Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

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Israel rejects UN expert’s genocide accusations

The Israeli mission in Geneva has rejected the UN expert’s accusation of genocide, labelling the allegations as “outrageous” and an “obscene inversion of reality”, according to the AFP news agency. The mission also described the report as “simply an extension of a campaign seeking to undermine the very establishment of the Jewish State”.

UNSC resolution makes it harder to free captives, says Israel’s Katz

The failure of the US to veto the recently passed UN Security Council resolution on Gaza makes it more difficult to free the Israeli captives held in the enclave, according to the country’s foreign minister.

Hamas is taking advantage of the lack of veto by Washington to avoid paying the price for a ceasefire, Israel Katz said in remarks quoted by Israel’s army radio.

The binding resolution, adopted on Monday, “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire” and the “immediate and unconditional release” of captives.

The US abstained from voting and let the resolution to be adopted. It had vetoed three previous resolutions that called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.

No continuing to bomb Gaza makes it harder to get the hostages out. Over 30 hostages have been killed already from the bombing campaigns and some from starvation and lack of medical care. What Katz means is, the UNSC resolution makes it harder to apply the Hannibal directive to the rest of the hostages.

Netanyahu’s government dragging country into disaster: Lapid

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid says Netanyahu’s government is dragging the country into an economic and social disaster. As before the October 7 disaster, the government ignores all the warnings of the professionals, he said in a post on X.

“I call on the ministers in the cabinet to oppose the law on military service exemption, otherwise this disaster will be on their conscience,” he added. The bill, favoured by Netanyahu, would increase the exemption age for ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews from military service to 35 – up from 26. It would also ensure that Haredi men who failed to enlist would not face criminal sanctions.

Israel is even an apartheid state for Jews.

Israel promises to press on with offensive

Israel has dismissed Hamas’s ceasefire demands as “delusional” after the group said it was sticking to its original proposal calling for Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a permanent ceasefire.

In a statement on Twitter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Hamas’s unwillingness to back away from its “extreme” demands shows that it is not serious about “continuing negotiations”.

Instead, Israel will continue its military offensive to achieve all its war objectives, the statement said, including securing the release of Israeli captives still in Gaza and fully dismantling Hamas.

‘We must enter Rafah now’: Israeli minister

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has said that the army should enter Rafah in southern Gaza even without the US support. “We must enter Rafah now,” he said, in remarks quoted by the Israeli Army Radio.

When he was reportedly asked if the action should be taken even if Washington does not back it, he said: “Clearly, I remind you that we went into several wars without the support of the Americans and the whole world.”

Defying international calls to halt its military operation, Israel has pledged to push into Rafah on the southern tip of Gaza, where more than half of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents have been sheltering after fleeing the Israeli assault farther north.