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SvennoJ on 21 March 2025
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Main events on March 21st

  • The Israeli military has bombed and destroyed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in central Gaza, with Gaza’s Health Ministry decrying the attack on the cancer treatment facility as a “heinous crime”. The hospital was empty when destroyed by Israeli bombing.
  • The Israeli military confirmed a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza is under way and troops are pushing into the north near the town of Beit Lahiya and central areas.
  • Near to 600 Palestinians have been killed since Israel broke the Gaza ceasefire on Tuesday, medical authorities in the besieged enclave said, including at least 200 children.
  • The Israeli military shot down another missile fired from Yemen before it crossed into Israel, in the latest of several attacks carried out by the Houthis over recent days.
  • The Israeli army carried out more strikes on Syria, bombing two military bases in the country – which were identified as Tadmur and T4.
  • Columbia University has reportedly bowed to the Trump administration’s demands following widespread pro-Palestine protests on its New York City campus, according to a memo seen by the Reuters news agency.


Israel operating ‘under US cover’: Analyst

Caroline Rose, an analyst at the New Lines Institute, told Al Jazeera that Israel has been acting “under US cover” amid its renewed assault on Gaza.

“This decision to pivot away from phase one and the transition into phase two of the ceasefire agreement was green-lit by the White House,” Rose said. “But also now it seems that the White House is increasingly influenced by Netanyahu’s maximum pressure strategy and perspective in the Middle East.”

Rose added that there have been fewer calls from the Trump administration to engage in an agreement to release the remaining captives and to maintain the ceasefire agreement that Trump played a large role in brokering.

“Instead, it seems that the United States is allowing Netanyahu to really pivot away from that ceasefire agreement, add this new stipulation of a complete hostage return, in return for a rather ambiguous extension to phase one of the ceasefire agreement. Not necessarily the deal that the White House just a few weeks ago was campaigning for.”


Israelis deeply divided over Shin Bet chief dismissal, return to war

The Israeli Prime Minister cited mistrust between him and the head of his internal security agency, the Shin Bet, citing that as the reason for his dismissal.

Last night, the Israeli cabinet – the most right-wing government in Israel’s history – voted unanimously to remove him. However, the High Court of Justice issued an injunction today, and that means essentially blocking that decision, saying that this needs to come before an advisory committee, they need to hear both sides, they need to analyse what’s going on before any sort of decision like this can be made and before any replacement can be put in that position.

The attorney general after that sent a letter to Netanyahu saying that his government is not allowed to explore the idea of a replacement just yet. This has caused a lot of protests within Israel and it even prompted Netanyahu to speak earlier in the night saying that “there won’t be a civil war within Israel”.

Because you have a people who are divided, you have the right wing within Israel who wants to go back to war and wants to remove all the people at these top-level positions so they are replaced with confidantes of Netanyahu, and then you have the other part of the Israeli public and the Israeli opposition within the government, who say that Netanyahu is doing all of this for personal and political gain.