism and the genocide of European Jews. 

Consequently, Palestinians have become the embodiment of the damned of the earth of the 21st century, literally forced out through genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Both Palestinians and Jews were singled out in the statement by Habermas and his colleagues. While the latter were deemed “worthy of special protection”, the former was silenced and removed from the sphere of “human dignity” and concerns about the “democratic ethos” of the West.

This represents two faces of the same racist and dehumanising idea that has historically pitted supposedly inferior groups, including Jews and Muslims designated as Semitic peoples, against the self-declared superior European Aryan race. Evil might have changed its form, but not its racist essence. 

Ethical battleground

This racist structure has enabled supposedly superior groups to dominate and perpetrate genocides against those declared as inferior and of lesser value. A further practical consequence has been to rob people, including Jews, of the democratic and basic right to dissent, protest and denounce genocide. 

Instead, the liberal and democratic West has demanded that people of conscience stay silent, to the point of declaring dissent “totally out of place”.

Despite their cosmopolitanism, Habermas and associates of the Frankfurt School have long demonstrated a conspicuous silence on colonialism and de-colonial resistance to western imperialism. But they broke this silence to explicitly voice their solidarity with Israel, the world’s last apartheid state. 

Even after the ICJ’s ruling, vocal leaders, pundits, mainstream journalists, scholars and philosophers who championed the responsibility to protect, alongside sanctions to end egregious forms of violence against civilians, have gone silent on Gaza.  

The swift shift from silence to vocal expressions, and vice versa, is scarcely surprising. It emerges as a natural outcome of what academic Edward Said called “blithe universalism” and its malleable morality that caters to western coloniality.

Palestine is the ethical battleground of our time, where the racism inherent in Euro-modern/colonial knowledge is dissected, exposed and resisted. This knowledge system, whether by justification or through silence, echoes the historical pattern of colonial atrocities across the Global South, including the unfolding genocide in Palestine.

In this light, as eloquently articulated by ethics professor Wael Hallaq, the Palestinian experience of colonial life and death encapsulates the global issue of ethics and knowledge.

According to the American website Axios, the two settlement sites were used as a base for attacks by extremist settlers on Palestinian civilians, and the sanctions will also include 3 Israeli settlers.

The administration of US President Joe Biden is moving to impose new sanctions on two illegal settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, which have been used as a base for attacks by extremist settlers against Palestinian civilians, according to the American website Axios, citing American officials.

This will be the first time that US sanctions have been imposed on an entire settlement outpost, and not just against individuals.

According to the American website, the two settlement sites were used as a base for attacks by extremist settlers on Palestinian civilians, and the sanctions will also include 3 Israeli settlers.

Axios reported, quoting an American official, that the sanctions, expected to be imposed on Thursday, send a message that the United States is not only targeting individuals, but also targeting entities involved in providing logistical and financial support for attacks against the Palestinians.

Potential US sanctions include freezing the assets that the two outposts may own, in addition to those owned by the three settlers, in the United States, and preventing them from obtaining a visa to enter the United States and from using the American financial system, according to Axios.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to Axios' questions about possible new sanctions.

It is noteworthy that last February, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on 4 Israelis whom it accused of involvement in settler violence in the West Bank, which indicates the United States’ growing dissatisfaction with the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Biden administration said that Israel's expansion of building settlements in the West Bank contravenes international law, which indicates a return to the long-standing American policy on this issue, which the administration of former President Donald Trump retreated from.

This move comes at a time when the Biden administration is intensifying pressure on the Netanyahu government on a range of issues, including settler violence against Palestinians and the war in Gaza.

Nearly 500 settler attacks against Palestinians occurred between October 7, 2023 and January 31 of this year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

By David Ignatius

As the war in Gaza grinds on, President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are locked in a public quarrel about military strategy, political leadership and even casualty numbers. Like past disputes in the relationship, this one will probably be resolved short of an open break — but it’s a tense moment.

The most visible disagreement has been about Netanyahu’s plan to attack Hamas’s remaining stronghold in Rafah along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. Netanyahu and a broad range of other Israeli officials believe that destroying the four Hamas battalions there, with about 3,000 fighters, is essential to break its military control in the territory.

Biden said in an interview with MSNBC this past weekend that Rafah was a “red line,” but it wasn’t clear just what that meant. Last month, Biden said Israel shouldn’t attack Rafah until it had a “credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety” of more than 1 million Palestinian refugees who have been driven there by the fighting, according to a White House summary of the conversation. Administration officials say they still haven’t seen such a plan.

“We’ll go there,” Netanyahu shot back on Sunday, adding: “You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.” A senior Israeli official underlined that position in an interview on Wednesday. “If the administration says, ‘Never do Rafah,’ that won’t work. … You can’t do 80 percent of the job.”

But there might be less to the Rafah quarrel than it appears. Israel has promised the Biden administration that it will prepare a careful operational plan that includes protection of Palestinians and more humanitarian assistance. The Israel Defense Forces won’t move forward without a detailed tactical scenario that has been shared with the White House.

“We won’t suddenly invade Rafah. It takes time to prepare a plan,” explains the senior Israeli official. Israeli officials won’t discuss how long this planning might take. But it seems likely to require weeks, and it could even stretch past the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in April. In any event, a Rafah confrontation doesn’t seem imminent.

A deeper disagreement is about whether Netanyahu and his right-wing government really have united the country behind a clear endgame for the conflict. U.S. intelligence analysts were openly skeptical of Netanyahu’s leadership prospects in their annual threat assessment, delivered to Congress this week.

“Netanyahu’s viability as a leader as well as his governing coalition of far-right and ultraorthodox parties that pursued hardline policies on Palestinian and security issues may be in jeopardy,” the threat assessment noted. “Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened. … A different, more moderate government is a possibility.”

That’s unusually blunt language for a public intelligence report, and Israeli officials protested what they saw as an effort to meddle in Israeli internal politics by, in effect, “weaponizing” the intelligence reporting. Netanyahu’s team was already peeved about what it saw as an attempt by Vice President Harris to drive a wedge into Israeli politics when she said on CBS News on Sunday: “It’s important to distinguish and to not conflate the Israeli government with the Israeli people.”

What’s happening here is that long-standing private disputes are becoming public. For months, administration officials have explored ways they might prod other Israeli leaders, such as former army chief of staff Benny Gantz, to challenge Netanyahu, who polls show is deeply unpopular at home. But trying to steer political outcomes with a democratic ally can easily backfire.

The most fundamental disagreement is about the state of the war itself. Netanyahu speaks as though victory is close. That’s why he wants to take Rafah soon and, in his mind, be done with it. But U.S. officials think Israel is overestimating the damage it has done to Hamas, and doubt that Netanyahu still has a pathway for securing Gaza and stabilizing the region, even if he demolishes the four battalions in Rafah.

Here, again, the U.S. intelligence community offered a pointed assessment in Monday’s testimony: “Israel probably will face lingering armed resistance from Hamas for years to come, and the military will struggle to neutralize Hamas’s underground infrastructure.”

Israeli officials offer detailed statistics to back their claim that the war has been effective. When the fighting began, Hamas and other militias had about 35,000 fighters; of those, more than 25,000 have been killed, captured or injured, the officials said. Of the smaller subset of Hamas regular fighters, they said 12,000 have been taken off the battlefield, including about 60 percent of battalion commanders.

U.S. intelligence estimates project “far fewer” Hamas casualties, a U.S. official said. That’s in part because the United States counts battlefield casualties differently. But there’s a stark difference between Israeli and American evaluations of the campaign.

The tunnel war has been the most vexing part of the Gaza assault. Israeli officials say they spent weeks devising tactics to attack a vast network of zigs and zags that they estimate is 380 miles long, all within a territory just 25 miles long and up to 7½ miles wide. Israeli officials say they’ve destroyed about 60 percent of Hamas’s command-and-control facilities in the tunnels and 90 percent of its buried arsenal of rockets, which totaled 15,000 to 20,000 when the war began.

But Israel officials concede they’ve only begun destroying Hamas’s underground empire. Less than 30 percent of the tunnels have been captured, several officials said. And even now, Hamas still is operating smuggling tunnels into Egypt.

Finally, on the baseline question of what Gaza will look like “the day after,” U.S. and Israeli officials agree there is still no clear answer. That’s one reason Biden mistrusts Netanyahu. The White House doubts the Israeli leader has a sound strategy for ending a conflict that has brutalized Israel, has had a shattering effect on Palestinian civilians and is increasingly harmful to U.S. interests around the world.

Left-wing Israeli journalist Amira Hass confirmed, in an article in Haaretz newspaper, that the vast majority of Israeli Jews agree with the plan imposed by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on all Palestinians.

She warned that this plan - which aims to subjugate the Palestinians - is moving forward, adding that even those who mocked Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly participate in or support the government's use of overwhelming force against the Palestinian people everywhere.

She explained that Israel is already implementing this plan drawn up by Smotrich, which he called the “twin sister” for fundamental changes to the country’s judicial system.

Haas stated that those who were behind drawing up the plan, supported it and defended it were from the increasingly powerful environment of religious Zionist settlers.

It is noteworthy that representatives of the ruling coalition - which includes extreme right-wing and extremist religious parties - last year approved in Parliament a clause in the judicial reform program that limits the Supreme Court’s ability to overturn government decisions.

The plan caused a sharp division in Israel because it increases the power of Parliament at the expense of the judiciary, and sparked controversy, and the opposition described it as an attempt to overthrow democracy.

One state for one people

The left-wing Israeli writer pointed out in her article that Smotrich presented to closed religious Zionist circles in the spring of 2017 - when he was still a representative of the Jewish Home party - his plan to establish one state from the sea to the river for one people, “the Jewish people.”

Haas assumed that the Israeli Minister of Finance based his plan on letters sent by Joshua bin Nun to the inhabitants of the land he attacked, according to Jewish mythology.

In an interview conducted by Haaretz newspaper on December 3, 2016, with Smotrich, he based his justification for his extremist positions on three letters that the Jews claim were sent by Joshua bin Nun, the boy of God’s Prophet Moses - peace be upon him - to the inhabitants of the land he conquered.

According to those letters, Joshua gave the residents three options: “If the residents of the country do not flee, then restrictions must be imposed on them, that they must be humiliated and despised, and that they must not raise a head in Israel, and if they oppose that, then we will not leave a soul among them.”

In that interview, Smotrich said, "We are resolving the conflict: I am destroying their hopes of establishing a state." When asked by Ravit Hecht - the journalist who conducted that interview with him - his answer included a reference to the letters of Joshua in which he allegedly said: “Whoever wants to accept our rule will be accepted, whoever wants to leave will leave, and whoever wants to fight will fight... and whoever wants to leave will fight.” "We help him."

Terrible warning

In the interview, he also warned the Palestinians that those who do not leave the land “will either accept the rule of the Jewish state, in which case they can stay, but as for those who do not leave, we will fight them and defeat them.”

Haas concluded in her article that when this “terrible” war ends, the majority of Israelis who opposed the amendments to the judicial system will discover that it has almost been accomplished.

The amendments were described as being weaker and more submissive to the ruling regime than ever before, and the educational system has become in complete harmony with it, and the media has come to replace “with great enthusiasm” the official spokesman for the Israeli army.

She concluded sarcastically, "It is truly a victory."

Source: Haaretz

The American newspaper Politico revealed, on Wednesday, that the United States informed Israel that it supports its military operation in Rafah if the latter avoids a large-scale invasion that might weaken global support for it.

According to the American newspaper, senior American officials told their Israeli counterparts that the Biden administration will support Israel in pursuing high-value Hamas targets in and below Rafah as long as Israel avoids a large-scale operation.

The newspaper quoted four senior American officials as saying that the Biden administration supports a plan closer to counter-terrorism operations than to a comprehensive war in Rafah, because that would reduce civilian casualties.

The newspaper, citing officials, indicated that some key members of Biden's team doubt that Israel is planning to carry out a major military operation in Rafah soon.

According to an official in the US Department of Defense, quoted by the newspaper, the operation in Rafah requires carrying out some repositioning of forces, adding that this did not happen, which indicates that the operation in Rafah is not imminent.

The Israeli occupation army said, earlier on Wednesday, that it intends to transfer a large portion of the 1.4 million displaced Palestinians living in the town of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip to “humanitarian islands” in the center of the Strip, before it begins the expected attack on the region.

The fate of the Palestinians in Rafah has become a source of great concern for Israel's allies, including the United States and humanitarian organizations, which believe that an attack on the area crowded with displaced people would be a disaster.

In addition, the area is also the main entry point for much-needed aid in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the attack on Rafah is crucial to achieving Israel's declared goal of destroying Hamas.

Representatives from the US Democratic Party had called on the administration of US President Joe Biden to link military support to Israel to the latter’s facilitation of the arrival of aid to the Gaza Strip, in the wake of a major controversy over the Israeli threat to launch an operation in Rafah.

However, such a call faces strong opposition from other members of the same ruling party, who expressed their refusal to harm the military support provided to the Israeli occupation, which contributed decisively to the war of extermination that killed and wounded more than 110,000 Palestinians in Gaza, 70% of whom are women and children.

The Associated Press quoted the Israeli occupation army as saying on Wednesday that it plans to direct a large portion of the 1.4 million displaced Palestinians living in the city of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip towards “humanitarian islands” in the center of the Strip before its planned attack in the region.

It is noteworthy that the fate of the people in besieged Rafah is a source of great concern to Israel’s allies, the United States, and humanitarian organizations, which are concerned that an attack on the area crowded with many displaced people may be disastrous. The Rafah crossing is also the main entry point into Gaza to obtain aid, which has reached critical levels.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated several times, "The attack on Rafah is necessary to achieve Israel's declared goal of destroying Hamas in the wake of the attack launched by the movement on October 7, in which about 1,200 civilians were killed and about 250 hostages were taken and transferred to Gaza."

The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 31,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, leaving much of the Strip in ruins and displacing about 80% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million.

The Associated Press attributed to Israel's chief military spokesman, Admiral Daniel Hagari, that the transfer of people in Rafah to the designated areas, which he said would be done in coordination with international actors, was a key part of the army's preparations for the expected invasion of Rafah, where Israel claims the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas It maintains four battalions that Israel wants to destroy.

The population of the city of Rafah has doubled in recent months as Palestinians in Gaza fled from one place to another in accordance with Israeli instructions.

The spokesman said, "We need to make sure that 1.4 million people, or at least a large number of the 1.4 million, will move. Where? To the humanitarian islands that we will create with the international community."

Hajari said that these islands will provide temporary housing, food, water and other necessities for the evacuated Palestinians. He did not mention when Rafah would be evacuated nor when the attack on Rafah would begin, saying that Israel wants the timing to be appropriate from an operational standpoint and for it to be coordinated with its neighbor Egypt, which said it does not want displaced Palestinians to flow across its borders.

The United States is speaking in a firm tone with Israel about its concerns about Rafah, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington has not yet received from Israel its plans regarding civilians there.

“We need to see a plan that will get civilians out of harm’s way if there is a military operation in Rafah,” he told reporters in Washington after holding a virtual ministerial meeting on Gaza aid with officials from the United Nations, the European Union and Britain.

It is noteworthy that relief groups said that there are no real plans to receive large numbers of displaced people there.

The Gaza Ministry of Health says more than 31,270 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and most of the Strip's 2.3 million residents have been forced to leave their homes.

On Wednesday, an Israeli raid hit a food distribution site in southern Gaza run by UNRWA, the UN agency that works with Palestinian refugees, killing one agency employee and wounding 22 others.

His death brings to 165 the number of agency workers killed during the past five months of fighting, according to UNRWA.

Health authorities in Gaza said that five people were killed in the raid on the yard of an UNRWA warehouse.

Hajjari said the army was studying the report.

The conflict has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe that has led to increased hunger. The aid delivery process has been hampered by Israeli restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the collapse of the regime inside Gaza, according to the United Nations. Israel denies imposing restrictions on the entry of aid.

Today, Thursday, the Israeli forces launched a campaign of raids and arrests, including casualties, in various areas of the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.

In occupied Jerusalem, confrontations broke out between citizens and the occupation forces at the Qalandiya checkpoint, during which the Israeli forces fired live and sound bullets, resulting in the injury of a young man with live bullets. He was transported by ambulance to a hospital.

The Israeli forces also stormed the town of Abu Dis and arrested the two young men, Muhammad Rabie, secretary of the Fatah movement, and Hassan Qurei, after storming their homes, searching them, and sending away their contents.

In Nablus, 4 citizens, including two brothers, were injured as a result of the Israeli forces attacking citizens in the village of Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya, while gold jewelry and a sum of money were stolen from the home of the citizen Majed Daraghmeh Abu Salah.

Several Israeli military vehicles also raided several homes, searched them, and tampered with their contents. The owners were known to include Majid Daraghmeh Abu Salah, Rasmi Owais, and Al-Shafiqeen Majid and Muhammad Al-Sarhan. They also raided two buildings, one of which belonged to the citizen Mustafa Al-Nubani, and the other to the citizen Nael Abu Ahmed.

In Bethlehem, the Israeli forces arrested Ahmed Yousef Atwan (26 years old), after they raided his family’s home in the town of Al-Khader.

In Qalqilya, the Israeli military vehicles stormed the city, toured several streets and neighborhoods, and were stationed in the Al-Qaraan and Kafr Saba neighborhoods. The Israeli soldiers also raided several houses, including a house belonging to the Al-Rabi family, after breaking down its doors, and another belonging to the Freej family.

The Israeli soldiers also stole a sum of money from the Al-Rabi family’s home, destroyed the contents of the house, and wreaked havoc and corruption on it.

In Hebron, the Israeli forces raided the town of Yatta in the south, and arrested: Hafez Mahmoud Rashid Abu Ubaida, Muhammad Al-Harini, Muhammad Ayed Abu Aram, and Marwan Ibrahim Buhais.

They also raided the town of Dura in the south, and arrested five citizens: Bilal Muhammad Issa Amr, Ahmed Taher Ghanem, Shadi Hassan Al-Awawda, Odeh Fadel Mahmoud, and Youssef Al-Amayra.

Dozens of citizens were killed and injured today, Thursday, as a result of the Israeli bombing of various areas in the Gaza Strip.

Here are the latest developments: The Red Crescent reported that its crews recovered 15 dead from Hamad Town in Khan Yunis and transferred them to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

In Nuseirat, 8 citizens were killed as a result of the Israeli bombing an aid distribution warehouse in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

While others were killed and others were injured in the Israeli bombing of a house on Salah al-Din Street in the Nuseirat camp.

In Al-Bureij camp, 7 citizens were killed in an Israeli bombing on a home for the Al-Attar family, while Israeli aircraft targeted the vicinity of Abu Assi station and Al-Raed Tower on Salah Al-Din Street in the camp.

The Israeli aircraft launched a raid on a house in the Beach camp, west of Gaza City.

In Khan Yunis, 22 martyrs were recovered since the morning from various areas in the city, while the citizen Hisham Adel Deeb Abu Hamra died from his wounds as a result of the bombing of the UNRWA humanitarian aid distribution headquarters yesterday.

The total number of dead who arrived at the Gaza European Hospital from dawn today until this moment reached 10 people.

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that the Israeli army committed 7 massacres against families, claiming 69 killed and 110 injuries during the past 24 hours, which raises the toll of the Israeli aggression to 31,341 killed and 73,134 injuries since last October 7.

It confirmed that there are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads, and the occupation prevents ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.

In Gaza City, at least six citizens were killed last night and dozens were injured by Israeli forces’ bullets in Gaza City.

Local sources reported that the Israeli forces opened fire on a gathering of citizens at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza, while they were waiting for relief aid to arrive, which led to the death of six citizens and the injury of at least 83 others, who were transferred to the Shifa Medical Complex in the city.

At least one citizen was killed and others were injured, in an Israeli raid that targeted a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

In Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, two citizens were killed and others were injured when the Israeli army bombed a civilian vehicle in “Khirbet Al-Adas.”

In an infinite toll, the number of killed since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on the 7th of last October has risen to 31,272 persons, the majority of whom are children and women. The number of wounded has also risen to 73,024, while thousands of victims are still under the rubble.

An Israeli military spokesman said, on Wednesday evening, that the army has a plan to evacuate the displaced people in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, to its center.

The Israeli military spokesman explained in an interview with a group of foreign correspondents that this plan will be implemented in coordination with international organizations, and the displaced will be transferred to “humanitarian islands” in the center of the Strip, and all their needs will be provided.

He stressed that this plan will be implemented before the start of the military operation in Rafah, which will be carried out in coordination with Egypt. like he said.

By Richard Silverstein

 The maritime operation will not circumvent Israeli obstacles, even as Palestinians become increasingly desperate for food

US President Joe Biden is getting hammered in the Democratic primaries. Though he has no opposition, nearly 400,000 primary voters across multiple states have abandoned him, choosing “uncommitted” instead. 

The protest movement began in the critical swing state of Michigan, where more than 100,000 voters made a statement against Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. In subsequent primaries, hundreds of thousands more followed suit; in Minnesota alone, 20 percent of voters said they were uncommitted.

Many Democrats disapprove of this war and the president who is supporting it. Countrywide, 57 percent of Americans are unhappy with Biden’s handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and 67 percent want a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Fifty-two percent say the US should halt arms shipments to Israel until current hostilities cease; among those who voted for Biden in 2020, that number increases to 62 percent. Even a majority of American Jews (50 percent) favour a permanent ceasefire, according to recent polling. 

Biden is already paying the price for being out of sync with the Democratic base. He has to do something, and fast - otherwise, this could snowball into an avalanche. This is how movements begin and sure-fire candidacies fall apart.

Daily assurances from the president and senior officials that the US is doing everything in its power to minimise civilian casualties are no longer credible. Biden’s vow to hold a “come to Jesus” meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rings hollow. Reports that Biden is increasingly exasperated with Netanyahu seem more like theatrics than substance. 

Biden has tools at his disposal to bring Israel to heel, such as cutting off billions of dollars in weapons exports. He could demand an immediate, permanent ceasefire and support UN Security Council resolutions to that effect. But he refuses to do so, while also bragging: “I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist.” 

To counteract voter malaise, the president recently rolled out yet another band aid masquerading as a cure for cancer. During his State of the Union speech last week, Biden announced an “emergency mission” to build a pier on the Gaza coast that would “enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day”. Democrats in the audience rose to their feet and cheered as if this was a miraculous solution to world hunger. 

Ineffective measure

During his speech, Biden welcomed families of Israeli hostages in the visitor’s gallery. But glaringly absent were any families from Gaza whose loved ones have died or suffered under siege and bombardment for more than five months.

In his speech, Biden said the US “has been leading international efforts to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza”. After Israel opened fire on an aid convoy in Gaza City late last month, the US began air-dropping aid packages into the besieged territory, but many observers have decried this measure as ineffective. A single air drop produced 38,000 individual meals, a pittance for more than two million people who are going hungry.

The main aid bottleneck is the Israeli army, which routinely refuses to permit the entry of trucks queueing on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing. Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war, exacting vengeance on the entire population of Gaza. This also serves as a useful political tool for Israel’s far-right government: polls show that two-thirds of Israelis support the denial of food to Gaza. 

Biden’s maritime corridor plan will not circumvent Israeli obstacles, with the White House noting that the Israelis “have worked very closely with the Cypriots now for months to establish the mechanism in Larnaca port that will be essential”. Israeli officials will inspect the cargo in the Cypriot port before it is shipped to Gaza.

Those who fled the north are now starving in the south. If they are to starve, they would prefer doing so in their own homes, rather than in makeshift tent camps

In Gaza, the cargo will be offloaded to a pier constructed by the US Army. It will then be handed off to humanitarian agencies for distribution to starving Palestinians. But the Israeli army, which controls the Gaza shoreline, could again interfere at this juncture.

When a journalist asked a Pentagon official how the US could guarantee that Israel would not sabotage the aid plan, he replied: “Our focus is on delivering the aid. I’m not going to speak for the Israelis.” Not the most reassuring response.

Daily distribution via the sea route would reportedly max out at around 200 truckloads of aid, less than half the amount necessary; before the war, Gaza’s population received around 500 truckloads a day. While dozens more truckloads of aid can be expected via Jordan and Egypt, the total will still fall short of Gaza’s aid requirements.

Delay tactic

The US plan has been roundly criticised as insufficient, with Melanie Ward, the head of Medical Aid for Palestinians, telling Al Jazeera: “Air drops, temporary seaports and the like are not realistic or lasting solutions to stave off looming famine and sustain life in Gaza … Only an immediate and lasting ceasefire will allow us to deliver the massive humanitarian response that is required.”

Biden has promised an imminent ceasefire for weeks, with none in sight. Lately, both Israel and the US have blamed Hamas, saying the framework for a deal is in place, while the Palestinian group is the sole impediment. Hamas seeks a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.

The US has repeatedly said that displaced people “must be allowed to return to homes in the north as soon as possible”, but Israel has refused to permit this. The White House last week justified a postponement in their return, saying: “To get people to the north … you have to have reliable humanitarian assistance in the north.” 

That puts the cart before the horse. Those who fled the north are now starving in the south. If they are to starve, they would prefer doing so in their own homes, rather than in makeshift tent camps.

In addition, the decision to return should not be made by the US. It should be in the hands of displaced Palestinians themselves. The US condition is a delay tactic, allowing the administration to say it supports their return, but not just yet. These are empty promises.

Meanwhile, administration officials continue to shift the focus onto Hamas, telling reporters that the group’s leader “has called for violence over Ramadan, so we recognise that this is something that they might very well try to do. And it’s always a volatile period.” And yet, Israel is inciting violence by permitting settlers to enter al-Aqsa Mosque complex and pray for its destruction and the building of a Third Temple, while Israeli police beat Palestinian worshippers.

Biden has failed at every step during this war to realise his stated objectives of obtaining a ceasefire and providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. American voters will hold him accountable on election day.

This evening, Wednesday, settlers attacked the town of Qasra, south of Nablus, seized a vehicle, and destroyed surveillance cameras in the vicinity of a house.

Local sources reported that a number of colonists wearing military uniforms, from the “Esh Kodesh” settlement outpost established on citizens’ lands south of Nablus, attacked the town of Qusra, and seized a “Peugeot” vehicle belonging to the citizen Ahmed Abu Rida.

The sources added that the settlers attacked a house on the outskirts of the village, during Tarawih prayers, and destroyed its surveillance cameras.

The inquiry concluded there were no cross-border hostilities between Israel and Lebanon for over 40 minutes prior to the strike that killed Issam Abdallah

A United Nations inquiry determined that a tank from Israel caused the death of Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah in Lebanon in October by launching two 120mm shells at a group of "clearly identifiable journalists", in breach of international law.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) concluded in a report that their observers did not witness any cross-border hostilities between Israel and Lebanon for over 40 minutes prior to the moment an Israeli Merkava tank initiated fire.

"The firing at civilians, in this instance clearly identifiable journalists, constitutes a violation of UNSCR 1701 (2006) and international law," said the seven-page Unifil report, dated 27 February and referring to Security Council resolution 1701.

"It is assessed that there was no exchange of fire across the Blue Line at the time of the incident. The reason for the strikes on the journalists is not known."

Besides killing Abdallah, the two tank rounds also wounded six other journalists at the scene.

"(The) IDF should conduct an investigation into the incident and a full review of their procedures at the time to avoid a recurrence," the report said in its recommendations. "The IDF should share their investigation's findings with Unifil."

Must be 'investigated as a war crime'

When he was struck on 13 October, Abdallah was covering clashes between the Israeli military and the Lebanese group Hezbollah near the Israel-Lebanon frontier.

Identifiable as members of the media, he and a group of reporters with him had been stationary for around 75 minutes before they were hit by two shells, which eyewitnesses at the scene said came from Israel. 

Two other Reuters journalists, Thaer al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh; two Al-Jazeera TV staffers, Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar; and Agence France-Press journalists, Christina Assi and Dylan Collins, were wounded in the attack. 

Three reports into the killing of journalist Abdallah were published in December by Reuters, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.

All three found that two Israeli missiles were fired at a group of journalists reporting from south Lebanon near the village of Alma El-Chaab. 

Human Rights Watch said it found no evidence of a military target near their location.

Amnesty International said the missiles were "likely a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime". 

Using video evidence, expert audio analysis, and witness accounts, Human Rights Watch said it appeared the group was visible to the cameras of a nearby unmanned aerial vehicle that was "most likely Israeli".

The group was also “within line of sight of five Israeli surveillance towers, and most likely targeted by at least one munition fired from the main gun of a tank from an Israeli military position approximately 1.5 kilometres south-east” from the Israeli frontier, the report said.

There were two direct hits on the group of journalists that came in the space of 37 seconds, and the second strike was likely a small guided missile, Amnesty said.

By Chris Jones

 If the goal is truly to preserve peace and international security, why are European states only targeting the Palestinian side with sanctions?

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, last month said that the Biden administration’s continued provision of arms to Israel, while calling on the Israeli army to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza, is “a little bit contradictory”. Biden and other western leaders should “stop saying please” to the Israeli government and start “doing something”, Borrell added.

Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, accused Borrell of hypocrisy, given that EU member states - including France, Germany and Italy - continue to export arms to Israel. 

But while EU member states have a common position on arms exports that is supposed to “prevent the export of military technology and equipment which might be used for internal repression or international aggression or contribute to regional instability”, Borrell has no power to enforce it.

Still, there is a method through which Borrell could apply pressure on Israel’s government - and he has so far failed to use it. 

In January, Borrell signed off on a new EU sanctions regime targeting those who provide support for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the two groups responsible for the 7 October attacks. Those sanctioned face travel bans and asset freezes.

The new sanctions regime makes it possible to cast a wider net than existing rules. The European Council described the measures as allowing the EU to target “the sponsors of those who sponsor the two terrorist organisations”. Six individuals were put on the sanctions list when it was announced. 

Despite initial reports of reluctance from the EU to introduce a new sanctions regime, the move was unsurprising. The use of sanctions has grown enormously over the last two decades, as states have sought new ways to advance foreign policy objectives. 

The new regime follows the adoption of similar measures by the UK and US, and comes on the back of proposals from France, Germany and Italy for sanctions targeting Hamas.

'Decisive steps'

Whether the new sanctions regime will be effective remains to be seen; the military wing of Hamas has been on the EU’s terrorist sanctions list since 2001, and its political wing since 2003. But what is most striking about the new sanctions is how they highlight the EU’s desire to condemn and punish some human rights violations, while ignoring - or even supporting - others. 

Borrell said the new framework “shows that we are ready to take decisive steps to react to the brutality shown by terrorists on October 7. Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live in a just, lasting, and secure peace.” The European Council cited “the need to fight against violent actions that threaten peace and international security”. 

This begs the question: why have no such measures been put in place against the Israeli government? 

An indiscriminate bombing campaign and subsequent ground invasion of Gaza has killed, injured or left missing more than 100,000 Palestinians. Hundreds of children have lost a limb. Almost two million people have been displaced. Tens of thousands of buildings have been destroyed, and huge tracts of the territory have been left uninhabitable.

If the EU and its member states genuinely want to 'bring about a change in bad or harmful policies', they must do more than simply ask the Israeli government to stop

Israeli government officials have made numerous statements that were used to demonstrate genocidal intent by the South African government in its case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The European Commission has said that Israel “must comply” with the ICJ’s preliminary ruling, although it was unclear how the EU would seek to enforce that, beyond polite requests.

The EU has no compunctions about sanctioning government officials or their allies. It currently has sanctions in place against Venezuelan, Russian and Iranian officials, among others. The bloc says it introduces sanctions with the aims of “promoting international peace and security; preventing conflicts; supporting democracy, the rule of law and human rights; and defending the principles of international law”.

It says its sanctions are “not punitive”, but rather aim “to bring about a change in bad or harmful policies or activities by targeting the non-EU countries, including organisations and individuals, responsible”.

Mealy-mouthed statements

It is evident that the Israeli government is pursuing policies and activities that are both “bad” and “harmful”. Indeed, the situation is so bad that the ICJ has found the government’s actions to be plausibly meeting the definition of genocide. 

There is an evident need for change, and it appears unlikely that any such change will come from within Israel itself. There is still substantial domestic support for the war on Gaza, and the country’s government shows no signs of changing course. With none of Israel’s international allies putting meaningful pressure upon it to do so, why would it? 

There is currently little to no incentive for Israel to halt the war, let alone even to consider ending the occupation, or pursue negotiations for meaningful, long-term peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.

If sanctions are required against Hamas to ensure peace and stability in the region, how is it that the same analysis does not apply to Israeli government officials who have ordered, directed and cheered on a military assault that leaves the prospects for peace buried under the same rubble as Palestinian children and their families?

It is utterly nonsensical and profoundly hypocritical for the EU, its member states, or any other government to continue talking about the need for peace and a two-state solution without taking any steps - beyond the occasional mealy-mouthed statements calling for restraint - to effect change.

It is often said that actions speak louder than words. In international politics, interests speak louder than principles. If the EU and its member states genuinely want to “bring about a change in bad or harmful policies”, they must do more than simply ask the Israeli government to stop. As Borrell himself put it: stop saying please and start doing something.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Wednesday evening that there is a strong proposal on the table now for a ceasefire.

Blinken added in his statements: We are engaged in discussions with Qatar and Egypt for the possibility of a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the entry of humanitarian aid.

Hebrew media quoted Blinken as saying in an interview with international media that the ball is now in Hamas’ court, and the question is whether or not it will accept this proposal to end the suffering it has created. like he said.

Blinken pointed out the start of construction of a sea pier to transport aid, saying: There is movement to transport aid, but it is not enough.. Israel needs to open the largest possible number of access points, and the sea corridor is not an alternative, and land routes remain the most important for transporting aid to Gaza.

He said: I spoke with officials in Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE in order to open and operate the sea corridor in Gaza.

He added: Land crossings are the most important means, but the sea corridor in Gaza will help reduce the gap in the entry of aid.

He continued: The President made it clear that ensuring the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza must be our top priority. Our priority is to protect civilians and deliver aid to those who need it in Gaza.

The US Secretary of State stressed the need to protect civilians if Israel launches a ground operation in Rafah.

The Wall Street Journal reported that former Palestinian detainees under the Israeli occupation were beaten, humiliated, and forced to kneel for more than 20 hours.

The newspaper said, quoting a director of the Committee against Torture in Israel, that Palestinian detainees are isolated and detained without the right to seek assistance from a lawyer.

She added that the occupation forces stripped them of their clothes for long periods of time, during interrogation.

Former prisoner Muhammad Obaid said that the Israeli soldiers asked him to wipe the blood from his face to take a picture in front of the Israeli flag. He added that Israel later released him without charges after 40 days of detention.

Heba Ghaben, a former prisoner of Israel, also said, “They threatened me with electric shocks and tied our hands and feet.”

When Israeli soldiers released Bahaa Abu Rukba near a border crossing in Gaza after detaining him for nearly three weeks, the 24-year-old Palestinian said he was in pain and struggling to walk after being repeatedly beaten with rifle butts and kicked in the thigh.

The United Nations estimates that, since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, Israel has detained thousands of young Palestinians in operations that the Israeli army said targeted militants.

Earlier, the private Israeli Channel 13 said that what it described as elite fighters in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) detained in Israeli prisons "are suffering from severe and difficult measures, and are crowded into very small cells amidst hunger, cold, and restrictions."

This came in a television report broadcast by the channel about the Palestinian prisoners, whom it said were “elite” members of the “Al-Qassam” Brigades affiliated with the Hamas movement, who were arrested during the attacks of October 7, 2023.

The channel says, "Prisoners of the Hamas elite suffer from very difficult conditions, as they are always shivering from the cold, and are forced to bow their heads while sitting on the ground. The cell rooms are very small, and the beds are unmade and without covers."

Source: Al Jazeera

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, professor of political economy at Columbia University, believes that the United States will not continue its support for Israel forever, and that the latter is committing massacres and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip.

He believes - in an interview with Haaretz newspaper in Hebrew - that Israel is carrying out genocide against thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, rejects the two-state solution, and believes that it is able to control all the lands between the river and the sea forever.

Sachs - who is considered one of the most important economists in the world and one of the most influential economists and thinkers on the American left - added that Tel Aviv is happy with the full support it receives from Washington, but it completely misses the true picture of the situation, which states that almost all countries in the world strongly oppose its policies,  and it has become completely isolated, except for the support it receives from Washington and small countries such as Micronesia and Nauru, but the winds are changing, and even the American people are turning their backs on it.

The American academic expected that America would stop its military aid to Israel sooner or later, for several reasons, including popular opposition in the United States to financing the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, American youth’s disapproval of the Israeli position, Israel’s isolation in the world, and the United States’ inflated debts that are increasingly burdening it. 

In this regard, he drew attention to the fact that America will soon step down from the international stage as the undisputed leader of the global system, in light of the rise of new powers, led by China.

Don't make the Washington mistake

He said that the Israelis do not understand that they will soon be left alone, and they do not understand that the brutality shown by the Israeli army in Gaza exposes Israel to an existential threat.

He asserts, "Every day that passes, the Israelis become more and more outcast, and Israel loses the rest of the international support that it enjoyed. I see this in my work as a professor, and I see it in the United Nations, and I am begging you: Do not make the mistake of believing that the United States will continue to support you. You must be wise, or you will be left alone with Micronesia.”

Professor Sachs continued, "The same people who are now supporting you in Washington are the ones who created the chaos in Ukraine. Biden, Sullivan, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. These are the people who moved in 2014 to oust the then Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, because he did not support joining NATO," Professor Sachs continued. “This is what created the catastrophe that is happening now in Ukraine.”

He considered, "These are a group of amateurs. How many countries relied on American support and were left behind? Vietnam, Afghanistan after the Taliban, Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Libya after Gaddafi, and the list goes on. For years I have been warning the Ukrainians: Do not rely on American support, because you are in the end, you will end up like Afghanistan. Now I warn you (the Israelis): Do not rely on American support, because in the end you will end up like Ukraine."

No surprise

The newspaper says that Sachs has many relatives in Israel, and over the years he has visited it many times, has relationships with his colleagues at universities, and, in general, gives the impression that he is an expert on Israeli politics at the level of a veteran parliamentary advisor.

Like most American Jews, Sachs spent the morning hours of last October 7 in panicked phone calls to his relatives in Israel, according to the newspaper. He says, "It was a terrible feeling. There was great concern. The first thing I did was make sure that our family members in Israel were okay. Fortunately, none of them were directly harmed. The second thing I did was try to understand why this happened. Hamas did a terrible thing." “But as someone who has been investigating similar situations for 50 years, this does not come as a surprise to me.”

Sachs expressed his belief that Israel cannot continue its war in Gaza, even for days, without American armament, and that its insistence on its position will lead to moral decadence, as many Israelis are no longer able to distinguish between security measures and mass slaughter against the Palestinians.

Speaking about the Abraham Accords, Sachs said that normalization with Saudi Arabia before last October 7 seemed to be just around the corner, and he added, “I do not know what Saudi Arabia’s plan was, but I do not believe any report published by the American administration, nor anything Netanyahu says.” Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has made it explicitly clear that there will be no normalization at the expense of the Palestinians. Does anyone really believe that the Palestinian issue can be hidden? What, will the issue disappear just because Jake Sullivan or Jared Kushner decided so, or will American money hide it? I do not think so".

Lessons of September 11

The academic noted that there is deep global disgust at Israel's actions, noting that "this is not anti-Semitism, but rather opposition to Israel's bombing of civilians, killing tens of thousands, most of them women and children, and the bombing of schools, hospitals, mosques and universities, and often the bombs are Itself is accompanied by videos of cheering soldiers.”

He added, "Israeli government ministers speak at public events about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and for some reason they believe that their banal words are not heard around the world, or that they simply do not care."

Regarding Israel’s behavior following the October 7 attack, Sachs believed that it had to take lessons from the events of September 11, and explained, “Biden told you directly, learn from our experience after September 11. We made every possible mistake because we believed that the attack gave us permission to do everything we wanted to those who “We consider them enemies, and this is perhaps the only case where I agree with the president.”

The American professor said that the United States should not have invaded Afghanistan, nor waged a war in Iraq, and what we should have done was investigate the failures that existed before the attacks, strengthen border security, and initiate an intelligent political response, and the same applies. Israel had to study the reasons for the catastrophic failure, strengthen security on the borders, and think about a long-term solution.

The veteran politician and economist concluded that the Palestinian issue cannot be ignored or even attempted to overcome it, calling on the Israelis not to believe that America will continue to support their control over the Palestinians by rejecting the two-state solution. In the end, the Palestinians will withstand the Gaza war despite the losses, but Israel, in return, may find itself facing a boycott from the international community.

Source: Haaretz

The Times of Israel quoted a senior American official as saying that the frustration in Washington over Israel's behavior in the Gaza war is real and did not come only because of the approach of the American presidential elections, while other reports stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to face off against President Joe Biden.

The American official pointed out that the frustration increased after the incident of shelling the aid convoy last month, in reference to the flour massacre that took place at the Nabulsi roundabout in Gaza City and left at least 118 dead.

The official added that the American administration feels that this tragedy shed light on Israel's disregard for Washington's repeated warnings regarding the need to avoid the humanitarian crisis.

The official stated that these messages were conveyed during a meeting between Israeli War Council member Minister Benny Gantz and senior officials of the Biden administration in Washington a week ago.

These messages were also repeated over the ears of the Israeli ambassador, who was called to the White House for a one-on-one meeting with American National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

And according to the newspaper, Sullivan told the Israeli ambassador that Washington considers Israel fully responsible for the humanitarian crisis and expects Israel to address it.

"We are not an American protectorate"

In contrast, Israel's Channel 12 quoted a senior Israeli official as saying that Netanyahu was angered by the CIA report that indicates the possibility of his losing power, and decided to have a "strong confrontation" with Biden, indicating that the relationship between the two parties is close to irreparable .

The most recent assessment of the American intelligence community reported that mistrust in Netanyahu's ability to govern is deepening among Israelis, and the expectation of large protests demanding his resignation is likely to form what it called a different and more moderate government.

The Israel Broadcasting Corporation also quoted an official as saying - in response to the American intelligence report - that the Israelis are the ones who choose their prime minister, stressing that Israel "is not an American protectorate".

The official added that he expects Washington to topple the Hamas movement, not the Israeli government.

And Israel launched a devastating war on Gaza more than 5 months ago, leaving behind tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, amid warnings from international organizations of famine, especially in the northern Gaza Strip, due to the Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid.

And the United States provides broad political support to Israel in this war, where it has used the veto (veto) in the Security Council several times to thwart resolutions calling for a ceasefire, as well as establishing an airlift to supply Tel Aviv with thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition.

Source: Al Jazeera + the Israeli press

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the invasion of the Rafah area, where about 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have taken refuge, is “necessary” to achieve the Israeli goals of the devastating war that it has been waging on the Gaza Strip for 159 days, considering that “unilaterally recognizing the Palestinian state will be considered an achievement for the Hamas movement.” 

Netanyahu's statements came during a meeting he had earlier today, Wednesday, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the Israeli Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, according to a statement issued by Netanyahu's office. Note that this is the fourth meeting held between Netanyahu and Rutte since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza.

The Israeli statement stated that “Netanyahu stressed to his Dutch counterpart that the entry of the Israeli army into Rafah constitutes a necessary step to achieve the goals of the war, and that unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state will be considered an achievement for Hamas,” and these are the same messages that Netanyahu began to focus on in the latter’s statements, and summarize the differences with the administration of US President Joe Biden.

The statement added, "The two sides discussed the issue of humanitarian aid, with Netanyahu calling on the Dutch Prime Minister to join the sea corridor initiative." Netanyahu stressed that Israel is determined to "replace UNRWA in the Gaza Strip without compromising the provision of aid," according to his claims, and thanked Rutte for freezing Dutch funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

A "high-ranking" Israeli official responded to a US intelligence report, published earlier, that warned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government "may be in danger" amid criticism over the management of the war against Hamas in Gaza.

The official said in a statement to the media: “It is the citizens of Israel who elect the Prime Minister of Israel and not anyone else,” noting that “the intelligence report is an attempt to overthrow Netanyahu.”

The official added, according to the Times of Israel: “Israel is not a protectorate of the United States, but rather an independent and democratic state, and its citizens are the ones who elect the government.”

He continued: "We expect our friends to work to overthrow the Hamas terrorist regime and not the elected government in Israel."

The United States wrote in its assessment of Israel, according to the report: “The state of distrust in Netanyahu’s ability to rule has strengthened among the public compared to its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and holding new elections. The formation of a different, more moderate government is possible.”

According to Israeli Channel 12, the American report left the Israeli Prime Minister “angry,” adding that Netanyahu “decided to enter into severe, public, and dramatic confrontations with the President of the United States.”

The American report indicated that "Israel will likely face a challenge from Hamas for years to come, and the army will struggle to neutralize Hamas' underground infrastructure."

Amid escalating tensions with the White House, Netanyahu told AIPAC delegates gathered in Washington, earlier Tuesday: “I greatly appreciate the support we have received from President Biden and the administration, and I hope it will continue.”

Netanyahu continued: “But let me be clear: Israel will win this war no matter what happens.”

Netanyahu said that for Israel to win the war, "it must destroy what remains of Hamas in Rafah. If it does not do so, Hamas will regroup, re-arm itself, and reclaim Gaza."

Today, Wednesday, the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" denied what was circulated in the media and attributed to a "senior Hamas source" regarding the movement receiving an international offer for an extended ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a gradual return of the displaced, or a delegation heading to Cairo to discuss the details.

During the press statement, the Hamas movement renewed its call to the media to ensure accuracy and credibility in reporting news, and not to manipulate the feelings of the Palestinian people who are subjected to Zionist aggression and a Nazi war of extermination.

This statement comes amid international attempts to reach a ceasefire, the most recent of which was the negotiations held in Cairo with the participation of Egypt, the United States, Qatar, and Hamas for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Although the Hamas delegation left Cairo last Thursday, the US ambassador to Tel Aviv, Jack Lew, indicated that it was a mistake to assume that the prisoner exchange and ceasefire talks in the Gaza Strip had failed.

Hamas previously announced - in a statement - that its delegation left Cairo to consult with the movement's senior leadership, while negotiations and efforts are still continuing to find solutions to stop the aggression, return the displaced, and provide relief aid to the Palestinian people.

Israeli rejection of Hamas' demands

In a statement to Reuters, Hamas leader Sami Abu Zuhri confirmed that Israel had failed to achieve any progress in the ongoing negotiations to reach a ceasefire agreement.

Abu Zuhri explained that Israel rejects the demands put forward by Hamas to stop the aggression, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and guarantee the freedom of aid entry and the return of the displaced.

Hamas officials indicated that it is necessary to reach a ceasefire and withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza before beginning the process of releasing prisoners, stressing the importance of all residents of the Gaza Strip returning to their homes from which they fled during the aggression.

Hamas also confirmed that it is unable to provide a list of the names of prisoners who are still alive without reaching a ceasefire, because the prisoners are distributed in different areas within the Strip.

A truce had previously been reached between Hamas and Israel, which lasted for a week from November 24 to December 1, 2023.

During that period, all parties committed to a ceasefire and prisoner exchange, in addition to introducing limited humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, said that Israel is “uprooting a people,” in a post on her account on the “X” platform today, Wednesday.

This came as a comment on a post by the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.

Lazzarini said in his post yesterday that the number of children killed in Gaza since October 7 is greater than the number of children killed in the world’s wars over the past 4 years.

Albanese pointed out that "this massacre of children occurred within 5 months in an area the size of the American city of Philadelphia."

In his post, Lazzarini shared a graph prepared based on data from the United Nations and the Ministry of Health in Gaza, showing the number of children who were martyred in Gaza in the period from October 7 to February 29 and the number of children killed in wars in the past four years.

The graph showed that the number of children killed in wars in the world during the past four years reached 12,193, while the number of children martyred in Gaza reached more than 12,300 children.

Despite the start of the month of Ramadan, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, leaving tens of thousands of civilian victims, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction of infrastructure, which led to Tel Aviv appearing before the Court of Justice. international charge of "genocide".

On Tuesday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refuted a report published by Politico newspaper that said that US President Joe Biden is considering imposing conditions on military aid to Israel if it invades the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, which is inhabited by 1.5 million Palestinians.

"We will not engage in assumptions about what comes next, and reports that purport to describe the president's thinking are ill-advised speculation," Sullivan said at a news conference.

Any large-scale attack on Rafah would lead to a large number of civilian casualties, as most Palestinians in the city, which had a pre-war population of 275,000, are sheltering in tents on the streets.

An attack would also disrupt the small flow of aid into Gaza, as the only border crossing into Egypt is in the city, and Palestinians are starving to death in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade.

Sullivan also denied the idea that President Biden had set a red line for Israel. In an interview over the weekend, Biden indicated that the attack on Rafah was a red line, but he quickly backed away from that statement. “The president has not issued any statements, pronouncements or announcements,” Sullivan said.

Also on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again vowed to invade Rafah. “We will finish the job in Rafah while enabling the civilian population to get out of harm’s way,” he said in statements to the Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States.

The US State Department said on Monday that Israel had not presented a plan to protect civilians if it invaded Rafah.

State Department spokesman Matt Miller said in his comment on a question asked by Al-Quds.com correspondent: “The government of Israel said that it will implement the humanitarian assistance plan, and we have not seen such a plan yet.”

To date, the massacre committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 31,000 people, most of them women and children.

The United States has supported the massacre by approving more than 100 arms deals to Israel since October 7.

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said on Wednesday, “We lost 27 children as a result of malnutrition and the lack of any type of infant formula in northern Gaza.”

The Ministry of Health added in a statement: “Thousands of children suffer from serious complications as a result of the lack of their own milk.”

The Ministry of Health calls on international organizations and children's institutions around the world to provide milk for children in northern Gaza.

In late 1967, the growing movement within the Democratic Party against the war in South Vietnam was looking for a leader to take on President Lyndon Johnson, who was increasing the number of troops in the war and intensifying the daily bombing. We now know from the available scholarship that Johnson, in his determination to do what Jack Kennedy had failed to do—force the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in the South to give in to American fire power and seek a settlement on terms that would make his re-election inevitable—had steadfastly refused to halt American bombing, even for a few days, in response to hints from Hanoi about a possible ceasefire. Hanoi was insisting that there could be no talks as long as the bombing continued.

I had disclosed elements of the bombing, the intensity of which was little known, as a correspondent for the Associated Press in the Pentagon. My critical reporting on the war eventually led the AP editors, facing pressure from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, to offer me a reassignment that they knew I would reject. And so in late 1967 I was researching a book—that is to say, I was unemployed—when I was approached by a prominent critic of the war and told that Senator Robert Kennedy of New York was unlikely to challenge Johnson in the 1968 Democratic presidential primaries.

The growing anti-war movement in America, which I supported—South Vietnam was by then little more than a killing field with nearly 500,000 American troops at war—had finally found a senior Democrat in the Senate willing to take on Johnson. It was Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota. Like many moderate politicians from the Upper Midwest, he was a critic of communism but also dead set against the Vietnam War.

Would I be willing to serve as the senator’s press secretary and speech writer? I knew many in the Senate who were against the war, but, like most in America, knew little about McCarthy, who was a very quiet member of the important Foreign Relations Committee. At the time, when there was nothing less rewarding than being a freelancer with no regular paydays, and I agreed to go meet McCarthy. A meeting had already been set up for the next day. (I have written previously about this experience here.)

The senator was a most attractive fellow—he’d been a good athlete in college and was fit and obviously very intelligent. But the meeting was a total flop. He came across as someone who had been dragooned into running against Johnson and sure as hell could care less about a press operation, or me. I gave him a packet of my clips, which he accepted but never glanced at, and the only thing he knew about me was that Mary McGrory, then a brilliant Washington columnist and a friend and neighbor of mine, had urged him to hire me. After a few moments of chit-chat, he said, “You’ll do,” and got up to usher me out of his office. Later that day I told Mary that she was throwing me to the wolves, and there was no way I would go to work for the diffident senator.

She urged me to fly to New York the next day and listen to McCarthy’s first speech as a declared challenger to Lyndon Johnson. I did so, and it turned out that the bored senator I had met the day before was profound and totally courageous. During the campaign, McCarthy declared the war in Vietnam to be “immoral” in its disastrous impact on the innocent civilians who were being murdered by American bombs. I had never heard a senior politician in Washington talk about that war in terms of morality. And then he went on to say that the war also violated the Constitution. 

I was smitten and went to work for McCarthy, who turned out to like that I knew things about the war and how to work hard. Soon and for months afterward I was often his only aide on trips around the country. I learned much about how the Senate and the American intelligence community worked. A terrific staff was assembled for his campaign in New Hampshire, and he did not back down in his criticism of the war and the president. He drew almost as many votes in the Democratic primary on March 12 as Johnson. Less than three weeks later the president announced he would not stand for re-election.

There is a lesson in the clarity of McCarthy’s purpose for President Joe Biden, who like much of the world responded with rage and a desire for payback at the horror that Hamas inflicted on October 7. Hamas’s carefully planned kidnapping of IDF hostages was accompanied by widespread sexual attacks and the murder of undefended Israeli families living and farming in their small collectives within a few miles of the border. The initial attack left the border open, and hundreds of Gaza residents joined members of Hamas in the siege and hostage taking. 

At this point, with Israel now in its sixth month of bombing and ground assaults in Gaza, with a mounting civilian death toll as America and the world watch in anger, Biden will have difficulty winning re-election unless he retracts his initial justified support for a stricken Israel. He must stand up to Netanyahu and tell him that the United States cannot continue to supply funding, bombs, and other munitions to Israel until, at minimum, there is a ceasefire that could open the door to substantive talks with what is left of the Hamas leadership. Netanyahu’s avowed goal of destroying all of Hamas, including its leadership, in four to six weeks of continued warfare is incompatible with the constant terror and despair of the population still alive in Gaza. 

Few wars, justified or not, have ended because of the suffering of an enemy’s population. Russia’s twenty million deaths in World War II tell us that. When one side’s military is dominant, as Israel’s is in Gaza, and the people there suffer greatly, the losing party either surrenders or is annihilated.

I consulted with an experienced American expert who believes that Netanyahu is obligated at this point to offer Hamas reasonable terms for surrender. He said the major elements should be: 

—Surrender of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and his staff to the Israeli forces.

—Referral of the Hamas leadership to the International Criminal Court for trial.

—Full disarmament of Hamas.

—Release of all hostages in Hamas’s control and a full accounting of those who died in captivity.

—Unrestricted humanitarian relief.

—Restoration of self-government in Gaza with supervised elections.

—Allow passage through borders of aid for reconstruction.

Is Netanyahu likely to offer such terms? The record suggests not.

On October 7, the prime minister was in the middle of a widely publicized criminal trial on fraud, breach of trust, and bribery charges that, according to Israeli media, he was destined to lose and face potentially more than a decade in jail. His administration was repeatedly warned by its intelligence services, and America’s, that Hamas had been training for months for a cross-border attack on a group of lightly defended kibbutzim a few miles away in southern Israel, with a goal of seizing IDF soldiers as hostages from a lightly defended nearby intelligence unit. That mission turned into the carnage that horrified Israel and the world. The IDF’s failure to respond to the intelligence was Netanyahu’s fault, in the sense that the buck always stops at the top. He did initially acknowledge his failure and publicly promised a thorough investigation. Such an inquiry has not yet taken place, and at this point seems irrelevant. It was his decision to go to general quarters in response, and not to focus on the arrest and prosecution of Sinwar and others in control of Hamas. The prime minister, with no known resistance from Washington, chose instead to order an all-out air and ground assault on Gaza; the precedent was the decision of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to respond to the 9/11 attacks by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda by going to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. 

Would a different Israeli leader have chosen to focus on the security failures of the IDF, while also ordering a manhunt for Sinwar and other Hamas leaders? Was Netanyahu’s pending trial, and the specter of spending the rest of his life in prison, a factor in what was to come? These questions were little asked at the start of the war and are largely irrelevant now.  

Netanyahu’s determination to fight and kill or capture all in Hamas and to hell with what Washington thinks has been known for many months, although it’s constantly being rediscovered by the Washington press corps. He is intent on expanding Israeli military and political domination throughout Gaza and the West Bank, and in this he has the blessing of the Israeli public and many of Israel’s supporters in America.

Mention of the remaining Israeli hostages has essentially disappeared from Bibi’s most recent statements, in part, so I have been told, because current intelligence estimates of surviving hostages have been dwindling. There are specific estimates known to the involved intelligence communities, but neither Washington nor Tel Aviv has publicly disclosed them.

In a recent interview with Politico/Bild in Germany, Netanyahu was at his most comfortable and direct. He dismissed Biden’s suddenly increased concern about the killings in Gaza and reaffirmed that Israel’s next move would be an all-out attack on Rafah, where more than one million starving and ill Palestinians are huddled, in tents, in ruins, and in the open, far from airborne drops of MREs. “We’ll go there. We are not going to leave them [Hamas],” he said. “We’ve destroyed three quarters of Hamas’s fighting terrorism battalions and we’re close to finishing the last part.” He did not explain how that estimate of Hamas’s numbers was obtained, and he dismissed the idea of a ceasefire during the holy month of Ramadan, which began last weekend. He said that while he would “like to see another hostage release” he did not see any “breakthrough in the negotiations.” The release of hostages was once the dominant reason for the talks.

How this will end is unknown. And it is very scary.

Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation José Manuel Albarez said that bilateral relations between Jordan and Spain are at their best at this time.

He added, in a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, that he spoke with Palestinian Foreign Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh that Spain wants to effectively recognize the Palestinian state.

He pointed out that part of the aid that Spain will provide to UNRWA will reach Jordan in order to improve the conditions of Palestinians in the camps here in Jordan, where their number reaches 2.5 million.

He stressed the importance of an immediate ceasefire to facilitate the unconditional entry of humanitarian aid to stop the killing of Palestinians who are dying of hunger and not just from bombing.

He pointed out that no country should be above the law, referring to the Israeli occupation’s violation of international laws in this war and the killing of children and citizens, who are not just numbers and we will not forget them, and we must work to stop this tragedy.

He added, "Spain wants to hold an international peace conference, and there are more than 90 countries that support this initiative. We want to see Palestine as an independent, sovereign state enjoying security and peace. This is the commitment that Spain has worked on over the past years. This is an urgent need and not just an ideology."

He pointed out that since October 7, Spain has stopped issuing permits to supply weapons except to Tel Aviv and imposed sanctions.

The US State Department said humanitarian aid to Gaza was "not at the level we wanted" and that Washington wanted to send more.

This came as State Department spokesman Matthew Miller answered, on Tuesday, questions related to Gaza in the daily press conference.

Miller said: "We see that humanitarian aid is arriving in Gaza, but not to the extent we would like. We want to send more aid and that is why we are in constant contact with Israel."

He stated that in addition to US air aid, they are also working on the sea route option, saying: “This does not change our basic position that the majority of aid should go to Gaza through land crossings, and that it should be much more than what is currently being sent.” 

He stated that security, inspection and distribution operations can be improved so that more humanitarian aid can arrive, and the Israeli government must do more in this context.

The Israeli army committed 10 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, claiming 88 dead and 135 injured during the past 24 hours, which raises the toll of the aggression to 31,272 killed and 73,024 injured since last October 7.

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip confirmed that there are a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads, and the occupation prevents ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.

In the latest events, 15 citizens were killed, including two women and seven children, and dozens were injured, in an Israeli bombing on the Al-Daraj and Al-Zaytoun neighborhoods in Gaza City.

The Israeli aircraft bombed a house in the Al-Daraj neighborhood, killing 7 citizens, including three children, and wounding others.

The Israeli warplanes also bombed a house for the Azzam family in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, resulting in the death of 8 persons, including 4 children and 2 women.

In Tal al-Hawa, west of Gaza City, five citizens, including children, were killed, and others were injured, as a result of the Israeli artillery firing 4 shells near the Jerusalem Hospital of the Red Crescent Society.

Health and local sources in the Gaza Strip also reported that two people were killed and 4 children were injured as a result of the Israeli bombing of a house in the Al-Daraj neighborhood, north of Gaza City.

A number of citizens were killed after Israeli army bombed a house on Salah al-Din Street, east of the Zaytoun neighborhood.

Local sources reported that a number of citizens were injured and others missing, in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house on Al-Sahaba Street in Gaza City.

In addition, Israeli aircraft and artillery bombed the north and west of Khan Yunis, and the vicinity of the residential Hamad Town in the city.

On Al-Sahaba Street in Gaza City, the Israeli forces bombed a house, wounding a number of citizens, while the Israeli artillery bombed the northern areas of the Central Governorate in the Strip, and Gaza City.

Yesterday evening, Tuesday, 10 citizens were killed and others were injured in an Israeli bombing of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.

Israel has continued its aggression against the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since the seventh of last October, which led to the death of more than 31,112 citizens, the majority of whom were women and children, and the injury of more than 72,760 others, an infinite toll.

Groups opposing the war on the Gaza Strip and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in the United States began to organize their ranks, which prompted two Israeli newspapers to draw attention to them.

The newspaper "Haaretz" reported that a broad coalition that includes more than 20 Arab, Islamic, and even Jewish organizations has begun to form to confront pro-Israel pressure groups within the United States, and to combat the "United Democracy Project" of a pro-Israel organization, and its efforts to enhance support for Israel in its war against the movement. Islamic Resistance (Hamas).

Campaign against AIPAC

The newspaper explained in a report that the new coalition intends to launch its first campaigns against “dark money” obtained by the pro-Israel political pressure group in the United States, called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

“Dark money” is a term that refers to money that nonprofits receive from donors and in turn spend to influence elections, and are not required to disclose the donors.

The Israeli newspaper reported that the coalition, which calls itself “Reject AIPAC,” plans to confront this Jewish pressure group, and its major political action committee, through electoral, political, digital, and organizational strategies.

Organizations affiliated with the coalition

The coalition also said that it would not allow the super PAC to “undermine our democracy,” which received funding from major donors who supported Republican candidate Donald Trump and his rival Nikki Haley, according to the statement.

Among the organizations affiliated with the coalition is the Progressive Political Action Committee known as “Justice Democrats”; The Sunrise Movement, and the Democratic Socialists of America; The “Our Revolution” movement led by Senator Bernie Sanders, as well as progressive Jewish organizations; Such as: Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and the IfNotNow movement, which means “If Not Now.”

Haaretz quoted a statement from the coalition saying that AIPAC's major political action committee, which receives donations from Republican donors, is now vowing to spend $100 million to target "a handful of black and colored members of Congress who led calls for a ceasefire and equal protection for the lives of Palestinians and Israelis."

Against undermining democracy

The launch of the coalition comes one week after the United Democracy Project failed in its efforts to obstruct the campaign of Korean-American Democratic candidate Dave Minn in the congressional elections for California, despite the project breaking its previous records with $4.7 million in ads aimed at attacking him.

For its part, the Times of Israel published a report in the same direction, in which it described the announcement of the establishment of the coalition as a direct response to the pro-Israel political action committees, which plan to spend tens of millions of dollars in their attempts to defeat members of the Democratic Party called “ Division,” in this year’s primary and general elections.

Alliance strategy

It quoted Osama Andrabi, director of communications at the Justice Democrats Committee, as saying that the new coalition’s strategy is to connect the grassroots organizations behind the “Defend the Elections” campaign, not only to protect members of Congress targeted by AIPAC; But also to highlight what they consider to be a deviation in the group from the established values of the Democratic Party.

The Times of Israel says in its report that the coalition will focus its efforts on supporting pro-Palestinian members and candidates, and highlighting opinion polls that show Democratic voters align with its positions, including demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, and that American aid to Israel be subject to conditions.

Source: The Times of Israel + Haaretz