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Category: War

A plan to liquidate northern Gaza is gaining steam

A plan to liquidate northern Gaza is gaining steam

Meron Rapoport reports: The date is October, November, or December 2024, or maybe early 2025. The Israeli military has just launched a new operation throughout northern Gaza — “Operation Order and Clean-up,” we’ll call it. The army orders the temporary evacuation of all Palestinian residents north of the Netzarim Corridor “for their personal safety,” explaining that “the IDF is expected to take significant action in Gaza City in the coming days, and wants to avoid harming civilians.” The order is…

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With world’s attention shifting, some in Gaza fear they will be forgotten

With world’s attention shifting, some in Gaza fear they will be forgotten

The New York Times reports: After nearly a year of war, fear marks everyday life for Palestinians in Gaza. There is fear of the Israeli warplanes that tear through the skies and carry out deadly airstrikes. There is fear of famine with only a trickle of aid coming in. There is fear of being displaced, yet again, by Israeli evacuation orders. And now, there is increasing fear of being forgotten. International attention has been diverted, first by deadly Israeli military…

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A broader Israel-Lebanon war now seems inevitable

A broader Israel-Lebanon war now seems inevitable

Ishaan Tharoor writes: On Wednesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the war against Hezbollah had entered a “new phase” and that Israel would be concentrating more of its efforts against the group. “The center of gravity is moving north. We are diverting forces, resources, and energy toward the north,” Gallant told Israeli Air Force personnel at an air base. By the next day, dozens of Israeli airstrikes hit alleged Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, the group’s leader Hasan Nasrallah…

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Uncommitted movement: Trump remains biggest threat, not Democrats

Uncommitted movement: Trump remains biggest threat, not Democrats

Middle East Eye reports: A group of Michigan-based Democratic voters who launched a historic nationwide primary ballot initiative to enact policy change on Gaza now say their best bet is to continue working through party channels. However, that’s not to say that White House officials or Democratic Party staff have heeded their calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an arms embargo on Israel, and a lifting of the 17-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip. In a virtual press conference…

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Biden’s arms transfers to Israel under internal investigation

Biden’s arms transfers to Israel under internal investigation

The Washington Post reports: Government watchdogs with jurisdiction over the State Department and Pentagon are preparing to publish the results of multiple investigations scrutinizing the Biden administration’s provision of U.S. weapons to Israel for its military campaign in Gaza, and “several” related inquiries are either underway or planned, their offices told The Washington Post. The forthcoming inspector general reports, which are not yet public, follow complaints from within the U.S. government that the export of billions of dollars in arms…

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The Gazan infants who never saw their first birthday

The Gazan infants who never saw their first birthday

Ibrahim Mohammad writes: On Sept. 16, Gaza’s Health Ministry released a 649-page document containing the personal information of 34,344 Palestinians killed by Israel’s onslaught on the enclave over the past 11 months. The seemingly endless list is incomplete: more than 41,000 Palestinians have been martyred since October 7, according to Health Ministry figures, but many of them have not yet been fully identified. Over 11,300 of the identified victims are children, and 710 of them were killed before they turned…

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Thousands injured in Lebanon in large-scale act of terrorism

Thousands injured in Lebanon in large-scale act of terrorism

The Washington Post reports: Thousands of people were injured across Lebanon on Tuesday when electronic pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah simultaneously exploded around 3:30 p.m., the group and Lebanese officials said, in what experts said may have been an unprecedented attack by Israel that possibly involved sabotaging the devices before they were delivered. “Each one who received a new pager, throw it away,” said a voice message that was circulated to Hezbollah members, according to one of the…

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‘Netanyahu wants open-ended war’: Palestinian journalist & fmr. Israeli negotiator on Gaza ceasefire

‘Netanyahu wants open-ended war’: Palestinian journalist & fmr. Israeli negotiator on Gaza ceasefire

  As Israeli forces launch repeated attacks on civilian areas in Gaza, expand their deadly incursion into the West Bank and threaten retaliation for strikes by Hezbollah and Houthis, we discuss ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas with Palestinian writer Amjad Iraqi and former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy. Despite apparent divisions among Israeli leadership over the terms of an acceptable deal — if such a deal even exists — all of the Israeli proposals are “united by an assumption…

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The assault on Gaza hasn’t put an end to Israel’s constitutional crisis

The assault on Gaza hasn’t put an end to Israel’s constitutional crisis

Gershom Gorenberg writes: When Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, the most bitter political conflict in the country’s history suddenly seemed to be on hold—as if an unseen finger had pushed a pause button with everyone’s mouths still open in a shout. “Judicial reform is not on the agenda,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at a press conference on October 28, referring to his government’s program to eviscerate the supreme court and give the executive unconstrained power. Major protest organizations…

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Israel’s war spreads to the West Bank

Israel’s war spreads to the West Bank

Mariam Barghouti reports: The sounds of explosions, bulldozers, military drones and heavy gunfire are a constant in Jenin, a Palestinian city in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has been under full military lockdown for nearly 10 days as Israel carries out a military offensive. “The siege on the camp first began outside, on the edges of the camp,” Shatha Sabbagh, 21, told New Lines, referring to the refugee camp built in the city in 1953 that is…

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The war crimes that the U.S. military buried

The war crimes that the U.S. military buried

Parker Yesko writes: War entails unspeakable violence, much of it entirely legal. And yet some violence is so abhorrent that it falls outside the bounds of law. When the perpetrators are U.S. service members, the American military is supposed to hold them to account. It is also supposed to keep records of wrongdoing in a systematic manner. But the military has failed to do so, leaving the public unable to determine whether the military brings its members to justice for…

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Biden’s ‘red line’ did nothing to prevent Israel from erasing Rafah

Biden’s ‘red line’ did nothing to prevent Israel from erasing Rafah

In March Reuters reported: Asked whether an Israeli invasion of Rafah would be a red line for him with Netanyahu, Biden said: “It is a red line but I’m never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there’s no red line (in which) I’m going to cut off all weapons so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them.” Biden's "red line" was literally erased by Israel https://t.co/mDJZuZxmJE — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) September 10,…

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Daniel Levy: In the Middle East the U.S. acts in its own interests, not the interests of peace

Daniel Levy: In the Middle East the U.S. acts in its own interests, not the interests of peace

  Public anger in Israel towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza has brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis on to the streets. But while Israelis push for a ceasefire deal that would bring captives in Gaza home, there has been noticeably little criticism of the war crimes being committed in Gaza. Richard Gizbert speaks with Daniel Levy, a former senior adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office and negotiator, who knows Israeli politics from the…

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Israeli negotiators said to believe chance of hostage deal ‘close to zero’

Israeli negotiators said to believe chance of hostage deal ‘close to zero’

The Times of Israel reports: The chances of a phased hostage-ceasefire agreement being achieved on the basis of Israel’s May proposal are “close to zero” and there is “very broad pessimism” among the Israeli negotiators, Channel 12 reported Sunday, citing unnamed sources in the Israeli security establishment. The US, which had indicated it was planning to present a new bridging proposal in the next two or three days, is now regarded as unlikely to do so, it added. The report…

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Under cover of war, Israel is demolishing home after home in Silwan

Under cover of war, Israel is demolishing home after home in Silwan

+972 Magazine reports: Younes Odeh and his 3-year-old grandson stand atop the remains of a house in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in the shadow of Jerusalem’s Old City. “This is where he slept,” Odeh says, pointing to a pile of broken drywall and crumbled concrete — all that’s left of his grandson’s bedroom. On Aug. 27, Israeli bulldozers tore apart the house belonging to Odeh’s son, also named Younes, which he built adjacent to his father’s home in 2015. The…

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Medhi Hasan: Trump isn’t anti-war. It’s time to debunk this dangerous myth

Medhi Hasan: Trump isn’t anti-war. It’s time to debunk this dangerous myth

  “Trump did try and start new wars, expanded old wars, increased drone strikes, and helped do a genocide in the Middle East.” Mehdi debunks the claim that Trump was an anti-war president. Trump almost started a new war in his first year in office, when he picked a fight with nuclear-armed North Korea. He called Kim Jong Un, “little rocket man”, called him “short and fat,” and threatened him with “fire and fury”. When it comes to drones, Trump…

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