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Posted
1 minute ago, CHIEF said:

I don't understand why some Western Democracies and wealthy Arab states can't get together and purchase land in the empty area on the Mediterranean in the Sanai Peninsula, south of Rafah. Offer to keep Egypt healthy stocks of wheat and other food items, the Ukranian War has really caused some instability in their food supply. 

Set up a port for humanitarian aid, free from Israeli controlled Gaza, and build a desalinization plant for drinking water and agricultural irrigation. If the British bought land for displaced Jews in 1948, surely it can be done again, if the pot is sweetened enough for Egypt.

CHIEF

The Arab states don't like Palestinians and don't want them in their backyard. They're just fine with Palestine being a perpetual irritant to Israel.

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Posted
9 minutes ago, rage-a-holic said:

The Arab states don't like Palestinians and don't want them in their backyard. They're just fine with Palestine being a perpetual irritant to Israel.

I know they don't like them. I just wonder if Egypt could be paid enough to tolerate them. You would still have Hezbollah as a perpetual irritant.

CHIEF

Posted
On 4/29/2024 at 12:36 PM, CHIEF said:

 I think Israel offered feeling that Hamas is stupid enough to reject it. If they do reject it, Israel will try to gain sympathy and lessen criticism of their actions. If Hamas doesn't care about their civilians and any humanitarian aid, why should we.

CHIEF 

Well, sure enough, it sounds like Hamas' counteroffer is going to scuttle the US brokered plan:

CHIEF

Posted
4 hours ago, CHIEF said:

I don't understand why some Western Democracies and wealthy Arab states can't get together and purchase land in the empty area on the Mediterranean in the Sanai Peninsula, south of Rafah. Offer to keep Egypt healthy stocks of wheat and other food items, the Ukranian War has really caused some instability in their food supply. 

Set up a port for humanitarian aid, free from Israeli controlled Gaza, and build a desalinization plant for drinking water and agricultural irrigation. If the British bought land for displaced Jews in 1948, surely it can be done again, if the pot is sweetened enough for Egypt.

CHIEF

No countries are going to allow Israel to solve their problem via ethnic cleansing and passing the bill to other countries, which is what that would be.  We bombed Serbia for trying something similar. 

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Posted
13 hours ago, CHIEF said:

I know they don't like them. I just wonder if Egypt could be paid enough to tolerate them. You would still have Hezbollah as a perpetual irritant.

CHIEF

Hezbollah is Shiite, the Arabs don't like them either.

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Posted

Israeli Officials Weigh Sharing Power With Arab States in Postwar Gaza
Though likely to displease both Israel’s right wing and many Arab states, it signals that Israel is thinking about the future, and could inform future talks.

For months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has avoided detailed public discussion about Gaza’s postwar future. Trying to placate both his far-right allies, who seek to rebuild Israeli settlements in Gaza, and Israel’s foreign partners, who want Gaza returned to Palestinian governance, Mr. Netanyahu has stopped short of any specific declaration.

Behind the scenes, however, senior officials in his office have been weighing an expansive plan for postwar Gaza, in which Israel would offer to share oversight of the territory with an alliance of Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the United States, according to three Israeli officials and five people who have discussed the plan with members of the Israeli government.

According to that proposal, Israel would do so in exchange for normalized relations between itself and Saudi Arabia, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.

Far-right members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition are almost certain to dismiss such an idea, and so are the Arab countries mentioned as possible participants. But it is the clearest sign yet that officials at the highest levels of Israel’s government are thinking about Gaza’s postwar future, despite saying little in public, and could be a starting point in future negotiations.

The disclosure comes against the backdrop of intense international efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire that could eventually become a permanent truce, and it follows growing pressure on Israel to plan for what comes next. Israel’s reluctance to determine how to govern Gaza has created a power vacuum in much of the territory, leading to lawlessness and worsening the dire humanitarian situation.

Arab officials and analysts have called the power-sharing plan unworkable because it does not create an explicit path toward a Palestinian state, which the Emirati and Saudi governments have said is a prerequisite for their involvement in postwar planning. But others have cautiously welcomed the proposal because it at least suggests greater flexibility among Israeli leaders than their public statements suggest.

cont'd:

Spoiler

Under the proposal, the Arab-Israeli alliance, working with the United States, would appoint Gazan leaders to redevelop the devastated territory, overhaul its education system and maintain order. After between seven and 10 years, the alliance would allow Gazans to vote on whether to be absorbed into a united Palestinian administration that would govern in both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the proposal. In the meantime, the plan suggests, the Israeli military could continue to operate inside Gaza.

The proposal does not explicitly say whether that united administration would constitute a sovereign Palestinian state, or if it would include the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank. Publicly, Prime Minister Netanyahu has rejected the idea of full Palestinian sovereignty and all but ruled out the involvement of the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment.

The proposal lacks detail and has not been formally adopted by the Israeli government, which publicly has presented only a vaguer vision under which Israel would retain greater control over postwar Gaza.

Emirati and Saudi officials and analysts said the new proposal would not secure the involvement of Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., particularly because it stopped short of guaranteeing Palestinian sovereignty and would permit continued Israeli military operations inside Gaza. The Saudi government has said it will not normalize ties with Israel unless Israeli leaders take irrevocable steps toward creating a Palestinian state.

“The details need to be more explicitly laid out in a manner that is ‘irreversible,’” said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator considered close to the Saudi royal court. “The problem is the Israelis have a habit of hiding behind ambiguous terms, so I think the Saudi government would be looking for such clarity.”

Still, the proposal is the most detailed plan for postwar Gaza that Israeli officials are known to have discussed, and parts of it align with ideas articulated by Arab leaders both in public and in private.

Thomas R. Nides, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who has been consulted on the plan, said the proposal was significant because it revealed internal Israeli thinking.

“It shows that despite the Israeli government’s public posture, behind the scenes Israeli officials are thinking seriously about what a postwar Gaza would look like,” Mr. Nides said. “Obviously the devil is in the details, which may not be enough to coax Arab partners like the U.A.E. to engage in the plan. And nothing can happen until the hostages are released and a cease-fire starts.”

The disclosure of the plan comes amid renewed efforts to seal a truce between Israel and Hamas.

A group of businessmen, most of them Israeli, some of whom are close to Mr. Netanyahu, drew up the plan in November. It was first formally proposed to Israeli officials in Mr. Netanyahu’s office in December, according to one of the government officials.

Two of the officials said that the plan was still under consideration at the highest levels of Israel’s government, though it cannot be put in place until after Hamas is defeated and the remaining hostages in Gaza are released.

Hamas remains in full control of parts of southern Gaza, despite a devastating Israeli military campaign that has killed more than 34,000 people, according to officials there; brought parts of the territory to the brink of famine; and left much of Gaza in ruins.

The businessmen, who asked not to be named in order not to jeopardize their ability to promote the idea, said that they had briefed officials from several Arab and Western governments, including the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., on the plan.

It has also been shown to Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who runs an institute advising the Saudi government on modernization projects. A Palestinian businessman, who asked not to be named in order to protect his relatives from retribution in Gaza, also has been involved in promoting the idea to American officials.

Asked about the plan, the U.A.E. foreign ministry said in a statement that the Emirati government “will not participate in any reconstruction effort in Gaza until there exists an agreement on a road map for a political solution to the conflict, which includes a transparent, timely and binding path for all parties and that leads to the establishment of the two-state solution, with an independent Palestinian state.”

A Saudi official, speaking on condition of anonymity to conform with government protocol, dismissed the proposal because it did not create a “credible and irreversible pathway” toward Palestinian statehood or ensure the Palestinian Authority’s involvement. The official also denied that the Saudi authorities had previously been made aware of the plan.

A spokesman for the Egyptian government declined to comment.

The aim of the businessmen is to win international support for the idea in order to persuade Mr. Netanyahu that it would be worth his embarking on the difficult task of winning domestic backing for it.

Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition government could collapse if he formally backed a plan that did not conclusively rule out the creation of a Palestinian state. Far-right members of his coalition strongly oppose Palestinian sovereignty and want to re-establish Israeli settlements in Gaza. They have threatened to bring down the government if Mr. Netanyahu ends the war in Gaza without ousting Hamas.

Polling shows that a majority of Israelis also oppose the creation of Palestinian state, which many say would reward Hamas for leading terrorist attacks that killed some 1,200 people on Oct. 7, during the cross-border raid on Israel that started the war.

Wary of both collapsing his government and losing support in a subsequent election campaign, Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly voiced his opposition to a Palestinian state in recent months, pledging to retain Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza.

But analysts and some of his allies believe that he would be prepared to leave open the notional possibility of Palestinian sovereignty if it allowed him to seal a landmark normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.

Forging diplomatic ties with the most influential Arab state would allow Mr. Netanyahu to restore some of his political legacy, which has been tarnished because the Hamas-led raid on Israel, the deadliest single attack in Israeli history, occurred under his watch.

“He wants this legacy,” said Nadav Shtrauchler, an Israeli political analyst and former strategist for the prime minister.

“On the other hand, one, he doesn’t believe in the two-state solution. Two, he cannot pitch it to his crowd,” Mr. Shtrauchler added.

 

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Posted

UN Human Rights Chief deplores harrowing killings of children and women in Rafah

GENEVA (23 April 2024) – UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk today decried a series of Israeli strikes on Rafah in the past few days that killed mostly children and women, repeating his warning against a full-scale incursion on an area where 1.2 million civilians have been forcibly cornered.

Such an operation would lead to further breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, he said. It would risk more deaths, injuries and displacement on a large scale – even further atrocity crimes, for which those responsible would be held accountable. Already in March, the Security Council had demanded an immediate ceasefire.

“The world’s leaders stand united on the imperative of protecting the civilian population trapped in Rafah,” the High Commissioner said.

“The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed - this is beyond warfare.”

On 19 April, an apartment building was hit in Tal Al Sultan area in Rafah, killing nine Palestinians, including six children and two women. Another strike on two adjacent houses in At Tanour area in eastern Rafah on 20 April reportedly killed 20 Palestinians – 15 children and five women. A strike on As Shabora Camp in Rafah on the same day reportedly left four dead, including a girl and a pregnant woman.

As of 22 April, according to the authorities in Gaza, of the 34,151 Palestinians killed in Gaza, 14,685 have been children and 9,670 women. Another 77,084 have been injured, and over 7,000 others are assumed to be under the rubble.

“Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war,” said Türk. 

Türk said he was horrified by the destruction of An Nasser Medical Complex and Al Shifa Medical Complex and the reported discovery of mass graves in and around these locations. He called for independent, effective and transparent investigations into the deaths.

“Given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators,” he added. “Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law. And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat is a war crime.”

The High Commissioner said the unspeakable suffering caused by the fighting - alongside the resulting misery and destruction, starvation and disease, and the risk of wider conflict - must end once and for all. He reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages and those held in arbitrary detention, and the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid.

At the same time, Türk said grave human rights violations were continuing unabated in the occupied West Bank. Despite international condemnation of massive settler attacks from 12-14 April facilitated by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF), settler violence has continued with the support, protection, and participation of the ISF.

During a 50-hour long operation into Nur Shams refugee camp and Tulkarem city starting on 18 April, the ISF deployed ground troops, bulldozers and drones, and sealed the camp. Fourteen Palestinians were killed, three of them children. Ten members of the ISF were hurt.

The UN Human Rights Office received reports that several Palestinians were unlawfully killed and that the ISF used unarmed Palestinians to shield their forces from attack and killed others in apparent extrajudicial executions. Dozens were reportedly detained and ill-treated. The ISF inflicted unprecedented and apparently wanton destruction on the camp and its infrastructure.

On 20 April, the ISF or settlers shot and killed a 50-year-old Palestinian ambulance driver. The ambulance was evacuating two Palestinians injured by live ammunition during an attack by settlers, who were accompanied by the ISF, in As Sawiya, Nablus.

Posted
4 minutes ago, bolverk said:

GENEVA (23 April 2024) – UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk today decried a series of Israeli strikes on Rafah in the past few days that killed mostly children and women, repeating his warning against a full-scale incursion on an area where 1.2 million civilians have been forcibly cornered.

Yeah, but you see, some people that I don't like tried to set up a tent on the South Mall. 

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Posted (edited)

Here is a breakdown by Mosab Yousef, the son of one of the founding members of Hamas, on the Hamas mindset. He is anti-Hamas, but understands their goals.

The conflict isn't about politics but religion.

CHIEF

Edited by CHIEF
Religion
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Posted

TL;DR:

  • 2nd US official, Cindy McCain, says there's a famine in northern Gaza and says it's spreading south. She calls it a "horror".
  • Hamas and Israel are still in negotiations. The latest Israeli offer was well received. Even if Hamas accepts the terms, it will take time to hash out the details. Israel, right now, is a no-show in Cairo, where negotiations have been held. 
  • Netanyahu is still determined to invade Rafah, where over a million Palestinians are stuck -- a plan heavily criticized by the international community.
  • Children are now dying of malnutrition. Israel isn't providing the necessary security to aid agencies and has only recently opened one border crossing after receiving much criticism. Bottlenecks still persist due to onerous inspections that some interpret as deliberate to delay aid.
  • The head of UN human rights says this may constitute war crimes since using starvation as a weapon is a serious violation of international law.
  • There are expectations that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials — including potentially over accusations that they prevented the delivery of aid to civilians in Gaza.
  • Recently, there have been some increases in aid delivery, but it remains inadequate.

 

Parts of Gaza in ‘Full-Blown Famine,’ U.N. Aid Official Says
Cindy McCain, the director of the World Food Program, said starvation is entrenched in northern Gaza and is “moving its way south.”

The leader of the World Food Program said that parts of the Gaza Strip are experiencing a “full-blown famine” that is spreading across the territory after almost seven months of war that have made delivering aid extremely challenging.

“There is famine — full-blown famine in the north, and it’s moving its way south,” Cindy McCain, the program’s director, said in excerpts released late Friday of an interview with “Meet The Press.”

Ms. McCain is the second high-profile American leading a U.S. government or U.N. aid effort who has said that there is famine in northern Gaza, although her remarks do not constitute an official declaration, which is a complex bureaucratic process.

She did not explain why an official famine declaration has not been made. But she said her assessment was “based on what we have seen and what we have experienced on the ground.”

The hunger crisis is most severe in the strip’s northern section, a largely lawless and gang ridden area where the Israeli military exercises little or no control. In recent weeks, after Israel faced mounting global pressure to improve dire conditions there, more aid has flowed into the devastated area.

On the diplomatic front, negotiations resumed in Cairo on Saturday aimed at reaching a cease-fire and an agreement to release Israeli and Palestinian hostages. A delegation of Hamas leaders traveled to the Egyptian capital, the Palestinian armed group said.

Over the past few days, Israel and mediators in the talks — Egypt, Qatar and the United States — have awaited Hamas’s response to the latest cease-fire proposal, with Hamas signaling that it was open to discussing the Israeli-approved offer. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said U.S. officials were waiting to see if Hamas “can take ‘yes’ for an answer on the cease-fire and the release of hostages.”

“The only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a cease-fire is Hamas,” Mr. Blinken said at the McCain Institute in Arizona. “So we look to see what they will do.”

Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, said in a text message that the group’s representatives came to Cairo “with great positivity” toward the proposed deal. “If there is no agreement, it will be because of Netanyahu alone,” he said, referring to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.

For weeks, Mr. Netanyahu has vowed that Israeli forces will invade Rafah, where many of Hamas’s remaining military forces are believed to be arrayed alongside some of its leaders. The plan has prompted widespread criticism, including from the Biden administration, fueled by concern for the safety of more than a million displaced Gazans sheltering there.

Quote

 

As of Saturday, Israel had not dispatched a delegation to Cairo to engage in indirect negotiations with the Hamas officials, as Israeli officials had done in previous rounds of talks, according to two Israeli officials who, following diplomatic protocol, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Even if Hamas announced in Cairo that it had accepted the proposed deal, a truce was unlikely to be imminent, one of the Israeli officials said. Hamas’s approval would be followed by intensive negotiations to hash out the finer details of a cease-fire, and such talks are likely to be protracted and difficult, the official added.

Ms. McCain said a cease-fire could help ease conditions in Gaza.

“It is horror,” she said on “Meet the Press.” “It is so hard to look at, and it is so hard to hear, also. I am so hoping we can get a cease-fire and begin to feed these people, especially in the north, in a much faster fashion.”

The first American official to say there was famine in Gaza during the conflict was Samantha Power, the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who made her remarks in congressional testimony last month.

Ms. McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, was appointed by President Biden as the American ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture in 2021 and became head of the World Food Program, a U.N. agency, last year.

An official declaration of famine is made by a United Nations agency, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, and the government of the country where the famine is taking place. It is unclear what local authority might have the power to do that in Gaza. Declarations, which are based on measured rates of hunger, malnutrition and death over short periods, are rare. But for aid groups, a famine elevates one crisis above competing disasters and helps them raise money to respond.

Gaza has been gripped by what experts have called a severe human-made hunger crisis. Israel’s bombardment and restrictions in the territory have made delivering aid very difficult. The amount of aid entering Gaza has increased recently, but aid groups say it is far from adequate.

For the first three weeks of the war, Israel maintained what it called a “complete siege” of Gaza, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into the territory. The Israeli military also destroyed Gaza’s port, restricted fishing and bombed many of its farms.

Israel eventually loosened the siege but instituted a meticulous inspection process that it says is necessary to ensure that weapons and other supplies do not fall into the hands of Hamas. Aid groups and foreign diplomats have said the inspections create bottlenecks, and have accused Israel of arbitrarily turning away aid, including water filters, solar lights and medical kits that contain scissors, for spurious reasons.

Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, said in a statement last month that Israel’s policies regarding aid in Gaza could amount to a war crime.

Using starvation of civilians as a weapon is a serious violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime under the Rome Statute, the treaty of the International Criminal Court, or I.C.C.

Israeli and foreign officials told The New York Times last week that they were worried that the I.C.C. was preparing to issue arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials — including potentially over accusations that they prevented the delivery of aid to civilians in Gaza. (They also said they believed that the court was considering arrest warrants for Hamas leaders, which could be issued concurrently.)

Israel has previously vehemently denied placing limits on aid, accusing the United Nations of failing to distribute aid adequately and Hamas of looting supplies. U.S. and U.N. officials have said there is no evidence of that, other than one shipment that Hamas seized earlier this week, which is now being recovered.

However the issue is resolved, there is little doubt that conditions are still life threatening for many Gazans, particularly children suffering from illnesses that make them especially vulnerable. As of April 17, at least 28 children younger than 12 had died of malnutrition or related causes in Gaza hospitals, according to the local health authorities, including a dozen babies under a month old. Officials believe that many more deaths outside hospitals have gone unrecorded.

There have been some improvements to aid flows in recent weeks, and on Wednesday Israel reopened the Erez border crossing, allowing some aid to cross directly into northern Gaza.

Fatma Edaama, a 36-year-old resident of Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, said conditions in her neighborhood were still difficult. Many commodities, such as meat, are unavailable or sold at sky-high prices, she said.

But flour, canned goods and other items had started to flow far more freely and their cost had dropped sharply, Ms. Edaama said. “Earlier there was nothing, people would grind up animal feed,” she said. “Now, we have food.”

Still, foreign officials and aid agencies say more is needed.

“This is real and important progress, but more still needs to be done,” Mr. Blinken told reporters this week after visiting an aid warehouse in Jordan.

 

 

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Posted
4 hours ago, CHIEF said:

The conflict isn't about politics but religion.

It's about land and resources. It always is. Religion is just an effective motivator for the masses. 

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Posted

well fuck. Finally start getting crossing open and now this.

CAIRO, May 5 (Reuters) - The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility on Sunday for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, which Israeli and Palestinian media reports said had resulted in Israeli casualties.
Israel's military said 10 projectiles were launched from Rafah in southern Gaza towards the area of the crossing, which it said was now closed to aid trucks going into the coastal enclave. Other crossings remain open.
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Posted

It sounds like extremists on both sides are determined to prolong this war. Meanwhile, more people will suffer.

Israeli statements raise concerns about Netanyahu’s commitment to a deal.

A group representing families of the Israeli hostages in Gaza expressed concerns Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, under pressure from hard-line members of his governing coalition, was trying to stall or even sabotage a possible deal that could lead to a cease-fire and the release of captives held by Hamas.

A major sticking point in negotiations has been Hamas’s consistent demand for a commitment by Israel to end its seven-month military offensive in Gaza and to forgo a planned invasion of Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion in the south of the enclave, and Israel’s reluctance to declare such concessions, according to officials.

In the discussions in Cairo, which have been mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, negotiators had been trying to leave some room for ambiguity in the early stages of a three-phased deal that could satisfy both sides.

But on Saturday the Israeli government issued two statements to reporters, to be attributed to an unnamed “political official,” saying that contrary to reports, Israel would not agree to end the war as part of a deal. It added that it would not allow mediators to offer Hamas guarantees about the war’s end, while blaming Hamas for scuttling any possibility of a deal by sticking to its demands.

Several of the Israeli reporters who received the statements said they had come directly from the prime minister’s office in an unusual breach of the government’s confidentiality rules.

Nahum Barnea, a prominent political columnist, said Sunday in Yediot Ahronot, a popular Hebrew daily news outlet, that he felt that the statements were “designed to scuttle the chances of a deal.”

The Hostages Families Forum, an Israeli nongovernmental group lobbying for the release of the hostages and supporting their families, said in a statement on Sunday that it was “shocked” to hear about the statements. The group called on Mr. Netanyahu to “disregard all political pressure,” “to lead” and to “show courage.”

Mr. Barnea said he believed that Mr. Netanyahu would be freed “of the need to decide” on a deal if Hamas, the mediators and the far-right members of his government could be persuaded that there was not one on the table.

Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday vehemently rejected the accusations, saying in a longer statement, in his own name, that Hamas was the party obstructing a deal. “Israel was, and still is, ready to pause the fighting in order to release our hostages,” he said.

Though details of a potential deal are still being hashed out, Egypt has been pushing a proposal, with the broad approval of Israeli negotiators, that would begin with a six-week truce, during which 33 of the most vulnerable hostages held in Gaza would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Israel would allow the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians to northern Gaza with few restrictions, officials have said, previously a major sticking point for Israel.

Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, said on Saturday that the group’s representatives had arrived in Cairo “with great positivity” regarding the latest proposal. But Hamas officials told Arabic news outlets that issues including a permanent cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza remained unresolved. By early Sunday there was still no indication that Hamas had accepted the deal.

 

 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Leadership on both sides can eat a bag of dicks.

1000s of Hamas for 33 of the “how many” hostages? I think the only way I would do a deal like that is for all the hostages. Otherwise, with the proposed deal you have to pretty much give up on the rest of the hostages.

Posted
6 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Leadership on both sides can eat a bag of dicks.

Your Reuters article mentions this in passing. More details:

Netanyahu calls Al Jazeera an ‘incitement channel’ as it is shut down in Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Sunday that his cabinet had voted to shut down the Israeli operations of Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based network that is a major source of news in the Arab world and has often highlighted civilian suffering in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas.

“The government under my leadership has decided unanimously: The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be shut down in Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said on X, formerly Twitter. It was not immediately clear whether the closing would be temporary or whether it would affect the network’s reporting in Gaza and the West Bank.

Journalism organizations have said that such a closure, which had been under discussion in Israel for weeks, would be a blow to press freedom.

Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, said in a video statement that Al Jazeera “will no longer broadcast here in Israel, and its equipment will be confiscated.”

In a statement in Arabic, Al Jazeera condemned Israel’s move, which it called a “criminal act.” “Israeli’s suppression of the free press to cover up its crimes has not deterred us from performing our duty,” the network said.

The decision could complicate Israel’s relationship with Qatar, which helps fund the network and has also been helping to mediate cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. The Qatari government did not immediately comment.

Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement that Al Jazeera’s reporters had “harmed Israel’s security” and incited violence against its soldiers. He had previously called Al Jazeera a “Hamas mouthpiece.” Israeli lawmakers passed a bill last month allowing the government to temporarily close foreign media outlets that Mr. Netanyahu determined were undermining national security.

The order to close Al Jazeera’s local operations will initially apply for 45 days, and a district court judge must approve it within 24 hours before it is carried out, according to Avraham Hasson, an aide to Israel’s minister of communications. Mr. Hasson said the judge could rule to change the length of the closure. The government has the option of extending it for another 45 days, but any extension would also need a judge’s approval.

Mr. Netanyahu’s government has had a tense relationship for years with Al Jazeera, which has reported extensively from Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas that began in October.

The war in Gaza has taken a toll on the network’s own employees and their families. In October, Wael al-Dahdouh, the Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language service, was told live on air that his wife, son, daughter and infant grandson had been killed in central Gaza, where they had been sheltering. In January, his eldest son was killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to the authorities in Gaza.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Bevo said:

1000s of Hamas for 33 of the “how many” hostages? I think the only way I would do a deal like that is for all the hostages. Otherwise, with the proposed deal you have to pretty much give up on the rest of the hostages.

Yeah, you get 33? The rest won't be coming home.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Bevo said:

1000s of Hamas for 33 of the “how many” hostages? I think the only way I would do a deal like that is for all the hostages. Otherwise, with the proposed deal you have to pretty much give up on the rest of the hostages.

Are they only asking for Hamas prisoners? Thousands of Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas have been rounded up by the IDF, and multiple stories of the systematic abuse of those prisoners have been published and posted here on Surly.

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Posted
15 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Inb4 Rafah gets carpet bombed and invaded anyways

Netanyahu has already said it wouldn't matter if they were going to sign onto the deal and said they were going to invade anyway. Palestinian civilians are going to get fucked.

Hamas said in a statement its top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister. After the release of the statement, Palestinians erupted in cheers in the sprawling tent camps around Rafah, hoping the deal meant an Israeli attack had been averted.

*****

In a fiery speech Sunday evening marking Israel’s Holocaust memorial day, Netanyahu rejected international pressure to halt the war, saying that “if Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”

On Monday, Netanyahu accused Hamas of “torpedoing” a deal by not budging from its demand for an end to the war and a complete Israeli troop withdrawal in return for the hostages’ release, which he called “extreme.”

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-humanitarian-aid-8659eae6e0a7362504f0aa4aa4be53e0

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Posted

Israel should be able to defend itself, and the Hamas attack was exceptionally brutal.  

But my mind tends to usually eventually drifts toward the use of the word "defend."  When the body counts reach 10X, 20x or 100X that of the initial attack can you still call it defense?

You also have to have two parties that want peace to get a peace agreement. Hamas doesn't want peace, and Israel doesn't want a two state solution.  I also fear that the most dangerous thing long term for Israel is that politically (I don't have polling just antidotal evidence), that more younger Americans than perhaps ever before do not see Israeli actions that are causing horrific civilian outcomes as defense at all?  If you lose American youth over a longer period of time, then the US funding that allows Israel to exist (you can disagree with this assessment) future funding will become more difficult to get, and threaten the very survival of Israel.

From a simply logistics perspective I still cannot wrap my head around how long it took Israel to engage in the initial Hamas attack at the Music Festival?  It's not like cell phones were not blowing up once it was clear what was going on.  Not a lot of distance to cover when you can drive from Austin to Houston in 2.5 hours with traffic,  How does it take a military with US military equipment hours upon hours to respond to such a horrific attack? 

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Posted

Meant to add this in- but got a call during my edit: 

I also personally don't think the Middle East will ever be stable.  Simply as they centuries old tribal, ethnic, and religious rivalries are reinforced rather than muted year after year.  You need look no farther than the last 15 minutes of Lawrence of Arabia to see this truth. After fighting and winning, these rivalries came to the forefront, and the victory simply evaporated into the desert...

Posted

Here are the latest developments.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it had sent tanks into Rafah and established control over the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt in what it called a limited operation. The move halted the flow of aid into the enclave, drawing immediate condemnation from international officials.

The incursion — which the military said was aimed at destroying Hamas targets used to attack Israeli soldiers — did not appear to be the long-promised full ground invasion of Rafah, which Israel’s allies have been working to avert by pushing for a cease-fire deal. It came after a dizzying day that saw Israel order people to evacuate parts of the city, then Hamas claims that it had accepted the terms of a cease-fire, followed by an announcement by Israel’s military that it was carrying out “targeted strikes” in eastern Rafah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing pressure to agree to a cease-fire with Hamas that is backed by the United States and Arab nations and that would secure the release of hostages still being held in Gaza. His government said that it would send negotiators to Cairo on Tuesday; analysts say Israel’s actions in Rafah could either ratchet up the pressure on Hamas to make a deal or sabotage the talks.

The head of a hospital in Rafah said that 27 bodies and 150 wounded people had been brought to his facility since the start of the incursion. The Egyptian state-owned television channel Al Qahera reported that sporadic fighting could be heard around the Rafah crossing, and humanitarian agencies said that no aid was passing through it. United Nations officials said that Israeli troops had now “choked off” both the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings, the two main routes for getting aid into Gaza, and warned that the humanitarian crisis in the enclave would worsen.

 

Posted

The closures of two Gaza border crossings prompt alarm over humanitarian aid.

With its seizure of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, Israel has now closed two key crossings for aid into Gaza, drawing sharp warnings from international agencies and officials who said the moves could exacerbate an already dire humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Since the start of the war, Israel had limited aid entering the Gaza Strip to the two tightly controlled border crossings: Kerem Shalom and Rafah, which both access the enclave’s south.

But Israel closed the Kerem Shalom crossing after a Hamas attack on Sunday killed four soldiers in the area, then mounted an incursion on Tuesday that closed the Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt.

Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office, said in a news briefing that Israel had “choked off” the two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza. If fuel is not able to enter the enclave for some time, he added, “it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave.”

The main United Nations agency that helps Palestinians in Gaza said Tuesday that the “catastrophic hunger faced by people especially in northern Gaza will get much worse” if aid shipments through the Rafah border crossing were interrupted.

Egypt’s foreign ministry condemned the Rafah operation “in the strongest terms,” saying on Tuesday afternoon that Israeli control over the crossing jeopardized humanitarian aid deliveries as well as the ability of Gazans to leave the strip for medical treatment.

“This dangerous escalation threatens the lives of more than a million Palestinians who depend primarily on this crossing, as it is the main lifeline of the Gaza Strip,” it said in a statement.

Israel opened the crossing at Kerem Shalom on its border with Gaza in December after pressure from the United States to speed up the flow of humanitarian aid. However, Israeli protesters have regularly gathered at the crossing, trying to block aid convoys from entering the enclave in hope of raising the pressure on Hamas to release the hostages.

Under pressure from the Biden administration after an Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers, Israel said last month that it would reopen the Erez border crossing into northern Gaza and that shipments bound for the enclave would be accepted at the Israeli port of Ashdod. On May 1, when the Erez crossing first opened, Israel said 30 aid trucks passed through.

Figures from the United Nations show that on Sunday, the most recent day for which data is available, 128 aid trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing and none entered through Rafah. With the closures of those two crossings, it was not immediately clear how much aid was getting through to Gaza through the other avenues on Tuesday. COGAT, the Israeli agency overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza, said on Tuesday that 60 trucks had passed through the Erez crossing.

Israel imposes stringent checks on incoming aid to keep out anything that might help Hamas, which it has pledged to eliminate. Since the start of the war, most of the aid for Gaza has moved through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Aid groups and foreign diplomats have said the inspections create bottlenecks, and have accused Israel of arbitrarily turning away aid and systematically limiting deliveries. Israel has denied those assertions, blaming the shortages on logistical failures by aid groups, and has recently increased the number of trucks entering the strip.

Posted

Conditions in the "Safe Zone" that Palestinians are being directed from Rahah to flee to are even worse than the shit they've already been living in for months.

An official warns of ‘staggeringly’ bad conditions in the so-called safe zone

The area Israel has designated as a safe zone for Gazans fleeing Rafah is neither safe nor equipped to receive them, United Nations and European officials said Tuesday, while warning that Israel’s order to evacuate parts of the city may amount to a war crime.

The Israeli military on Monday dropped leaflets in eastern Rafah that told people to move to what it called a humanitarian zone to the north. That area — which the military said had field hospitals, tents, and supplies — includes Al-Mawasi, a coastal section of Gaza it has advised people to go to for months.

Many Gazans began to leave, fearing that Israel was moving ahead with its long-planned invasion of Rafah. Israel carried out what it said were “targeted” airstrikes overnight and said Tuesday its forces were in control of the Rafah border crossing.

Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s top diplomat, said he feared the military moves would cause “a lot of casualties” and further displacement.

“There are 600,000 children in Gaza,” he told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. “They will be pushed to so-called safe zones. There is no safe zones in Gaza.”

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, echoed that point in his own remarks to reporters. “Countless more civilian casualties. Countless more families forced to flee yet again — with nowhere safe to go. Because there is no safe place in Gaza,” he said.

The area designated by Israel to receive people fleeing Rafah is a coastal strip of land at Al-Mawasi already occupied by a tent camp housing thousands of Palestinians. But even that area has not been truly safe. James Elder, a spokesman for Unicef, the U.N. children’s agency, cited the recent death in Al-Mawasi of a 7-year old Palestinian boy, who was shot in the head as he went out to get food for his family.

Rafah has approximately one toilet for every 850 people and one shower for every 3,500 people, Mr. Elder told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. In the designated safe zones, he added, conditions were “staggeringly, much worse.”

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said in a statement that the Mawasi area was “already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah.”

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office told a news briefing in Geneva that there were “strong indications” that the order to evacuate from eastern Rafah violated international humanitarian law. Her comments came a day after Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, warned that forced displacement of civilians is a war crime.

 

Posted
17 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Conditions in the "Safe Zone" that Palestinians are being directed from Rahah to flee to are even worse than the shit they've already been living in for months.

An official warns of ‘staggeringly’ bad conditions in the so-called safe zone

The area Israel has designated as a safe zone for Gazans fleeing Rafah is neither safe nor equipped to receive them, United Nations and European officials said Tuesday, while warning that Israel’s order to evacuate parts of the city may amount to a war crime.

The Israeli military on Monday dropped leaflets in eastern Rafah that told people to move to what it called a humanitarian zone to the north. That area — which the military said had field hospitals, tents, and supplies — includes Al-Mawasi, a coastal section of Gaza it has advised people to go to for months.

Many Gazans began to leave, fearing that Israel was moving ahead with its long-planned invasion of Rafah. Israel carried out what it said were “targeted” airstrikes overnight and said Tuesday its forces were in control of the Rafah border crossing.

Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s top diplomat, said he feared the military moves would cause “a lot of casualties” and further displacement.

“There are 600,000 children in Gaza,” he told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. “They will be pushed to so-called safe zones. There is no safe zones in Gaza.”

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, echoed that point in his own remarks to reporters. “Countless more civilian casualties. Countless more families forced to flee yet again — with nowhere safe to go. Because there is no safe place in Gaza,” he said.

The area designated by Israel to receive people fleeing Rafah is a coastal strip of land at Al-Mawasi already occupied by a tent camp housing thousands of Palestinians. But even that area has not been truly safe. James Elder, a spokesman for Unicef, the U.N. children’s agency, cited the recent death in Al-Mawasi of a 7-year old Palestinian boy, who was shot in the head as he went out to get food for his family.

Rafah has approximately one toilet for every 850 people and one shower for every 3,500 people, Mr. Elder told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. In the designated safe zones, he added, conditions were “staggeringly, much worse.”

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said in a statement that the Mawasi area was “already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah.”

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office told a news briefing in Geneva that there were “strong indications” that the order to evacuate from eastern Rafah violated international humanitarian law. Her comments came a day after Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, warned that forced displacement of civilians is a war crime.

 

 

Is no civilian identifying Hamas or hostages?

Posted (edited)
31 minutes ago, Bevo said:

 

Is no civilian identifying Hamas or hostages?

Are you asking whether civilians are identifying the locations of Hamas fighters or Israeli hostages?

How should I know? I have heard that it's not unheard of for Palestinians to cooperate with the IDF, so maybe? Should they? I mean, sure, that would be the moral decision, but I'm not sure the average refugee is in the position to do so or have knowledge of all of Hamas's hidey holes. Do you think the typical Palestinian has secret intel? I can see quite a few being a bit ornery at the suggestion they should after being forced to live in squalor for months on end and then being evacuated to even worse conditions.

I can also see more being scared to death of any potential reprisals, much less approaching an IDF soldier out of fear of getting shot or blown the fuck up. It seems the vast majority are just doing their best to survive and keep their heads down in a shitty no-win situation. We know that demographically, about half the population is under the age of 18, so that means there's a mom and dad who've got at least a couple of kids in tow and maybe an elderly parent they're been desperately trying to keep alive while sharing a single shitter with 850 other fucking people and not much food to eat.

And even if some are withholding information, which I'm sure there are, are you completely comfortable with the notion of collectively punishing the thousands of others who didn't? 

Seriously, what kind of question is that? Can you not imagine putting yourself in a position where you have virtually no power to influence a gigantic shit-storm of war surrounding you? Are you really that incapable of having empathy for the suffering of other people just trying to survive an awful situation that they can't control?

Edited by bolverk
IDF not ISD, dummy
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Posted (edited)
57 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Are you asking whether civilians are identifying the locations of Hamas fighters or Israeli hostages?

How should I know? I have heard that it's not unheard of for Palestinians to cooperate with the IDF, so maybe? Should they? I mean, sure, that would be the moral decision, but I'm not sure the average refugee is in the position to do so or have knowledge of all of Hamas's hidey holes. Do you think the typical Palestinian has secret intel? I can see quite a few being a bit ornery at the suggestion they should after being forced to live in squalor for months on end and then being evacuated to even worse conditions.

I can also see more being scared to death of any potential reprisals, much less approaching an IDF soldier out of fear of getting shot or blown the fuck up. It seems the vast majority are just doing their best to survive and keep their heads down in a shitty no-win situation. We know that demographically, about half the population is under the age of 18, so that means there's a mom and dad who've got at least a couple of kids in tow and maybe an elderly parent they're been desperately trying to keep alive while sharing a single shitter with 850 other fucking people and not much food to eat.

And even if some are withholding information, which I'm sure there are, are you completely comfortable with the notion of collectively punishing the thousands of others who didn't? 

Seriously, what kind of question is that? Can you not imagine putting yourself in a position where you have virtually no power to influence a gigantic shit-storm of war surrounding you? Are you really that incapable of having empathy for the suffering of other people just trying to survive an awful situation that they can't control?

 

What I'm wondering is if there is a way to retrieve all the hostages and root out Hamas without having to go into Rafah. I assume the hostages were moved to Rafah, but I don't know. I assume most or all of Hamas is in Rafah, but I don't know. Also, I don't know what Israel is up against when it goes into Rafah. And, I don't know what would satisfy Israel to keep it from going into Rafah. 70% of hostages and 50% of Hamas, etc?

Edited by Bevo
Posted
11 minutes ago, Bevo said:

 

What I'm wondering is if there is a way to retrieve all the hostages and root out Hamas without having to go into Rafah. I assume the hostages were moved to Rafah, but I don't know. I assume most or all of Hamas is in Rafah, but I don't know. Also, I don't know what Israel is up against when it goes into Rafah. And, I don't know what would satisfy Israel to keep it from going into Rafah. 70% of hostages and 50% of Hamas, etc?

Gotcha. Sorry to have gone off. It was difficult to discern your intent.

I think I read a week or so ago that the IDF believed the last 4 of Hamas's original 34-36 brigades were left, and yes, my assumption is that the last of the surviving hostages are likely there with them somewhere, likely hidden deep underground. I believe I've read there remain scattered elements of Hamas elsewhere in the Strip since the IDF hasn't fully established security. 

One bright spot for the refugees right now is that the IDF sounds like they're trying to be a little more surgical with this latest push.

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Posted
15 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

UN just revised civilian death figures down 50% as prior numbers which had been supplied by the Gaza Health Ministry were incorrect. 
 

https://www.cfr.org/blog/un-halves-its-estimate-women-and-children-killed-gaza

This seems as obvious as gravity and wet water.  Take out politics, but if your data on casualties comes from a group that has a large incentive to elevate numbers, maybe take those numbers with a grain of salt.

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Posted

Man, that's just some really shitty reporting. This is not some giant bombshell or conspiracy like they're trying to make it out to be. They either don't have a great grasp on how to read/interpret data (DUMB), or they're intentionally trying to mislead their readers (PROPAGANDA).

First, Elliott Abrams misstates that these are UN estimates and, therefore, UN revisions. No, they come from the Ministry of Health (MoH). He also apparently doesn't understand that they are NOT revisions at all. The discrepancy is only in what had been an assumed ratio (70% women/children) vs. the current (and previously unpublished) count of identified dead. Therefore, this giant headline is a total lie.

image.thumb.png.add5039769d6d54c80b99e292b5eb808.png

 

The grand total of estimated deaths (~35,000) remains the same, but now they have released the identification of (~25,000), meaning ~10,000 remain outstanding.

Between the afternoons of 9 and 13 May, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 187 Palestinians were killed and 323 were injured. Between 7 October 2023 and 12 May 2024, at least 35,091 Palestinians were killed and 78,827 were injured in Gaza, according to MoH in Gaza. Moreover, according to the Gaza Government Media Office (GMO) and Palestinian Civil Defense, there are some 10,000 people reportedly missing or under rubble in Gaza. GMO also reports that overall fatality figures purportedly include more than 14,000 children and 9,000 women. The MoH documents the full identification details of casualties and has recently published the breakdown of 24,686 out of 34,622 fatalities for whom full details have been collected by MoH as of 30 April 2024; according to MoH, these reportedly include 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men. The documentation process is ongoing by the MoH. The United Nations teams on the ground in Gaza have been carrying out, where conditions permit, their own independent verification of fatality figures; this process is ongoing.

https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-165

 

Screenshots from the Jerusalem Post article he based the blog post on:

image.thumb.png.04db7dff612da0aecbdf3543f6ecb6b4.png

 

Of the ~25,000 bodies that have been counted by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and identified so far:

  • ~7,800 children (32%)
  • ~5,000 women (20%)
  • ~10,000 men (40%)
  • ~1,900 elderly men & women (8%)

So, the body count ratio of women/children goes from 70% to probably around 56-57% (if you include elderly women). Sure, that's a significant difference, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of dead bodies that have been counted so far are still women and children.

Then, you have the Jerusalem Post disingenuously mentioning the previously debunked piece by that Wharton guy. You know, the one that appeared in The Tablet we took apart here fairly easily. They're saying, based on this totally bogus statistical analysis by a guy whose other work was proven false in a climate change lawsuit, nothing the MoH says about the dead can be trusted (even though they've been verified as accurate in all previous wars, including by the IDF).

Well, now, we've got an actual count of identified bodies, and they are still counting, so hat's going to take a while.

That says nothing about the fact that two months ago, the IDF had estimated they'd killed between 10-12,000 Hamas fighters. So, if you assume their numbers are right and that every dead man is Hamas, their estimate is off too. And, by the logic presented by both Elliott Abrams and the Jerusalem Post, nothing the IDF says about the dead can be trusted either.

Jesus, the previous numbers we've seen have been estimates. Now, we have a released count, which is somewhat of a miracle given that bombs are still falling and the hospitals are in shambles.

What's especially galling is that this is a fucking war zone where thousands have undoubtedly been killed, and these types of specious arguments are being made to downplay the number of dead people. I guess some folks must have a guilty conscience or are in denial.

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Posted

Hamas has its own Stasi.

Secret Hamas Files Show How It Spied on Everyday Palestinians
Hamas monitored political activity, online posts, and apparently even love lives. Palestinians were stuck between an Israeli blockade and a repressive security force.

The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has for years overseen a secret police force in Gaza that conducted surveillance on everyday Palestinians and built files on young people, journalists and those who questioned the government, according to intelligence officials and a trove of internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The unit, known as the General Security Service, relied on a network of Gaza informants, some of whom reported their own neighbors to the police. People landed in security files for attending protests or publicly criticizing Hamas. In some cases, the records suggest that the authorities followed people to determine if they were carrying on romantic relationships outside marriage.

Hamas has long run an oppressive system of governance in Gaza, and many Palestinians there know that security officials watch them closely. But a 62-slide presentation on the activities of the General Security Service, delivered only weeks before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, reveals the degree to which the largely unknown unit penetrated the lives of Palestinians.

The documents show that Hamas leaders, despite claiming to represent the people of Gaza, would not tolerate even a whiff of dissent. Security officials trailed journalists and people they suspected of immoral behavior. Agents got criticism removed from social media and discussed ways to defame political adversaries. Political protests were viewed as threats to be undermined.

Everyday Gazans were stuck — behind the wall of Israel’s crippling blockade and under the thumb and constant watch of a security force. That dilemma continues today, with the added threat of Israeli ground troops and airstrikes.

“We’re facing bombardment by the occupation and thuggery by the local authorities,” Ehab Fasfous, a journalist in the Gaza Strip who appeared in the files of the General Security Service, said in a phone interview from Gaza.

Mr. Fasfous, 51, is labeled in one report as among “the major haters of the Hamas movement.”

The documents were provided to The Times by officials in Israel’s military intelligence directorate, who said they had been seized in raids in Gaza.

cont'd

Spoiler

Reporters then interviewed people who were named in the files. Those people recounted key events, confirmed biographical information and, in Mr. Fasfous’s case, described interactions with the authorities that aligned with the secret files. The documents reviewed by The Times include seven intelligence files ranging from October 2016 to August 2023. The military intelligence directorate said it was aware of files containing information on at least 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

The General Security Service is formally part of the Hamas political party but functions like part of the government. One Palestinian individual familiar with the inner workings of Hamas, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, confirmed that the service was one of three powerful internal security bodies in Gaza. The others were Military Intelligence, which typically focuses on Israel, and the Internal Security Service, an arm of the Interior Ministry.

Basem Naim, a spokesman for Hamas, said the people responsible for the General Security Service were unreachable during the war.

With monthly expenses of $120,000 before the war with Israel, the unit comprised 856 people, records show. Of those, more than 160 were paid to spread Hamas propaganda and launch online attacks against opponents at home and abroad. The status of the unit today is unknown because Israel has dealt a significant blow to Hamas’s military and governing abilities.

The Israeli intelligence authorities believe that Mr. Sinwar directly oversaw the General Security Service, according to three Israeli intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. They said the slide show was prepared for Mr. Sinwar personally, though they did not say how they knew that.

The presentation said that the General Security Service works to protect Hamas’s people, property and information, and to support its leadership’s decision-making.

Some slides focused on the personal security of Hamas leaders. Others discussed ways to stamp out protests, including the “We Want to Live” demonstrations last year that criticized power shortages and the cost of living. Security officials also tracked operatives from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an ideologically aligned militant group that often partners with Hamas.

Some tactics, like amplifying Hamas’s own message, appeared to be routine politicking. In other instances, officials suggested using intelligence to undermine opponents and distort their reputations, though the files were vague about how that was to be done.

“Undertaking a number of offensive and defensive media campaigns to confuse and influence adversaries by using private and exclusive information,” the document read.

Security officers stopped Mr. Fasfous on his way to a protest last August, seized his phone and ordered him to leave, a report says. Mr. Fasfous confirmed that two plainclothes officers had approached him. The authorities searched his recent calls, and wrote that he was communicating with “suspicious people” in Israel.

“We advise that closing in on him is necessary because he’s a negative person who is full of hatred, and only brings forth the Strip’s shortcomings,” the document said.

The most frustrating thing, Mr. Fasfous said, was that the officers used his phone to send flirtatious messages to a colleague. “They wanted to pin a moral violation on me,” he said.

The report does not include that detail but does describe ways to “deal with” Mr. Fasfous. “Defame him,” the report said.

“If you’re not with them, you become an atheist, an infidel and a sinner,” Mr. Fasfous said. He acknowledged supporting protests and criticizing Hamas online, but said the people he was in touch with in Israel were Palestinians who owned food and clothing companies. He said he helped run their social media accounts.

The General Security Service’s goals are similar to those of security services in countries like Syria that have used secret units to quell dissent. The files of the General Security Service, though, mention tactics like censorship, intimidation and surveillance rather than physical violence.

“This General Security Service is just like the Stasi of East Germany,” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs. “You always have an eye on the street.”

Palestinians in Gaza live in fear and hesitate to express dissent, analysts said.

“There are a lot of people practicing self-censorship,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science from Gaza City. “They just don’t want problems with the Hamas government.”

That view clashes with the most strident comments of Israel’s leaders, like President Isaac Herzog, who blamed Gazans for not toppling Hamas before the Oct. 7 attacks.

“There’s an entire nation that is responsible,” he said. “This rhetoric about civilians were not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up.”

The General Security Service, the files show, also tried to enforce a conservative social order.

In December 2017, for example, the authorities investigated a tip that a woman was acting immorally with a man who owned a clothing shop. A security report noted that she visited the shop for an hour on one day, then more than two hours the next. The report presented no evidence of wrongdoing, but proposed that “relevant parties” address the matter.

An October 2016 report described young men and women performing unspecified “immoral acts” at a Palestine Liberation Organization office in Khan Younis at night. Hamas sees the Palestine Liberation Organization as a compromised entity, whose leader too often favors Israeli interests. The report offered no evidence of misdeeds but recommended summoning a man who claimed to be in possession of videos and pictures.

The files also show that Hamas was suspicious of foreign organizations and journalists.

When Monique van Hoogstraten, a Dutch reporter, visited a protest encampment along the border with Israel in April 2018, the authorities noted the most banal of details. They noted the make and model of her car and her license plate number. They said she took pictures of children and tried to interview an elderly woman. Ms. van Hoogstraten confirmed the reporting trip in an interview with The Times.

The file recommended further “reconnaissance” on journalists.

None of the files reviewed by The Times were dated after the start of the war. But Mr. Fasfous said the government remained interested in him.

Early in the war, he said he took images of security forces hitting people who fought over spots in line outside a bakery. The authorities confiscated his camera.

Mr. Fasfous complained to a government official in Khan Younis, who told him to stop reporting and “destabilizing the internal front,” Mr. Fasfous recalled.

“I told him I was reporting on the truth and that the truth won’t hurt him, but that fell on deaf ears,” he said. “We can’t have a life here as long as these criminals remain in control.”

 

  • Rage+1 1
Posted

US says Israel’s use of US arms likely violated international law, but evidence is incomplete

The finding of “reasonable” evidence to conclude that the U.S. ally had breached international law protecting civilians in the way it conducted its war against Hamas was the strongest statement that the Biden administration has yet made on the matter. It was released in a summary of a report being delivered to Congress on Friday.

But the caveat that the administration wasn’t able to link specific U.S. weapons to individual attacks by Israeli forces in Gaza could give the administration leeway in any future decision on whether to restrict provisions of offensive weapons to Israel.

The first-of-its-kind assessment, which was compelled by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress, comes after seven months of airstrikes, ground fighting and aid restrictions that have claimed the lives of nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

While U.S. officials were unable to gather all the information they needed on specific strikes, the report said that given Israel’s “significant reliance” on U.S.-made weapons, it was “reasonable to assess” that they had been used by Israel’s security forces in instances “inconsistent” with its obligations under international humanitarian law “or with best practices for mitigating civilian harm.”

*****

The presidential directive that led to the review, agreed to in February, obligated the Defense and State departments to conduct “an assessment of any credible reports or allegations that such defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services, have been used in a manner not consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law.”

Nothing in the presidential directive would have triggered any cutoff of arms if the administration had more definitively ruled that Israel’s conduct had violated international law.

The agreement also obligated the State and Defense departments to tell Congress whether they deemed that Israel has acted to “arbitrarily to deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly,” delivery of any U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.

On this question, the report cited “deep concerns” that Israel played a significant role in preventing adequate aid from reaching starving Palestinians. However, it said Israel had recently taken some positive steps, although still inadequate, and the U.S. government did not currently find Israel restricting aid deliveries in a way that violated U.S. law governing foreign militaries that receive U.S. military aid.

Posted

‘Total outrage’: White House condemns Israeli settlers’ attack on Gaza aid trucks
Protesters block convoy, throw food into road and set fire to vehicles at Tarqumiya checkpoint near Hebron

The White House has condemned an attack on an aid convoy heading to Gaza by Israeli settlers who threw packages of food into the road and set fire to the vehicles.

Video of the incident on Monday at Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, showed settlers blocking the trucks and throwing boxes of much-needed supplies on the ground. Photographs from the scene showed piles of damaged aid packages and drifts of rice and flour across the road.

Late on Monday, photos began circulating on social media showing the trucks on fire.

Israel has faced heavy international pressure to step up the flow of aid into Gaza, where international organisations have warned of a severe humanitarian crisis threatening a population of more than 2 million people.

“It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan, going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.

“We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this,” he added. “We are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government and it’s something that we make no bones about – this is completely and utterly unacceptable behaviour.”

Referring to a US report issued on Friday on Israeli compliance with international humanitarian law, Sullivan said that the Israeli state had hindered aid deliveries in the recent past but had improved the flow sufficiently, so as not to be subject to restrictions on military aid that might have been required under US law.

“We believe that there were periods over the last few weeks where there were restrictions that had to be worked through,” Sullivan said. “But at the time we put that report forward, we felt that there was sufficient work being done by the Israeli government with respect to the facilitation of humanitarian aid, that we did not make a judgment that anything had to be done in terms of US assistance.”

Police do not appear to have intervened to stop the looting, though four people including a minor were later reported to have been arrested.

This is not the first time that settlers have tried to stop the flow of aid to Gaza, which is already only a fraction of that needed by the population of the embattled territory.

Last week, Israeli demonstrators blocked a road near the desert town of Mitzpe Ramon to protest against the delivery of aid trucks into the strip. The protesters – who say the aid is helping Hamas and want to block its passage until all Israeli hostages are freed – formed a sit-in protest as they scattered rocks across the road to prevent vehicles from passing, creating standstill traffic.

Israel’s siege of Gaza has created what aid officials are referring to as “man-made starvation”, with the territory facing the threat of mass deaths from famine with children already dying from hunger.

In March, the international court of justice ordered Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, where sections of the population are facing imminent starvation.

Aid efforts have been further complicated by the temporary closure of the headquarters of the main channel for humanitarian support for Palestinians after weeks of violent protests and arson attacks by Israeli right-wingers.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees announced it was closing its East Jerusalem headquarters on Thursday after a fresh attack by what Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the agency, described as “Israeli extremists”.

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More info on the UN switch over to using newly published counts of identified bodies by the Ministry of Health instead of the previously estimated ratio. So, yeah, it's not the nefarious plot that Elliott Abrams and The Jerusalem Post implied, but I suppose they can be forgiven for not understanding how to read and interpret data, assuming they weren't intentionally trying to deceive their readers. But that says nothing about the stats guy who wrote the discredited hit piece in The Tablet that keeps getting cited.

 

How Many of Gaza’s Dead Are Women and Children? For 10,000, It’s Unclear.

The United Nations has begun citing a much lower death toll for women and children in Gaza, acknowledging that it has incomplete information about many of the people killed during Israel’s military offensive in the territory.

As recently as May 6, the U.N’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its regularly updated online report that at least 9,500 women and 14,500 children were among the dead, out of an overall death toll of 34,735.

Two days later, the U.N. said in another online update that 4,959 women, 7,797 children and 10,006 men had been killed. While the total number of deaths remained roughly the same, a U.N. official said that it was awaiting more identifying information from officials in Gaza for about 10,000 of the dead, so they were not included in the new breakdown of women, men and children.

The change in the U.N.’s numbers — and the confusion over the discrepancy — has added fuel to a debate over the credibility of the Gazan authorities’ tallies of fatalities in the war. The deaths of women and children are seen as an important, if incomplete, indication of how many civilians have been killed, a question that lies at the heart of the criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war.

The change came because the United Nations switched to citing a more conservative source for its numbers — the Gazan Ministry of Health — rather than using Gaza’s Government Media Office, as it had in recent weeks. Both offices are part of the Hamas-run government in the enclave.

Many international officials and experts familiar with the way the health ministry verifies deaths in Gaza — drawing from morgues and hospitals across the territory — say its numbers are generally reliable.

The health ministry says its count of women and children killed is based on the total number of people whose identities it can fully verify — 24,840 individuals in all as of May 13.

More than 10,000 other people have also been killed, the health ministry says, but it does not have their full names, official ID numbers or other information it needs to be certain of their identities. That is why they are not included in the breakdown of women and children killed which is now being cited by the U.N., officials said.

“There’s about another 10,000-plus bodies who still have to be fully identified,” Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the U.N., said on Monday. He added: “The details of those — which of those are children, which of those are women — that will be reestablished once the full identification process is complete.”

Mr. Haq said the United Nations was relying on the data coming out of the health ministry, as it has “in all previous conflicts.”

He added that the U.N. had started using figures from Gaza’s media office because there had been a pause in reporting from the health ministry. But now that the ministry’s casualty reporting was back on line, he said, the U.N. had returned to using its information.

What do Israel and other critics say?
Israeli officials say they are suspicious of the Gazan health ministry’s count. A spokesman for the Israeli military, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, noted that the health ministry does not distinguish in its numbers between combatants and civilians. He also said that Israel sees every civilian death as a tragedy.

After the United Nations issued a lower documented death toll for women and children, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, called the new numbers “the miraculous resurrection of the dead in Gaza,” saying the United Nations had relied on “fake data from a terrorist organization.”

Elliott Abrams, a veteran American conservative, said in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations on Sunday that it has become “increasingly clear that these numbers represent Hamas propaganda.”

But figures cited by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are not drastically different from those used by the United Nations. He said last week that Israeli forces had killed about 14,000 Hamas combatants and 16,000 civilians, for a total of around 30,000, without elaborating on the source for those numbers.

Are the new casualty numbers viewed as credible?
In a sign that the U.S. government views casualty figures supplied by the Gaza health authorities as reliable, President Biden cited their overall death toll in his State of the Union speech in March. The United Nations publishes the health ministry’s figures on a website and U.N. leaders refer to them frequently.

A few weeks ago, the health ministry released its latest list detailing the identities of the dead that it had fully documented. It has also released a series of detailed reports explaining how it compiles casualty figures.

Early in the war, when its figures were called into question, the health ministry released a list of names, ages and identification numbers of the dead. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed that data, in a report published in November in The Lancet, and found “no obvious reason to doubt the validity of the data.”

Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, has matched the names of those reported killed with lists of names released by the health ministry. The vast majority of names match up, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director. Airwars also analyzed a ministry of health list of names issued earlier in the conflict and found that the proportion of children, women and men reported by the ministry roughly aligned with its own data collection, she said.

Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Oxford University and the founder of the Costs of War project, which examines the consequences of the post 9/11 wars, argued that the figures appeared to have been produced to professional standards.

How are casualty numbers compiled?
International experts who have worked with health officials in Gaza during this and other wars say that hospitals and morgues in the enclave gather and report the names, ID numbers and other details of people who have been killed in the territory.

The detailed count excludes thousands of people reported at hospitals as missing but believed to be buried under rubble; they are counted as dead only when their bodies are found.

That Gaza media office has consistently provided an overall death toll similar to the one given by the ministry of health, but different and often higher figures for the number of women and children killed.

Ismail Al Thawabateh, the office’s director general, said in an interview that the health ministry listed and categorized an individual as dead only when all of their details had been documented and verified by a next of kin. He did not explain why his office used a breakdown of women and children based on the overall death toll.

“The remaining 10,000 are bodies that have entered the hospitals but until this moment, the next of kin have not been reached yet to verify how they were martyred and completing their information,” he said.

When reached, Ashraf al-Qudra, the Gaza health ministry’s spokesman referred questions to the Ministry of Health’s latest report from May 13.

Posted

Nothing wrong with Gaza death toll figures, WHO says

GENEVA, May 14 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization voiced full confidence in Gaza Ministry of Health death toll figures on Tuesday, saying they were actually getting closer to confirming the scale of losses after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.

Gaza's health ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of around 35,000 since Oct. 7, saying that about 25,000 of those have so far been fully identified, of whom more than half were women and children.

This sparked allegations from Israel of inaccuracy since Palestinian authorities had previously estimated that more than 70% of those killed were women and children. U.N. agencies have republished the Palestinian figures, which have since risen above 35,000 dead, citing the source.

"Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same," said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing in response to questions about the toll. "The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward," he added.

Based on his own extrapolation of the latest Palestinian data, he said that around 60% of victims were women and children, but many bodies buried beneath rubble were likely to fall into these categories when they were eventually identified.

He added that it was "normal" for death tolls to shift in conflicts, recalling that Israel had revised down its own death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to 1,200 after checks.

"We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?" Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the same briefing. "And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are 1,000s missing under the rubble."
 

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25 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Nothing wrong with Gaza death toll figures, WHO says

GENEVA, May 14 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization voiced full confidence in Gaza Ministry of Health death toll figures on Tuesday, saying they were actually getting closer to confirming the scale of losses after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.

Gaza's health ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of around 35,000 since Oct. 7, saying that about 25,000 of those have so far been fully identified, of whom more than half were women and children.

This sparked allegations from Israel of inaccuracy since Palestinian authorities had previously estimated that more than 70% of those killed were women and children. U.N. agencies have republished the Palestinian figures, which have since risen above 35,000 dead, citing the source.

"Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same," said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing in response to questions about the toll. "The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward," he added.

Based on his own extrapolation of the latest Palestinian data, he said that around 60% of victims were women and children, but many bodies buried beneath rubble were likely to fall into these categories when they were eventually identified.

He added that it was "normal" for death tolls to shift in conflicts, recalling that Israel had revised down its own death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to 1,200 after checks.

"We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?" Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the same briefing. "And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are 1,000s missing under the rubble."
 

The WHO said those numbers are legit? Well shit, that's all you needed to say. Everyone knows you can trust the WHO.

 

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38 minutes ago, rage-a-holic said:

The WHO said those numbers are legit? Well shit, that's all you needed to say. Everyone knows you can trust the WHO.

 

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Not just the WHO.

Early in the war, when its figures were called into question, the health ministry released a list of names, ages and identification numbers of the dead. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed that data, in a report published in November in The Lancet, and found “no obvious reason to doubt the validity of the data.”

Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, has matched the names of those reported killed with lists of names released by the health ministry. The vast majority of names match up, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director. Airwars also analyzed a ministry of health list of names issued earlier in the conflict and found that the proportion of children, women and men reported by the ministry roughly aligned with its own data collection, she said.

Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Oxford University and the founder of the Costs of War project, which examines the consequences of the post 9/11 wars, argued that the figures appeared to have been produced to professional standards.

Hell, even Bibi says it's at least 30,000.

But figures cited by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are not drastically different from those used by the United Nations. He said last week that Israeli forces had killed about 14,000 Hamas combatants and 16,000 civilians, for a total of around 30,000, without elaborating on the source for those numbers.

 

If you've seen photos of the destruction in Gaza and still think the numbers are wildly inflated, you're living in denial.

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@statsman Have you got something to say?

They've counted and identified 25,000 bodies with an estimated 10,000 more to go. There are also an estimated 7-10,000 additional bodies thought to be under the rubble.

The MoH, which you assume to be lying, estimates 35,000 known dead. Benjamin Netanyahu, who you assume to be telling the truth, estimates 30,000 known dead. 

I don't see what's funny.

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Yea idk even if those numbers were completely fudged and the total number of women and children slaughtered was only like 5000 I don’t think I’d fell any better about that. But that’s just me. 

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