π️Lonny's War Update- October 254, 2023 - June 16, 2024 π️
π️Day 254 that 120 of our hostages in Hamas captivity
**There is nothing more important than getting them home! NOTHING!**
“I’ve never met them,But I miss them. I’ve never met them,but I think of them every second. I’ve never met them,but they are my family. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”
There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!ΧΧΧ Χ Χ¦ΧΧΧ Χ’Χ Χ©ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧΧ€ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧͺ
Red Alerts - Missile, Rocket, Drone (UAV - unmanned aerial vehicles), and Terror Attacks and Death Announcements
*12:25am - north - hostile aircraft Dishon, Dalton, Yiron, Kerem Ben Zimra, Malkia, Alma, Rihaniyeh*3:20am - north - rockets/ missiles Hila
*The army published the names of 7 more of the 8 soldiers killed yesterday in the Armored Personnel Carrier. The eighth soldier's name still has not been released. In addition, the army announced the death of 2 more soldiers killed in battle in Northern Gaza
-Reserve Captain Eitan Koplolevitch, 28 from Hoshiah-Reserve Staff Sergeant Eilon Weiss, 49, from Psagot, father of 7 and grandfather of 1. He has sons serving in the reserves-Sergeant Yakir Yaacov Levy, 21 from Hafetz Haim-Sergeant Eliyahu Moshe Chamblist, 21 from Beit Shemesh-Sergeant Itai Amar, 19 from Cochav Yair-Sergeant Stanislav Kosterb, 21 from Ashdod-First Sergeant Or Blumovitz, 20 from Pardes Hanna-Karkur-First Sergeant Oz Yishaya Gruber, 20 from Tel Menashe-Captain Wisam Mahmud, 23 from Beit Jan (was announced yesterday)**The army announced that Sergeant yair Roitman, 19, from Karnei Shomron died of his injuries sustained last week from the booby trapped building where 4 other soldiers were killed.
The army announced the death of two more soldiers killed in battle in Southern Gaza-Sergeant Shalom Menahem, 21 from Beit El- First Sergeant Tsur Avraham, 22 from Modiin-Maccabeam-Re'ut
Tsur Avraham
Shalom MenahemMay all of their memories forever be a blessing
Hostage Updates
The mother of Andrey Kozlov, one of the four hostages rescued from Gaza by Israeli commandos last weekend, has described some of her son’s harrowing experiences during his eight months of captivity, as well as the surge of emotions that she and her family have experienced since officials rang her to say that he was safe.
Evgeniia Kozlova, who held a series of interviews with Israeli and international media outlets that were published on Wednesday, said she had initially feared the news she was receiving was that something had happened to her son.
“They said we have some news so please sit down — so I threw away my phone because I didn’t want to hear any bad news,” she told The Telegraph. “I started to cry, ‘No, no, no!’ And then they shouted from the phone, ‘We have good news, please answer!’” “For a few minutes I probably didn’t know how to react. But then I started laughing. And I’ve been laughing all the time ever since. I’m absolutely happy,” she told Reuters.
Kozlov, 27, was one of 251 hostages abducted by Hamas-led terrorists during their devastating October 7 attack on Israel that also killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
He was rescued along with 21-year-old Almog Meir Jan and 40-year-old Shlomi Ziv by Israeli special forces who raided the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday in an operation Israeli officials said took weeks of planning and preparation.
Another Israeli hostage, 26-year-old Noa Argamani, was rescued from a nearby building during the same operation. Evgeniia Kozlova said her first conversation with her son was an overwhelming mix of feelings that reflected the anguish they had suffered since his abduction.
“It was both hard and joyful, and wonderful, and terrible because he was in a huge emotional turmoil,” she told Reuters. At least 120 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, 43 of whom have been confirmed dead, but talks aimed at agreeing on a halt to the fighting and a deal under which they would be returned in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners held in Israel, appear to have stalled.
Andrey’s father Mikhail, brother Dima and girlfriend Jennifer Master also gave interviews to various media outlets, describing how they had heard of his rescue and what he has told them of his experiences in captivity.
Andrey’s parents live in Russia. In the hours after the rescue, Israeli authorities helped them quickly catch a flight to Israel and they were reunited with their son on Sunday morning.
Speaking to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster via an interpreter, father Mikhail said that he had only found out that Andrey had been rescued when Master called him to say she had heard of his release on the news. Master had assumed that Mikhail had already been told. A moment later, Evgeniia called to tell him that the IDF had just told her he was free.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Mikhail Kozlov recalled.
Hostage Updates
The mother of Andrey Kozlov, one of the four hostages rescued from Gaza by Israeli commandos last weekend, has described some of her son’s harrowing experiences during his eight months of captivity, as well as the surge of emotions that she and her family have experienced since officials rang her to say that he was safe.
Evgeniia Kozlova, who held a series of interviews with Israeli and international media outlets that were published on Wednesday, said she had initially feared the news she was receiving was that something had happened to her son.
“They said we have some news so please sit down — so I threw away my phone because I didn’t want to hear any bad news,” she told The Telegraph. “I started to cry, ‘No, no, no!’ And then they shouted from the phone, ‘We have good news, please answer!’” “For a few minutes I probably didn’t know how to react. But then I started laughing. And I’ve been laughing all the time ever since. I’m absolutely happy,” she told Reuters.
Kozlov, 27, was one of 251 hostages abducted by Hamas-led terrorists during their devastating October 7 attack on Israel that also killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
He was rescued along with 21-year-old Almog Meir Jan and 40-year-old Shlomi Ziv by Israeli special forces who raided the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday in an operation Israeli officials said took weeks of planning and preparation.
Another Israeli hostage, 26-year-old Noa Argamani, was rescued from a nearby building during the same operation. Evgeniia Kozlova said her first conversation with her son was an overwhelming mix of feelings that reflected the anguish they had suffered since his abduction.
“It was both hard and joyful, and wonderful, and terrible because he was in a huge emotional turmoil,” she told Reuters. At least 120 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, 43 of whom have been confirmed dead, but talks aimed at agreeing on a halt to the fighting and a deal under which they would be returned in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners held in Israel, appear to have stalled.
Andrey’s father Mikhail, brother Dima and girlfriend Jennifer Master also gave interviews to various media outlets, describing how they had heard of his rescue and what he has told them of his experiences in captivity.
Andrey’s parents live in Russia. In the hours after the rescue, Israeli authorities helped them quickly catch a flight to Israel and they were reunited with their son on Sunday morning.
Speaking to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster via an interpreter, father Mikhail said that he had only found out that Andrey had been rescued when Master called him to say she had heard of his release on the news. Master had assumed that Mikhail had already been told. A moment later, Evgeniia called to tell him that the IDF had just told her he was free.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Mikhail Kozlov recalled.
‘Psychological terror’
The rescued hostages, who were taken directly to hospital from Gaza, have not spoken publicly about their ordeal.
“Andrey told us: ‘There are some things I will never tell you’. I don’t know what he didn’t tell us and what he doesn’t want to ever tell us,” Kozlova said but did say her son had given her a glimpse of the conditions they lived under.
The parents reinforced media reports of the psychological abuse the hostages suffered, relating that guards had told the captives that Israel did not care about them at all, or that their loved ones had deserted them.
‘Flow of energy’
Kozlova said Andrey had told her that throughout the ordeal, during which he said he and his companions had been mistreated in various ways, he had been convinced he would return.
“There was such a flow of energy from him, he was crying and laughing, and I was laughing too. We were comforting each other,” she said.
The emotion felt by the family has been reflected across much of Israeli society, where news of the rescue was greeted with a surge of elation after months of increasingly grim news from the war in Gaza, now in its ninth month. “He told us that they were required to follow some very strange rules, like you can’t sit with your legs towards these terrorists. You can’t do this, and you can’t do that,” Evgeniia said. “You could be punished for getting the wrong water or getting it from the wrong place.”
She said the guards had frequently abused the prisoners verbally. “They liked to tell them: ‘You’re an animal, you’re a donkey, you’re a fool, you’re dirty.’ Andrey now knows these words perfectly well in Arabic — everything about Arabic swear words he has learned well.”
Speaking to The New York Times, Evgeniia Kozlova said the captors had told Andrey: “Your mom is on vacation in Greece. Your mom doesn’t know about you at all — and doesn’t want to know.”
The terrorists had also persuaded him and the other hostages that their girlfriends were dating other men, Andrey Kozlov’s mother told British outlet The Telegraph.
“He said he was brainwashed… they told them that nobody wants them, that nobody is fighting for them,” she said. “They said that the Israel Defense Forces wants to kill them and that this will be the solution for the war. So, at the moment when the IDF came, Andrey thought that they came to kill them.
“It took him a while to understand that the army came to bring them back to Israel. It was only after a soldier said to them that they love them and they will be fine, that they will be safe. It was only after these words he believed,” she said, adding that he then viewed the soldiers as “superheroes.”
Father Mikhail told Kan that Andrey had described one guard as being particularly cruel and mentally disturbed, abusing him one day and the next saying, “I love you.” “This was psychological terror that was intended to cause the hostages to feel the most unease” and to “break them mentally,” Mikhail said.
Evgeniia, also via the interpreter, told Kan that for the first two months, Andrey had been tied up. At first, his hands were bound behind his back. Andrey, she said, was able to joke to her about what a “gift” it was when they eventually bound his arms in front of him instead.
‘I didn’t give up on him’
Asked whether they support military pressure to free the hostages or a deal with Hamas, Master responded on behalf of the family, saying they “believe there needs to be a hostage deal that will bring all of the captives home.”
Appealing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the government, she urged that “they take the right decisions, and fast. It very much hurts Andrey to think that the hostages [in Gaza] are going through each day and perhaps thinking that is their last day. ”
Master told Channel 12 news that the couple had started dating only shortly before Andrey was kidnapped. She reported that Andrey was “in a very, very delicate, very fragile state” as he digests what has happened. They had only been dating for three months before October 7, but over the following eight months, Master was a vocal campaigner for his release, including giving media interviews.
“I didn’t give up on him, and I had faith every day that he was alive and that he would come back alive,” she said. Andrey kept a daily journal, each day writing “another day, another day,” and “promised himself that he would come back alive,” she said. The document was left behind in Gaza.
His Russian citizenship did not impress his captors, Master said. Rather, they would ask him why he came to live in a country that is “an occupation.”
Master said that being away from his family was what Andrey found hardest. His captors forced him to draw a picture of his mother “and he didn’t want to. That was very hard for him, he didn’t want to draw her.” His mother, she explained, “is his weak point. Each time he thought of her [while in captivity] he simply broke to pieces” because of the “nightmare” he was causing his parents.
“He blames himself for being kidnapped,” she said. “He came back a different person. He just came back a fragile and different person.”
While Hamas has denied mistreating the hostages, the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday cataloged the repeated physical and psychological abuse the hostages suffered during the eight months in Gaza, citing the hostages’ relatives as well as Israeli security and medical officials. According to the Journal, Jan, Ziv and Kozlov were held in a single dark room for six months and had no contact with the outside world except for their interactions with their captors.
Punishments for failure to comply with their captors’ strict orders included being locked in the bathroom and being buried under blankets in the intense heat, the Journal said. The guards also abused the hostages psychologically, repeatedly threatening to kill them and telling them nobody would come for them or even cared about them.
Earlier this week, the Israeli doctor who treated the four rescued hostages after they were brought back to the country reported that they were beaten and abused “almost every day” while in captivity. Dr. Itai Pessach of Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv told CNN that the hostages suffered “a harsh, harsh experience.” In addition to the physical abuse, they were malnourished from not having received proper food during the eight months in captivity which “left a significant mark on their health.”
Officers of the police’s elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit, along with Shin Bet agents, on Saturday morning simultaneously raided two multi-story buildings in the heart of Nuseirat, where the four hostages were being held by Hamas-affiliated families and guards of the terror group, according to the military. Hamas’s government media office claimed at least 274 people were killed amid the operation, an unverified figure that also does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
The IDF acknowledged that it killed Palestinian civilians amid the fighting, but it placed the blame on Hamas for holding hostages and fighting in a dense civilian environment. “We know about under 100 [Palestinian] casualties. I don’t know how many of them are terrorists,” IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Saturday. link
Cairo is pressuring Hamas to accept the first phase of the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal without amendments, an Egyptian source tells the Qatar-owned Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper. Last week, the terror group submitted its formal response to the hostage release-ceasefire proposal that US President Joe Biden said had been proposed by Israel, and declared that it had made “amendments” to the offer, which Israel deemed to be drastic changes that made the deal unacceptable. Mediators Egypt and Qatar have pledged to continue their efforts until a deal is reached.
According to the Egyptian source quoted by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Cairo and Washington have been exerting intensive pressure on the Hamas leadership over the past days to agree to the first phase of the deal.
In addition, Hezbollah urges Hamas to “deal flexibly” with the proposal and to “be patient” and not close the door to ongoing negotiations, diplomatic sources told the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat daily on Saturday.
The report, first cited by the Kan public broadcaster, says the Hezbollah position is based on the assumption that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not really stand behind the offer. link This morning, I heard David Meidan on the radio (David was the deputy chief of the Mossad and appointed by Netanyahu as the Coordinator of missing and kidnapped soldiers who worked closely with my brother to get Gilad Schalit released from 5 years and 4 months captivity). David and my brother are in very close contact since the Schalit days. Much of what David said was what my brother has been saying throughout. This article speaks of Egyptian pressure and Qatari pressure. Neither of these parties actually have much strength in pressuring Yihya Sinwar. The Qatari pressure comes with threats of forcing the Diaspora Hamas terrorist leaders to leave Qatar. Sinwar doesn't give a damn about that. So what if they have to leave their luxurious 5 star hotels in Qatar and go to luxurious 5 start hotels in Turkey. The Egyptians pressures is all about the Rafah crossing. That is the lifeline for Hamas and for Gazans. Up until the army took over the Philadelphi Route and started finding and destroying Hamas tunnels, that crossing and all the tunnels underneath were crucial to Sinwar. They still are crucial but mostly out of his control, although he sees it as being very temporary because he believes that he will route Israeli forces and Hamas will continue to rule, at least militarily and the Rafah crossing and all of the tunnels. Therefore the Egyptian pressure is more of a pressure on the future of the crossing and smuggling operations underground. Sinwar probably sees this as a problem for a future day and won't be pressured on it today. Sinwar believes that his and Hamas' position is still very strong and outside pressure doesn't have much impact on his. David's final point of what would be the strongest pressure is what my brother has said since the very beginning of the war. If there was a real and viable alternative to governing Gaza now and at the end of the war and it wasn't Hamas, that would be the greatest pressure and real threat to Sinwar and Hamas' future. Netanyahu has prevented that from happening at almost every point since October 7, except for his unworkable ideas of having local tribal heads take over the local governance, the same as having war lords (as many of these tribal heads are actually crime bosses). Another of Netanyahu's failures.
Hamas Qatar-based leader Ismail Haniyeh claims the terror group’s response to the latest Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal proposal is “consistent” with the principles put forward by US President Joe Biden, in a televised speech on the occasion of the Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha.
Biden said last week that he doesn’t expect a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza to be reached in the near future, saying Hamas needs to shift its position closer to Israel’s US-backed proposal on the table. Negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have tried for months to mediate a ceasefire in the conflict and free hostages taken from Israel on October 7.
Late last month, Biden publicly laid out the contours of a deal he said had been proposed by Israel that would freeze fighting and free the 116 hostages held in the Strip in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Despite winning the support of the international community, the offer was rejected by Hamas for failing to contain an Israeli commitment to a permanent ceasefire. link Hizbollah has been quietly prodding Hamas not to say no to the plan and allow Netanyahu to be the one who says no first showing the world who is the one preventing a deal to be made. Although Netanyahu gave the green light to the negotiating team on the outlive of the deal, he is banking on his cabinet to not approve it as it calls for ending the war, even though Netanyahu has denied that he has given any agreement to anything more than an extended ceasefire.
Gaza
Already reeling West Bank cowers from Israeli plan to punish
statehood moves: Israel’s finance minister has said he will sever key artery
enabling transactions between Palestinian Authority and Israeli banking
systems, stoking fears of a humanitarian crisis
Already reeling West Bank cowers from Israeli plan to punish statehood moves: Israel’s finance minister has said he will sever key artery enabling transactions between Palestinian Authority and Israeli banking systems, stoking fears of a humanitarian crisis
Palestinian teenagers bounced on trampolines and jumped through hoops inside a towering tent on the outskirts of Ramallah, the financial hub of the West Bank. But the circus students weren’t the only ones bending over backward in the pavilion: the school’s director faced financial hurdles to buy the tent from Europe and trampolines from Asia. “We are suffering with international payments,” said Mohamad Rabah, head of the Palestinian Circus School, describing a bureaucratic process that could delay equipment delivery by up to a month.
Banking in the Palestinian territories is challenging, with the Palestinian Authority (PA) under scrutiny for potential terror financing, hindering transactions. Israel has controlled the West Bank since 1967, with strong economic ties allowing two Israeli lenders to serve as correspondent banks in the Palestinian territory. But this may change if far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich carries out threats to sever a vital banking route next month.
Since the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel that started the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Israel has imposed economic curbs on the PA, withholding tax revenues it collects on its behalf. Smotrich said last week that he had redirected $35 million in PA tax revenues to families of terror victims, a move condemned by the United States.
After three European countries recognized Palestinian Statehood in May, Smotrich told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would not extend indemnity to banks that transfer the funds from the end of June.
Israel’s Bank Hapoalim and Israel Discount Bank need protection, expiring on July 1, to avoid sanctions for dealing with Palestinian lenders. If the waiver is canceled, Israeli firms will not be able to receive money from Palestinian banks or deposit Palestinian checks, impacting business ties. The Bank of Israel and Finance Ministry declined to comment when contacted by AFP.
‘Humanitarian crisis’
The banking channel used to pay for West Bank imports — including essential goods like water, fuel, and food — handles $8 billion yearly. Palestinian businesses receive nearly $1.7 billion annually for exports, according to the Palestine Monetary Authority. “For us, because our economy is dependent on the Israeli economy because Israel is controlling the border, the impact will be high,” said PMA governor Feras Milhem.
The Palestinian economy is largely governed by the 1994 Paris Protocol, which granted sole control over the territories’ borders to Israel, including the right to collect import duties and value-added tax for the PA.
Palestinian livelihoods have also been hurt by bans on laborers crossing into Israel in the wake of the Hamas onslaught, which killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel, and by a sharp downturn in tourism in the territory, including a quiet Christmas season in Bethlehem.
The United States has urged Israel to improve conditions, warning that severing the banking route would have a dire impact on the West Bank economy.
“I believe it would create a humanitarian crisis in due course if Palestinian banks are cut off from Israeli correspondence,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last month. Western governments fear Israel’s economic policies could destabilize the West Bank.
“The banking system may collapse and therefore the PA may collapse as well,” a European diplomatic source in Jerusalem told AFP on condition of anonymity. “The PA is in a financial crisis and it could collapse before August.”
Digital currency
Palestinian businessmen say their bottom lines have been hit since October 7. Imad Rabah, who owns a plastics company, said his net income had fallen 50 percent in one year. Arak producer Nakhleh Jubran said his liquor business had fallen 30% over the same period.
“We have a traditional war in Gaza and we have an economic war in the West Bank,” said Jubran. Musa Shamieh, who owns a womenswear company, said the Israeli policies were designed to push Palestinians to leave the West Bank. “They want us to leave our land and they know it will be hard for us to stay if we can’t do business,” Shamieh said. Israel’s punishing economic policies could eventually drive Palestinian policymakers to pursue sweeping changes to the monetary system.
“We need to work on a plan B when it comes to the trade relations,” said Milhem, governor of the PMA, which uses an image of the Palestine pound, the currency used during Britain’s colonial rule, as its logo.
Yousef Daoud, a professor at the West Bank’s Birzeit University, said the territory could scrap the shekel as its de facto currency in favor of a digital alternative.
“We can make our e-currency, just collect all the shekels, issue an equivalent amount of Palestinian pounds, one-to-one fixed exchange rate, and have the Palestinians deal with e-currency,” he said. “Somehow, eventually, we’ll get rid of the shekel.” link The Palestinian economy is, indeed in desperate straits and every one of Smotrich's actions makes it worse. This is 100% intentional on his part. He doesn't recognize a Palestinian people and wants to devastate the Palestinian Authority. He believes that if Israel makes it so bad for the Palestinians, they will just get up and leave and he can then take care of settling the entire West Bank without Palestinians getting in the way and without the West crying out that the settlement activities are illegal. These are the beliefs of this messianic extremist who doesn't care about anything else but getting rid of the Arabs and settlements. And Netanyahu gave him the keys to the bank. Anyone who thinks that Smotrich's actions only affect the Palestinians needs to think again. The following article shows the involvement and concern of the G7 of Smotrich's actions which have international ramifications on Israel. That's the macro. In the micro, his actions will continue to weaken and then destroy the only governing body there is in the West Bank, the PA which will lead to chaos and the strengthening of all of the extreme terror organizations that have already been gaining strength over the last years. This can bring about much more than the army is dealing with today in certain cities and refugee camps. It can set off a third intifada which will make the previous 2 look miniscule in nature because it will be at a time that we are already fighting on multiple fronts and don't have the resources to deal with something like that. If an intifada erupts, it would be a clear signal to Hizbollah, Iran and all of Iran's proxies that this is the time for a full scale attack on all fronts. Smotrich's irresponsible actions could bring major destruction upon Israel and put us truly in an existential fight for our survival. So no one should take Smotrich's actions lightly or think that they have little of no impact on the State of Israel. Their impact could be devastating.
The Group of Seven nations warned Israel on Friday to stop any “actions that weaken the Palestinian Authority,” after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich moved to withhold tax funds from the Palestinian Authority.
The final communique from the G7 leading industrialized nations’ three-day summit in Italy also said that UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, must be allowed to work unhindered in war-torn Gaza.
Under the 1990s Oslo Accords, Israel collects tax revenue on behalf of the Palestinians, and it has used the money as a tool to pressure the Palestinian Authority, which administers some parts of the West Bank. Hamas violently expelled the PA from Gaza in 2007.
Much of the international community want to see the PA play a major role in administering post-war Gaza, something the current Israeli government rejects.
The G7 called on Israel to release tax revenues in light of the PA’s “urgent fiscal needs,” and demanded that Israel “remove or relax other measures to avoid further exacerbating the economic situation in the West Bank.”
The statement came a day after Smotrich said he would reroute some NIS 130 million ($35 million) of the funds earmarked for the PA to “victims of terrorism” in Israel.
Smotrich initially froze the tax revenue transfers to the PA after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, The far-right minister later agreed to send the money via Norway, which transferred it to the PA.
Following Norway’s announcement in May that it — along with Ireland and Spain — would recognize Palestinian statehood, Smotrich again froze the funds, in what he called an act of “historic justice” given the PA’s financial support for families of Palestinians who had attacked Israelis.
The US and other Israeli allies have expressed concern that such a move would jeopardize the already-beleaguered PA’s ability to pay thousands of salaries, further stoking tensions in the West Bank.
“Actions that weaken the Palestinian Authority must stop, including the withholding of clearance revenues by the Israeli Government,” read Friday’s G7 communique. “Maintaining economic stability in the West Bank is critical for regional security.” full article
The Israeli military announced Sunday it had begun to implement a daily “tactical pause of military activity” along a key road in the southern Gaza Strip to enable humanitarian aid to be delivered to Palestinians.
The pause was to take place between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. every day along a road that leads from the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel to the Salah a-Din road on the eastern outskirts of Rafah, and then northward toward the Khan Younis area, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“This is an additional step in the humanitarian aid efforts that have been conducted by the IDF and COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) since the beginning of the war,” the military said in a statement. The military said in a separate statement that it “clarifies that there is no suspension of fighting in the southern Gaza Strip and the fighting in Rafah continues.”
Upon hearing the military’s initial announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contacted his military secretary and “made it clear that this is not acceptable to him,” a diplomatic source said.
“After an inquiry, the prime minister was informed that there was no change in IDF policy and that the fighting in Rafah continues as planned,” the source added. full article
The United States military is preparing to temporarily remove its humanitarian pier off the coast of Gaza because of anticipated sea conditions, a US official said on Friday, the latest challenge to the effort that has been hampered by bad weather since it was put into place in May.
The floating US military pier off Gaza had just resumed bringing humanitarian aid into the enclave after being suspended over the weekend.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the pier would likely be moved to the Israeli port of Ashdod until sea conditions improve.
The Group of Seven nations warned Israel on Friday to stop any “actions that weaken the Palestinian Authority,” after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich moved to withhold tax funds from the Palestinian Authority.
The final communique from the G7 leading industrialized nations’ three-day summit in Italy also said that UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, must be allowed to work unhindered in war-torn Gaza.
Under the 1990s Oslo Accords, Israel collects tax revenue on behalf of the Palestinians, and it has used the money as a tool to pressure the Palestinian Authority, which administers some parts of the West Bank. Hamas violently expelled the PA from Gaza in 2007.
Much of the international community want to see the PA play a major role in administering post-war Gaza, something the current Israeli government rejects.
The G7 called on Israel to release tax revenues in light of the PA’s “urgent fiscal needs,” and demanded that Israel “remove or relax other measures to avoid further exacerbating the economic situation in the West Bank.”
The statement came a day after Smotrich said he would reroute some NIS 130 million ($35 million) of the funds earmarked for the PA to “victims of terrorism” in Israel.
Smotrich initially froze the tax revenue transfers to the PA after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, The far-right minister later agreed to send the money via Norway, which transferred it to the PA.
Following Norway’s announcement in May that it — along with Ireland and Spain — would recognize Palestinian statehood, Smotrich again froze the funds, in what he called an act of “historic justice” given the PA’s financial support for families of Palestinians who had attacked Israelis.
The US and other Israeli allies have expressed concern that such a move would jeopardize the already-beleaguered PA’s ability to pay thousands of salaries, further stoking tensions in the West Bank.
“Actions that weaken the Palestinian Authority must stop, including the withholding of clearance revenues by the Israeli Government,” read Friday’s G7 communique. “Maintaining economic stability in the West Bank is critical for regional security.” full article
The Israeli military announced Sunday it had begun to implement a daily “tactical pause of military activity” along a key road in the southern Gaza Strip to enable humanitarian aid to be delivered to Palestinians.
The pause was to take place between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. every day along a road that leads from the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel to the Salah a-Din road on the eastern outskirts of Rafah, and then northward toward the Khan Younis area, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“This is an additional step in the humanitarian aid efforts that have been conducted by the IDF and COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) since the beginning of the war,” the military said in a statement. The military said in a separate statement that it “clarifies that there is no suspension of fighting in the southern Gaza Strip and the fighting in Rafah continues.”
Upon hearing the military’s initial announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contacted his military secretary and “made it clear that this is not acceptable to him,” a diplomatic source said.
“After an inquiry, the prime minister was informed that there was no change in IDF policy and that the fighting in Rafah continues as planned,” the source added. full article
The United States military is preparing to temporarily remove its humanitarian pier off the coast of Gaza because of anticipated sea conditions, a US official said on Friday, the latest challenge to the effort that has been hampered by bad weather since it was put into place in May.
The floating US military pier off Gaza had just resumed bringing humanitarian aid into the enclave after being suspended over the weekend.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the pier would likely be moved to the Israeli port of Ashdod until sea conditions improve.
Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah
A “suspicious aerial target” was shot down by air defenses over the sea off the coast of the northern city of Nahariya a short while ago, the military says. No sirens had sounded amid the incident.
A “suspicious aerial target” was shot down by air defenses over the sea off the coast of the northern city of Nahariya a short while ago, the military says. No sirens had sounded amid the incident.
West Bank
Politics
My brother's column in The Times of Israel: An open letter to Palestinians: You can break this cycle
It is time to make clear that you seek to build your own
country with honor and dignity – not in place of Israel, but next to it: This is an open letter to Palestinian readers. I already know I will be passionately attacked and criticized by many Palestinians for what I am writing. I have been engaged in bridging between Israelis and Palestinians for 46 years and believe me I have heard it all. I remain dedicated to the basic principle that peace can be made between the two peoples who live on the land between the River and the Sea.
Throughout all of these years, Israelis have spoken mostly about peace, while Palestinians have spoken mostly about ending the occupation and achieving freedom, equality, and dignity. Israelis and Palestinians don’t speak on the same frequencies and, of course, there is no symmetry between them. Israel is a strong state in existence for 76 years that is recognized by 165 countries and that maintains economic and security ties with even more. Israel is a challenged democracy but, at least so far, it is still a democracy.
Palestine, which Israel occupies with a harsh military occupation, is not a fully recognized state and has had a divided political leadership for 17 years. Palestine has a weak economy largely limited by Israeli restrictions. Palestinian lands are confiscated by Israel to build illegal settlements. Thousands of Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails. Palestine lacks democracy and has no accountable government. To put it bluntly, Israel is strong, Palestine is weak.
Throughout the 46 years that I have been working across the conflict lines, I have heard from Palestinians that because Israel is the occupier and because Israel is strong, it needs to take the first step toward the Palestinians. This argument would be valid in a world where everything that happens is based on what is just. But that’s not how the world has ever worked and I would wager that it will never work that way – especially after October 7.
The Gaza War is the worst of all of the Israeli-Palestinian wars: More people have suffered, been killed, and had their homes destroyed than ever before. This war must be the last Israeli-Palestinian war. We cannot allow this conflict to continue. I fully recognize that there are now more justified reasons to hate the other side than ever before. Supporters of peace on both sides are at a new low point and there are almost no leaders in Israel or Palestine who dare to speak about peace, or ending the occupation or any kind of positive future. In fact, there are almost no people on both sides that I would even call leaders.
Change happens when new voices appear and break the sound barrier by saying things that have not been said in the past. Nelson Mandela cracked the core of Apartheid by stating that he was not seeking revenge, that in the new South Africa whites and blacks would live together with security and dignity. Mandela was victorious because he did not see the white South Africans as his enemy. He understood that the fear inside of white South Africans was the enemy and that to beat that fear he had to speak to the inner heart of white South Africans.
The same is true here in Palestine/Israel. Israelis know there are 7 million Palestinians living on the land. They know the Palestinian people are not going to leave (notwithstanding Jewish Israeli extremists, some of them in the government, who have plans for this to happen). The overwhelming number of Israelis feel trapped in a reality that they do not want. Israelis don’t want to live in fear of their Palestinian neighbors. But October 7 increased their fear, with good reason, to heights that make the notion of ever living in peace seem like science fiction.
Any reasonable Israeli knows that Palestinians have hard lives. Many of them know that Israel is a major cause of the hard lives that Palestinians live. Many may even recognize that the root cause of our terrible reality is the occupation. But very few Israelis believe that Palestinians are truly prepared to live in peace next to Israel. Most Israelis truly believe that the ultimate goal of all Palestinians, not only Hamas, is to destroy Israel. When Israelis are willing to listen to Palestinians, what they hear more often than not is the narrative of victimhood. They also hear from Palestinians that Israel is the victimizer. At the same time, Israelis feel themselves to be the victims and that Palestinians who sanctify death, not life, are the victimizers. The victimhood competition is fierce and ongoing. This common narrative has been in play for more than 76 years and its only achievement has been to maintain and escalate the conflict.
How are we going to break this horrible cycle? I believe the breakthrough will be made by coherent, rational, and compelling Palestinian voices speaking peace. Again, in an ideal world, it should come from the stronger side, but we don’t live in such a world. I know some Palestinians who speak out unreservedly, accepting a measure of responsibility for Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, which were done in their name too, and denouncing the death and destruction Hamas perpetrated on that horrible day. They speak about moral red lines that have been crossed and they remind Israelis that Israel has also crossed too many moral red lines in this conflict.
They say to Israelis that they as Muslims have to recognize that Jews have always been in this land and that Jewish history, memory, and religion are attached to this land between the River and the Sea. But they also remind the Israelis that Jews were never here alone – there were always others living in the land and today those others are the Palestinians. With courage and honesty, these people say that Palestinians have never had the leadership they need, that for the past 100 years, they’ve had three unworthy leaders, Hajj Amin al Husseini, Yasser Arafat, and Mahmoud Abbas, all of whom failed to bring independence, peace and dignity. They say they need new, younger leadership that is not corrupt, believes in democracy and freedom, and speaks the language of peace.
I know these voices exist in Palestine. I have heard people who understand that Israel will never have security unless Palestinians have freedom and dignity and that Palestine will never have freedom and dignity unless Israel has security. These people speak to the hearts of Israelis and say we recognize the suffering of the Jewish people. We understand the traumas that Jews have experienced throughout the ages, including and especially during the Holocaust. We do not seek to kill the Jews or to destroy Israel. We seek to be free from Israel’s occupation and to build our own country with honor and dignity – next to Israel, not in place of Israel.
These Palestinian voices would be wise to declare that ousting Hamas is necessary not only for Israel and Jews, but for the sake of Palestinian aspirations for freedom and dignity. They would be wise to say that in a Palestinian state, there can be only one political authority with a monopoly on the use of force, the legitimate government. In fact, they could simply restate what appears in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence (November 15, 1988):
The State of Palestine is to be a peace-loving state, in adherence to the principles of peaceful co-existence. It will join with all states and peoples in order to assure a permanent peace based upon justice and the respect of rights so that humanity’s potential for well-being may be assured, an earnest competition for excellence be maintained, and in which confidence in the future will eliminate fear for those who are just and for whom justice is the only recourse.
Those inspiring words of Mahmoud Darwish should be the north star for Palestinians representing a new generation that will not forget the past, but will have one eye focused on the future with clarity of purpose, a moral code of justice, and a keen sense of reality. These Palestinians know that in order to achieve the goal of freedom and dignity, it is not enough to be right, you also have to be smart, and that being smart means defeating Israeli fear, not Israel. link
- Organizers of anti-government protests give further details on the ongoing week of disruption, which began with the blocking of major highways this morning.
“Our goal is clear – to return the mandate to the people immediately and go to elections before the anniversary of the failures of October 7,” says Eran Schwartz, head of the Free in our Land protest group.
“The government repeatedly fails to protect Israel’s security and care for its citizens,” he says. “It prioritizes political survival over the national interest, as we have seen in dozens of examples in recent months, from the shameful [military draft for Haredim] evasion law, through the failure to promote the hostage deal or [a plan for] the day after in Gaza, to the abandonment of the citizens of the north.”
Schwartz calls for local authorities and business leaders to join the protests, citing the need for the “establishment of a broad, agreed-upon and acceptable government.”
Protest leader Moshe Radman says that only elections can bring hope.
“This is a government that abandons its people. But on the other hand, we have an amazing and determined nation and this nation deserves leadership with a vision, and not just despair and bereavement. Only elections can start the healing process,” he says. “Netanyahu, what are you afraid of? Only a dictator is afraid of his people.”
The press conference features the leaders of a number of protest groups including Brothers in Arms, Elections Now group, Free in our Land, Building an Alternative, the Pink Front, the Change Generation, the fighters from the 1973 Yom Kippur War and more.
Local rallies and events are set to be held nationwide tomorrow, then a large protest will take place at the Knesset in Jerusalem at 7 p.m. before demonstrators march to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence.
Another rally will be held at the Knesset on Tuesday evening at 7 p.m.
A rally is also to be held in the south on Wednesday evening, with the location to be announced.
On Thursday, protests will be held outside Netanyahu’s residences in Jerusalem and Caesarea.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara tells the government that its temporary bill to extend a previous raise to the age of exemption from reserve military service is legally unacceptable unless an immediate effort is made to draft extra military power “from the entire population,” a reference to the tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who receive blanket exemptions from military service.
The attorney general says there is a “legal impediment” to increasing the burden of military service on those already serving without at the same time taking steps to “reduce the inequality in the burden of service and without exhausting all the legislative and other possibilities for the full realization of the military draft potential, and the [imposition of] the burden of service on the entire population.”
Baharav-Miara says that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has told her that failing to keep the higher age of exemption from reserve duty in place would have immediate, direct negative security consequences, and that she is therefore allowing the temporary bill to pass but only for three months.
That period of time must, however, “be immediately used beginning this coming month for formulating answers to the issue of the burden of military service, and executing them through legislation and non-legislative [means].”
The ongoing military service exemptions enjoyed by ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, men has become a huge legal and political problem for the government. The framework allowing such exemptions expired at the end of March and it now appears that the High Court of Justice is very likely to order the government in the coming days or weeks to begin drafting at least several thousand Haredi men into the army.
The government is trying to advance a bill to restore those blanket exemptions due to the fierce opposition of the Haredi parties to members of their community being drafted, although such a bill would face heavy opposition in the Knesset, including from the defense minister.
Eisenkot accuses PM of delaying Rafah offensive by 3 months
due to political interests: In interviews, ex-war cabinet observer says Netanyahu is
intimidated by far-right and should resign; says he regrets not pushing harder
to extend Nov. truce, get more hostages out
National Unity party lawmaker Gadi Eisenkot, who served as a
war cabinet observer from the start of the war in Gaza until his party departed
from the government last Sunday, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of
putting off a vote in that forum authorizing the Israel Defense Forces’
operation in Rafah, causing it to be delayed by three months.
In an interview with Channel 12 that aired Saturday,
Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, said that the Netanyahu he worked with
over the last eight months was “a different Netanyahu” from the one he
previously worked with when it came to making decisions. (It was Netanyahu who
appointed Eisenkot as chief of staff in late 2014.)
In previous years, Netanyahu would have made decisions
“based purely on security considerations,” Eisenkot said. “Here, I saw
decisions being made entirely differently, with delays… with antics.” “Even the story of the invasion of Rafah was simmering away
for three months,” he continued. “Over on their [media] channels, they report
that Gadi Eisenkot and Benny Gantz are the ones who [prevented] the attack on
Rafah, that the prime minister is determined and wants to proceed in Rafah, only
we’re the ones holding him back.
“On the contrary,” Eisenkot said, accusing the prime
minister of stretching out the process “like chewing gum.” He specified that far-right National Security Minister
Itamar Ben Gvir was a highly negative influence on Netanyahu’s decisions. “The
alternate prime minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, is the most influential minister,”
charged Eisenkot. (Ben Gvir is not the alternate prime minister.) “Even though
he is not part of the war cabinet, he’s there in spirit. We wanted to invade
Rafah in February, and Netanyahu dragged out the decision until May.”
Eisenkot also claimed Netanyahu narrowed the mandate given
to Israel’s hostage-ceasefire negotiators in April, in breach of a war cabinet
decision, because of pressure from far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
He also said the reason the prime minister opposes a role for the Palestinian
Authority in Gaza, despite the security interests for Israel, was fear of
criticism from the far right.
Added Eisenkot: “Ulterior motives and political
considerations that infiltrated the room made us leave [the government]. There
was no question in the beginning of whether we’d [join the government]. In the
first few months, everything was conducted professionally, and in the last
three months we understood that ulterior motives had entered the cabinet room.”
In a statement released minutes after Eisenkot’s interview,
Netanyahu’s Likud party accused him of lying.
“In stark contrast to Eisenkot’s claim, the prime minister
was the one who pushed for action in Rafah, even at the cost of a confrontation
with the Americans,” the statement read. “The prime minister makes decisions
all the time, just not the ones that Eisenkot and Gantz pushed for, which would
mean surrendering to Hamas.
“The prime minister’s stances are derived solely from national security
considerations, which the majority of the public supports, and not from any
kind of political pressure,” the Likud statement added, accusing Gantz and
Eisenkot of bolting the emergency coalition due to a downward trend for their
National Unity party in election polls.
In an interview with Channel 13 that also aired Saturday,
Eisenkot said his biggest regret from his time in the war cabinet was not
pushing harder to extend the weeklong temporary truce struck with Hamas in
November to allow for more hostages to be released. During that week, 105
hostages were freed. It is believed that 116 hostages abducted by Hamas on
October 7 remain in Gaza, some of them thought to be dead.
Eisenkot also told Channel 13 that had he been prime
minister on October 7, he would have resigned after attaining a “strategic
balance,” which he says Israel has achieved. He called on Netanyahu to resign
or to call early elections to regain the public’s trust.
On serving in the same government as Otzma Yehudit party
leader Ben Gvir, Eisenkot said the experience was “very disturbing. I saw a
very superficial, impulsive approach that seeks to make headlines, that doesn’t
deeply understand the challenges of national security.”
Ben Gvir and fellow far-right Finance Minister Bezalel
Smotrich are members of the national security cabinet. Eisenkot told Channel 13
that Netanyahu intentionally keeps information from that forum because the
prime minister “doesn’t trust them.”
War broke out on October 7 when Hamas terrorists infiltrated
Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251, while
committing widespread atrocities and sexual assault.
Three hundred and nine troops have been killed during the
ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border. The
toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission. A civilian
Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Strip. In December,
Eisenkot’s son, Gal, was killed while fighting in Gaza. link There are a number of things that must be known and stressed. Gadi Eisencott is a highly respected formen Chief of General Staff, respected by the political echelon, but his predecessors, by the IDF and by the population. He is known as dedicated, honest and talks straight. On the other hand, Netanyahu is known as a pathological liar who will do anything to protect his image and his PM's seat. As such, we can absolutely believe what he said in this interview and discount Netanyahu's response.
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused National Unity chair Benny Gantz and lawmaker Gadi Eisenkot of wanting to make “washed-up defeatist decisions” that would “leave Hamas intact,” during a cabinet meeting earlier today, National Unity accuses the prime minister of practicing “defeatism.”
“Defeatism: To be afraid of letting the IDF maneuver. To dissolve the entrance to Khan Younis and Rafah. To hesitate to move operative efforts north, and refuse to define the safe return of northern residents to their homes as part of the goals of the war,” the party says in a statement aimed at Netanyahu.
“In the future, the [war’s] protocols will be revealed, and the public will know who stalled and who strived for a real victory.”
Shortly after, Netanyahu’s Likud party bites back at its former coalition partner, warning that “those who fled the war effort will not preach morals to Prime Minister Netanyahu who is leading the campaign and is not willing to compromise on anything less than complete victory.
“Certainly not Benny Gantz who escaped making difficult decisions, who gave in to all international pressure, who agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state and who declared above all that he is ready to end the war before the return of all our hostages and the completion of all our goals,” the Likud statement continues.
Accusing Netanyahu of acting “hysterical,” National Unity retorts that “Gantz and Eisenkot were the first to call for launching the maneuver and aggressive action in Gaza and its expansion to Khan Younis and Rafah,” and that Gantz had been responsible for ensuring Israel had air support from its allies during Iran’s attack in April.
“He never agreed to end the war, nor agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state,” National Unity says of Gantz. “He didn’t deliver the ‘Bar Ilan speech’ and didn’t hand over territory to [Yasser] Arafat, as Netanyahu did.”
My brother's column in The Times of Israel: An open letter to Palestinians: You can break this cycle
It is time to make clear that you seek to build your own country with honor and dignity – not in place of Israel, but next to it: This is an open letter to Palestinian readers. I already know I will be passionately attacked and criticized by many Palestinians for what I am writing. I have been engaged in bridging between Israelis and Palestinians for 46 years and believe me I have heard it all. I remain dedicated to the basic principle that peace can be made between the two peoples who live on the land between the River and the Sea.
Throughout all of these years, Israelis have spoken mostly about peace, while Palestinians have spoken mostly about ending the occupation and achieving freedom, equality, and dignity. Israelis and Palestinians don’t speak on the same frequencies and, of course, there is no symmetry between them. Israel is a strong state in existence for 76 years that is recognized by 165 countries and that maintains economic and security ties with even more. Israel is a challenged democracy but, at least so far, it is still a democracy.
Palestine, which Israel occupies with a harsh military occupation, is not a fully recognized state and has had a divided political leadership for 17 years. Palestine has a weak economy largely limited by Israeli restrictions. Palestinian lands are confiscated by Israel to build illegal settlements. Thousands of Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails. Palestine lacks democracy and has no accountable government. To put it bluntly, Israel is strong, Palestine is weak.
Throughout the 46 years that I have been working across the conflict lines, I have heard from Palestinians that because Israel is the occupier and because Israel is strong, it needs to take the first step toward the Palestinians. This argument would be valid in a world where everything that happens is based on what is just. But that’s not how the world has ever worked and I would wager that it will never work that way – especially after October 7.
The Gaza War is the worst of all of the Israeli-Palestinian wars: More people have suffered, been killed, and had their homes destroyed than ever before. This war must be the last Israeli-Palestinian war. We cannot allow this conflict to continue. I fully recognize that there are now more justified reasons to hate the other side than ever before. Supporters of peace on both sides are at a new low point and there are almost no leaders in Israel or Palestine who dare to speak about peace, or ending the occupation or any kind of positive future. In fact, there are almost no people on both sides that I would even call leaders.
Change happens when new voices appear and break the sound barrier by saying things that have not been said in the past. Nelson Mandela cracked the core of Apartheid by stating that he was not seeking revenge, that in the new South Africa whites and blacks would live together with security and dignity. Mandela was victorious because he did not see the white South Africans as his enemy. He understood that the fear inside of white South Africans was the enemy and that to beat that fear he had to speak to the inner heart of white South Africans.
The same is true here in Palestine/Israel. Israelis know there are 7 million Palestinians living on the land. They know the Palestinian people are not going to leave (notwithstanding Jewish Israeli extremists, some of them in the government, who have plans for this to happen). The overwhelming number of Israelis feel trapped in a reality that they do not want. Israelis don’t want to live in fear of their Palestinian neighbors. But October 7 increased their fear, with good reason, to heights that make the notion of ever living in peace seem like science fiction.
Any reasonable Israeli knows that Palestinians have hard lives. Many of them know that Israel is a major cause of the hard lives that Palestinians live. Many may even recognize that the root cause of our terrible reality is the occupation. But very few Israelis believe that Palestinians are truly prepared to live in peace next to Israel. Most Israelis truly believe that the ultimate goal of all Palestinians, not only Hamas, is to destroy Israel. When Israelis are willing to listen to Palestinians, what they hear more often than not is the narrative of victimhood. They also hear from Palestinians that Israel is the victimizer. At the same time, Israelis feel themselves to be the victims and that Palestinians who sanctify death, not life, are the victimizers. The victimhood competition is fierce and ongoing. This common narrative has been in play for more than 76 years and its only achievement has been to maintain and escalate the conflict.
How are we going to break this horrible cycle? I believe the breakthrough will be made by coherent, rational, and compelling Palestinian voices speaking peace. Again, in an ideal world, it should come from the stronger side, but we don’t live in such a world. I know some Palestinians who speak out unreservedly, accepting a measure of responsibility for Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, which were done in their name too, and denouncing the death and destruction Hamas perpetrated on that horrible day. They speak about moral red lines that have been crossed and they remind Israelis that Israel has also crossed too many moral red lines in this conflict.
They say to Israelis that they as Muslims have to recognize that Jews have always been in this land and that Jewish history, memory, and religion are attached to this land between the River and the Sea. But they also remind the Israelis that Jews were never here alone – there were always others living in the land and today those others are the Palestinians. With courage and honesty, these people say that Palestinians have never had the leadership they need, that for the past 100 years, they’ve had three unworthy leaders, Hajj Amin al Husseini, Yasser Arafat, and Mahmoud Abbas, all of whom failed to bring independence, peace and dignity. They say they need new, younger leadership that is not corrupt, believes in democracy and freedom, and speaks the language of peace.
I know these voices exist in Palestine. I have heard people who understand that Israel will never have security unless Palestinians have freedom and dignity and that Palestine will never have freedom and dignity unless Israel has security. These people speak to the hearts of Israelis and say we recognize the suffering of the Jewish people. We understand the traumas that Jews have experienced throughout the ages, including and especially during the Holocaust. We do not seek to kill the Jews or to destroy Israel. We seek to be free from Israel’s occupation and to build our own country with honor and dignity – next to Israel, not in place of Israel.
These Palestinian voices would be wise to declare that ousting Hamas is necessary not only for Israel and Jews, but for the sake of Palestinian aspirations for freedom and dignity. They would be wise to say that in a Palestinian state, there can be only one political authority with a monopoly on the use of force, the legitimate government. In fact, they could simply restate what appears in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence (November 15, 1988):
The State of Palestine is to be a peace-loving state, in adherence to the principles of peaceful co-existence. It will join with all states and peoples in order to assure a permanent peace based upon justice and the respect of rights so that humanity’s potential for well-being may be assured, an earnest competition for excellence be maintained, and in which confidence in the future will eliminate fear for those who are just and for whom justice is the only recourse.
Those inspiring words of Mahmoud Darwish should be the north star for Palestinians representing a new generation that will not forget the past, but will have one eye focused on the future with clarity of purpose, a moral code of justice, and a keen sense of reality. These Palestinians know that in order to achieve the goal of freedom and dignity, it is not enough to be right, you also have to be smart, and that being smart means defeating Israeli fear, not Israel. link
- Organizers of anti-government protests give further details on the ongoing week of disruption, which began with the blocking of major highways this morning.
“Our goal is clear – to return the mandate to the people immediately and go to elections before the anniversary of the failures of October 7,” says Eran Schwartz, head of the Free in our Land protest group.
“The government repeatedly fails to protect Israel’s security and care for its citizens,” he says. “It prioritizes political survival over the national interest, as we have seen in dozens of examples in recent months, from the shameful [military draft for Haredim] evasion law, through the failure to promote the hostage deal or [a plan for] the day after in Gaza, to the abandonment of the citizens of the north.”
Schwartz calls for local authorities and business leaders to join the protests, citing the need for the “establishment of a broad, agreed-upon and acceptable government.”
Protest leader Moshe Radman says that only elections can bring hope.
“This is a government that abandons its people. But on the other hand, we have an amazing and determined nation and this nation deserves leadership with a vision, and not just despair and bereavement. Only elections can start the healing process,” he says. “Netanyahu, what are you afraid of? Only a dictator is afraid of his people.”
The press conference features the leaders of a number of protest groups including Brothers in Arms, Elections Now group, Free in our Land, Building an Alternative, the Pink Front, the Change Generation, the fighters from the 1973 Yom Kippur War and more.
Local rallies and events are set to be held nationwide tomorrow, then a large protest will take place at the Knesset in Jerusalem at 7 p.m. before demonstrators march to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence.
Another rally will be held at the Knesset on Tuesday evening at 7 p.m.
A rally is also to be held in the south on Wednesday evening, with the location to be announced.
On Thursday, protests will be held outside Netanyahu’s residences in Jerusalem and Caesarea. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara tells the government that its temporary bill to extend a previous raise to the age of exemption from reserve military service is legally unacceptable unless an immediate effort is made to draft extra military power “from the entire population,” a reference to the tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who receive blanket exemptions from military service.
The attorney general says there is a “legal impediment” to increasing the burden of military service on those already serving without at the same time taking steps to “reduce the inequality in the burden of service and without exhausting all the legislative and other possibilities for the full realization of the military draft potential, and the [imposition of] the burden of service on the entire population.”
Baharav-Miara says that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has told her that failing to keep the higher age of exemption from reserve duty in place would have immediate, direct negative security consequences, and that she is therefore allowing the temporary bill to pass but only for three months.
That period of time must, however, “be immediately used beginning this coming month for formulating answers to the issue of the burden of military service, and executing them through legislation and non-legislative [means].”
The ongoing military service exemptions enjoyed by ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, men has become a huge legal and political problem for the government. The framework allowing such exemptions expired at the end of March and it now appears that the High Court of Justice is very likely to order the government in the coming days or weeks to begin drafting at least several thousand Haredi men into the army.
The government is trying to advance a bill to restore those blanket exemptions due to the fierce opposition of the Haredi parties to members of their community being drafted, although such a bill would face heavy opposition in the Knesset, including from the defense minister.
Eisenkot accuses PM of delaying Rafah offensive by 3 months due to political interests: In interviews, ex-war cabinet observer says Netanyahu is intimidated by far-right and should resign; says he regrets not pushing harder to extend Nov. truce, get more hostages out
National Unity party lawmaker Gadi Eisenkot, who served as a war cabinet observer from the start of the war in Gaza until his party departed from the government last Sunday, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of putting off a vote in that forum authorizing the Israel Defense Forces’ operation in Rafah, causing it to be delayed by three months.
In an interview with Channel 12 that aired Saturday, Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, said that the Netanyahu he worked with over the last eight months was “a different Netanyahu” from the one he previously worked with when it came to making decisions. (It was Netanyahu who appointed Eisenkot as chief of staff in late 2014.)
In previous years, Netanyahu would have made decisions “based purely on security considerations,” Eisenkot said. “Here, I saw decisions being made entirely differently, with delays… with antics.” “Even the story of the invasion of Rafah was simmering away for three months,” he continued. “Over on their [media] channels, they report that Gadi Eisenkot and Benny Gantz are the ones who [prevented] the attack on Rafah, that the prime minister is determined and wants to proceed in Rafah, only we’re the ones holding him back.
“On the contrary,” Eisenkot said, accusing the prime minister of stretching out the process “like chewing gum.” He specified that far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was a highly negative influence on Netanyahu’s decisions. “The alternate prime minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, is the most influential minister,” charged Eisenkot. (Ben Gvir is not the alternate prime minister.) “Even though he is not part of the war cabinet, he’s there in spirit. We wanted to invade Rafah in February, and Netanyahu dragged out the decision until May.”
Eisenkot also claimed Netanyahu narrowed the mandate given to Israel’s hostage-ceasefire negotiators in April, in breach of a war cabinet decision, because of pressure from far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. He also said the reason the prime minister opposes a role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, despite the security interests for Israel, was fear of criticism from the far right.
Added Eisenkot: “Ulterior motives and political considerations that infiltrated the room made us leave [the government]. There was no question in the beginning of whether we’d [join the government]. In the first few months, everything was conducted professionally, and in the last three months we understood that ulterior motives had entered the cabinet room.”
In a statement released minutes after Eisenkot’s interview, Netanyahu’s Likud party accused him of lying.
“In stark contrast to Eisenkot’s claim, the prime minister was the one who pushed for action in Rafah, even at the cost of a confrontation with the Americans,” the statement read. “The prime minister makes decisions all the time, just not the ones that Eisenkot and Gantz pushed for, which would mean surrendering to Hamas.
“The prime minister’s stances are derived solely from national security considerations, which the majority of the public supports, and not from any kind of political pressure,” the Likud statement added, accusing Gantz and Eisenkot of bolting the emergency coalition due to a downward trend for their National Unity party in election polls.In an interview with Channel 13 that also aired Saturday, Eisenkot said his biggest regret from his time in the war cabinet was not pushing harder to extend the weeklong temporary truce struck with Hamas in November to allow for more hostages to be released. During that week, 105 hostages were freed. It is believed that 116 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, some of them thought to be dead.
Eisenkot also told Channel 13 that had he been prime minister on October 7, he would have resigned after attaining a “strategic balance,” which he says Israel has achieved. He called on Netanyahu to resign or to call early elections to regain the public’s trust.
On serving in the same government as Otzma Yehudit party leader Ben Gvir, Eisenkot said the experience was “very disturbing. I saw a very superficial, impulsive approach that seeks to make headlines, that doesn’t deeply understand the challenges of national security.”
Ben Gvir and fellow far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are members of the national security cabinet. Eisenkot told Channel 13 that Netanyahu intentionally keeps information from that forum because the prime minister “doesn’t trust them.”
War broke out on October 7 when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251, while committing widespread atrocities and sexual assault.
Three hundred and nine troops have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Strip. In December, Eisenkot’s son, Gal, was killed while fighting in Gaza. link There are a number of things that must be known and stressed. Gadi Eisencott is a highly respected formen Chief of General Staff, respected by the political echelon, but his predecessors, by the IDF and by the population. He is known as dedicated, honest and talks straight. On the other hand, Netanyahu is known as a pathological liar who will do anything to protect his image and his PM's seat. As such, we can absolutely believe what he said in this interview and discount Netanyahu's response.
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused National Unity chair Benny Gantz and lawmaker Gadi Eisenkot of wanting to make “washed-up defeatist decisions” that would “leave Hamas intact,” during a cabinet meeting earlier today, National Unity accuses the prime minister of practicing “defeatism.”
“Defeatism: To be afraid of letting the IDF maneuver. To dissolve the entrance to Khan Younis and Rafah. To hesitate to move operative efforts north, and refuse to define the safe return of northern residents to their homes as part of the goals of the war,” the party says in a statement aimed at Netanyahu.
“In the future, the [war’s] protocols will be revealed, and the public will know who stalled and who strived for a real victory.”
Shortly after, Netanyahu’s Likud party bites back at its former coalition partner, warning that “those who fled the war effort will not preach morals to Prime Minister Netanyahu who is leading the campaign and is not willing to compromise on anything less than complete victory.
“Certainly not Benny Gantz who escaped making difficult decisions, who gave in to all international pressure, who agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state and who declared above all that he is ready to end the war before the return of all our hostages and the completion of all our goals,” the Likud statement continues.
Accusing Netanyahu of acting “hysterical,” National Unity retorts that “Gantz and Eisenkot were the first to call for launching the maneuver and aggressive action in Gaza and its expansion to Khan Younis and Rafah,” and that Gantz had been responsible for ensuring Israel had air support from its allies during Iran’s attack in April.
“He never agreed to end the war, nor agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state,” National Unity says of Gantz. “He didn’t deliver the ‘Bar Ilan speech’ and didn’t hand over territory to [Yasser] Arafat, as Netanyahu did.”
The Region
Acronyms and Glossary
ICC - International Criminal Court in the Hague
IJC - International Court of Justice in the Hague
MDA - Magen David Adom - Israel Ambulance Corp
PA - Palestinian Authority - President Mahmud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen
PMO- Prime Minister's Office
UAV - Unmanned Aerial vehicle, Drone. Could be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, or be weaponized with missiles or contain explosives for 'suicide' explosion mission
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