Running Out of Time: Israel/Palestine/Gaza
July 7, 2024 9:36 AM Subscribe
Brother of hostage Itzik Elgarat says Hamas claims he is no longer alive.
US Intelligence warns that the Gaza war is a recruiting boon for terrorists, as widespread anger at the US support for Israel has galvanized organizations globally.
Hamas has accepted the US proposal on the release of Israeli hostages, according to a Hamas source.
Two thirds of Israelis back hostage deal over continuing war in Gaza.
Era of Miracles: Israeli Far-Right celebrates West Bank settlement expansion. Archive.is
Haaretz exclusive archive.is: IDF ordered Hannibal directive on Oct 7 to prevent soldiers from being taken captive by Hamas -One of these decisions was made at 7:18 A.M., when an observation post at the Yiftah outpost reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, adjacent to the IDF's liaison office. "Hannibal at Erez" came the command from divisional headquarters, "dispatch a Zik." The Zik is an unmanned assault drone, and the meaning of this command was clear.
This wasn't the last time that such an order was heard over the communications network. Over the next half hour, the division realized that Hamas terrorists had managed to kill and abduct soldiers serving at the crossing and at the adjacent base. Then, at 7:41 A.M., it happened again: Hannibal at Erez, an assault on the crossing and the base, just so that no more soldiers be taken. Such commands were given later as well.
Labour Party loses votes in Muslim areas over its Gaza policy - In the Leicester south constituency, Shockat Adam Patel, an independent candidate, declared, “This is for Gaza,” during his speech as he beat Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth — who had been expected to hold a cabinet role in Keir Starmer’s new government.
Many British Muslims, as well as other voters, had demanded that party leaders more vocally condemn the rising death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and want the new government to press Israel harder to reach an immediate cease-fire with Hamas.
A Holocaust Scholar Meets with Israeli Reservists:
Another told a story that, when he was there, he was approached by a girl, obviously a Palestinian girl, whose leg had been severely injured. He didn’t say how, he didn’t give the context, but one can imagine. He said, “And we immediately gave her all the medical help we could. Everything that we needed for our unit was used to take care of her.” So they were trying to say, “We really care about the children and we are not beasts.” But there were these contradictions.
I began talking about the I.D.F.’s use of these giant bombs, and that if you drop a bomb like this to kill some people in a tunnel beneath a school where there are many people sheltered because they were told that they should shelter there, you’re going to kill many of them. And one of them said, “Oh, no, no, no, that’s not at all true. That’s not true. We came to these schools. These schools are full of Hamas people.” And the interesting thing was that there was another fellow sitting there, and he said, “Well, we were also there. We didn’t see so many Hamas people.”
They got angry at me and were saying, “Well, what do you know? You just sit in your air-conditioned room in the United States.” At some point, I said to them, “Actually, I was also a soldier. I was a company commander. I was wounded. It was a different war and a different time, but it’s not like I don’t know anything about this.” That slightly calmed them down.
But then I told them that, for my dissertation, I investigated the crimes of the German Army and that, in subsequent years, I used to go to Germany and lecture about it. And usually the first two or three rows would be filled with Wehrmacht veterans. As I was talking, they would also become very excited. And one of them would get up and say, “Nothing like this happened in my unit.” And another guy would get up and say, “Maybe not in yours. But in mine it did.” So there was some parallel to what I was seeing there.
There was a young woman at Ben-Gurion—she jumped on the stage and started shouting. She was very angry, and said that they were fighting for the people who were murdered on October 7th, that comrades of theirs had been killed and friends of theirs had been killed. And, as she was talking and shouting, she started crying. I, at least, had a distinct feeling—not to excuse what they were doing, but I had a distinct feeling that many of them maybe had P.T.S.D.
The Rise of Oct 7 Tourism: Thus, though tour groups come within miles of the Gaza fence, the trips pointedly don’t engage with Israel’s ongoing devastation of the enclave, which has killed more than 37,900 Palestinians to date. I spent two days observing several different groups in the Gaza Envelope area and conducted dozens of interviews with tour guides, participants, local residents, and military personnel stationed there. I found that while the trips span a political spectrum—some meet with liberal groups in Israeli civil society or have a Palestinian speaker on their itineraries, while others hear from far-right speakers and visit extremist settlements—this silence was a common thread. An Israeli American who joined multiple mission trips as a staff member in November and February, and who asked that his name not be used to avoid professional consequences, observed that tour participants are “deep within their own trauma, and that trauma is crowding out the suffering the war is causing.” By pausing time on October 7th and excluding its aftermath, the tours reinforce that myopia, consolidating a focus on Jewish victimhood and a refusal to see Israel as the perpetrator of Palestinian suffering. In the process, they succeed in bolstering American Jews’ sense of identification with Israel. As one rabbi who participated in a Federation mission from San Diego wrote upon her return home: “I saw the result of evil. I feel more committed to Israel and its future than I have felt in a long time.”
The view from Palestinian America: As I carry out my life in New York—teaching writing classes, taking my eldest to her first haircut and her first dentist appointment—I am frighteningly aware that where we are born determines the contours of our lives. In Palestine, some fourteen thousand children have died, and countless more are maimed or starving. I’ve tried to make Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Eid special while the air of mourning has laid thick over us; I’ve watched, stunned, as cops have zip-tied the hands of student protesters and dragged them away. I’ve longed to stand in solidarity with those students, to join their protest Seders and dabke circles. But with two little ones at home I feel that the cost of doing so is too high.
Palestinians want liberation, not recognition: Liberation, Palestinians assert, demands the dismantling of Israeli settler colonialism and the Israeli apartheid regime, which is premised on Jewish supremacy, from the river to the sea, and ensuring equality to all. To end Israel’s colonial apartheid regime, they further demand that the international community stop treating Israel with exceptionalism, impose an arms embargo, sanction Israel, boycott the state and its institutions, and divest from Israeli companies. They want no Western interference as Palestinians rebuild their own political institutions and leadership; dismantling the Palestinian Authority is part of their demands. As general principles, they want Palestinian self-determination in all areas of life and politics, without outsider-imposed “solutions”; the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Palestinian right to land and control over natural resources; and finally, the right of Palestinians to live in dignity and equality in their homeland.
Previously
Haaretz exclusive archive.is: IDF ordered Hannibal directive on Oct 7 to prevent soldiers from being taken captive by Hamas -One of these decisions was made at 7:18 A.M., when an observation post at the Yiftah outpost reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, adjacent to the IDF's liaison office. "Hannibal at Erez" came the command from divisional headquarters, "dispatch a Zik." The Zik is an unmanned assault drone, and the meaning of this command was clear.
This wasn't the last time that such an order was heard over the communications network. Over the next half hour, the division realized that Hamas terrorists had managed to kill and abduct soldiers serving at the crossing and at the adjacent base. Then, at 7:41 A.M., it happened again: Hannibal at Erez, an assault on the crossing and the base, just so that no more soldiers be taken. Such commands were given later as well.
Labour Party loses votes in Muslim areas over its Gaza policy - In the Leicester south constituency, Shockat Adam Patel, an independent candidate, declared, “This is for Gaza,” during his speech as he beat Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth — who had been expected to hold a cabinet role in Keir Starmer’s new government.
Many British Muslims, as well as other voters, had demanded that party leaders more vocally condemn the rising death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and want the new government to press Israel harder to reach an immediate cease-fire with Hamas.
A Holocaust Scholar Meets with Israeli Reservists:
Another told a story that, when he was there, he was approached by a girl, obviously a Palestinian girl, whose leg had been severely injured. He didn’t say how, he didn’t give the context, but one can imagine. He said, “And we immediately gave her all the medical help we could. Everything that we needed for our unit was used to take care of her.” So they were trying to say, “We really care about the children and we are not beasts.” But there were these contradictions.
I began talking about the I.D.F.’s use of these giant bombs, and that if you drop a bomb like this to kill some people in a tunnel beneath a school where there are many people sheltered because they were told that they should shelter there, you’re going to kill many of them. And one of them said, “Oh, no, no, no, that’s not at all true. That’s not true. We came to these schools. These schools are full of Hamas people.” And the interesting thing was that there was another fellow sitting there, and he said, “Well, we were also there. We didn’t see so many Hamas people.”
They got angry at me and were saying, “Well, what do you know? You just sit in your air-conditioned room in the United States.” At some point, I said to them, “Actually, I was also a soldier. I was a company commander. I was wounded. It was a different war and a different time, but it’s not like I don’t know anything about this.” That slightly calmed them down.
But then I told them that, for my dissertation, I investigated the crimes of the German Army and that, in subsequent years, I used to go to Germany and lecture about it. And usually the first two or three rows would be filled with Wehrmacht veterans. As I was talking, they would also become very excited. And one of them would get up and say, “Nothing like this happened in my unit.” And another guy would get up and say, “Maybe not in yours. But in mine it did.” So there was some parallel to what I was seeing there.
There was a young woman at Ben-Gurion—she jumped on the stage and started shouting. She was very angry, and said that they were fighting for the people who were murdered on October 7th, that comrades of theirs had been killed and friends of theirs had been killed. And, as she was talking and shouting, she started crying. I, at least, had a distinct feeling—not to excuse what they were doing, but I had a distinct feeling that many of them maybe had P.T.S.D.
The Rise of Oct 7 Tourism: Thus, though tour groups come within miles of the Gaza fence, the trips pointedly don’t engage with Israel’s ongoing devastation of the enclave, which has killed more than 37,900 Palestinians to date. I spent two days observing several different groups in the Gaza Envelope area and conducted dozens of interviews with tour guides, participants, local residents, and military personnel stationed there. I found that while the trips span a political spectrum—some meet with liberal groups in Israeli civil society or have a Palestinian speaker on their itineraries, while others hear from far-right speakers and visit extremist settlements—this silence was a common thread. An Israeli American who joined multiple mission trips as a staff member in November and February, and who asked that his name not be used to avoid professional consequences, observed that tour participants are “deep within their own trauma, and that trauma is crowding out the suffering the war is causing.” By pausing time on October 7th and excluding its aftermath, the tours reinforce that myopia, consolidating a focus on Jewish victimhood and a refusal to see Israel as the perpetrator of Palestinian suffering. In the process, they succeed in bolstering American Jews’ sense of identification with Israel. As one rabbi who participated in a Federation mission from San Diego wrote upon her return home: “I saw the result of evil. I feel more committed to Israel and its future than I have felt in a long time.”
The view from Palestinian America: As I carry out my life in New York—teaching writing classes, taking my eldest to her first haircut and her first dentist appointment—I am frighteningly aware that where we are born determines the contours of our lives. In Palestine, some fourteen thousand children have died, and countless more are maimed or starving. I’ve tried to make Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Eid special while the air of mourning has laid thick over us; I’ve watched, stunned, as cops have zip-tied the hands of student protesters and dragged them away. I’ve longed to stand in solidarity with those students, to join their protest Seders and dabke circles. But with two little ones at home I feel that the cost of doing so is too high.
Palestinians want liberation, not recognition: Liberation, Palestinians assert, demands the dismantling of Israeli settler colonialism and the Israeli apartheid regime, which is premised on Jewish supremacy, from the river to the sea, and ensuring equality to all. To end Israel’s colonial apartheid regime, they further demand that the international community stop treating Israel with exceptionalism, impose an arms embargo, sanction Israel, boycott the state and its institutions, and divest from Israeli companies. They want no Western interference as Palestinians rebuild their own political institutions and leadership; dismantling the Palestinian Authority is part of their demands. As general principles, they want Palestinian self-determination in all areas of life and politics, without outsider-imposed “solutions”; the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Palestinian right to land and control over natural resources; and finally, the right of Palestinians to live in dignity and equality in their homeland.
Previously
With a title like "running out of time", the absence of links about the mass starvation of Palestinians being willfully perpetrated by Netanyahu, Galant and the IDF doesn't look good.
I don't understand how any other topic can be discussed.
posted by constraint at 10:07 AM on July 7 [11 favorites]
I don't understand how any other topic can be discussed.
posted by constraint at 10:07 AM on July 7 [11 favorites]
Oh man, I'm so sorry I also just made a fresh post. Shall I ask to delete? Let me do that.
posted by cendawanita at 10:08 AM on July 7 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 10:08 AM on July 7 [1 favorite]
Al Jazeera, July 10th: US Gaza aid pier not used in Israel’s captives rescue mission: Pentagon
posted by jy4m at 10:38 AM on July 7 [3 favorites]
“It was near, but I think it’s incidental. Again, the pier, the equipment, the personnel all supporting that humanitarian effort had nothing to do with the [Israeli military] rescue operation,” Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder told reporters.
...
The Israeli military intensively bombed the Nuseirat area during the operation, killing at least 274 people, including dozens of women and children, according to Palestinian authorities in Gaza.
...
While the US military has denied involvement in the attack, several international media outlets, including The New York Times, have reported that American officials provided intelligence that helped with the operation.
I'll just rework my FPP as a comment here, which kicked off with the same Haaretz article from up top (which just got posted) -- now I have the luxury of ~spacing~
Haaretz: IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive (ungated)
+ The Times: Israel says Hamas weaponised rape. Does the evidence add up? (ungated) - [Premila] Patten made it clear there was sufficient evidence of acts of sexual violence to merit full and proper investigation and expressed her shock at the brutality of the violence. The report also confirmed Israeli authorities were unable to provide much of the evidence that political leaders had insisted existed. In all the Hamas video footage Patten’s team had watched and all the photographs they had seen, there were no depictions of rape. We hired a leading Israeli dark-web researcher to look for evidence of those images, including footage deleted from public sources. None could be found.
+ Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: The Israeli army’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields has been documented on a large scale
+ BBC: More wounded Palestinians tell BBC the Israeli army forced them on to jeep
+ 972: ‘More horrific than Abu Ghraib’: Lawyer recounts visit to Israeli detention center - At Sde Teiman, [Israeli lawyer] Khaled Mahajneh found a detained journalist unrecognizable as he described the facility’s violent and inhumane conditions. - “I have been visiting political and security detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails for years, including since October 7,” Mahajneh noted. “I know that the conditions of detention have become much harsher, and that the prisoners are abused on a daily basis. But Sde Teiman was unlike anything I’ve seen or heard before.”
(...) Since his visit to Sde Teiman, Mahajneh has felt deep frustration and anger — but above all, horror. “I have been in this profession for 15 years … I never expected to hear about rape of prisoners or humiliations like that. And all this is not for the purpose of interrogation — since most prisoners are only interrogated after many days of detention — but as an act of revenge. To take revenge on whom? They are all citizens, young people, adults, and children. There are no Hamas members in Sde Teiman because they are in the hands of the Shabas [Israeli Prison Service].”
+ Guardian: Dutch foreign ministry calls in Israeli ambassador over ICC spying claims
+ Jewish Currents: How “Pro-Israel” Orthodoxy Keeps US Foreign Policymaking White - Not all Black politicians run afoul of “pro-Israel” orthodoxy. But they do so more frequently than their white counterparts. For nearly half a century, Black politicians who draw on their own experiences to support nationalist and anti-imperialist movements in the developing world have been accused of anti-Americanism. And in a political culture where Israel is seen as embodying the same values as the United States, Black support for the Palestinian cause has often been deemed anti-American too. Year after year, decade after decade, these attacks have forced Black politicians to either mute their sympathy for Palestinians or risk losing a seat at the table. In this way, the Israel debate has helped keep American foreign policymaking disproportionately white.
(Bonus: to be read with this Politico piece on Jamaal Bowman, A Trip to Israel Changed Jamaal Bowman’s World View — And Could Cost Him His Reelection . Boy, did it.)
+ 972: How Israeli drone strikes are killing journalists in Gaza
+ Zeteo: EXCLUSIVE: Inside Israel’s Insta-Genocide - Part One: Weaponizing the humiliation of Gaza’s Palestinians & Part Two: "May Gaza burn": The flood of genocidal rhetoric from Israel's soldiers
+ 972: ‘How is it reasonable to kill over 200 for the sake of four?’
+ AP: The Israeli army says it investigates itself. Where do those investigations stand? - In one of the highest-profile cases, an attack on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed six foreign aid workers and their Palestinian driver, the Israeli army promptly published its findings, acknowledged misconduct by its forces and dismissed two soldiers. But other investigations remain open, and admissions of guilt are rare.
Israel’s military advocate general, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said this past week that the military is investigating about 70 cases of alleged wrongdoing. She gave few details. The military refused to disclose the full list of investigations and told The Associated Press it could only respond to queries about specific probes
= Guardian: Fears of long war in Gaza as new chapter opens and ‘intense fighting’ eases off
I have to go sleep now but I have contacted the mods. Not sure how things will shake out between our two threads but I hope we can just carry on here unless we can do some kind of two-hander between the angles of each FPP. (Personally I find there's too much inclination to keep Palestine discussions very neat and tidy - so I'm fine either way)
posted by cendawanita at 10:40 AM on July 7 [36 favorites]
Haaretz: IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive (ungated)
+ The Times: Israel says Hamas weaponised rape. Does the evidence add up? (ungated) - [Premila] Patten made it clear there was sufficient evidence of acts of sexual violence to merit full and proper investigation and expressed her shock at the brutality of the violence. The report also confirmed Israeli authorities were unable to provide much of the evidence that political leaders had insisted existed. In all the Hamas video footage Patten’s team had watched and all the photographs they had seen, there were no depictions of rape. We hired a leading Israeli dark-web researcher to look for evidence of those images, including footage deleted from public sources. None could be found.
+ Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: The Israeli army’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields has been documented on a large scale
+ BBC: More wounded Palestinians tell BBC the Israeli army forced them on to jeep
+ 972: ‘More horrific than Abu Ghraib’: Lawyer recounts visit to Israeli detention center - At Sde Teiman, [Israeli lawyer] Khaled Mahajneh found a detained journalist unrecognizable as he described the facility’s violent and inhumane conditions. - “I have been visiting political and security detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails for years, including since October 7,” Mahajneh noted. “I know that the conditions of detention have become much harsher, and that the prisoners are abused on a daily basis. But Sde Teiman was unlike anything I’ve seen or heard before.”
(...) Since his visit to Sde Teiman, Mahajneh has felt deep frustration and anger — but above all, horror. “I have been in this profession for 15 years … I never expected to hear about rape of prisoners or humiliations like that. And all this is not for the purpose of interrogation — since most prisoners are only interrogated after many days of detention — but as an act of revenge. To take revenge on whom? They are all citizens, young people, adults, and children. There are no Hamas members in Sde Teiman because they are in the hands of the Shabas [Israeli Prison Service].”
+ Guardian: Dutch foreign ministry calls in Israeli ambassador over ICC spying claims
+ Jewish Currents: How “Pro-Israel” Orthodoxy Keeps US Foreign Policymaking White - Not all Black politicians run afoul of “pro-Israel” orthodoxy. But they do so more frequently than their white counterparts. For nearly half a century, Black politicians who draw on their own experiences to support nationalist and anti-imperialist movements in the developing world have been accused of anti-Americanism. And in a political culture where Israel is seen as embodying the same values as the United States, Black support for the Palestinian cause has often been deemed anti-American too. Year after year, decade after decade, these attacks have forced Black politicians to either mute their sympathy for Palestinians or risk losing a seat at the table. In this way, the Israel debate has helped keep American foreign policymaking disproportionately white.
(Bonus: to be read with this Politico piece on Jamaal Bowman, A Trip to Israel Changed Jamaal Bowman’s World View — And Could Cost Him His Reelection . Boy, did it.)
+ 972: How Israeli drone strikes are killing journalists in Gaza
+ Zeteo: EXCLUSIVE: Inside Israel’s Insta-Genocide - Part One: Weaponizing the humiliation of Gaza’s Palestinians & Part Two: "May Gaza burn": The flood of genocidal rhetoric from Israel's soldiers
+ 972: ‘How is it reasonable to kill over 200 for the sake of four?’
+ AP: The Israeli army says it investigates itself. Where do those investigations stand? - In one of the highest-profile cases, an attack on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed six foreign aid workers and their Palestinian driver, the Israeli army promptly published its findings, acknowledged misconduct by its forces and dismissed two soldiers. But other investigations remain open, and admissions of guilt are rare.
Israel’s military advocate general, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said this past week that the military is investigating about 70 cases of alleged wrongdoing. She gave few details. The military refused to disclose the full list of investigations and told The Associated Press it could only respond to queries about specific probes
= Guardian: Fears of long war in Gaza as new chapter opens and ‘intense fighting’ eases off
I have to go sleep now but I have contacted the mods. Not sure how things will shake out between our two threads but I hope we can just carry on here unless we can do some kind of two-hander between the angles of each FPP. (Personally I find there's too much inclination to keep Palestine discussions very neat and tidy - so I'm fine either way)
posted by cendawanita at 10:40 AM on July 7 [36 favorites]
Wikipedia on Hannibal Directive (since I had to look it up myself)
The Hannibal Directive is the name of a controversial procedure that was used by IIDF until 2016 to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. According to one version, it says that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces." It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of the directive was never published, and until 2003, Israeli military censorship forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The directive has been changed several times, until it was officially revoked in 2016 by IDF chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot. The Directive's replacement has not been published.
posted by stevil at 11:19 AM on July 7 [1 favorite]
The Hannibal Directive is the name of a controversial procedure that was used by IIDF until 2016 to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. According to one version, it says that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces." It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of the directive was never published, and until 2003, Israeli military censorship forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The directive has been changed several times, until it was officially revoked in 2016 by IDF chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot. The Directive's replacement has not been published.
posted by stevil at 11:19 AM on July 7 [1 favorite]
ICC news from the last few days:
- Israel asks 25 countries to intervene against ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
- ICC grants UK request to submit observations on jurisdiction in Israel-Palestine arrest warrant case
- The Case Against Israel’s Military Operations in Gaza
- ICC prosecutor opted for warrants over visit to Gaza
- The ICC charged Israeli officials with starving Gaza. What happens now?
As I've previously quoted incorrect reverse numbers, I'll point out this interesting post about 150,000 people being killed in the genocide in Sudan over a similar time frame, which surpise surpise has an oil reserve similar to Norway. In principle, acknowledgement & discussion of any of the ongoing genocides could improve the public discussion of all the others.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:30 AM on July 7 [8 favorites]
- Israel asks 25 countries to intervene against ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
- ICC grants UK request to submit observations on jurisdiction in Israel-Palestine arrest warrant case
- The Case Against Israel’s Military Operations in Gaza
- ICC prosecutor opted for warrants over visit to Gaza
- The ICC charged Israeli officials with starving Gaza. What happens now?
As I've previously quoted incorrect reverse numbers, I'll point out this interesting post about 150,000 people being killed in the genocide in Sudan over a similar time frame, which surpise surpise has an oil reserve similar to Norway. In principle, acknowledgement & discussion of any of the ongoing genocides could improve the public discussion of all the others.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:30 AM on July 7 [8 favorites]
All this slaughter because one fucking coward knows as soon as it's over he'll have to face justice.
I'm so tired.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:38 AM on July 7 [14 favorites]
I'm so tired.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:38 AM on July 7 [14 favorites]
All this slaughter because one fucking coward knows as soon as it's over he'll have to face justice.
that is not the sole reason but the idea that it’s a single person and not 75 years of colonial violence deeply embedded not only in Israel but in the global political order is probably comforting, sure
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 12:14 PM on July 7 [16 favorites]
that is not the sole reason but the idea that it’s a single person and not 75 years of colonial violence deeply embedded not only in Israel but in the global political order is probably comforting, sure
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 12:14 PM on July 7 [16 favorites]
Era of Miracles: Israeli Far-Right celebrates West Bank settlement expansion.
Way to pour fuel on an already raging fire. I don't why this particular aspect of Israeli colonialism gets me so angry. Maybe too close to my own cultural experience. And I'd bet they feel emboldened to because this sort of thing will be overshadowed by all the murdering. Do it now before a) a ceasefire comes that makes it difficult and b) while the action will be a foot note at worst in the recordings of the conflict.
posted by Mitheral at 1:27 PM on July 7 [8 favorites]
Way to pour fuel on an already raging fire. I don't why this particular aspect of Israeli colonialism gets me so angry. Maybe too close to my own cultural experience. And I'd bet they feel emboldened to because this sort of thing will be overshadowed by all the murdering. Do it now before a) a ceasefire comes that makes it difficult and b) while the action will be a foot note at worst in the recordings of the conflict.
posted by Mitheral at 1:27 PM on July 7 [8 favorites]
The Lancet estimates that the Gazan death toll could be as high as 186,000.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 2:07 PM on July 7 [9 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 2:07 PM on July 7 [9 favorites]
Around the settlements..
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention mostly discusses forced migration, with only one sentence about willing migration into occupied territories. In fact, population transfer brings diverse serious ethical problems, so really this "voluntary" side should be expanded dramatically.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:46 PM on July 7 [1 favorite]
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention mostly discusses forced migration, with only one sentence about willing migration into occupied territories. In fact, population transfer brings diverse serious ethical problems, so really this "voluntary" side should be expanded dramatically.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:46 PM on July 7 [1 favorite]
And I'd bet they feel emboldened to because this sort of thing will be overshadowed by all the murdering. Do it now before a) a ceasefire comes that makes it difficult and b) while the action will be a foot note at worst in the recordings of the conflict.
Once you realise that no one will step in to prevent your open genocide, mere violent dispossession probably seems like a cakewalk.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:35 PM on July 7 [5 favorites]
Once you realise that no one will step in to prevent your open genocide, mere violent dispossession probably seems like a cakewalk.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:35 PM on July 7 [5 favorites]
- Al-Jazeera: How Israel destroyed Gaza's ability to feed itself
The satellite photos just leaves me angry. I'm not even sad. Not just angry at the state of the land, but the fact they'll just keep creeping in with impunity because technically the only firm internationally recognized borders Israel does have is with Egypt and Syria. Over at the Lebanon side things have continued to deteriorate, eg: (FT) Israel’s push to create a ‘dead zone’ in Lebanon: Most of the destruction has taken place within a 5km corridor just north of the Blue Line, the UN-drawn border between the two countries, according to analysis of satellite imagery, radar data and government statistics, along with interviews with local and state officials, researchers, civil defence workers and residents.
Data gathered by the Financial Times suggests that as diplomatic negotiations sputter, the Israeli military has used force to create a new reality on the ground. Near-daily aerial bombardment, artillery shelling and the incendiary chemical white phosphorus have made much of the 5km north of the Blue Line uninhabitable.
Structural damage, environmental degradation and economic harm have left a strip of land resembling the “buffer zone” that Israel wants to establish in Lebanon. Just handfuls of civilians remain. Most buildings are empty; many have been destroyed.
Attempts to negotiate a deal that would include Hizbollah pulling back from the border have not succeeded. But the area has become a de facto military zone, patrolled by Hizbollah fighters, Lebanese armed forces and UN peacekeepers.
Which provides them somehow criminal levels of diplomatic cover - something I genuinely can't get over especially as Russia is still raging against Ukraine and somehow the West esp US can find moral and political clarity when commenting about that.
---
- Euro-Med: A compound crime: Israeli army hits Gaza family, uses them as human shields, and runs over their mother
Guardian: About 90% of people in Gaza displaced since war began, says UN agency - Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN’s OCHA agency in the Palestinian territories, said on Wednesday that about 1.9 million people are thought to be displaced in Gaza.
“We estimate that nine in every 10 people in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced at least once, if not up to 10 times, unfortunately, since October,” he told reporters.
“Before we were estimating 1.7 (million) but since that number, we had the operation in Rafah, and we had additional displacement from Rafah,” he said, explaining the increase.
“Then we had also operations in the north that [have] also moved people,” he added.
He said such military operations had forced people to reset their lives, over and over again.
NYT: An Israeli air base is a source of GPS ‘spoofing’ attacks, researchers say. -
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have identified an Israeli air base as a key source of GPS attacks that have disrupted civilian airline navigation in the Middle East.
The attacks, known as spoofing, send out manipulated GPS signals that make airplane instruments misread their location.
The researchers, Todd Humphreys and Zach Clements, said they are “highly confident” that the spoofing attacks originated from Ein Shemer Airfield in northern Israel. The Israeli military declined to comment on Tuesday.
The researchers used data that was emitted by the spoofer and picked up by satellites in low-Earth orbit to determine its location. They then confirmed their calculations using data they collected on the ground in Israel.
Spoofing, along with GPS jamming, has sharply risen over the past three years, particularly near war zones in Ukraine and Gaza, where militaries interfere with navigation signals to thwart missile and drone attacks.
The Middle East has emerged as a spoofing hot spot. The University of Texas researchers did not say how many spoofing attacks they had linked to the military base, but a separate analysis estimated that more than 50,000 flights have been spoofed in the region this year.
The attacks have made pilots think that they were above airports in Beirut or Cairo when they were not, according to researchers at SkAI Data Services and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, who analyzed data from the OpenSky Network.
Swiss International Air Lines say their flights are spoofed almost every day over the Middle East.
ToI: Prof. who called ICJ ‘unworthy of any trust’ tapped as Israel’s judge in genocide case - Ron Shapira, who will replace Aharon Barak as Israel’s ad hoc judge, has said The Hague-based court ’embodies and takes to the extreme all the flaws of legal discourse’
Great.
----
In the meantime, these fucks are busy:
MEE: War on Gaza: The far-right activists advocating for Palestinians - Pro-Palestinian activists have been 'alarmed' by the white supremacists and antisemites joining the advocacy against Israel's war on Gaza
Huff Post: Evangelical Christians Are Throwing Their Support Behind Israel. They’re Partly Driven By Antisemitism.
New Humanitarian: Escaping Gaza’s war, Palestinians find little solace in Egypt
---
If only we can just blame Bibi for this - FP: Who’s in Charge of the IDF? - Evidence is growing of a command and control problem. - Israel’s command and control issues are clearest in its alleged war crimes. The purpose of this piece is not to litigate which allegations are true but rather to examine the implications of those war crimes for the Israeli chain of command. Though these categories overlap, Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict in the war may be broadly grouped as follows: starvation, torture, mass executions, and the indiscriminate use of bombs, drones, and missiles.
(...) Israeli military personnel have been and remain engaged in activities that suggest a serious chain of command problem for the IDF. Three factors explain this phenomenon: the existence of a permissive politico-military environment, Israeli military doctrine, and the fact that the IDF is a conscript army.
(...) The Israeli military seems eager to maintain the posture that it is a professional fighting force; in his video statement after the World Central Kitchen attack, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari prefaced his comments by describing the IDF as “a professional military committed to international law.”
In March, Halevi expressed concerns over incidents that, in his view, threatened the chain of command, saying that “we cannot fight when discipline and our principles are not clear and are not followed,” emphasizing the need to “balance between” commanders’ tactical discretion and maintaining the IDF’s hierarchy.
All of this leads to the inevitable question: Is Israel responsible for its military personnel’s atrocities?
Some will argue that it is not and that the atrocities outlined above are the result of a few bad actors and/or mistakes. But states are legally responsible for their soldiers’ action. This stance also suggests that the Israeli government is ineffective at managing troops and by extension the war. It therefore cannot be trusted with U.S. weapons, both because of the risk of Israel’s commission of war crimes and its reckless actions that could further expand the conflict throughout the region, as seen in the April escalation with Iran and the ongoing escalation with Hezbollah.
But if the Israeli government is in complete control of what’s happening—that is, directing or allowing for these atrocities—it is, to an even greater degree, in violation of international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict.
Either way, this presents a problem for U.S. policymakers, who have continued to supply the Israeli military with materiel, making the United States complicit in whatever human rights violations are committed with such weapons and supplies.
If the IDF cannot control its own personnel, how can the American people be expected to continue to fund and arm it?
The fact that the US - whose military I can have many issues with strategically and politically with but it is principally a professional one - have decided to throw its support to what is essentially clown car in uniform akin to their regional neighbours eg the janjaweed... Well.
posted by cendawanita at 7:23 PM on July 7 [14 favorites]
The satellite photos just leaves me angry. I'm not even sad. Not just angry at the state of the land, but the fact they'll just keep creeping in with impunity because technically the only firm internationally recognized borders Israel does have is with Egypt and Syria. Over at the Lebanon side things have continued to deteriorate, eg: (FT) Israel’s push to create a ‘dead zone’ in Lebanon: Most of the destruction has taken place within a 5km corridor just north of the Blue Line, the UN-drawn border between the two countries, according to analysis of satellite imagery, radar data and government statistics, along with interviews with local and state officials, researchers, civil defence workers and residents.
Data gathered by the Financial Times suggests that as diplomatic negotiations sputter, the Israeli military has used force to create a new reality on the ground. Near-daily aerial bombardment, artillery shelling and the incendiary chemical white phosphorus have made much of the 5km north of the Blue Line uninhabitable.
Structural damage, environmental degradation and economic harm have left a strip of land resembling the “buffer zone” that Israel wants to establish in Lebanon. Just handfuls of civilians remain. Most buildings are empty; many have been destroyed.
Attempts to negotiate a deal that would include Hizbollah pulling back from the border have not succeeded. But the area has become a de facto military zone, patrolled by Hizbollah fighters, Lebanese armed forces and UN peacekeepers.
Which provides them somehow criminal levels of diplomatic cover - something I genuinely can't get over especially as Russia is still raging against Ukraine and somehow the West esp US can find moral and political clarity when commenting about that.
---
- Euro-Med: A compound crime: Israeli army hits Gaza family, uses them as human shields, and runs over their mother
Guardian: About 90% of people in Gaza displaced since war began, says UN agency - Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN’s OCHA agency in the Palestinian territories, said on Wednesday that about 1.9 million people are thought to be displaced in Gaza.
“We estimate that nine in every 10 people in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced at least once, if not up to 10 times, unfortunately, since October,” he told reporters.
“Before we were estimating 1.7 (million) but since that number, we had the operation in Rafah, and we had additional displacement from Rafah,” he said, explaining the increase.
“Then we had also operations in the north that [have] also moved people,” he added.
He said such military operations had forced people to reset their lives, over and over again.
NYT: An Israeli air base is a source of GPS ‘spoofing’ attacks, researchers say. -
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have identified an Israeli air base as a key source of GPS attacks that have disrupted civilian airline navigation in the Middle East.
The attacks, known as spoofing, send out manipulated GPS signals that make airplane instruments misread their location.
The researchers, Todd Humphreys and Zach Clements, said they are “highly confident” that the spoofing attacks originated from Ein Shemer Airfield in northern Israel. The Israeli military declined to comment on Tuesday.
The researchers used data that was emitted by the spoofer and picked up by satellites in low-Earth orbit to determine its location. They then confirmed their calculations using data they collected on the ground in Israel.
Spoofing, along with GPS jamming, has sharply risen over the past three years, particularly near war zones in Ukraine and Gaza, where militaries interfere with navigation signals to thwart missile and drone attacks.
The Middle East has emerged as a spoofing hot spot. The University of Texas researchers did not say how many spoofing attacks they had linked to the military base, but a separate analysis estimated that more than 50,000 flights have been spoofed in the region this year.
The attacks have made pilots think that they were above airports in Beirut or Cairo when they were not, according to researchers at SkAI Data Services and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, who analyzed data from the OpenSky Network.
Swiss International Air Lines say their flights are spoofed almost every day over the Middle East.
ToI: Prof. who called ICJ ‘unworthy of any trust’ tapped as Israel’s judge in genocide case - Ron Shapira, who will replace Aharon Barak as Israel’s ad hoc judge, has said The Hague-based court ’embodies and takes to the extreme all the flaws of legal discourse’
Great.
----
In the meantime, these fucks are busy:
MEE: War on Gaza: The far-right activists advocating for Palestinians - Pro-Palestinian activists have been 'alarmed' by the white supremacists and antisemites joining the advocacy against Israel's war on Gaza
Huff Post: Evangelical Christians Are Throwing Their Support Behind Israel. They’re Partly Driven By Antisemitism.
New Humanitarian: Escaping Gaza’s war, Palestinians find little solace in Egypt
---
If only we can just blame Bibi for this - FP: Who’s in Charge of the IDF? - Evidence is growing of a command and control problem. - Israel’s command and control issues are clearest in its alleged war crimes. The purpose of this piece is not to litigate which allegations are true but rather to examine the implications of those war crimes for the Israeli chain of command. Though these categories overlap, Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict in the war may be broadly grouped as follows: starvation, torture, mass executions, and the indiscriminate use of bombs, drones, and missiles.
(...) Israeli military personnel have been and remain engaged in activities that suggest a serious chain of command problem for the IDF. Three factors explain this phenomenon: the existence of a permissive politico-military environment, Israeli military doctrine, and the fact that the IDF is a conscript army.
(...) The Israeli military seems eager to maintain the posture that it is a professional fighting force; in his video statement after the World Central Kitchen attack, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari prefaced his comments by describing the IDF as “a professional military committed to international law.”
In March, Halevi expressed concerns over incidents that, in his view, threatened the chain of command, saying that “we cannot fight when discipline and our principles are not clear and are not followed,” emphasizing the need to “balance between” commanders’ tactical discretion and maintaining the IDF’s hierarchy.
All of this leads to the inevitable question: Is Israel responsible for its military personnel’s atrocities?
Some will argue that it is not and that the atrocities outlined above are the result of a few bad actors and/or mistakes. But states are legally responsible for their soldiers’ action. This stance also suggests that the Israeli government is ineffective at managing troops and by extension the war. It therefore cannot be trusted with U.S. weapons, both because of the risk of Israel’s commission of war crimes and its reckless actions that could further expand the conflict throughout the region, as seen in the April escalation with Iran and the ongoing escalation with Hezbollah.
But if the Israeli government is in complete control of what’s happening—that is, directing or allowing for these atrocities—it is, to an even greater degree, in violation of international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict.
Either way, this presents a problem for U.S. policymakers, who have continued to supply the Israeli military with materiel, making the United States complicit in whatever human rights violations are committed with such weapons and supplies.
If the IDF cannot control its own personnel, how can the American people be expected to continue to fund and arm it?
The fact that the US - whose military I can have many issues with strategically and politically with but it is principally a professional one - have decided to throw its support to what is essentially clown car in uniform akin to their regional neighbours eg the janjaweed... Well.
posted by cendawanita at 7:23 PM on July 7 [14 favorites]
how can the American people be expected to continue to fund and arm it?
Vote suppression's a big part.
posted by stet at 7:59 PM on July 7 [2 favorites]
Vote suppression's a big part.
posted by stet at 7:59 PM on July 7 [2 favorites]
technically the only firm internationally recognized borders Israel does have is with Egypt and Syria.
Self fact check: Egypt and Jordan.
posted by cendawanita at 8:01 PM on July 7 [2 favorites]
Self fact check: Egypt and Jordan.
posted by cendawanita at 8:01 PM on July 7 [2 favorites]
Thank you to cendawanita for the additional links and updates, and apologies for the confusion over the double-posting.
Israeli protesters block highways amid renewed calls for ceasefire with Hamas to return hostages.
Security officials, mediators accuse Netanyahu of intentionally sabotaging ceasefire ahead of delegation's departure to Cairo and Doha.
Gaza soccer stadium is now a shelter for thousands of displaced Palestinians.
Amid the French elections, Mathilde Panot, a LFI MEP elected in Val-de-Marne, announced that “In the next two weeks, we will recognize the State of Palestine,” - I have no idea about the politics in France and how realistic that would actually be.
Zeteo: Mehdi Unfiltered - this episode is worth viewing in its entirety as Mehdi Hasan covers the possibility of a war between Israel and Lebanon/Hezbollah and the repercussions of that, an interview with Rep Greg Casar, on the asylum ban, and also on Rep Jamaal Bowman's primary defeat, and an interview with Dr. Lee Mordechai, a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has become the latest Israeli academic to accuse their own country of genocide.
Also a reminder that it's not just vote suppression is not the only reason for the US foreign policy on Israel: 62 House Democrats voted with Republicans to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry. Anti-Palestinianism is baked into US legislation, and new discriminatory laws are being proposed daily - there are currently 38 states with Anti-BDS laws on the books, anti-terrorism laws were driven by anti-Palestinian agendas, and both parties are working on proposing speech-limiting legislation to tamp down pro-Palestinian activism by calling them "terror-supporting".
Anyway, I also wanted to add a couple of suggestions on ways to help Palestinians in need: Operation Olive Branch, PCRF, Doctors Without Borders, UNRWA, GazaFunds.
If anyone has any suggestions for how to successfully pressure their legislators on Gaza, I'm all ears.
posted by toastyk at 9:58 PM on July 7 [8 favorites]
Israeli protesters block highways amid renewed calls for ceasefire with Hamas to return hostages.
Security officials, mediators accuse Netanyahu of intentionally sabotaging ceasefire ahead of delegation's departure to Cairo and Doha.
Gaza soccer stadium is now a shelter for thousands of displaced Palestinians.
Amid the French elections, Mathilde Panot, a LFI MEP elected in Val-de-Marne, announced that “In the next two weeks, we will recognize the State of Palestine,” - I have no idea about the politics in France and how realistic that would actually be.
Zeteo: Mehdi Unfiltered - this episode is worth viewing in its entirety as Mehdi Hasan covers the possibility of a war between Israel and Lebanon/Hezbollah and the repercussions of that, an interview with Rep Greg Casar, on the asylum ban, and also on Rep Jamaal Bowman's primary defeat, and an interview with Dr. Lee Mordechai, a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has become the latest Israeli academic to accuse their own country of genocide.
Also a reminder that it's not just vote suppression is not the only reason for the US foreign policy on Israel: 62 House Democrats voted with Republicans to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry. Anti-Palestinianism is baked into US legislation, and new discriminatory laws are being proposed daily - there are currently 38 states with Anti-BDS laws on the books, anti-terrorism laws were driven by anti-Palestinian agendas, and both parties are working on proposing speech-limiting legislation to tamp down pro-Palestinian activism by calling them "terror-supporting".
Anyway, I also wanted to add a couple of suggestions on ways to help Palestinians in need: Operation Olive Branch, PCRF, Doctors Without Borders, UNRWA, GazaFunds.
If anyone has any suggestions for how to successfully pressure their legislators on Gaza, I'm all ears.
posted by toastyk at 9:58 PM on July 7 [8 favorites]
If anyone wants to boycott Israeli products, you can use the No Thanks app.
posted by toastyk at 10:01 PM on July 7 [10 favorites]
posted by toastyk at 10:01 PM on July 7 [10 favorites]
criminal levels of diplomatic cover - something I genuinely can't get over especially as Russia is still raging against Ukraine and somehow the West esp US can find moral and political clarity when commenting about that
The truly infuriating part of that commentary is the way every prick who does it in their official capacity insists on making an equivalence between Ukraine and Israel rather than Ukraine and Palestine. The Establishment is totally living in Opposite World, just like it did through the whole "Saddam has thrown the inspectors out of Iraq" Big Lie.
I grew up in the shadow of the Vietnam War so it's not like I haven't seen them do this over and over and over again, but it never ceases to enrage. Mealy-mouthed self-congratulatory self-serving morally vacuous Blairite pricks.
posted by flabdablet at 10:18 PM on July 7 [12 favorites]
The truly infuriating part of that commentary is the way every prick who does it in their official capacity insists on making an equivalence between Ukraine and Israel rather than Ukraine and Palestine. The Establishment is totally living in Opposite World, just like it did through the whole "Saddam has thrown the inspectors out of Iraq" Big Lie.
I grew up in the shadow of the Vietnam War so it's not like I haven't seen them do this over and over and over again, but it never ceases to enrage. Mealy-mouthed self-congratulatory self-serving morally vacuous Blairite pricks.
posted by flabdablet at 10:18 PM on July 7 [12 favorites]
Just cycling through my memories of the last nine months in relation to the Hannibal Directive revelation/confirmation (one that's reported in outlets considered fringe because of their reporting focus, eg writing off Electronic Intifada because they chose the word intifada etc), reminded me of the good-faith (I hope!) explanations as to why the field of burned out cars had to be immediately buried without proper rites because for one country you should always provide as much rope of understanding as you can, while the other nation is almost certainly terrorists and rapists, whose sole desire in life is annihilation.
Anyway.
Guardian live updates:
- Israeli media is reporting that security officials were left “shocked” by Benjamin Netanyahu’s public intervention yesterday into ceasefire negotiations.
Two unnamed officials told Kan “Negotiations should be conducted inside the room, not in announcements to the media. And certainly not just before the start of a meeting that determines the continuation of the negotiations”
Hebrew outlet Ynet reported that a security source described Netanyahu’s actions as “Inappropriate conduct that will harm the chance of returning the abductees home.”
Late on Sunday Netanyahu’s office issued a document entitled Principles for a Hostage Release Deal demanding that “any deal enable Israel to resume its offensive operations until it achieves its war goals”, to “prevent Hamas from smuggling arms from Egypt”, and to prevent “thousands of terrorists from returning to northern Gaza”.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid was deeply critical of Netanyahu’s statement, posting to social media to say “I have one response to the announcement from the prime minister’s Office: what is it good for? We are at a critical moment in the negotiations, the lives of the abductees depend on it, why issue such provocative messages? How does it contribute to the process?”
A senior Israeli delegation has travelled to Egypt to continue talks.
- AFP reports that a senior Hamas official on Monday accused Benjamin Netanyahu of stepping up combat and bombardment in Gaza in order to derail the latest truce effort.
“Whenever a round of negotiations begins and a breakthrough is within reach, he disrupts it all and escalates the aggression and massacres against civilians,” the Hamas official said, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Israeli media has reported that security sources have told it that the Israeli prime minister’s release of a statement on Sunday was “inappropriate conduct that will harm the chance of returning the abductees home”.
- Opposition leader Lapid offers Netanyahu 'political safety net' to make hostage release deal
Israel’s operation leader Yair Lapid has said that he will offer Benjamin Netanyahu a political safety net if he reaches a hostage release deal with Hamas.
Far-right elements in the Netanyahu government have spoken out against such a deal –finance minister Bezalel Smotrich earlier called it a “senseless folly” – leading to fears that the government could collapse if a ceasefire were to be announced.
However Lapid has said that he places the release of the hostages as his highest prioirty, and would offer political support to Netanyahu if that happened.
The Times of Israel quotes Lapid saying:
There’s a hostage deal on the table. It is not true that Netanyahu has to choose between the hostage deal and his continued tenure as prime minister. I promised him a safety net, and I will keep that promise.
This is not an easy statement, and it is not an easy decision. Netanyahu is a bad, failed prime minister, and he is to blame for the 7 October disaster, but the most important thing is to bring the kidnapped people back home.
The announcement that Netanyahu issued yesterday was destructive and harmful … [but the hostage deal] as a large majority here in the Knesset, it has to happen. We are coming back and offering Netanyahu a political safety net to make the deal – now.
Smotrich said earlier today that “This is the time to squeeze the neck until we crush and break the enemy. To stop now, just before the end, and let them recover to fight us again is a senseless folly that will take the achievements of the war bought with much blood down the drain. We must continue until victory.”
Israeli security sources have expressed “shock” that Netanyahu intervened in negotiations by issuing a public statement on Sunday night setting out Israeli pre-conditions, which has been described as hindering talks. A senior Israeli delegation is in Egypt to continue talks.
----
UK moves (Guardian links):
- From this Lammy profile/article: One area he is likely to face immediate pressure for action is on Israel’s war in Gaza. The party’s position cost it several seats, and although the manifesto committed to recognising Palestinian statehood as part of a peace process, it did not include a timeline.
Lammy said he “wanted to go back to a balanced position”, saying he would use all diplomatic efforts to push for a ceasefire. “it is very clear that we want to see a ceasefire and we have been calling for that since the end of last year,” he said. “The fighting has got to stop and the aid has got to get in.”
- Labour expected to drop challenge to ICC over Netanyahu arrest warrant - Exclusive: UK government appears unlikely to go ahead with legal bid, while Keir Starmer has spoken with Israeli PM over Gaza ceasefire
---
+972 (Orly Noy opinion): Only an anti-fascist front can save us from the abyss - Israeli society will emerge from this war more violent, nationalist, and militaristic than ever. The work of curbing its worst impulses must start now.
I have to think it's possible. I mean, even the US officially stopped putting up bounties on Native Americans right? Hmm well, maybe looking at the political histories of various colonial countries might not lend much hope, except maybe throttling the rate of killing (surely liberals can agree to that).
From TFA's opening: “What’s happening to you?” That was the question Yoana Gonen posed, in her recent column for Haaretz, to the so-called “leftists” vowing to vote for Israel’s right-wing former prime minister, Naftali Bennett. The fact that such a trend exists is bewildering, but the answer to Gonen’s question is clear. What is happening to these “leftists” is the same thing that’s happening to all of Israeli society: a profound and accelerating slide toward fascism.
Maybe I should've instead casted my historical eye to 2001.
posted by cendawanita at 6:00 AM on July 8 [12 favorites]
Anyway.
Guardian live updates:
- Israeli media is reporting that security officials were left “shocked” by Benjamin Netanyahu’s public intervention yesterday into ceasefire negotiations.
Two unnamed officials told Kan “Negotiations should be conducted inside the room, not in announcements to the media. And certainly not just before the start of a meeting that determines the continuation of the negotiations”
Hebrew outlet Ynet reported that a security source described Netanyahu’s actions as “Inappropriate conduct that will harm the chance of returning the abductees home.”
Late on Sunday Netanyahu’s office issued a document entitled Principles for a Hostage Release Deal demanding that “any deal enable Israel to resume its offensive operations until it achieves its war goals”, to “prevent Hamas from smuggling arms from Egypt”, and to prevent “thousands of terrorists from returning to northern Gaza”.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid was deeply critical of Netanyahu’s statement, posting to social media to say “I have one response to the announcement from the prime minister’s Office: what is it good for? We are at a critical moment in the negotiations, the lives of the abductees depend on it, why issue such provocative messages? How does it contribute to the process?”
A senior Israeli delegation has travelled to Egypt to continue talks.
- AFP reports that a senior Hamas official on Monday accused Benjamin Netanyahu of stepping up combat and bombardment in Gaza in order to derail the latest truce effort.
“Whenever a round of negotiations begins and a breakthrough is within reach, he disrupts it all and escalates the aggression and massacres against civilians,” the Hamas official said, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Israeli media has reported that security sources have told it that the Israeli prime minister’s release of a statement on Sunday was “inappropriate conduct that will harm the chance of returning the abductees home”.
- Opposition leader Lapid offers Netanyahu 'political safety net' to make hostage release deal
Israel’s operation leader Yair Lapid has said that he will offer Benjamin Netanyahu a political safety net if he reaches a hostage release deal with Hamas.
Far-right elements in the Netanyahu government have spoken out against such a deal –finance minister Bezalel Smotrich earlier called it a “senseless folly” – leading to fears that the government could collapse if a ceasefire were to be announced.
However Lapid has said that he places the release of the hostages as his highest prioirty, and would offer political support to Netanyahu if that happened.
The Times of Israel quotes Lapid saying:
There’s a hostage deal on the table. It is not true that Netanyahu has to choose between the hostage deal and his continued tenure as prime minister. I promised him a safety net, and I will keep that promise.
This is not an easy statement, and it is not an easy decision. Netanyahu is a bad, failed prime minister, and he is to blame for the 7 October disaster, but the most important thing is to bring the kidnapped people back home.
The announcement that Netanyahu issued yesterday was destructive and harmful … [but the hostage deal] as a large majority here in the Knesset, it has to happen. We are coming back and offering Netanyahu a political safety net to make the deal – now.
Smotrich said earlier today that “This is the time to squeeze the neck until we crush and break the enemy. To stop now, just before the end, and let them recover to fight us again is a senseless folly that will take the achievements of the war bought with much blood down the drain. We must continue until victory.”
Israeli security sources have expressed “shock” that Netanyahu intervened in negotiations by issuing a public statement on Sunday night setting out Israeli pre-conditions, which has been described as hindering talks. A senior Israeli delegation is in Egypt to continue talks.
----
UK moves (Guardian links):
- From this Lammy profile/article: One area he is likely to face immediate pressure for action is on Israel’s war in Gaza. The party’s position cost it several seats, and although the manifesto committed to recognising Palestinian statehood as part of a peace process, it did not include a timeline.
Lammy said he “wanted to go back to a balanced position”, saying he would use all diplomatic efforts to push for a ceasefire. “it is very clear that we want to see a ceasefire and we have been calling for that since the end of last year,” he said. “The fighting has got to stop and the aid has got to get in.”
- Labour expected to drop challenge to ICC over Netanyahu arrest warrant - Exclusive: UK government appears unlikely to go ahead with legal bid, while Keir Starmer has spoken with Israeli PM over Gaza ceasefire
---
+972 (Orly Noy opinion): Only an anti-fascist front can save us from the abyss - Israeli society will emerge from this war more violent, nationalist, and militaristic than ever. The work of curbing its worst impulses must start now.
I have to think it's possible. I mean, even the US officially stopped putting up bounties on Native Americans right? Hmm well, maybe looking at the political histories of various colonial countries might not lend much hope, except maybe throttling the rate of killing (surely liberals can agree to that).
From TFA's opening: “What’s happening to you?” That was the question Yoana Gonen posed, in her recent column for Haaretz, to the so-called “leftists” vowing to vote for Israel’s right-wing former prime minister, Naftali Bennett. The fact that such a trend exists is bewildering, but the answer to Gonen’s question is clear. What is happening to these “leftists” is the same thing that’s happening to all of Israeli society: a profound and accelerating slide toward fascism.
Maybe I should've instead casted my historical eye to 2001.
posted by cendawanita at 6:00 AM on July 8 [12 favorites]
I honestly don’t know why anyone would be “shocked” by Netanyahu’s actions, any more than people are “shocked” by Trump’s words and actions, or Biden’s intransigence. Feels like a never ending version of that Office meme with Pam saying “It’s the same picture”.
Thousands of Palestinians flee amid heavy Israeli attack in Gaza City.
posted by toastyk at 7:40 AM on July 8 [3 favorites]
Thousands of Palestinians flee amid heavy Israeli attack in Gaza City.
posted by toastyk at 7:40 AM on July 8 [3 favorites]
Verified document from Israeli Ministry of Intelligence in October 2023 suggests forced displacement of Gaza civilians to Egypt would "yield positive and long term strategic results".
posted by jeffburdges at 2:36 PM on July 8 [3 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 2:36 PM on July 8 [3 favorites]
In more optimistic news 6000 Palestinians and Israelis participated in a “Peace Conference” on July 1st in Tel Aviv with hopes of inspiring a new peace process and a turn towards nonviolence. The conference was organized by Abu Aziz Sarah, a Palestinian and Maoz Inon and Israeli.
A Reddit post has collected a number of links to Instragram posts from the event.
posted by interogative mood at 4:56 PM on July 8 [4 favorites]
A Reddit post has collected a number of links to Instragram posts from the event.
posted by interogative mood at 4:56 PM on July 8 [4 favorites]
Late on Sunday Netanyahu’s office issued a document entitled Principles for a Hostage Release Deal demanding that “any deal enable Israel to resume its offensive operations until it achieves its war goals”, to “prevent Hamas from smuggling arms from Egypt”, and to prevent “thousands of terrorists from returning to northern Gaza”.
So as those of us with a fucking clue have been saying since October, what Israel actually wants is to redefine "ceasefire" to mean "you cease firing but we keep firing".
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:32 PM on July 8 [7 favorites]
So as those of us with a fucking clue have been saying since October, what Israel actually wants is to redefine "ceasefire" to mean "you cease firing but we keep firing".
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:32 PM on July 8 [7 favorites]
Apparently Biden had very strong words after Russia struck a Ukrainian children's hospital - calling it a "horrific reminder of Russia's brutality". Makes for quite a contrast with the silence he has on Israel's brutality, as illustrated by this 972 article, where every paragraph is worse than the preceding one: Israeli soldiers describe the near-total absence of firing regulations in the Gaza war, with troops shooting as they please, setting homes ablaze, and leaving corpses on the streets — all with their commanders’ permission.
posted by toastyk at 9:31 PM on July 8 [8 favorites]
posted by toastyk at 9:31 PM on July 8 [8 favorites]
So as those of us with a fucking clue have been saying since October, what Israel actually wants is to redefine "ceasefire" to mean "you cease firing but we keep firing".
If Israel stops firing Netanyahu loses the premiership and he'll be prosecuted. That's basically this conflict in a nutshell. The far right of the war cabinet are happily putting the pedal to the metal, a lot of the IDF are happy to be complicit, but Netanyahu is the lynchpin keeping it all together.
My pragmatic side is with Lapin. At this point it just wants someone to offer the fucker one of those old school deals where a disgraced statesman receives immunity and a modest pension in exchange for exile and silence so he'll just fuck off somewhere and never be seen or heard from in politics or the world stage ever again.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:51 AM on July 9 [2 favorites]
If Israel stops firing Netanyahu loses the premiership and he'll be prosecuted. That's basically this conflict in a nutshell. The far right of the war cabinet are happily putting the pedal to the metal, a lot of the IDF are happy to be complicit, but Netanyahu is the lynchpin keeping it all together.
My pragmatic side is with Lapin. At this point it just wants someone to offer the fucker one of those old school deals where a disgraced statesman receives immunity and a modest pension in exchange for exile and silence so he'll just fuck off somewhere and never be seen or heard from in politics or the world stage ever again.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:51 AM on July 9 [2 favorites]
How Israel's War Against Hamas Turned Into a Springboard for Jewish Settlement in Gaza
Interactive Ha'aretz visualization of changes to the Gaza strip made by Israel, including the Netzarim corridor, which now cuts Gaza in half and from which Palestinians are banned.
posted by mediareport at 7:10 AM on July 9 [4 favorites]
Interactive Ha'aretz visualization of changes to the Gaza strip made by Israel, including the Netzarim corridor, which now cuts Gaza in half and from which Palestinians are banned.
posted by mediareport at 7:10 AM on July 9 [4 favorites]
On the speech angle, Meta has updated their policy on the use of the word "Zionist": Going forward, we will remove content attacking “Zionists” when it is not explicitly about the political movement, but instead uses antisemitic stereotypes, or threatens other types of harm through intimidation, or violence directed against Jews or Israelis under the guise of attacking Zionists, including:
Claims about running the world or controlling the media;
Dehumanizing comparisons, such as comparisons to pigs, filth, or vermin;
Calls for physical harm;
Denials of existence;
Mocking for having a disease.
Internal memo reveals that the ADL has been surveilling a black organizer who opposed links between US police and Israeli military: The memo shows the ADL collected information on a Black Indianapolis activist, Tatjana Rebelle, who worked on Deadly Exchange, a national campaign against an ADL-backed program to send US police officials for training with the Israeli military.
There is a campaign for progressives to #droptheADL.
NYT gift: Now, a prominent Wall Street law firm is taking a more direct approach with protesters. Sullivan & Cromwell, a 145-year-old firm that has counted Goldman Sachs and Amazon among its clients, says that, for job applicants, participation in a protest — on campus or off — could be a disqualifying factor.
The firm is scrutinizing students’ behavior with the help of a background check company, looking at their involvement with pro-Palestinian student groups, scouring social media and reviewing news reports and footage from protests. It is looking for explicit instances of antisemitism as well as statements and slogans it has deemed to be “triggering” to Jews, said Joseph C. Shenker, a leader of Sullivan & Cromwell.
posted by toastyk at 10:52 AM on July 9 [4 favorites]
Claims about running the world or controlling the media;
Dehumanizing comparisons, such as comparisons to pigs, filth, or vermin;
Calls for physical harm;
Denials of existence;
Mocking for having a disease.
Internal memo reveals that the ADL has been surveilling a black organizer who opposed links between US police and Israeli military: The memo shows the ADL collected information on a Black Indianapolis activist, Tatjana Rebelle, who worked on Deadly Exchange, a national campaign against an ADL-backed program to send US police officials for training with the Israeli military.
There is a campaign for progressives to #droptheADL.
NYT gift: Now, a prominent Wall Street law firm is taking a more direct approach with protesters. Sullivan & Cromwell, a 145-year-old firm that has counted Goldman Sachs and Amazon among its clients, says that, for job applicants, participation in a protest — on campus or off — could be a disqualifying factor.
The firm is scrutinizing students’ behavior with the help of a background check company, looking at their involvement with pro-Palestinian student groups, scouring social media and reviewing news reports and footage from protests. It is looking for explicit instances of antisemitism as well as statements and slogans it has deemed to be “triggering” to Jews, said Joseph C. Shenker, a leader of Sullivan & Cromwell.
posted by toastyk at 10:52 AM on July 9 [4 favorites]
In 2017 Belazel Smotrich, currently Finance Minister in the Israeli Government, published Israel's Decisive Plan, which has many similarities with the current actions of the Israeli government. The idea is to intensify the programme of making Palestinians' lives as awful as possible, because the genocide was taking too long under the usual relentless brutality and oppression. It's sociopaths all the way down.
As jeffburges notes, this stuff is out in the open.
All of the scholarship on genocide seems to have been treated as a manual, rather than a warning.
In his introduction, Ben Kiernan states the four major themes of his book, the prominence in genocidal ideology of:
cults of antiquity
a fetish for agriculture
ethnic enmity
imperial and territorial conquests
When scholars point out what they are seeing (under oath in court), they are accused of anti Semitism, which serves to make the world less safe for Jewish people in the mis-use of the term.
Secular Israeli Jews were leaving, or considering leaving Israel, with 28% of those polled saying they were thinking about leaving in July 2023, and potentially hundreds of thousands having left in the past 8 months, reports vary. Former PM Naftali Bennett has been urging people not to leave the country.
Attempting to destroy the Palestinians does not seem like a long term plan for success for Israel.
posted by asok at 4:10 PM on July 9 [8 favorites]
As jeffburges notes, this stuff is out in the open.
All of the scholarship on genocide seems to have been treated as a manual, rather than a warning.
In his introduction, Ben Kiernan states the four major themes of his book, the prominence in genocidal ideology of:
cults of antiquity
a fetish for agriculture
ethnic enmity
imperial and territorial conquests
When scholars point out what they are seeing (under oath in court), they are accused of anti Semitism, which serves to make the world less safe for Jewish people in the mis-use of the term.
Secular Israeli Jews were leaving, or considering leaving Israel, with 28% of those polled saying they were thinking about leaving in July 2023, and potentially hundreds of thousands having left in the past 8 months, reports vary. Former PM Naftali Bennett has been urging people not to leave the country.
Attempting to destroy the Palestinians does not seem like a long term plan for success for Israel.
posted by asok at 4:10 PM on July 9 [8 favorites]
Israel military tells Gaza City residents to leave
I've got nothing helpful to say except flashbacks... Flashbacks to being told to leave the only f**king home I had (i.e. become homeless) because in this country exists such EuroTrash who *need* caste-based practices because they *need* a comfortable place to drink while they drink-to-black-out-drunk in order to cope with their memories of growing up molested by elders who thrived under religiously-enshrined sexually abuse. Or in other words, flashbacks to the domestic situation as it parallels the (wyt-)man-made artificially-generated situations abroad. I'll still make these comments though, for the benefit of those who also live/survive/maybe-even-thrive in awareness of the West's domestic, er, shortcomings, if you will. The more we can begin to connect the dots, the better off we'll be as a species, and who knows -- maybe we'll even live to see our children thank us for putting in the work to do it and get it done. You know, instead of just... drinking while pretending the behavior has nothing to do with enhancing our species' capacity for raping and abusing its offspring.
I will say this in regular font though: Of course it has to go this way because Hamas appears to have recently demonstrated reasonability in its negotiating for a permanent ceasefire, and because that has proven enough for the mask to slip, Palestinians must absolutely be collectively punished for this. Which is what it sure appears to have been about, all along... having a scapegoat population on which to continuously outsource and satiate the attachment angst... while also claiming to be *so* sacred that one is also in need of absolute protection and immunity from any consequences from one's said Divine Actions here on Earth, but I digress...
Israeli military orders the evacuation of Gaza City, an early target of its war with Hamas
Right on, Canada is keeping up! Even though...
Downtown McGill University closed as pro-Palestinian encampment is dismantled
"The encampment is the site of profound health and safety risks that continue to grow in scope and severity," the university writes in a statement.
Yes, yes... the profound health and safety risks to the insulated* sense of comfort and security required to sustain one's propped-up ego, that is. If we acknowledge that what we do to children in this species is wrong, then we -- here in the West, the most spoiled of the spoiled Nations riding the crest of some 500 years of capitalist gain -- might have to feel bad/"bad" 🎻
*insulated as in these Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflicts are a potent excuse to justify intensified self-rewarding indulgence by the upper-caste living in our species' most privileged Nations. For instance, why?! --why do we need to pay this kind of rent!?!? Are these people ending World Hunger? Implementing World Peace? How's about them Curing Cancers? Nope because that would mean changing the way we relate to each other within this species, and that's no way to keep the West's pedophile and sex offender populationS amply fed.
All of the scholarship on genocide seems to have been treated as a manual, rather than a warning
Fwiw I think Harry Harlow would strongly agree, whose work appears to have been the de facto manual for the construction of child welfare systems throughout North America, rather than the sound post-WWII warning on the state of the domestic home as it was intended to be.
posted by human ecologist at 10:43 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]
I've got nothing helpful to say except flashbacks... Flashbacks to being told to leave the only f**king home I had (i.e. become homeless) because in this country exists such EuroTrash who *need* caste-based practices because they *need* a comfortable place to drink while they drink-to-black-out-drunk in order to cope with their memories of growing up molested by elders who thrived under religiously-enshrined sexually abuse. Or in other words, flashbacks to the domestic situation as it parallels the (wyt-)man-made artificially-generated situations abroad. I'll still make these comments though, for the benefit of those who also live/survive/maybe-even-thrive in awareness of the West's domestic, er, shortcomings, if you will. The more we can begin to connect the dots, the better off we'll be as a species, and who knows -- maybe we'll even live to see our children thank us for putting in the work to do it and get it done. You know, instead of just... drinking while pretending the behavior has nothing to do with enhancing our species' capacity for raping and abusing its offspring.
I will say this in regular font though: Of course it has to go this way because Hamas appears to have recently demonstrated reasonability in its negotiating for a permanent ceasefire, and because that has proven enough for the mask to slip, Palestinians must absolutely be collectively punished for this. Which is what it sure appears to have been about, all along... having a scapegoat population on which to continuously outsource and satiate the attachment angst... while also claiming to be *so* sacred that one is also in need of absolute protection and immunity from any consequences from one's said Divine Actions here on Earth, but I digress...
Israeli military orders the evacuation of Gaza City, an early target of its war with Hamas
Right on, Canada is keeping up! Even though...
Downtown McGill University closed as pro-Palestinian encampment is dismantled
"The encampment is the site of profound health and safety risks that continue to grow in scope and severity," the university writes in a statement.
Yes, yes... the profound health and safety risks to the insulated* sense of comfort and security required to sustain one's propped-up ego, that is. If we acknowledge that what we do to children in this species is wrong, then we -- here in the West, the most spoiled of the spoiled Nations riding the crest of some 500 years of capitalist gain -- might have to feel bad/"bad" 🎻
*insulated as in these Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflicts are a potent excuse to justify intensified self-rewarding indulgence by the upper-caste living in our species' most privileged Nations. For instance, why?! --why do we need to pay this kind of rent!?!? Are these people ending World Hunger? Implementing World Peace? How's about them Curing Cancers? Nope because that would mean changing the way we relate to each other within this species, and that's no way to keep the West's pedophile and sex offender populationS amply fed.
All of the scholarship on genocide seems to have been treated as a manual, rather than a warning
Fwiw I think Harry Harlow would strongly agree, whose work appears to have been the de facto manual for the construction of child welfare systems throughout North America, rather than the sound post-WWII warning on the state of the domestic home as it was intended to be.
posted by human ecologist at 10:43 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]
War crimes that've pushed the newsy richter scale needle in the last 36 hours:
- PBS: Israeli strikes kill 20 in central Gaza, flatten large parts of Gaza City
Israeli airstrikes early Wednesday killed 20 Palestinians in central Gaza, including six children and three women, some of them inside a purported “safe zone” declared by the Israeli military, hospital authorities said.
This second straight night of deadly strikes in the central town of Deir al-Balah and nearby refugee camps came as U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators as well as Israeli officials came together in the Qatari capital, Doha, for talks trying to push through a long-elusive deal for a cease-fire and hostage release.
(...) The overnight bombardment came hours after Israeli warplanes struck the entrance of a school sheltering displaced families outside the southern city of Khan Younis. The toll from the strike rose to 31 people killed, including eight children, and more than 50 wounded, officials at the nearby Nasser Hospital said Wednesday.
Footage aired by Al-Jazeera television showed kids playing soccer in the school’s yard when a sudden boom shook the area, prompting shouts of “a strike, a strike!”
The Israeli army said the airstrike near the school and reports of civilian casualties were under review, and claimed it was targeting a Hamas militant who took part in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, though it provided no immediate evidence. The military blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, urban areas. But the army rarely comments on what it is targeting in individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
Per Guardian: A game of football, a boom, then scattered bodies: video shows moment of Israeli strike on Gaza school
Per Juan Cole: The Great Soccer Massacre: Israeli Air Force Kills 29 Refugees as it tries to get at one Militant
+972: Israel ordered thousands to ‘safe’ areas in Gaza City — then bombed them - After fleeing west at the Israeli army’s instruction, Palestinians quickly found themselves encircled and under fire from tanks, drones, and snipers.
----
In 'slow dedicated journalism takes time which we are having very little of' stuff:
- Guardian reports on the Haaretz reporting about the Hannibal Directive and adds:
The Haaretz investigation is the latest reporting by Israeli media shedding light on failures in military intelligence and operational responses around the Hamas offensive, the deadliest single attack on Israeli soil since the founding of the state in 1948.
Israel’s ensuing campaign in Gaza has still to achieve several of its stated objectives, leading to fears the conflict is on the brink of morphing into sustained insurgency-style warfare. More than 38,000 people have been killed by Israeli operations in the Palestinian territory, according to the local health ministry, and almost all of the 2.3 million population have been displaced from their homes in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Allegations first surfaced in January that the IDF may have used the Hannibal protocol to prevent Hamas fighters from returning to Gaza with hostages. While the directive has only ever been used in relation to soldiers, a high-profile incident at the Be’eri kibbutz, in which a brigadier general ordered a tank to fire shells at a house with Hamas militants and 14 Israelis inside, killing 13 of the hostages, has raised questions about operational procedures causing civilian casualties.
The Israeli military probably killed more than a dozen of its own citizens during the 7 October attack, a UN investigation found last month.
Also on Sunday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that a sophisticated early-warning system on the Gaza border developed by Unit 8200, part of the IDF’s military intelligence directorate, had not been properly maintained and was known to frequently malfunction. A dossier presented by Unit 8200 officers before 7 October detailed Hamas’s elaborate invasion plans, including raids on Israeli towns and military posts, hostage scenarios and potential outcomes, the report said.
- Splinter's reporting of the Lancet numbers and contextualizing it with that +972 report of IDF soldiers just shooting people with no repercussions: Israel Has Killed 186,000 Gazans According to a “Conservative Estimate”
- speaking of the report (that's been shared upthread anyway), I want to surface a couple of sections:
The testimonies paint a picture of a landscape littered with civilian corpses, which are left to rot or be eaten by stray animals; the army only hides them from view ahead of the arrival of international aid convoys, so that “images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out.” Two of the soldiers also testified to a systematic policy of setting Palestinian homes on fire after occupying them.
(...) Only one of the soldiers interviewed for this investigation was willing to be identified by name: Yuval Green, a 26-year-old reservist from Jerusalem who served in the 55th Paratroopers Brigade in November and December last year (Green recently signed a letter by 41 reservists declaring their refusal to continue serving in Gaza, following the army’s invasion of Rafah). “There were no restrictions on ammunition,” Green told +972 and Local Call. “People were shooting just to relieve the boredom.”
Green described an incident that occurred one night during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah in December, when “the whole battalion opened fire together like fireworks, including tracer ammunition [which generates a bright light]. It made a crazy color, illuminating the sky, and because [Hannukah] is the ‘festival of lights,’ it became symbolic.”
(...)For Green, the rules of engagement also demonstrated a deep indifference to the fate of the hostages. “They told me about a practice of blowing up tunnels, and I thought to myself that if there were hostages [in them], it would kill them.” After Israeli soldiers in Shuja’iyya killed three hostages waving white flags in December, thinking they were Palestinians, Green said he was angry, but was told “there’s nothing we can do.” “[The commanders] sharpened procedures, saying ‘You have to pay attention and be sensitive, but we are in a combat zone, and we have to be alert.’”
B. confirmed that even after the mishap in Shuja’iyya, which was said to be “contrary to the orders” of the military, the open-fire regulations did not change. “As for the hostages, we didn’t have a specific directive,” he recalled. “[The army’s top brass] said that after the shooting of the hostages, they briefed [soldiers in the field]. [But] they didn’t talk to us.” He and the soldiers who were with him heard about the shooting of the hostages only two and a half weeks after the incident, after they left Gaza.
“I’ve heard statements [from other soldiers] that the hostages are dead, they don’t stand a chance, they have to be abandoned,” Green noted. “[This] bothered me the most … that they kept saying, ‘We’re here for the hostages,’ but it is clear that the war harms the hostages. That was my thought then; today it turned out to be true.”
Why these quotes? Well:
- couple of days back, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim announced they've started Drop Site News (having left The Intercept). One of the first pieces: On the Record with Hamas - In a Drop Site News exclusive, Hamas officials discuss their motivations, political objectives, and the human costs of their armed uprising against Israel
A more recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, whose findings were released in mid-June, found that two-thirds of the Gaza population continued to express support for the October 7 attack on Israel, with more than 80 percent asserting that it put Palestine at the center of global attention. More than half of Gaza residents polled indicated that they hoped Hamas would return to power after the war. “They lost confidence in peace with Israel. People believe that the only way is now to fight against Israel, to struggle against Israel,” said Ghazi Hamad, the former Hamas deputy foreign minister and a longstanding member of its political bureau, in an interview. “We put the Palestinian cause on the table. I think that we have a new page of history.”
On a tactical level, the October 7 operations exceeded Hamas’s projections. “It was very surprising for us how speedy one of the strongest brigades in the Israel Army—the Gaza brigade is one of the strongest, most sophisticated groups of their army—to collapse within hours without any serious resistance, and that even the state as a whole, for hours and maybe days, continued to be paralyzed, were not able to respond in the proper professional way,” said Naim, the Hamas political bureau member.
(...) Rabbani said that it is undeniable that Hamas killed civilians during the October 7 attacks and expressed serious doubts about the group’s official position that Al Aqsa Flood was focused solely on targeting the Israeli military. “Hamas has a history of this—its suicide bombings against civilian buses and restaurants and so on during the Second Intifada,” he said. Rabbani recalls reading accounts of the October 7 attacks and watching videos from that day of Israeli civilians being killed or captured. “My initial view was that these were probably people who had been suffering in Gaza their whole lives, didn't expect to go back alive, and wanted to go out with a bang. I'm sure that's the explanation for some of these cases,” he said.
“But I also wonder to what extent it was premeditated. I'd be very interested to learn to what extent Hamas intended to inflict a terribly traumatic blow on Israeli society, and not only the Israeli military,” he added. “There is evidence to support it. There is also evidence to contradict it. But I think it's a question worth examining in more detail.”
The discourse surrounding the killing of Israeli civilians on October 7 has been a central element in shaping public opinion on the war. “So much of the rage in Israel is a function of this very high toll of civilian death,” said Khalidi. “War leads to civilian deaths, but this was far beyond what could or should have been acceptable under any circumstances, and that is also on the planners of this operation. I think that's a hard thing to say, but I think it's something that should be said.”
Eventually, under both domestic and international pressure, Netanyahu agreed to a limited exchange deal. During a brief truce last November, Hamas released 105 civilian hostages to Israel in return for 240 Palestinians—mostly women and children—held captive by Israel. “[Hamas] made a quick deal with the Israelis,” said Baskin. “It was three prisoners for every hostage. I think that was an amazingly low price.”
Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas official who worked with Sinwar, was emphatic that Hamas did not intend to take Israeli civilians hostage. “What we planned was just for military purposes, just to destroy this part of the Israeli army who controls the situation in Gaza and to take some hostages from the military—soldiers—in order to make a kind of exchange,” he said. “I don't deny that there were some mistakes done by some people, but I am talking about the decision of Hamas, the policy of Hamas.”
Baskin told me it was immediately clear that Hamas did not prepare for holding so many civilians and was caught off guard when other Palestinian groups and individuals who flooded into Israel that day took large numbers of hostages, including senior citizens and children. “They ended up simply taking people back into Gaza without thinking about the logistics, about what price they wanted for them,” Baskin said. “From day four of the war, I was talking to Hamas already about a deal for the women, the children, the elderly, and the wounded, which I thought was the low hanging fruit, because Hamas would not have been set up to deal with them. They wanted to get rid of them.”
Israel has used the civilian hostages as the primary justification for their continued siege. Hamad confirmed that negotiations began almost immediately after the October 7 attacks. He told me that “from the first week, we talked to some people, some mediators, that we want to return the civilians, but Israel refused.”
Bold claim. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough--
--Oh wait. Today's Haaretz: How Netanyahu Has Systematically Foiled Talks to Release Hostages From Hamas Captivity
The past six months, during which Israel negotiated a framework for the release of Israeli hostages being held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip – were riddled with hopeful moments that shattered one after the other. While Hamas impeded the talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly torpedoed their progress – particularly when it came to decisive moments.
Netanyahu believes that an agreement on a hostage deal will most likely lead to his government's collapse – which he seeks to avoid at all costs. Defense officials who spoke with Haaretz said that in his attempt to derail negotiations, Netanyahu relied on classified intelligence and manipulated the sensitive information. This is how Netanyahu systematically foiled the negotiations to free the hostages.
January: On January 28, Israel's Mossad head met the mediators in Paris for the first time, and the progress achieved was described as significant. Yet upon Barnea's return to Israel, Netanyahu published a series of five press releases, in which he emphasized the gaps that remain between the sides. Defense officials who spoke to Haaretz claimed that Netanyahu used information that was brought up in private security talks and left the door open to derail the deal.
Netanyahu said, among other statements, that "the reports about the deal are untrue and include conditions that Israel finds unacceptable. We press on until the total victory." In a speech at the pre-army Bnei David preparatory program in the West Bank settlement of Eli, Netanyahu also said: "I hear talks about all kinds of deals, so I want to clarify: We won't withdraw the Israel Defense Forces from the Gaza Strip and won't release thousands of terrorists. None of that will happen."
February: On February 6, Hamas releases a written statement in which it wrote it "treated the framework positively." Netanyahu responds immediately, releasing a statement by "a senior Israeli official" saying that "Hamas' answer to the hostage deal is actually negative" and adding that Israel has no intention in stopping the war. On that same week, according to Israel's Channel 13, Netanyahu instructed Likud ministers to attack the deal that was taking shape.
April: In an interview to investigative TV program 'Uvda,' a senior member of the Israeli negotiating team says Netanyahu bypasses the war cabinet after it approves the mandate to the teams, and prevents them from carrying out their assignments.
"I can't say that without Netanyahu there would be no deal," said the official, presented as D. "I can say that the probability of a deal would be higher." D. continued: "Since December, definitely since January, it's clear to everyone that we're not conducting negotiations. It happens again and again: You get a mandate during the day, then the prime minister makes phone calls at night, instructs 'don't say that' and 'I'm not approving this,' thus bypassing both the team leaders and the war cabinet."
April: A sensitive decision is made at a war cabinet meeting – what would be the minimal number of hostages that Israel would find acceptable as part of an interim deal. The number is classified as top secret, as Hamas would cling to the smallest number of hostages rather than a larger group. Given that the cabinet is united in its position to agree to the deal, Netanyahu is forced to allow the negotiating team to press on. That same day, Netanyahu meets with Minister Bezalel Smotrich and shares the sensitive number with him. Smotrich, who was not a member of the limited war cabinet, leaks it inaccurately to ministers and to the media.
May: In early May, Israeli intelligence estimated that Hamas' response to the deal that's on the table will be positive. During a war cabinet meeting on May 2, Netanyahu surprises attendees by suggesting the IDF be ordered immediately to enter Rafah. All participants of the meeting oppose the idea, arguing that it would immediately derail the deal. The proposition does not pass.
On Saturday, May 4, Netanyahu releases a statement claiming – on behalf of a "senior diplomatic official" – that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to end the war as part of a deal involving the release of hostages." The statement added: "The IDF will enter Rafah and destroy the Hamas battalions remaining there, whether there is a temporary truce for releasing the hostages or not."
War cabinet members believe this statement was one of the reasons for the failure of the talks. Meanwhile, Netanyahu forbids the Israeli delegation from traveling to Cairo for another round of talks, without updating the war cabinet. The following day, at the weekly government meeting, Netanyahu brings to a vote the law shutting down the operations of Qatari television station Al Jazeera in Israel, despite the sensitive moment in the Qatari-led negotiations.
June: Netanyahu arrives at a classified discussion at the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, after which he leaks his own comments at the meeting: That he does not agree to end the war as part of the framework presented by President Biden. War cabinet members are furious with Netanyahu for foiling the talks that just renewed after a long impasse.
July: Israel sees positive developments towards a deal with Hamas, but given the sensitivity, only Netanyahu and the negotiating team are made aware of this. Though cabinet members were not briefed, Minister Smotrich says in a speech that he "wouldn't be surprised if Sinwar suddenly replies positively to the offer he received, because he is panicking and understands that we are close to victory."
Senior defense officials subsequently accused Netanyahu of sharing classified information with Smotrich. The Finance Minister, on his part, denied he was briefed, saying that he simply "read a simple map which combines reports in foreign media and the progress in military pressure." Contrary to his statements, the foreign media carried no reports on the deal in those days.
July: Israel receives Hamas' comments to the framework presented by Biden, and the negotiating teams describes them as "the best answer received" since negotiations began. But even before Hamas' response is made public, Netanyahu's office releases a statement attributed to a "senior security official" saying that "Hamas is still insisting on a fundamental clause in the framework. There are more gaps that haven't been closed. Israel will continue the negotiations while continuing the military pressure." This message contradicts the position held by Israel's negotiating team – the professional authority on the matter.
---
Bibi's role here is clear. Here's my only question, which has been my only question/commentary of the last nine months: what possessed the rest of the country especially its military then? Or those outside the country, carrying water for this pack of liars and murderers? Actual relatives and friends in our lives died for their lies.
---
In 'aiding and abetting' news:
- Adam Johnson: The Biden Administration’s Fake “Ceasefire” Gambit Seems To Have Mostly Worked
No longer are the daily horrors coming out of Gaza seen as the fault of the President. Instead, they are something more abstract—and authorless.
- Guardian: US ‘pressuring UK to block ICC’s Netanyahu arrest warrant’ - Human rights barrister says US expects Labour government to continue UK challenge to proposed action against Israeli PM
-WaPo: U.S. to again ship 500-pound bombs to Israel, reversing suspension - The Biden administration will resume sending large bombs to Israel that had been held up since May amid concerns about the Rafah invasion. But 2,000-pound bombs are still under review.
posted by cendawanita at 3:14 AM on July 11 [8 favorites]
- PBS: Israeli strikes kill 20 in central Gaza, flatten large parts of Gaza City
Israeli airstrikes early Wednesday killed 20 Palestinians in central Gaza, including six children and three women, some of them inside a purported “safe zone” declared by the Israeli military, hospital authorities said.
This second straight night of deadly strikes in the central town of Deir al-Balah and nearby refugee camps came as U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators as well as Israeli officials came together in the Qatari capital, Doha, for talks trying to push through a long-elusive deal for a cease-fire and hostage release.
(...) The overnight bombardment came hours after Israeli warplanes struck the entrance of a school sheltering displaced families outside the southern city of Khan Younis. The toll from the strike rose to 31 people killed, including eight children, and more than 50 wounded, officials at the nearby Nasser Hospital said Wednesday.
Footage aired by Al-Jazeera television showed kids playing soccer in the school’s yard when a sudden boom shook the area, prompting shouts of “a strike, a strike!”
The Israeli army said the airstrike near the school and reports of civilian casualties were under review, and claimed it was targeting a Hamas militant who took part in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, though it provided no immediate evidence. The military blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, urban areas. But the army rarely comments on what it is targeting in individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
Per Guardian: A game of football, a boom, then scattered bodies: video shows moment of Israeli strike on Gaza school
Per Juan Cole: The Great Soccer Massacre: Israeli Air Force Kills 29 Refugees as it tries to get at one Militant
+972: Israel ordered thousands to ‘safe’ areas in Gaza City — then bombed them - After fleeing west at the Israeli army’s instruction, Palestinians quickly found themselves encircled and under fire from tanks, drones, and snipers.
----
In 'slow dedicated journalism takes time which we are having very little of' stuff:
- Guardian reports on the Haaretz reporting about the Hannibal Directive and adds:
The Haaretz investigation is the latest reporting by Israeli media shedding light on failures in military intelligence and operational responses around the Hamas offensive, the deadliest single attack on Israeli soil since the founding of the state in 1948.
Israel’s ensuing campaign in Gaza has still to achieve several of its stated objectives, leading to fears the conflict is on the brink of morphing into sustained insurgency-style warfare. More than 38,000 people have been killed by Israeli operations in the Palestinian territory, according to the local health ministry, and almost all of the 2.3 million population have been displaced from their homes in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Allegations first surfaced in January that the IDF may have used the Hannibal protocol to prevent Hamas fighters from returning to Gaza with hostages. While the directive has only ever been used in relation to soldiers, a high-profile incident at the Be’eri kibbutz, in which a brigadier general ordered a tank to fire shells at a house with Hamas militants and 14 Israelis inside, killing 13 of the hostages, has raised questions about operational procedures causing civilian casualties.
The Israeli military probably killed more than a dozen of its own citizens during the 7 October attack, a UN investigation found last month.
Also on Sunday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that a sophisticated early-warning system on the Gaza border developed by Unit 8200, part of the IDF’s military intelligence directorate, had not been properly maintained and was known to frequently malfunction. A dossier presented by Unit 8200 officers before 7 October detailed Hamas’s elaborate invasion plans, including raids on Israeli towns and military posts, hostage scenarios and potential outcomes, the report said.
- Splinter's reporting of the Lancet numbers and contextualizing it with that +972 report of IDF soldiers just shooting people with no repercussions: Israel Has Killed 186,000 Gazans According to a “Conservative Estimate”
- speaking of the report (that's been shared upthread anyway), I want to surface a couple of sections:
The testimonies paint a picture of a landscape littered with civilian corpses, which are left to rot or be eaten by stray animals; the army only hides them from view ahead of the arrival of international aid convoys, so that “images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out.” Two of the soldiers also testified to a systematic policy of setting Palestinian homes on fire after occupying them.
(...) Only one of the soldiers interviewed for this investigation was willing to be identified by name: Yuval Green, a 26-year-old reservist from Jerusalem who served in the 55th Paratroopers Brigade in November and December last year (Green recently signed a letter by 41 reservists declaring their refusal to continue serving in Gaza, following the army’s invasion of Rafah). “There were no restrictions on ammunition,” Green told +972 and Local Call. “People were shooting just to relieve the boredom.”
Green described an incident that occurred one night during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah in December, when “the whole battalion opened fire together like fireworks, including tracer ammunition [which generates a bright light]. It made a crazy color, illuminating the sky, and because [Hannukah] is the ‘festival of lights,’ it became symbolic.”
(...)For Green, the rules of engagement also demonstrated a deep indifference to the fate of the hostages. “They told me about a practice of blowing up tunnels, and I thought to myself that if there were hostages [in them], it would kill them.” After Israeli soldiers in Shuja’iyya killed three hostages waving white flags in December, thinking they were Palestinians, Green said he was angry, but was told “there’s nothing we can do.” “[The commanders] sharpened procedures, saying ‘You have to pay attention and be sensitive, but we are in a combat zone, and we have to be alert.’”
B. confirmed that even after the mishap in Shuja’iyya, which was said to be “contrary to the orders” of the military, the open-fire regulations did not change. “As for the hostages, we didn’t have a specific directive,” he recalled. “[The army’s top brass] said that after the shooting of the hostages, they briefed [soldiers in the field]. [But] they didn’t talk to us.” He and the soldiers who were with him heard about the shooting of the hostages only two and a half weeks after the incident, after they left Gaza.
“I’ve heard statements [from other soldiers] that the hostages are dead, they don’t stand a chance, they have to be abandoned,” Green noted. “[This] bothered me the most … that they kept saying, ‘We’re here for the hostages,’ but it is clear that the war harms the hostages. That was my thought then; today it turned out to be true.”
Why these quotes? Well:
- couple of days back, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim announced they've started Drop Site News (having left The Intercept). One of the first pieces: On the Record with Hamas - In a Drop Site News exclusive, Hamas officials discuss their motivations, political objectives, and the human costs of their armed uprising against Israel
A more recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, whose findings were released in mid-June, found that two-thirds of the Gaza population continued to express support for the October 7 attack on Israel, with more than 80 percent asserting that it put Palestine at the center of global attention. More than half of Gaza residents polled indicated that they hoped Hamas would return to power after the war. “They lost confidence in peace with Israel. People believe that the only way is now to fight against Israel, to struggle against Israel,” said Ghazi Hamad, the former Hamas deputy foreign minister and a longstanding member of its political bureau, in an interview. “We put the Palestinian cause on the table. I think that we have a new page of history.”
On a tactical level, the October 7 operations exceeded Hamas’s projections. “It was very surprising for us how speedy one of the strongest brigades in the Israel Army—the Gaza brigade is one of the strongest, most sophisticated groups of their army—to collapse within hours without any serious resistance, and that even the state as a whole, for hours and maybe days, continued to be paralyzed, were not able to respond in the proper professional way,” said Naim, the Hamas political bureau member.
(...) Rabbani said that it is undeniable that Hamas killed civilians during the October 7 attacks and expressed serious doubts about the group’s official position that Al Aqsa Flood was focused solely on targeting the Israeli military. “Hamas has a history of this—its suicide bombings against civilian buses and restaurants and so on during the Second Intifada,” he said. Rabbani recalls reading accounts of the October 7 attacks and watching videos from that day of Israeli civilians being killed or captured. “My initial view was that these were probably people who had been suffering in Gaza their whole lives, didn't expect to go back alive, and wanted to go out with a bang. I'm sure that's the explanation for some of these cases,” he said.
“But I also wonder to what extent it was premeditated. I'd be very interested to learn to what extent Hamas intended to inflict a terribly traumatic blow on Israeli society, and not only the Israeli military,” he added. “There is evidence to support it. There is also evidence to contradict it. But I think it's a question worth examining in more detail.”
The discourse surrounding the killing of Israeli civilians on October 7 has been a central element in shaping public opinion on the war. “So much of the rage in Israel is a function of this very high toll of civilian death,” said Khalidi. “War leads to civilian deaths, but this was far beyond what could or should have been acceptable under any circumstances, and that is also on the planners of this operation. I think that's a hard thing to say, but I think it's something that should be said.”
Eventually, under both domestic and international pressure, Netanyahu agreed to a limited exchange deal. During a brief truce last November, Hamas released 105 civilian hostages to Israel in return for 240 Palestinians—mostly women and children—held captive by Israel. “[Hamas] made a quick deal with the Israelis,” said Baskin. “It was three prisoners for every hostage. I think that was an amazingly low price.”
Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas official who worked with Sinwar, was emphatic that Hamas did not intend to take Israeli civilians hostage. “What we planned was just for military purposes, just to destroy this part of the Israeli army who controls the situation in Gaza and to take some hostages from the military—soldiers—in order to make a kind of exchange,” he said. “I don't deny that there were some mistakes done by some people, but I am talking about the decision of Hamas, the policy of Hamas.”
Baskin told me it was immediately clear that Hamas did not prepare for holding so many civilians and was caught off guard when other Palestinian groups and individuals who flooded into Israel that day took large numbers of hostages, including senior citizens and children. “They ended up simply taking people back into Gaza without thinking about the logistics, about what price they wanted for them,” Baskin said. “From day four of the war, I was talking to Hamas already about a deal for the women, the children, the elderly, and the wounded, which I thought was the low hanging fruit, because Hamas would not have been set up to deal with them. They wanted to get rid of them.”
Israel has used the civilian hostages as the primary justification for their continued siege. Hamad confirmed that negotiations began almost immediately after the October 7 attacks. He told me that “from the first week, we talked to some people, some mediators, that we want to return the civilians, but Israel refused.”
Bold claim. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough--
--Oh wait. Today's Haaretz: How Netanyahu Has Systematically Foiled Talks to Release Hostages From Hamas Captivity
The past six months, during which Israel negotiated a framework for the release of Israeli hostages being held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip – were riddled with hopeful moments that shattered one after the other. While Hamas impeded the talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly torpedoed their progress – particularly when it came to decisive moments.
Netanyahu believes that an agreement on a hostage deal will most likely lead to his government's collapse – which he seeks to avoid at all costs. Defense officials who spoke with Haaretz said that in his attempt to derail negotiations, Netanyahu relied on classified intelligence and manipulated the sensitive information. This is how Netanyahu systematically foiled the negotiations to free the hostages.
January: On January 28, Israel's Mossad head met the mediators in Paris for the first time, and the progress achieved was described as significant. Yet upon Barnea's return to Israel, Netanyahu published a series of five press releases, in which he emphasized the gaps that remain between the sides. Defense officials who spoke to Haaretz claimed that Netanyahu used information that was brought up in private security talks and left the door open to derail the deal.
Netanyahu said, among other statements, that "the reports about the deal are untrue and include conditions that Israel finds unacceptable. We press on until the total victory." In a speech at the pre-army Bnei David preparatory program in the West Bank settlement of Eli, Netanyahu also said: "I hear talks about all kinds of deals, so I want to clarify: We won't withdraw the Israel Defense Forces from the Gaza Strip and won't release thousands of terrorists. None of that will happen."
February: On February 6, Hamas releases a written statement in which it wrote it "treated the framework positively." Netanyahu responds immediately, releasing a statement by "a senior Israeli official" saying that "Hamas' answer to the hostage deal is actually negative" and adding that Israel has no intention in stopping the war. On that same week, according to Israel's Channel 13, Netanyahu instructed Likud ministers to attack the deal that was taking shape.
April: In an interview to investigative TV program 'Uvda,' a senior member of the Israeli negotiating team says Netanyahu bypasses the war cabinet after it approves the mandate to the teams, and prevents them from carrying out their assignments.
"I can't say that without Netanyahu there would be no deal," said the official, presented as D. "I can say that the probability of a deal would be higher." D. continued: "Since December, definitely since January, it's clear to everyone that we're not conducting negotiations. It happens again and again: You get a mandate during the day, then the prime minister makes phone calls at night, instructs 'don't say that' and 'I'm not approving this,' thus bypassing both the team leaders and the war cabinet."
April: A sensitive decision is made at a war cabinet meeting – what would be the minimal number of hostages that Israel would find acceptable as part of an interim deal. The number is classified as top secret, as Hamas would cling to the smallest number of hostages rather than a larger group. Given that the cabinet is united in its position to agree to the deal, Netanyahu is forced to allow the negotiating team to press on. That same day, Netanyahu meets with Minister Bezalel Smotrich and shares the sensitive number with him. Smotrich, who was not a member of the limited war cabinet, leaks it inaccurately to ministers and to the media.
May: In early May, Israeli intelligence estimated that Hamas' response to the deal that's on the table will be positive. During a war cabinet meeting on May 2, Netanyahu surprises attendees by suggesting the IDF be ordered immediately to enter Rafah. All participants of the meeting oppose the idea, arguing that it would immediately derail the deal. The proposition does not pass.
On Saturday, May 4, Netanyahu releases a statement claiming – on behalf of a "senior diplomatic official" – that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to end the war as part of a deal involving the release of hostages." The statement added: "The IDF will enter Rafah and destroy the Hamas battalions remaining there, whether there is a temporary truce for releasing the hostages or not."
War cabinet members believe this statement was one of the reasons for the failure of the talks. Meanwhile, Netanyahu forbids the Israeli delegation from traveling to Cairo for another round of talks, without updating the war cabinet. The following day, at the weekly government meeting, Netanyahu brings to a vote the law shutting down the operations of Qatari television station Al Jazeera in Israel, despite the sensitive moment in the Qatari-led negotiations.
June: Netanyahu arrives at a classified discussion at the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, after which he leaks his own comments at the meeting: That he does not agree to end the war as part of the framework presented by President Biden. War cabinet members are furious with Netanyahu for foiling the talks that just renewed after a long impasse.
July: Israel sees positive developments towards a deal with Hamas, but given the sensitivity, only Netanyahu and the negotiating team are made aware of this. Though cabinet members were not briefed, Minister Smotrich says in a speech that he "wouldn't be surprised if Sinwar suddenly replies positively to the offer he received, because he is panicking and understands that we are close to victory."
Senior defense officials subsequently accused Netanyahu of sharing classified information with Smotrich. The Finance Minister, on his part, denied he was briefed, saying that he simply "read a simple map which combines reports in foreign media and the progress in military pressure." Contrary to his statements, the foreign media carried no reports on the deal in those days.
July: Israel receives Hamas' comments to the framework presented by Biden, and the negotiating teams describes them as "the best answer received" since negotiations began. But even before Hamas' response is made public, Netanyahu's office releases a statement attributed to a "senior security official" saying that "Hamas is still insisting on a fundamental clause in the framework. There are more gaps that haven't been closed. Israel will continue the negotiations while continuing the military pressure." This message contradicts the position held by Israel's negotiating team – the professional authority on the matter.
---
Bibi's role here is clear. Here's my only question, which has been my only question/commentary of the last nine months: what possessed the rest of the country especially its military then? Or those outside the country, carrying water for this pack of liars and murderers? Actual relatives and friends in our lives died for their lies.
---
In 'aiding and abetting' news:
- Adam Johnson: The Biden Administration’s Fake “Ceasefire” Gambit Seems To Have Mostly Worked
No longer are the daily horrors coming out of Gaza seen as the fault of the President. Instead, they are something more abstract—and authorless.
- Guardian: US ‘pressuring UK to block ICC’s Netanyahu arrest warrant’ - Human rights barrister says US expects Labour government to continue UK challenge to proposed action against Israeli PM
-WaPo: U.S. to again ship 500-pound bombs to Israel, reversing suspension - The Biden administration will resume sending large bombs to Israel that had been held up since May amid concerns about the Rafah invasion. But 2,000-pound bombs are still under review.
posted by cendawanita at 3:14 AM on July 11 [8 favorites]
Palestinian armed groups adopt "guerrilla warfare" against Israel: Guerrilla warfare is considered one of the most important military tactics mastered by the Palestinian resistance and becoming more present in this current war. This form of warfare relies on hit-and-run tactics, setting up ambushes and using snipers, and basically avoiding face-to-face confrontation with Israeli soldiers as much as possible, while increases the number of casualties.
Military sources close to the resistance said that Hamas has relied on its tunnels, its fighters, and its weapons stockpile to compliment the strengths of guerrilla warfare.
The sources further explained that Hamas allowed other Palestinian factions to use its ammunition and tunnels for offensive purposes against Israeli soldiers. These attacks carried out by Hamas are usually carried out by a cell of only two to five people.
Military sources further noted that the Palestinian fighters are attacking more aggressively, firing more anti-tank weapons at Israeli soldiers who often take cover in destroyed homes and at Israeli army vehicles at a daily rate.
Palestinians calling home to Gaza have their digital lives destroyed: BBC News has spoken to 20 Palestinians living abroad who say Microsoft, which owns the voice and video chat app, kicked them out of their accounts. The total number affected is thought to be much higher. In some cases, these email accounts are more than 15 years old and the users have no way to retrieve emails, contacts or memories.
(Of note and for other context: Microsoft's censorship in China is even more extreme than actual Chinese companies.)
Tangentially related to pro-Palestine protests: Violet Affleck, Ben Affleck's daughter, spoke up against mask bans at an LA Board of Supervisors meeting. The mask ban was proposed by LA's mayor after a pro-Palestinian protest at a synagogue that purportedly hosted an Israeli real estate company selling property in the West Bank. Mask bans are gaining popularity in both Republican and Democratic jurisdictions after pro-Palestinian protests.
posted by toastyk at 7:12 AM on July 11 [5 favorites]
Military sources close to the resistance said that Hamas has relied on its tunnels, its fighters, and its weapons stockpile to compliment the strengths of guerrilla warfare.
The sources further explained that Hamas allowed other Palestinian factions to use its ammunition and tunnels for offensive purposes against Israeli soldiers. These attacks carried out by Hamas are usually carried out by a cell of only two to five people.
Military sources further noted that the Palestinian fighters are attacking more aggressively, firing more anti-tank weapons at Israeli soldiers who often take cover in destroyed homes and at Israeli army vehicles at a daily rate.
Palestinians calling home to Gaza have their digital lives destroyed: BBC News has spoken to 20 Palestinians living abroad who say Microsoft, which owns the voice and video chat app, kicked them out of their accounts. The total number affected is thought to be much higher. In some cases, these email accounts are more than 15 years old and the users have no way to retrieve emails, contacts or memories.
(Of note and for other context: Microsoft's censorship in China is even more extreme than actual Chinese companies.)
Tangentially related to pro-Palestine protests: Violet Affleck, Ben Affleck's daughter, spoke up against mask bans at an LA Board of Supervisors meeting. The mask ban was proposed by LA's mayor after a pro-Palestinian protest at a synagogue that purportedly hosted an Israeli real estate company selling property in the West Bank. Mask bans are gaining popularity in both Republican and Democratic jurisdictions after pro-Palestinian protests.
posted by toastyk at 7:12 AM on July 11 [5 favorites]
Semafor: Foreign reporters visit ‘unrecognizable’ Rafah for the first time
The city was described as a “flattened wasteland,” a “maze of rubble,” and “unrecognizable.” It was the first time international media had been allowed into Rafah since Israel began what it called a “limited” operation.
But the level of destruction called Israel’s characterization into question, the reports said
---
Various on the pier:
Navy Times: After last-ditch effort, the Gaza pier aid mission is coming to an end
The news comes less than two months after the mission began. The operation is estimated to have cost $270 million and left three U.S. service members injured in the process.
The announcement came after troops attempted to re-anchor the pier and failed “due to technical and weather-related issues,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.
(...) And in an incident in May that the Pentagon has not fully explained, three U.S. troops sustained non-combat injuries in connection to the mission, with one service member requiring evacuation back to the states.
Officials have not disclosed the nature of that service member’s injury.
AP: US-built pier will be put back in Gaza for several days to move aid, then permanently removed
The officials said the goal is to clear whatever aid has piled up in Cyprus and on the floating dock offshore and get it to the secure area on the beach in Gaza. Once that has been done, the Army will dismantle the pier and depart. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because final details are still being worked out.
Guardian: US Gaza aid pier to be permanently dismantled after operating for just 20 days – Pier, which has delivered the equivalent of a single day’s pre-war land aid deliveries in two months, will reportedly be removed in a few days’ time
---
This one came before the Haaretz piece above, but it's damned hard to get around the paywall so I sacrificed an email:
Al-Monitor (exclusive): Egypt enraged by Netanyahu's demands as talks stall, Israel-Cairo ties tumble
Netanyahu’s “non-negotiable” demands, as described by his office, include a guarantee that Israel could resume fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip at any stage in the cease-fire deal that includes the phased release of some 120 Israelis held by the organization for nine months. Although Netanyahu acknowledged that Hamas had given up its demand for an Israeli commitment to end the war, he attributed this shift to his insistence on continued military pressure on the organization.
Netanyahu’s statement enraged the Egyptian mediators, puzzled the Qatari negotiators and frustrated the Israeli security officials working for months on the deal, Arab and Israeli diplomatic sources told Al-Monitor. The US mediators appeared the least annoyed, as they know who they are dealing with. A senior Israeli official involved in the talks told Al-Monitor that the Americans would have been actually surprised had Netanyahu not thrown a spanner in the works.
Netanyahu, evidently alarmed by the unusually positive indications of progress in the protracted hostage deal talks, rushed to try to sabotage them. While the Israeli team led by Mossad chief David Barnea convened in the prime minister’s office to formulate its strategy for the resumption of negotiations in Doha this week, Netanyahu’s aides issued the statement of demands and laid out the obstacles to a deal.
(...) According to a diplomatic source close to the negotiations, the Egyptian mediators were particularly incensed at Netanyahu’s latest stunt. Egyptian officials expressed themselves to their Israeli counterparts in harsh language not heard recently in the intimate forums between the sides, especially between Israeli and Egyptian defense officials. They argued that Netanyahu was torpedoing and thwarting all the intense efforts they and other mediators had put into the talks for months, and therefore there was no reason to keep trying.
The Egyptians told their Israeli counterparts that Netanyahu must first decide what he wants rather than driving the entire region into volatility, said the diplomatic source. He noted that the Egyptians have invested a great deal of energy in an effort to break the impasse and end the war in Gaza through a hostage deal. Indeed, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel has devoted much of his time in recent months to the issue.
Netanyahu’s conduct also risks undermining the highly sensitive Israeli-Egyptian discussions on the future of the Philadelphi Corridor that runs along the Gaza-Egypt border and has served as the main smuggling conduit enabling Hamas’ buildup in recent years.
"This area is the axis on which the entire future agreement will rise or fall," a senior Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. The security source noted that massive amounts of weapons, ammunition and other material flowed into Gaza for over a decade through underground tunnels below the border and through the Rafah crossing, which is the only above-ground passage between Gaza and Egypt.
“Hamas built its deadly military machine this way. The issue was ignored. We and the Egyptians are now trying — with close American assistance — to formulate a solution that will allow us to sleep peacefully knowing that Hamas is unable to rehabilitate its military capabilities," the source added.
Egypt’s cooperation on this matter is vital. While it rejects a continued Israeli presence along its border with the Gaza Strip, which Israeli troops captured in recent months, Netanyahu has made clear that Israeli control of the border is a non-negotiable demand. The sides are discussing the construction of a costly, US-funded deep underground barrier, fitted with Israeli-made systems and sensors to detect the digging of new underground smuggling routes.
Israel is also demanding the presence of its own representatives or of an acceptable third party to monitor the passage of goods through the Rafah crossing. Ronen Bar, Shin Bet security agency director, headed an Israeli delegation to Egypt on Monday for talks on resolving this sticking point.
---
Like the Lancet article, I look forward to this not being covered in mainstream western press:
BMJ: Israeli doctors participated in torture, alleges released director of al-Shifa Hospital - unfortunately I can't get pass the journal paywall. Good luck to actual journalists paid in western currencies though!
Also from doctors, but should be more believable, on account that they're not Palestinians:
Guardian: Israeli weapons packed with shrapnel causing devastating injuries to children in Gaza, doctors say - Surgeons who worked in European and al-Aqsa hospitals describe extensive wounds caused by ‘fragmentation’ shrapnel experts say are designed to maximize casualties
The Guardian spoke to six foreign doctors who have worked at two hospitals in Gaza, the European and al-Aqsa, in the last three months. All of them described encountering extensive wounds caused by “fragmentation” weapons, which they said have contributed to alarming rates of amputations since the war began. They said the injuries were seen in adults and children but that the damage done was likely to be more severe to younger bodies.
It's fine. It's just Palestinian children.
----
This just gets a "heh" from me because the headlines didn't differ much considering the respective sources:
Haaretz: 'Unacceptable': Macron Accuses Israeli Minister of Interfering in French Election in Call With Netanyahu
MEE: Macron protests Israel’s ‘unacceptable’ interference in French elections
India 🤝 Israel
Western allies who interfere in western politics but will never be scolded as much as China and Russia.
----
Not Gaza:
Peace Now Israel: The Annexation Agenda of the Israeli Government
Summary of the main steps of the government:
1. The completion of the annexation moves – the completion of the process of transferring the power from the army to an administration under the minister and the appointment of a “Civilian Deputy” who received the powers of the Head of the Civil Administration regarding the settlements.
2. Illegal outposts: creating a “legalization bypass route” for financing and providing services to 63 outposts; Allocation of NIS 85 million for the construction of security components in outposts in general.
3. Expected moves by the government: the legalization of the agricultural outposts; reforming the enforcement system against Palestinian construction; declaration of approximately 15,000 dunams of state land; promotion of plans in the settlements on a regular basis.
4. Additional Budgets: An addition of one billion NIS for security needs in the settlements in 2024-2025; and NIS 7 billion for roads.
posted by cendawanita at 11:17 AM on July 11 [9 favorites]
The city was described as a “flattened wasteland,” a “maze of rubble,” and “unrecognizable.” It was the first time international media had been allowed into Rafah since Israel began what it called a “limited” operation.
But the level of destruction called Israel’s characterization into question, the reports said
---
Various on the pier:
Navy Times: After last-ditch effort, the Gaza pier aid mission is coming to an end
The news comes less than two months after the mission began. The operation is estimated to have cost $270 million and left three U.S. service members injured in the process.
The announcement came after troops attempted to re-anchor the pier and failed “due to technical and weather-related issues,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.
(...) And in an incident in May that the Pentagon has not fully explained, three U.S. troops sustained non-combat injuries in connection to the mission, with one service member requiring evacuation back to the states.
Officials have not disclosed the nature of that service member’s injury.
AP: US-built pier will be put back in Gaza for several days to move aid, then permanently removed
The officials said the goal is to clear whatever aid has piled up in Cyprus and on the floating dock offshore and get it to the secure area on the beach in Gaza. Once that has been done, the Army will dismantle the pier and depart. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because final details are still being worked out.
Guardian: US Gaza aid pier to be permanently dismantled after operating for just 20 days – Pier, which has delivered the equivalent of a single day’s pre-war land aid deliveries in two months, will reportedly be removed in a few days’ time
---
This one came before the Haaretz piece above, but it's damned hard to get around the paywall so I sacrificed an email:
Al-Monitor (exclusive): Egypt enraged by Netanyahu's demands as talks stall, Israel-Cairo ties tumble
Netanyahu’s “non-negotiable” demands, as described by his office, include a guarantee that Israel could resume fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip at any stage in the cease-fire deal that includes the phased release of some 120 Israelis held by the organization for nine months. Although Netanyahu acknowledged that Hamas had given up its demand for an Israeli commitment to end the war, he attributed this shift to his insistence on continued military pressure on the organization.
Netanyahu’s statement enraged the Egyptian mediators, puzzled the Qatari negotiators and frustrated the Israeli security officials working for months on the deal, Arab and Israeli diplomatic sources told Al-Monitor. The US mediators appeared the least annoyed, as they know who they are dealing with. A senior Israeli official involved in the talks told Al-Monitor that the Americans would have been actually surprised had Netanyahu not thrown a spanner in the works.
Netanyahu, evidently alarmed by the unusually positive indications of progress in the protracted hostage deal talks, rushed to try to sabotage them. While the Israeli team led by Mossad chief David Barnea convened in the prime minister’s office to formulate its strategy for the resumption of negotiations in Doha this week, Netanyahu’s aides issued the statement of demands and laid out the obstacles to a deal.
(...) According to a diplomatic source close to the negotiations, the Egyptian mediators were particularly incensed at Netanyahu’s latest stunt. Egyptian officials expressed themselves to their Israeli counterparts in harsh language not heard recently in the intimate forums between the sides, especially between Israeli and Egyptian defense officials. They argued that Netanyahu was torpedoing and thwarting all the intense efforts they and other mediators had put into the talks for months, and therefore there was no reason to keep trying.
The Egyptians told their Israeli counterparts that Netanyahu must first decide what he wants rather than driving the entire region into volatility, said the diplomatic source. He noted that the Egyptians have invested a great deal of energy in an effort to break the impasse and end the war in Gaza through a hostage deal. Indeed, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel has devoted much of his time in recent months to the issue.
Netanyahu’s conduct also risks undermining the highly sensitive Israeli-Egyptian discussions on the future of the Philadelphi Corridor that runs along the Gaza-Egypt border and has served as the main smuggling conduit enabling Hamas’ buildup in recent years.
"This area is the axis on which the entire future agreement will rise or fall," a senior Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. The security source noted that massive amounts of weapons, ammunition and other material flowed into Gaza for over a decade through underground tunnels below the border and through the Rafah crossing, which is the only above-ground passage between Gaza and Egypt.
“Hamas built its deadly military machine this way. The issue was ignored. We and the Egyptians are now trying — with close American assistance — to formulate a solution that will allow us to sleep peacefully knowing that Hamas is unable to rehabilitate its military capabilities," the source added.
Egypt’s cooperation on this matter is vital. While it rejects a continued Israeli presence along its border with the Gaza Strip, which Israeli troops captured in recent months, Netanyahu has made clear that Israeli control of the border is a non-negotiable demand. The sides are discussing the construction of a costly, US-funded deep underground barrier, fitted with Israeli-made systems and sensors to detect the digging of new underground smuggling routes.
Israel is also demanding the presence of its own representatives or of an acceptable third party to monitor the passage of goods through the Rafah crossing. Ronen Bar, Shin Bet security agency director, headed an Israeli delegation to Egypt on Monday for talks on resolving this sticking point.
---
Like the Lancet article, I look forward to this not being covered in mainstream western press:
BMJ: Israeli doctors participated in torture, alleges released director of al-Shifa Hospital - unfortunately I can't get pass the journal paywall. Good luck to actual journalists paid in western currencies though!
Also from doctors, but should be more believable, on account that they're not Palestinians:
Guardian: Israeli weapons packed with shrapnel causing devastating injuries to children in Gaza, doctors say - Surgeons who worked in European and al-Aqsa hospitals describe extensive wounds caused by ‘fragmentation’ shrapnel experts say are designed to maximize casualties
The Guardian spoke to six foreign doctors who have worked at two hospitals in Gaza, the European and al-Aqsa, in the last three months. All of them described encountering extensive wounds caused by “fragmentation” weapons, which they said have contributed to alarming rates of amputations since the war began. They said the injuries were seen in adults and children but that the damage done was likely to be more severe to younger bodies.
It's fine. It's just Palestinian children.
----
This just gets a "heh" from me because the headlines didn't differ much considering the respective sources:
Haaretz: 'Unacceptable': Macron Accuses Israeli Minister of Interfering in French Election in Call With Netanyahu
MEE: Macron protests Israel’s ‘unacceptable’ interference in French elections
India 🤝 Israel
Western allies who interfere in western politics but will never be scolded as much as China and Russia.
----
Not Gaza:
Peace Now Israel: The Annexation Agenda of the Israeli Government
Summary of the main steps of the government:
1. The completion of the annexation moves – the completion of the process of transferring the power from the army to an administration under the minister and the appointment of a “Civilian Deputy” who received the powers of the Head of the Civil Administration regarding the settlements.
2. Illegal outposts: creating a “legalization bypass route” for financing and providing services to 63 outposts; Allocation of NIS 85 million for the construction of security components in outposts in general.
3. Expected moves by the government: the legalization of the agricultural outposts; reforming the enforcement system against Palestinian construction; declaration of approximately 15,000 dunams of state land; promotion of plans in the settlements on a regular basis.
4. Additional Budgets: An addition of one billion NIS for security needs in the settlements in 2024-2025; and NIS 7 billion for roads.
posted by cendawanita at 11:17 AM on July 11 [9 favorites]
Netanyahu’s conduct also risks undermining the highly sensitive Israeli-Egyptian discussions on the future of the Philadelphi Corridor that runs along the Gaza-Egypt border and has served as the main smuggling conduit enabling Hamas’ buildup in recent years.
…
Egypt’s cooperation on this matter is vital. While it rejects a continued Israeli presence along its border with the Gaza Strip, which Israeli troops captured in recent months, Netanyahu has made clear that Israeli control of the border is a non-negotiable demand. The sides are discussing the construction of a costly, US-funded deep underground barrier, fitted with Israeli-made systems and sensors to detect the digging of new underground smuggling routes.
Israel is also demanding the presence of its own representatives or of an acceptable third party to monitor the passage of goods through the Rafah crossing. Ronen Bar, Shin Bet security agency director, headed an Israeli delegation to Egypt on Monday for talks on resolving this sticking point.
...all of this, of course, points to the absolute intent by Israel to continue genocide and ethnic cleansing, even if they have to slow it back down to pre-October-7 levels.
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:31 AM on July 11 [8 favorites]
…
Egypt’s cooperation on this matter is vital. While it rejects a continued Israeli presence along its border with the Gaza Strip, which Israeli troops captured in recent months, Netanyahu has made clear that Israeli control of the border is a non-negotiable demand. The sides are discussing the construction of a costly, US-funded deep underground barrier, fitted with Israeli-made systems and sensors to detect the digging of new underground smuggling routes.
Israel is also demanding the presence of its own representatives or of an acceptable third party to monitor the passage of goods through the Rafah crossing. Ronen Bar, Shin Bet security agency director, headed an Israeli delegation to Egypt on Monday for talks on resolving this sticking point.
...all of this, of course, points to the absolute intent by Israel to continue genocide and ethnic cleansing, even if they have to slow it back down to pre-October-7 levels.
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:31 AM on July 11 [8 favorites]
I honestly don't know how people keep on going...
Gaza officials say 90 Palestinians killed as Israel targeted Hamas military chief in a designated humanitarian zone.
Netanyahu reverses on key Israeli concession in ceasefire talks - Israel had previously agreed to allow Palestinians unrestricted access to northern Gaza during an eventual ceasefire, but the prime minister told his negotiating team this week to demand that armed men be barred from northern Gaza as part of any ceasefire and hostage deal, the source said.
The new demand could potentially upend progress in hostage negotiations and raises further questions about Netanyahu’s commitment to Israel’s own proposal for a deal that has become the basis for detailed negotiations.
CNN's investigators found that the members of Netzah Yehuda battalion, which Biden refused to sanction, despite the fact that they killed a Palestinian American citizen, are now serving in senior military positions and shaping the military conduct in Gaza.
How Hamas is fighting in Gaza archive.is - Hamas’s decision to keep fighting has proved disastrous for the Palestinians of Gaza. With Hamas refusing to surrender, Israel has forged ahead with a military campaign that has killed nearly 2 percent of Gaza’s prewar population, according to Gazan authorities; displaced roughly 80 percent of its residents, according to the United Nations; and damaged a majority of Gaza’s buildings, according to the U.N.
By contrast, fewer than 350 Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since the start of the invasion, according to military statistics — far fewer than Israeli officials had predicted in October.
Yet despite the carnage in Gaza, Hamas’s strategy has helped the group fulfill some of its own goals.
The war has tarnished Israel’s reputation in much of the world, prompting charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague. It has exacerbated long-running rifts in Israeli society, prompting disagreements among Israelis about whether and how Israel should defeat Hamas. And it has restored the question of Palestinian statehood to global discourse, leading several countries to recognize Palestine as a state.
posted by toastyk at 3:39 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]
Gaza officials say 90 Palestinians killed as Israel targeted Hamas military chief in a designated humanitarian zone.
Netanyahu reverses on key Israeli concession in ceasefire talks - Israel had previously agreed to allow Palestinians unrestricted access to northern Gaza during an eventual ceasefire, but the prime minister told his negotiating team this week to demand that armed men be barred from northern Gaza as part of any ceasefire and hostage deal, the source said.
The new demand could potentially upend progress in hostage negotiations and raises further questions about Netanyahu’s commitment to Israel’s own proposal for a deal that has become the basis for detailed negotiations.
CNN's investigators found that the members of Netzah Yehuda battalion, which Biden refused to sanction, despite the fact that they killed a Palestinian American citizen, are now serving in senior military positions and shaping the military conduct in Gaza.
How Hamas is fighting in Gaza archive.is - Hamas’s decision to keep fighting has proved disastrous for the Palestinians of Gaza. With Hamas refusing to surrender, Israel has forged ahead with a military campaign that has killed nearly 2 percent of Gaza’s prewar population, according to Gazan authorities; displaced roughly 80 percent of its residents, according to the United Nations; and damaged a majority of Gaza’s buildings, according to the U.N.
By contrast, fewer than 350 Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since the start of the invasion, according to military statistics — far fewer than Israeli officials had predicted in October.
Yet despite the carnage in Gaza, Hamas’s strategy has helped the group fulfill some of its own goals.
The war has tarnished Israel’s reputation in much of the world, prompting charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague. It has exacerbated long-running rifts in Israeli society, prompting disagreements among Israelis about whether and how Israel should defeat Hamas. And it has restored the question of Palestinian statehood to global discourse, leading several countries to recognize Palestine as a state.
posted by toastyk at 3:39 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]
So I guess we don't even know whether Israel even succeeded in killing the military chief Mohammad Deif they were aiming for?
Renowned Jewish-Palestinian restaurant Majda closes as its owners leave Israel: "We are very tired," Michal says. "And since October, the restaurant was empty for many months. We have despaired. People are not with us, and we understand completely why they aren't coming. This country is shrouded in hatred, despair and pain at the moment. The feeling is that we have become mute from shock and there is no one to talk to. Over the last 14 years, we extended a hand to people and talked, and now we feel that we're not capable. So we want to get away from this insane country for a time, to rest a little and to live our small lives. The whole world isn't sane at the moment, but we are embarking on a new path and we are happy and excited about it."
Delta Airlines forces passenger to remove "Jews Say Ceasefire" shirt during his flight: We hear talk about fighting for the soul of the country. Right now, the Jewish community is at war over what the soul of Jewishness will look like in this century. Instrumental to this fight is a critical question: Will we, in this moment, have the courage and moral fortitude to divest our support from a nation-state that is currently committing what a former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court characterized as a genocide; what a United Nations report and Amnesty International call an apartheid state; a country that, like the United States, was built on the displacement of Indigenous people from their land? I believe we should have the courage and moral fortitude to divest our support from a failed project. That is why I wore the shirt.
posted by toastyk at 10:30 PM on July 14 [7 favorites]
Renowned Jewish-Palestinian restaurant Majda closes as its owners leave Israel: "We are very tired," Michal says. "And since October, the restaurant was empty for many months. We have despaired. People are not with us, and we understand completely why they aren't coming. This country is shrouded in hatred, despair and pain at the moment. The feeling is that we have become mute from shock and there is no one to talk to. Over the last 14 years, we extended a hand to people and talked, and now we feel that we're not capable. So we want to get away from this insane country for a time, to rest a little and to live our small lives. The whole world isn't sane at the moment, but we are embarking on a new path and we are happy and excited about it."
Delta Airlines forces passenger to remove "Jews Say Ceasefire" shirt during his flight: We hear talk about fighting for the soul of the country. Right now, the Jewish community is at war over what the soul of Jewishness will look like in this century. Instrumental to this fight is a critical question: Will we, in this moment, have the courage and moral fortitude to divest our support from a nation-state that is currently committing what a former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court characterized as a genocide; what a United Nations report and Amnesty International call an apartheid state; a country that, like the United States, was built on the displacement of Indigenous people from their land? I believe we should have the courage and moral fortitude to divest our support from a failed project. That is why I wore the shirt.
posted by toastyk at 10:30 PM on July 14 [7 favorites]
If anyone's interested, there will be an event on July 24th to protest Netanyahu's visit to DC.
Ukraine sent a flour shipment to Palestinian territories.
What are Arab American women supposed to do this November? The comments are expected; don't read them if you value your sanity.
How watermelon cupcakes kicked off an internal storm at Meta - Meta deemed the planned watermelon cupcakes a violation of its ban on workplace discussions about war or statehood, though its New York cafeteria served fresh watermelon slices the day of the club fair and many times since. In the end, green cupcakes with pink frosting and black pearl topping (which didn’t look much like watermelon) were served.
“I am deeply concerned and tired of the exorbitant internal censorship at Meta, that is now hinging on absurdity,” Saima Akhter, a data scientist at Meta involved in the proposed cupcake offering, wrote on Instagram on May 29 after the company squashed the plan.
Just remembering when Ai Weiwei said censorship is worse in the US than in China, especially on Palestinian issues.
ICC warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, expected within 2 weeks.
IDF will start drafting the ultra-Orthodox on Sunday - the news has led to the ultra-Orthodox party telling young men to resist the draft.
posted by toastyk at 7:10 AM on July 18 [7 favorites]
Ukraine sent a flour shipment to Palestinian territories.
What are Arab American women supposed to do this November? The comments are expected; don't read them if you value your sanity.
How watermelon cupcakes kicked off an internal storm at Meta - Meta deemed the planned watermelon cupcakes a violation of its ban on workplace discussions about war or statehood, though its New York cafeteria served fresh watermelon slices the day of the club fair and many times since. In the end, green cupcakes with pink frosting and black pearl topping (which didn’t look much like watermelon) were served.
“I am deeply concerned and tired of the exorbitant internal censorship at Meta, that is now hinging on absurdity,” Saima Akhter, a data scientist at Meta involved in the proposed cupcake offering, wrote on Instagram on May 29 after the company squashed the plan.
Just remembering when Ai Weiwei said censorship is worse in the US than in China, especially on Palestinian issues.
ICC warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, expected within 2 weeks.
IDF will start drafting the ultra-Orthodox on Sunday - the news has led to the ultra-Orthodox party telling young men to resist the draft.
posted by toastyk at 7:10 AM on July 18 [7 favorites]
Jeremy Scahill:
Palestinian Islamic Jihad: "Oslo Is Over"
Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a top leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, discusses October 7, the war against Israel, and whether Trump or Biden would be better for Palestine.
posted by adamvasco at 7:24 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]
Palestinian Islamic Jihad: "Oslo Is Over"
Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a top leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, discusses October 7, the war against Israel, and whether Trump or Biden would be better for Palestine.
posted by adamvasco at 7:24 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]
The ICJ's advisory opinion is out and it's amazing and historic. The occupation and the genocide are both entirely unlawful. I'm afk but if someone else doesn't swoop in, I'll link more details in a couple hours.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:08 AM on July 19 [9 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:08 AM on July 19 [9 favorites]
(NB: This is NOT the ruling on South Africa's case, which is still in progress. This is an advisory ruling in response to a request from the UNGA.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:11 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:11 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]
ICJ says Israel's occupation violates international law (NYT)
Here's the opinion itself.
posted by box at 8:11 AM on July 19 [9 favorites]
Here's the opinion itself.
posted by box at 8:11 AM on July 19 [9 favorites]
Against that backdrop, apparently the Houthis claim responsibility for a drone strike in Tel Aviv that killed 1, wounded 4.
posted by toastyk at 8:11 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]
posted by toastyk at 8:11 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]
The Crowdstrike snafu also affected the proceedings of the genocide - according to ground reports there was a good 2 hours plus of no airstrikes from the IDF.
ANYWAY, that would be the military of the unlawfully occupying apartheid state of Israel.
posted by cendawanita at 8:28 AM on July 19 [6 favorites]
ANYWAY, that would be the military of the unlawfully occupying apartheid state of Israel.
posted by cendawanita at 8:28 AM on July 19 [6 favorites]
Haaretz analysis on the ICJ decision archive.is: In the last 30 years, Israel's legal line of defense changed somewhat from the "no sovereign" argument to the Oslo Accords of 1993. According to Israel, the accords proved that the occupation was indeed meant to be temporary in the absence of a diplomatic settlement. By virtue of the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, its sovereignty over Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and Gaza, and the mutual commitment to a future Palestinian state, Israel proved it had no annexationist intentions.
Good luck expecting this argument with any credibility from Israel's current extremist government, but that remains the core of Israel's legal defense.
Setting aside the nonbinding nature of Friday's ruling and the lack of political feasibility, the court essentially armed countries, institutions and corporations with reasoned justification not only to admonish Israel, but to penalize it. No one thinks that this ruling will trigger a policy overhaul or political awakening.
But the knee-jerk pontifications, condemnations and derision in Israel are equally unfeasible. The entire world may be wrong, sure, but ignoring it isn't policy or moral posture. It's the lack of them.
Dem VA Senator Tim Kaine calls for the US recognition of Palestine: In a statement posted to his webpage, Senator Kaine said that due to the Knesset's decision to deny the establishment of a Palestinian state, " the US should no longer condition recognition on Israeli assent, but instead upon Palestinian willingness to peacefully coexist with its neighbors."
BTW, if you reside in LA, did you know the City Council is considering paying former IDF to protect its religious communities, after the protests at a synagogue hosting a real estate fair that listed properties in the West Bank?
Adidas dropped Palestinian model Bella Hadid from campaign that referenced 1972 Munich Olympics after protests from Israeli officials. The rest of the campaign featuring other models/celebrities is still up.
American surgeons who volunteered in Gaza speak up: We started seeing a series of children, preteens mostly, who’d been shot in the head. They’d go on to slowly die, only to be replaced by new victims who’d also been shot in the head, and who would also go on to slowly die. Their families told us one of two stories: the children were playing inside when they were shot by Israeli forces, or they were playing in the street when they were shot by Israeli forces.
posted by toastyk at 7:24 AM on July 20 [9 favorites]
Good luck expecting this argument with any credibility from Israel's current extremist government, but that remains the core of Israel's legal defense.
Setting aside the nonbinding nature of Friday's ruling and the lack of political feasibility, the court essentially armed countries, institutions and corporations with reasoned justification not only to admonish Israel, but to penalize it. No one thinks that this ruling will trigger a policy overhaul or political awakening.
But the knee-jerk pontifications, condemnations and derision in Israel are equally unfeasible. The entire world may be wrong, sure, but ignoring it isn't policy or moral posture. It's the lack of them.
Dem VA Senator Tim Kaine calls for the US recognition of Palestine: In a statement posted to his webpage, Senator Kaine said that due to the Knesset's decision to deny the establishment of a Palestinian state, " the US should no longer condition recognition on Israeli assent, but instead upon Palestinian willingness to peacefully coexist with its neighbors."
BTW, if you reside in LA, did you know the City Council is considering paying former IDF to protect its religious communities, after the protests at a synagogue hosting a real estate fair that listed properties in the West Bank?
Adidas dropped Palestinian model Bella Hadid from campaign that referenced 1972 Munich Olympics after protests from Israeli officials. The rest of the campaign featuring other models/celebrities is still up.
American surgeons who volunteered in Gaza speak up: We started seeing a series of children, preteens mostly, who’d been shot in the head. They’d go on to slowly die, only to be replaced by new victims who’d also been shot in the head, and who would also go on to slowly die. Their families told us one of two stories: the children were playing inside when they were shot by Israeli forces, or they were playing in the street when they were shot by Israeli forces.
posted by toastyk at 7:24 AM on July 20 [9 favorites]
Air raids hit Yemen's port city of Hodeidah (Al Jazeera)
posted by box at 9:18 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 9:18 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]
ICJ says Israel's occupation violates international law
this feel like it should be an FPP. I don't know if I can come up with good linkable background context to make one though, as I'm at work and the network here blocks a lot of sites and all social media.
posted by numaner at 8:20 AM on July 22 [1 favorite]
this feel like it should be an FPP. I don't know if I can come up with good linkable background context to make one though, as I'm at work and the network here blocks a lot of sites and all social media.
posted by numaner at 8:20 AM on July 22 [1 favorite]
I wasn't sure if it may be too soon, but ayy, look at the other threads! I do have a few tabs open, I just haven't really properly gone thru them, but you're right, whether me or anyone else this is big news. I'll try and corrall my reads.
posted by cendawanita at 8:25 AM on July 22 [2 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:25 AM on July 22 [2 favorites]
UN top court says Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal
Israel orders evacuation of part of Gaza humanitarian zone
Israel orders evacuation of part of Gaza humanitarian zone as war's toll passes 39,000 Palestinians
Yes yes, when abuse victims say no, it is very frustrating for an abuser to respond to, isn't it. Reminds me so much of the behaviors committed by the alpha-pedo from the white-caste side of the family tree -- after sexually mutilating a victim, it still wasn't enough. After sexually destroying the boys from the inside out, it still wasn't enough. It's not enough to destroy everything in these children's lives for the sake of your inbred libido. Your *have* to destroy all children's futures too. Why is it so hard to understand that these actions do not make you more virile, especially not in our eyes? We actually had this conversation with the family molester, us kids one day when stranded alone with the pedo. Wanted to know what evidence he relies on for such a solidly justifying rationale for his actions -- "only God understands why I do what I do, and that's why I can do what I do because God is on my side." Didn't realize being old and molestery is all it takes to claim that special relationship to "God".
And that's why I never listen to anyone who has "God" on their side, because out here in the domestic Colonial Middle West, it literally does the opposite of reducing the rate at which we destroy our offspring. Why should it be any different overseas?
posted by human ecologist at 9:45 AM on July 22 [3 favorites]
Israel orders evacuation of part of Gaza humanitarian zone
Israel orders evacuation of part of Gaza humanitarian zone as war's toll passes 39,000 Palestinians
Yes yes, when abuse victims say no, it is very frustrating for an abuser to respond to, isn't it. Reminds me so much of the behaviors committed by the alpha-pedo from the white-caste side of the family tree -- after sexually mutilating a victim, it still wasn't enough. After sexually destroying the boys from the inside out, it still wasn't enough. It's not enough to destroy everything in these children's lives for the sake of your inbred libido. Your *have* to destroy all children's futures too. Why is it so hard to understand that these actions do not make you more virile, especially not in our eyes? We actually had this conversation with the family molester, us kids one day when stranded alone with the pedo. Wanted to know what evidence he relies on for such a solidly justifying rationale for his actions -- "only God understands why I do what I do, and that's why I can do what I do because God is on my side." Didn't realize being old and molestery is all it takes to claim that special relationship to "God".
And that's why I never listen to anyone who has "God" on their side, because out here in the domestic Colonial Middle West, it literally does the opposite of reducing the rate at which we destroy our offspring. Why should it be any different overseas?
posted by human ecologist at 9:45 AM on July 22 [3 favorites]
Ok, have set up an FPP about the ICJ decision!
posted by cendawanita at 9:22 PM on July 22 [6 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:22 PM on July 22 [6 favorites]
Cendawanita, if mefi were a nation then you would be a national treasure.
posted by flabdablet at 12:33 AM on July 23 [7 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 12:33 AM on July 23 [7 favorites]
From Haaretz:
Released hostage Sahar Kalderon on Yagev Buchshtab: I met him in Gaza, he was alive and the state could have saved him
17-year-old Sahar Kalderon, who was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and released from captivity in the deal in November, wrote on her Instagram account about Yagav Buchshtab, who the IDF announced was killed in captivity in Gaza. "I met him there and was with him for a few days in the same place until they transferred him," she wrote, "my heart hurts because I know he was alive and the state could have saved him."
----
Son of killed hostage Alex Dancyg: My father died for Netanyahu's government of destruction, Israel must wake up and take to the streets
Matti Dancyg, the son of Israeli hostage Alex Dancyg who was killed in captivity in Gaza told Haaretz: "My father did not die for nothing. He died for the sanctification of Netanyahu's government of destruction, which claimed that the hostages suffer but do not die. Israel must wake up and take to the streets en masse. There are still lives that can be saved, including my dear uncle Itzhak Elgarat."
Dancyg commented on Netanyahu's intention to thwart a deal, saying "He chooses to save his rotten government instead of saving the lives of Israeli citizens who he himself is responsible being taken hostage. Every moment that Netanyahu continues to maintain his rotten government instead of stopping the war and returning the hosatges is a crime against Israeli citizens".
---
Al-Jazeera: Dozens killed as Palestinians flee Israel’s new offensive on Khan Younis - The dead include women and children as more than 200 injured arrive at the overwhelmed Nasser Medical Complex.
Gaza City-bound UN aid convoy comes under Israeli fire, says UNRWA
Inside the news, there's also this update: Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Monday that the killing of youngsters more than tripled since 7 October, compared to the first nine months of 2023, with one Palestinian youngster dying every two days, on average.
The UN agency said that 143 Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel sparked the war in Gaza, compared with 41 Palestinian children killed from January to September 2023.
Coincidentally: Israeli parliament votes to label UN relief agency a terror organisation
Still doesn't take away both the right of return or the obligations of an occupation force.
posted by cendawanita at 1:23 AM on July 23 [4 favorites]
Released hostage Sahar Kalderon on Yagev Buchshtab: I met him in Gaza, he was alive and the state could have saved him
17-year-old Sahar Kalderon, who was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and released from captivity in the deal in November, wrote on her Instagram account about Yagav Buchshtab, who the IDF announced was killed in captivity in Gaza. "I met him there and was with him for a few days in the same place until they transferred him," she wrote, "my heart hurts because I know he was alive and the state could have saved him."
----
Son of killed hostage Alex Dancyg: My father died for Netanyahu's government of destruction, Israel must wake up and take to the streets
Matti Dancyg, the son of Israeli hostage Alex Dancyg who was killed in captivity in Gaza told Haaretz: "My father did not die for nothing. He died for the sanctification of Netanyahu's government of destruction, which claimed that the hostages suffer but do not die. Israel must wake up and take to the streets en masse. There are still lives that can be saved, including my dear uncle Itzhak Elgarat."
Dancyg commented on Netanyahu's intention to thwart a deal, saying "He chooses to save his rotten government instead of saving the lives of Israeli citizens who he himself is responsible being taken hostage. Every moment that Netanyahu continues to maintain his rotten government instead of stopping the war and returning the hosatges is a crime against Israeli citizens".
---
Al-Jazeera: Dozens killed as Palestinians flee Israel’s new offensive on Khan Younis - The dead include women and children as more than 200 injured arrive at the overwhelmed Nasser Medical Complex.
Gaza City-bound UN aid convoy comes under Israeli fire, says UNRWA
Inside the news, there's also this update: Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Monday that the killing of youngsters more than tripled since 7 October, compared to the first nine months of 2023, with one Palestinian youngster dying every two days, on average.
The UN agency said that 143 Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel sparked the war in Gaza, compared with 41 Palestinian children killed from January to September 2023.
Coincidentally: Israeli parliament votes to label UN relief agency a terror organisation
Still doesn't take away both the right of return or the obligations of an occupation force.
posted by cendawanita at 1:23 AM on July 23 [4 favorites]
Israeli parliament votes to label UN relief agency a terror organisation
guess it's time to re-post the UNRWA donation link.
we stan organised terror, i suppose.
also, at least for me, that donation page throws a pop-up about how donations to UNRWA are tax-deductible in the US 🤷.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:28 AM on July 23 [2 favorites]
guess it's time to re-post the UNRWA donation link.
we stan organised terror, i suppose.
also, at least for me, that donation page throws a pop-up about how donations to UNRWA are tax-deductible in the US 🤷.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:28 AM on July 23 [2 favorites]
Israel-Hamas war: Netanyahu signals ceasefire deal could be shaping up as deaths top 39,000
Wow, so 39,000 is the magic number that's "enough" is it? 39,000 dead kids to just about make up for the wounds endured for the sake of flawed caregiver love. I'm going to have to look up our family pedophile's track record and see if I can estimate the count... 39 kids would not be far off at all -- especially not compared to this guy's 39.
posted by human ecologist at 6:00 AM on July 23 [2 favorites]
Wow, so 39,000 is the magic number that's "enough" is it? 39,000 dead kids to just about make up for the wounds endured for the sake of flawed caregiver love. I'm going to have to look up our family pedophile's track record and see if I can estimate the count... 39 kids would not be far off at all -- especially not compared to this guy's 39.
posted by human ecologist at 6:00 AM on July 23 [2 favorites]
For some reason Canada doesn't want my IP to visit that link lolol but I wonder if this is after the non-public visit to the White House (with Harris I believe)
posted by cendawanita at 6:10 AM on July 23 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 6:10 AM on July 23 [1 favorite]
Thanks for mentioning this. Something is going weird with accessibility to Canada's news reporting on international events (hence my falling back to the colonially exudative BBC News).
In that case then, here's a snippet: Netanyahu said the conditions to bring the captives back were "ripening,"... how bedeutungsschwanger of him, which would make sense considering it's been ~9 months of war that we should finally experience the pregnant moment now.
I know, I know, I really shouldn't post at all...
posted by human ecologist at 6:24 AM on July 23 [3 favorites]
In that case then, here's a snippet: Netanyahu said the conditions to bring the captives back were "ripening,"... how bedeutungsschwanger of him, which would make sense considering it's been ~9 months of war that we should finally experience the pregnant moment now.
I know, I know, I really shouldn't post at all...
posted by human ecologist at 6:24 AM on July 23 [3 favorites]
Demonstrators stage mass protest against Netanyahu visit and U.S. military aid to Israel
Netanyahu facing 'day of rage' in Washington, protesters say
GOOD -- "Never Again" should be for *everyone*. Let's hope his Ceaușescu day is coming even faster now.
posted by human ecologist at 3:25 PM on July 23 [4 favorites]
Netanyahu facing 'day of rage' in Washington, protesters say
GOOD -- "Never Again" should be for *everyone*. Let's hope his Ceaușescu day is coming even faster now.
posted by human ecologist at 3:25 PM on July 23 [4 favorites]
Montreal electronic traffic signs hacked to display pro-Palestinian political slogans
The message boards that normally advise motorists of roadwork were tampered with to display phrases such as “free Palestine," “escalate now," and “globalize the intifada." By the end of the morning, the original messages had been restored at the sites.
“We have to get out of this binary of freeing Palestine means violence against Jews. It doesn't, and as long as we see it in that binary there's always going to be more violence. There's always going to be more war,”
Well you know, I would bet these folks were feeling similarly for rather similar reasons. Fantastic that the planet is now doing it's best to shake off or antifada us the way we have collectively used our species' offspring um unsere blätter zu schütteln. Maybe we can also cast of the binary feeling that creating a society capable of protecting some children's sacred rights, i.e. the right to grow up on this planet unmolested, must be achieved at the expense of others, eh.
(Please note it in some, i.e. many, Canadian Indigenous diaspora, it is no coincidence that their children in care are also disproportionately abused and/or neglected if not directly into death then into homelessness and addiction (you know, the slow-burning kind of death). It's not that EuroSettler kids absolutely have it better, or that EuroSettler kids are never taken into foster care and/or subsequently abused or neglected to death... it's that somehow through the lens of EuroSettler patriarchial interpretation of what's considered necessary for the "well-being of the child," getting abused and/or "deceased" becomes the sentence for an utterly broken child welfare system. Even when they "empower" Indigenous people to attempt to take back some semblance of "control" over what's happening, somehow "magically" it still turns out this way -- anyone ever notice that? Ever notice how outsourcing the need to use children as poison containers for one's unresolved attachment-related traumas and other narcissistic bullsh*t potently serves to offset psychic distress for EuroSettlers having to tolerate direct in-population predation. How can we feel "safe" afterall, unless we know the predators are amply fed.)
Also: Learning languages is fun!
posted by human ecologist at 7:59 AM on July 26 [3 favorites]
The message boards that normally advise motorists of roadwork were tampered with to display phrases such as “free Palestine," “escalate now," and “globalize the intifada." By the end of the morning, the original messages had been restored at the sites.
“We have to get out of this binary of freeing Palestine means violence against Jews. It doesn't, and as long as we see it in that binary there's always going to be more violence. There's always going to be more war,”
Well you know, I would bet these folks were feeling similarly for rather similar reasons. Fantastic that the planet is now doing it's best to shake off or antifada us the way we have collectively used our species' offspring um unsere blätter zu schütteln. Maybe we can also cast of the binary feeling that creating a society capable of protecting some children's sacred rights, i.e. the right to grow up on this planet unmolested, must be achieved at the expense of others, eh.
(Please note it in some, i.e. many, Canadian Indigenous diaspora, it is no coincidence that their children in care are also disproportionately abused and/or neglected if not directly into death then into homelessness and addiction (you know, the slow-burning kind of death). It's not that EuroSettler kids absolutely have it better, or that EuroSettler kids are never taken into foster care and/or subsequently abused or neglected to death... it's that somehow through the lens of EuroSettler patriarchial interpretation of what's considered necessary for the "well-being of the child," getting abused and/or "deceased" becomes the sentence for an utterly broken child welfare system. Even when they "empower" Indigenous people to attempt to take back some semblance of "control" over what's happening, somehow "magically" it still turns out this way -- anyone ever notice that? Ever notice how outsourcing the need to use children as poison containers for one's unresolved attachment-related traumas and other narcissistic bullsh*t potently serves to offset psychic distress for EuroSettlers having to tolerate direct in-population predation. How can we feel "safe" afterall, unless we know the predators are amply fed.)
Also: Learning languages is fun!
posted by human ecologist at 7:59 AM on July 26 [3 favorites]
Apologies I have a lot of tabs open, so a number of these articles are of the ICYMI at this point:-
Christian Science Monitor : 4 ATMs, 2 million people: Cash crunch compounds Gaza’s wartime woes
The need for hard currency has skyrocketed since Israel’s May offensive in Rafah, which cut off thousands of families from aid and forced tens of thousands of displaced families to pay out the last of their savings to truck drivers and taxis to evacuate to central Gaza.
It also cut off access for many to the other two known working ATMs in Gaza, in Rafah and in next-door Khan Yunis.
Thousands, like Ali al-Hajjar, have given up trying to withdraw from their bank accounts.
“I stood in line for 10 days just to get my January pension. I got a headache and heatstroke from standing in the sun,” recalls Mr. Hajjar, a former civil servant displaced from his home in Gaza City, eventually to Deir al-Balah. “Finally, I lost hope and haven’t even bothered trying to get to the front of an ATM line since.”
Mondoweiss: Mobilizing global support for Gaza’s mental health emergency - A new Gaza Community Mental Health Programme report paints a stark picture of the severe mental health crisis unfolding in Gaza due to the ongoing Israeli genocide.
---
Same angle but different coverage that started first with Politico: We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable.
Then this week at CBS: Children of Gaza
I'm pretty sure out of desperation at this point but both pieces have the surgeons become more matter-of-fact in describing the human toll and carnage.
Quotes: (Politico) While touring the hospital we walked through one of the ICUs and found multiple preteens admitted with gunshot wounds to the head. One might argue that a child could have been injured unintentionally in an explosion, or perhaps even forgotten when Israel invaded a children’s hospital and reportedly left infants to die in a pediatric intensive care unit.
Gunshot wounds to the head are an entirely different matter.
We started seeing a series of children, preteens mostly, who’d been shot in the head. They’d go on to slowly die, only to be replaced by new victims who’d also been shot in the head, and who would also go on to slowly die. Their families told us one of two stories: the children were playing inside when they were shot by Israeli forces, or they were playing in the street when they were shot by Israeli forces.
(...) Among the medical staff who survived the assaults on the Shifa and Indonesian Hospitals, many were taken from those hospitals by the Israeli military. They all told us a slightly different version of the same horror story: In captivity, they were barely fed, continuously abused and ultimately dumped naked on the side of a road. Many said they were subjected to mock executions and other forms of mistreatment and torture. (...) Several staff members told us they were simply waiting to die, and that they hoped Israel would get it over with sooner rather than later.
(...)
We noticed that bombing seemed to peak at iftar when families were gathered together to break the fast during Ramadan with whatever food they had available.
Most of the bombardment was directed at empty buildings, but when an inhabited one was hit we’d see a flood of casualties. Those who made it to us alive met very specific criteria: They were trapped in part of the collapsed building that was accessible to people digging with their hands — and their injuries weren’t severe enough to kill them over the hours it took to free them.
(CBS) Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina, and vice president of the International College of Surgeons, volunteered in Gaza from the end of April through the first half of May. Asked to describe what he witnessed in Gaza, Dr. Perlmutter replied, "All of the disasters I've seen, combined – 40 mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined – doesn't equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza."
And the civilian casualties, he said, are almost exclusively children. "I've never seen that before," he said. "I've seen more incinerated children than I've ever seen in my entire life, combined. I've seen more shredded children in just the first week … missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority. We've taken shrapnel as big as my thumb out of eight-year-olds. And then there's sniper bullets. I have children that were shot twice."
"You're saying that children in Gaza are being shot by snipers?" asked Smith.
"Definitively," said Dr. Perlmutter. "I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn't put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the 'world's best sniper.' And they're dead-center shots."
In fact, more than 20 doctors recently in Gaza also told "Sunday Morning" about gunshot wounds to children.
One American doctor told us he even reviewed CT scans to confirm what he saw because he "didn't believe that this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head." Some shootings have been captured on video.
(...) Some medical professionals who spoke to "Sunday Morning" requested their identities be kept private, as some plan to return again to Gaza. A Virginia-based doctor told us, "We all see gunshots in the U.S., but we have never seen anything like the gunshots to kids in Gaza." Another Virginia-based anesthesiologist told CBS News that, over his two weeks in Gaza, he saw single gunshot wounds to kids on a daily basis (he guessed at least 30 total).
One Chicago-based doctor told us, "I thought these kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time, like sadly, some of the kids we treat in Chicago. But after the third or fourth time, I realized it was intentional; bullets were being put in these kids on purpose."
Well, I suppose I'll end it here with some 'light' entertainment - since we are clear that this is no moral army, here's another reminder that they're also a clown army:
Haaretz: Haaretz Investigation | Atlantis Is Lost: How the Israeli Army's Plan to Flood Hamas' Network of Tunnels Under Gaza Failed - Israel started by adopting an old and unsuitable plan, continued by ignoring professional advice and the possible danger to the abductees – and ended quietly a few months later, anyone saying whether it achieved anything at all. Haaretz surveys profiles the Atlantis project – a predictable military failure which no one stopped until it was too late
TL;DR they were foiled by the physical concept and reality of drainage.
However, the experts determined that the IDF began to flood the tunnels without having a mechanism to assess the resulting operational achievement. "In effect," they summed up, "we don't know with what degree of success the process was carried out."
And maybe what's written in the document is putting it mildly. Haaretz learned that from the very first attempts to address the problem, professionals cast doubt on the ability to flood the tunnels in a way that would make it difficult for Hamas activists to remain in them, and to cause their deaths. "Finkelman wanted to enter and operate in the tunnels as fast as possible," explains a defense source involved in the details of the plan. "Every capability practiced in the IDF until the war was unrelated to the situation that the forces encountered in the field. The IDF thought that they could reinvent the wheel within days or weeks without any in-depth study of the subject and its consequences."
What about the hostages?
One of the issues that they didn't deal with at all was the hostages. "It wasn't taken into account, and anyone who tells you otherwise isn't being accurate," says a professional source who was involved in the project. "When we asked for information about the possibility that there were hostages in the tunnels; how they were being held; whether they were locked into rooms from which there was no escape; or other questions related to the issue – we soon realized that that was out of our field of expertise, that it's information to which only a few people are exposed." The same source adds that the army said that there are areas where there was a likelihood that hostages were present, but from what we understood, that was less relevant to the tunnels."
A clown army of wartime scrapbookers:
HRW: Israel: Detainees Face Inhumane Treatment - Degrading Photos Circulated; Acts Amount to War Crimes
Israeli forces have been publishing degrading photographs and videos of detained Palestinians, including children, a form of inhumane treatment and an outrage on their personal dignity that amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.
In many cases, detainees were stripped of their clothing, sometimes fully, then photographed or filmed, with the images published by Israeli soldiers, media outlets, or activists. Forced nudity followed by capturing and sharing sexualized images on social media is a form of sexual violence and also a war crime.
“Israeli authorities have for months turned a blind eye as members of their military published dehumanizing fully or seminude images and videos of Palestinians in their custody,” said Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Senior officials and military commanders can be held criminally responsible for ordering these crimes, or for failing to prevent or punish them, including at the International Criminal Court.”
Well, that's not very light content. How about a profile of one of the negotiated hostages in Hebrew-language Haaretz?
."Did you try to tell them something?
"At first I told them, listen, I don't know what's going on with my sons, with my husband. I wanted to somehow let them know that I'm alive," she grins. "They kept telling me, in a few days, in a few days. I didn't stop crying. They made sure I ate and drank. They said, 'We'll take care of you, you're safe here, nothing will happen to you.' They let me shower, change clothes. They washed my clothes."
Were they not afraid that you would try to escape?
"No, and rightly so. Where would I run away? The house was completely open, I could walk around freely. They asked me if I needed anything, and if I wanted to be in the room alone. They didn't watch over me at all. They realized I wasn't going anywhere, because what am I I will do it alone in Khan Yunis, because they didn't speak English and I don't speak Arabic. The kidnapper's mother and father, his siblings and her two children were at home, which is reassuring.
(...) But they didn't just talk to each other. During the long weeks in the hiding apartment, Atzili testifies that a kind of trusting relationship developed between her and the two guards. "It's very confusing. Of course I was scared, certainly at first. But they kept telling us that Hamas wants a deal, that it will happen soon and that their job is to protect us, that the interest is for us to be in a good situation. After a few days in captivity it was pretty clear to me that they probably wouldn't hurt us. I was very afraid that they would transfer us to other people. From time to time they brought up the possibility that they would transfer us again, and I told them - but you are staying with us, right?"
The guards allowed the abductees to watch Al-Jazeera broadcasts on television every day, and thus they partially learned about what happened on October 7.
(...) Many of the abductees reported that they experienced severe starvation while they were held in Gaza, but even in this sense Atzili was lucky, as she was held in Khan Yunis at a stage when a more or less reasonable food supply had arrived there. One of her stories sounds almost imaginary. "They were shocked that I was a vegetarian and asked me - so what do you eat? I said I really like pizza. So one of them rode his bike and brought a pizza from Crispy Pizza in Khan Yunis. Then we asked for fruits and vegetables and they brought them. Eggs ran out pretty quickly and it was impossible To get more. There were days when there was little food. It's very strange that you don't have control over what you eat. But we didn't suffer from hunger."
Sorry for the whiplash. You know how terrorists are like.
posted by cendawanita at 10:21 AM on July 26 [7 favorites]
Christian Science Monitor : 4 ATMs, 2 million people: Cash crunch compounds Gaza’s wartime woes
The need for hard currency has skyrocketed since Israel’s May offensive in Rafah, which cut off thousands of families from aid and forced tens of thousands of displaced families to pay out the last of their savings to truck drivers and taxis to evacuate to central Gaza.
It also cut off access for many to the other two known working ATMs in Gaza, in Rafah and in next-door Khan Yunis.
Thousands, like Ali al-Hajjar, have given up trying to withdraw from their bank accounts.
“I stood in line for 10 days just to get my January pension. I got a headache and heatstroke from standing in the sun,” recalls Mr. Hajjar, a former civil servant displaced from his home in Gaza City, eventually to Deir al-Balah. “Finally, I lost hope and haven’t even bothered trying to get to the front of an ATM line since.”
Mondoweiss: Mobilizing global support for Gaza’s mental health emergency - A new Gaza Community Mental Health Programme report paints a stark picture of the severe mental health crisis unfolding in Gaza due to the ongoing Israeli genocide.
---
Same angle but different coverage that started first with Politico: We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable.
Then this week at CBS: Children of Gaza
I'm pretty sure out of desperation at this point but both pieces have the surgeons become more matter-of-fact in describing the human toll and carnage.
Quotes: (Politico) While touring the hospital we walked through one of the ICUs and found multiple preteens admitted with gunshot wounds to the head. One might argue that a child could have been injured unintentionally in an explosion, or perhaps even forgotten when Israel invaded a children’s hospital and reportedly left infants to die in a pediatric intensive care unit.
Gunshot wounds to the head are an entirely different matter.
We started seeing a series of children, preteens mostly, who’d been shot in the head. They’d go on to slowly die, only to be replaced by new victims who’d also been shot in the head, and who would also go on to slowly die. Their families told us one of two stories: the children were playing inside when they were shot by Israeli forces, or they were playing in the street when they were shot by Israeli forces.
(...) Among the medical staff who survived the assaults on the Shifa and Indonesian Hospitals, many were taken from those hospitals by the Israeli military. They all told us a slightly different version of the same horror story: In captivity, they were barely fed, continuously abused and ultimately dumped naked on the side of a road. Many said they were subjected to mock executions and other forms of mistreatment and torture. (...) Several staff members told us they were simply waiting to die, and that they hoped Israel would get it over with sooner rather than later.
(...)
We noticed that bombing seemed to peak at iftar when families were gathered together to break the fast during Ramadan with whatever food they had available.
Most of the bombardment was directed at empty buildings, but when an inhabited one was hit we’d see a flood of casualties. Those who made it to us alive met very specific criteria: They were trapped in part of the collapsed building that was accessible to people digging with their hands — and their injuries weren’t severe enough to kill them over the hours it took to free them.
(CBS) Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina, and vice president of the International College of Surgeons, volunteered in Gaza from the end of April through the first half of May. Asked to describe what he witnessed in Gaza, Dr. Perlmutter replied, "All of the disasters I've seen, combined – 40 mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined – doesn't equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza."
And the civilian casualties, he said, are almost exclusively children. "I've never seen that before," he said. "I've seen more incinerated children than I've ever seen in my entire life, combined. I've seen more shredded children in just the first week … missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority. We've taken shrapnel as big as my thumb out of eight-year-olds. And then there's sniper bullets. I have children that were shot twice."
"You're saying that children in Gaza are being shot by snipers?" asked Smith.
"Definitively," said Dr. Perlmutter. "I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn't put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the 'world's best sniper.' And they're dead-center shots."
In fact, more than 20 doctors recently in Gaza also told "Sunday Morning" about gunshot wounds to children.
One American doctor told us he even reviewed CT scans to confirm what he saw because he "didn't believe that this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head." Some shootings have been captured on video.
(...) Some medical professionals who spoke to "Sunday Morning" requested their identities be kept private, as some plan to return again to Gaza. A Virginia-based doctor told us, "We all see gunshots in the U.S., but we have never seen anything like the gunshots to kids in Gaza." Another Virginia-based anesthesiologist told CBS News that, over his two weeks in Gaza, he saw single gunshot wounds to kids on a daily basis (he guessed at least 30 total).
One Chicago-based doctor told us, "I thought these kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time, like sadly, some of the kids we treat in Chicago. But after the third or fourth time, I realized it was intentional; bullets were being put in these kids on purpose."
Well, I suppose I'll end it here with some 'light' entertainment - since we are clear that this is no moral army, here's another reminder that they're also a clown army:
Haaretz: Haaretz Investigation | Atlantis Is Lost: How the Israeli Army's Plan to Flood Hamas' Network of Tunnels Under Gaza Failed - Israel started by adopting an old and unsuitable plan, continued by ignoring professional advice and the possible danger to the abductees – and ended quietly a few months later, anyone saying whether it achieved anything at all. Haaretz surveys profiles the Atlantis project – a predictable military failure which no one stopped until it was too late
TL;DR they were foiled by the physical concept and reality of drainage.
However, the experts determined that the IDF began to flood the tunnels without having a mechanism to assess the resulting operational achievement. "In effect," they summed up, "we don't know with what degree of success the process was carried out."
And maybe what's written in the document is putting it mildly. Haaretz learned that from the very first attempts to address the problem, professionals cast doubt on the ability to flood the tunnels in a way that would make it difficult for Hamas activists to remain in them, and to cause their deaths. "Finkelman wanted to enter and operate in the tunnels as fast as possible," explains a defense source involved in the details of the plan. "Every capability practiced in the IDF until the war was unrelated to the situation that the forces encountered in the field. The IDF thought that they could reinvent the wheel within days or weeks without any in-depth study of the subject and its consequences."
What about the hostages?
One of the issues that they didn't deal with at all was the hostages. "It wasn't taken into account, and anyone who tells you otherwise isn't being accurate," says a professional source who was involved in the project. "When we asked for information about the possibility that there were hostages in the tunnels; how they were being held; whether they were locked into rooms from which there was no escape; or other questions related to the issue – we soon realized that that was out of our field of expertise, that it's information to which only a few people are exposed." The same source adds that the army said that there are areas where there was a likelihood that hostages were present, but from what we understood, that was less relevant to the tunnels."
A clown army of wartime scrapbookers:
HRW: Israel: Detainees Face Inhumane Treatment - Degrading Photos Circulated; Acts Amount to War Crimes
Israeli forces have been publishing degrading photographs and videos of detained Palestinians, including children, a form of inhumane treatment and an outrage on their personal dignity that amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.
In many cases, detainees were stripped of their clothing, sometimes fully, then photographed or filmed, with the images published by Israeli soldiers, media outlets, or activists. Forced nudity followed by capturing and sharing sexualized images on social media is a form of sexual violence and also a war crime.
“Israeli authorities have for months turned a blind eye as members of their military published dehumanizing fully or seminude images and videos of Palestinians in their custody,” said Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Senior officials and military commanders can be held criminally responsible for ordering these crimes, or for failing to prevent or punish them, including at the International Criminal Court.”
Well, that's not very light content. How about a profile of one of the negotiated hostages in Hebrew-language Haaretz?
."Did you try to tell them something?
"At first I told them, listen, I don't know what's going on with my sons, with my husband. I wanted to somehow let them know that I'm alive," she grins. "They kept telling me, in a few days, in a few days. I didn't stop crying. They made sure I ate and drank. They said, 'We'll take care of you, you're safe here, nothing will happen to you.' They let me shower, change clothes. They washed my clothes."
Were they not afraid that you would try to escape?
"No, and rightly so. Where would I run away? The house was completely open, I could walk around freely. They asked me if I needed anything, and if I wanted to be in the room alone. They didn't watch over me at all. They realized I wasn't going anywhere, because what am I I will do it alone in Khan Yunis, because they didn't speak English and I don't speak Arabic. The kidnapper's mother and father, his siblings and her two children were at home, which is reassuring.
(...) But they didn't just talk to each other. During the long weeks in the hiding apartment, Atzili testifies that a kind of trusting relationship developed between her and the two guards. "It's very confusing. Of course I was scared, certainly at first. But they kept telling us that Hamas wants a deal, that it will happen soon and that their job is to protect us, that the interest is for us to be in a good situation. After a few days in captivity it was pretty clear to me that they probably wouldn't hurt us. I was very afraid that they would transfer us to other people. From time to time they brought up the possibility that they would transfer us again, and I told them - but you are staying with us, right?"
The guards allowed the abductees to watch Al-Jazeera broadcasts on television every day, and thus they partially learned about what happened on October 7.
(...) Many of the abductees reported that they experienced severe starvation while they were held in Gaza, but even in this sense Atzili was lucky, as she was held in Khan Yunis at a stage when a more or less reasonable food supply had arrived there. One of her stories sounds almost imaginary. "They were shocked that I was a vegetarian and asked me - so what do you eat? I said I really like pizza. So one of them rode his bike and brought a pizza from Crispy Pizza in Khan Yunis. Then we asked for fruits and vegetables and they brought them. Eggs ran out pretty quickly and it was impossible To get more. There were days when there was little food. It's very strange that you don't have control over what you eat. But we didn't suffer from hunger."
Sorry for the whiplash. You know how terrorists are like.
posted by cendawanita at 10:21 AM on July 26 [7 favorites]
rockets hit a soccer field in northern israel, killing at least 11, hizbollah denies firing the rocket, israel says this is very serious
perhaps this is going to be the match that sets things off
posted by pyramid termite at 12:56 PM on July 27
perhaps this is going to be the match that sets things off
posted by pyramid termite at 12:56 PM on July 27
Meanwhile Israel blew up one of Gaza's only remaining water reservoirs today.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:37 PM on July 27 [1 favorite]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:37 PM on July 27 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One removed; if reporting new info, please link to source(s), thank you!
posted by taz (staff) at 11:23 PM on July 27
posted by taz (staff) at 11:23 PM on July 27
Also, pyramidtermite (and everyone else): Whatever kind of munition hit Majdal Shams, it didn't hit "northern Israel", because Majdal Shams is not in Israel—it's in the illegally-occupied Golan Heights, which belongs to Syria. The people who live there are Druze, and they rejected the idea of belonging to Israel pretty thoroughly in 1982.
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:12 AM on July 28 [7 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:12 AM on July 28 [7 favorites]
I'm so goddamn tired of everyone taking Israel's territorial claims as gospel. The Golan Heights is uncontroversially illegally-occupied Syrian territory! Israel's de-facto annexation of it is recognized by only ONE other country! Guess which country that is!
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:39 AM on July 28 [3 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:39 AM on July 28 [3 favorites]
perhaps this is going to be the match that sets things off
seems pretty well set off already.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:26 AM on July 29
seems pretty well set off already.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:26 AM on July 29
The people who live there are Druze, and they rejected the idea of belonging to Israel pretty thoroughly in 1982.
That's very simplistic and more than a little misleading, adrienneleigh. Ha'aretz posted a good introductory explainer [gift link] yesterday about the Druze, including that "a large percentage of its population serves in the IDF - by far the highest among Israel's non-Jewish minorities," and their up-and-down relationship with the Israeli government:
Viewed as Israel's "model minority" with a deep-rooted, close and complex relationship to the state, the importance of the Druze was reflected in the quick and empathetic reactions of Israel's leaders - even on the far right - and the Israeli public to the Majdal Shams tragedy and promises of a "significant response" against Hezbollah.
But it is also a community whose dealings with the governments led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the past years has been notably rocky. Five years ago, an anguished outcry against the Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People arose among the Druze - sparking angry protests against the legislation that is widely interpreted as denying full equality to non-Jewish citizens. The law was viewed by the Druze as a slap in the face, and remains an open wound...
Over the centuries, Druze society has promoted blending in and solidifying ties with ruling powers and dominant groups in the countries where they live, for both ideological and practical reasons: separatism isn't part of their core philosophy and it helps them avoid the persecution that has followed them over the centuries.
In Israel, this has set them apart from the Muslim and Christian Arab populations, who are exempt from army service. Instead, all Druze men are subject to the military draft. As a group, they have played a key role in IDF life since the founding of the state in 1948, many reaching high ranks and some entire units being dominated by members of the community.
This status as "brothers in arms" has given them a special position in Israeli society, distinguishing them from other non-Jewish minorities. They are regularly represented in the leadership of centrist and even right-wing political parties, and are present in government service, the media and other centers of power to a greater extent as well.
There's more about the complicated relationship between the Druze and Israel in this piece, too: The Deadly Attack in Northern Israel Exposed the Druze Community's Precarious Situation [gift]
posted by mediareport at 6:22 AM on July 29 [2 favorites]
That's very simplistic and more than a little misleading, adrienneleigh. Ha'aretz posted a good introductory explainer [gift link] yesterday about the Druze, including that "a large percentage of its population serves in the IDF - by far the highest among Israel's non-Jewish minorities," and their up-and-down relationship with the Israeli government:
Viewed as Israel's "model minority" with a deep-rooted, close and complex relationship to the state, the importance of the Druze was reflected in the quick and empathetic reactions of Israel's leaders - even on the far right - and the Israeli public to the Majdal Shams tragedy and promises of a "significant response" against Hezbollah.
But it is also a community whose dealings with the governments led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the past years has been notably rocky. Five years ago, an anguished outcry against the Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People arose among the Druze - sparking angry protests against the legislation that is widely interpreted as denying full equality to non-Jewish citizens. The law was viewed by the Druze as a slap in the face, and remains an open wound...
Over the centuries, Druze society has promoted blending in and solidifying ties with ruling powers and dominant groups in the countries where they live, for both ideological and practical reasons: separatism isn't part of their core philosophy and it helps them avoid the persecution that has followed them over the centuries.
In Israel, this has set them apart from the Muslim and Christian Arab populations, who are exempt from army service. Instead, all Druze men are subject to the military draft. As a group, they have played a key role in IDF life since the founding of the state in 1948, many reaching high ranks and some entire units being dominated by members of the community.
This status as "brothers in arms" has given them a special position in Israeli society, distinguishing them from other non-Jewish minorities. They are regularly represented in the leadership of centrist and even right-wing political parties, and are present in government service, the media and other centers of power to a greater extent as well.
There's more about the complicated relationship between the Druze and Israel in this piece, too: The Deadly Attack in Northern Israel Exposed the Druze Community's Precarious Situation [gift]
posted by mediareport at 6:22 AM on July 29 [2 favorites]
Here's another piece in The Times of Israel from September 2022 about the increase in Druze applying for Israeli citizenship for a variety of reasons, chief among them the collapse of the Syrian state; the numbers aren't huge but the explanations are worth a read. From one academic:
...he said those applying for citizenship were not doing so out of a desire to become Israeli, but rather because clinging to Syria was no longer an attractive option. “The collapse of the Syrian state and the devastation there forced the Golan Druze to choose the rational option: integrate into the Israel sphere. It’s a practical integration. I can sum it up in four words: Recognizing reality, not Zionism,” he said.
And a Druze woman:
Though her dream was to study medicine in Damascus, the civil war made that impossible. Instead, she studied in Israel, and since graduating, she has worked for several Israeli companies. She has also found time to travel overseas with her family. Not having citizenship, she says, made life hard for her every step of the way, especially when traveling between countries, so she decided to request Israeli citizenship and improve her quality of life.
And from March, al-Jazeera on protests against Assad's police state in Druze-controlled areas within Syria.
It's a complicated situation.
posted by mediareport at 6:43 AM on July 29 [2 favorites]
...he said those applying for citizenship were not doing so out of a desire to become Israeli, but rather because clinging to Syria was no longer an attractive option. “The collapse of the Syrian state and the devastation there forced the Golan Druze to choose the rational option: integrate into the Israel sphere. It’s a practical integration. I can sum it up in four words: Recognizing reality, not Zionism,” he said.
And a Druze woman:
Though her dream was to study medicine in Damascus, the civil war made that impossible. Instead, she studied in Israel, and since graduating, she has worked for several Israeli companies. She has also found time to travel overseas with her family. Not having citizenship, she says, made life hard for her every step of the way, especially when traveling between countries, so she decided to request Israeli citizenship and improve her quality of life.
And from March, al-Jazeera on protests against Assad's police state in Druze-controlled areas within Syria.
It's a complicated situation.
posted by mediareport at 6:43 AM on July 29 [2 favorites]
I think the fact that there are Druze who're making the calculations to abide by the de facto (and de jure) occupation because it's been going on so long doesn't change the fact that in international law, it's not simply contested land - the territory is under an illegal occupation (and only the US even has an official position of a sort that recognizes Israel's claim - no one else does). Protests against the govt of the day shouldn't change the fact there is still a valid territorial boundary that marks off "Syria" (that needs diplomatic negotiation to solidify? Absolutely!).
We're going to go through the same thicket of mental confusion every time we hit any one of Israel's famous fluid borders, aren't we? At least we've semi-settled the nonsense that is Israel's framing when it comes to Palestine.
(Unfortunately because it's touching on Syria, Al-Jazeera needs to be treated as suspect as NYT in their editorial policy)
posted by cendawanita at 7:02 AM on July 29 [3 favorites]
We're going to go through the same thicket of mental confusion every time we hit any one of Israel's famous fluid borders, aren't we? At least we've semi-settled the nonsense that is Israel's framing when it comes to Palestine.
(Unfortunately because it's touching on Syria, Al-Jazeera needs to be treated as suspect as NYT in their editorial policy)
posted by cendawanita at 7:02 AM on July 29 [3 favorites]
mediareport: are you genuinely citing Ha'aretz and the fucking Times of Israel as legitimate sources on the attitudes of people that Israel is actively colonizing?
Also, again, i was not talking about "Druze" in general; i was talking about the Druze of this specific village, Majdal Shams, who yet again yesterday told Israel exactly what they think of being an illegally-occupied territory. (Link is to Ali Abunimah's tweet about how Majdal Shams residents yelled "get out, murderer!" at Netanyahu.) They may not want to belong to Syria, either (which is entirely reasonable of them), but they sure as hell don't want to belong to the zionist entity.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:23 AM on July 29 [1 favorite]
Also, again, i was not talking about "Druze" in general; i was talking about the Druze of this specific village, Majdal Shams, who yet again yesterday told Israel exactly what they think of being an illegally-occupied territory. (Link is to Ali Abunimah's tweet about how Majdal Shams residents yelled "get out, murderer!" at Netanyahu.) They may not want to belong to Syria, either (which is entirely reasonable of them), but they sure as hell don't want to belong to the zionist entity.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:23 AM on July 29 [1 favorite]
Meanwhile, a short Twitter thread by Haggai Matar (text reproduced in full but there are images in the tweets)
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:26 AM on July 29 [2 favorites]
Right now: Israeli Military Police arrives at Sde Timan jail to arrest soldiers for rape and torture of Palestinian detainees. Soldiers on the scene are resisting the arrests, and several government ministers and MKs are on their way to support the soldiers against policeI want to repeat a phrase for emphasis: In essence, soldiers are in open rebellion for the right to rape prisoners
In essence, soldiers are in open rebellion for the right to rape prisoners, and more and more coalition politicians are joining them - from Likud, Jewish Power, and more
Context: Sde Teiman has been acting as a torture camp for months. The testimonies of inmates, physicians and soldiers who served there are horrifying. What the MP is doing is to try and show minimal levels of enforcement, to fend off ICC/ICJ. Even that is unacceptable to some
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:26 AM on July 29 [2 favorites]
it's not simply contested land - the territory is under an illegal occupation
There is no doubt in my mind about that. Trump recognized the Golan annexation in the U.S.'s name during his term, but that shouldn't mean anything to anyone other than Netanyahu.
are you genuinely citing Ha'aretz and the fucking Times of Israel
You sound just like my Zionist cousin when I send him Ha'aretz links. Thanks for the much-needed laugh. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I tend to go article-by-article on the media diet thing, and both of those articles quoted folks I found worth listening to. I understand if you disagree. I was replying to what I saw as the implication in your comment with the 1982 photo that the same sentiment applies today. I think it's much more complicated than that. Do you think it's not?
posted by mediareport at 7:44 AM on July 29
There is no doubt in my mind about that. Trump recognized the Golan annexation in the U.S.'s name during his term, but that shouldn't mean anything to anyone other than Netanyahu.
are you genuinely citing Ha'aretz and the fucking Times of Israel
You sound just like my Zionist cousin when I send him Ha'aretz links. Thanks for the much-needed laugh. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I tend to go article-by-article on the media diet thing, and both of those articles quoted folks I found worth listening to. I understand if you disagree. I was replying to what I saw as the implication in your comment with the 1982 photo that the same sentiment applies today. I think it's much more complicated than that. Do you think it's not?
posted by mediareport at 7:44 AM on July 29
but they sure as hell don't want to belong to the zionist entity
Why are you talking this way about kids killed in a rocket attack?
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 7:45 AM on July 29
Why are you talking this way about kids killed in a rocket attack?
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 7:45 AM on July 29
mediareport: I think that the village of Majdal Shams has made its residents' ongoing personal loathing for Israel entirely clear, as of yesterday, as i pointed out. We don't have to generalize this to all Druze everywhere (and i wasn't doing so); obviously different people are going to feel differently about the illegal occupiers, and "adjusting to an unpleasant set of facts on the ground" is certainly a thing some folks do. But the residents of Majdal Shams do not like Israel, they do not want to be claimed by Israel, and they keep making that extremely clear.
Press Butt.on to Check: Because Israel doesn't give one single solitary shit about those kids, and never has, except as an excuse to bomb Lebanon. They aren't Israeli. They are Druze under Israeli occupation, and Israel would be just as happy if they had all died so their village could be resettled with Real People.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:50 AM on July 29 [4 favorites]
Press Butt.on to Check: Because Israel doesn't give one single solitary shit about those kids, and never has, except as an excuse to bomb Lebanon. They aren't Israeli. They are Druze under Israeli occupation, and Israel would be just as happy if they had all died so their village could be resettled with Real People.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:50 AM on July 29 [4 favorites]
It doesn't sound like you give a shit either
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 7:54 AM on July 29
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 7:54 AM on July 29
Trump recognized the Golan annexation in the U.S.'s name during his term, but that shouldn't mean anything to anyone other than Netanyahu.
And apparently Biden, no, since there's been no shift or reversion to the older mainstream legal position?
I will admit when the news broke I thought there was some fresh journalism that finally broke into Israeli mainstream consciousness over the fact that the IDF bombed kids playing football in this last month. So it's been a sight watching people act brand new.
That new rape bombshell is stomach turning - one of the victims couldn't be left to his own recovery per standard practice and had to go hospital. Muhammad Shehada also translated portions from Ynet and Israel Hayom. And in a case if bad timing, WaPo: Palestinians recount deadly abuse in Israeli prisons: ‘It is Guantánamo’ - The Post spoke to former Palestinian prisoners and lawyers and reviewed autopsy reports, revealing rampant violence and deprivation in Israel’s prison system.
I remain genuinely unsure why this country is not yet sanctioned at the international arena. I've never had to read this level of depravity so consistently for Russia just so I can share it here because people won't believe it.
posted by cendawanita at 8:48 AM on July 29 [4 favorites]
And apparently Biden, no, since there's been no shift or reversion to the older mainstream legal position?
I will admit when the news broke I thought there was some fresh journalism that finally broke into Israeli mainstream consciousness over the fact that the IDF bombed kids playing football in this last month. So it's been a sight watching people act brand new.
That new rape bombshell is stomach turning - one of the victims couldn't be left to his own recovery per standard practice and had to go hospital. Muhammad Shehada also translated portions from Ynet and Israel Hayom. And in a case if bad timing, WaPo: Palestinians recount deadly abuse in Israeli prisons: ‘It is Guantánamo’ - The Post spoke to former Palestinian prisoners and lawyers and reviewed autopsy reports, revealing rampant violence and deprivation in Israel’s prison system.
I remain genuinely unsure why this country is not yet sanctioned at the international arena. I've never had to read this level of depravity so consistently for Russia just so I can share it here because people won't believe it.
posted by cendawanita at 8:48 AM on July 29 [4 favorites]
I just saw this dated 2 hours ago, and became apparently a live thread -
Dimi Reider: Well, fuck. Civilian protesters have now broken into the compound and are currently surrounding the building where Gazan detainees are held. Per Haaretz, police are "standing aside". We could be on the verge of something exceptionally brutal - and game-changing.
The last two tweets: Protesters have now vacated the base. IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi has condemned the incident, arguing that military police investigations are essential to protect... IDF soldiers "at home and abroad", the latter obviously meaning the Hague.
YNET journalist Ilana Curiel, on the ground in Sde Teiman:
"Alright. I'm in tears. I've been spat on. Called a slut. Called a traitor. Had the phone slapped out for my hand, twice. When I was only trying to do my job. They insulted me again and again. Halfbr**d. Traitor. But on the other hand I'm not surprised."
(There's some slow-rolling international law stuff that I'm going to share in the ICJ thread)
posted by cendawanita at 9:01 AM on July 29 [4 favorites]
Dimi Reider: Well, fuck. Civilian protesters have now broken into the compound and are currently surrounding the building where Gazan detainees are held. Per Haaretz, police are "standing aside". We could be on the verge of something exceptionally brutal - and game-changing.
The last two tweets: Protesters have now vacated the base. IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi has condemned the incident, arguing that military police investigations are essential to protect... IDF soldiers "at home and abroad", the latter obviously meaning the Hague.
YNET journalist Ilana Curiel, on the ground in Sde Teiman:
"Alright. I'm in tears. I've been spat on. Called a slut. Called a traitor. Had the phone slapped out for my hand, twice. When I was only trying to do my job. They insulted me again and again. Halfbr**d. Traitor. But on the other hand I'm not surprised."
(There's some slow-rolling international law stuff that I'm going to share in the ICJ thread)
posted by cendawanita at 9:01 AM on July 29 [4 favorites]
Israelis, including MKs, literally doing a J6 today to support their society's absolute right to gang-rape and torture people they don't like. MKs in the Knesset arguing that it's totally 100% fine to gang-rape and torture people they don't like.
I have no words anymore for the sheer depravity.
At this point i just hope the looming civil war fucks the country up enough that they stop bombing everyone else.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:12 PM on July 29 [1 favorite]
I have no words anymore for the sheer depravity.
At this point i just hope the looming civil war fucks the country up enough that they stop bombing everyone else.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:12 PM on July 29 [1 favorite]
Palestinians recount deadly abuse in Israeli prisons: ‘It is Guantánamo’ - The Post spoke to former Palestinian prisoners and lawyers and reviewed autopsy reports, revealing rampant violence and deprivation in Israel’s prison system.
Entirely predictable given israel's stated desire to destroy hamas, which quickly became a Guerrilla force.....that Israel would set up filtration camps. ....in fact, - predicted last december on MeFi by sotonohito.
posted by lalochezia at 5:13 PM on July 29 [2 favorites]
Entirely predictable given israel's stated desire to destroy hamas, which quickly became a Guerrilla force.....that Israel would set up filtration camps. ....in fact, - predicted last december on MeFi by sotonohito.
posted by lalochezia at 5:13 PM on July 29 [2 favorites]
I mean, let's not pretend that any of this is new since October 7. Israel has been raping and torturing Palestinian prisoners for decades.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:22 PM on July 29 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:22 PM on July 29 [2 favorites]
Found a Druze woman on Twitter in Golan talking about how Israeli enforces apartheid on them, too. Water rights are a particular area of inequality.
The Israeli propagandists are out in numbers talking about how much they care for the Druze in Occupied Golan, so here a reminder ,
One of the biggest problem the Druze have in Golan is water discrimination ,we have to pay higher prices for water and we get lower quotas for the amount of water we are allowed to buy and use . Israeli settlers enjoy unmeasured access to the water,
Today agriculture is no longer profitable because the cost of water is too high. Meanwhile, Israel capitalizes on the water it steals from the Golan to produce many of Israel’s top-rated wines and exotic fruits in Golan
We have to collect rainwater or use a few local springs that Israel has continued to let us use, but they have been drying up as a result of the drilling activities and water extraction carried out by Israeli companies, israel have built 16 water reservoirs in Golan.
She also has a great thread of resources on the lives & history of the occupied people in Golan.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:33 PM on July 29 [4 favorites]
The Israeli propagandists are out in numbers talking about how much they care for the Druze in Occupied Golan, so here a reminder ,
One of the biggest problem the Druze have in Golan is water discrimination ,we have to pay higher prices for water and we get lower quotas for the amount of water we are allowed to buy and use . Israeli settlers enjoy unmeasured access to the water,
Today agriculture is no longer profitable because the cost of water is too high. Meanwhile, Israel capitalizes on the water it steals from the Golan to produce many of Israel’s top-rated wines and exotic fruits in Golan
We have to collect rainwater or use a few local springs that Israel has continued to let us use, but they have been drying up as a result of the drilling activities and water extraction carried out by Israeli companies, israel have built 16 water reservoirs in Golan.
She also has a great thread of resources on the lives & history of the occupied people in Golan.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:33 PM on July 29 [4 favorites]
I really want the Sde Teiman stuff to get its own post/thread, but i'm afraid it'd just get nuked.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:54 PM on July 29 [1 favorite]
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:54 PM on July 29 [1 favorite]
Thanks to Noisy Pink Bubbles, who shared the NYT coverage of this specific Sde Teiman news (ungated) over at the ICJ thread: It did not give details of the abuse allegations, but a lawyer representing three of the soldiers said they were being questioned on suspicion of severe sexual abuse of a Palestinian prisoner. Several Israeli media outlets reported that the prisoner had been hospitalized with a serious injury to his anus.
For all the context reported, there wasn't any coverage of what had gone in the Knesset in relation, which was, well, rancid. Per Tali Shapiro's translation:
Likud Member of Knesset, Hanoch Milwidsky, announces a "voting strike" in response to the attempts to arrest the raping soldiers.
MK Ahmad Tibi: Inserting a stick in a person's rectum, is that legitimate?
Milwidsky: Yes! If he’s a Nukhba everything is legitimate to do him!
---
Currently my mind is thinking many dark things about projection and that maxim, 'every accusation is a confession'. I'll leave it there.
---
In the meantime the Guardian has started a daily series of covering the story a Palestinian in Gaza a day. I'm catching up with:
The Gaza aid worker: A missile hit my sister’s home – I lost 14 of my family
The Gaza physiotherapist: My house was bombed – and my baby son and beloved husband died
posted by cendawanita at 8:17 PM on July 29 [6 favorites]
For all the context reported, there wasn't any coverage of what had gone in the Knesset in relation, which was, well, rancid. Per Tali Shapiro's translation:
Likud Member of Knesset, Hanoch Milwidsky, announces a "voting strike" in response to the attempts to arrest the raping soldiers.
MK Ahmad Tibi: Inserting a stick in a person's rectum, is that legitimate?
Milwidsky: Yes! If he’s a Nukhba everything is legitimate to do him!
---
Currently my mind is thinking many dark things about projection and that maxim, 'every accusation is a confession'. I'll leave it there.
---
In the meantime the Guardian has started a daily series of covering the story a Palestinian in Gaza a day. I'm catching up with:
The Gaza aid worker: A missile hit my sister’s home – I lost 14 of my family
The Gaza physiotherapist: My house was bombed – and my baby son and beloved husband died
posted by cendawanita at 8:17 PM on July 29 [6 favorites]
I have no words anymore for the sheer depravity.
On the upside, the IDF is the world's most moral army.
posted by flabdablet at 10:16 PM on July 29 [3 favorites]
On the upside, the IDF is the world's most moral army.
posted by flabdablet at 10:16 PM on July 29 [3 favorites]
"My 'world's most moral army' slogan is raising a lot of questions that have already been answered by my slogan"
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:19 PM on July 29 [2 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:19 PM on July 29 [2 favorites]
Guardian coverage: Israeli inquest into alleged abuse of Palestinian detainees sparks far-right fury
Oh I see - Benzion Sanders (translating a Hebrew report tweet + editorializing): Insane Report:
The IDF is withdrawing multiple battalions from the Gaza Strip and sending them to defend the Beit Lid base which is under siege by fascist militias.
This is actually good news.
ICYMI, these batalions of the most moral army will be leaving behind a polio outbreak, which is worsened by the deliberate destruction of a water facility... Built with Canadian tax payer support. (I suspect the timing has much to do like when Belgium saw its development agency office bombed), and also has historical significance for international activism:
The water facility, also known as the Canada Well, is situated in Tel Sultan Neighborhood, in the western part of Rafah city. U.S. human rights activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer while attempting to prevent demolitions in the city, spent much of her time during the last month of her life helping to protect the municipality workers at the Canada Well. The workers were repairing damage done to the well due to the Israeli military bulldozers in the area, according to Gordon Murray, one of her fellow activists.
Anyway, once again, we know this how? War crime scrapbooking:
The soldiers who blew up the water system this week were carrying out a strategy that has been explicitly articulated by the Netanyahu government. In October, an adviser to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Giora Eiland, laid out the strategy to deprive Palestinians not just of water from outside Gaza, but to disrupt their ability to pump and purify water locally, on the IDF’s radio station, GLZ. “Israel, as I understand, closed the water supply to Gaza,” said Eiland in a Hebrew-language interview. “But there are many wells in Gaza, which contain water which they treat locally, since originally they contain salt. If the energy shortage in Gaza makes it so that they stop pumping out water, that's good. Otherwise we have to attack these water treatment plants in order to create a situation of thirst and hunger in Gaza, and I would say, forewarn of an unprecedented economical and humanitarian crisis.”
The interviewer pushed back. “Giora, I want to check that I understand correctly. You are saying—get the residents of Gaza into thirst, into hunger. These are the terms you are using?”
“You understood correctly,” he said. “If you want to topple the Hamas regime, you won't achieve that merely through aerial attacks. And a ground invasion, it has its benefits, [but] it also comes with great risks, and it's unclear that the state of Israel needs to take these right now.”
For months, Israeli forces have been targeting vital water resources in the strip leading to starvation and, according to new reports, worsening access to clean water. Last week, the Israeli military and the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Poliovirus has been found in Gaza’s sewage, further intensifying the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied enclave.
Our exposure of the video on Friday immediately sparked outrage, with some describing it as evidence of war crimes. The soldier quickly made his account private and deleted the stories.
posted by cendawanita at 11:24 PM on July 29 [8 favorites]
Oh I see - Benzion Sanders (translating a Hebrew report tweet + editorializing): Insane Report:
The IDF is withdrawing multiple battalions from the Gaza Strip and sending them to defend the Beit Lid base which is under siege by fascist militias.
This is actually good news.
ICYMI, these batalions of the most moral army will be leaving behind a polio outbreak, which is worsened by the deliberate destruction of a water facility... Built with Canadian tax payer support. (I suspect the timing has much to do like when Belgium saw its development agency office bombed), and also has historical significance for international activism:
The water facility, also known as the Canada Well, is situated in Tel Sultan Neighborhood, in the western part of Rafah city. U.S. human rights activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer while attempting to prevent demolitions in the city, spent much of her time during the last month of her life helping to protect the municipality workers at the Canada Well. The workers were repairing damage done to the well due to the Israeli military bulldozers in the area, according to Gordon Murray, one of her fellow activists.
Anyway, once again, we know this how? War crime scrapbooking:
The soldiers who blew up the water system this week were carrying out a strategy that has been explicitly articulated by the Netanyahu government. In October, an adviser to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Giora Eiland, laid out the strategy to deprive Palestinians not just of water from outside Gaza, but to disrupt their ability to pump and purify water locally, on the IDF’s radio station, GLZ. “Israel, as I understand, closed the water supply to Gaza,” said Eiland in a Hebrew-language interview. “But there are many wells in Gaza, which contain water which they treat locally, since originally they contain salt. If the energy shortage in Gaza makes it so that they stop pumping out water, that's good. Otherwise we have to attack these water treatment plants in order to create a situation of thirst and hunger in Gaza, and I would say, forewarn of an unprecedented economical and humanitarian crisis.”
The interviewer pushed back. “Giora, I want to check that I understand correctly. You are saying—get the residents of Gaza into thirst, into hunger. These are the terms you are using?”
“You understood correctly,” he said. “If you want to topple the Hamas regime, you won't achieve that merely through aerial attacks. And a ground invasion, it has its benefits, [but] it also comes with great risks, and it's unclear that the state of Israel needs to take these right now.”
For months, Israeli forces have been targeting vital water resources in the strip leading to starvation and, according to new reports, worsening access to clean water. Last week, the Israeli military and the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Poliovirus has been found in Gaza’s sewage, further intensifying the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied enclave.
Our exposure of the video on Friday immediately sparked outrage, with some describing it as evidence of war crimes. The soldier quickly made his account private and deleted the stories.
posted by cendawanita at 11:24 PM on July 29 [8 favorites]
It must be such a comfort to the IDF's Palestinian prisoners to know that the beatings, electric anal rapes, dog attacks, amputations and starvation routinely visited upon them are all being conducted in strict accordance with the Israeli government's longstanding and inviolable commitment to upholding the highest standards of international humanitarian law.
posted by flabdablet at 12:29 AM on July 30 [8 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 12:29 AM on July 30 [8 favorites]
Polio Eradication
posted by Mitheral at 1:14 PM on July 30 [4 favorites]
Routine immunization rates in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) were optimal before the start of conflict in October 2023. Polio vaccination coverage (POL3), primarily conducted through routine immunization, was estimated at 99% in 2022. This has declined to 89% in 2023, according to the latest WHO-UNICEF routine immunization estimates (WUENIC)./censored. Polio was eradicated in Gaza. This is bad not only for the Palestinians but also for the world wide effort to eradicate this disease.
posted by Mitheral at 1:14 PM on July 30 [4 favorites]
Good thing Iran isn't a fellow ally country - Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran: State media
posted by cendawanita at 8:32 PM on July 30 [2 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:32 PM on July 30 [2 favorites]
(this is actually about a different Israeli strike - in Beirut. I think! A lot of war crimes while I was asleep.)
Heidi Matthews (in reply to a point about self-defense): No—as others have noted, Israel has no right to defend itself against an attack on the Golan Heights, as the Golan Heights is not Israeli territory—it’s occupied Syrian territory. Israel’s annexation of the territory is unlawful under international law.
Just a representative statement of the position I'm finding amongst legal scholars.
posted by cendawanita at 8:51 PM on July 30 [4 favorites]
Heidi Matthews (in reply to a point about self-defense): No—as others have noted, Israel has no right to defend itself against an attack on the Golan Heights, as the Golan Heights is not Israeli territory—it’s occupied Syrian territory. Israel’s annexation of the territory is unlawful under international law.
Just a representative statement of the position I'm finding amongst legal scholars.
posted by cendawanita at 8:51 PM on July 30 [4 favorites]
Technically this thread is open for another week, but we might need a fresh one because with the assassination of the head of the negotiations team for Hamas, the current status of the ceasefire negotiations is probably dead/in deep pause. And the ongoing revelations of Sde Teiman.
posted by cendawanita at 9:31 PM on July 30 [5 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:31 PM on July 30 [5 favorites]
I agree, cendawanita. Also apparently besides polio there's a huge hepatitis epidemic in Gaza right now.
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:42 PM on July 30 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:42 PM on July 30 [2 favorites]
I'll give it till the end of my work hours, see if anything new comes in. Thanks about the hepatitis epidemic reminder, it got buried under all the other news.
posted by cendawanita at 10:48 PM on July 30 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 10:48 PM on July 30 [1 favorite]
U.K. leader accuses far right of hijacking a town's grief after killing of 3 children sparks violence
I know this isn't the place, but I'm not on Metafilter enough to start, manage and follow a thread. I put it here because I *know* (sociologically or whatever) that it's related, and I have no idea where else to express my sadness about this -- this obvious scapegoating by far-right groups in the privileged position of the colonial formula. There is no one here to talk to about things like this, because fragility. Because power and control over the colored bodies helps to mitigate EuroSettler anxieties. So I'm posting it here. Because I grew up in Canada, and even in total ethnic isolation from colored others, I know this... someone darker has to pay the price for when bad things happen to white people. I have paid this price. My late partner* certainly paid this price and continues to haunt me as to how to reconcile that. As colored people living among white people, while we're not allowed to talk about it we surely are expected to survive it.
It must be such a comfort to the IDF's Palestinian prisoners to know that the beatings, electric anal rapes, dog attacks, amputations and starvation routinely visited upon them are all being conducted in strict accordance with the Israeli government's longstanding and inviolable commitment to upholding the highest standards of international humanitarian law.
That is so very close to how I feel about Canada's domestic child welfare policy which has only ever upheld the very best in standards for children's health and well-being.
*My late partner was a survivor of the child welfare system in addition to the Residential School System and trans-Pacific Indenture (i.e. slavery-for-not-as-black-people) System. He was unable to escape the pedophile who came to own him within the fantastic framework of Capitalist Innovation allowing multiple such systems to fuse together, as it were, to facilitate human chattel practices into that New World design. His community was totally complacent with renting him out in exchange for good ol' White Man Benefits to offset the damages done by assimilation into Canada's colonial system for "Indian" (i.e. whatever white-caste capitalist blackbird EuroSettlers consider ripe with incest for incest) children. Sorry cendawanita if my comments are generally sh*tty. I do persistently support the end of EuroSettler (or anyone's) "Exceptionalism" to outsource its attachment adversity (i.e. abuse) needs onto populations considered "lesser than." As far as I'm concerned it's going to the same solution for the domestic situation as the international situation to both concurrently operating human-species-attachment-b*llshit mechanisms (i.e. when we learn how to improve our conduct as a species and stop doing this cr*p at home, we'll stop doing it abroad too).
posted by human ecologist at 10:56 AM on July 31 [2 favorites]
I know this isn't the place, but I'm not on Metafilter enough to start, manage and follow a thread. I put it here because I *know* (sociologically or whatever) that it's related, and I have no idea where else to express my sadness about this -- this obvious scapegoating by far-right groups in the privileged position of the colonial formula. There is no one here to talk to about things like this, because fragility. Because power and control over the colored bodies helps to mitigate EuroSettler anxieties. So I'm posting it here. Because I grew up in Canada, and even in total ethnic isolation from colored others, I know this... someone darker has to pay the price for when bad things happen to white people. I have paid this price. My late partner* certainly paid this price and continues to haunt me as to how to reconcile that. As colored people living among white people, while we're not allowed to talk about it we surely are expected to survive it.
It must be such a comfort to the IDF's Palestinian prisoners to know that the beatings, electric anal rapes, dog attacks, amputations and starvation routinely visited upon them are all being conducted in strict accordance with the Israeli government's longstanding and inviolable commitment to upholding the highest standards of international humanitarian law.
That is so very close to how I feel about Canada's domestic child welfare policy which has only ever upheld the very best in standards for children's health and well-being.
*My late partner was a survivor of the child welfare system in addition to the Residential School System and trans-Pacific Indenture (i.e. slavery-for-not-as-black-people) System. He was unable to escape the pedophile who came to own him within the fantastic framework of Capitalist Innovation allowing multiple such systems to fuse together, as it were, to facilitate human chattel practices into that New World design. His community was totally complacent with renting him out in exchange for good ol' White Man Benefits to offset the damages done by assimilation into Canada's colonial system for "Indian" (i.e. whatever white-caste capitalist blackbird EuroSettlers consider ripe with incest for incest) children. Sorry cendawanita if my comments are generally sh*tty. I do persistently support the end of EuroSettler (or anyone's) "Exceptionalism" to outsource its attachment adversity (i.e. abuse) needs onto populations considered "lesser than." As far as I'm concerned it's going to the same solution for the domestic situation as the international situation to both concurrently operating human-species-attachment-b*llshit mechanisms (i.e. when we learn how to improve our conduct as a species and stop doing this cr*p at home, we'll stop doing it abroad too).
posted by human ecologist at 10:56 AM on July 31 [2 favorites]
I know this isn't the place,
you're right. please don't drag in horrors from the UK ....and from Canada into a thread about Palestine and Israel, however well intentioned.
posted by lalochezia at 3:39 PM on July 31 [2 favorites]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by toastyk at 9:44 AM on July 7 [9 favorites]