Main events on October 20th
- US Vice President JD Vance is on Air Force Two heading to Israel where US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law adviser Jared Kushner held talks today with Israel’s leaders over the faltering Gaza ceasefire.
- Has has returned another body of an Israeli captive to Israel as per the truce deal, with Palestinian factions now releasing 20 living abductees and the remains of 13 others.
- The Israeli military launched an artillery attack on Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, the latest violation of the ceasefire currently in place across the Strip.
- Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians in Gaza for approaching the so-called “yellow line” ceasefire demarcation.
- Israeli warplanes launched three air strikes on southern Lebanon in the latest infraction of the truce with Hezbollah.
- The head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees called for an independent investigation into “blatant” Israeli breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza.
""I am pained by the parallels I observe between my experiences in Germany prior to 1939 and those suffered by Palestinians today. I cannot help but hear echoes of the Nazi mythos of ‘blood and soil’ in the rhetoric of settler fundamentalism which claims a sacred right to all the lands of biblical Judea and Samaria. The various forms of collective punishment visited upon the Palestinian people – coerced ghettoization behind a ‘security wall’; the bulldozing of homes and destruction of fields; the bombing of schools, mosques, and government buildings; an economic blockade that deprives people of the water, food, medicine, education and the basic necessities for dignified survival – force me to recall the deprivations and humiliations that I experienced in my youth.
This century-long process of oppression means unimaginable suffering for Palestinians.” Dr. Hajo Meyer - 2010 Meyer was a survivor of Auschwitz"
