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Category: War

Netanyahu willing to sacrifice hostages in pursuit of complete conquest of Gaza

Netanyahu willing to sacrifice hostages in pursuit of complete conquest of Gaza

The Times of Israel reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with senior security officials on Tuesday to hammer out Gaza war plans, and reportedly came out in favor of the military taking control of the entire enclave, even if it meant that the remaining hostages could be harmed or executed by Hamas. The meeting came amid multiple reports of rising tensions between the prime minister and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir over the prospect of Israeli forces…

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The United States is complicit in genocide. Let’s stop pretending otherwise

The United States is complicit in genocide. Let’s stop pretending otherwise

Mehdi Hasan writes: Can we finally stop pretending that what we have been witnessing in Gaza over the past 22 months is a “war,” a “conflict,” or even a “humanitarian crisis”? Many of the world’s leading human rights and humanitarian groups – including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders – agreed months ago that what is being livestreamed to our phones on a daily basis is indeed a genocide. This week, Israel’s own leading human rights group…

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‘We’re trying to do the best we can before we die’

‘We’re trying to do the best we can before we die’

Claire Porter Robbins writes: George Anton is hungry, but he’s become used to the sensation—the urgent, aching feeling in his stomach, the heaviness of his limbs. He hardly has time to acknowledge the discomfort, given all the work he has to do. He is the operations manager for an aid-distribution program operating through the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City, the sole remaining Catholic church in Gaza. Anton lives at the church in a single room that he shares…

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How the Israel inquiry led by ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, was derailed

How the Israel inquiry led by ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, was derailed

  A major Middle East Eye investigation has uncovered extraordinary details of an intensifying intimidation campaign targeting the British chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court over his investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes. The campaign has involved threats and warnings directed at Karim Khan by prominent figures, close colleagues and family friends briefing against him, fears for the prosecutor’s safety prompted by a Mossad team in The Hague, and media leaks about sexual assault allegations.

Netanyahu is choosing to let starvation consume the children in Gaza

Netanyahu is choosing to let starvation consume the children in Gaza

Alex de Waal writes: Mass starvation is unfolding in and around the Sudanese city of El Fasher, where the Sudanese Army and its allies are defending a siege and onslaught by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Both sides are fighting a war of starvation, stealing food from civilians and blocking aid. If the warring parties were to agree to a cease-fire this instant, given the perilous roads and the underfunded aid operation, it would be weeks or months before sufficient…

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The starvation of Gaza is shameful. Crippling sanctions on Israel are needed, say Israeli public figures

The starvation of Gaza is shameful. Crippling sanctions on Israel are needed, say Israeli public figures

The Guardian reports: A group of high-profile Israeli public figures, including academics, artists and public intellectuals, has called for “crippling sanctions” to be imposed by the international community on Israel, amid mounting horror over its starvation of Gaza. The 31 signatories of a letter to the Guardian include an Academy award recipient, Yuval Abraham; a former Israeli attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair; Avraham Burg, a former speaker of Israel’s parliament and former head of the Jewish Agency; and a number of…

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France and Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state won’t end Israel’s onslaught

France and Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state won’t end Israel’s onslaught

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write: Almost two years into a conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives, amid an Israeli military campaign and humanitarian blockade that have reached apocalyptic proportions, and faced with their own powerlessness as they bear witness to what growing numbers of experts call a genocide, Emmanuel Macron has announced France’s dramatic next step: it will recognize a Palestinian state in September. Keir Starmer quickly followed suit, stating that the UK would do likewise…

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For Israel’s warfare-based economy, peace isn’t an option

For Israel’s warfare-based economy, peace isn’t an option

The Financial Times reports: Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, the best-performing major stock market in the world is … Israel. After taking an initial hit, the market recovered fully in four weeks, and since then is up around 80 per cent in dollar terms. This ascent continued through the recent 12-day war with Iran, when most geopolitical experts thought their worst fears of a wider conflict were coming to pass. The stock market, in contrast, kept signalling…

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Israel is committing genocide, says Israeli human rights group

Israel is committing genocide, says Israeli human rights group

B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reports: Since October 2023, Israel has shifted its policy toward the Palestinians. Its military onslaught on Gaza, underway for more than 21 months, has included mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the Strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives….

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Genocide has become a spectacle as Israeli soldiers and U.S. contractors murder starving Palestinians

Genocide has become a spectacle as Israeli soldiers and U.S. contractors murder starving Palestinians

  A former US veteran who was employed at a food distribution site in Gaza has accused members of the Israel Defence Forces and American colleagues of deliberately targeting and killing unarmed Palestinian civilians. Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Aguilar, a former special forces veteran, was recruited to work for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a joint Israeli-US scheme replacing the United Nations food distribution operation in Gaza. He has told the BBC he witnessed the IDF shooting at the crowds of Palestinians, firing…

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‘We are starving’

‘We are starving’

Ruwaida Amer writes: I am so hungry. I’ve never meant those words in the way I do now. They carry a kind of humiliation that I can’t fully describe. Every moment, I find myself wishing: If only this were just a nightmare. If only I could wake up and it would all be over. Since last May, after I was forced to flee my home and take shelter with relatives in Khan Younis refugee camp, I’ve heard those same words…

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Israel’s claim that Hamas stole aid was baseless, while UN system was effective, senior military officials reveal

Israel’s claim that Hamas stole aid was baseless, while UN system was effective, senior military officials reveal

The New York Times reports: For nearly two years, Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid provided by the United Nations and other international organizations. The government has used that claim as its main rationale for restricting food from entering Gaza. But the Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations, the biggest supplier of emergency assistance to Gaza for most of the war, according to two senior Israeli military…

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Israeli minister says his government is ‘rushing toward Gaza being wiped out’

Israeli minister says his government is ‘rushing toward Gaza being wiped out’

The New York Times reports: Amid rising starvation in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli government minister said on Thursday that Israel had no duty to alleviate hunger in the territory and was seeking to expel its population. Amichay Eliyahu, a far-right lawmaker who leads Israel’s Heritage Ministry, said in a radio interview that “there is no nation that feeds its enemies,” adding that “the British didn’t feed the Nazis, nor did the Americans feed the Japanese, nor do the Russians…

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As starvation grips Gaza, skeletal children fill hospital wards

As starvation grips Gaza, skeletal children fill hospital wards

The Guardian reports: Mohammed’s skeletal arms stick out of a romper with a grinning emoji-face and the slogan “smiley boy”, which in a Gaza hospital reads as a cruel joke. He spends much of the day crying from hunger, or gnawing at his own emaciated fingers. At seven months old, he weighs barely 4kg (9lbs) and this is the second time he has been admitted for treatment. His face is gaunt, his limbs little more than bones covered in baggy…

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IDF assassinated a cardiologist ‘because he is a human, he is someone kind, and everyone in Gaza knew him’

IDF assassinated a cardiologist ‘because he is a human, he is someone kind, and everyone in Gaza knew him’

Clayton Dalton writes: Five months ago, when I was on a medical mission in northern Gaza, a Palestinian cardiologist named Marwan Sultan showed me what was left of the Indonesian Hospital, a hundred-bed facility that had been shelled and raided by Israeli forces. The building was riddled with shrapnel scars; its hallways were dark and cluttered with debris, and a cold wind blew through broken windows. Sultan, who directed the facility, was wearing a long white coat, a necktie, and…

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Less than a quarter of Americans say Israeli military actions in Gaza are fully justified, poll finds

Less than a quarter of Americans say Israeli military actions in Gaza are fully justified, poll finds

CNN reports: Americans are increasingly skeptical of Israeli actions in Gaza, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS that also finds rising sentiment that the US should pull back on military aid to Israel. Only 23% of Americans say Israel’s actions have been fully justified, a 27-point drop from a October 2023 poll taken shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attacks. Another 27% now say those actions have been partially justified and 22% say that they have not been…

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