Main events on July 10th
- United Nations officials rallied around Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has cast a sharp eye on abuses by Israeli forces in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory, after the administration of United States President Donald Trump placed sanctions on her for what it called “political and economic warfare” against Israel. Albanese slammed the sanctions as “obscene”.
- Doctors at the largest hospitals in Gaza have warned that Israel’s blockade of vital fuel supplies is pushing them to the brink, with more than 100 premature babies and 350 dialysis patients at risk amid severe shortages of fuel and electricity.
- Israel continues heavy strikes across Gaza, killing at least 82 Palestinians, including nine children waiting for humanitarian assistance, over the last 24 hours.
- The prospects of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remain elusive, with the Israeli prime minister insisting that Israel will continue to fight until the Palestinian armed group is totally destroyed and Hamas pushing for a definitive end to the fighting and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which Netanyahu has consistently refused to consider.
Israel doing ‘same song and dance’ on prospects of permanent end to war
Mohamed Elmasry, a professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says Netanyahu’s conditions for a permanent end to the war on Gaza highlight the fact that he does not really want to end the Israeli assault.
As we’ve been reporting, the Israeli prime minister has said Hamas must lay down its weapons and no longer have “governing or military capabilities” if Israel is to agree to end the fighting.
“What that means is he wants Hamas leaders to give up all of their arms and he wants them to go into exile. That’s obviously a nonstarter. That would end – effectively – Palestinian resistance, and that’s what the Israelis want,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera.
“They want to be able to do what they want to do with the Palestinians without any resistance, and I think it’s becoming clearer and clearer to everyone that that is the complete ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.”
Elmasry said Israel views its latest plan to force Palestinians into what UN officials say would amount to “concentration camps” in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as “the final stage of the genocide”.
“They’re going to push all of the Palestinians into a tiny corner of the Gaza Strip, [and] they’re going to agree to some kind of a temporary ceasefire, which would give them 60 days to buy time to lobby countries to take Palestinians in,” he said.
Israeli leaders looking to implement vision of ‘Greater Israel’
The vision of a “Greater Israel” – the push to expand Israeli control over territory beyond its borders – is “deeply rooted” and mainstream in Israeli society, says Mohamed Elmasry, a professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
That’s important to understand as Israel outlines its plan to push Palestinians into a small area in southern Gaza, he told Al Jazeera.
“I don’t think that the Israelis are necessarily concerned with what Palestinians are going to think or what may become of them. They want the land and they’re seeking to implement that vision,” Elmasry said.
“If it’s up to them, they’re going to make sure that Palestinians don’t attempt to go back to their homes or the environs of their homes in the north [of Gaza] once they get them into that little concentration zone in the south,” he added.
