Attention to the Unseen

Robert A. Pape writes: Since October 7, Israel has invaded northern Gaza with some 40,000 combat troops and pummeled the small area with one of the most intense bombing campaigns in history. Nearly two million people have fled their homes as a result. More than 15,000 civilians (including some 6,000 children and 5,000 women) have been killed in the attacks, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, and the U.S. State Department has suggested that the true toll may be…

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  Israel’s ambassador to the UK said a safe zone for Palestinians called “Mawasi” had been set up in the south of Gaza. But when Sky’s team visited, there was no aid, no food kitchens and no help.

Reuters reports: Israeli authorities are investigating claims by U.S. researchers that some investors may have known in advance of a Hamas plan to attack Israel on Oct. 7 and used that information to profit from Israeli securities. Research by law professors Robert Jackson Jr from New York University and Joshua Mitts of Columbia University found significant short-selling of shares leading up to the attacks, which triggered a war nearly two months old. “Days before the attack, traders appeared to anticipate…

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The Daily Beast reports: The White House told party leaders in the House and Senate on Monday that they are running out of time to reach an agreement on sending more aide to Ukraine in its war against Russia. The director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young, explained that a lack of funding would “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield.” “I want to be clear: Without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out…

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The Washington Post reports: On June 15, in a conference room at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, flanked by top U.S. commanders, sat around a table with his Ukrainian counterpart, who was joined by aides from Kyiv. The room was heavy with an air of frustration. Austin, in his deliberate baritone, asked Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov about Ukraine’s decision-making in the opening days of its long-awaited counteroffensive, pressing him on why his forces weren’t using Western-supplied…

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Daanish Faruqi writes: As the humanitarian pause took effect in Gaza, footage of the massive destruction in the northern part of the enclave has started to trickle in. Seeing these images of devastation, one cannot but think of Thomas Friedman’s reference to what he calls the “Hama rules” in an article he published with The New York Times on October 14. A neologism he coined many years ago, it refers to then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad’s violent razing of the city…

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Politico reports: Muslim leaders from several swing states on Saturday descended on Dearborn, Michigan, to launch a national campaign against the reelection of President Joe Biden — a response to his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Organizers from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania are calling the campaign #AbandonBiden, vowing to ensure that Biden is a one-term president. These leaders have run separate pressure campaigns in their respective states, members of the coalition said, but they felt…

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The New York Times reports: Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out. The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people. The…

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  Channel 4 News: More than 14,000 thousand people have been killed in Gaza, during Israel’s assault – according to officials there – and every single one of them has a story. Last week 29-year-old Dima AlHaj, her husband Muhammed, her six month old son Abood and more than 40 members of her extended family were killed when their house was hit. Dima worked for the World Health Organisation in Gaza and previously studied in Glasgow. Our international editor Lindsey…

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