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Category: War

Inside the Israeli movement to recolonize Gaza

Inside the Israeli movement to recolonize Gaza

Joshua Leifer writes: Daniella Weiss, the 79-year-old leader of the far-right settler organization Nachala, stepped out of her white Mitsubishi SUV and into the parking lot of the Sderot train station, a mere three kilometers from the Gaza Strip. It was Dec. 26, the second night of Hanukkah, and for weeks Nachala had been aggressively promoting a celebratory “procession to Gaza” and candle-lighting ceremony in a closed military zone by the border. The event was to be the next step…

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Palestinian Authority forces are openly helping Israel fight its West Bank war

Palestinian Authority forces are openly helping Israel fight its West Bank war

Jesse Rosenfeld reports: The circling drones buzz overhead as explosions echo. Bursts of gunfire between Israeli soldiers and fighters from the Palestinian refugee camp ring out. Israeli military jeeps patrol bulldozed roads outside the government hospital. Displaced camp resident, 29 year-old Noureddine Jarbou, sits in the courtyard watching the unending Israeli assault, his catheter bag attached to the side of his wheelchair. Paralyzed from the waist down during an Israeli raid on the camp three years ago and then taken…

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Architect of so-called Generals’ Plan admits Israel’s ‘absolute failure’ in Gaza

Architect of so-called Generals’ Plan admits Israel’s ‘absolute failure’ in Gaza

Middle East Eye reports: The architect of Israel’s so-called Generals’ Plan to depopulate northern Gaza has described the country’s war in the enclave as an “absolute failure”. The original plan, also known as the Eiland Plan after its creator Giora Eiland, a retired major general and former head of the Israeli National Security Council, was seen by Palestinians and rights groups as part of a long-term project of ethnic cleansing that would result in the restablishment of Jewish settlements in…

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I saw illegality and complicity with war crimes. That’s why I quit the UK Foreign Office

I saw illegality and complicity with war crimes. That’s why I quit the UK Foreign Office

Mark Smith writes: My name is Mark Smith. I am a former diplomat and policy adviser at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). I spent my career working in the Middle East directorate and serving in the Arab world. As a lead officer on arms sales policy, I was responsible for assessing whether the UK government’s arms sales adhered to legal and ethical standards under domestic and international law. In August 2024, I resigned over the UK government’s refusal…

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Trump’s talk of a Gaza takeover masks a more immediate disaster

Trump’s talk of a Gaza takeover masks a more immediate disaster

Neil Hicks writes: The most important outcome of President Donald Trump’s White House press conference this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not Trump’s lawless and immoral musing that the U.S. would “take over” Gaza to create a new “Riviera of the Middle East.” While Trump’s outrageous comments, as they so often do, ignited dutiful praise from his supporters and instant condemnation from his opponents, the intense focus on the U.S. occupying Gaza and forcibly displacing its entire…

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A Palestinian father and journalist reflects on the ceasefire in Gaza

A Palestinian father and journalist reflects on the ceasefire in Gaza

Mohammed Mhawish writes: On the morning of Sunday, Jan. 19, I turned to my son, Rafik. He was building something with blocks, his small hands working furiously to stack them higher and higher. I watched as the tower wobbled and fell. He laughed and started over again. He kept rebuilding, and it kept falling, over and over. I could feel it inside me, somehow — joy and sorrow fighting for control, just like my son’s toy tower. One moment, his…

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Sweden suspects ‘gross sabotage’ after damage to communications cable under Baltic Sea

Sweden suspects ‘gross sabotage’ after damage to communications cable under Baltic Sea

The New York Times reports: The Swedish authorities on Monday boarded a ship in connection with what they described as “gross sabotage” after an undersea communications cable in the Baltic Sea was damaged a day earlier. The ship was escorted to the coast of Sweden for an investigation, the authorities said. “We suspect that a serious act of sabotage was committed in the Swedish economic zone yesterday,” Mats Ljungqvist, the Swedish prosecutor leading the investigation into the damage, said in…

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Trump’s Gaza proposal rejected by allies and condemned as plan for ethnic cleansing

Trump’s Gaza proposal rejected by allies and condemned as plan for ethnic cleansing

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s proposal that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip has been rejected by US allies in the region and attacked as dangerous, illegal and unworkable by lawyers and activists. The US president said he would like hundreds of thousands of people to move to neighbouring countries, either “temporarily or could be long-term”. Destinations could include Jordan, which already hosts more than 2.7 million Palestinian refugees, and Egypt, he…

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How Assad’s drug trade fueled his downfall

How Assad’s drug trade fueled his downfall

Caroline Rose writes: Many years ago, in Beirut, I learned the first of many lessons about the Assad regime’s constructed counternarcotics narrative — something that simultaneously sustained the regime’s internal power structure and also fueled its very collapse. I was conducting some final fieldwork on a little-known (at least at that time) drug trade in an amphetamine-type stimulant called Captagon, which was quickly gaining popularity in the Middle East. The trip was part of a policy report that was initially…

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Leaked documents expose deepening ties between Israeli army and Microsoft

Leaked documents expose deepening ties between Israeli army and Microsoft

Yuval Abraham reports: Microsoft has a “footprint in all major military infrastructures” in Israel, and sales of the company’s cloud and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli army have skyrocketed since the beginning of its onslaught on Gaza, according to leaked commercial records from Israel’s Defense Ministry and files from Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary. The documents reveal that dozens of units in the Israeli army have purchased services from Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, in recent months — including units in…

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‘My neighborhood was one of the most beautiful in Gaza. All that’s left is rubble’

‘My neighborhood was one of the most beautiful in Gaza. All that’s left is rubble’

Ahmed Ahmed reports: As soon as the ceasefire came into effect in Gaza on Sunday, Hamza Othman had only one thought in his mind: to go and see whether his home was still standing. The 22-year-old had refused to leave the Fallujah neighborhood of Jabalia refugee camp for over a year — even after he was wounded by an Israeli airstrike that killed his mother and brother as they sold candy from a stall in front of the house last…

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Israel can no longer ignore the Palestinian cause after failing to quash it by force

Israel can no longer ignore the Palestinian cause after failing to quash it by force

Meron Rapoport writes: It is still too early to say who won and who lost Israel’s war on Gaza, especially since the ceasefire has not yet begun. But if at least the first stage of the agreement goes ahead, it can be said that Israel has not achieved its war goals. Israel has not succeeded in achieving its pronounced goals: wiping out Hamas and returning the captives by military force. More importantly, its undeclared goal was to eliminate the Palestinian…

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A visual guide to the destruction of Gaza

A visual guide to the destruction of Gaza

Gaza: What does it mean to return "home" when Israel has made your home a dangerous toxic waste site of rubble and destruction? https://t.co/o7Qk8ei9XG — Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) January 18, 2025 The Guardian reports: Israel’s war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people and laid waste large swathes of the territory. Schools and hospitals have been destroyed, and aid flows into the territory have fallen sharply. As Israel and Hamas reach a deal to pause the war for…

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‘Bye Genocide Joe’: Social media reflects on Biden’s legacy on Gaza

‘Bye Genocide Joe’: Social media reflects on Biden’s legacy on Gaza

Middle East Eye reports: As Joseph Biden’s US presidency comes to an end, many on social media this week are saying that his legacy boils down to one thing: his active role in Israel’s fifteen-month war on Gaza, which has been widely defined as a “genocide” by human rights organisations, international bodies and scholars. Biden’s last day as president, on 19 January, is also the first day of the planned Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal that was reportedly pushed to the finish…

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Hamas, Egypt and Qatar pushing for Marwan Barghouti’s release in ceasefire deal

Hamas, Egypt and Qatar pushing for Marwan Barghouti’s release in ceasefire deal

Middle East Eye reports: Egypt and Qatar, alongside Hamas, are using “all means available” to secure the release of Marwan Barghouti as part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement between the group and Israel, three sources informed on the negotiations have told Middle East Eye. The long-imprisoned Palestinian political leader is on a list “of around one hundred senior Palestinian prisoners” being discussed ahead of the second phase of the truce deal, a source close to the negotiations said. “Marwan alongside…

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A ceasefire won’t stop Israel’s genocidal agenda

A ceasefire won’t stop Israel’s genocidal agenda

Tariq Kenney-Shawa writes: Steven Witkoff, Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, reportedly didn’t bother with pleasantries when he informed the Israelis that he would be arriving to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Saturday. When told his visit coincided with Shabbat, meaning the prime minister would be unavailable until the evening, Witkoff made it clear that the Jewish holiday would not interfere with his schedule. Netanyahu, understanding the stakes, went to his office that afternoon to meet the envoy,…

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