The Prisoners' Club said that the total number of arrests in the city of Jenin and its camp has reached more than 1,000 detainees since the seventh of last October.

The Prisoner's Club explained in a press statement on Tuesday that this tally includes those who were kept in detention by the occupation and those who were later released, including women and children.

The Prisoners' Club indicated that the occupation arrested 120 citizens during this month, including children, school teachers, lawyers, former detainees, and the wounded, in addition to a child who was re-arrested by the occupation and is among the children who were released during the exchange deals that took place in November 2023.

The club confirmed that the level of crimes that accompany raids and arrest campaigns in the governorates is on the rise, according to dozens of testimonies followed by the relevant institutions, as the number of detainees arrested by the occupation after October 7 in the West Bank reached more than (6,390).

Israel has long plotted the downfall of UNRWA, aware that it is one of the biggest obstacles to eradicating the Palestinians as a people

There is an important background to the decision by the United States and other leading western states, the UK among them, to freeze funding to the United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main channel by which the UN disseminates food and welfare services to the most desperate and destitute Palestinians.

The funding cut – which has been also adopted by Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, Italy, Australia and Finland – was imposed even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Friday that Israel may be committing genocide in Gaza. The World Court judges quoted at length UN officials who warned that Israel’s actions had left almost all of the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, including famine.

The West’s flimsy pretext for what amounts to a war on UNRWA is that Israel claims 12 local UN staff – out of 13,000 – are implicated in Hamas’ break-out from the open-air prison of Gaza on October 7. The sole evidence appears to be coerced confessions, likely extracted through torture, from Palestinian fighters captured by Israel that day.

The UN immediately sacked all the accused staff, seemingly without due process. We can assume that was because the refugee agency was afraid its already threadbare lifeline to the people of Gaza, as well as millions of other Palestinian refugees across the region – in the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria – would be further threatened. It need not have worried. Western donor states cut their funding anyway, plunging Gaza deeper into calamity.

They did so without regard to the fact their decision amounts to collective punishment: some 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza face starvation and the spread of lethal disease, while another 4 million Palestinian refugees across the region are at imminent risk of losing food, health care and schooling.

According to law professor Francis Boyle, who filed a genocide case for Bosnia at the World Court some two decades ago, that shifts most of these western states from their existing complicity with Israel’s genocide (by selling arms and providing aid and diplomatic cover) into direct and active participation in the genocide, by violating the 1948 Genocide Convention’s prohibition on “deliberately inflicting on the group [in this case, Palestinians] conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The World Court is investigating Israel for genocide. But it could easily widen its investigation to include western states. The threat to UNRWA needs to be seen in that light.  Not only is Israel thumbing its nose at the World Court and international law, but states like the US and UK are doing so too, by cutting their funding to the refugee agency. They are slapping the court in the face, and indicating that they are four-square behind Israel’s crimes, even if they are shown to be genocidal in nature.

Israel’s creature

The following is the proper context for understanding what is really going on with this latest attack on UNRWA:

1. The agency was created in 1949 – decades before Israel’s current military slaughter in Gaza – to provide for the basic needs of Palestinian refugees, including essential food provision, health care and education. It has an outsize role in Gaza because most of the Palestinians living there lost, or are descended from families that lost, everything in 1948. That was when they were ethnically cleansed by the fledgling Israeli military from most of Palestine, in an event known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or Catastrophe. Their lands were turned into what Israel’s leaders described as an exclusively “Jewish state”. The Israeli army set about destroying the Palestinians’ towns and villages inside this new state so that they could never return.

2. UNRWA is separate from the UN’s main refugee agency, the UNHCR, and deals only with Palestinian refugees. Although Israel does not want you to know it, the reason for there being two UN refugee agencies is because Israel and its western backers insisted on the division back in 1948. Why? Because Israel was afraid of the Palestinians falling under the responsibility of the UNHCR’s forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. The IRO was established in the immediate wake of the Second World War in large part to cope with the millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.

Israel did not want the two cases treated as comparable, because it was pushing hard for Jewish refugees to be settled on lands from which it had just expelled Palestinians. Part of the IRO’s mission was to seek the repatriation of European Jews. Israel was worried that very principle might be used both to deny it the Jews it wanted to colonise Palestinian land and to force it to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes. So in a real sense, UNRWA is Israel’s creature: it was set up to keep the Palestinians a case apart, an anomaly.

Prison camp

3. Nonetheless, things did not go exactly to plan for Israel. Given its refusal to allow the refugees to return, and the reluctance of neighbouring Arab states to be complict in Israel’s original act of ethnic cleansing, the Palestinian population in UNRWA’s refugee camps ballooned. They became an especial problem in Gaza, where about two-thirds of the population are refugees or descended from refugees. The tiny coastal enclave did not have the land or resources to cope with the rapidly expanding numbers there. The fear in Israel was that, as the plight of the Palestinians of Gaza became more desperate, the international community would pressure Israel into a peace agreement, allowing for the refugees’ return to their former homes.

That had to be stopped at all costs. In the early 1990s, as the supposed Oslo “peace process” was being unveiled, Israel began penning the Palestinians of Gaza inside a steel cage, surrounded by gun towers. Some 17 years ago, Israel added a blockade that prevented the population’s movement in and out of Gaza, including via the strip’s coastal waters and its skies. The Palestinians became prisoners in a giant concentration camp, denied the most basic links to the outside world. Israel alone decided what was allowed in and out. An Israeli court later learnt that from 2008 onwards the Israeli military put Gaza on what amounted to a starvation diet by restricting food supplies.

There was a strategy here that involved making Gaza uninhabitable, something the UN started warning about in 2015. Israel’s game plan appears to have gone something like this:

By making Palestinians in Gaza ever more desperate, it was certain that militant groups like Hamas willing to fight to liberate the enclave would gain in popularity. In turn, that would provide Israel with the excuse both to further tighten restrictions on Gaza to deal with a “terrorism threat”, and to intermittently wreck Gaza in “retaliation” for those attacks – or what Israeli military commanders variously called “mowing the grass” and “returning Gaza to the Stone Age”. The assumption was that Gaza’s militant groups would exhaust their energies managing the constant “humanitarian crises” Israel had engineered.

At the same time, Israel could promote twin narratives. It could say publicly that it was impossible for it to take responsibility for the people of Gaza, given that they were so clearly invested both in Jew hatred and terrorism. Meanwhile, it would privately tell the international community that, given how uninhabitable Gaza was becoming, they urgently needed to find a solution that did not involve Israel. The hope was that Washington would be able to arm-twist or bribe neighbouring Egypt into taking most of Gaza’s destitute population.

Mask ripped off

4. On October 7, Hamas and other militant groups achieved what Israel had assumed was impossible. They broke out of their concentration camp. The Israeli leadership’s shock is not just over the bloody nature of the break-out. It is that on that day Hamas smashed Israel’s entire security concept – one designed to keep the Palestinians crushed, and Arab states and the region’s other resistance groups hopeless. Last week, in a knockout blow, the World Court agreed to put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza, collapsing the moral case for an exclusive Jewish state built on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland.

The judges’ near-unanimous conclusion that South Africa has made a plausible case for Israel committing genocide should force a reassessment of everything that went before. Genocides don’t just emerge out of thin air. They happen after long periods in which the oppressor group dehumanises another group, incites against it and abuses it. The World Court has implicitly conceded that the Palestinians were right when they insisted that the Nakba – Israel’s mass dispossession and ethnic cleansing operation of 1948 – never ended. It just took on different forms. Israel became better at concealing those crimes, until the mask was ripped off after the October 7 break-out.

5. Israel’s efforts to get rid of UNRWA are not new. They date back many years. For a number of reasons, the UN refugee agency is a thorn in Israel’s side – and all the more so in Gaza. Not least, it has provided a lifeline to Palestinians there, keeping them fed and cared for, and providing jobs to many thousands of local people in a place where unemployment rates are among the highest in the world. It has invested in infrastructure like hospitals and schools that make life in Gaza more bearable, when Israel’s goal has long been to make the enclave uninhabitable. UNRWA’s well-run schools, staffed by local Palestinians, teach the children their own history, about where their grandparents once lived, and of Israel’s campaign of dispossession and ethnic cleansing against them. That runs directly counter to the infamous Zionist slogan about the Palestinians’ identity-less future: “The old will die and the young forget.”

Divide and rule

But UNRWA’s role is bigger than that. Uniquely, it is the sole agency unifying Palestinians wherever they live, even when they are separated by national borders and Israel’s fragmentation of the territory it controls. UNRWA brings Palestinians together even when their own political leaders have been manipulated into endless factionalism by Israel’s divide and rule policies: Hamas is nominally in charge in Gaza, while Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah pretends to run the West Bank.

In addition, UNRWA keeps alive the moral case for a Palestinian right of return – a principle recognised in international law but long ago abandoned by western states.

Even before October 7, UNRWA had become an obstable that needed removing if Israel was ever to ethnically cleanse Gaza. That is why Israel has repeatedly lobbied to stop the biggest donors, especially the US, funding UNRWA. Back in 2018, for example, the refugee agency was plunged into an existential crisis when President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israeli pressure and cut all its funding. Even after the decision was reversed, the agency has been limping along financially.

6. Now Israel is in full attack mode against the World Court, and has even more to gain from destroying UNRWA than it did before. The freeze in funding, and the further weakening of the refugee agency, will undermine the support structures for Palestinians generally. But in Gaza’s case, the move will specifically accelerate famine and disease, making the enclave uninhabitable faster.

But it will do more. It will also serve as a stick with which to beat the World Court as Israel tries to fight off the genocide investigation. Israel’s barely veiled claim is that 15 of the International Court of Justice’s 17 judges fell for South Africa’s supposedly antisemitic argument that Israel is committing genocide. The court quoted extensively from UN officials, including the head of UNRWA, that Israel was actively engineering an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Now, as former UK ambassador Craig Murray notes, the coerced confessions against 12 UNRWA staff serve to “provide a propaganda counter-narrative to the ICJ judgment, and to reduce the credibility of UNRWA’s evidence before the court”. 

Extraordinarily, the western media have done Israel’s PR work for it, happily focusing more attention on Israel’s claims about a handful of UNRWA staff than it has on the World Court’s decision to put Israel on trial for genocide.

Equally a boon to Israel is the fact that leading western states have so quickly pinned their colours to the mast. The funding freeze cements their fates to Israel’s. It sends a message that they will stand with Israel against the World Court, whatever it decides. Their war on UNRWA is intended as an act of collective intimidation directed towards the court. It is a sign that the West refuses to accept that international law applies to it, or its client state. It is a reminder that western states refuse any restraint on their freedom of action – and that it is Israel and its sponsors who are the true rogue states.

The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed that they received the proposal that was circulated at the Paris meeting, indicating that they are studying it to provide a response to it.
Haniyeh said in a statement on Tuesday, “Our response to the proposal will be based on the priority being stopping the aggression against Gaza and withdrawing the occupation forces from the Strip.”

He added: "Hamas is open to discussing any serious ideas, provided that they lead to a comprehensive cessation of aggression and providing shelter for our displaced people."

He also explained that they are open to discussing any initiatives that require reconstruction and the completion of a serious prisoner exchange process that guarantees the freedom of our prisoners.

Haniyeh appreciated the role of the brothers in Egypt and Qatar in reaching a sustainable ceasefire agreement in Gaza on the path to ending the aggression.

Haniyeh indicated that they received an invitation to visit Cairo to discuss the framework agreement issued by the Paris meeting and the requirements for its implementation in a way that achieves the interests of our people.

Since Friday, 12 countries have “temporarily” suspended funding for the UN agency, following Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Hamas attack on October 7...

US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized some countries' suspension of funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

She confirmed in her blog post on the “X” platform on Monday that suspending UNRWA’s funding is “unacceptable.”

She added that it is unreasonable to expose millions to the risk of hunger due to “serious allegations” against 12 employees of a United Nations institution that has 13,000 employees.

She called for the United States to resume its funding to UNRWA that it had suspended. On Friday, UNRWA said that it had opened an investigation into allegations of the involvement of a number (without specifying) of its employees in the October 7 attacks.

The Israeli accusations against the agency are “not the first of their kind.” Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, Israel has accused UNRWA employees of working for Hamas, in what was considered a “previous justification” for attacking the organization’s schools and facilities in the Gaza Strip, which shelters tens of thousands of displaced people, most of whom are children and women. According to observers.

Since Friday, 12 countries have “temporarily” suspended funding for the UN agency, following Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Hamas attack on October 7.

These countries are the United States, Canada, Australia, Italy, Britain, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Japan and Austria.

UNRWA was established by a decision of the United Nations General Assembly in 1949, and was authorized to provide assistance and protection to refugees in its five areas of operations, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, until a just solution to their problem is reached.

The British Foreign Secretary suggests that Britain could grant formal diplomatic recognition of Palestinian statehood not as part of a final peace agreement, but during the negotiations themselves, arguing that this would help make the process irreversible and give the Palestinians a “political horizon.”

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that “Britain will consider with its allies the issue of recognizing a Palestinian state as part of diplomatic initiatives aimed at achieving irreversible progress towards a two-state solution,” according to what the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on Tuesday.

Cameron said, "We will consider with our allies the issue of recognizing the Palestinian state, including at the United Nations," stressing the need for the Palestinian people to be shown "irreversible progress" toward a two-state solution. He added that "the Palestinians must be given a political horizon to encourage peace in the Middle East." 

He considered that the United Kingdom “bears responsibility for determining what the Palestinian state will look like,” and said that it must show the Palestinian people “irreversible progress” toward a two-state solution, and continued, “At the time that happens, we will consider, with our allies, the issue of recognizing the Palestinian state including the United Nations."

"This may be one of the things that may help make this process irreversible," he added.

The British Foreign Secretary also urged Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, and said it was “ridiculous” to return British and other vital aid to the border.

He added, "The past thirty years have been a story of failure for Israel because it failed to provide security for its citizens," stressing that "peace and progress will only be achieved by acknowledging this failure."

Cameron said, "There must be a new Palestinian authority that 'rises quickly' with 'good technocratic leaders' capable of governing Gaza," according to the BBC.

"Besides, and most important of all, it is to give the Palestinian people a political horizon so that they can see that there will be irreversible progress towards a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state," he added.

He continued, "We have a responsibility there because we must begin to define what a Palestinian state will look like, what it will consist of, how it will function, and crucially, when looking at the issue, when that happens, we and our allies will look at the issue of recognizing the Palestinian state, including in United nations".

The British Foreign Office announced today, Tuesday, that Minister David Cameron will travel to the Sultanate of Oman, later today, where he will discuss with his Omani counterpart, Badr al-Busaidi, ways to restore stability and reduce tension in the Middle East, in his fourth visit to the region since. He was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs last November.

The British Foreign Office said, in a statement, that the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea will be one of the main topics of its discussions. She added that Cameron will confirm Britain's commitment to delivering aid to Yemen, and will determine the measures Britain is taking to deter the Houthis from targeting ships in the Red Sea.

During a previous diplomatic tour in the region, Cameron met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian officials in the occupied West Bank. He also visited Qatar to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip, which has been witnessing a devastating Israeli war for 116 days that resulted in the death of 26,637 civilians.

Cameron said during his meetings in Israel that he stressed the need to stop the fighting to ensure the release of Israeli prisoners detained in the besieged Gaza Strip since October 7.

Shin Bet head Ronen Bar visited Cairo last night (Monday) and met with Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel against the backdrop of tensions between Israel and Egypt regarding the war in Gaza and the possibility of the Israeli army moving to Rafah. Near the Egyptian border - according to a report by the Walla website correspondent.

Two Israeli sources said that Bar, who participated on Sunday with the head of Egyptian intelligence in a summit in Paris on the issue of the kidnapped people, went to Cairo yesterday to discuss issues not related to negotiations for their release, but rather issues related to the situation in Gaza and relations between the two countries.

Among the topics that Barr discussed in Egypt was the situation in the Philadelphia axis - on the Palestinian side of the border between Gaza and Egypt - and how the two countries can cooperate to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza.

Other topics that the Shin Bet chief discussed with the head of Egyptian intelligence were Egyptian ideas about the “day after” the war in the Gaza Strip, and the Walla website published yesterday about the secret meeting in Riyadh during which the Egyptians discussed with the Palestinians, the Jordanians and the Saudis ways to restore the “Renewable Palestinian Authority" to Gaza.

Israel's recent announcement that friendly fire was the cause of the deaths of nearly a fifth of all its soldiers in the war in Gaza was described as a high percentage even for fighting in crowded civilian areas.

The NBC News website stated that since they began their war on Gaza, the Israelis have killed 36 out of a total of 210 soldiers due to friendly fire and accidents, and it quoted experts as saying that this percentage is the highest in modern military history.

The Israeli army had published a list of the names of 557 soldiers and officers, including reserve soldiers, many of whom were said to be local security officers, who were killed during the ongoing war waged by the Israeli army on Gaza since October 7.

Of this number of deaths, it was reported that most of them occurred on the border with the Gaza Strip, in addition to the killing of 220 soldiers during the ground attack inside Gaza.

The American news network reported that the “friendly fire” that killed the Israeli soldiers consisted of “air strikes and fragments of Israeli explosives. Some of them were run over by armored vehicles or were mistakenly identified, and they were hit by tank fire, shelling, and artillery.” This is according to a report issued by the Israeli army earlier. This month, there were also casualties, as Israel fought its most complex war, with 2 million Palestinian civilians and tens of thousands of soldiers crammed into the small coastal enclave of Gaza.

Retired American General Sean McFarland found justification for the Israelis by saying that there are no procedural steps that would reduce this type of casualties, adding that fighting in cities actually deprives any force of many of the technological advantages it possesses, adding that “fighting inside buildings is very difficult.” .

As for James Stavridis, a retired admiral in the US Navy, he made excuses to the Israeli army for the death of such a large number of its soldiers by “friendly fire” in this ongoing war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, which has so far caused the death of 26,637 Palestinians, including more than 10,400 children. And more than 7,100 women, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.

Stavridis saw that Israel did not have time to prepare and train the invading force that was to be sent to Gaza, noting at the same time that "the key to avoiding friendly fire is to ensure communication between the various units - infantry, tanks, aircraft and artillery - operating within the narrow borders of Gaza."

The retired American admiral alluded to the behavior of the Israeli soldiers during the ongoing fighting in Gaza, and their random shooting, by advising senior Israeli officers on the ground that they must “constantly remind the forces not to rush during the fighting.”

An Israeli army spokesman, in answering a question about friendly fire killing rates in the ongoing war in Gaza, described the phenomenon as “a terrible thing.”

For the seventh day in a row, dozens of settlers continue to prevent aid trucks from reaching the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

It connects Gaza to Israel through the Beit Hanoun crossing, which is designated for the passage of individuals, and the Karam Abu Salem crossing for the passage of goods.

Last December, the Israeli government voted to reopen the crossing to the entry of aid that comes from abroad and is transported through Israel, after closing all crossings with the Gaza Strip on October 7.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) warned earlier this month that time is accelerating towards a comprehensive famine in the Gaza Strip as the Israeli war continues since the seventh of last October.

The Agency's Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, said in a blog post published on the "X" platform that the residents of the Gaza Strip are being subjected to "collective punishment" in light of the scarcity of humanitarian aid.

He continued: "Gaza, there has been a brutal war that has been going on for three months, mass displacement, human losses, injuries, and destruction. The unbearable suffering has been exacerbated by the continued dehumanization and unlimited promotion of hate speech."

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates warned in a statement that the occupation’s allowing demonstrators to prevent aid from reaching the Kerem Shalom crossing deepens the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.

The Ministry stressed that every individual in the Gaza Strip is in dire need of aid of all kinds, starting with food, water, medicine, electricity, fuel, and safe shelter, especially in light of winter, heavy rain, and extreme cold. This is in addition to hundreds of daily demands and appeals issued by all countries, leaders, and officials, which Demanding the provision of basic humanitarian needs for our people in the Gaza Strip.

It pointed out that preventing the entry of aid is further evidence of the intentions of the occupying state and its insistence on implementing the threats of its officials and leaders to deprive all residents of the Gaza Strip of basic humanitarian needs, after the precautionary measures taken by the International Court of Justice, in official Israeli disregard for its decision.

The United Nations had previously warned that 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip were at risk of famine.

About 1.7 million people were displaced in the Gaza Strip, including one million in or around UNRWA shelter centers registered with it.

UNRWA warned of the deterioration of health and environmental conditions, and the spread of skin diseases, meningitis, and hepatitis, especially in the winter.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Tuesday that the fate of the paramedics who went yesterday to rescue the 6-year-old girl Hind, who was trapped inside a vehicle in Gaza City, is still unknown.

The association explained in a press statement that it had lost contact with the paramedics, and that it did not know if they had succeeded in their mission.

Yesterday, the Israeli occupation forces surrounded the child, Hind, inside a vehicle in the Fares Gas Station area in Gaza City, after targeting her family.

The Red Crescent Society indicated that the child Hind was with the family of her mother’s uncle, Bashar Hamada, when the occupation forces opened fire on the vehicle in which they were traveling, resulting in the martyrdom of everyone in it (6 individuals), and the rest of them were trapped inside.

The extremist settlers held a conference in the nation’s buildings in Jerusalem to encourage settlement in the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank, to the sound of hostile and extremist headlines, foremost of which was the displacement of the Palestinian people, and under the slogan “Death to the Arabs and settlement across the length and breadth of the country.”

Thousands of settlers and their leaders participated in this conference, and at the forefront of attendance were 12 extremist ministers from the Likud and Jewish Zionist parties, and more than 15 members of the Knesset, which reinforces the scene of extremism within Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, especially since the talk of the officials and participants in this conference focused on what they described ( “With the shame of disengagement, deportation, and displacement of settlements,” referring to the step of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who ordered a unilateral withdrawal from the settlements in the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank in 2005.

While the participants raised a banner reading, “Only transfer (the displacement of Palestinians) will bring peace,” the participating ministers and members of the Knesset signed a “petition” titled “The Treaty of Victory and Renewal of Settlement in the Gaza Strip and North Samaria,” as a response to the October 7 attack, considering that this is what will bring “security” to the occupying state.

During the conference, a plan was reviewed to establish more than one settlement nucleus in Beit Hanoun, the southern coast, Khan Yunis, and finally Rafah, and to build more settlements in the north of the West Bank. All of this coincides with the recent political developments in the region in light of talk of the imminent reaching of an exchange deal that will end the fighting and aggression against Gaza Strip, but the participants in the conference are a broad and large movement that has its weight and influence on Netanyahu, based on the colonial ideology that was absorbed in their minds and brought by their fathers who were founders of the major settlement movements and organizations to apply to Palestine. They occupied its land and controlled it and established the first settlement building in “Gush Etzion” and "Maale Adumim", bringing the number of settlements today to more than 167 settlements.

In the interventions delivered by the head of the so-called “Samaria” settlements, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and others, they demanded what they described as a return to their homes, referring to the revival of the “Gush Katif” settlements in exchange for encouraging the displacement of Palestinians. In this racist call, there is systematic Israeli insistence. It is programmed to reinforce, encourage and continue the aggression against Gaza and the West Bank because the settlements are colonial outposts whose goal is to control the lands of others, and this is what Israel has been doing since the beginning of its occupation.

Are the American statements that were launched yesterday criticizing these steps useful? The answer: It is a diplomatic and tactical means to promote positions before world opinion because the United States is considered one of the most important, largest, and most dangerous designers of the life scene for the Israelis at the expense of usurping the freedom of the people who own the land and sovereignty.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant promised the Americans a week ago that there would be no new settlements in the Gaza Strip. Will he keep his promise or will he bow to the extremist storm of settlers?

Today, Tuesday, the UN Security Council will hold a closed consultation session on the situation in Gaza, within the item entitled The situation in the Middle East.

The Chief Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator in Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, will brief members of the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in the Strip.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Council will hold a session to discuss the order issued by the International Court of Justice to Israel to prevent “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, at the request of Algeria.

The Israeli occupation forces have continued their aggression against the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since the seventh of last October, which resulted in the martyrdom of 26,637 civilians, the majority of whom were women and children, and the injury of about 65,387 others, while more than 8,000 citizens are still missing under the attack. Rubble and on the roads, an infinite toll.

The conference “Return to Settlement in the Gaza Strip and Voluntary Displacement of Palestinians,” which was organized by settlement associations and far-right parties in occupied Jerusalem, carried many messages that unanimously agreed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had become a hostage of the policies and ideology of this right.

The conference, which was held on Sunday, came after the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague and its demand that the occupation government take measures to prevent genocide and avoid targeting Palestinian civilians in the war on Gaza, reflecting the differences and differences in Israeli positions regarding the day after the war, as well as the state of confusion that the Israeli political map is witnessing in The fighting continued.

The conference calls for settlement in all of historic Palestine for Biblical religious motives, and analysts say that it deepened the rift and conflict in Israeli society over the identity of the “Jewish state,” and reversed the state of polarization between the religious and secular currents, the intensity of which eased slightly with the outbreak of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle.

Green light

It was estimated that this conference came with a green light from Netanyahu, who delegated some ministers and members of the Knesset from the Likud Party to participate in the conference alongside the alliance of “New Religious Zionism,” “Messianic Nationalism,” and the Settlements Council in the West Bank.

Israeli analyzes suggested that Netanyahu's hidden support for this conference reflects the polarization of the political and partisan scene in Tel Aviv, as well as his submission to the blackmails of religious movements and the extreme right to prevent the disintegration of his government coalition, and the fear of ending his political career and ousting him from the prime minister's chair.

Under the title “The Poisoned Tea Party,” political analyst Amir Bar Shalom wrote an article on the Zaman Yisrael website in which he criticized the conference and the timing of its holding. He said, "The Kahanism celebrated the greatest victory in its history in a frenzied carnival of speeches, songs and dances that the word shame cannot describe."

He added, "The far-right conference comes at a time when tens of thousands of soldiers are risking their lives in the Gaza Strip, while the fate of those who were kidnapped and are being held in Hamas tunnels remains ambiguous, while entire areas of the country have been abandoned by their residents who have become internally displaced, and the economy is in danger."

The political analyst explained that the conference, in which ministers and members of the Knesset from the right and Likud participated, comes after the decision of the Hague Court, as Israel's international standing has become more ambiguous than ever before.

He continued, "At least 26 ministers and representatives of the Knesset spoke, sang, and danced ecstatically at the "Victory Conference," which calls for the renewal of Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, after the deportation of the Palestinians in what has become known to the extreme right as voluntary immigration."

Bar Shalom believes that if the people who danced around the “Golden Calf” in the “Nation Buildings” in Jerusalem are not curbed and pushed to the margins of Israeli society, “they will plunge Israel into an abyss much deeper than the one into which we all fell on October 7.” The first is 2023.”

Madness

In turn, Rabbi Danny Danieli confirmed, in an article on the Walla news website, that the so-called “Conference for Victory and Return to Settlement in Gaza reflects the Messianic tendency that has taken control of power in Israel, and that it amounts to madness and does not express the presence of Jewish associations and organizations only, but rather a coalition.” "Netanyahu's failed and dangerous government."

Daniele, a member of the Executive Committee of the "Rabbis for Human Rights" organization, explained that this conference indicates that the "Jewish people" have not learned lessons from the experiences and what happened to them in the past. He said, "It is as if we have learned nothing from the atrocities that the people of Israel have experienced."

He added that this conference was preceded, in recent weeks, by many statements by numerous Israeli figures who spoke and wrote explicitly about the occupation of the Gaza Strip, the annexation of large parts of its north, the “voluntary” transfer of Palestinians, and the establishment of Jewish settlements in the lands to be occupied and annexed.

He stressed that "all of this is accompanied by extreme vindictive language by the Israelis towards all residents of Gaza without discrimination, and demands from the government not to allow the entry of food and humanitarian aid, and not to end the war without achieving its originally unclear goals."

The holding of this conference at the present time, Rabbi Daniele says, “reflects and expresses well the image and essence of extremist Messianic Israeli Judaism, which has given it a tight grip on the systems and levers of government in Israel, which gives preference to racial Jewish superiority.”

A state of embarrassment

On the political side, Moran Azoulay, political affairs analyst at Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, says that holding the conference amid the fighting in Khan Yunis and other areas in the Gaza Strip caused embarrassment to some Likud leaders and even Netanyahu, the hidden supporter of this trend.

Azoulay pointed out that the state of embarrassment was reflected in the slogans, texts, and statements heard at the conference, which were once the property of right-wing extremists and people marginalized in the Israeli political scene.

“Most of the ruling party ministers who did not attend the right-wing conference felt uncomfortable,” Azoulay says. “But why are they afraid to stand against the conference openly? And why do many Likud members refuse to present their extremist point of view?”

It is likely that the silence in Likud and the timid reservation by Netanyahu regarding the conference and the timing of its holding, and even its contents and slogans, reflects the state of damage caused by the conference, which increases internal discord in Israel, and thus engages in a more divisive policy, and could also result in complex international challenges. .

The political affairs analyst believes that Netanyahu is besieged, and has become a hostage of the Religious Zionist Alliance headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and the “Jewish Greatness” party headed by Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. It is likely that Netanyahu's biggest challenge has yet to come, and that it will be in exchange for an exchange deal and stopping the war, which threatens his government coalition.

Source: Al Jazeera

Yesterday, Monday, more than 10 students accused Harvard University of not protecting them from harassment, threats, and racist attacks because of their support for the Palestinian cause and their Arab identity, amid tension prevailing in American universities regarding the reactions to the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip.

The Muslim Legal Fund in the United States said that its administration submitted a complaint yesterday, Monday, to the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of Education on behalf of these students, and the complaint urged an investigation with Harvard University.

The Legal Fund also called on the Ministry of Education to hold Harvard University’s administration accountable to protect all students from exposure to racism and harassment, and to guarantee their right to education free from harm.

The Muslim Legal Fund explained that the harassment, intimidation, and threats faced by students at Harvard were based solely on their being Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and supporters of Palestinian rights, and added that the students were also subjected to racist attacks, stalking, and assaults, for reasons including the status of the Palestinian keffiyeh.

The Legal Fund quoted the students who filed the complaint as saying that Harvard threatened to limit or withdraw the students' future academic opportunities, instead of providing them with protection from the attackers.

On the other hand, a Harvard University spokesperson said that the university had no comment on the complaint, but added that it had the necessary resources to support students, including the establishment of a task force announced last Friday to combat Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.

Human rights defenders have noted a rise in rates of Islamophobia and bias against Palestinians in the United States since the outbreak of the Israeli aggression on Gaza. Last November, 3 students of Palestinian origin in Vermont were shot when the outlet heard them speaking in Arabic.

Claudine Gay resigned this month from the presidency of Harvard University after being subjected to intense pressure following her testimony before Congress regarding anti-Semitism and what could be considered a violation of the university’s code of conduct, and against the backdrop of her defense of the demonstrations in support of Gaza on campus.

Israeli aircraft continued to bomb various areas of the Gaza Strip on the 116th day of the war, leaving dozens of killed and hundreds wounded.

The Israeli army committed 14 massacres during the past 24 hours, resulting in 215 killed and 300 injuries, bringing the death toll in the Israeli aggression to 26,637  since October 7.

Gaza City

The Israeli occupation forced thousands of citizens in western Gaza to embark on a new exodus towards the central Gaza Strip.

The displaced people walked on Al-Rashid Street, on instructions from the occupation army, towards Deir Al-Balah after a violent night of bombing.

Dozens of killed and wounded and ambulances and civil defense were unable to reach them near the Abdullah Azzam Mosque following the bombing of a house belonging to the “Madoukh” family in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City.

Red Crescent teams were able to reach a seven-year-old girl after she survived a bombing that led to the death of her father and four of her brothers west of Gaza City.

Israeli aircraft continued to launch a series of violent and successive raids on Gaza City, which led to the death of dozens of citizens, including 25 from the Hamada family in eastern Gaza.

20 were killed in the Israeli bombing that targeted the Madoukh family in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City, earlier this evening.

Central Gaza Strip

Occupation aircraft bombed a house in Nuseirat camp.

Khan Younes

The Israeli bombing continued on several areas in the city of Khan Yunis, especially around the Al-Amal Hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent, which has been in operation for eight days.

Israel forced the displaced people near Nasser Hospital to leave towards Rafah after threatening to bomb the area, amid widespread arrests.

Citizens transferred five dead to the European Hospital east of Khan Yunis.

The Israeli army destroyed Al-Farouk Mosque in Khan Yunis and carried out artillery shelling in the Batn Al-Sameen area and Al-Amal neighborhood, which led to the death of at least seven Palestinians.

In Rafah, Israeli army destroyed a house for the Al-Samhouri family, without reporting any casualties.

This comes as the areas of incursion into the Khan Yunis area are witnessing intense battles, at a time when Palestinian resistance factions are engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli army forces in several areas in Khan Yunis and Gaza City.

During the past 24 hours, the Israeli army committed 14 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, leaving 215 dead and 300 injured, while the total number of war victims reached 26,637 dead and 65,387 injured, according to the latest statistics of the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Both Benny Gantz, Minister in the Israeli War Council, and the leader of the opposition in Israel, Yair Lapid, denounced the settlement conference that was held last Saturday in occupied Jerusalem with the participation of ministers in the ruling Israeli coalition.

Gantz said that the participation of ministers and members of the ruling Israeli coalition in the conference that called for the restoration of settlement in the Gaza Strip "harmed Israeli society, Israel's legitimacy before the international community, and the efforts made to return the prisoners detained in Gaza."

For his part, the leader of the opposition in Israel, Yair Lapid, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of not paying attention to the damage caused by the conference calling for the return of settlement in Gaza, and the participation of ministers and members of the Knesset from the ruling Likud Party in the conference.

Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir (center) dances at a conference calling for the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip (European)

Lapid said, "All Netanyahu cares about is staying in power even if Israel burns," adding that Netanyahu "is not qualified to lead the country and that it is time to replace him."

Twelve ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu's government participated in a popular conference on Sunday calling for the revival of settlements in the Gaza Strip and taking measures to encourage the displacement of Palestinians from the Strip.

Among the participating ministers are members of the Likud Party headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called on the Prime Minister to take what he described as courageous measures, by resuming the settlement project in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies

On Saturday, Israeli warplanes destroyed a house, west of Gaza City, in one of their new raids on the Strip. Anadolu correspondent reported that Israeli fighters fired a number of missiles towards a house belonging to the Palestinian “Shamlakh” family, in the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood, west of Gaza City. This raid caused major destruction to nearby homes, but no casualties among citizens were reported.

A report in the British newspaper "The Telegraph" stated that Israel is experiencing a state of anxiety and tension, as its army is fighting on two fronts. One is in the Gaza Strip against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and the other is in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.

The newspaper said in the report written by its chief correspondent, Robert Mendik, that the population in Israel is apprehensive and feels that the situation is ominous, and some of them even believe that “World War III” has already begun.

Armageddon

The reporter tried to link the fighting taking place on the two aforementioned fronts and the end-of-the-world war known as Armageddon, “which once seemed far-fetched, but it does not seem completely unlikely now.”

Armageddon is a word derived from the Hebrew language and means “Har Megiddo,” or the hill of Megiddo, located west of the city of Jenin in Palestine, and it is the site of the gathering of armies for the final battle, according to the Book of Revelation in the Old Testament, the holy book of the Jews.

The newspaper reported that in the north there are about 160,000 Hezbollah missiles aimed in this direction, while in the south the Israeli army is fighting raging battles against Hamas in a war that has been going on for nearly 4 months.

It added that Israel is experiencing tension. Standing in the city of Megiddo, located in central Israel, which is now home to a large archaeological site, there is apprehension of an evil omen prevailing in the region.

Megiddo is located on the ancient trade route between Egypt and Mesopotamia (currently Iraq and Syria), and was the site of a number of battles, mentioned in the Old Testament.

According to the British newspaper, no one is visiting Megiddo these days, which suggests that the country is still in a state of shock more than 100 days after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Tourism has disappeared, and Christian visitors who used to come to Armageddon now prefer to stay away from the region for fear of an end-of-history war, as the report indicates.

However, one tourist, the Telegraph says, appeared out of nowhere, and his name is Sergey Puzanov (62 years old), on a one-day visit to the site with his wife.

He fled Russia to find war in Israel

The newspaper added that Puzanov - a Russian Jew - left his homeland 10 months ago to escape the "warmonger", President Vladimir Putin.

He was quoted as saying, "I just wanted to see Armageddon before it became the scene of a real war." Bozanov, a retired information technology engineer, added, "It is very possible that a war will break out in northern Israel, and it is inevitable, but I fear it will happen."

The Telegraph indicated that Bozanov supports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a time when opinion polls show that most of the country does not want him to remain in office, and blames him for the security failures that occurred last October 7. The Israelis also hold the blame for waging a war on the Gaza Strip that shows no signs of slowing down.

War on Hezbollah looms on the horizon

The truth is that war on Hezbollah, which the newspaper describes as a more dangerous opponent than Hamas, is looming on the horizon. Border towns were evacuated of tens of thousands of their residents months ago, and tensions have become high in light of the army's daily statements about air strikes on southern Lebanon, or missiles launched by Hezbollah at Israel.

Writer and social activist Mamdouh Egbari believes that the current conflict will spread because “the whole world is now against Israel,” adding, “There is already a war on Hezbollah (..) and it is extremely difficult to reach an understanding between major countries such as China, the United States, and Britain.”

“World War III is happening now,” he says spontaneously, while sipping a cup of coffee in one of the luxurious cafes in Umm al-Fahm.

Source: Telegraph +Aljazeera

Israel misled the world when it announced that it was about to uproot Hamas. Those who believed it, and those who doubted it, until a semblance of consensus crystallized on the impossibility of liquidation and the inevitability of going to a settlement.

The settlement in which Hamas is being tamed to engage is the one that Fatah, i.e. the PLO, preceded it to, according to internationally agreed upon American conditions, including what remained of the Soviet Union at the time.

The settlement that began in Madrid and matured in Oslo collapsed, and its rope was cut off halfway, as it gave birth to an incompletely developed baby, the Palestinian National Authority, and the word patriotism is merely a Palestinian insertion into the term.

In the first part of the settlement process, influential international actors intervened to make it a prelude to the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict, starting with its Palestinian essence. As for the second part, no one intervened to save the project from collapse, and I mean effective and decisive intervention, since the major attempt made by President Bill Clinton at the end of his term, “Oslo” continued to collapse, leading to a state that was completely opposite to what was wanted from it. The Palestinians got a war instead of a state, and the region that expected a permanent and comprehensive peace entered into a state of war on multiple fronts until the matter reached where we are now. From the possibilities of expanding the war on Gaza, and what accompanies it in the West Bank and southern Lebanon, to a regional war, although it seems unlikely, it is not impossible.

The epicenter of the earthquake now is Gaza, the center of the armed resistance is “Hamas,” and the center of the threat of war on all fronts is Israel. As for America, the godfather of settlement when it was possible, and the godfather of its distance and impossibility, it is pursuing the ghosts that target it in the heart of its influence and is working on settlements that, if they prevent the spread of war, will not be achieved. Peace that does not herald any danger lurking in all its regions.

America's problem is that its challenges arise and are exacerbated from the heart of its area of influence, and their root is the superpower's inability or negligence in satisfying its allies, even with the minimum limits of what they demand and deserve.

America, in the midst of the ongoing Gaza war, has written a story and imposed it as a topic of discussion and movement on the entire world, and its title is The Day After. This raises several questions; all of them are unanswerable, because the answer depends on the unknown, and what will happen the day before the war stops, what will the situation of Israel be, and what is the situation of Hamas, and it is the one who deserves to research its options after the war ends, so that the Palestinians will face the challenges that follow, which are the largest, most difficult and most urgent of all.

When Hamas survives the radical liquidation that Israel wanted and sought, this does not mean that it has moved from the position of the major faction to the position of the established leader in the Palestinian affairs. Whether it was at the height of its power or at a lower level, the matter will not be much different for it. It will not be a substitute for “Fatah” and the organization, but rather it will be a partner, and will not impose its program on the Palestinians. The matter is not decided by the strength of any party and its superiority over the other party, no matter how high the score in the polls, but rather it is decided by the need for the relationship with others to be based on partnership, not monopolization. .

This was the situation of the Palestinians from the beginning of their cause, even during the time of Fatah’s unparalleled influence, and the time of Yasser Arafat, on whom the Palestinians did not agree throughout his life. This is something that has been enshrined as a law, as no one has the ability to monopolize or have a life unless he is part of a whole.

What provided Hamas with an escape from radical liquidation was not its weapons, despite their undeniable importance in the military war, nor its rule of Gaza, which provided it with de facto legitimacy that made the whole world address it and deal with it, including Israel, but rather because it is an idea embraced by a large part. From the Palestinian people, and the idea cannot be filtered, as we have those who still celebrate ancient sites.

When America asks what should be done the next day, this is part of its global mission and the way it performs its roles, but what should be truly asked is the understanding of the Palestinians, “Hamas” the fighter and “Fatah” the negotiator, and the organization that is still qualified to bring the two sides together.

The Palestinians have not yet answered the question of the day after the cessation of the war, even though they need the answer the most.

By Sam Menassa

Both Iran and Israel have managed, in record time, to mobilize the largest number of adversaries or lose the largest number of friends. Iran has Europe’s overt or covert sympathy, pushing the Europeans to adopt a position more aligned with their US ally because they have concluded that Iran has become a destabilizing force in the region. Indeed, Iran has gone as far as undermining European economic interests, as it is accused of being behind the Houthis’ actions in the Red Sea, in addition to other reckless actions by its allies in the region. As for Israel, it has done more to alienate friends than its arch-enemy, dissipating the support it enjoyed after October 7th. At this point, almost the entire world has condemned the brutality of Israel’s retaliation to the "Al-Aqsa Flood'' attack. Israel has stubbornly rejected all initiatives and mediations, and it has insisted on perpetuating the violence with the declared aim of annihilating Hamas, and the hidden aims of displacing Palestinians, which do not end with the occupation of Gaza and could even include displacing the population of the West Bank. Iran, Israel, and some factions are the parties to the Gaza war and the smaller ongoing conflicts in the region, from Lebanon to Syria, Iraq, and the Red Sea. The state of affairs has created a ticking time bomb that will eventually blow up in everyone's face. Although the United States and some Western countries share Israel's goal of containing and weakening Hamas, they oppose its right-wing government’s other war objectives. Instead, they seek, through initiatives and active diplomacy, to put an end to the war and reach a sustainable political settlement for the Israeli-Palestinian and the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. 

The primary belligerents, namely Israel, Iran, and other factions, are unanimous in their rejection of the short-term or permanent initiatives and settlements on offer, raising questions about whether they can obstruct them and for how long. This question is particularly pertinent given the fact that the Europeans, the United States, and Arab states - specifically the Gulf states, Egypt, and Jordan, agree on the diplomatic objectives. These goals include a two-state solution, ensuring regional security, and the normalization of Arab-Israeli relations, which would ensure security for Israelis, Palestinians, and Arabs. We must acknowledge that these are broad objectives, and the details need to be hashed out. The first question to answer is what a two-state solution would look like and what regional security actually means. They must also determine how these goals should be achieved, the guarantees needed by the parties concerned, and the entity or entities that will back these guarantees. Other questions regarding the approach to managing the ongoing conflicts across the region between Israel and Iran's local allies must be resolved. 

What are the costs Iran will pay, or what will it receive, and how will these costs or rewards align with its concept of regional security? Moreover, Iran is very apprehensive about the prospect of a final, permanent settlement of the conflict and Arab-Israeli normalization facilitated by US guarantees. How would Iran respond to such a scenario? Would it be capable of preventing it? Without delving into whether Iran wants to obstruct this process or not, the question of whether it has the capacity to disrupt a major settlement path remains, especially after it "shuffled the cards" in the region through the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation and froze the US-sponsored peace process between the Arabs and Israel. The dynamics of the region, the intertwined interests of its various actors, and the capabilities of the parties involved complicate these questions and make the answers pivotal to the future trajectory of the region, its stability, and its diplomatic relationships. We should not underestimate the significance of the push to end the conflict, especially after everything that the Al-Aqsa Flood and the Gaza war have revealed to Israel, the Arab states, and the region. 

Indeed, recent developments have had serious implications for the security of the region, the interests of Western powers, and the balance of power in the region. Iran alone can create obstacles and hurdles to such a settlement if it materializes, and it is not alone in this battle. Rather, it is spearheading this effort after consolidating its hold on strategically important and sensitive areas of the region. Iran's influence reaches the Red Sea, and it has effectively encircled Israel from the north through Lebanon and from the east through Syria. Its proxy militias are spread across Iraq, dominate Yemen, and control the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait; it also has capabilities across the globe and relationships with a variety of powers. 

Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other members of the Resistance Axis are pushing in the opposite direction. They are patiently and methodically bolstering an alliance that could pose a direct challenge to the regional order established by the West that has shaped the Middle East for decades. The Iran-backed Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea show that they pose a threat to global trade and energy supplies, underlining the complexity and the multifaceted nature of the challenges to peace and security in the region. Iran is not the only entity capable of putting a stick in the wheels. It is unclear how much longer will Israel remain governed by the hard right, which is vehemently opposed to any form of settlement and poses its own set of challenges. Any potential changes in Israel would likely encounter staunch opposition from the right, which could resort to violence and undemocratic methods. Furthermore, the Palestinian issue remains on the margins. To change that, concerted Arab, American, and Israeli efforts. 

They must also wisely and carefully support a renewed Palestinian Authority committed to durable peace. The role of Russia, which is keen on hindering US efforts in the region, and this will perhaps eventually be true for China, should not be overlooked either. On the other hand, Western and Arab countries do not want the war in the Gaza Strip to escalate and set the region alight. 

However, rifts are deepening with time, and the pace of the "mini-wars" across the region is intensifying. Time is also not on the side of the Biden administration, which is set to face a fierce electoral contest, be it against Donald Trump, if he manages to secure the Republican nomination, or Nikki Haley. Biden needs a significant breakthrough that marks his presidency, as a Trump victory could upend everything, including the situation in the Middle East and the accomplishments of his administration. Achieving a breakthrough will certainly be challenging, it can only be achieved by pressuring Israel. That pressure is unlikely to include a halt in military, financial, or diplomatic support, particularly at international fora at a time when it is isolated and has been ordered to prevent genocide by the International Court of Justice. 

Biden's viable only option might be to immediately recognize the Palestinian state, leaving Netanyahu's government to deal with a fait accompli. This scenario is not far-fetched, as the Biden administration has already paved the way for this through its explicit support for a two-state solution. 

The most notable statement in this regard was made by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Speaking about Arab-Israeli relations and their link to a political solution for the Palestinians: “We determined that the best approach was to work toward a package deal that involved normalization between Israel and key Arab states together with meaningful progress and a political horizon for the Palestinian people... "It is President Biden's firm conviction that the best way to do that is two states with Israel's security guarantee." Will Biden dare to translate Sullivan's words into action?

Israel's military announced it would review the shooting of a Palestinian man who was killed in the Gaza Strip while walking in a group of people waving a white flag, saying footage of the episode raised concerns of possible wrongdoing by soldiers.

A video shows a group of five men walking slowly down a street in an area west of the southern city of Khan Younis, a current focus of Israel's ground offensive.

As clouds of dark smoke billow overhead, the men hold their hands in the air. One waves a white flag, an international symbol of surrender.

Suddenly, shots ring out, killing Ramzi Abu Sahloul, a 51-year-old Palestinian shopkeeper, who was part of the group.

The shooter is not seen in the video. But before the shots are fired, the camera pans, showing what looks to be an Israeli tank positioned nearby. Ahmed Hijazi, a citizen journalist who filmed the episode, told The Associated Press that an Israeli tank fired on the group.

“After the soldiers shot him, I rushed to help, but the firing continued toward us,” Hijazi said.

An Israeli military official said Sunday that the army was reviewing the shooting, which took place on Jan. 22.

The official said the footage, first broadcast by CNN, had helped authorities understand that there were military forces in the area and that there might be possible wrongdoing by soldiers.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because there had not yet been an announcement, would not say whether a formal investigation would take place.

The military says forces take great care to verify targets before they strike.

In the video, Hijazi interviewed Abu Sahloul shortly before he was shot. Abu Sahloul said that the group of men was trying to reach relatives whom they had left behind earlier in the day while evacuating their home in southern Gaza.

“The Israelis came to us and told us to evacuate, but they didn’t let my brother out,” Abu Sahloul says. “We want to go and try to get them, God willing.”

Within seconds, Abu Sahloul is shot dead. The other men quickly grab his body and rush back in the direction from which they came. The men declined to be interviewed for fear of retribution.

Palestinians and human rights groups have accused the Israeli military of using disproportionate or indiscriminate force in its Gaza offensive, leading to heavy civilian casualties. They say that even when such killings are caught on video, military investigations rarely result in indictments of the soldiers involved.

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, over 26,000 Palestinians have been killed by a blistering Israeli ground and air offensive, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza. They do not differentiate between civilians and combatants but say two-thirds of the dead are women and children.

Israel launched the offensive in response to an Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed 1,200 Palestinians and brought some 250 hostages back to Gaza.

Israel says that Hamas fighters have embedded themselves within civilian infrastructure, making it difficult to destroy the militant group without harming civilians. It says over 9,000 militants have been killed, though it hasn't released evidence to back the claim.

Abu Sahloul’s widow, 50-year-old Hanan Abu Sahloul, said that in the hours before last week's shooting, the army had entered a building where the family was sheltering along with over 300 others. She said that Israeli forces ordered residents to leave without their belongings.

“When I tried to take my bag, a soldier aimed his gun at my head and ordered me to leave it,” she said.

In the video taken by Hijazi, Hanan Abu Sahloul can be seen running toward her husband, screaming, while the group of men hastily haul his limp body back toward safety.

As gunshots continue to ring out, a bloodstain quickly spreads over her husband’s chest, dark red quickly enveloping the white flag that one of the other men placed on his chest.

“He was immediately killed — without even a few breaths to say goodbye,” Hanan Abu Sahloul said.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Monday that Washington will carefully study the steps taken by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) to respond to what Blinken described as “deeply disturbing” allegations of the participation of its employees in the October 7 attack on Israel. 

Washington said that it would temporarily suspend additional funding directed to UNRWA after Israel provided information alleging the participation of some UNRWA employees in the attack. Blinken said in a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg: “It is necessary for UNRWA to immediately investigate as it said, hold those responsible accountable, and review its procedures.”

“Real hope”

Blinken also expressed hope of reaching an agreement to stop the fighting in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages, after talks in Paris in which the director of the CIA and Qatar participated.

“Very important and constructive work has been accomplished,” Blinken said. “There is some real hope as we move forward.”

Gains at risk

The US Secretary of State warned that the field gains achieved by Ukraine against Russia would be at risk if Congress did not approve new aid to Kiev.

“Without it (aid), simply put, everything the Ukrainians have achieved and what we helped them achieve will be in jeopardy,” Blinken said.

By Joseph Massad

In planning for a 'post-war' Gaza, the western powers want to follow the same failed strategy of installing a Palestinian leadership that serves Israel’s colonial interests

The western enemies of the Palestinian people are clamouring over how to invent a new Palestinian leadership.

They imagine this leadership would continue all the services that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has provided to Israel and the West since 1993, only this time, it would maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

Crucially, these western conspirators fail to acknowledge that the PA’s function as Israel’s chief collaborator is precisely why it lost legitimacy among Palestinians. Rather, they blame its corruption and misrule in the West Bank, and before 2006, in Gaza, as if this misrule is not directly tied to its collaborationist role with Israel and its western allies.

The US has recently been market-testing proposals ventriloquized by some Arab states and the anti-Palestinian mainstream western press.

Some suggest a new Palestinian government that would include a demilitarized Hamas, purged of its commitment to armed struggle against Jewish supremacy and settler-colonialism. Others insist that while the PA must be reformed, there would be no place in it for Hamas.  

The western enemies of the Palestinians do not seem to know, or even care, about the history of the many previous failed attempts to design a Palestinian leadership that fits Israel’s Jewish supremacist and colonial needs. Perhaps a review would help.

Failed attempts

Following the British occupation of Palestine in December 1917, British authorities and their Zionist minions set out to cultivate Palestinian leaders who would collaborate with the invading colonists and supplant the national leadership of the Palestinian Muslim-Christian Associations (MCA) and its struggle for independence.

In the 1920s, the British and the Zionists established two such collaborationist bodies, including the sectarian National Muslim Society, which sought to split the Palestinian leadership and undermine the MCA. Led by a prominent Jerusalemite family, the Agricultural Party was another group that collaborated with the Zionists to usurp the land of Palestinian peasants. These organisations were immediately recognised as “traitors” by Palestinians and never gained legitimacy.  

In 1938, Zionist colonial gangs and the British army created the “peace bands”, a Palestinian mercenary force whose members began to kill Palestinian revolutionaries in an effort to suppress the Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936-1939.

In turn, Palestinian patriots assassinated many of the “peace band” leaders whose names went down in infamy.

After Israel was created, it recruited Palestinian village elders, or mukhtars, to collaborate with it. The mukhtars never found legitimacy among the captive Palestinian population, which Israel subjected to a military apartheid rule from 1948 until 1966.

Following the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964 and Israel’s conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel tried again to enlist more collaborators to delegitimise the popular coalition but failed. Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank held mayoral elections in 1972 and 1976 and formed the Village Leagues in 1978 to install and foster Palestinian collaborator leaders. The mayors elected in 1972, however, were discredited and replaced by pro-PLO mayors in 1976, whom Israel would later remove from power as they refused to do its bidding.  

Meanwhile, the Non-Aligned Movement recognised the PLO (dominated by Fatah, which was the largest and best-funded Palestinian liberation group at the time) in 1973, as did the Arab League and the United Nations in 1974, as “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.

As for the Village Leagues, anyone who collaborated with them was branded a traitor immediately, not only by the PLO but also by the Jordanian government. The project was an ignominious failure.

Road to treachery

In the late 1980s, amid the first Palestinian uprising or intifada, the PLO’s resolve began to weaken, and it accepted a surreptitious deal. In exchange for its formal recognition from Israel and the West, the PLO would have to recognise Israel’s “right to exist” as a Jewish supremacist state.

Since 2007, Israel has waged multiple bombing campaigns to destroy Hamas, or at least to get Hamas to abandon armed resistance and rejoin the Fatah-controlled PA

After several hiccups, the deal was sealed in 1993 with the Oslo Accords. It allowed the PLO to set up the PA as the subcontractor of the occupation. As such, the PA lost all legitimacy soon after it assumed office, save among the Palestinian elites who shored it up for a while. But even those elites are no longer able to sustain their support for it, as they previously had done.

The road to the treachery of the Fatah-dominated PLO began in Algiers when the PLO formally accepted the two-state solution in November 1988. It was less than a year after the December 1987 emergence of Hamas, whose hallmark has been its development into a political and military wing and the dynamism of its understanding of the nature of Israel and its occupation. This is exemplified by the changes in its charter and its pronouncements on the nature of the Palestinian struggle, as scholars of its history have demonstrated.

Unlike the PLO, Hamas, along with Islamic Jihad, formed in 1981, opted for continued resistance. Both remain the two major Palestinian factions outside the PLO.  

After the Israeli occupation army redeployed around Gaza in 2005, the West made attempts, channelled through Arab regimes, to bring Hamas into the fold. The goal was to transform it into another PLO by goading it into abandoning the national struggle for liberation and independence, and joining the American-invented “peace process” racket, whose objective has always been to entrench Israel’s Jewish supremacy and settler colonialism and to defeat the Palestinian struggle for national liberation.

Talks between Hamas and the PA were held in Cairo. The political leadership of Hamas began to waver in its total opposition to the Oslo Accords and the procedures that ensued after it, and decided to participate in the 2006 elections to lead the PA, which operated under Israeli occupation. Hamas won a landslide victory, which precipitated a US, Israeli, and Fatah coup against it in 2007. The coup was successful in the West Bank, where a Fatah-ruled PA was restored, but failed in Gaza where the elected Hamas continued to rule.

Since 2007, Israel has waged multiple bombing campaigns to destroy Hamas, or at least to get Hamas to abandon armed resistance and rejoin the Fatah-controlled PA, which had overthrown Hamas when the latter won the last elections.

Wavering, yet again, the political wing of Hamas participated in new talks held in Cairo three years ago, in February 2021, and agreed on holding new PA elections, which the PA had refused to conduct since 2006 for fear that Hamas would win again.

Despite the flexibility and the concessions of the Hamas political wing, PA head Mahmoud Abbas reneged on the agreement and never held new elections. Meanwhile, the PA has continued to collaborate (what it calls “security coordination”) with Israel and suppress any and all Palestinian resistance to the occupation.

A month after the Cairo talks, in March 2021, the current leader of Hamas, Yayha al-Sinwar, was elected for a second term. Sinwar is close to the Hamas military wing, having been one of its founders. As late as May 2021, Sinwar expressed Hamas’s openness to talks with the PA in order to “put the Palestinian house in order”. He refused to abandon armed struggle as his proposal sought to combine “armed resistance, the legitimacy of the [Palestinian] Authority’s institutions, and peaceful efforts on the road to liberation and return”.

The PA and its western sponsors, however, continued to stall.

Western designs

During Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza and the complete collapse of the PA’s reputation as a treacherous entity, the western enemies of the Palestinians, who have been funding, arming, and defending Israel’s genocide, began to scheme for a new Palestinian leadership. As the PA has fulfilled its collaborationist role with aplomb but has lost all legitimacy in the process, the Americans want to design a new Palestinian collaborator body for their interminable “peace process”.

Several weeks after the war on Gaza began, The New York Times reported in November that “the only solution, many Palestinians say, is to find a way to bring Hamas into the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority, both run by Mr Abbas and Fatah”.

The paper asserted that a “more representative PLO could hold new elections for a more representative Palestinian Authority, which would have much more credibility in both Gaza and the West Bank, this thinking goes. But it would also require a weakened Hamas to agree to accept the existence of Israel and commit to negotiating a Palestinian state alongside it”. This sounds more like US thinking, ventriloquised by the Times, rather than that of the Palestinians.

 In December, Foreign Affairs floated that “Palestinians will need to revive not just institutions of governance and security but also, more fundamentally, of politics: the lack of effective political leadership owing to the decay of Palestinian political institutions, notably the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.”

The publication added: “Any discussion of the ‘day after’ should therefore be predicated on encouraging the emergence of a unitary and cohesive Palestinian political leadership. Palestinian leaders will have to set aside their factional commitments, and Israel and the US will have to relinquish the wholly unrealistic idea that Hamas can be permanently excluded from Palestinian politics.”

Proposals in US governing circles include one whereby “Abbas could appoint a deputy, hand broader executive powers to his prime minister, and introduce new figures into the leadership of the organisation, the Palestinian and regional sources said”.

The US, the most cynical world power when it comes to supporting democratic rule anywhere in the world, insisted through the State Department that “leadership choices were a question for the Palestinian people and did not elaborate on the steps needed to revitalise the Authority”.

However, as polls revealed the growing popularity of Hamas and the decline of Abbas and his PA, which would lead to yet another election win for Hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories, the US “believes it would be premature to send Palestinians to the polls soon after the war ends. US officials are mindful of Hamas’ victory in 2006 legislative elections, which were encouraged by Washington and other western governments”.

So, while the State Department insists that the Palestinian people must decide who their own leaders should be, it asserts that “whenever elections are held, Hamas must be excluded”.

Arab collaborators

Such proposals coincided with the new Egyptian plan announced in late December, calling “for a new governing body of Palestinians to oversee both the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. It would direct the postwar reconstruction of Gaza and provide for possible future elections to create a national unity government”.

Due to Israeli and US opposition, that part of the plan has reportedly been “dropped from the latest two-page version of the proposal”. Nonetheless, the Egyptians claim that “the future Palestinian leadership was expected to be discussed in talks with Egypt and is expected to be a crucial part of any agreement”.

The PA welcomed the Egyptian plan, with Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh emphasising that “any proposal for the future leadership in the West Bank and Gaza Strip must not circumvent the internationally recognised Palestine Liberation Organisation”.

The PA’s sudden resurrection of the moribund PLO is most remarkable, given how it was the PA itself, as part of the Oslo strategy, that gutted the organisation and bankrupted it financially since 1994.  

Indeed, it was recently reported that unofficial messages sent by Mahmoud Abbas to Hamas and Islamic Jihad informed them that the two organisations could each obtain no more than one seat each to represent them in the PLO, even though both organisations carry more popularity among Palestinians than the 11 PLO factions, including Fatah, put together.  

Interestingly enough, none other than the leading Zionist New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman also recently called for “a reformed version of the current Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah - which has embraced the Oslo peace accord with Israel and worked with Israeli security forces - or some completely new institution named by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.

Friedman added that “Palestinians, through the Palestine Liberation Organisation, would go through their own process of naming a transitional governing authority - before they hold elections for a permanent one - and the West and Arab states would help this authority build proper institutions, including a security force for Gaza and the West Bank.”

Friedman is clear that none of this is for the benefit of the Palestinians at all. On the contrary, it is all to safeguard Israel’s Jewish supremacist apartheid regime: “Therefore, the key to Gaza no longer being a permanent threat and burden to Israel is having an alternative Palestinian governing structure that is viewed as legitimate because it is part of a two-state solution and effective because it has Arab state funding and backing.”

Friedman does not seem to include Hamas in the new leadership, as he defines Hamas per Benjamin Netanyahu as “a terrible organisation dedicated to destroying the Jewish state”.

The anti-Hamas former PLO negotiator Ahmad Samih Khalidi is also pushing for a new leadership in an appeal to Israel and its western backers, published in The Guardian.

Unlike Friedman, Khalidi realises that no amount of reform of the PA would endow it with legitimacy and that the only thing that would is for Hamas to join it: “With regard to re-establishing a viable political authority in the Gaza Strip and reconstituting a Palestinian representative body that is capable of taking and sustaining decisions, the real issue is how to incorporate Hamas and its associated ‘spirit of resistance’ into a new Palestinian Authority, rather than how to quash or excise it.”

Khalidi adds: “Within or associated with such an authority, Hamas could be part of the solution; outside, it would remain both a spoiler and an opposite pole of attraction.” But what Khalidi seems not to account for is that if the Hamas leadership were to become another PLO and concede Israel’s right to remain a Jewish supremacist colonial settler state, Hamas too would squander its national liberationist capital and become yet another PA.

The US and Israel realise that there could never be a legitimate Palestinian leadership that would accept Israel’s right to remain a Jewish supremacist state

Khalidi worries that “rather than crush Hamas”, the most likely effect of Israel’s genocidal war “will be to remythologise the notion of resistance and sow the seed for future iterations that may be inspired by Hamas”. While the continuation of anti-colonial resistance until national liberation is a time-honoured struggle that Palestinians have adopted since the 1920s, Khalidi is correct that it would not be a good thing for Israel and the Palestinians’ western enemies.

What is evident from these schemes is that neither the US nor its Arab allies have new ideas. Instead, they want to continue the very same failed strategy followed since the early 1970s, which the British and the Israelis have used since the 1920s. The Oslo agreement indeed succeeded for a short time in tricking a good number of Palestinians into believing that the PA leadership it propped up was legitimate. However, the majority soon abandoned such illusions.

The US and Israel realise that there could never be a legitimate Palestinian leadership that would accept Israel’s right to remain a colonial-settler Jewish supremacist state, no matter what autonomy or a disempowered micro-state is granted to the Palestinians. It is why it has to scheme to produce a leadership that only appears to be legitimate while simultaneously destroying or co-opting any existing legitimate Palestinian leadership.  

Israel and the western enemies of the Palestinians were successful for a short time in 1993 when they transformed the PLO into the PA. Their chances today in transforming the PA back into the PLO, with or without Hamas, are far less likely to succeed.  

Israeli special forces in civilian clothes stormed Ibn Sina Hospital, went to the third floor, and assassinated 3 young men using silenced pistols.

Special forces from the Israeli occupation army assassinated 3 Palestinian young men, including two brothers, inside Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, at dawn on Tuesday.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the three killed are: the two brothers Muhammad and Bassem Ghazawi and Muhammad Jalamneh, thus bringing the number of martyrs in the West Bank to 8 during the past 24 hours.

Eyewitnesses reported that heavy gunfire was heard in the vicinity of Ibn Sina Hospital in the city of Jenin, after Israeli special forces stormed it.

Palestinian sources indicated that the killed were one of the most prominent leaders of the "Al-Qassam Brigades" and "Al-Quds Brigades" in Jenin.

Basil, had been receiving treatment in the hospital since October 25, 2023, as a result of his injury in an Israeli bombing from a drone inside the Jenin cemetery.

The sources reported that the special forces infiltrated the hospital and shot him while he was sleeping, while his brother and the Jalamneh were next to him.

This comes hours after 5 Palestinians were killed by occupation forces' bullets in Jenin, Hebron, and Bethlehem.

This brings to 58 the number of Palestinian killed since the beginning of this year in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, and since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza, to 377.

An Israeli security delegation visited the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Monday, according to what the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (“Kan 11”) reported, as part of the ongoing talks in an attempt to reach a deal that would lead to the release of Israeli prisoners held by Palestinian resistance factions in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The report stated that the Israeli security delegation visited Cairo at noon and returned in the evening. He pointed out that the delegation arrived in the Egyptian capital on a private plane chartered by the Mossad on more than one occasion during recent months. The head of the agency, David Barnea, and the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, boarded it on their trip to the French capital, Paris, yesterday.

According to Israeli reports, Cairo will witness a meeting, in the coming days, between the Qatari and Egyptian circles, with senior officials in the Hamas movement, to discuss the broad lines about which understandings were reached during the talks that took place in Paris, on Sunday, and present them to the movement’s officials.

Egyptian sources familiar with the movements regarding the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip revealed, in exclusive statements to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, that two separate meetings were held on Monday evening in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, one of which was between Egyptian officials and a delegation from the leadership of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Another with an Israeli delegation that included security and military figures.

An Egyptian source said that an Israeli delegation that included the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Occupied Territories, Ghassan Alyan, the Israeli Army’s envoy for hostages, Nitzan Alon, and the Coordinator for Hostage Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office, Gal Hirsch, arrived in Cairo on Monday evening, to discuss a group of outstanding issues, for which no consensus had been reached. regarding it at the Paris meeting on Gaza.

The Paris meeting included CIA Director William Burns, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, Mossad chief David Barnea, and Egyptian General Intelligence Director Major General Abbas Kamel.

The source explained that the meeting is scheduled to discuss the thorny issue of the border region, which has led to an Egyptian-Israeli dispute over the past few days.

On the other hand, the source revealed to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed another separate meeting between prominent officials in the Egyptian General Intelligence Service and leaders of the Hamas movement who have been in Cairo for several days, where the understandings that took place in the Paris meeting are scheduled to be delivered to the movement’s delegation. And discuss the initial movement observations.

The source explained that the movement’s delegation is scheduled to leave for Doha, before returning to Cairo again in the coming hours.

The Qatari Prime Minister, whose country plays a key role in mediation efforts, announced during a symposium in Washington on Monday that a proposal would soon be presented to Hamas regarding stopping the fighting in the Gaza Strip and releasing detainees.

In this context, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Monday that there is a “tremendous” national effort to create conditions for the return of detainees held by the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.

This came during a press conference by Hagari, according to the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Hagari said, "There are 136 kidnapped women and men still detained in the Gaza Strip."

He added: "There is a tremendous national effort being made by the Israeli army, in cooperation with other security agencies, to create conditions for their return."

During the past few hours, talk has increased in the Hebrew media about the crystallization of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, while the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied the validity of these reports.

Netanyahu said in a brief statement issued by his office, “What was reported about the deal is incorrect and includes conditions that are unacceptable to Israel, and we will continue (the war) until absolute victory.”

Channel 13 reported on Monday that Israel “agreed to a humanitarian deal that includes the release of women and the elderly, as well as the wounded detained by Hamas in Gaza, but does not include soldiers and young detainees.”

It stressed that "Israel, within the framework of the same deal, will be forced to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including prisoners convicted by Tel Aviv of killing Israelis."

It continued: "Israel will agree to a temporary cessation of fighting for a period extending for two months or more, without committing to ending the war, according to the same source."

On Sunday, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (official) said that the discussions held in the French capital, Paris, with the participation of Israel, the United States, Egypt and Qatar to discuss a temporary truce, had ended, and there was progress in prisoner exchange negotiations between Tel Aviv and Hamas.

Regarding the discussions themselves, Netanyahu’s office later issued a statement in which he said, “The meeting was constructive, but there are still large gaps, which the two parties will continue to discuss this week in additional mutual meetings.”

Israeli media quoted the Minister of National Security in the occupation government, Itamar Ben Gvir, as telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “if the fighting is stopped, this will mean the dissolution of the right-wing government.”

This statement comes as part of several threats that Netanyahu received from the right-wing parties in his government, to discourage him from proceeding with the deal that the Western and Israeli media talked about behind the scenes.

The Likud ministers themselves registered loud objections, as the Minister of Education, Yoav Kisch, considered accepting the deal “a surrender to the Hamas movement.”

For his part, Finance Minister and head of the Religious Zionism Party, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Monday that his party “will not agree” to stop fighting in Gaza for two months, calling for the establishment of Israeli military rule in the Strip.

This came during a meeting of the “Religious Zionism” party in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), according to what the Israeli Channel 12 reported.

At the meeting, Smotrich said that stopping the fighting in Gaza for two months “means losing all the achievements we achieved with the blood of our fighters, and will allow Hamas to regain control of the region.”

He added: "The release of a large number of saboteurs will make all the Jews of the country and the world a target for kidnappings, so we will never agree to such a bad deal."

Smotrich's statements came against the backdrop of reports in the Hebrew media about the imminent reaching of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which includes a two-month ceasefire and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

During his party meeting, Smotrich called for the formation of a military rule in the Gaza Strip, and said: “We have already seen during the terrible folly of the expulsion and disengagement (Israel’s withdrawal from the Gush Katif settlements in 2005) from the Gaza Strip that as soon as we leave and the Israeli army forces leave, terrorism enters.” As he says.

He continued: "The only way to ensure our control over the region in the long term is through the formation of a military government that will govern Gaza, supervise the distribution of humanitarian aid, and not allow civilian elements affiliated with Hamas to return to power there, until a local leadership is formed that rejects terrorism and is able to deal with... Civil issues for the residents of Gaza.

Smotrich added that the Israeli military government in the Gaza Strip "will have to expel UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees) employees."

He went on to say: “Everyone knows that their employees were part of the October 7 attack,” he claimed.

The Israeli minister also called for the expulsion of UNRWA from the West Bank, including Jerusalem, adding: “I intend to raise this matter for discussion at the next meeting of the mini-political and security ministerial council (cabinet).”

On Monday, the number of countries that “temporarily” suspended their funding to the UN agency rose to 12, following Israeli allegations of the participation of 12 UNRWA employees in the October 7, 2023 attack on the settlements adjacent to the Gaza Strip.

The countries that suspended their funding to the agency are the United States, Canada, Australia, Italy, Britain, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Japan, and Austria.

On Friday, UNRWA said that it had opened an investigation into allegations of the involvement of a number of its employees (without specifying) in the October 7 attacks.

Smotrich said: “This is in addition to a systematic solution for the future of the Gaza Strip by enabling the migration of hundreds of thousands of Arab (Palestinian) refugees who are begging to leave Gaza to other places in the world where they can live safely,” as he put it.

Smotrich continued: “In addition to imposing security control, Israel must also resume settlement in the Gaza Strip, because there is no security without settlement, and it is not possible to create a military presence in the region without civilian life.”

Ministers from parties in the government coalition participated, on Sunday evening, in a conference in West Jerusalem initiated by the extreme right-wing “Jewish Power” party, which promoted the restoration of control over the Gaza Strip, settlement there, and encouraging its residents to immigrate.

The American network "NBC News" had quoted a source familiar with the ongoing talks in Paris, regarding a prisoner deal between the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian resistance, as saying that negotiators from "Israel", the United States of America, Egypt and Qatar "agreed on a framework for a new deal." .

According to the source, the agreement includes “the release of the remaining American and Israeli prisoners in Gaza,” in stages, starting with women and children, and this will be accompanied by a gradual cessation of fighting and the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip, in addition to the exchange of Palestinian prisoners.

The Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman, also indicated that the current phase of the talks may lead to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in the future.

He added, "Progress has been made on laying the foundation for moving forward on the issue of prisoners, and the talks are improving compared to previous weeks, but the current escalation in Gaza will not lead to any progress regarding the issue."

For its part, the Hamas movement confirmed, through the media advisor to the head of its political bureau, Taher Al-Nono, that “the ceasefire in Gaza is the basic premise for any subsequent step,” stressing the movement’s firm position on the necessity of “a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, followed by a prisoner exchange and reconstruction.” 

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, which as of Monday left 26,637 killed and 65,387 injured, most of them children and women, according to the Palestinian authorities, and caused “massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to the United Nations. .

The media advisor to the head of the Hamas political bureau, Taher Al-Nono, said on Monday that the movement “wants a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, not a truce” in Gaza.

Al-Nono added, in a statement to Agence France-Presse: “We are talking first about a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, and not about a temporary truce.” He stressed that when the fighting stops, "the rest of the details can be discussed," including the release of detainees in Gaza.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, whose country plays a key role in mediation efforts, announced during a symposium in Washington on Monday that a proposal would soon be presented to Hamas regarding stopping the fighting in the Gaza Strip and releasing detainees. He pointed out that The movement presented a “clear demand” for a “permanent ceasefire before negotiations,” and that the current proposal “may lead to a permanent ceasefire in the future.”

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani stressed that "Qatar's role is to mediate and not to put pressure on the parties."

In turn, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Monday that “Hamas must make its own decisions regarding talks related to detainees.”

Blinken stressed that “the talks on the detainees are important and give rise to hope,” noting that “the proposed proposal regarding the detainees is strong and convincing, and there is great agreement among the countries concerned on its strength,” noting that he discussed with the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister “the ongoing efforts to release the hostages and reach a solution.” To an expanded truce.

A meeting was held in Paris on Sunday that included CIA Director William Burns, Egyptian and Israeli intelligence officials, and the Qatari Prime Minister.

On the other hand, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine stressed, in a joint statement, the necessity of stopping the Israeli aggression and the withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip before any exchange of prisoners from both sides takes place “on the basis of all for all.”

This came during a visit by a leading delegation from Hamas to the headquarters of the “Popular Front” in Beirut, where the attendees reviewed the developments of the “Aqsa Flood” battle and the situation in occupied Palestine, especially in the Gaza Strip.

The attendees demanded the permanent opening of the Rafah crossing, the entry of food, medical and fuel aid, and the provision of prefabricated housing and tents in all areas of the Strip.

The British newspaper “The Guardian” reported, Monday, January 29, 2024, that dozens of American government employees decided to go on a hunger strike to denounce the policy pursued by US President Joe Biden, which supports the Israeli occupation, in addition to drawing attention to the catastrophic situation experienced by the residents of the Gaza Strip. Gaza as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression.

According to the same newspaper, the strike will be carried out by a group calling itself “United Federalists for Peace” and consisting of dozens of US government employees.

The Guardian newspaper quoted a statement from representatives of the group in which they confirmed that the main reason behind this step is their condemnation and categorical rejection of the Israeli occupation’s use of starving the residents of Gaza as a weapon against civilians, due to its continued prevention of food and humanitarian aid from entering the Strip.

Moreover, the newspaper revealed that the members of the group of American employees will take a number of symbolic initiatives to express their protest, such as wearing black clothes, the keffiyeh, or other signs and symbols that express solidarity with the Palestinians.

It is noteworthy that this strike is the first of its kind undertaken by this group of government employees, as it had previously undertaken a similar gesture, Tuesday, January 16, 2024, a move that aroused the ire of a number of American politicians and they considered it a “rebellion” against the American administration.

The conflict in Palestine since the founding of Israel 76 years ago has not passed through a more mature stage to reach a final solution as is happening now, according to a report by the American magazine Foreign Policy.

“A Middle Eastern Contradiction,” under this title Foreign Policy published its report, which monitors how the current tragedy on the land of historic Palestine represents the most “moment of clarity” regarding the essential, inevitable elements for building a future peace settlement.

Since the “Al-Aqsa Flood” military operation, on October 7, Israel has launched an air and naval bombardment on the Gaza Strip, followed by a ground invasion, causing more than 26 thousand martyrs, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians, women and children, and also destroyed The entire infrastructure of the sector.

“Al-Aqsa Flood” is the name given by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” to the comprehensive military operation, which began at dawn on October 7, in response to “the continuing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people,” which crossed all red lines since most governments took office. Israel will assume responsibility in late 2022.

Netanyahu's war on Gaza

Since the establishment of Israel on the land of Palestine in 1948 and the occurrence of the Palestinian Nakba, the occupation’s crimes against the Palestinian people have not stopped, nor has resistance to this occupation with multiple tools stopped. But the fundamental difference between the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and what preceded it is that once the war stops this time, the hour of reckoning regarding the conflict in general will come, according to a Foreign Policy report.

If Israel, or the extreme right-wing camp in it, now stands united behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government, then even though the war machine stops rotating and the flaming emotions subside, Netanyahu himself will face strong waves from all directions that will inevitably cause him to drown politically. . Indeed, these waves of criticism of Netanyahu and demands for his departure did not stop and intensified despite the continuation of the war.

Netanyahu and the Israeli War Council based their calculations on waging war on Gaza out of revenge for the resounding defeat that the occupation suffered in front of the resistance on October 7, and set impossible goals such as eliminating Hamas and liberating prisoners held in the Strip by force.

Israel began its aggression through intense, indiscriminate, and unprecedented bombardment, by air, land, and sea, on the Gaza Strip, in what it called the first phase. Then it began the land invasion of the Strip on October 27, 2023, which is the second phase, which the occupation government tried to prolong as much as possible. But it was later forced to demobilize part of the forces operating in the sector, and announced the move to the third phase.

Now, after nearly 5 months, it has become clear that achieving a “military solution” is far-fetched, and that the occupation army does not have the ability to achieve the declared “war goals” in the Gaza Strip except for destroying the foundations of civilian life, which is reflected in the complexity of the political scene. In light of increasing international and American pressure to change the form of the war without having a vision of how to end it.

This retaliatory Israeli aggression represents not only a bad idea, but a leap into the unknown with goals that are impossible to implement. Even the recent modification of goals, namely undermining Hamas' rule in Gaza, is not the product of deliberate strategic thinking, but rather a random reaction on the part of those who are supposed to be Israel's security guards, according to the American magazine's report.

The goal of eliminating Hamas

After decades of stifling Israeli occupation, a huge Palestinian explosion was bound to occur, regardless of its nature and tools, according to the Foreign Policy report, which believes that Hamas could have “chosen peaceful protests at the borders of the Gaza Strip as it did 5 years ago, but the greatest impact was this time it came by undermining the Israeli iron fence around the Strip.”

But it is important here to remember that Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip tried in various ways to confront the occupation and draw the attention of the countries of the region and the world to the crimes and provocations committed by Israel against the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, without anyone doing anything.

The formation and program of the current Netanyahu government has raised concern in Washington itself, and the American media has warned of the seriousness of the situation in Palestine and the possibility of it exploding at any moment. In late January 2023, that is, one month after the formation of that government, the New York Times published a report monitoring how its provocations increase the risk of escalation in the occupied Palestinian territories, in light of the escalation of settler attacks in the West Bank, and placing settlement at the forefront of its important files.

Even now, after the situation exploded and the war was launched on Gaza, Netanyahu still prefers to expose Israel to danger rather than expose his government to disintegration, due to his continued submission to the tendencies of those belonging to the extreme right in the government, regarding the annexation of Palestinian lands, building settlements, Jewish racial superiority, and fueling wars, according to a report. For the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The newspaper considered that this was the only explanation for his alarming disregard for repeated warnings from the Israeli occupation army and the General Security Service "Shin Bet" regarding the consequences of turbulent conditions in the occupied West Bank. This comes despite the fact that the Israeli security establishment sent the government an unequivocal warning that Israel must do something to alleviate the rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in the West Bank, and the Americans also told the Israeli government the same opinion.

In the same context, what Israel is now doing in the Gaza Strip in terms of targeting civilians represents “a step towards the destruction of the occupation itself,” and not the destruction of Hamas, as this aggression increases the determination of the people of the Gaza Strip to join the resistance as it is the only way to stand up to Israel, according to Foreign Policy report. 

There is no solution to the conflict except by establishing a Palestinian state

Foreign Policy believes in its report that Israel had other options before the October 7 explosion. In light of the normalization process, which began in 2020, Israel enjoyed diplomatic relations with an increasing number of Arab countries, and it could have built on that and expanded its integration into the region, if it had not pursued a strategy of completely ignoring the Palestinians as if they did not exist.

Here lies the “contradiction” in what is currently happening. Due to all these factors, the birth of a new peace process from the ruins of the current devastation has become more powerful than ever, for two reasons.

The first: It is the collapse of a myth that Israel, and specifically Netanyahu, sought to perpetuate over many years. This myth is that the Palestinians are a defeated and surrendered people and that the Palestinian cause has become abandoned and forgotten. It is the myth that the Foreign Policy report describes as always being “empty talk and nonsense that is impossible to believe.”

The second: It is the illusion that the Palestinian issue can be managed and not solved. Meaning that Israel does whatever it wants and continues to displace the Palestinians and swallow their lands without anything happening. Now this illusion has been shattered, and there must be a radical solution to the Palestinian issue, otherwise there will be other explosions from which the region and the entire world will not be spared from its flying fragments.

It is impossible for the issue to be resolved radically without Israel completely ending its occupation of the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem and its siege of Gaza so that the Palestinians can live in freedom and dignity and establish their independent state, according to the American magazine.

Since the 1967 war, in which Israel occupied the rest of Palestine, every explosion led to talk of peace conferences even if none of them led to an actual result, from the 1973 war until the Arab “Land for Peace” initiative in 2002. But Netanyahu invented his own concept.” Peace for peace,” which is the illusion that he sold to the Israelis and to the world, until the explosion of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” came to shatter this illusion irreversibly.

In this context and for the future, there is no need to invent the vehicle, as peace can only be between independent and sovereign states, and this is the only path to ending the current nightmare of destruction and violence, Foreign Policy says in its report.

All the components and elements of this peace are found in the Arab initiative, which was also supported by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. It is an initiative that needs to be revived and perhaps some of its provisions reviewed, if necessary, quickly, and to be accompanied by certain guarantees to the Palestinians that they will be safe and stable in their lands and under the flag of a state. Independent Palestine.

The deaths of Americans in the Jordan attack on Sunday, January 28, 2024, may be a final warning bell for the administration of US President Joe Biden to look into the origin of the current conflict and not be drawn into expanding it, as this is exactly what Netanyahu wants.

Israeli Security Minister Yoav Galant told American officials last week that he and the Israeli army will not allow the rebuilding of outposts or illegal settlements by Israeli settlers inside the Gaza Strip, according to what the Axios website reported on Monday, citing four American and Israeli officials. .

The Joe Biden administration is concerned about a buffer zone, which Israel plans to create within the Strip to rebuild the settlements that were dismantled during the Israeli withdrawal from it in 2005.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller previously said in December: “If there is any proposed buffer zone inside Gaza, it will be a violation of the principle of preserving the territory of the Strip, which is something we oppose.”

The Washington Post newspaper quoted an American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as saying that the Israeli occupation government informed the United States that the buffer zone being built inside Gaza is only a temporary security place to eliminate Hamas’ firing positions near the border.

According to Israeli Channel 12, of a total of 2,850 buildings located in the planned buffer zone, the occupation army destroyed approximately 1,100 of them.

The Washington Post monitored clips published by the occupation army and satellite images showing the destruction of dozens of homes, residential complexes, and schools and their leveling to the ground in the eastern regions of the besieged sector from both the north and south.

According to Axios, American concern has increased in recent weeks, after the settlement lobby in Israel and members of the ruling coalition began to increase pressure and call for the complete occupation of the Gaza Strip and rebuilding the settlements.

Last week, Gallant met with the US Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, and the US envoy for humanitarian affairs, David Satterfield, to discuss the situation in Gaza, Israeli and American officials told Axios.

Axios added that Lew and Satterfield asked Gallant whether the buffer zone was a basis for settlements, emphasizing Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's public statements that rejected any change in Gaza's territory and opposed any damage to civilian infrastructure.

According to the website, a senior Israeli official and American officials said that Gallant committed that he would not allow the rebuilding of settlements in Gaza, and stressed that the buffer zone would be temporary and for security purposes only.

According to the Israeli official, Oded Basiuk, head of the IDF Operations Branch who attended the meeting, said that the Israeli army will not allow Israeli civilians to enter the buffer zone, because that conflicts with its security purpose.

On Sunday, twelve Israeli ministers, including three from the Likud Party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, participated in a conference in Jerusalem, which called for the rebuilding of settlements in Gaza and encouraged the exodus of Palestinians from the Strip.

Eighteen representatives in the government coalition also participated in the conference, which was, according to the website, the largest political demonstration in support of rebuilding settlements in Gaza and uprooting the Palestinian population in the Strip, since October 7.

War Cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot condemned the conference. But Netanyahu said that "the Likud members who participated in the conference have freedom of expression," but stressed that the Cabinet determines "Israeli policy."

Qatari Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said on Monday that talks on Israeli prisoners in Gaza are improving compared to previous weeks.

The Qatari Foreign Minister added in media statements that the current stage of talks between the Israeli occupation and Hamas may lead to a permanent ceasefire in the future.

He continued: "We have moved in the talks to a place that can lead us to a ceasefire. We cannot predict Hamas' response, but we are committed to continuing our efforts."

Abdul Rahman explained that Qatar's main role is to work to reach a solution that leads to the release of prisoners and a ceasefire in Gaza.

He pointed out that the current escalation in Gaza will not lead to any progress regarding the return of the hostages, pointing out that Qatar has warned from day one of the possibility of expanding the war in the region.

The Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister continued: "Putting an end to the war in Gaza is not only a demand of the people in Gaza, but also a regional demand."

Abdul Rahman said that Qatar is a mediator and not a party to the conflict, and we are trying to bridge the gap, adding: “Our role is to mediate and try to bridge the gap and bring the parties together, and we have no role more than this.”

For his part, Hamas leader Osama Hamdan said that occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not serious about reaching a settlement and a ceasefire, and he does not care about killing prisoners in Gaza.

Hamdan added during a press conference: “Until this moment, we have not received anything about initiatives published through the Hebrew media, or what is issued by the enemy’s media regarding an expected deal aimed at satisfying the families of prisoners held by the resistance.”

He continued: “We presented specific initiatives and ideas regarding reaching a ceasefire agreement, but they were met with evasion from the Israeli occupation.

Some experts believe that the decisions on precautionary measures taken by the International Court of Justice in the “genocide” case brought against Tel Aviv pave the way for the trial and arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his army commanders, in accordance with internal Israeli law.

On January 26, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocide against the Palestinians and improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, but the decision did not include a “ceasefire” text.

While the International Court's decision was welcomed internationally and regionally, including the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), the "Islamic Jihad" movement warned against Israel exploiting the court's failure to issue an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which would allow it to "act as it pleases."

On January 11 and 12, the International Court of Justice in The Hague held two public hearings, as part of the start of consideration of the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel on charges of committing “genocide crimes” against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

A “first step” towards holding Israel accountable

Speaking to Anadolu, Pakistani lawyer Hassan Islam Shad stressed the importance of the International Court of Justice describing the case brought by South Africa as “reasonable” for consideration.

Shad, the first lawyer from a Muslim country at the International Criminal Court, said that this decision “represents the first step towards holding Israel accountable for some, though not all, acts of genocide.”

He explained that "this conclusion also revealed the legal basis for Israel's responsibility," noting that "major political momentum" had been formed in this context.

Shad pointed out that "there is a concept of universal jurisdiction that links all countries, and therefore they must take the necessary steps to prosecute those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide within their domestic laws."

He added, "It is indeed possible that in the very near future we will see news of arrest warrants being issued against Benjamin Netanyahu, or the leaders of the Israeli army and individuals participating in the military campaign, and once that happens, it will be the day when Israel regrets its actions in Gaza." According to the Pakistani lawyer.

Shad also pointed out that "pressure is increasing against Israel, which has not respected international law throughout its history," and that "after the International Court of Justice's decision, internal political pressure on Netanyahu will increase."

"Historical precedent"

For his part, the editor-in-chief of “Palestinian Facts” magazine, Ramzi Baroud, said, “Israel used the Jewish Holocaust in many ways to justify its presence and the acts of violence it committed against Arabs and Palestinians in Gaza over the years.”

Baroud explained that "Israel also used the Holocaust to accuse its critics and enemies of anti-Semitism."

He expressed his belief that "the decision of the International Court of Justice is very important and historic, and the Israeli government knows very well that it constitutes a historical precedent."

Baroud said, "This gives great legitimacy to the Palestinian resistance, because it is now fighting genocide more or less officially."

He said, "The International Court of Justice did not refer to Hamas or other Palestinian groups as terrorists, but rather referred to them as Palestinian groups."

Political bankruptcy

Baroud stressed that "Israel has begun to realize that it is losing legitimacy because of its actions as a country that does not recognize international law based on a general position."

He said, "Netanyahu's quick statement and the statements made by other Israeli officials (after the judicial decision) are only indicators that the issue (in international justice) is being taken seriously."

Baroud explained that Netanyahu's statements following the decision issued by the International Court of Justice "were full of contradictions" and lacked logic.

He added, "Netanyahu accuses the International Court of Justice of making a shameful decision, and also says that Israel will continue the war, but will respect international law. It seems that Israel no longer has a logical political discourse."

Baroud expressed his belief that "the political bankruptcy of the Netanyahu government continues after the International Court of Justice's decision, and this will certainly lead to more isolation of Israel over time, and will further strengthen the position of the Palestinians."

He pointed out that "the court that Israel respects most internationally is the International Court of Justice, because of its position on ethnic cleansing and genocide (against the Jews) and that the historical experiences of the Jews have an impact on that. Therefore, it is a historical contradiction for the Israelis to begin to look at the court itself as a An enemy,” according to Baroud.

He believed that "South Africa has played its role to the fullest in this issue, and other countries must also think about what they should do."

There is also “a need to put pressure on the countries that support Israel,” according to Baroud, “because without the support of these countries, Israel would not have been able to do these things (violations), and today Israel is accused of committing genocide crimes.”

Baroud concluded by saying, “Therefore, countries have every moral and legal reason to say that we have a legal obligation to initiate measures to boycott Israel until it ends its occupation of Palestine, or perhaps until it is proven that it did not commit genocide in Gaza.”

Since last October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, which left 26,637 killed, and the number of wounded reached 65,387, most of them children and women, according to the Palestinian authorities, and caused “massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to the United Nations. .