By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Politics Discussion - Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

SvennoJ 3 days ago

Israel’s Supreme Court rules ultra-Orthodox men must be drafted into military

The unanimous ruling by Israel’s highest court states that the military must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men for military service. The independent Movement for Quality Government in Israel, which filed the petition leading to the case, urged the government to immediately begin the draft process.

“We call on the government and the defense minister to implement the decision without delay, to comply with the High Court’s order, and to work immediately to draft [ultra-Orthodox] yeshiva students,” it said in a statement cited by The Times of Israel.

The court ruling states that, without a law distinguishing Jewish seminary students from other draftees, ultra-Orthodox citizens are subject to compulsory military service.

This marks a major break from longstanding arrangements, under which ultra-Orthodox men have been exempt from military service.

The exemptions, a source of growing public frustration during the Gaza war, have repeatedly been ruled unjust by the courts, but Israeli leaders, under pressure from ultra-Orthodox parties, have repeatedly kept the arrangement in place.

The Supreme Court ruling threatens Netanyahu’s government, which depends on support from two ultra-Orthodox parties who oppose increasing enlistment for their constituents.


Israeli opposition celebrates court ruling on ultra-Orthodox military service

Israeli opposition figures have welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling that ultra-Orthodox men must be drafted into the military. Yair Golan, who heads the Israeli Labour Party, praised the ruling as a “just” move that upholds the responsibilities of all citizens.

“The duty of military and civilian service must be applied to every Israeli regardless of race, religion and gender,” said Golan.

Avigdor Lieberman, of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, said it was time for the “historic” change to bring much-needed manpower to the army during the war on Gaza.

As we’ve been reporting, debate over ultra-Orthodox citizens’ military status has created fierce divisions in Israeli society and politics. Many feel that the ultra-Orthodox, traditionally exempt from service, have not pulled their fair weight at a time when more than 300,000 reservists have been called up for duty.


Recruiting Haredim ‘historic opportunity’ to share the burden: Israeli minister

Regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling that ultra-Orthodox men must be drafted into the military, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen says, “There is now a historic opportunity to increase equality in the burden and to recruit thousands of young men from the ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) sector.”

He said on X that recruiting the Haredim is “an essential move” for Israel’s security.


Yep, everyone in Israel must be part of one of the most criminal armies in the world



Around the Network
SvennoJ 3 days ago

Israel expected to prolong northern evacuations: Report

Israel’s Hayom newspaper reports that the government plans to keep residents of northern Israel evacuated through the summer.

Tens of thousands of Israelis, who have been relocated to hotels away from the north due to escalating cross-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah, are expected to remain there until the end of August, according to Israeli media.

The move comes as fears grow of potential all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel likely to widen conflict with Hezbollah in coming months

Israel is likely to escalate conflict with Hezbollah in August or September, potentially even launching a ground invasion into southern Lebanon, according to Omar Ashour, a professor of security and military studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

While Israel knows it cannot destroy Hezbollah, which is stronger militarily than Hamas, it will aim to “degrade” it as much as possible, perhaps even pushing it north of the Litani river, Ashour told Al Jazeera.

Compared with Hamas, he says, Hezbollah has:

  • At least three to four times more manpower.
  • More projectiles with a further reach, including 5,000-8,000 long-range rockets and missiles that can reach Tel Aviv.
  • Range of antitank missiles.
  • Some sea and air capabilities, as evidenced by its reconnaissance drones.

Israeli official says they prefer diplomacy to end Hezbollah conflict

Israel will spend the coming weeks trying to resolve the conflict with Hezbollah and would prefer a diplomatic solution, Israel’s national security adviser has said.

Tzachi Hanegbi said Israel had been discussing with US officials the possibility that an expected end of intense Israeli military operations in Gaza would allow an “arrangement” to be reached with the Lebanese group.

“We and the Americans believe and we will dedicate weeks now in an attempt to reach an arrangement,” Hanegbi said. “If there will not be an arrangement through diplomatic means, everyone understands that there must be an arrangement through other means. For now, we prefer to focus on the diplomatic campaign.”

Israel eyes use of Musk’s Starlink in event of war with Hezbollah: Report

Israel is looking to use Elon Musk’s Starlink to maintain internet connectivity should there be a potential all-out war with Lebanese Hezbollah on the northern border that causes power outages in Israel, the Calcalist financial daily reports.

The daily said that the finance and communications ministries were seeking to utilise Starlink’s 5,000 low-orbit satellites to ensure stable data and information flow for state authorities during emergencies.

Both ministries did not immediately comment to Reuters.

In February, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi gave permission to Starlink, the satellite unit of SpaceX, to operate in Israel and the Gaza Strip.



SvennoJ 2 days ago

Israeli shelling hits Khiam, southern Lebanon

A video posted on X shows smoke rising in the town of Khiam in southern Lebanon due to Israeli shelling.

According to the Lebanese news agency, Israeli warplanes carried out a raid on the town.

Canada urges citizens to leave Lebanon

Canada has reiterated a call for its citizens to leave Lebanon while they can, saying the security situation in the country was becoming increasingly volatile and unpredictable due to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

“My message to Canadians has been clear since the beginning of the crisis in the Middle East: it is not the time to travel to Lebanon. And for Canadians currently in Lebanon, it is time to leave, while commercial flights remain available,” Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement.

US seeking diplomatic agreement to prevent Israel-Hezbollah conflict: Pentagon chief

The United States is urgently working towards a diplomatic agreement that would allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return to their homes on both sides of the border, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has said, adding that a war between Hezbollah and Israel would be devastating.

“Hezbollah’s provocations threaten to drag the Israeli and Lebanese people into a war that they do not want. Such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon and it would be devastating for innocent Israeli and Lebanese civilians,” Austin said at the start of his meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon.

“Diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation. So we’re urgently seeking a diplomatic agreement that restores lasting calm to Israel’s northern border and enables civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of Israel-Lebanon border,” he added.

Stop supporting Netanyahu, drop your 'ironclad support'. As long as you keep giving Netanyahu what he wants he'll keep on pressing for an invasion of Lebanon.


SvennoJ 2 days ago

UN humanitarian worker describes suffering she witnessed in Gaza

Speaking to journalists in Geneva following a three-month stint in the besieged territory, Yasmina Guerda of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA described children who lost limbs in Israel’s attack on Nuseirat refugee camp earlier this month that killed at least 274 people and injured more than 700.

“Many of whom reminded me of my own two little toddlers. They were staring into the void, too shell-shocked to produce a sound or a tear,” she said.

For Guerda, there are no “living conditions” in the Gaza Strip. “What they have … are survival conditions, and barely. They are holding on by a thread.”

She said aid workers were trying to “quantify the suffering with figures”, looking at the total number of displaced people, the litres of water they get per day, or the truckloads of aid that make it across the border. “But it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Those numbers, they’re never near enough … [for] a population that has lost nearly everything.”

The fighting has displaced much of Gaza’s 2.4 million population – some multiple times – but with little hope of finding safety. “There are no safe centimetres left in Gaza,” Guerda said.


Doctors Without Borders condemn killing of colleague in Gaza City

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned the killing of their colleague Fadi al-Wadiya in an attack this morning in Gaza City.

“The attack killed Fadi, along with 5 other people including 3 children, while he was cycling to work, near the MSF clinic where he was providing care,” MSF said on X. Al-Wadiya was 33 years old, the group added, and is the sixth of its workers to be killed in Gaza since October 7, when the war in Gaza began.

“Killing a healthcare worker while on his way to provide vital medical care to wounded victims of the endless massacres across Gaza is beyond shocking; it’s cynical and abhorrent,” said Caroline Seguin, MSF’s operations manager for Palestine.

Red Crescent inspects damaged al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City

A video shared by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) shows one of its teams inspecting the PRCS-affiliated hospital “to assess the damage caused when occupation forces stormed the hospital, burning and destroying its contents over seven months ago”.

“The team is currently developing a comprehensive plan to utilise the remaining equipment and devices to reactivate the hospital and enable it to provide medical services to the injured and patients,” the PRCS said in a post on X.



SvennoJ 2 days ago
Err, isn't that exactly what Netanyahu wants... Yet little other choice than to get shot at and bombed while trying to help people.

UN tells Israel it will suspend aid operations across Gaza without improved safety

Senior United Nations officials have told Israel the organisation will suspend aid operations across Gaza unless urgent steps are taken to better protect humanitarian workers, two UN officials say.

Israeli attacks regularly target UN facilities. According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 445 attacks by the Israeli military damaging 188 different UN facility premises have been reported since the start of the war.

The Israeli military has also killed 193 UN staff since October 7.

A letter sent to senior Israeli officials this month said Israel must provide UN workers with direct communication with Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza, among other steps, the officials said.

They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations with Israeli officials. The UN officials say there has been no final decision on suspending operations across Gaza and that talks with Israelis were ongoing.

The UN World Food Programme has already suspended aid delivery from a US-built pier in Gaza over security concerns.

Children are dying of starvation in their parents’ arms as famine spreads through Gaza

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/25/middleeast/israel-gaza-children-starvation-malnutrition-intl/index.html

Younis lays disorientated on a green mattress in Nasser Hospital, in southern Gaza. His long brown eyelashes rest delicately on his pale sunken face, as he drifts in and out of sleep.

The 9-year-old Palestinian boy lies in his mother’s arms, clearly wasted from severe malnutrition and suffering from dehydration. His blue jogging bottoms hang off his emaciated legs, as his tiny ribcage protrudes from his billowy orange T-shirt.

“I call on people with conscience to help me find health care for my son, so that he can go back to normal,” his mother, Ghanima Juma’a, told CNN last week at the hospital in Khan Younis. “I am losing my son in front of my eyes.”

....

‘Waiting for them to die, one by one’

Newborn babies and pregnant women are among the most at risk of malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza, according to aid agencies and health workers. Undernourished mothers are more likely to give birth prematurely, with newborns dying because they weigh too little.

At the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, doctors were unable to keep baby Amal alive just four days after her birth.

CNN filmed the moments before her death, showing Amal drawing heavy breaths in an incubator, after her mother, Samaher, gave birth two months prematurely. Her tiny pink toes are covered in plastic tubes.

“These babies are dying. It is God’s decision, but it is caused by people,” her father, Ahmed Maqat, told CNN, after she died on Saturday. Samaher had endured months of her pregnancy without sleeping, eating or drinking, Maqat said.

“Everyone in these beds today is at risk of dying. We are waiting for them to die one by one,” he added, his voice quivering with grief. “We have no life.”

Dr Ahmed Kahlot, head of the incubators department at Kamal Adwan, told CNN that Samaher’s poor health meant her daughter was just “waiting for death.”

Many of those who do survive are too dehydrated and malnourished to breastfeed their children. But health workers told CNN there are few alternatives, with shortages of lactose free or soya milk for infants.

Another Palestinian in Kamal Adwan Hospital told CNN that her son, who suffers from an inflamed esophagus, is unable to access soya milk, which he needs in his condition. “He hardly sits,” she said of her 2-year-old child. “He cannot even crawl, cannot walk.”

Around 250 patients are receiving treatment for malnutrition at the hospital, and there are only two functioning stabilization centers for severely malnourished children in Gaza, OCHA reported earlier this month, endangering almost 3,000 children, who were receiving treatment for acute malnutrition in the south prior to the military escalation in Rafah.



Around the Network
SvennoJ 2 days ago

More Israeli apartheid in action

‘Only 12 hours of running water’ per week in East Jerusalem neighbourhood

Ir Amim, a Jerusalem-focused Israeli rights group, has said that Kfar Aqab residents are only receiving 12 hours of running water per week “in the middle of extreme heat … and there seems to be no concern from the Jerusalem municipality”.

Kfar Aqab is one of seven Palestinian neighbourhoods that are part of the Israeli-run Jerusalem municipality but located beyond the Israeli separation barrier.

“Its residents receive little to no municipal services, yet Palestinians are often pushed to move there in order to avoid home demolitions,” the group said.

“The Jerusalem municipality is responsible for meeting the basic needs of all its residents – Israelis and Palestinians – and it is neglecting the latter.”

Netanyahu announces huge land discounts for reservists

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says he will grant “unprecedented discounts” on land in the Negev and Galilee to Israeli military reservists to “strengthen the settlement in these areas”.

He said on X that reservists are now entitled to a discount of up to 91 percent on the price of land in “national priority areas”. For example, a lot that was worth 700,000 shekels ($187,000) will now only cost 72,800 NIS ($19,400) for eligible reservists, he said.

“This is great news for our reserve soldiers, the defenders of the country, who contribute greatly to its security. We want to make it easier for them and their families to settle in the Negev and the Galilee and strengthen the settlement in these areas,” Netanyahu wrote on X.

Negev (desert) is the South point of Israel, wedged between Egypt and Jordan. Galilee is in the North against the border with Lebanon. (West Bank is in between on the Eastern side of Israel)



Hamas leader says any agreement that excludes ceasefire is ‘not an agreement’

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh has issued a statement following the recent killing of his sister, saying any ceasefire proposal that does not guarantee an end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza is “not an agreement”.

“If the criminal enemy thinks targeting my family will change our position or that of the resistance, they are delusional,” the statement says.

“⁠The movement provided all possible flexibility, and agreed without hesitation to all the projects that were proposed, provided that the result would be a cessation of crimes, an end to the aggression, and a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.”

Haniyeh’s sister is among 10 people reported killed in an Israeli attack on Shati camp.

 

UN Palestinian envoy urges immediate cease-fire to undermine Netanyahu’s goals

“We are well aware of the objective of the conflicting messages from Israeli leaders, notably Netanyahu himself, suggesting this is all a scheme and that the assault will continue under any circumstances,” Riyad Mansour said at a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian issue.

“The aim is to sabotage the US initiative without taking the blame for it, to sabotage the efforts of Egypt and Qatar and the international community as a whole.”

Mansour said the best way to “frustrate” Netanyahu’s objectives was is by securing an “immediate cease-fire”.

“Achieve an immediate cease-fire now so as not to allow them to continue playing with the minds of so many of you. The best way to save human life is by achieving an immediate cease-fire,” he noted.



Israeli forces targeted five displacement camps in less than 48 hours: Civil defence

Israeli forces have deliberately targeted five displacement camps within less than 48 hours, Gaza’s Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal has told Al Jazeera.

  • Israeli forces deliberately target Civil Defence personnel while they are working.
  • Israeli forces are adopting a new policy of intensive targeting of residential homes.
  • There are more than 10,000 missing people still under the rubble.
  • We need advanced equipment to recover those missing under the rubble.

 

Leaked camera clips show Israeli forces attacking Palestinian woman

Al Jazeera has obtained leaked clips from a camera installed on a police dog showing it attacking an elderly Palestinian woman in her home in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.

The elderly Palestinian woman told Al Jazeera that she was attacked while she was sleeping in her home, and she was mauled and suffered fractures.

The video is too graphic to post here.



SvennoJ 2 days ago

U.S. State Department Pressed On Hind Rajab’s Killing For Four Months Straight

For four months, Prem Thakker of The Intercept has pressed the U.S. on the killing of Hind Rajab, her family, and the paramedics sent to save her. Over and over, the U.S. has said it is waiting for Israel to investigate itself. Independent investigation from Forensic Architecture finds it “not plausible” that Israeli forces did not see who they shot 335 bullets at.

https://theintercept.com/2024/06/25/israel-hind-rajab-child-killing/



US official Matthew Miller makes mockery of ceasefire to shield Israel



US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday made a mockery of ceasefire efforts in Gaza in his bid to shield Israel for its atrocities. For every excess committed by Israel, Miller told reporters that all these atrocities could stop of Hamas agreed to US-sponsored ceasefire.



SvennoJ 2 days ago

US envoy slams Israel’s West Bank policies during UN Security Council meeting

Linda Thomas-Greenfield has said that the United States is “deeply concerned about violence committed by extremist settlers in the West Bank – and we have sanctioned a number of extremist settlers and their organisations.”

“We will use the tools at our disposal to expose and promote accountability for those who threaten peace, security, and stability,” she said.

In her statement to the council, she also highlighted the high number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank and the need for Israel to release the tax revenue owed to the Palestinian Authority to prevent its collapse.

The US has long said that it sees the Palestinian Authority as Hamas’s successor, and wants it to take governmental control of the Gaza Strip once Israel’s war on the enclave ends.

What tools? Harsh words while sending more weapons? The PA is not trusted at all anymore, it can't be Hamas's successor in its current form.

Nothing but useless words, not backed by any meaningful actions. Not even looking into the illegal sale of Palestinian land in an LA synagogue.

https://ca.cair.com/losangeles/news/cair-la-condemns-events-promoting-real-estate-sale-of-occupied-palestinian-land-at-two-california-synagogues-calls-for-investigation-into-violence-at-los-angeles-event/

US major who resigned amid Gaza war says many feel dissatisfaction

Harrison Mann, the Jewish US service member who resigned from the US Defence Intelligence Agency in November 2023 over the US’s handling of the war in Gaza, has spoken to Al Jazeera.

According to Mann, he decided to resign after he lost confidence in the Defense Intelligence Agency, a combat support agency of the Department of Defense. The former US major said there were others who felt the same dissatisfaction that prompted him to resign, adding that the war in Gaza would not continue without US support for Israel.

Several other US military personnel have quit since the war in Gaza. In February, US airman Aaron Bushnell died after setting himself on fire in protest outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, DC.

Qatar reaffirms full support for UNRWA

Qatar’s representative to the UN, Hind Abdulrahman Al Muftah, told a meeting of the UNRWA advisory commission that his country will continue to support the organisation in the face of continued attacks on its credibility.

“UNRWA has been coming under numerous and gratuitous attacks and polemics that primarily aim to undermine the agency and end its operations in the pursuit of liquidating the issue of the Palestinian rights and their right to return back to their regions and homes under international law and relevant United Nations resolutions”, a statement from Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs read.

In late April, an independent review led by a former French foreign minister found that Israeli accusations against UNRWA, that its staff took part in Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, had not been supported by credible evidence. Based solely on the Israeli accusations, 18 donor countries, including UNRWA’s principal donor, the United States, suspended funding to the agency.



SvennoJ 2 days ago

Israeli military provides no proof that MSF staffer it killed was Palestinian fighter

The Israeli military has alleged, without providing any proof, that a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) staff member who was killed in a drone strike in Gaza City was a Palestinian fighter.

MSF has called the killing of their colleague “cynical and abhorrent”, saying the 33-year-old physiotherapist and father of three was on his way to work at a clinic when he was killed by the Israeli military.

Five other people, including three children, were also killed in the attack which took place near the MSF clinic where he worked, the medical aid group said.

Posting on X, Israel’s military said that Fadi Jihad Muhammad al-Wadiya, who was killed on Tuesday morning while riding his bicycle in Gaza City, was a “unique centre of knowledge” in “electronics and chemistry” for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. “[Al-Wadiya was] involved in the development and promotion of the organisation’s missile system,” the military wrote, offering no evidence to support their allegation.

Israeli strike buries family under slabs of concrete in Beit Lahiya



Rescue workers and neighbours try to reach survivors pinned under concrete slabs after an Israeli strike destroyed a home in Beit Lahiya on Tuesday. Children were among the victims of the Israeli attack on a home, which the Anadolu news agency reported belonged to the Abu Awad family.

The Wafa news agency reports that three people were killed and 12 injured in the strike.



SvennoJ 2 days ago

Israel still targeting UN shelters in Gaza, says human rights monitor

Israeli forces are demonstrating a “deliberate policy” of “denying stability” to displaced Palestinians by repeatedly bombing and setting fire to UN-run shelters in the Gaza Strip, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has said.

Euro-Med cited several recent attacks on UN schools and shelters as examples, including:

  • Israeli planes bombed the Abdel Fattah Hammoud school in central Gaza on June 25, killing eight people.
  • Israeli aircraft bombed the “Asmaa C” school in the Shati camp, also on June 25, killing seven people.
  • Israel bombed a school housing thousands of displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp on June 6, killing 40 people, including women and children.
  • Israeli forces set fire to shelters in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip last month.

“Targeting shelter centres flying the UN flag” shows Israeli forces are “refusing to take any precautions to prevent civilian deaths”, Euro-Med said.


Aftermath of an Israeli strike on a classroom in a UN shelter






Desperate search for clean water amid war and blistering heat





‘The suffering is unforgivable’

Footage shared online, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows dozens of Palestinians in Gaza’s Jabalia camp lining up with bowls before an aid distribution point.

One resident said they had waited three hours to get a “small amount of soup”, which they said would not be enough to feed the 15 people waiting at home.

“The suffering in northern Gaza is unforgivable,” said another resident queueing for food. “Since the 1948 war, there has been no such famine. If it were not for these simple [aid] projects, we would have lost our lives with hunger.”


Children line up to receive food in Jabalia camp, June 17

Last edited by SvennoJ - 2 days ago