π️Lonny's War Update- October 674, 2023 - August 10, 2025 π️
π️Day 674 that 50 of our hostages are still in Hamas captivityπ️
- Be the voice of Avyatar
Families of hostages in a statement: "There is no public support for the occupation of the Strip, there is a need for a comprehensive agreement to end the war"
Families of hostages express protest over the decision of the cabinet to occupy the city of Gaza despite warnings of the security echelon that the move might endanger the lives of their loved ones, the families plan a "hunger display" and a march around the Kirya: "Do not lend a hand to the sacrifice of our loved men and our loved women on the altar of the war of eternity"
Against the background of the decision of the government to occupy Gaza, families of the hostages announced a rally this evening (Saturday) in which they will hold a "hunger display" due to the concern for the fate of their loved ones. "Do not lend a hand to the sacrifice of our loved men and our loved women on the altar of the war of eternity," wrote the families of the hostages in a statement and added: "Only the return of all 50 the hostages and the female hostage will bring about an Israeli victory – this is the only national interest."
During the rally itself, which will take place at 20:00, a number of relatives of hostages who are still in the hands of Hamas, for 673 days now, are expected to speak. The list of relatives includes the survivor of captivity and partner of the hostage Matan Zangauker, Ilana Gritzewsky; survivor of captivity and wife of David Cunio, Sharon Cunio; wife of Yossi Sharabi, of blessed memory, Nira Sharabi; son of the hostage Alex Danzig, of blessed memory, Yuval Danzig; wife of the hostage Omri Miran, Lishi Miran-Lavi; survivor of captivity Eli-he Cohen and his partner, survivor of the massacre at the Nova party, Ziv Avod.
At the conclusion of the rally, around 21:00, families of the hostages plan to march around the Kirya base together with participants of the rally in an "emergency call".
The rally takes place a day and a half after the program to occupy the city of Gaza was approved in the cabinet under the plan of Prime Minister Netanyahu to decide Hamas. The plan includes "5 principles for ending the war": disarming Hamas, returning all the hostages, demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip, and the existence of an alternative civilian government that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. LinkFamily members of hostages demand general strike next Sunday against government’s war plan
Groups representing families of the hostages, slain soldiers and victims of Hamas’s October 7 massacre call for a general strike to take place next Sunday, against the war and the government’s plan to take over Gaza City.
“We will all pause next Sunday and say: ‘Enough, stop the war, return the hostages.’ It is in our hands,” says bereaved mother Reut Recht-Edri, whose son Ido Edri was murdered by Hamas at the Nova music festival, at a press conference in Tel Aviv.
Anat Angrest, the mother of Hamas hostage Matan Angrest, decries the decision to occupy the densely populated city, saying it will endanger those who remain in captivity.
“The government decided to occupy the Gaza Strip, to send soldiers to come closer to Matan. They are trying to bring him back, but in practice are endangering him,” she says.
She evokes the events of last September, in which six hostages were murdered in a tunnel by Hamas terrorists when IDF troops were nearing their location, and warns that the plan to conquer Gaza City approved on Thursday night will lead to a similar outcome for her son.
“The army came close to them [the six murdered hostages] as the prospect of a deal was being undermined. This is in addition to dozens of hostages that were kidnapped alive and murdered in captivity as a result of military pressure,” she continues.
The general strike, which has already received backing from leading figures in the opposition, is organized by the October Council, which represents families affected by Hamas’s October 7 massacre.
It lacks the support of the powerful Histadrut labor federation, however, after a Tel Aviv court barred it last year from calling a strike to pressure the government into sealing a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza, defining the matter as political rather than related to workers’ rights.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid comes out in support of the countrywide strike, tweeting that the hostage families’ call “to shut down the economy is justified and worthy. We will continue to stand by their side.”
Likewise, The Democrats chief Yair Golan comes out in favor of the strike, calling on “all citizens of Israel” to participate and arguing that it is impossible to continue with regular routines while “our brothers and sisters in Gaza” are being abandoned.
- Brother of kidnapped soldier Nimrod Cohen: Death cabinet sentenced living hostages to death
Yotam Cohen, brother of kidnapped soldier Nimrod Cohen, said during a statement by hostages' families at Begin Gate that "the death cabinet has sentenced my hero brother, Nimrod Cohen, a soldier who was kidnapped while defending the country on October 7, and the rest of the hostages who are still alive to death." According to him, "Everyone understands that the approach needs to change, but instead of a war that will kill hostages and soldiers, it's time to put a feasible initiative on the table to end the war in exchange for all the hostages." He added: "I call on the people of Israel - leave your homes to stop the country." Masses at rally for the hostages, Sharon Konio to the government: “If something happens to David or to any hostage – it’s on your hands”
Against the backdrop of the escalation in fighting and the real threat to the lives of the hostages, this evening the Hostages’ Square in Tel Aviv is filling with the cry of the families – desperate calls, heart-piercing speeches, a “hunger display” and a march around the Kirya • “I’ve run out of words, I’m on the verge of collapse,” cried Lishi, wife of the hostage Omri Miran • The families are intensifying the struggle: tomorrow they will announce the date on which the economy will be shut down.
Live from the rally: Against the background of the Israeli government’s decision to expand the fighting in Gaza, and in the shadow of the heavy fear for the fate of the 50 hostages and the one female hostage, this evening (Saturday) the families of the hostages, with the participation of 60 thousand people, are holding a central rally at the Hostages’ Square in Tel Aviv, calling: “Do not lend a hand to the sacrifice of our loved ones on the altar of the eternal war… bring them back before it is too late.”Display of starvation at Hostage Square
“How to celebrate when our loved ones are imprisoned in darkness?”
The speech of Ilana Gritzewsky, survivor of captivity and partner of the hostage Matan Zangauker, opened with a personal description of the pain of Tu B’Av: “My heart – our heart – remains broken… how can one celebrate love when our loved ones are imprisoned in darkness?” She says that while others are celebrating, her partner is “in Hamas’s tunnels of death. Hungry. Thin. Sick. Maybe already without hope,” and promises: “I don’t rest, don’t forget, don’t give up. We will never give up on you. On them. On all of us.”Ilana Gritzewsky and Einav Zangauker
Later she pointed an accusing finger at the government: “The government of Israel decided to sacrifice you all… in conquering Gaza – not in a deal. In sacrifice, instead of in rescue.” According to her, “The hostages are not transparent – they are our brothers, they are the heart of all of us,” and she calls to the public: “Don’t ask us how we are – my well-being is like my people’s well-being. Very bad… Stop. Choose life. Make a deal. Bring everyone back. Without selections. Now.” Gritzewsky ends with a sharp message: “True love is not measured only in beautiful moments – it is measured also when it hurts. And when it hurts – we don’t raise our hands in surrender, we fight!”
“If something happens to the hostages – it’s on your hands”
The wife of hostage David Konio, Sharon Konio, last night at the hostages’ families rally in Tel Aviv attacked the decision-makers: “Today is Tu B’Av, and my David is still there. In Gaza… On last Valentine’s Day – David was there. Hungry. When Yuli and Emma celebrated 4 – David was there. Thirsty. On his birthday – David was there. In the dark. On our wedding anniversary – David was there. In hell… 673 days in which I’ve heard my daughter asking if her father no longer loves her because he still hasn’t come back from Gaza.”Sharon Kunio
According to her, “David and all the other hostages and the female hostage are still there because someone chose to abandon them… Instead of a second stage of the January deal, we got another operation, more dead soldiers, and more promises. And now they declare openly that they are ready to sacrifice the hostages. If, God forbid, something happens to my David or to any other hostage – it will be on your hands. You won’t be able to say you didn’t know… Your primary, basic, Zionist and Jewish duty is to bring them home. It is still possible to save. Do not sacrifice them.”
“In the cabinet fates were sealed. We must not be silent”
Lishi Miran-Lavie, wife of hostage Omri Miran, described the last month as the hardest in the past two years – a month in which a great hope was born but it shattered, and during which she again had to celebrate the birthday of her daughter Roni without her father, while her sister Alma asks every day to see her father “for real and not in a picture.” She spoke of longing for conversations with Omri and of the pain of daily coping in the shadow of his abduction.
According to her, the 21st month since the abduction ended with the cabinet’s decision “to seal fates” and treat Omri and the 49 other hostages as numbers, ignoring the warnings of the military echelon. Miran-Lavie called to end the false routine: “Enough with ‘permitted for publication,’ enough with talk, enough with suffering… This is the time to stop everything and make it clear to the decision-makers that life cannot go on without them as if nothing happened. Silence kills – we must not be silent anymore.”
The mother of the abducted soldier called on the Chief of Staff to refuse an order
Against the background of the government’s decision to conquer Gaza, the families of the hostages held a rally this evening in which they performed a “hunger display” due to concern for the fate of their loved ones. “Do not lend a hand to the sacrifice of our loved ones on the altar of the eternal war,” wrote the families of the hostages in a statement and added: “Only the return of all 50 hostages and the female hostage will bring an Israeli victory – that is the only national interest.” At the same time, the parents of abducted soldier Matan Angrest were interviewed by Gideon Oko on “Saturday at Five” and addressed the Chief of Staff: “If he receives an order to approach the hostages – he should refuse. He has responsibility for their lives.”
Before the rally, relatives of the hostages spoke outside the Begin Gate of the Kirya. The mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, Einav Zangauker, accused the cabinet that it “sealed the fate of the hostages” and added: “The quotes from the meeting prove, this is not a political-security cabinet, this is a ‘cabinet of death.’ This move has no public support.”
“Most of the people want to end the war and bring everyone home,” she added. “Netanyahu needs to present a comprehensive agreement to end the war – a real agreement. But Netanyahu unfortunately has already decided to kill them and sentence us to an eternal war. Israel must stop the operation to kill the hostages. The State of Israel is not the Government of Israel, it is first of all the citizens. We appeal from here to the people of Israel – help us save the hostages. Save the soldiers and the state. Life cannot continue as normal when the Chief of Staff says they are sending soldiers into a death trap.”
During the rally itself, which took place at 20:00, several relatives of hostages still held by Hamas for 673 days are expected to speak. The list of relatives includes: captivity survivor and partner of hostage Matan Zangauker, Ilana Gritzewsky; captivity survivor and wife of David Konio, Sharon Konio; wife of the late Yossi Sharabi, Nira Sharabi; son of the late hostage Alex Danzig, Yuval Danzig; wife of hostage Omri Miran, Lishi Miran-Lavie; captivity survivor Eli-Ha Cohen and his partner, Nova party massacre survivor, Ziv Avud. LinkWitkoff reportedly meets Qatar PM on comprehensive deal amid scramble to stop Gaza takeover
Hamas sources reportedly say intense ceasefire-hostage and disarmament talks underway to stave off Israeli occupation; Rubio blames impasse on France’s Palestine recognition
US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Qatari Prime Minister Abdulrahman al-Thani in Spain on Saturday to discuss an end to the Gaza war and the release of all 50 remaining hostages, the Axios news site reported, amid an apparent flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at heading off an Israeli plan to expand its Gaza offensive and occupy Gaza City.
Meanwhile, Ynet cited sources affiliated with Hamas as saying that the US, Qatar and Egypt were mediating in intense negotiations with Israel to prevent it from taking over the entire Gaza Strip, after the cabinet decided overnight Thursday-Friday to conquer Gaza City and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s intention was to temporarily take control of all of Gaza.
The hostage-ceasefire proposal on the table includes an end to the war, full Israeli withdrawal, demilitarization of Palestinian armed groups, exile of Hamas’s military leaders and the establishment of a new civilian authority for Gaza, the sources were cited as saying, adding that Hamas was prepared to resume the fighting if the offer were rejected.
The two reports came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to endorse Israeli designs for Gaza while blaming the impasse in the truce-hostage talks in part on France’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Witkoff and al-Thani met in Ibiza as Qatar and the US hoped to present a comprehensive true-hostage deal proposal to Israel and Hamas within the next two weeks, Axios said, citing two sources familiar with the meeting. The White House did not comment.
An Israeli cabinet minister cited by the news site said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer informed the cabinet on Thursday that Washington was working on an “End Game” proposal for the war. It was unclear from the report what the proposal entailed.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani speaks during a press conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam (not pictured) in Doha, Qatar, on June 24, 2025. (Karim JAAFAR / AFP)Dermer was said to have brought up the “End Game” plan before the cabinet approved the Gaza City takeover plan, with Dermer voting in favor, according to Hebrew media.
An Israeli official involved in the negotiations was quoted by Axios as saying that “the gap between Israel and Hamas regarding ending the war is huge, so talking of a comprehensive deal is likely to be pointless at this stage.”
There was still no harm in the US and Israel reaching an “End Game” plan on their own, the official was quoted as saying: “Our war is with Hamas, not with the US.”
Axios also cited a senior Israeli official as saying that far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich voted against the plan approved by the security cabinet because Netanyahu indicated expanded military operations in Gaza would be halted if truce-hostage talks were renewed.
The decision to expand the fighting has sparked fierce criticism at home and abroad over concern that the move would endanger the hostages and deepen Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, some 20 Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, condemned the decision as “a flagrant violation of international law, and an attempt to entrench the illegal occupation and impose a fait accompli… in contravention of international legitimacy.”
Visiting Israel last week, Witkoff told hostage families that the US wanted to finish the war, not expand, and was no longer interested in “piecemeal” truce-hostage deals like those previously discussed. Hostage families have also assailed the partial hostage deals as needlessly protracting their loved ones’ suffering and warned that the plan to conquer Gaza City endangered the hostages.
Rubio blames impasse in talks on Macron’s Palestine recognition
Rubio said ceasefire-hostage talks with Hamas broke down the day French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to recognize Palestinian statehood, which the top US diplomat said emboldened the terror group.
“Talks with Hamas fell apart on the day Macron made the unilateral decision that he’s going to recognize the Palestinian state,” said Rubio in an interview broadcast Friday with the Catholic Eternal Word Television Network. “And then you have other people come forward, other countries say, ‘well, if there is not a ceasefire by September, we’re going to recognize a Palestinian state.’ If I’m Hamas, I’d basically conclude, let’s not do a ceasefire… because we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory.”
Macron announced on July 25 that France would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, triggering a wave of similar declarations by other countries, including Britain and Canada.
Also on July 25, Israel and the US recalled their negotiators from truce-hostage talks in Doha after receiving what they deemed an unsatisfactory response from Hamas to a proposal for a partial truce-hostage deal. The talks have since stalled.
Despite Rubio’s claim, the negotiations fell apart hours before Macron’s announcement, with Hamas giving its last response to the mediators over a day beforehand.
“So those messages, while largely symbolic in their minds, actually have made it harder to get peace and harder to achieve a deal with Hamas. They feel emboldened,” Rubio said, adding that he agrees with Netanyahu’s accusation that recognition of a Palestinian state rewards the terror group for the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Rubio also rejected as a fiction the country being recognized by France and the other nations: “What these people talk about isn’t real. They can’t define the borders or who’s going to run it… And if it’s going to be run by Hamas, you’re going to be right back into war.”
“As long as Hamas exists… there will never be peace in Gaza,” Rubio said. “Their reason for existing is that they want to destroy Israel. They want to drive every Jew out of the Middle East.”
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives for talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not in picture) at Villa Borsig, the guesthouse of the German Foreign Ministry, in Berlin, Germany, July 23, 2025. (RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP)“Ultimately, what Israel needs to do for Israel’s security will be determined by Israel,” he said, when asked about Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City.
Separately, US President Donald Trump was asked by the press at the White House on Friday about reports that Somaliland, a breakaway coastal enclave in Somalia, had expressed an interest in taking in Gazans if he recognized Somaliland’s independence.
“We’re looking into that right now. Good question, actually, and another complex one, but we’re working on that right now,” Trump responded, avoiding a direct answer. Link
Ex-hostage’s father says he’d planned at one point to torch hundreds of cars, ‘burn the country’
Eli Albag, father of released captive Liri Albag, says that while his daughter was in captivity, he planned at one point to set hundreds of car on fire as part of protests calling for a hostage deal.
“I had a plan to burn the country — torch 200 or 300 cars. I’m not joking,” Albag tells Channel 12 news in an interview. “I had no other option. What did I think? That I’d continue being at Hostages Square? Keep demonstrating once a week?”
Asked what he thinks relatives of those still held in Gaza by terrorists should do, Albag says: “I can’t judge them. My girl came back so I’m shutting my mouth. There are 50 more hostages in Gaza. I understand what these families are going through, my heart is with them.” Link
Families of hostages, fallen soldiers to push for general strike, though main labor union won’t back it
Groups representing families of hostages and of fallen soldiers are leading a push for a general strike of Israel’s economy over the government’s plan to escalate the war and take over Gaza City, though the national labor union indicates it won’t declare one.
The families intend to announce the demand and further steps at a press conference tomorrow in Tel Aviv, according to Hebrew media reports.
They will push private companies, organizations, trade unions and ordinary citizens to participate in the strike, under the slogan: “Silence kills — the country grinds to a halt to save the hostages and the soldiers.”
Many remarks by relatives of hostages today have amplified the call for a nationwide strike, including in anti-government, pro-hostage deal rallies this evening.
However, Hebrew media cites the national Histadrut labor federation as saying a strike “is not expected” in the near future, though its head Arnon Bar-David plans to meet representatives of the families this coming week.
The option of a Histadrut-backed strike is reportedly off the table after Tel Aviv’s labor court last year ruled that a labor action aimed at pressuring the government to seal a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza following the murder of six hostages was illegal because it was political and not related to workers’ rights
Ex-hostage Eliya Cohen assails Gaza City takeover plan as protesters demand to shut down the country
Eliya Cohen, who was released from Hamas captivity in February as part of the last truce-hostage deal, speaks at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv alongside his girlfriend Ziv Abud to call attention to the women whose husbands remain in captivity on Tu B’Av, the Jewish festival of love, which began last night.
“Today is Tu B’Av, and I, with God’s help, am standing here next to my woman, after being sure for 505 days that she was murdered in the shelter where we hid” during the Hamas massacre at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, says Cohen.
“I was saved, came back and she was waiting for me,” he says. “Today we could have celebrated, but it’s impossible… when we know that there are families that didn’t get that chance. That there are still people there who are unsure if they’ll get to love again.”
Following harrowing footage of captives Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski published by terror groups last week, Cohen says “the writing was on the wall” that the hostages were being starved, adding that the cabinet’s decision to take over Gaza City puts them in still more danger.
“The decision to take over Gaza stresses me out. I know what happens to the hostages when the fighting intensifies,” he says.
Cohen calls for a comprehensive deal to end the war and release all 50 remaining hostages: “I know what it’s like to come back in a partial deal. I live with daily feelings of guilt, and don’t wish upon anyone to feel what it’s like to leave a brother behind.”
Following Cohen’s speech at Hostages Square, hostages’ families begin a march around the IDF headquarters in protest of the Gaza City takeover plan, joining protesters and other hostages’ families from the anti-government protest outside the Begin Street entrance to the IDF headquarters.
During that protest, speakers urged soldiers to refuse to serve in Gaza and called on opposition heads as well as business, labor and academic leaders to bring the country to a standstill.
“An entire county is held hostage by Hamas and the government of Israel,” said Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker. “What needs to be done? The country needs to grind to a halt, now.” Link
Ex-captive’s nephew, mother of reservist call on soldiers to refuse to carry out Gaza City takeover plan
Speakers at the anti-government, pro-hostage deal protest in front of the Begin Street entrance to the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv urge soldiers to refuse to serve in the expanded fighting in Gaza following the cabinet’s decision to take over Gaza City.
Along with a separate protest at Hostages Square, tens of thousands of Israelis are reportedly in the streets of Tel Aviv this evening.
“The mission you’ll be given is participation in the killing of hostages,” says Shai Mozes, nephew of former hostage Gadi Mozes, in a speech before thousands of people at the demonstration. “In this situation, there is no other choice but to refuse.”
The mother of a combat officer in the IDF reserves, introduced only as Bat-El, says soldiers are wasting away physically and mentally and are deprived of proper defensive equipment. She says the Gaza City takeover plan “puts Israel on the sure path to a forever war that will cause the death of the hostages, cause the deaths of hundreds of soldiers, cause the destruction of Israel’s image.”
“Don’t agree to enter Gaza,” she says. “Refuse to participate in an overtly illegal war.”
The speakers do not mention the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a reason to refuse to fight there, though some protesters hold up signs calling on soldiers to refuse to serve for that reason as well.
Following the speeches, some protesters hoist flaming torches as they prepare to march around the IDF headquarters to protest the cabinet plan, alongside thousands more people coming from the Hostages Square rally a block away. Link
**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!!!”
We’re waiting for you, all of you.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
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
*1:00pm - Gaza envelope -IDF: Two rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel, interceptors launched
Two rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel a short while ago, the military says.
The IDF says it made attempts to intercept the rockets, the results of which are under investigation.
Sirens sounded in the Gaza border communities of Nahal Oz, Kfar Aza and Sa’ad.
There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage in the attack.
91-year-old Holocaust survivor succumbs to wounds from Iran missile strike in June
Olga Weissberg, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor who was wounded in an Iranian missile attack in June, has reportedly died.
According to Hebrew media outlets, she died last night in Rehovot, close to two months after a missile strike on the city.
No further details were immediately available.
Thirty other people in Israel were killed by Iranian missiles during the 12-day war, of whom 29 were civilians and one was an off-duty soldier at home with his family.
Gaza before and after: new video shows extent of Israel's destruction – video
- Interview with Dr. Gershon Baskin on CGTV-The Heat- Middle East Crisis
Report: Nephews of Al-Hayya were eliminated in Gaza, 15-year-old boy was killed from an aid box that was airdropped | Harsh documentation from the chaos
The youth Muhannad Zakaria Eid, 15 years old, was killed from an aid box that landed on him in the Nuseirat camp in the center of the Strip. His brother accused: "They cannot bring the aid in through the crossing, so they throw it over us and kill our children." In Gaza they reported the death of two sons of the brother of Al-Hayya.
Documentation that was published today (Saturday) from the Gaza Strip presents the moment of the fatal hit of an aid box that was airdropped from the air on the youth Muhannad Zakaria Eid, 15 years old, in the Nuseirat camp in the center of the Strip. His brother told Reuters that "despite the hunger and the difficult conditions in which we live, my brother went to take aid that was thrown into the sea by airplanes. A box fell on him directly and he became a shahid." Difficult to watch.The moment of the hit on the youth Muhannad Zakaria Eid. "God will judge them and their aid" (Photo: Reuters)
Photo: REUTERS/StringerThe airdrop of the aid over Gaza, today (Photo: REUTERS/Stringer)Photo: AP Photo/Abdel Kareem HanaGazans pounce on aid packages that were airdropped in Deir al-Balah (Photo: AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The brother accused the manner of the distribution of the aid: "There is no aid or anything. They cannot bring the aid in through the crossing, so they throw it over us and kill our children. A child was killed in Zawaida, here and there, and no one feels us. God will judge them and their aid."
At the same time, in Gaza they reported that two nephews of the senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya were killed in an airstrike in the Strip. The two, Ayman and Muad, are the sons of Abd al-Salam Al-Hayya, the brother of Khalil – who serves as the head of the Hamas negotiation team and left for Qatar before October 7.
At the same time, the IDF updated that today 106 humanitarian aid packages were airdropped throughout the Strip by six countries and different bodies – the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, and Italy – with the last two joining for the first time the airdrop operations. "The IDF will continue to act to improve the humanitarian response in cooperation with the international community, while rejecting the false claims of deliberate starvation in Gaza," it was stated.
The airdrops of the aid continue, while the billions plan to establish "the humanitarian city" was frozen and is not included in the decision of the cabinet that was approved last night for the conquest of Gaza. Only yesterday, documentation from Gaza City showed how a balcony in a restaurant on which aid was airdropped collapsed, with dozens of Gazans on it – and at least six were injured, among them children.
Despite harsh criticism in the world, the plan to establish "a humanitarian city" for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – whose cost was estimated at 10 to 15 billion shekels – was frozen as mentioned. In the cabinet meeting in which the decision for the conquest of the Strip was approved, the Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir warned that alongside the danger to the lives of the hostages, the move could lead to a humanitarian disaster: "There are not enough civilian infrastructures and humanitarian response to move a population. It is necessary to establish for them hospitals." Minister Itamar Ben Gvir replied: "There is no need to build for them hospitals like Hadassah, houses like in Savyon, and give them food like in the Spice restaurant in Moshav Emunim" – and the ministers burst into laughter.
In reviews that were given during the discussion it was said that there is American backing for the conquest of the Strip and that the United States is expected to soon publish principles for ending the war and a broad aid plan led by it. After the visit of the American envoy Steve Witkoff to a distribution center of the humanitarian aid fund in Gaza (GHF), to which also accompanied the United States ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, the Americans announced that they are preparing for the establishment of new stations for food distribution to the population. The day before yesterday Huckabee said that the plan is to increase the number of food distribution centers from 4 to 16. LinkHamas-run authorities claim 37 killed from IDF fire Saturday, mostly aid seekers
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency claims at least 37 people were killed by Israeli fire on Saturday, including 30 civilians who were waiting to collect aid.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal tells AFP that 12 people were killed and nearly 200 wounded when Israeli forces allegedly opened fire on them as they gathered near a border crossing in northern Gaza that has been used for aid deliveries.
Six more people were killed and 30 wounded after Israeli troops allegedly targeted civilians assembling near an aid point in central Gaza, he asserts.
Strikes in central Gaza also resulted in multiple casualties, according to Bassal, while a drone attack near the southern city of Khan Younis killed at least three people and wounded several others.
They reportedly include two nephews of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya.
The IDF has denied targeting aid seekers, saying it has fired warning shots toward people viewed as a threat after they veered off approved routes. It says it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques. Link
Close to 1,900 trucks of aid picked up and distributed in Gaza this week, says COGAT
COGAT, the Israeli body which coordinates activity in Gaza and the West Bank, says that over the past week close to 1,900 trucks of aid “were collected and distributed” from the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom and Zikim Crossings.
More than 1,310 trucks of aid, mostly carrying food, crossed into Gaza this week, says the body, which operates as part of the Defense Ministry.
“We will continue facilitating humanitarian aid into Gaza for the civilian population — not Hamas,” the organization adds.
Israel has accused aid agencies of not picking up aid that has sat waiting inside Gaza, while the agencies have blamed Israel for not allowing safe passage.
The United Nations estimates that between 500 and 600 truckloads of aid a day are needed to meet the needs of Gaza’s more than two million inhabitants. Many trucks are looted by Gazans before reaching their destinations.
Gaza and the South
Arab Israeli man reportedly shot dead by IDF troops in West Bank
An Arab Israeli man from Nazareth was shot dead by IDF troops in the West Bank city of Jericho last night, local Arab outlets report.
Abdallah Atiyat, 24, had been visiting his aunt in Jericho over the weekend when he was shot in the head amid clashes during an army raid in the city’s downtown, according to the Arab Israeli radio station Radio Shams.
In an interview with the station, Atiyat’s mother, Amina, says that her son had been struggling to get back to Nazareth amid widespread closures due to the raid. He was reportedly killed while searching for a taxi to take him home.
He was taken in critical condition to a hospital in Jericho, then shuttled to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem neighborhood, where he succumbed to his wounds.
The IDF tells The Times of Israel that it is looking into the incident.
- Police uncover Jerusalem terror cell planning to bomb central Israel club, kill Air Force pilot
Suspects, father and son from Kafr Aqab, arrested with bomb-making labs found at their home in what authorities say could have been a major disaster with multiple casualties
Israeli security forces have uncovered a terror cell that planned to bomb a nightclub in central Israel and assassinate a pilot, preventing what authorities described as a potentially catastrophic attack.Shin Bet and the Jerusalem District Police arrested a father and son from East Jerusalem last month on suspicion of plotting multiple terror attacks against security forces and civilians. During the investigation, bomb-making labs were discovered along with dozens of explosive devices. The suspects, residents of Kafr Aqab, reportedly planned to plant bombs at a checkpoint in northern Jerusalem to target soldiers and police. They acquired various firearms, explosives, and bomb components, which they assembled after studying online tutorials. The father also maintained contact with a terror organization seeking funding for the attacks, but this link was cut following his arrest. Months before the current conflict, the father reportedly fired shots near the West Bank separation barrier and trained his son in handling weapons on their rooftop. In addition to the father and son, a third suspect in his 20s was arrested for allegedly preparing explosives and intending to carry out attacks against security personnel. Authorities said the father sold explosive devices to a police informant known as “Matrix,” who has recently helped convict numerous illegal arms dealers. During coordinated raids, security forces seized chemical materials, electric and SIM card-triggered detonators, dozens of ready-made pipe bombs, and various types of ammunition. The investigation uncovered plans for a shooting attack at a nightclub in central Israel, which the son reportedly intended to carry out but did not execute. The three suspects remain in custody as the Jerusalem District Prosecutor’s Office prepares formal indictments. Shin Bet and police stressed their commitment to preventing terror attacks and protecting civilians and security forces.
This is a dead end for Israel’ – hostage negotiator on Gaza occupation plans -UK Channel 4 news interview with Dr Gershon Baskin
"This is our victory": The new and unexpected threat to the Israeli arms industry
Protests and actions against the war in Gaza by trade unions at ports across Europe are disrupting shipments to Israel. From Greece and France to Italy and Belgium, local workers have prevented deliveries of military equipment to Israel. "Port workers refused to load the containers," says a representative of a French organization that acted against Israel, and even in Paris, a shipment was delayed: "We were told that military equipment would be loaded onto a flight to Tel Aviv." A report by Shomrim is also published at the Port of Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille in southern France, one of the busiest ports in the country. Last month, an event occurred that was far from routine: among the thousands of containers, dock workers frantically searched for a batch of boxes intended to be sent to Israel, claiming they contained components for weapons. According to information that reached the workers, the boxes were supposed to be loaded onto the ship Contship Era. At the same time, because they were not convinced they could locate the components, the port workers' union turned to their colleagues at the port of Genoa in Italy, where the ship was also supposed to dock, and asked them to check how to stop the shipment. The workers at the Port of Genoa responded positively.
The story did not end there. The workers were joined by the French lawyers' organization JURDI, which appealed the matter to the local court. Following its petition, the ship was delayed for several days at the port, and ultimately sailed to Israel without its cargo. It is unclear what happened to the cargo afterwards, but a reasonable assumption would be that it was returned to the sender. "Port workers refused to load the containers," says Alfonso Dorado, a lawyer and member of the same organization. "This is a small victory for us," he clarified.
The French dock workers are not the only ones attempting to stop shipments of weapons and weapon components destined for Israel in the wake of the Gaza war. Trade unions in Italy, Greece, Belgium, Morocco, and Sweden have announced that they will block such shipments, and in some cases, they actively worked to do so. These organizations—along with the embargoes imposed by certain countries on the sale or transit of weapons through their territories, and the Houthi threat that makes it difficult to receive shipments from Asia—are putting heavy pressure on Israel's supply chain, which, even in normal times, faces many restrictions.
Air France plane at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France (Photo: Sorbis, Shutterstock)
“Refusing to participate in any action that could contribute to crimes in Gaza.” Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris | Photo: Sorbis, Shutterstock
Israel's security production, explains a source dealing with the matter, depends on complex supply chains. Any disruption, even in the transfer of a small component, could cause prolonged delays, including those with strategic consequences.The stoppage of shipments to Israel at the Port of Fos-sur-Mer began in April this year when workers inspected a shipment suspected of containing components for fighter jets. It is unclear what happened to that shipment, but following the incident, the maritime giant Maersk, which operated the ship that was supposed to pick up the shipment, announced that it would remove docking at Fos-sur-Mer from some of its service lines, probably those that Israel would use. A spokesperson for Maersk confirmed that the stop at the port was indeed removed from some lines but denied that it was related to the incident. "We regularly review port calls to ensure the most efficient operational structure. Recent changes to the line were made to improve reliability while maintaining appropriate coverage in the region," the spokesperson said.
As mentioned, Fos-sur-Mer is not the only port where a workers' organization prevented shipments to Israel. For example, in mid-July, the trade union of Port of Piraeus workers, ENEDEP, announced that its workers refused to unload a shipment of steel for military use intended for Israel, which was supposed to be transferred from one ship to another. The union's statement also mentioned that hundreds of workers protested at the port against the shipments to Israel.
In Belgium, four professional organizations called to stop the shipment of parts they claimed were destined for a factory that produces components for the Merkava tank and were supposed to pass through the Port of Antwerp—the second largest port in Europe. In January this year, 68% of members of the Swedish dock workers' union voted in favor of a boycott on all military cargo sent to and from Israel—and there are further examples from ports in Italy and Morocco.
In addition to trade unions, countries have also imposed restrictions on weapons shipments to Israel through their territories. Two weeks ago, the countries in the ACG group—a coalition including Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Colombia, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa—announced a complete arms embargo on Israel and the blocking of docking for ships carrying weapons to Israel in their ports. Spain and Turkey had previously adopted measures to limit the export and transit of weapons to Israel.
Shipment stuck – also at the airport
The problem is not only in sea ports. Workers at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris discovered that armored shielding panels sent to Elbit were supposed to pass through their hands. The shipment was delayed in Europe for about a month due to the closure of Israel's airspace during the operation in Iran. The information was held by several trade unions—truck drivers, logistics center workers, and others—and they cooperated to stop it. "We were informed that military equipment was planned to be loaded onto a flight to Tel Aviv," said a statement from the airport workers' union. "We refuse to participate, directly or indirectly, in any logistical operation that could contribute to crimes in Gaza."
Tayeb Hweira, a senior member of one of the unions involved, told Shomrim that a military shipment through a civilian airport is unprecedented. "Our job is to bring peace, to allow citizens to travel, but not to be part of a war," he says. According to him, his union activated its extensive network of workers and received precise information about the shipment, its nature, and location—which allowed them to track it from its origin in Sweden to its destination in Israel. Despite this organization, the shipment departed for Israel in early July, though it is not entirely clear how.
The union accuses the airline of hiding it among other shipments that were loaded, which the company denies. In any case, the union is planning a legal process, which Hweira says will prevent similar cases in the future.
Official Israel tries to downplay the importance of the protests
Despite the shipment delays, a source familiar with the matter in Israel claims that the trade unions will have a limited impact on Israel's security needs. "This is not a new challenge," he says. "Most of the main players in Israel's arms industry have strong and diverse supply chains, which take into account the complexity of relying on a single supplier. Israel has been dealing with complex supply procedures for years—this is simply the reality."
Not everyone agrees with this position, which largely reflects the official Israeli stance. Eran Shamir-Borer, former head of the international law department in the IDF and now director of the Center for National Security and Democracy at the Israeli Democracy Institute, does acknowledge that embargo efforts are not a new phenomenon but adds, "In the context of the current war, everything is simply on steroids." According to him, previous supply chain issues were on a smaller scale, more systematic, and focused more on public pressure than legal procedures. They cannot be compared to the current mobilization against military shipments.
Shamir-Borer warns that the consequences of international union mobilization could be far-reaching. "Although Israel wants to downplay the significance of the protest, if security bodies fail to obtain something unique, sometimes a small component they truly need is in another country, meaning they don't have it when they need it," he explains. "This opens up economic and operational consequences. Maybe they'll have to start producing that specific component in Israel, maybe it'll be more expensive, take longer, and maybe the quality won't be as good."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: "The issue is known and is being handled with the relevant countries." Link right now, it is happening with weapons and weapon components, but we can be assured that it will extend to commercial products through a no -official boycott of Israel until it becomes official boycotts by countries and groups of countries. If Netanyahu and his failed government continue with their world condemned actions, we will become the modern day South Africa with commercial boycotts in both directions with most of the world. Thank you Netanyahu, the gift that keeps on giving
The Chief of Staff to Netanyahu in the cabinet: "You are sending the soldiers into a death trap" | The Shabbat News
In response to the decision of the political echelon to conquer the Strip – all the heads of the security establishment stood alongside the Chief of Staff: this step will endanger the soldiers and the hostages • The Chief of Staff Zamir sharply criticized Netanyahu: "Your plan will not lead anywhere"; The Prime Minister banged on the table: "I am not sending the soldiers into a death trap" • Witkoff and the Prime Minister of Qatar discuss a plan to end the warThe heads of the security establishment opposed: new details on the stormy discussion in the cabinet
During the stormy cabinet discussion in which it was decided to conquer Gaza City, all the heads of the security establishment thought that the proposal of the Chief of Staff was more suitable at this time, as we published last night (Friday) in "Friday Studio". Also among the heads of the security establishment there is agreement that military pressure is required in order to bring Hamas back to negotiations, but nonetheless the conquest of the Strip endangers the hostages and the soldiers.The heads of the security establishment, and to some extent also the Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and the Chairman of Shas Aryeh Deri, think that the diplomatic window of opportunity following Operation "Gideon’s Chariots" has still not been completely exhausted. According to them, there is still a possibility to narrow the gaps and to reach an agreement on a partial outline.
According to the approach of Sa’ar and Deri, it is not right to insist at this stage on "all or nothing" as recently declared by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister Ron Dermer and the U.S. envoy Witkoff. This topic took up a significant part of the discussion, and in the end the Prime Minister even agreed with this approach – not to close the door to a partial deal, but he did not include it in the decision. Following Netanyahu’s verbal agreement, Deri and Sa’ar supported the proposal. In contrast, the Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich opposed, because he understood that it would be possible to stop the forces if a window opened for achieving a deal.The Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister: You are putting the soldiers into a death trap
During the discussion held by the cabinet yesterday, a confrontation broke out between the Chief of Staff Zamir and Netanyahu. The Chief of Staff referred to the Prime Minister’s plan, and claimed that it would not lead "anywhere". Zamir also turned to Netanyahu: "You are putting the soldiers into a death trap." In response, the Prime Minister banged on the table: "I am not putting them into a death trap."
The one who almost did not participate in the arguments that arose in the cabinet is the Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, who thinks that his mission is to ensure that the IDF carries out the order it received from the political echelon as it is. Nonetheless, confrontations were recorded inside the cabinet and outside it, between several of the participants in the discussions.The mediators are trying to prevent the conquest of Gaza and to end the war
According to a report on the Saudi channel Al-Sharq, the mediators are holding intensive contacts with Israel and Hamas in order to prevent the implementation of the Gaza conquest plan and to bring about the end of the war and the return of the hostages from Gaza.The proposal that the mediators are presenting includes, among other things, the disarmament of the Palestinian factions, the exile of part of the Hamas leadership abroad, the establishment of a technocratic police, and a full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.
Witkoff and the Prime Minister of Qatar discuss a plan to end the war
The White House envoy Steve Witkoff met today in Ibiza, Spain, with the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, in order to discuss with him a plan to end the war in exchange for the release of all the hostages held by Hamas, according to two sources familiar with the contents of the meeting.A foreign source involved in the negotiations said that Qatar and the U.S. are working to formulate a proposal for a comprehensive deal that will be presented to the sides in the next two weeks. At the White House they refused to comment on the matter.
Senior official in the U.S.: the talks with Hamas collapsed on the day Macron recognized unilaterally a Palestinian state
The U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred yesterday to the negotiations for the release of the hostages and the end of the war in Gaza, and criticized the President of France Emmanuel Macron. "The talks with Hamas collapsed on the day that Macron recognized unilaterally a Palestinian state," said Rubio.Sharon Aloni-Kunio was exposed to a video of her husband David in captivity: "I have never seen him so broken"
The survivor of captivity Sharon Aloni-Kunio, whose husband David is still held in Gaza, shared last night in "Friday Studio" about her feelings after the cabinet’s decision on the conquest of Gaza. "'Broken and disappointed' does not even describe how I feel," she explained. "From the moment I woke up this morning – my heart is shattered.""They crushed my strength and brought me to a new bottom of despair," she said about the cabinet’s decision. "I do not see how I manage to rise from this."
Trump: I will meet with Putin next Friday in Alaska
The President of the United States Donald Trump announced last night that he will meet with the President of Russia Vladimir Putin next Friday, August 15, in Alaska. The announcement came after during the day he presented for the first time a possible outline for ending the war in Ukraine, which may include "certain land swaps"."The expected meeting between me and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin will take place next Friday in the state of Alaska. Further details will be given later," wrote Trump on the Truth Social network. Link
The ‘Day After’ Plan for Gaza That Netanyahu Doesn’t Want to Talk About
Despite what Netanyahu says, the West Bank business elite is ready and willing to govern and rebuild.-By BERNARD AVISHAI- Bernard Avishai, the author of The Tragedy of Zionism and The Hebrew Republic, among other books, splits his time between Jerusalem and New Hampshire where he teaches political economy at Dartmouth College.
Bernard Avishai, the author of The Tragedy of Zionism and The Hebrew Republic, among other books, splits his time between Jerusalem and New Hampshire where he teaches political economy at Dartmouth College.
JERUSALEM — Every day, now, we are served up horrifying pictures of starving Gazans and starving hostages, yet ceasefire negotiations between the Netanyahu government and Hamas have proven hopeless. This was predictable. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants Hamas to surrender to Israeli firepower, thus vindicating “peace through strength,” intimidation and deterrence as a kind of default diplomacy. On Thursday, his government adopted a plan to attack Gaza City. Hamas, for its part, refuses to disarm, seeing every defeat as merely tactical in a long-term struggle to realize jihadist ambitions.
Netanyahu wants us to believe, or at least wants the Trump administration to, that Israel has no alternative than to intensify the war and, in effect, reoccupy the whole of the Gaza Strip — seriously risking the lives of the hostages in the process. But this is not the case and hasn’t been for the past 18 months. Hamas was never the necessary negotiating partner, or even the counterparty, to any deal that promised to succeed. Netanyahu must know that.
When the international community and Israeli military experts — who, now famously, oppose continuing the war — have demanded that Netanyahu stipulate a “day after” plan for Gaza, what they have really been referring to is an option that has been on the table since shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks. The key partner in that plan is both the obvious choice and the one Netanyahu has, for annexationist reasons, put off the table since 2009: the Palestinian Authority.
A military aircraft drops humanitarian aid behind a war-damaged mill in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on Aug. 3, 2025. | Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty ImagesLogically, any peace plan depends on the Palestinian Authority. To stabilize Gaza — to organize any “day-after” administration — one must find Arab partners who promise Gazans the hope of safety and reconstruction; partners who would not just be sub-contractors for an Israeli occupation of the Strip. This presupposes the entry of especially Egyptianbut also Jordanian and other Arab forces; which presupposes funding and rehabilitation investment by the UAE, the Saudis and Qataris; which presupposes the blessing and participation of the Palestinian Authority. And this presupposes a plausible “pathway” to an eventual Palestinian state.
That’s why France, Britain, Canada, Germany and other countries have announced their intentions to recognize the Palestinian Authority to be a Palestinian State in the fall. That’s also why, last week, the 22 countries of the Arab League, joined by the 27 of the European Union, endorsed a central role for the Palestinian Authority in a joint declaration, insisting that Hamas “hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objectives of a sovereign and independent Palestinian state.” These initiatives are meant to make that pathway to peace seem plausible.
Netanyahu insists that these initiatives “reward” terror. On the contrary, they make his espoused goal more likely: a regional deal in which Hamas is isolated by the Arab world, and the Palestinian Authority, which long ago agreed to the two-state solution, takes the lead in legitimizing and helping to buttress a new Gazan administration.
Nor should that plan seem unrealistic to President Donald Trump, whose philistine commercialism plays rather well in the Gulf. The region’s monarchs preside over sovereign wealth funds, needing Western investment markets, that have grown to $4 trillion dollars. Outwardly encouraged by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump seems to fancy himself becoming a regional Robert Moses, presiding over (and dictating to) the old mess of tribes, organizing investment bankers, equity managers, CEO-technologists — also golfers and cultural sycophants — to build bridges and trains and resorts. Smart Israelis like Netanyahu would presumably want in.
Netanyahu says he does. But so far, more than this, he wants Greater Israel, his government’s creeping annexation of “Judea and Samaria” — the nationalists’ term for the West Bank — and to cling to power. He is counting on Americans, but especially Trump, hearing the words “Palestinian Authority” and thinking of aging Fatah leaders fighting over donor money, wetting their beaks and paying off teachers, bureaucrats and police — until Hamas, given half a chance, steps back into the vacuum and takes over. In his announcement that the Israel Defense Forces would reoccupy Gaza City, he claimed they would then hand the place over to an “alternative civil administration” that is “neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority,” as if these are equivalent, and as if such a force is remotely possible.
But Netanyahu is not alone in vilifying the Palestinian Authority. Even close observers sympathetic to Palestinian national aims doubt its competence, dismissing it, in the words of the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour, as “corrupt and discredited.” Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians want its octogenarian president Mahmoud Abbas to resign.
This view of the Palestinian Authority is wrong, or at least so partial as to be misleading. However defensible that view may once have been, there’s a new pool of Palestinian leaders in West Bank cities just waiting to be tapped. I have travelled often there over the past 20 years, and have got to know, particularly, Palestinian business leaders who have put another face on Palestinian nationalism. No “alternative civil administration” will succeed without them.
Israelis have mainly become accustomed to security partners among Palestinian Authority officials, which has not increased the Authority’s popularity on either side. But it’s the business community in the Palestinian territories, which Israelis barely know, that offers ordinary Israelis commercial reciprocity. And this is likely to go deeper than security cooperation, in a way, because it means consistent, mutually sympathetic contact between many more educated people on both sides. The business community also offers ordinary Palestinians the hope of competent governance.
Indeed, the business community portends a new Palestinian leadership that can provide the know-how for economic rebuilding. It engenders people who can see the long-term virtues of the Abraham Accords, and speak the language of a self-described businessman president who, coveting the Nobel Peace Prize, is looking to make grand regional business deals.
One hears laments, in this context, especially among two-state advocates in the American media, that the pathway to a Palestinian state was clearer 18 years ago, when Salam Fayyad — the former Finance Minister and International Monetary Fund official — was Palestinian prime minister. Fayyad famously focused on the institutions of state-building: a more efficient civil service, professionalized security forces, a rule-of-law judiciary.
And yet, Palestinian Authority skeptics consistently overlook arguably the most important institutions of state-building that Fayyad’s police and judiciary enabled, namely, viable businesses that incubate the management class that would both create wealth and constitute the spine of some future state apparatus. In that context, the picture now seems more promising in the micro than the macro.
Certainly, the business climate in the Palestinian territories since the beginning of the Gaza war has been ghastly. Settlers have been increasingly on the rampage. Virtually none of the 200,000 Palestinians who, before the Gaza war, worked in Israel (or in businesses supplying Israeli plastics, furniture-making and food processing, etc.) have continued to do so. The International Labor Organization reports that one-third of private sector workers surveyed have lost their jobssince the Oct. 7 attacks. Raja Khalidi, the director-general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, told me that this data matches newer World Bank estimates, of a “35 percent decline in [gross domestic product], and $52 billion in damage to Gaza.”
Even before this war, and for many years, Palestinian business was thwarted by everyday features of occupation, including the network of military checkpoints built to protect settlements, and the difficulties of American and other foreign Palestinian entrepreneurs acquiring West Bank residency. According to UN Trade and Development, the GDP per capita in the West Bank decreased by 4.5 percent, “indicating a substantial drop in living standards and household incomes.” The overall GDP for the West Bank and Gaza combined was about $17 billion in 2023 — a 9.1 percent decline from 2022. “How, under everyday restrictions,” Ramallah business consultant Sam Bahour asked me, “can businesses recruit talent, or visit customers, or suppliers, or coordinate with partners?”
And yet management talent is growing. In 2017, the last year for which the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics gathered data on this, about 140,000 businesses were operating in the Palestinian territories, most of them small- and medium-sized firms in various services employing fewer than 10 people — retail and wholesale, repair, light industry, construction and transportation. (Agriculture now makes up less than 5 percent of Palestinian GDP.)
There are also, crucially, big businesses, run by what can only be called a governing elite. A step away from the Palestinian Authority are managers, economists, consultants and entrepreneurs, some shuttling back-and-forth between the private and public sectors — coping in ways that may seem self-serving, at times, but also consciously advancing the national ideal, and capable of recruiting a certain grudging admiration from the public at large, at least for proving themselves at home in a technologically advanced, global business system.
“There is a ‘horizontal line’ separating businesses that rely on PA favors — for consulting contracts, or import, construction, banking, telecom and other licenses — from businesses that are more entrepreneurial in nature,” Khalidi says. The former have always “required a voice in the inner councils of the PA, or in circles close to Arafat before that” and have the quality of state-sponsored enterprises.
Forty-nine public companies are listed on the Nablus-based stock exchange with a total market cap of around $5 billion. “They attract a third of shareholders from outside the country, and have mostly evolved from family businesses,” Ammar Aker, the former CEO of the telecom giant, PALTEL, and now the PA’s regulator of financial services, told me. The key to the performance of these companies is “genuine rule of law, or at least the end of flagrant corruption,” he says. “Unless you build real hope, unless you build a Palestinian state with full mandate to have peace with Israel, nothing good can come about.”
The PA’s current Prime Minister, Mohammad Mustafa, is (quite like Fayyad) a product of international institutions — in Mustafa’s case, the World Bank. After Yasser Arafat’s death, he headed the near-billion-dollar Palestine Investment Fund — the sovereign wealth fund — from 2006 to 2013, which invested in multiple projects in real estate and telecom.
“Mustafa started the cell phone company Wataniya, which was a competitor to PALTEL’s Jawwal,” Aker said, “but I have always found him honest and professional.”
Perhaps the most important institutionin this community is the holding company PADICO, with assets of $1.75 billion. It owns PALTEL, the stock exchange, large real estate developments, power companies and hotels and tourist facilities, some in Gaza. PADICO’s current CEO and controlling shareholder, Bashar Masri, has been rumored to have been approached by Trump administration contacts about becoming an administrator of Gaza recovery.
“You may have heard in the news,” Masri told me, “Bashar is the American choice, and all that shit — sorry. But I cannot be anyone’s choice, I will not come to any key position, unless there are elections. But am I positioning myself to be able to participate? The answer is yes. It’s a duty, it’s a responsibility.”
A naturalized American, Masri also developed the model West Bank town of Rawabi. While over a billion Qatari dollars, stuffed in suitcases — their delivery facilitated by serial Netanyahu governments — wound up financing Hamas’s tunnel network in Gaza, Masri raised about a billion in Qatar to build, just north of Ramallah, over 5,000 tidy residential units, an English-speaking international school, a hospital, a soaring mosque and a Romanesque amphitheater for international performers.
Intriguingly, the most prominent company to set up a tech center in Rawabi was the Israeli networking leader Mellanox (sold to Nvidia in 2020). But Masri has himself become the target of a high-profile civil action, filed in Washington, by victims of Oct. 7 — including, tragically, Mellanox’s founder Eyal Waldman, a former friend, whose daughter Danielle was brutally murdered at the Supernova Festival. (The plaintiffs allege that Masri was knowingly complicit in the construction of Hamas tunnels and electrical networks, which were eventually found under PADICO-owned hotels, and under PADICO’s industrial zone at the Karni crossing in Gaza. Masri, expressing deep sorrow at the loss of Waldman’s affections, says the charges are baseless and he can prove it in court.)
Clearly, the lawsuit is a developing story. Masri believes his wealth may be one reason he’s a target. And American anti-terrorism law may well be elastic enough to tempt legal teams representing victims to try for a settlement. Ten years ago, the Arab Bank was sued in the U.S. because several depositors were found to have used the bank to steer money to Hamas. The bank reportedly settled for a billion dollars. In any case, the lawsuit’s existence obviously works for Netanyahu, tarring the Palestinian business community as a whole and threatening to put its leaders in eclipse, at the very moment Trump might well encourage them to step up.
“Nation-building does not happen over five years or 10 years or even 20 years,” Masri said. “The Abraham Accords were painful to the Palestinian people, but damn it, let’s use them to our advantage. Israel’s low-hanging fruit is normalization with the Saudis. Imagine if now we have a reconstruction plan to build Gaza, the whole world will stand with us,” he says. “Israel is here to stay, and we need the institutions that will give satisfaction to both.”
A start-up community is active in thePalestinian territories, too. The U.S. Commerce Department estimates that the high-tech sector contributed over 3 percent to Palestinian GDP, some half a billion dollars, and employed just under 10,000 in 450 companies. This number would presumably grow quickly if global technology corporations, and the successful Palestinian diasporas in Amman, the U.S. and Chile, could be mobilized to invest their money, genius and connections.
The ground is fertile for such investments. The median age in the West Bank is 21; about a third of young people 15-24 years old are unemployed. By 2022, 14 universities and 38 university and community colleges were graduating over 2,500 Palestinian engineers and computer scientists a year, only 10 percent of whom found good jobs, which themselves paid just $1,200 a month. Another 2,500 graduated from business programs. There are graduates also from biomedical and medical programs. One of the biggest generic pharmaceutical companies, Pharmacare, has a plant also in Malta and makes drugs that meet German standards for import. Its CEO, Bassim Khoury, served briefly as the PA’s Economics Minister under Fayyad.
Nor is a want of investment capital the main problem. There are 14 banks in Palestine: eight Palestinian, five Jordanian and one Egyptian. Total Palestinian bank deposits exceed $18 billion, while they lend only about $11 billion, or roughly 60 percent of liquid assets, a rate fully 25 percent lower than Western banks. “Palestinian banks are highly liquid, which sounds good, but only reflects how few investable business plans cross their desks owing to current horrors,” Bahour, who until recently was chair of the risk committee of Arab Islamic Bank, told me. And “too much liquidity” also reflects how Israel refuses to regularly exchange a surplus of Israeli shekels for other currencies; and Palestinian banks, Bahour saidys, carry reserves “in case they, too, are sued in the U.S. for supporting ‘illegal’ activities.”
Still, the Bank of Palestine, the largest bank, founded by the Gazan al-Shawa family, has opened a venture capital firm with the Palestine Investment Fund called “Ibtikar,” Arabic for “innovation”: $35 million invested in over 30 companies, healthcare and real estate platforms, for example. Another $70 million venture fund, Sadara, led by Yadin Kaufman, a veteran Israeli venture capitalist, and Said Nashef, has launched 10 start-ups, though the Gaza war has frozen its deal flow; Kaufman also launched an internship program for promising graduates to work in Israeli companies.
The Bank of Palestine opened an incubator, Intersect Hub, to seed companies in Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron, Gaza and East Jerusalem; on the board of Intersect is Rabi’ Barakat, the founder of Cystack in Ramallah, Palestine’s largest cybersecurity firm, and the son of Yasir Barakat, one of East Jerusalem’s premier antique merchants — a typical generational transition. The bank is planning to open an Intersect office in the Emirates to showcase its portfolio.
“We want to bridge between Palestinian startups and the Dubai technology ecosystem,” Rateb Rabi, a leader of the bank’s entrepreneurship initiative currently living in Abu Dhabi, told me. “We support entrepreneurs the way Israel’s [former] Office of the Chief Scientist does.” PayPal will not operate in Palestine. “So, the bank also set up a payment gateway,” Rabi said. Indeed, most entrepreneurs are counting more on direct investment than government influence.
Yahya al-Salqan, for many years chairman of the information technology association in Ramallah, is the founder and CEO of the software firm Jaffa.net, providing human resources web services for all Palestinian Authority ministries, check-clearing systems for the banks and outsourcing services to Intel, Fujitsu, Lufthansa, BMW, Oxford University and others. He got his start in Sun Microsystems. “Palestine is primed for take-off,” al-Salqan told me. Businesses can “send payment requests and receive payments from friends, issue your bills and pay your bills from your mobile.” It has an organized insurance sector. It even “has some futuristic businesses,” automating logistics with A.I., say, or in social media or automating healthcare.
“The only impediment,” al-Salqan says, “is the infrastructure that comes with a state — an airport, for example.” And no political model can “succeed over the long term in Palestine if it is not a democratic state where people can actually vote, parties are established, and so on,” not a place with “bureaucrats who benefit from the status quo and blame the occupation for it.” When the country “has the openness of political independence — anyway, I hope for this openness — we will be a force to build a political system, more secular, more pragmatic and more democratic as well.”
That word, “secular,” jumps out afterso many years of Hamas insurgency. Netanyahu’s government wants Americans to conclude that, given any kind of independence, Palestinians would be dominated by jihadism. And, before Oct. 7 and its aftermath, there often did seem to be a willingness among educated, moderate Palestinians to elide, if not tolerate, Hamas in the name of national unity, or to project steadfastness in the face of Israeli occupation.
Anyway, Hamas and its fanaticism has hardly come out of the war with its moral prestige intact. Recent polls show that, in the West Bank, as in Israel, over 60 percent prefer a regional peace based on a two-state solution and normalization if the alternative is a regional, multi-front war. Support for Hamas’ “performance” roughly halved from December 2023 to May 2025, while support for Abbas’s doubled. Abbas’s popularity was still half that of Hamas. But another old Fatah stalwart, the jailed Marwan Barghouti, was more than twice as popular as Hamas.
The business community may not seem likely to produce such charismatic adversaries for Hamas such as Barghouti, or Nasser Al-Qudwa, Arafat’s nephew, now living in France, and partnering with former prime minister Ehud Olmert to advance two-state diplomacy. But business leaders would provide the economic, technological and cultural infrastructure of any state people like Barghouti, if freed, would try to organize. Business leaders are the bearers of a bourgeois revolution, after all. They, like their Israeli counterparts, have grown accustomed to cosmopolitan ideals, global markets, gender equality and scientific arguments.
None of this means that a transition to new leadership in the Palestinian Authority is likely to be businesslike. The old guard will try to protect itself: In April, Abbas named a longtime Fatah operative and confidant, Hussein al-Sheikh — the 64-year-old chair of the executive council — as vice-president. There seems little likelihood of an election in the immediate aftermath of the war, before a new administration in Gaza has the chance to prove the Palestine Authority’s efficacy.
The immediate challenge for the business community is cultural and economic — to prove its capacity to build and integrate into the democratic world of European and American liberalism, and, in so doing, reassure Israelis that they have a partner that is a radical break from Hamas and its enablers.
“I will focus on developing a secular democracy, like the Palestinian Authority once was,” Masri, increasingly the face of that revolution, recently told the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot: “We cannot be a dictatorship and at the same time have relations with democratic Israel.” Link
Smotrich says he’s ‘lost faith’ in PM’s ability to win the war, but doesn’t explicitly threaten to bolt government
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announces that he no longer believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is willing to do what it takes to win the war in Gaza, calling the security cabinet’s recent approval of a plan to conquer Gaza City a half-measure.
However, while the public message is unusually strongly worded, Smotrich doesn’t outright threaten to quit the government, something he has long been reportedly considering and which he has said several times in the past he would do if he felt the war wasn’t going in his preferred direction.
In a video message, Smotrich says he has “worked intensively” with Netanyahu in recent weeks to formulate a new plan for “victory in Gaza,” which would consist of a combination of military and political moves intended to destroy Hamas’s military and civil capabilities and force it to free the hostages. But while it initially appeared that Netanyahu supported this plan, “unfortunately, he made a U-turn.”
Instead, together with his cabinet, Netanyahu “succumbed to weakness, let emotion win over reason and decided to do more of the same again” and launch a military maneuver aimed not at complete victory, but rather only at pressuring Hamas to agree to a “partial hostage deal,” Smotrich alleges, adding that such an approach gives the terrorist group an out, with the opportunity to “recover and rearm.”
Arguing that this “is not how you win a war,” Smotrich insists that “when faced with a push for a deal, the IDF will always move tepidly and work at half-speed,” adding that risking the troops’ lives as well as international opprobrium in pursuit of such a strategy is an “immoral and illogical folly.”
While he has previously supported the prime minister for the sake of unity even when they disagreed on certain moves, he says, “Unfortunately, for the first time since the war began, I feel that I simply cannot stand behind this decision and support it. My conscience does not allow it.”
While he was previously able to set aside his reservations because he believed that “we were striving for a decisive victory,” Smotrich says that he has “lost faith that the prime minister can and wants to lead the IDF to a decisive victory.”
Appealing directly to Netanyahu, Smotrich says it is “not too late” to change his mind, convene the cabinet and announce that “there will be no more partial deals” and that Israel is now aiming at a complete victory in which Hamas either surrenders and releases all the hostages all at once, or is completely defeated and destroyed.
This approach, he adds, would include the “annexation of large parts of the Gaza Strip and opening its gates to voluntary migration.”
Asked if Smotrich’s statement constitutes a threat to bolt the coalition and what his Religious Zionism party will do if Netanyahu does not alter his approach, a spokesman for the minister does not immediately respond. Link
It has always been clear that Smotrich doesn't care a bit about the lives of the hostages or the lives of the soldiers. He and his party members don't see the war as a horrible thing despite the fact that so many soldiers and reservists in their voter base have been killed. They see the war as an opportunity to attain their messianic dreams of occupation of Gaza, expulsion of Palestinians, sto start first in Gaza and then in the West Bank, annexation of both occupied territories, annexation and finally all Jewish settlements throughout. The prices to be paid for all of their dreams is immaterial to them and the prices are high: the deaths of the hostages; deaths and maiming of more soldiers; economic costs of the war, higher taxes, worsening credit rating, businesses collapsing, etc.; world-wide condemnation, embargos first of weapons to be followed by cancellations of trade agreements and trade embargos; growth of anti-Israel and antisemitism worldwide; and so much more. None of this impacts Smotrich or his messianic comrades. They, together with their greatest enabler, Netanyahu are causing more damage to Israel than anyone or any group in Israeli's history. Yet, they believe it is for the glory of their ideology and everyone else be damned.
He and his party would be doing us all a favor if he finally stood behind his threats instead of continually polluting the air with his verbal garbage. The reason that his threats are less than a real reason for us to celebrate is because he knows what we all know. His chances of getting back into the Knesset, let alone the government in new elections. In every poll conducted by various pollsters, except for one since the beginning of the war, his party fails to pass the threshold to get into the Knesset.
- The Region and the World
Foreign Ministry urges Israelis in Greece to be cautious ahead of anti-Israel ‘Day of Action’ Sunday
The Foreign Ministry has urged Israelis currently in Greece to act cautiously ahead of a planned “Day of Action” tomorrow by Greek pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel groups.
In a statement published yesterday, the ministry warns travelers of “demonstrations expected to take place throughout the country — including on islands and at tourist sites — organized by radical pro-Palestinian groups.”
Israelis visiting or planning to arrive in Greece are urged to avoid protests, political arguments or displaying visible Israeli symbols, and to stay alert in crowded places and keep family updated on their location.
Two weeks ago, three Greek groups announced the plans for the “Day of Action” targeting Israeli tourists, vowing that Greece will not become a “refuge” for “genocidal people.”
According to the Kan public broadcaster, coordinated demonstrations denouncing Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza are planned at 90 locations across the country.
The effort by the groups follows a string of anti-Israel incidents in Greece, a popular nearby tourist destination for Israelis. Link
US Reform Movement protests Gaza City takeover plan, says it will cause ‘more division among world Jewry
The Reform Movement in the United States has called on Israel to end the war in Gaza following the cabinet’s approval of a plan to conquer Gaza City that has drawn opposition from the security services.
“We are deeply distressed that Israel’s security cabinet approved Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan to extend Israeli control over the Gaza Strip,” the Union for Reform Judaism said in a statement yesterday, in which it “implore[d] Israel to choose life for our hostages, our soldiers, and innocent civilians in Gaza by ending — not extending — this war.”
“As Jews who believe in an Israel that aspires to be both safe and ethical, we are galvanized by the position of a growing array of Israeli military, intelligence, and political leaders and experts, as well as the clear majority of Israeli public, who warn that the Israeli government’s plan to further occupy Gaza would be a military, political, and humanitarian calamity,” the group states, warning that “the war’s expansion will likely be a death sentence for our hostages.”
Such an expansion would also harm the troops, isolate Israel internationally and cause “more division among world Jewry,” it continues, comparing the war to “the quagmires of previous military occupations by Israel in south Lebanon, and by other nations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam — all of which began with similar assurances.”
“The Israeli government has yet to offer an exit strategy or plans for ‘the day after,'” the URJ cautions, arguing that “the current occupation of part of Gaza already risks Israel’s security and international reputation, and longtime allies of Israel are this morning reacting negatively to the cabinet’s approved plan.”
“There is no question that Hamas bears the responsibility for this war, for the conditions in Gaza right now, for failing to put down its arms, for its refusal to release the hostages, and for resisting improved conditions for its people. However, Israel has the ability and responsibility to prioritize its own people and values by recognizing that now is the time to end this war, bring the hostages home, and create a coalition of Arab nations with the US and other allies to rebuild Gaza and shape a better tomorrow for all.” Link
- Frantic, sometimes uncoordinated: Behind the talks that led to the Palestinian state recognition tsunami
Amid growing pressure and unfolding crises, European leaders pursued urgent diplomacy toward Palestinian state recognition, frustrated by the Trump administration’s lack of engagement and escalating conflict in Gaza
On July 23, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron held a pivotal meeting in Berlin focused on the escalating crisis in Gaza. The talks laid the groundwork for an unprecedented European diplomatic initiative aimed at recognizing a Palestinian state in the near future.During the meeting, Macron disclosed to Merz that he faced intense domestic pressure and intended to announce France’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations by late September. Merz responded that this timeline allowed all parties time to consider their next moves. The following day, without informing German officials, Macron publicly declared his decision on Twitter, framing the recognition as a commitment to a “just and lasting peace.”Macron’s announcement marked the start of a significant surge in European diplomacy that began July 19 following the release of distressing images of starving children in Gaza. This momentum culminated ten days later when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued an ultimatum to Israel warning that if it did not quickly change course Britain would recognize a Palestinian state as well.These moves signal a break from the Trump administration’s approach which many European officials viewed as ineffective in reining in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has waged war in Gaza for nearly two years. A confidential British “Eight-Point Plan” circulated to European leaders on July 29 by Jonathan Powell — national security adviser to Starmer and a key architect of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland — sought to revive peace efforts based on a two-state solution.The day after Powell shared the plan, 22 Arab League nations endorsed its main objectives at a U.N. conference initiated by Paris and Riyadh. For the first time, the league demanded that Hamas disarm and relinquish control over Gaza.European officials involved in discussions said the shift was driven by growing evidence of widespread hunger in Gaza, increased public demand for action and frustration with the Trump administration’s perceived abandonment of efforts to restrain Israel.Britain’s evolving stance was influenced by an Israeli Knesset declaration supporting Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank which London condemned as a “blatant violation of international law” undermining peace prospects.Germany, traditionally one of Israel’s closest allies given its history, surprised observers by joining the diplomatic push. While unlikely to recognize a Palestinian state itself, Chancellor Merz expressed determination to contribute to the effort. Shortly after Macron’s announcement, the three leaders jointly called for an end to the war, the release of hostages, Hamas’s disarmament, humanitarian aid access and a halt to Israeli annexation plans. They later described the situation in Gaza as “horrific.”A reported recent phone call between Merz and Netanyahu ended with the German chancellor frustrated by Netanyahu’s insistence there was no hunger in Gaza and accusations that Hamas was stealing aid. Merz and Macron subsequently urged former U.S. President Donald Trump to pressure Netanyahu to allow more humanitarian assistance. Trump acknowledged the crisis on television saying, “There are children starving in Gaza... you can’t fake that.”Days later, Starmer announced Britain would formally recognize a Palestinian state unless Israel ended the war and pursued a new course. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace echoed this position at the United Nations. The announcement surprised Berlin which believed Macron’s recognition was sufficient.Canada soon joined the diplomatic shift announcing conditional recognition of a Palestinian state with other countries indicating readiness to follow suit.Despite these efforts, Netanyahu has rejected the moves calling them “rewards for terror” and recently authorized a full-scale military operation to take control of Gaza.Diplomats from Britain, France and Germany remain frustrated at the lack of U.S. engagement viewing Trump as the only leader capable of pressuring Netanyahu to change direction. They acknowledge that while Netanyahu is expected to reject these initiatives, trying remains preferable to inaction.The Arab League’s unprecedented collective call for Hamas to disarm and transfer authority to the Palestinian Authority alongside support for a temporary UN peacekeeping mission in Gaza signals a potential new phase in the conflict’s diplomatic landscape. link
- Personal Stories
When Boris Shtonda raised his prosthetic leg under the wedding canopy in Jerusalem last month and brought it down with a forceful stomp, the glass didn’t just break—it shattered. “He didn’t just break the glass,” said one guest through tears. “He shattered every limitation we thought existed.”
Boris ShtondaAcronyms 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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