Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel will continue its attack on the Gaza Strip despite increasing international pressure.

During a government session on Sunday, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel will continue its attack on the Gaza Strip, including the city of Rafah, while it will evacuate civilians from the combat areas.

Netanyahu added: “To our friends in the international community, I say: Is your memory short? Did you forget October 7 so quickly? Are you prepared so quickly to deprive Israel of the right to defend itself against the monsters of Hamas? Did you lose your moral conscience so quickly?” Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper considered an escalation by Netanyahu in his confrontation with US President Joe Biden.

The Israeli prime minister denounced the international pressure on Israel, saying: “Instead of putting pressure on Israel, which is waging an unjust war against an enemy crueler than it, direct your pressure on Hamas and its sponsor, Iran.” They pose a threat to the region and the entire world.”

He stressed, "In any case, we will stand in the face of all pressures, and we will continue the war until complete victory."

At the beginning of the government session, Netanyahu referred to an attack launched against him by the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, who last week called for elections in Israel and claimed that Netanyahu had “lost his authority.”

Netanyahu added: “There are those in the international community who are trying to stop the war now, before all its goals are achieved.” They do this by making false accusations against the Israeli army, against the Israeli government, and against the prime minister.

He continued: “They are doing this by making an effort to hold elections now, in the middle of the war, and they are doing this because they know that the elections now will stop the war, and will paralyze the country for at least six months.”

The Prime Minister of the Israeli government stressed that if the war is stopped now, before achieving all its goals, this means that Israel has lost the war, continuing: “We will not allow that, and that is why we must not surrender to these pressures, and we will not surrender to them.”

He continued: “No international pressure will prevent us from achieving all the goals of the war: eliminating Hamas, releasing all detainees, and ensuring that Gaza will not pose another threat against Israel.”

He added: “In order to do this, we will also work in Rafah. This is the only way to eliminate the remaining Hamas brigades, and this is the only way to exert the necessary military pressure to release all detainees.”

He explained that operational plans for the incursion into Rafah had been approved, including steps to evacuate civilians from combat areas, noting that the operation in Rafah would take several weeks, stressing: “The operation will take place.”

Former Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon said that returning Israeli detainees in the Gaza Strip is not a priority for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is interested in remaining in power.

Ya'alon added - in statements reported by the Maariv newspaper - that there are officials within the Israeli government demanding the sacrifice of detainees in exchange for occupying the Gaza Strip, expelling the Palestinians, and settling Jews there.

He pointed out that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir do not want to reach a final status in which Israel does not control Gaza, stressing the responsibility of the occupation army for killing 100 Palestinians while distributing aid in the northern Gaza Strip.

Regarding what was reported about launching a ground operation in Rafah, Ya’alon considered the threat to enter Rafah to be a hoax, wondering if the government really needed to enter, so why did it not enter? Why were units of reserve soldiers demobilized?

Yaalon also expressed his belief that the right path lies in going to elections, to get Israel out of this crisis with a different leadership, calling on Israelis to take to the streets and protest.

Positions regarding the exchange deal

On the other hand, officials in the Israeli negotiating team accused Netanyahu of wasting time, according to what was reported by Israeli media.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said that Defense Minister Yoav Galant held an alternative session in order to discuss the prisoner exchange deal, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to hold a session of the mini-ministerial council for security and political affairs.

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation revealed that Mossad Director David Barnea participated in the session held by the Minister of Defense regarding the exchange deal.

For his part, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid ruled out the possibility of concluding an easy deal to release Israeli prisoners held by Hamas.

This came during his talk yesterday, Saturday, with the families of the prisoners, indicating what he described as the opposition’s full support for such a deal.

Lapid said that the deal that would return them was worth the price, and that it was not possible to move forward without their return to Israel.

On the other hand, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz said that Israel is willing to pay a price in exchange for the return of detainees in Gaza, but it is not ready to stop the war, describing this as a red line.

Regarding the implementation of a ground operation in Rafah, Katz responded during an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth website that this will happen because victory in the war cannot be achieved without entering there, as he put it.

Human Rights Watch called on the international community to impose sanctions on Israel for not complying with the International Court of Justice's order to take precautionary measures in the Gaza Strip to prevent "genocide."

The organization said through its account on the “X” platform, “Countries must impose targeted sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel, in order to comply with the order issued by the International Court of Justice.”

The organization noted that Tel Aviv "did not comply with court orders and did not work to deliver aid and basic services to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

At the end of last January, the International Court of Justice asked Israel to take all measures to prevent any acts that could be considered genocide, to ensure that the Israeli army does not carry out any acts of genocide, and to prevent any public statements or comments that could incite the commission of genocide in Gaza.

It called on it to take all measures to ensure the arrival of humanitarian aid, and not to throw away any evidence that could be used in the case against it.

On December 29, South Africa filed a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of committing “genocide crimes” in the Gaza Strip, before the court announced its rejection of Israel’s demands to drop the case, and ruled temporarily to obligate Israel “to take measures to stop the genocide and introduce Humanitarian aid."

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the administration of US President Joe Biden is cooperating with what he described as the “dangerous campaign” of the international boycott movement that aims to harm Israel and distort its image.

Smotrich stressed that Israel should not tolerate US sanctions on settlers under any circumstances.

In recent months, the Biden administration imposed several sanctions on settlers it accused of involvement in violence in the West Bank, indicating the United States' growing dissatisfaction with the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Smotrich: I will demand that the cabinet stop new army appointments

Smotrich commented on the army's announcement of new appointments, saying that he would ask the Israeli cabinet to stop the appointments.

He added that if Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy did not understand on his own that he should not be preoccupied with appointments that he described as “non-urgent,” he would make him understand that through the cabinet, as he put it.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that one in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza now suffers from acute malnutrition, and that famine is looming on the horizon.

UNRWA added in a statement published on social media, “Child malnutrition is spreading rapidly and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza.”

Hospitals in Gaza reported that some children were dying from malnutrition and dehydration.

The international body responsible for monitoring food insecurity (the Integrated Interim Classification of Food Security) is expected to soon submit a report on the extent of the hunger crisis in Gaza, after it said last December that there is a risk of famine occurring during a forecast period extending until next May. .

World Central Kitchen said the first shipment to Gaza from the charity, which led aid deliveries via a new sea route via Cyprus, arrived on Thursday and was unloaded.

Son of Saul showed how the Holocaust's horrors required inmates to hollow out their humanity. The horrors of Gaza have made a similar moral monster of its director, Laszlo Nemes

Laszlo Nemes, the Hungarian director of the award-winning film Son of Saul, joins the elite mob determined to lynch film-maker Jonathan Glazer for trying to publicly prick Hollywood's conscience at the Oscars ceremony last week and end its deafening silence in the midst of a plausible genocide in Gaza.

Nemes' statement is a fascinating insight into the emotional and ideological contortions of the traumatised Zionist mind, incapable – given its particularist, zero-sum worldview – of acknowledging the endless suffering of the Palestinian people. Instead, it constantly seeks to deflect from its responsibility for that pain by demonising those who stand in solidarity with Palestinians or even those who can no longer, in good faith, stand by as 2.3 million people are being bombed and starved to death.

Nemes’ statement, published sympathetically by establishment media outlets, turns the world on its head in accepting the gravest atrocities in living memory only because they are being committed by Israel – a militarised, settler colonial state that claims to represent Jews around the world and was founded, with western backing, on the ruins of the Palestinian people’s homeland.

A state that has been ethnically cleansing Palestinians for eight decades and is now declared by the international human rights community to be an apartheid state.

A state that the World Court has ruled is committing a plausible genocide, and is known to have killed and maimed many tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and created famine conditions for some 2 million more.

All of this, according to Nemes, is evidence not that Israel has turned out to be a classic example of the abused turning abuser but of a continuing global plot supposedly against the Jewish people, one that threatens their existence more so even than the Nazi Holocaust.

It is, says Nemes, Zionist Jews like himself who are the true victims of Israel’s killing spree in Gaza – not the Palestinians being turned skeletal by a famine induced by the state Nemes identifies with, or the Palestinian bodies blown apart by bombs dropped by the state Nemes says represents him.

It is, Nemes claims, Israel and the Zionist Jews who excuse its every action who are friendless, isolated, vulnerable, even as the United States – the world’s global hegemon – provides a constant flow of bombs to Israel and untold billions in financial aid, and even as Washington and Europe freeze funding to UNRWA, the only United Nations body capable of keeping the famine in Gaza at bay.

All of that is irrelevant to Nemes’ traumatised, sick mind. He demands Glazer and others of conscience stay silent – stop “moralising” – and let Israel finish the job of erasing Gaza. A job it has been carrying out incrementally for decades with the support of the same western establishments that originally gave away what was not theirs to give away – the homeland of the Palestinian people – to a Zionist movement that had promised to colonise Palestine on the West's behalf.

With zero self-awareness, Nemes tells Glazer to instead worry about the "sorry state of cinema" and "the destruction of creative and artistic freedom by corporate mindset".

Yet in the same breath, he dismisses as antisemitism the call to stop bombing children in the pursuit of corporate profits by the arms industry, and the demand for Washington to stop backing a genocide by its most useful client state in controlling the oil-rich Middle East. Calls for an end to occupation, calls for the imposition of a ceasefire, remind him of "12th-century archbishops, in an ecstatic state of self-righteousness, self-flagellation, denouncing vice, longing for purity". According to Nemes, abhorrence at babies and children being actively starved to death is nothing more than a medieval “longing for purity”.

Glazer, in calling for Israel to stop hijacking the voice of Jews by claiming to speak for them all and shielding itself from criticism by weaponising the Holocaust, is supposedly regurgitating "talking points disseminated by propaganda meant to eradicate, at the end, all Jewish presence from the Earth".

In Nemes's twisted mind, Glazer's call for an end to Israel's belligerent occupation and 17-year siege of Gaza, and the oceans of Palestinian and Israeli blood spilt to sustain it, is simple propaganda that leads to the extermination of all Jews. Is it not Nemes who sounds like some terrifying throwback to the Dark Ages, not Glazer?

Nemes ends with a warning as divorced from reality as the rest of his screed. We are, he says, “reaching pre-Holocaust levels of anti-Jewish hatred”, in what he describes bafflingly as a “trendy, ‘progressive’ way”. So presumably in Nemes’ mind, the threat of antisemitism is not posed by the far-right racists stalking the corridors of power, like Donald Trump or Hungary’s own Viktor Orban, or the white nationalists who see Israel as a model for their own ethnic supremacist nationalism that will demand Jews be exiled from the West to a Jewish ghetto in the Middle East. No, Nemes is worried about those “progressives” who want equality for Palestinians and Jews, who want an end to Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians.

Son of Saul showed a Jewish inmate of Auschwitz who gained marginal privileges over other inmates by turning himself into a hollow, morally empty creature ignoring the horrors all around. There could be no clearer metaphor for the moral monster the genocide in Gaza has made of Laszlo Nemes.

According to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-administered Gaza Strip, more than 12,300 children died in the Palestinian territory between October and the end of February.

" Dizzy. The number of children allegedly killed in just four months in Gaza is higher than the number of children killed in four years in all conflicts around the world,” assured Tuesday, March 12, the head of the agency. the UN for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Philippe Lazzarini refers in a post on Gaza, administered by Hamas, which report more than 12,300 children dead in the Palestinian territory between October and the end of February. “This war is a war against children,” denounced Mr. Lazzarini. It is a war against their childhood and their future. »

After five months of war between Israel and Hamas with no truce in sight, the population, already suffering from bombings, is threatened by famine. To compensate for the lack of aid arriving by land in the territory devastated by months of war, the international community is seeking to diversify the routes for delivering vital aid to the population.

This war began with the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, which left around 1,160 people dead in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. The attackers also took around 250 people hostage, dozens of whom were freed during a week-long truce in November. Israel estimates there are around 130 captives remaining in Gaza, 32 of whom are presumed dead. Israel's retaliatory bombings and ground offensive have killed 31,184 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry.

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip reported on Sunday that the Israeli army committed 9 massacres against families, including 92 killed and 130 injuries to hospitals during the past 24 hours.

It indicated that there are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads that ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them, while the toll of the Israeli aggression has risen to 31,645 killed and 73,676 injuries since last October 7.

Here are the latest developments: Red Crescent crews transported 9 killed and 21 wounded after the Israeli forces bombed a house in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

On the 163rd day of the war on Gaza, and the seventh day of the holy month of Ramadan, the Israeli army continued to target defenseless civilians in several areas of the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Ministry of Health said earlier that the occupation committed 7 massacres within 24 hours, in which more than 60 were killed and about 100 were injured.

The first trucks of humanitarian aid loaded with flour arrived in the northern Gaza Strip to the Kuwait Roundabout area in the center of Gaza City, in addition to Salah al-Din Street in the northern Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses added that the aid delivery process was safe, in light of prior coordination between a number of tribal elders, mukhtars, and UN officials, as the trucks were unloaded at one of the centers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) east of Jabalia, to be divided into small quantities in preparation for distribution to larger areas. A number of needy people.

This step comes at a time when the northern Gaza Strip is suffering from a severe famine that has so far resulted in dozens of deaths, most of them children.

To secure the entry of the first aid into the northern Gaza Strip, the Palestinian security forces in Gaza issued a circular to citizens to secure and ensure the safe arrival of aid and to preserve the safety of the population. The instructions included preventing people from going to the Kuwait Roundabout in the center of Gaza City to receive aid, as the place was targeted by the occupation forces several times, as the circular demanded. Not to gather on Salah al-Din Street while aid is arriving. The circular warned against violating the instructions under penalty of accountability, and called on citizens in Gaza to be responsible and not participate in spreading chaos and starving the Palestinian people.

The Hebrew newspaper "Maariv" reported that political sources in Israel published an update on Saturday night to Sunday about the draft US resolution proposed in the Security Council on Gaza.

In its new text, the draft resolution stipulates an “immediate and permanent ceasefire,” and includes a rejection of the expected Israeli military operation in Rafah, as the new draft contains a more stringent text on the issues of ceasefire and Rafah, unlike the previous version, which addressed the dangers of military action in Rafah on the Civilian population only under current circumstances.

The proposed draft resolution has undergone a number of changes and amendments, and is currently in its final form, which can no longer be changed, according to the Israeli political sources that received the update.

The draft resolution is expected to be put to a vote in the UN Security Council in its current version.

According to Maariv, Israeli sources described the new amendments to the final draft resolution prepared by the Americans to be immediately presented for a vote in the Security Council, as a “dangerous deterioration in wording and tone,” for Israel.

The sources confirm that the wording of the American draft resolution does not allow ground military maneuvers by the Israeli army, and express deep concern about the possibility of an Israeli ground operation in Rafah, and confirm that the Israeli army’s maneuver in the Rafah area entails a real danger, the risk of violating international humanitarian law.

The final draft of the American draft resolution indicates that a diplomatic effort will be made to begin implementing an immediate ceasefire agreement, and the Americans will express their support for diplomatic efforts aimed at reaching an immediate and permanent ceasefire as part of the prisoner release deal, according to Maariv.

Maariv says that, according to Israeli estimates, the United States will seek to hold a vote on the resolution as early as this week, with the aim of speeding up the vote in the Security Council as much as possible for fear of proposing another competing resolution that would be of a clearly negative nature for Israel.

Earlier on Saturday, a senior Israeli official said that Washington had begun delaying some military aid and that Israel might lose the war with Hamas in Gaza.

Strategic Communications Coordinator at the US National Security Council, John Kirby, said that any military operation in the city of Rafah without taking into account the safety of civilians would be disastrous.

The head of the Israeli Mossad, David Barnea, is scheduled to travel to Qatar on Monday to resume ceasefire talks in Gaza, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

The Israeli Defense Cabinet approved the decision to attack the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip after civilians were evacuated for the first time, according to Bloomberg.

The American agency indicated that the Israeli authorities are ready to intensify their military campaign against the Palestinian Hamas movement as the ceasefire talks continue.

It confirmed that Israel will also send a delegation to Qatar to resume negotiations on an agreement to return the hostages, despite the fact that Hamas’ ceasefire proposal includes “unreasonable” demands, according to the Israelis.

It is likely that Israel's reference to the long-awaited attack on Rafah, without closing the door to the diplomatic path out of the crisis, came to exert maximum pressure on Hamas to persuade the Iran-backed movement to agree to the hostage deal.

Bloomberg explained that Israel is awaiting a very complex task of transferring civilians, estimated at more than 1.2 million Palestinians, from Rafah to safe areas, which may take several days, if not longer.

It noted that there is no clear indication from Israeli officials where they (Gaza civilians) will go, despite Netanyahu’s pledge that a military attack on the city will not occur until civilians are allowed to leave.

Plans for a ground invasion of the city of Rafah, which hosts three-quarters of the Gaza Strip's population, are likely to increase tensions between Israel and the United States, which has not yet seen Israel's plan to transfer civilians from Rafah, according to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

The agency indicated that the United States and other allies urged Israel to abandon the operation to allow a ceasefire and provide humanitarian aid, but Israeli officials believe that the Hamas leadership and the hostages who were taken during the movement’s attack on October 7 are present there.

The American agency pointed out that Washington remains cautiously optimistic about the possibility of reaching a deal and a temporary ceasefire, as Minister Blinken recently said in a press conference in Vienna, “Hamas’s recent proposal and Israel’s decision to send a delegation to the talks reflect the sense of possibility and urgency of reaching an agreement.”

A number of citizens, most of them children and women, were killed at dawn on Sunday, after Israeli aircraft bombed a house in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

Medical sources announced that at least 12 citizens, most of them children and women, were killed, and a number of others were injured, as a result of the Israeli aircraft bombing a house for the Thabet family in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 31,553 citizens, the majority of whom are children and women, since the start of the Israeli aggression on the seventh of last October, and the number of wounded has reached 73,546 since the beginning of the aggression, while thousands of victims are still under the rubble.

Medical sources announced that the Israeli forces committed 7 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death of 63 citizens and the injury of 112 others, during the past 24 hours, noting that a number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.

The Israeli delegation to negotiate a prisoner exchange with Hamas and a ceasefire in Gaza will leave for Qatar on Monday, according to what the official Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported on Saturday.

The authority said, “The war cabinet will not meet tonight (Saturday), and therefore the Israeli negotiating delegation is not expected to leave for Qatar before Monday.”

The authority quoted an unnamed political source in the government as saying: “There is no plan to hold a war council meeting tonight. It will be held on Sunday evening.”

The authority noted, “Based on the date of the war council meeting, the delegation, headed by Mossad chief David Barnea, will not leave for Doha before Monday.”

The Israeli delegation intends to go to Qatar to discuss concluding a possible prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.

During the past two days, Hebrew media circulated news stating that the War Council decided to send an Israeli delegation to Doha early next week to discuss the exchange deal.

On Friday, an informed Palestinian source revealed that the Hamas movement presented a proposal to the Qatari and Egyptian mediators for calm in Gaza, which includes three stages, each stage lasting 6 weeks, including an exchange of prisoners, the return of displaced persons to northern Gaza, and the declaration of a permanent ceasefire in the second stage.

Qatar and Egypt, with the help of the United States, are mediating between Israel and Hamas, in order to reach a new ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the exchange of prisoners.

Israel estimates that there are more than 125 prisoners in Gaza, while it holds at least 8,800 Palestinians in its prisons, according to official sources from both sides.

A truce previously prevailed between Hamas and Israel for a week from November 24 until December 1, 2023, during which a ceasefire took place, a prisoner exchange took place, and very limited humanitarian aid was brought into Gaza, with Qatari-Egyptian-American mediation.

Today, Saturday, the Director-General of the World Health Organization called on Israel to refrain from launching an attack on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip “in the name of humanity.”

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on the X website: “I am deeply concerned about reports of an Israeli plan to launch a ground attack on Rafah. A new escalation of violence in this crowded area will lead to more deaths and suffering.”

He added, "In the name of humanity, we call on Israel not to move forward with its plan and seek peace," considering that the evacuation process that the Israeli army intends to carry out before the attack is not a possible solution.

He explained, "The 1.2 million residents of Rafah have no safe place to go, nor fully functioning and safe health facilities that they can access anywhere else in Gaza."

He continued, "Many people are physically weak, hungry and sick to the point that they cannot be displaced again."

Senior Israeli officials are expected to arrive in Qatar to resume ceasefire talks in Gaza, and while the Israeli war council will be held to discuss the deal to return the prisoners, the White House expressed a cautious tone of optimism after the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) presented a proposal to secure a ceasefire.

A source told Reuters on Saturday that the head of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad), David Barnea, is expected to resume ceasefire talks in Gaza with the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, and Egyptian officials in Doha tomorrow, Sunday.

The source added that the talks will focus on the remaining gaps between Hamas and Israel in the negotiations, including the number of Palestinians who may be released in exchange for the release of the rest of the Israeli prisoners, in addition to humanitarian aid to Gaza.

On the other hand, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that the Israeli war council will be held tonight or tomorrow to discuss the deal to return the detainees.

The newspaper reported that the war council will determine the "space for maneuver" that will be granted to the Mossad chief during the talks that will be held in Qatar.

The newspaper indicated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's threats to work in Rafah may come within the framework of negotiations and pressure on Hamas to reach a deal.

American optimism

On the other hand, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby confirmed that the Hamas movement’s proposal regarding a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is considered within the limits of the deal that has been working on for months, and he said that a delegation will head to Doha for a new round of negotiations.

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby also expressed cautious optimism that the Doha ceasefire talks in Gaza are moving in the right direction.

The Hamas movement announced that it had presented to the mediators in Egypt and Qatar a vision based on stopping the aggression, providing relief, the return of the displaced, and the withdrawal of the occupation.

The movement added - in a statement - that it considers these principles and foundations necessary for the agreement and exchange of prisoners. She stressed that she would remain biased towards the rights of the Palestinian people.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Hamas leader Osama Hamdan said that the proposal presented by the movement to the mediators regarding a ceasefire in Gaza and the exchange of prisoners is realistic and characterized by high flexibility.

Hamdan added that the Israeli occupation is trying to circumvent the ceasefire issue, noting that the movement proposed guarantor countries for the agreement in addition to mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

Sources revealed to Al Jazeera details of the proposal presented by Hamas to the mediators regarding a ceasefire in Gaza and the exchange of prisoners.

Hamas proposal

The ceasefire proposal includes 3 phases, each lasting 42 days.

According to the sources, in the first stage, Hamas stipulated the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Al-Rashid and Salah Al-Din Streets for the return of the displaced and the passage of aid.

Hamas also offered, in exchange for the release of every living captive female soldier, to release 50 Palestinian prisoners that it would specify, with 30 of them being life sentencers.

The sources added to Al Jazeera that Hamas stipulated - in conjunction with the start of the second phase - the declaration of a permanent ceasefire before any exchange of its captured soldiers.

Hamas's proposal also included coinciding with the start of the third phase, starting the comprehensive reconstruction process for the Gaza Strip and ending the siege.

On the other hand, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office said that Hamas's demands are still illogical, and that an Israeli team will head to Doha to continue negotiations, after the end of the discussions in this regard in the Mini-Ministerial Council for Political and Security Affairs.

Last week, talks in Cairo mediated by Egypt and Qatar did not lead to any tangible result towards reaching a prisoner exchange agreement within the framework of a temporary truce in the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu is facing criticism from the Israeli street and a number of politicians, even those affiliated with the War Council, against the backdrop of the prisoner crisis in Gaza and the failure to find a path to guarantee their return alive, and some of them accuse him of disrupting the deal to release them.

Families of detainees in the Gaza Strip demonstrate almost daily to demand the conclusion of a deal leading to the release of their children.

Israel detains at least 9,100 Palestinians in its prisons, according to official Palestinian sources, while mystery surrounds the number of Israeli prisoners detained in the Gaza Strip in light of Hamas’ refusal to reveal an accurate number without a heavy price, and the distribution of prisoners among more than one party in the Strip.

While Israeli media talks about numbers of prisoners detained in the Gaza Strip ranging between 240 and 253, including 3 who were released, and 105 who were released by Hamas during a prisoner exchange deal in November 2023, the movement talks about the killing of 70 others as a result of the Israeli bombing.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, 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 International Court of Justice on charges of genocide. Collective.

The Israeli police launched an arrest campaign targeting Palestinian workers in Jaffa, as a continuation of the pursuit of Palestinian workers inside the occupied Palestinian territories, “the 48 territories.”

The Secretary-General of the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions, Shaher Saad, reported that the Israeli police arrested 65 Palestinian workers in the center of the city of Jaffa, after carrying out a campaign of raids.

He confirmed that 36 of them were transferred for investigation.

Saad called on the International Labor Organization to put pressure on governments to provide the necessary protection for Palestinian workers in their workplaces within the 1948 territories.

Nod for long-threatened invasion of Rafah, home to 1.4 million displaced people, comes as Israel to send team to Qatar.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for an attack on Rafah, where 1.4 million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter, while planning to send a team to further truce talks in Qatar after mocking a ceasefire proposal by Hamas as “ridiculous”.

Israel’s allies and critics warned Netanyahu against the invasion of Rafah fearing mass civilian casualties, but the Israeli government claims that the area in southern Gaza is one of the last strongholds of Hamas which it has pledged to eliminate.

 “Hopefully, the ground invasion of Rafah is just a bluff so they can use this as leverage to get something in negotiations. But everything Netanyahu said he will do, he did it, so I assume it is very likely this is going to happen,” Luciano Zaccara of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University told Al Jazeera of Israel’s mixed messages.

Hamas had presented a new ceasefire plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza that includes the release of Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, with sources telling Al Jazeera that it would be a three-phased truce, with each stage lasting 42 days.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office late on Friday said the Israeli military was “preparing operationally and for the evacuation of the population” of Rafah.

However, it gave no timeframe and there was no immediate evidence of extra preparations on the ground.

Widespread criticism

Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said Israel’s talk of an impending ground invasion in Rafah comes despite growing opposition, especially from its biggest political and military ally, the United States.

 “American officials say they simply wouldn’t support an operation such as this,” Salhut said, adding that Netanyahu has planned “both for the military invasion and evacuation of about 1.5 million Palestinians in Rafah”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Austria on Friday that the US needed to see a clear and implementable plan from Israel for Rafah, including to get civilians out of harm’s way.

Dutch foreign minister Hanke Slot said: “The Netherlands firmly repeats its call to Israel to refrain from such an offensive, which would result in an even bigger humanitarian catastrophe,” adding in a post on X that “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire is of the highest importance, resulting in a sustained cessation of hostilities”.

The United Nations had already warned Israel last month that a ground invasion of Rafah “could lead to a slaughter in Gaza”.

“They could also leave an already fragile humanitarian operation at death’s door,” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said.

Humanitarian situation ‘beyond catastrophic’

Jagan Chapagain, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said civilians in Gaza are “facing an unprecedented level of indignity, misery and suffering”.

“The healthcare situation is on the brink of collapse with hospitals facing desperate conditions,” he said in a statement on X, adding that the humanitarian situation in the enclave is “beyond catastrophic”.

Meanwhile, the first aid vessel to reach Gaza, operated by the Spanish charity Open Arms, has offloaded 200 tonnes of food aid to the enclave, completing a pilot project that could open the way for more assistance to come in via maritime corridors.

US charity World Central Kitchen said a second shipment was being prepared in Cyprus and that thousands of tonnes of aid could reach Gaza each week going forward.

Humanitarian organisations have repeatedly called for Israel to open more land border crossings to let in humanitarian supplies, insisting that airdrops and maritime corridors are costly and inefficient ways of delivering assistance.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

A veteran Israeli writer and journalist spoke about the Israeli Prime Minister's "strategic" plan for the future of the Gaza Strip after the end of the war, stressing that it does not include any geographical connection or continuity within the framework of the future Palestinian state.

Ron Ben Yishai said in an article in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that Netanyahu is taking “successful and small” steps to achieve a long-term solution to the situation in Gaza after the war, according to the vision of the Israeli right, which includes establishing a separate entity in Gaza, controlled by “Israel” from one side. the wish.

However, Netanyahu is not ready to present his plan to the public in Israel, to the American administration, or even to the mini-ministerial “cabinet”, for fear that this will lead to the dismantling of his coalition, so the confrontation with Washington will intensify and Israel will lose the support of the Arab countries with which it maintains relations from above and under the table, according to Ben Yishai.

Plan details

According to all indications, Ben Yishai says, Netanyahu is interested in the Gaza Strip becoming a separate entity, a city similar to Singapore, except that it is devoid of weapons, and connected to the wider world through two corridors, land and sea, and these two corridors allow Gazans to move with relative freedom to and from the Strip, And to establish trade and economic relations with foreign countries and to fish in the waters of their shores, all of this without passing through Israel. However, the latter monitors movement in the two corridors in order to prevent the smuggling of weapons and raw materials that allow the production of weapons.

Ben Yishai adds about Netanyahu’s vision: “Civil administration in the Gaza Strip, including law enforcement, public services, tax collection, and the like, is carried out by local residents under the supervision of a council or organization established with international approval, and this body derives its powers from a Security Council resolution or a known regional organization, with Israeli approval.”

It seems that Netanyahu is interested in being a member of this body with the United States, the Emirates, Egypt, the United Nations, and perhaps also Bahrain... given that these countries and parties have an interest in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, and have “deep pockets” sufficient to finance the reconstruction, and the will to maintain the demilitarization of the sector, so that investments are not wasted, according to the writer.

Netanyahu hopes that Saudi Arabia will also be a partner in this body, but this will not happen unless the regional vision of the Biden administration is achieved, which is conditional on Israeli approval of the two-state solution.

Ben Yishai believes that the UAE is supposed to have a role in the future plan, to become an influential regional party that will succeed Qatar as an influential player in the Palestinian arena, in order to prove that the “Abraham” Accords serve the Arab and Islamic interest in general.

But the writer believed that it is too early to see a topic in Netanyahu’s plan that will see the light, not only because the end of the war is still unclear, but also because the plan raises internal opposition, and this is what makes Netanyahu “keep his cards close to his chest and try, by manipulative means, to move the relevant parties.” The link in the Gaza confrontation is to take steps that are consistent with his plan.”

Ben Yishai assumes that the establishment of a floating dock on the Gaza coast these days is part of an original initiative by the Prime Minister that serves well his “Singapore strategy.”

Netanyahu is now showing clear indications that he will not oppose the American dock, which within a few weeks will begin bringing in humanitarian aid in huge quantities, and could be replaced in the future by a permanent building built in the northern Gaza Strip, with Emirati funding and perhaps also Bahraini and Saudi funding, according to expectations.

Sama News

The International Court of Justice stated that it will hold hearings on the eighth and ninth of next April, to consider Nicaragua’s lawsuit against Germany, regarding Berlin’s provision of military aid to the Israeli occupation, and the suspension of funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

In a statement on Friday, the court confirmed that sessions would be held to listen to the two countries’ pleas in the upcoming meeting.

Nicaragua accused Germany before the International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, of facilitating genocide in Gaza by providing financial and military aid to the Israeli occupation entity.

According to Nicaragua's statement, Germany is violating the 1948 Genocide Convention and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

Nicaragua accused Germany before the International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, of facilitating genocide in Gaza by providing financial and military aid to the Israeli occupation entity.

Nicaragua added, according to the lawsuit, that Germany facilitated the “genocide” in Gaza by suspending funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Nicaragua said in a memorandum published by the court that through these measures, “Germany facilitates the commission of genocide, and in any case it has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide.”

In a temporary ruling issued on January 26, the Court of Justice asked the occupation forces to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza and direct incitement to it, and to improve the humanitarian situation in the Strip. It also rejected the Israeli request to reject the case, but in return it rejected South Africa’s request to order a ceasefire. .

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Saturday that a third of children in northern Gaza under two years of age suffer from acute malnutrition.

The UN agency explained on the “X” platform that “child malnutrition is spreading rapidly and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza.”

It added: "One child out of every three under the age of two years in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition."

UNRWA confirmed that "famine is looming on the horizon, and there is no time to waste."

Yesterday, Friday, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed that acute malnutrition among children had doubled in one month in the northern Gaza Strip.

The organization said: “1 in 3 children under the age of two in the northern Gaza Strip suffers from acute malnutrition, which is a staggering increase compared to 15.6 percent last January.”

As a result of the war and Israeli restrictions, the population of Gaza, especially the Gaza and northern governorates, is on the verge of famine, amid 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.

In an attempt to remedy the crisis, Arab and foreign countries continue their cooperation to airdrop aid into areas north of the Gaza Strip, but it remains insufficient and does not meet the urgent needs of the Palestinians.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that an Israeli delegation is likely to head to the Qatari capital, Doha, this week to attend a new round of negotiations regarding the release of the hostages.

The Israeli newspaper said that the military cabinet is expected to meet tonight or tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss the “manoeuvre space” that will be granted to the head of the Mossad, who will head the team that will arrive this week to hold talks in Qatar. After that, the issue will be put up for discussion in the expanded political and security ministerial council.

An Israeli official told CNN on Friday that the Israeli War Council will meet on Saturday evening to discuss and formulate guidelines for the delegation. He continued that the reason the delegation headed to Doha was that a response had finally been received from Hamas, although "It is still extreme and ridiculous," and he expected negotiations to be "very difficult."

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "Hamas continues to adhere to unrealistic demands," but an Israeli delegation will be sent to Doha for further negotiations.

A second Israeli official who spoke to the American news network said that his country will take a decision by the end of Saturday regarding the scope of the mandate granted to the negotiating team and will authorize the mediators to strengthen indirect negotiations with Hamas.

1. US Senator Bernie Sanders told NBC that there is global anger towards the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which caused hundreds of thousands of children to starve in Gaza.

He added, "We cannot continue to fund Netanyahu's war machine."

For his part, Senator Chris Van Hollen said that Netanyahu's ignoring the warnings of US President Joe Biden makes the United States appear helpless.

He added that the Biden administration must use other tools to effectively translate the warnings directed to Israel.

The network quoted American officials as saying that the White House is considering a response if Israel defies Biden's warning against invading Rafah without protecting civilians.

Veteran Lebanese diplomat Ghassan Salame published a new book covering world developments and crises in the 21st century. Published in French by Fayard, “The Temptation of Mars” provides Salame’s reading of world events, backing it up with his decades of academic, political and diplomatic experience and his wide global network of relations.

Asharq Al-Awsat sat down with Salame to discuss the book, whose, title, he explained, refers to Greek and Roman mythology and implies that several countries, even small ones, have succumbed to the temptation of power and wars.

“The conclusion I reached is that events that have taken place since 1990 cannot be summarized in one term,” he said. “Many have tried, such as Francis Fukuyama, who spoke of ‘the end of history’ and Samuel Huntington described it as the ‘clash of civilizations.’ But these descriptions are not enough.”

“After much examination and thought, I found that the period stretching from 1990 until 2024 can in fact be divided into two contradictory periods. The first, I called ‘the phase of wishes’, extends from 1990 to 2006, and the second, ‘the phase of disappointment’, extends from 2006 until this day,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“I based my assessment on six standards: The spread of democracy, globalization, the technological revolution, culture, absence of a basis to resort to force and finally, nuclear power.” The comprehensive review found that the first third of the century was filled with positive elements, but not so much in the second part.

Explaining the “basis to resort to force”, he said the 1991 war on Kuwait was waged with the backing of 12 United Nations Security Council resolutions that allowed 65 countries to take part in the liberation of the country.

George Bush Sr. was asked at the time why he wouldn’t forge ahead towards Baghdad, to which he replied that the resolutions give him the right to restore the sovereignty of Kuwait, not destroy the sovereignty of Iraq, continued Salame.

“The war waged by George W. Bush against Iraq in 2003 was completely different. It was not based on any legal foundation, went ahead without a UN resolution, did not lead to the formation of a large international coalition and its objectives were oscillating. At first, the goal was to destroy the alleged weapons of mass destruction. It was then followed with the goal of eliminating a dangerous dictator and spreading democracy. In the end, it failed in creating a stable political entity,” he added.

“I believe that the ‘original sin’ in the American-British attack on Iraq was that it paved the way for similar practices in other countries. We have seen Russia use the same excuse to attack Georgia in 2008. President Vladimir Putin used it again to attack Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022,” he noted.

“We have seen other countries, such as Iran, Türkiye and Israel, not hesitate in using force. Even small countries like Rwanda are carrying out military operations in several African countries without any legal basis,” he remarked.

On the nuclear level, Salame cited the 1995 indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and several countries, led by the United States and Russia, agreed to decrease their nuclear arsenal. They cooperated together to tackle the fallout from the Chernobyl disaster to ensure that it never happens again.

Even more, four former US secretaries of state, including George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, called for a world without nuclear weapons, added Salame.

“But what do we have today? Britain is spending billions to modernize its nuclear weapons. France is doing the same. China wants to double is nuclear warheads from 1,500 to 3,000 before 2030. Putin, meanwhile, isn’t backing down from his threat to use nuclear arms,” he stated.

The US also wants to increase its nuclear arsenal. Even ministers in a small country such as Israel have threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza, he noted to Asharq Al-Awsat.

What used to be a red line when it came to nuclear weapons has been gradually chipped away over the past ten years, he said.

Several poles

Commenting on the debate about whether the world is still unipolar, bipolar, multipolar, or even non-polar, Salame said there are several sources of power and power hubs, but they are unbalanced. Some countries have started to make the shift towards become a pole, such as China and India, but the US still has a wide margin ahead of them. On paper, it is the greatest and top pole, but it is not the only one.

Salame stressed that the US has vast financial and military means, but its decision-making is severely unfocused, reflecting inner turmoil.

Moreover, the US does not want to become involved in long wars, which is increasing pressure on its decision-making power that is in turn, leading to pressure from the public. So, it has turned to military withdrawals as a means to appease the public, such as what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States’ points of weakness are overshadowing its financial superiority in the world order, said Salame.

China, the US’ main rival, has achieved a leap forward in its military might in the past 30 years. It has increased its nuclear warheads and developed its weapons, but they remain inferior to western capabilities. India has doubled its military budget four times in the past 20 years. In Europe, Germany and Italy are also aiming to increase their military budget. “We mustn’t forget North Korea that is spending big on bolstering its forces,” he added.

“So, we have several players aspiring to have influence on the world order, while the US is no longer capable of imposing its views except in certain cases,” stated Salame.

“We must be aware of Washington’s problems with its allies. As for its rivals, the issues are clear: It fears the rise of China and is doing everything it can to reign it in and prevent it from emerging as a global power.” Salame also noted that the map of arms sales was changing. South Korea is selling weapons to Poland and North Korea is selling to Russia. The numbers are massive. South Korea has topped France as a weapons exporter. Türkiye is now exporting drones to 50 countries around the world and Iran is sending drones to Russia.

So, the global arms market is rapidly changing. “I can conclude that the post-Cold War phase is not over yet. The phase has not yet formed a stable and permanent reality, but as it stands, the US will remain the top superpower in the world, while its ability to rein in its allies and contain its rivals wanes,” stressed Salame.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that the continued conflict in Gaza and US President Joe Biden's criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens to cause Biden to lose the support of American Jewish voters.

The newspaper indicates that prolonging the war will deepen the contradiction among Biden’s electoral base. By publicly criticizing Netanyahu, the American president is appeasing the progressive wing. But he needs to consider how far he can go with his criticism without losing the support of Jewish voters who constitute a key electoral base for the Democratic Party.

On the other hand, continuing to provide military support to Israel will satisfy pro-Israel voters in the United States, but it also threatens to undermine the support of young voters who are angry about what is happening in the Gaza Strip and about American support for Israel.

In addition, the White House fears a shift in support from Arab-American voters in Michigan, a crucial state that Biden needs for re-election.

The Wall Street Journal indicates that Netanyahu's insistence on continuing the war in Gaza and even prolonging it puts him in a confrontation with Biden's fears of a decline in his chances of winning the presidential elections.

The American newspaper claims that Netanyahu and his supporters consider Biden weak because he surrendered to internal political pressure, and began to exert pressure to stop the war at the moment when Israel began to approach victory.

The US President's public criticism of Netanyahu also encourages Hamas and strengthens its position in the negotiations aimed at releasing the hostages in Gaza.

ABC, citing a senior Israeli official, reported that the delivery of US military aid to Israel has slowed, and this is disrupting Israel's plans that seek to dismantle Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The official did not mention the reasons for the delay, but pointed out that Israel is aware of the American disappointment with the results of the conflict and the inadequacy of the measures taken by the Israeli side to provide humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

ABC reports that Democratic Majority Leader in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer (from New York), criticized the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 14, indicating the need to hold elections in the country.

In response to what Schumer said, the Likud Party, led by Netanyahu, called on the American politician to respect the Israeli government and not destabilize it while it is waging war.

Sama News

Israeli media questioned the validity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement, on Friday, regarding the approval of an operational plan for a ground invasion of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

According to reports by Channel 12 and Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, which were also reported by The Times of Israel, “the ground operation in Rafah is not imminent despite Netanyahu’s statements.”

Sources say that Netanyahu's talk about an imminent operation in Rafah "seems more like a pressure tool on Hamas to agree to the faltering hostage deal."

During a government meeting earlier on Friday, Israeli media reported that New Hope Party leader Gideon Saar asked Netanyahu for an update on the situation in Rafah, given that War Cabinet member Benny Gantz and others had previously said that Israel would enter the city if no agreement was reached by Ramadan.

Netanyahu responded to him, saying: “We did not say that we would be in Rafah during the month of Ramadan, but rather we said that we would move forward according to our plans.”

Tens of thousands of reserve soldiers who were stationed in Gaza withdrew weeks ago, and will have to return en masse if the Israeli army wants to carry out a large-scale ground operation in Rafah.

What happened on Friday?

Netanyahu's office said he had approved a plan to attack the city of Rafah in the far south of Gaza on the border with Egypt, where more than half of the Strip's 2.3 million residents live, after 5 months of war.

The office added in a brief statement regarding the plan to attack Rafah: “The Israeli army is preparing for military operations and the evacuation of residents.” The Prime Minister’s Office did not specify a time frame for the start of the attack, and there is no evidence yet of additional preparations on the ground.

Allies and critics on the global stage are urging Netanyahu to postpone the attack on Rafah, for fear of large numbers of civilian deaths.

Israel says that Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas, which it pledged to eliminate in the war, and that it will evacuate residents from the city before the operation begins.

Negotiators failed again this week to reach a ceasefire agreement before the month of Ramadan, but Washington and the Arab mediators remain determined to reach an agreement to prevent the Israeli attack on Rafah and allow the entry of food aid to stave off famine.

The Israeli statement said that Hamas's demands regarding the release of the hostages are still unrealistic, but an Israeli delegation will head to Doha as soon as the security cabinet discusses the situation.

David Hearst

Tel Aviv is coming up against myriad obstacles, from the loss of western public opinion to the nervousness of its key backers

The little boy spoke with the matter-of-factness of an adult. 

Faisal al-Khaldi talked of the moment Israeli soldiers entered his family’s home in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City, as he was preparing to go to school.

“My mum was pregnant,” he told an Alaraby TV reporter who was interviewing him. “When we were going to school they (Israeli soldiers) came into the living room and then shot my mother in her stomach. She was pregnant in the seventh month.”

“Where was your father?” 

“He was asleep,” the boy said.         

“And then he woke up?”

“He was killed with my mother in the same week.”

“On the same day?

“Yes.”

“In front of you? Did you see it happen?”

“Yes, in front of me.”

“What did you see? What happened?

“They took them to the corridor and shot them in front of me. When we went to the corridor, they brought them and shot them in front of us.”

The world is watching

Perhaps these soldiers were following the instructions of Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, the head of a Jewish school in Yaffa: “The basic principle that we have is that when we live through the ‘holy war of the mitzvah’, in this case in Gaza, according to the voice of the judge, you will not let every soul live. The meaning is very clear. If you don’t kill them first, they will kill you.

“The terrorists of today and the children of the past, who have remained in their lives. And in reality, it’s the women who create these terrorists. What this means is that the definition ‘not every soul shall live’ is very clear in the scriptures. It’s either you or them.” So the Torah is clear about the need to kill women and children. 

But what about old men? The rabbi was asked by a member in the audience. “There are no innocent people. It is the same with the elderly person who is able to carry a weapon,” he said. “The Torah is also very clear in the book. In Gaza, according to all estimates of the security forces, 95-98 percent want to destroy us. That is the majority. It is the same thing [with children]. If you save him, don’t try and outsmart the Torah.” 

Perhaps this is why other soldiers recently congratulated their comrade who killed an unarmed, elderly man with hearing and speech difficulties who had his hands up in his bedroom.

“We opened the door. He fluttered. Came in my direction and did like this (waves his hands). I killed him with four bullets,” the soldier said.

For 75 years, the western world was indifferent. But this war is forcing Israel's western backers to see the full horrors of the crimes being committed

“He was the only one?” a colleague asked in a video clip posted to X. 

“I don’t know. We didn’t have time. There could be more. There was another room. We did not have time.”

“And he said, ‘no, no?'”

“Yes, ‘no, no.’” 

“And you took him down? Excellent!”

Later in the clip, the soldier was asked: “What without a weapon? He had something on him?”

“No, no, he hid beside the bed.”

“All respect!”

The clips show Israeli soldiers talking amongst themselves. They appear largely contemptuous of what the rest of the world might think, and wholly ignorant of the effect these clips are having around the globe. 

But the world is watching.

Contradiction in terms

For 75 years, the western world was indifferent. But this war is forcing Israel’s western backers to see the full horrors of the crimes being committed in a campaign they described five months ago as just. Even a progressive critic of Israel like US Senator Bernie Sanders said five months ago that the war against Hamas was just. 

The degree of brutality and glee shown by Israeli soldiers as they go on their daily killing sprees; starving Gaza, and then dropping leaflets in Arabic telling Palestinians to feed the needy; killing 400 people waiting for aid, and then vowing to flood Gaza with aid; all of this is too much to sweep under the carpet when this war stops.

A rubicon has been crossed. With this war, Israel has entered the elite rank of pariah states. It is now the ugliest of the ugly. It’s impossible to forgive. It cannot be justified, nor can it be put into context. The entire operation in Gaza is an atrocity.

Liberal Zionism has become a contradiction in terms. It’s too much of a stretch.

Acting like this, Israel has become not the home of a beleaguered people persecuted around the world for millennia, but the Fort Knox of Jewish supremacism, the natural heir to white supremacists.

This is having a transformational effect on Jewish people worldwide, in whose name and common past these crimes are being committed. 

'Not in our name'

The short cri de coeur of Jonathan Glazer, the British director of The Zone of Interest, did not come out of the blue when he said during his Oscar acceptance speech: “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict, for so many innocent people.”

The same cry of “not in my name” is coming from the thousands of young Jews who are marching every weekend in London to stop the war in Gaza.

Emily, a Jewish activist with the group Na’amod UK, recently said: “I think there has been a quiet reckoning in our community, and you can see this because the bloc keeps growing, the movement keeps growing, the constituency organisations keep getting bigger and bigger. I have never been so sure that I will see a free Palestine.” 

Asked what she thought of her government’s attempts to brand these marches as the work of extremists, she said: “I am very tired of being told how to feel as a Jewish person by people who are not Jewish. I am tired of being told to feel afraid when these marches are by and large peaceful, and people are so lovely to us and so thankful to us. It really shows the ignorance of Jewish opinion outside of their very small Zionist rabble.”

This is where real leadership is coming from. It’s on the streets, not parliament. These are the lions. Our political leaders are the donkeys.

Israel and its apologists are right to be scared of what a new generation of American and British Jews are telling them. 

For the last eight decades, Israel governed a consensus about its existence, identity and purpose that was more powerful than all the arms, money and Jewish migrants it received.

The weaker this consensus becomes, the quicker Israel will lose its influence in the centres of western powers. Already, the compulsive addiction of support for Israel is upending the West’s own attempts to explain to itself that it is a moral force, a force for good in the world.

Under the British government’s latest definition of extremism, it is right to support a government that flouts the Genocide Convention, starves a population under occupation, and kills unarmed mothers and children at will, but extremist to protest against that on the streets of London. 

Jewish academic opposition to Israel is strong and vocal. It cannot accurately be called 'fringe'

This is a patent absurdity. 

It is left to the likes of South Africa to show Britain the way. It is now going to prosecute its citizens who return after fighting for the Israeli army.

It will take time to erode, but after what has happened in Gaza, the future will surely not guarantee the hold Israel has over every major western political party. It will not be able to dictate the definition of antisemitism, nor will it guarantee the funds that aspiring western politicians need. 

Today, every Tory and Labour politician with ambitions for the top job must, almost by definition, be a Friend of Israel, a club that maintains a strong hold on each parliamentary party. That might not be true for the next generation of politicians.

Jewish academic opposition to Israel is strong and vocal. It cannot accurately be called “fringe”. Israel is now starting to lose the global Jewish voice.

The war from within

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to keep this war going for as long as possible are not being helped from within. 

Two senior members of the war cabinet have defied the prime minister’s wishes publicly. The first act of public defiance came from Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who announced that he would only agree to present a new military draft law if MK Benny Gantz’s National Unity party agreed on how to regulate the exemption of yeshiva students from conscription. 

Gallant effectively gave Gantz a veto on the law, on which government funding to yeshivas, whose students refuse to serve, depends. Without such a law, Haredi parties would leave the coalition and collapse the government.

The second act came from Gantz, who made unsanctioned visits to the US and Britain, in which Netanyahu ordered his embassies not to cooperate. But such is Netanyahu’s political weakness, that neither Gantz nor Gallant can be fired.

A third blow to Netanyahu in as many weeks was the recent statement by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who said that if the government were to enforce compulsory military service on the Haredim, they would leave Israel en masse. Yosef was denounced by a Jerusalem Post editorial that said his words were an insult to the soldiers risking their lives in Gaza.

Israel’s war leader has less and less authority within Israel to conduct the war he wants. The balance of power between Israel and Hamas is also not as clear-cut as it might seem at first glance.

The military campaign has undoubtedly degraded Hamas as a fighting force in Gaza, although members of the leadership in Gaza have consistently passed the message to their political wing in Doha and Beirut that they are confident they can carry on. 

Another sign of their confidence in their ability to shape the future of Palestine and its leadership is their list of prisoners who would be released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages.

The latest list includes Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah leader sentenced to five cumulative life sentences and 40 years in prison for his acts in the Second Intifada; Ahmed Saadat, secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Abdullah Barghouti, the Hamas military leader; and Ibrahim Hamid, a leader of the Second Intifada.

If any of these men were released, the effect would be a strategic shakeup of the Palestinian leadership across all factions: nationalist, secular and Islamist. 

For Palestinians, this would be a huge political renewal. It would also mean the definitive end of a Palestinian Authority (PA) that collaborates with their occupation. 

For Israel, the release of these men would present a real chance to negotiate an end to the conflict. But only the likes of Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, gets this point. Instead, the war cabinet’s latest idea is to put another PA stooge, Majed Faraj, in charge of Gaza. Faraj’s mission is doomed before it starts, and he would be wise to decline such a poisoned chalice.

Green light turns yellow

Netanyahu’s weakness is having a profound effect on the western political elites who supported and armed Israel. 

US President Joe Biden’s rift with Netanyahu is now open and in the public eye. The US leader who said so loudly that Israel had every right to defend itself five months ago, now says Israel cannot kill another 30,000 Palestinians in the name of self-defence. 

I don’t believe Biden has had some dramatic change of heart or that the scales have fallen from his eyes. US government officials are fully informed about what is happening on the ground in Gaza at every stage of this operation. 

They knew, for instance, that Hamas was not diverting aid convoys or stealing food, and said so. 

Even if the war stops now, the price Israel has paid for the reoccupation of Gaza will be higher than it could have possibly calculated five months ago. But it has yet to realise this. It will

If Biden is confronting the consequences of having given Israel the brightest of green lights to invade Gaza after the Hamas attack on 7 October, those consequences are primarily electoral. Biden’s team has been shocked by the extent of the uncommitted vote.

Hundreds of thousands of voters across the US voted for no candidate in the Democratic primaries on Super Tuesday, as the movement urging voters to vote "uncommitted" gathers pace in protest against Biden's handling of the war in Gaza. This could cost him in the general election in November.

Biden’s Ramadan greetings were especially warm this year. But Arab Americans don’t want hugs. They want a change of policy. And Biden still only supports a temporary ceasefire, not a permanent one. He has not threatened to stop the supply of weapons to Israel. 

Nevertheless there has been a deliberate shift in tone. The Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish official in the US, was  full throated in his support for Israel after the Hamas attack five months ago. On Thursday, he warned Israel it can not survive if it becomes a global pariah.

Schumer accused Netanyahu of putting political survival above national interest and said  he had been” too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah”.

The loss of public opinion in the West, the continuing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, the erosion of the Jewish consensus, and the nervousness of Israel’s backers - all of these elements point to a strategic defeat for Israel. 

Even if the war stops now, the price Israel has paid for the reoccupation of Gaza will be higher than it could have possibly calculated five months ago. But it has yet to realise this. It will.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Al Quds dot com.

Jonathan Cook

Why is the same western media obsessively reheating five-month-old allegations against Hamas so reluctant to focus on Israel’s current, horrifying atrocities?

Hostages tortured to death. Parents executed in front of their children. Doctors beaten. Babies murdered. Sexual assault weaponised.

No, not Hamas crimes. This is part of an ever-growing list of documented atrocities committed by Israel in the five months since 7 October - quite separate from the carpet bombing of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and a famine induced by Israel’s obstruction of aid. 

Last week, an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz disclosed that some 27 Palestinians seized off Gaza’s streets over the past five months are known to have died during interrogations inside Israel.

Some were denied medical treatment. But most are likely to have been tortured to death.

Three months ago, a Haaretz editorial warned that Israeli jails “must not become execution facilities for Palestinians”.

Israeli TV channels have been excitedly taking viewers on tours of detention centres, showing the appalling conditions Palestinians are kept in, as well as the psychological and physical abuse they are subjected to.

An Israeli judge recently called the makeshift cages in which Palestinians are held “unsuitable for humans”.

Remember, a large proportion of the 4,000 or so Palestinians taken hostage by Israel since 7 October - probably the vast majority - are civilians, like the men and boys paraded through Gaza’s streets or held in a stadium stripped of clothing before being dragged off to a dark cell in Israel.

Women abused

According to Israeli media, many dozens of Palestinian women - including pregnant women - have been seized too, but in their case off camera.

Presumably, Israel has wished to avoid undermining its careful messaging that only Hamas weaponises violence against women. 

But according to United Nations legal experts, Palestinian women are suffering the most degrading forms of abuse at the hands of the Israeli military. 

Soldiers are also believed to have taken photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances and then uploaded them online

The experts observed that Palestinian women and girls in detention were reportedly being subjected to “multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers.

"At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence."

Soldiers are also believed to have taken photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances and then uploaded them online.

Palestinian women and girls in Gaza are also reported by their families to have gone missing after contact with the Israeli army.

“There are disturbing reports of at least one female infant forcibly transferred by the Israeli army into Israel, and of children being separated from their parents, whose whereabouts remain unknown,” they said.

Beatings, waterboarding

A separate report by the UN last week revealed that 21 of its staff - humanitarian aid workers - had been snatched by Israel. They were then tortured to extract confessions, most likely false, of involvement in Hamas’ 7 October attack. Their torture included beatings, waterboarding and threats to family members.

Those confessions were cited by western allies as the grounds - in fact, the only known grounds - for cutting off funding to the UN relief agency Unrwa, the last lifeline for Gaza’s starving population. It was these claims, extracted through torture, that helped Israel rationalise its imposing of a famine on Gaza.

Palestinian men rounded up and stripped by Israeli forces in Gaza before being taken to an undisclosed location (Screengrab/X)

Of the 1,000 detainees subsequently released, 29 were children, one as young as six, and 80 women. Some were reported to have cancer and chronic illnesses such as Alzheimer’s.

According to the UN investigation, Palestinians reported severe punishment beatings, being caged with attack dogs, and suffering sexual assault. Physical evidence - such as broken ribs, dislocated shoulders, bite marks, and burns - was still visible many weeks later. 

Executions, human shields

These horrors, of course, are not just taking place in cells and interrogation rooms inside Israel. Gaza is being subjected to astonishing levels of brutality and sadism from Israeli troops - quite aside from the carpet bombing and enforced starvation of civilians.

Israeli snipers have fired into Gaza’s hospitals, killing medical staff and patients there.

The Israeli military has used Palestinians as human shields, including one man sent into a hospital, his hands bound, to announce an Israeli order to evacuate the premises. Israeli forces executed him on his return.

Those trying to follow such evacuation orders, waving white flags, have been shot at.

Medical facilities have been repeatedly invaded by the Israeli military in stark violation of international law. Those who could not be evacuated, such as premature babies, have been left to die unattended, even while Israeli soldiers were occupying the building.

This week, the BBC interviewed medical staff who reported being tortured, savagely beaten and having attack dogs set on them inside the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis after Israeli soldiers stormed it. 

One, Dr Ahmed Abu Sabha, had his hands broken. He told the BBC: “They put me on a chair and it was like a gallows. I heard sounds of ropes, so I thought I was going to be executed.”

The BBC interviewed medical staff who reported being tortured, savagely beaten and having attack dogs set on them inside the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis

At another stage, he and other detainees were beaten in the back of a truck, while only in their underwear. They were taken to a gravel pit, where they were made to kneel blindfolded. They believed they were about to be executed. 

During his eight days as hostage, Sabha was never questioned. 

Dozens more medics are believed missing, presumed to still be in Israeli detention. 

Photographs published by the BBC also show patients in the grounds of Nasser hospital in beds with their hands bound tightly above their heads. 

Those who died were left to decompose by Israeli soldiers. A doctor there, Dr Hatim Rabaa, told the BBC: “Patients were screaming, ‘Please remove them [the corpses] from here'. I was telling them, 'It isn't in my hands'."

Other examples of murderous cruelty are documented daily. Unarmed Palestinians, including those waving white flags, have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers. Palestinian parents have been executed in cold blood in front of their children. There have been repeated episodes of Israeli forces gunning down en masse desperate Palestinians trying to reach aid, as happened yet again this week. And even Israeli hostages trying to escape their captors have been killed by the very Israeli soldiers they were trying to surrender to.

These are just some of the cases of Israeli sadism and barbarity that have surfaced briefly in western media coverage, soon to be forgotten.

Wiping Gaza off the map

The stomach-turning double standards are impossible to ignore. 

The western establishment media has been chock full of the most lurid allegations of savagery directed against Hamas, sometimes with little or no supporting evidence. Claims that Hamas beheaded babies or put them in ovens - emblazoned on front pages - were later found to be nonsense.

Accusations against Hamas have been endlessly reheated to paint a picture of a supremely dangerous and bestial militant group, in turn rationalising the carpet bombing and starvation of Gaza’s population to “eradicate” it as a terrorist organisation.

But equally barbarous atrocities committed by Israel - not in the heat of battle, but in cold blood - are treated as unfortunate, isolated incidents that cannot be connected, that paint no picture, that reveal nothing of import about the military that carried them out.

If Hamas’ crimes were so savage and sadistic they still need to be reported months after they took place, why does the establishment media never feel the need to express equal horror and indignation at the acts of cruelty and sadism being inflicted by Israel on Gaza - not five months ago, but right now? 

This is part of a pattern of behaviour by the western media that leads to only one possible deduction: Israel’s five-month-long attack on Gaza is not being reported. Rather, it is being selectively narrated - and for the most obscene of purposes. 

Through consistent and glaring failures in their coverage, establishment media - including supposedly liberal outlets, from the BBC and CNN to the Guardian and New York Times - have smoothed the way for Israel to carry out mass slaughter in Gaza, what the World Court has assessed as plausibly a genocide.

The role of the media has not been to keep us, their audiences, informed about one of the greatest crimes in living memory. It has been to buy time for US President Joe Biden to keep arming his most useful of client states in the oil-rich Middle East, and to do so without damaging his prospects for re-election in November’s US presidential vote. 

If Russian President Vladimir Putin was a madman and a barbarous war criminal for invading Ukraine, as every western media outlet agrees, what does that make Israeli officials, when every one of them supports far worse atrocities in Gaza, directed overwhelmingly at civilians? 

And more to the point, what does that make Biden and the US political class for materially backing Israel to the hilt: sending bombs, vetoing demands for a ceasefire at the United Nations, and freezing desperately needed aid? 

Worrying about the optics, the president expresses his discomfort, but he carries on helping Israel regardless.

While western politicians and commentators worry about some imaginary existential threat those brief events of five months ago pose to the nuclear-armed state of Israel, Israel is quite literally wiping Gaza off the map day by day, quite undisturbed.

Hamas ‘started it’

There have been two, largely implicit defences for this glaring imbalance in western priorities. Neither stands up to even the most cursory scrutiny. 

One is the argument that Hamas “started it” - insinuated in the endless claim that, in destroying Gaza, Israel has been “responding” or “retaliating” to the violence of 7 October.

This is a justification for killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and starving two million more that should never have been let out of the playground. But worse, it is patent nonsense. Hamas did not initiate anything on 7 October, except for handing Israel a pretext to wreck Gaza.

Hamas started nothing on 7 October. It was simply a new, and particularly gruesome phase in what has been decades of Palestinian resistance to Israel’s belligerent occupation of Gaza

The enclave has been under a crushing siege for 17 years, in which its land, sea and air were patrolled constantly by Israel. Its population was denied the essentials of life. They had no freedom of movement apart from inside their cage. 

Long before the current Israeli-induced famine, Israel’s trade restrictions had ensured high levels of malnutrition among Gaza’s children. Most exhibited too the scars of deep psychological trauma from constant and massive attacks by Israel on Gaza.

Biden crows about building a “temporary pier” - weeks or months down the road - to bring aid into Gaza that is desperately needed now. But there is a reason the enclave lacks a seaport and airport. Israel bombed the only airport back in 2001, long before Hamas took charge of Gaza. It has been attacking and killing fishermen trawling just off Gaza's coast for years.

Israel has refused to allow Gaza to connect to the world - and break free of Israeli control - ever since. 

Hamas started nothing on 7 October. It was simply a new, and particularly gruesome phase in what has been decades of Palestinian resistance to Israel’s belligerent occupation of Gaza. 

Bogus narrative

The other implicit defence of western establishments constantly stressing Hamas’ barbarism over Israel’s is that the nature of those atrocities is said to be categorically different - in the apples and pears sense.

Hamas supposedly demonstrated a degree of sadism in its killing spree on 7 October inside Israel that marks it out from Israel’s far larger killing spree in Gaza. 

That has been the basis for every media interview that requires guests to “condemn” Hamas before they are allowed to express concern about the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. No one is asked to condemn Israel. 

It is the basis too for permitting Israeli spokespeople to claim unchallenged that Israel targets only Hamas, not civilians, even while some three-quarters of Gaza’s dead are women and children.

On the BBC’s evening news at the weekend, presenter Clive Myrie made precisely this preposterous assertion as he intoned that since 7 October, “Israel launched a relentless bombing campaign targeting members of Hamas.” 

But the latest revelations of the 27 reported deaths in Israeli torture centres and the testimonies of beaten medics from Nasser Hospital confirm how bogus this entire narrative framing by the western media is - one intended to mislead and misinform audiences. 

Israel claims it is targeting Hamas, but its actions tell an entirely different story. Famine will kill off the sick and vulnerable long before it does Hamas fighters. 

The truth is, Israel is not primarily eradicating Hamas. It is eradicating Gaza. Its crimes are at least as cruel and savage as anything Hamas did on 7 October - and its atrocities have been carried out on a far larger scale and for far longer. 

Western establishments and their media have been waging a giant campaign of misdirection for the past five months, as they have against Palestinians over previous years and decades. Western publics have been encouraged to look in the wrong direction. 

Until that changes, the men, women and children of Gaza will continue to pay the heaviest of prices at the hands of a vengeful, sadistic Israeli military.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Al Quds Newspaper

By Orly Noy

Liberal Israeli sympathy for Palestinians was based on the colonial mindset that the subjugated are inferior and should be grateful for their support

The Hamas attack of 7 October and the war that Israel launched thereafter introduced a new conceptual category of persons to the Hebrew-Israeli vocabulary: the “disillusioned” - meaning, the folks who have now “sobered up”.

These people insist that, until 7 October, they were humanistic seekers of peace for whom the Hamas attack changed everything: in its wake, they moulted their former selves and now passionately supported the genocide that Israel was perpetrating in Gaza.

For more than five months, they have continued to flog one another for the sin of their earlier left-wing innocence. After suitable ritual absolution, they enter into the bosom of the tribe and are showered with forgiveness in the name of the people and the nation.

Already tiresomely long, the ranks of these disillusioned persons continue to expand. Many of the newly added are from the entertainment industry and identified with the liberal camp. Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame to reiterate the formulaic arguments: I believed in peace, I wanted coexistence, but on 7 October I discovered that on the other side, there are no humans, only human animals that must be fought to the bitter end.

The ritual purification is complete with expressions of love and appreciation for "the Israel Defence Forces, the most moral army in the world”, plus thanks and congratulations to our heroic soldiers, and some lip service paid to the plight of the hostages.

As veteran actor Hanny Nahmias has said, "[We] were the most in favour of coexistence” - but now she wants a war “to the finish”. 

Legitimate targets

If we pay close attention to the newly disillusioned, the problem does not seem mainly to be their new, changed position - which now often embraces the total extermination of the Palestinians in Gaza.

For example, popular singer Idan Raichel, who is generally associated with progressive values and often collaborates with musicians from the Ethiopian community, is resentful that the residents of Gaza - displaced, brutalised, thirsty and starving - do not enter the tunnels and battle Hamas, even if it costs them thousands of casualties, to effect the return of all the abductees.

Raichel concludes that since they do not do so, they should be viewed as accomplices to the crimes of Hamas and hence as legitimate targets for attack by Israel.

In fact, the problem with these newly disillusioned persons seems rather to be in their interpretation of their “leftist” position prior to their disillusionment.

In an interview on comedian Shalom Assayag’s programme, Stronger Together, actor and TV presenter Tzufit Grant stated that “my leftist side no longer exists; I thought we were all human, but - no”.

On 7 October, in her words, the attackers killed off “some humanitarian part of the brain, of overwhelming compassion, [the idea that] ‘we are all human beings’”.

Grant no longer believes that we are all human. So, now what?

She describes over two million Palestinians in Gaza with an abhorrent vocabulary for someone for whom, until recently, a love for humanity was her guiding light.

Pure narcissism

Grant is not alone. Perhaps the strongest sentiment referenced repeatedly by many of the newly disillusioned folks is disappointment: the Palestinians have “lost them”.

They, the leftists of the past who claim that they were after all completely committed to coexistence and saw every person as a human being - and their "reward" was a criminal attack on 7 October.

Yes, the Hamas attack on the Gaza-adjacent communities was horrifying. But beware of the notion that the overlord’s mere goodwill was supposed to be sufficient to satisfy the Palestinians, who were supposed to be grateful for the mater’s kindness and continue bearing their oppression in silence. (Oh, that longing for the “good old days” when Palestinians in Gaza, by dint of the kindness of Israel, could enter Israel to work as day labourers and be grateful for it.)

This stance was pure narcissism, at best - not a political position based on an analysis of reality and its distorted power relations.

Some observers repeatedly mention that many of the residents from the Gaza-adjacent communities that were attacked on 7 October were peace-seeking people, some even activists who regularly volunteered to drive Gaza’s children from the Erez crossing to Israeli hospitals - a reference meant to portray Palestinians as ungrateful and to justify the shift in their own political positions.

This stance is tainted by the same narcissistic depoliticisation that views everything through the lens of the good intentions of (some) Israelis.

Undoubtedly, volunteering to transport sick Palestinians from Gaza is a noble act and the volunteers are people whose actions were prompted by morality and conscience. But a political position sees the larger context in which this volunteering takes place: that is, Israel's long-term siege of the Gaza Strip and the destruction of most of its civilian infrastructure.

Such a position inquires into how this reality came about - in which Palestinian civilians in Gaza must rely on the generosity of good Israelis and cannot receive suitable medical care in Gaza itself. It asks why there are no proper hospitals in Gaza, and who prevents Palestinians from building them, and by what right.

Embracing tribalism

Such a position would highlight the significance of such a far-reaching denial of the freedom of movement for millions of people who require the overlord’s permission not only to enter Israel but also to travel to the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. It would also point out the nature of the regime that for decades has controlled every breath taken by millions of disenfranchised subjects, and it would understand that such a regime inevitably must provoke an uprising.

And, contrary to all attempts to control how these realities are framed for public consumption, to understand them accurately is not the equivalent of supporting violence nor its justification, but quite the opposite: a dispassionate analysis of this bloody reality, to enable us to exit from it.

That the most the subject can aspire to is the master's recognition of his being human, a recognition that can be withheld as easily as it was given if the subject 'disappoints', is the hallmark of the colonial situation

The concept that the most the subject can aspire to is the master's recognition of his being human, a recognition that can be withheld as easily as it was given if the subject “disappoints”, is the hallmark of the colonial situation.

In this situation, the master deems himself so superior to the subject that the latter should be thankful for every moment in which the master’s grip on his throat remains loose, while any resistance to the ever-present threat of a chokehold is tantamount to ingratitude.

These are the same “leftists of the past” who, alongside their disappointment in the Palestinians, have also suddenly discovered the joys of embracing tribalism - as Tzufit Grant has evidently done.

Since 7 October, she says, she has wanted to walk all day through the streets and kiss Israelis: “I have become very Israeli, very Jewish.”

Lamentably, disastrously, in today's Israel, this would seem to involve parting not only with the “humanitarian portion” of the brain, but with the brain itself.

The Wall Street Journal published an article today, Saturday, saying that in the decades-long history of relations between the United States and Israel, there has rarely been another moment in which an American president was closer to Israel and more at odds with its prime minister.

Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza five months ago, President Biden has repeatedly described the relationship between the United States and Israel as unbreakable. But his nearly 50-year relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has steadily deteriorated, riven by their conflicting political agendas and conflicting war goals.

The tense relationship between Biden and Netanyahu highlights how Washington and Israel will grow further apart the longer Israel's war on Gaza drags on, raising uncomfortable questions about the long-term strength of a relationship that once seemed austere.

The newspaper attributes Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to the United States and advisor to a number of Israeli prime ministers, as saying that “there is a very serious crisis in the relationship.”

It is noteworthy that last week, Biden pledged to have what he described as a very frank conversation about the war with Netanyahu, pressed for more humanitarian aid to Gaza and announced that he may withhold US arms shipments unless Israel takes more steps to protect civilians in Gaza, a step he sought. White House aides were quick to downplay its importance.

In another extraordinary development, the top heads of US intelligence agencies publicly warned in their testimony before Congress this week that Netanyahu's political future is in grave danger, and Senate Majority Leader and the most important American Jewish political leader, Chuck Schumer (Democrat from New York), called on Thursday for Israeli elections were held to replace him in new elections during a scathing speech he delivered in the Senate. The White House said it was aware of the speech before it was delivered, but did not coordinate it with Schumer.

In response to a question about Schumer’s statements on Friday, Biden told reporters: “He gave a good speech, and I think he expressed serious concern not only for him, but also for many Americans.”

Netanyahu responded by pledging to resist pressure to curtail Israel's goal of destroying the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, whose surprise October 7 attack sparked the war. In a video address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said that Israel retains the support of an “overwhelming majority” of the American public and Congress — a not-so-subtle reminder to the White House that it runs a political risk by taking a hostile stance.

The newspaper says: “Washington’s relationship with its closest allies in the Middle East has been considered sacred for years, and so impregnable that neither Republican nor Democratic administrations were willing to risk a serious violation for fear that this would ultimately benefit the other party politically.”

The last time US-Israeli relations sank to this level was during Barack Obama's presidency when Netanyahu, who was also facing a re-election battle, said he would never accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel and denounced the nuclear deal the US reached with Iran in 2015.

The newspaper points out that Biden has a deep attraction towards Israel, which led him to strongly support its war on Gaza. In the war, this support even extended to Netanyahu, a frequent opponent during their long political career.

But instead of responding to Biden's embrace, Netanyahu rebuffed him at almost every turn, rejecting a postwar US plan that called for bringing the Palestinian Authority, which currently rules part of the West Bank, to Gaza and launching a new diplomatic campaign to establish a Palestinian state. . Biden still insists that he will never abandon Israel.

Netanyahu's opposition has blocked the president's plan for Israel to agree to a path to Palestinian statehood in exchange for normalizing Israeli relations with Saudi Arabia, depriving the White House of a diplomatic coup.

The newspaper attributes Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, as saying that the relationship between Biden and Netanyahu was a “one-way street,” as the US president offered his support to Israel at some political cost, only to have his own requests rejected.

“Netanyahu was so inflexible and confrontational that the president had to take a stand,” Indyk said.

After weeks of American pressure from Washington to protect the Palestinians who took refuge in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, Netanyahu agreed on Friday to military plans that include the evacuation of civilians, according to a statement issued by his office without providing details. Israeli officials also said they plan to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, another US priority.

But there are also signs that Netanyahu believes he can win a contest for the White House, and that Biden may not want an all-out showdown in an election year.

Netanyahu is unpopular in Israel, but his government's handling of the war has broad support, including its plan to send troops to Rafah, even without Washington's support. Polls generally show that most Israelis agree with Netanyahu's positions, but also want him out of office.

Even his rivals, including Benny Gantz, head of the National Unity Party and a member of the war cabinet, support the Rafah process, complicating White House efforts to bypass Netanyahu, according to the newspaper.

It is noteworthy that, amid growing tensions with the White House, Netanyahu told AIPAC delegates meeting in Washington last Tuesday that he appreciated the support that Israel received from Biden and his administration, “and I hope that this continues, but let me be clear, Israel will win this war no matter what happens.” 

Netanyahu and his supporters say that Biden has now become an obstacle because of his yielding to internal political pressure to stop the war, at a time when Netanyahu claims that “victory is within reach,” noting that Israel has not achieved any of its declared goals, while Netanyahu’s Israeli critics say that he opposed Biden’s plans for the future. The war is to maintain the support of his allies in the extreme right-wing coalition, and because standing up to the American president plays well with right-wing voters in Israel.

“There is no logic in this public battle other than to please his political base, so that it is well received by his right wing,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said this week.

Netanyahu's determination to continue and prolong the war puts him in direct conflict with Biden's re-election concerns. Supporting Israel's conduct in the war may help Biden with pro-Israel voters in the United States, but it also risks undermining his support among young voters angry at the humanitarian crisis created by the war in Gaza and at US military aid to Israel. The White House is also concerned about alienating Arab-American voters in Michigan, a state critical to the president's re-election prospects.

Analysts say the longer the war lasts, the deeper the wedge it could drive into Biden's voter base.

The Israeli forces withdrew from the city of Nablus in the West Bank after storming the city at dawn on Saturday and arresting two young men from the Gaza Strip who were in a hotel in the vicinity of the Old City in the center of the city.

The Palestinian News Agency (Wafa) quoted eyewitnesses as saying that about 25 Israeli military vehicles stormed the city from the western side, while local sources explained that the occupation forces stormed the old town of the city, and deployed foot teams and snipers in the town and its surroundings.

The agency indicated that Palestinian youth clashed with the Israeli forces that were deployed in the city center, and that the Israeli army fired live bullets and tear gas bombs at the Palestinian resistance fighters.

Qalqilya

In the city of Qalqilya, west of the West Bank, at dawn on Saturday, the occupation forces stormed the city with several vehicles and stationed themselves in its center and in the Al-Naqar neighborhood. They raided several houses in the neighborhood, including the house of the detainee Raed Al-Hutari and the house of the detainee Erbakan Tabsiyeh, and wreaked havoc on them.

The same sources indicated the presence of foot forces from the occupation army in the Al-Dhahr area in the Daoud neighborhood, south of the city, at a time when several ambushes were set up on Al-Wad Street.

It reported that the occupation forces deployed snipers in locations in the city, amid confrontations, but no injuries or arrests were reported.

Ramallah

Today, Saturday, Israeli forces stormed the villages of Qarawat Bani Zeid and Kafr Ain, northwest of Ramallah.

Local sources reported that the Israeli forces stormed the two villages and deployed in the alleys and streets, without any arrests or confrontations reported.

Hebron

Today, Saturday, Israeli forces arrested citizens from the town of Bani Naim, east of Hebron.

Local sources reported that the Israeli forces stormed the town at dawn, and arrested Mahmoud Idaisat and Tariq Khaled Muhammad, after raiding and searching their homes, and tampering with their contents.

The same sources added that the Israeli forces raided and searched a number of homes.

Medical sources announced today, Saturday, that the death toll in the Gaza Strip had risen to 31,553 citizens, the majority of whom were children and women, since the 7th of last October.

The same sources added that the number of wounded has risen to 73,546 since the start of the aggression, while thousands of victims are still under the rubble.

It pointed out that the Israeli forces committed 7 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death of 63 citizens and the injury of 112 others, during the past 24 hours.

It explained that a number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them.

The occupation forces withdraw from Hamad Town in Khan Yunis under intense artillery cover

Press sources said that Israeli army artillery targeted areas northeast of the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

The sources added that the Israeli forces were withdrawing from the north of Hamad Town in Khan Yunis under cover of intense artillery shelling, which led to the injury of several Palestinians in the city.

The aggression against Gaza entered a new day in which the Strip witnessed more bombing and raids, in light of the deteriorating humanitarian conditions and the scarcity of aid.

Today, 3 people were killed as a result of an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in Khirbet Al-Adas, north of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, according to Al-Arabi’s correspondent.

At night, the Israeli forces bombed a 7-storey residential building housing displaced people near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, resulting in the death and injury of dozens, a large number of whom are still under the rubble.

Israeli artillery also targeted two homes in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 36 people and wounding a number of others.

In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli artillery shelling targeted the east of the town of Beit Hanoun.

Meanwhile, the White House expressed a cautiously optimistic tone after Hamas presented a proposal to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.