US Jewish group demands ‘end to Palestinian genocide’
The US-based Jewish Voice for Peace has demanded an arms embargo by the US government against Israel, comparing its war on Gaza to “the Nazi holocaust”.
“Many of us have parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who survived or perished in Nazi death marches and we have all grown up in the shadow of the Nazi holocaust. The state of Israel is currently perpetrating a holocaust, the deliberate mass slaughter of Palestinian people, with weapons provided by the United States,” the group said in a statement.
The images coming out of northern Gaza “are a terrifying echo of all-too-familiar images of European ghettos and Nazi concentration camps in the 2nd World War,” it added.
“Today we stand with our ancestors at our backs, in solidarity with our Palestinian siblings, demanding an immediate weapons embargo and an end to genocide — we will not act with indifference toward Palestinian suffering.”
Gaza ceasefire talks positive but ‘maximalist positions’ remain
PJ Crowley, a former US State Department spokesman, says the resumption of talks for a possible deal between Hamas and Israel is positive, but he downplayed “a breakthrough”.
“Anytime you have negotiators at various tables communicating through their respective channels, you know that is good news,” Crowley told Al Jazeera.
“However, let’s understand these are talks about talks. They’re discussions on how to resume formal ceasefire negotiations and that gives all the parties the opportunity to reiterate their maximalist positions,” Crowley said.
“And so I think while this will be a promising development, I think we’re still some time off from the prospect of a breakthrough.”
Hamas says no truce deal until Israel fully pulls out of Gaza
An Egyptian security delegation has met with a delegation of Hamas leaders in Cairo, part of efforts to resume the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV reports.
Hamas senior official Osama Hamdan told Lebanese pro-Iranian TV channel Al Mayadeen that there is no change in the group’s position. “The hostages held by the resistance will only return by stopping the aggression and completely withdrawing,” Hamdan said.
Previous attempts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and captive release deal have failed.
Ceasefire talks won’t halt Israel’s military actions in Gaza
Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project, says the expected resumption of ceasefire talks won’t be able to stop Israel’s yearlong assault on Gaza.
“The game plan – sadly declared openly and publicly by Israel’s leaders from the get-go – was an intensification and continuation of the displacement and the denial of Palestinian rights that has gone on for decades, but in a far more gruesome way,” Levy told Al Jazeera.
“We are at a new place in the north of Gaza where the intention is apparently to entirely de-populate that area using war crimes of starvation, of allowing disease to spread, even the prevention of polio could not be continued.”
Israeli authorities are implementing the “General’s Plan” aimed at starving, bombing, and forcibly extracting civilians out of the north of the Strip, he added.
“The Americans announce more aid, but they keep sending the weapons. They’re arming this military. They’re providing political cover,” Levy said.
