Brazil adopts free trade with Palestinian Authority in show of support

Brazil’s foreign ministry said the free trade agreement was “a concrete contribution to an economically viable Palestinian state, which can live peacefully and harmoniously with its neighbours”.

Palestinian ambassador in Brasilia, Ibrahim Al Zeben, told the Reuters news agency that Brazil’s decision was “courageous, supportive and timely” and an “effective way to support peace in Palestine.”

Israel has blocked exports from the Gaza Strip since early September last year, while the Palestinian economy in the occupied West Bank has also suffered under intense Israeli restrictions.

_{Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been a vocal support of Palestine}


A symbolic gesture as long as the genocide in Gaza and war on the West Bank continue. Not much trade can get in or out of the West Bank and Gaza's economy has been bombed to the ground. Even if the blockade was lifted today it would be years to build up Gaza's economy again.

A ceasefire seems to be out of reach again.

CNN remains hopeful, but is now also conceding that Netanyahu and his right wing ministers are the problem. It's some progress I guess, no longer repeating the 'blame Hamas' propaganda. Baby steps.

Developments in Gaza ceasefire talks raise hopes but challenges persist. Here’s what to know

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/08/middleeast/israel-hamas-ceasefire-hostage-deal-demands-explainer-mime-intl/index.html

Israeli and US officials showed optimism last week around a ceasefire-hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, as the Palestinian militant group expressed willingness to compromise on a key sticking point. But an agreement may still be elusive despite the new momentum.

....

A statement by the Israeli prime minister’s office on Sunday, however, cast doubt on whether the deal would progress, laying out several “principles” Israel is not prepared to abandon, including resumed fighting in Gaza “until all of objectives of the war have been achieved.”

....

The prime minister’s conditions block “any possibility of progress from the Israeli side,” Gershon Baskin, a former Israeli hostage negotiator who once acted as a channel to Hamas, told CNN, adding that the conditions were “completely against what Hamas’ demands are.”

“I don’t think that Hamas will give in to additional Israeli demands,” such as staying on the Philadelphi Corridor, Baskin said, referring to the 14-kilometer (about 8.7-mile) buffer zone on the Egypt-Gaza border. Hamas is also unlikely to agree to an Israeli demand of “a veto on the selection of Palestinian prisoners to be released.”

....

Baskin, the former negotiator, said that added US pressure is unlikely to sway the Israeli prime minister, who is battling for political survival amid anti-government protests demanding his resignation. Netanyahu is also bound by the demands of right-wing ministers in his coalition who are opposed to any compromise with Hamas.

US pressure is “strongly diminished now” after Biden’s debate against Trump, Baskin said. Biden’s weak debate performance only led more Democrats to express doubts that he can beat his opponent in the upcoming election.

“If the Americans are still optimistic (after Netanyahu’s Sunday statement), then they are really living in La La land,” Baskin told CNN. “They have really no idea what is going on in the mind of Netanyahu.”


Netanyahu is determined to hold out until Trump wins the elections. He has played Biden like a fiddle, stalling for time, undermining Biden at every twist and turn, throwing Biden under the bus with fake complaints about withholding weapons.

Trump helped Netanyahu back in power in 2019, now Netanyahu is helping Trump get back in power in 2024


https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-27/what-netanyahu-and-israelis-learned-from-the-trump-playbook

With the Abraham Accords I had a little hope the Middle East situation was on a road to peace at last. But that's pretty much in the drains now. I cannot see more ME nations joining it any more.

The Abraham Accords didn't really promote peace in the middle East, it was more an alliance / coalition building against Iran.

The accords were already treading water before Oct 7, very unpopular in the region
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/five-reasons-why-abraham-accords-are-ceding-ground-arab-iranian-de-escalation


This is the premise "We, the undersigned, recognize the importance of maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence, as well as respect for human dignity and freedom, including religious freedom."

Yet see how CBN reports on it, not hiding the real purpose of the Accords one bit.



An alliance with Israel (and US) against Iran. Then they use the Iran counter attack on Israel as validation for the Abraham accords. Of course no mention of why Iran made their well in advance telegraphed response that only ended up damaging the military airfield that was used to bomb their embassy...

Abraham accords were another one sided misdirection, strengthening the tensions in the Middle East rather than brokering peace.



China is working on establishing relations with Iran and Saudi-Arabia, trying to promote peace between actual divided sides in favor of trade.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/china-brokered-saudi-iran-deal-driving-wave-of-reconciliation-says-wang

https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/03/what-you-need-know-about-chinas-saudi-iran-deal

The Abraham accords were not a road to peace. Maybe China can do better bridging the fundamental gaps in the ME based on establishing trade relations between the divides.

Saudi-Arabia does still want to normalize relations with Israel, yet now it's based on ending the genocide first with a 2 state solution.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240522-saudi-arabia-wont-normalise-with-israel-without-political-horizon-for-palestinian-state-official-says/

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240707-saudi-arabia-calls-for-western-nations-to-sanction-israel-over-gaza-war-crimes/

Abraham accords are another failed Trump supported ploy that likely also contributed to Netanyahu's war on Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and even rattling Egypt by cutting them off from Gaza while some promote retaking the Sinai peninsula. Netanyahu relies on support from the US and the Arab states and has been trying to provoke a direct conflict with Iran multiple times, trying to get the US involved.

https://theintercept.com/2024/04/14/israel-iran-drag-us-war-netanyahu-biden/

At least Biden stopped that. His "ironclad support" only extends to the current genocide. No idea what Trump would do though...

In the end the ME will have to sort it out amongst themselves though. The US has only pitted nations against each other in the ME, all for oil access in trade for 'security'. You don't broker peace by banging on about an Axis of Evil. "On April 17, 2024, GOP U.S. speaker of the house Mike Johnson referred to China as part of "the axis of evil" that includes Iran, and Russia."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/axis-of-evil-speech-frum-bush/621397/

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2024-01-29/ty-article/.premium/israel-creating-a-new-axis-of-evil-endangers-its-peace-agreements/0000018d-523e-d7f7-a1cf-d27f82d80000

Bush' legacy still lives on, It's time for a change.

I hope Biden steps down quickly and the Democrats go full in behind Harris. She's not perfect, but better than Biden in every way. And the first elected female president in the US should mean something.

Kamala Harris says she has questions about Gaza food, water shortages

US Vice President Kamala Harris has said she has raised questions about food and water shortages in Gaza, in an interview where she appeared to distance herself from President Joe Biden, though said her comments were “not speaking of myself versus the president”.

“From the beginning, I asked questions. OK, the trucks are taking flour into Gaza. But here’s the thing… I like to cook. So I said to my team: You can’t make s*** with flour if you don’t have clean water. So what’s going on with that?,” Harris said in an interview with US publication The Nation, published on Monday.

“I ask questions like, What are people actually eating right now? I’m hearing stories about they’re eating animal feed, grass,” Harris added.

Harris has largely represented the official White House position of unflinching support for Israel, although she was one of the first senior US officials to use the word “ceasefire” while calling for a truce in Gaza.

Her latest comments come as Biden has been facing pressure to bow out of the 2024 election race, with Harris considered a frontrunner to replace him.

Israeli forces blocking aid for 64 days: Government Media Office

“The [Israeli] occupation’s prevention of the entry of aid threatens to increase the number of deaths from hunger, especially among children,” the office has said in a statement.

Aid trucks have been piling up at the Rafah crossing, at the southern border of Gaza, and the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, the two main entry points for aid in to the Strip.

A very limited amount of aid has entered Gaza since Israel began its ground offensive on Rafah, the territory’s southernmost city, two months ago.

UN experts say Gaza children dying in Israel’s ‘starvation campaign’

United Nations rights experts have accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that has resulted in the deaths of children in Gaza.

“We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” 10 independent United Nations experts said in a statement.

The UN has not officially declared a famine in the Gaza Strip. But the experts, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri, insisted there is no denying famine is under way.

“Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since October 7, the majority being children,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

The experts decried that the world had not done more to avert this disaster. “When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan al-Kafarneh died of hunger on February 24 and March 4 respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza,” they said.

“The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths.” “Inaction is complicity.”

Biden pledges to free remaining Israeli captives in meeting with freed captive

The US president met Liat Beinin Atzili, an Israeli American who was released by Hamas as part of a captive-Palestinian prisoner exchange deal in November, at the White House on Monday.

Biden said he promised Atzili he would continue to work to “secure the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas” as top US and Israeli officials were reportedly due in Doha to continue mediated truce talks on Tuesday.

Liat Beinin Atzili is a survivor.

It was my honor to welcome her to the White House this evening, hear firsthand about her resilience despite enduring the unthinkable, and promise her that my work isn't done until we secure the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas. pic.twitter.com/4fMneEkHzv

— President Biden (@POTUS) July 9, 2024

How about securing their survival first by stopping the bombing campaigns and getting food and water into Gaza.

New wave of Israeli displacement forces people to ‘flee under shelling’: UN

The latest Israeli order for the evacuation of central and western areas of Gaza City affects “tens of thousands of people”, while patients and staff were forced to flee three of Gaza’s hospitals in one week, the UN said.

Between Tuesday and Monday afternoon, 182 Palestinians were killed and 458 injured in Israeli attacks from air, land and sea on the Gaza Strip, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also reports in its latest situation update.

OCHA adds that assessments over the last 10 days at sites hosting new waves of displaced people found “critical levels of need across all sectors” and that nine out of every 10 people in Gaza are now estimated to be displaced.

“New waves of displacement are mostly affecting people who have already been displaced multiple times, only to find themselves forced to flee again under shelling,” the UN said.

_{People walk past rubble and damaged buildings in the Tuffah district east of Gaza City on July 8}

Overnight Israeli attacks leave dead and wounded across Gaza

As we have reported recently, three people have been killed and three injured in an Israeli attack on Gaza City’s Lababidi street in the Nasser neighbourhood. In other overnight attacks, several people were reported killed after an Israeli fighter jet attacked a house in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah region, Wafa reports.

Israeli artillery also attacked sites in the west of Rafah City as well as areas in the vicinity of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Wafa said. Casualties were also reported from an attack on a school sheltering displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.


At least 16 people killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza

Israel has killed at least 16 Palestinian civilians and injured dozens across Gaza, according to the Wafa news agency.

Seven people have been killed in an Israeli air attack on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, medical sources told Wafa. Six others were killed in a house on Jalaa Street near al-Ghafri Junction, in northern Gaza City. An infant was retrieved alive from under the rubble there. Three others were killed and three more injured in the Lababidi area of northern Gaza City.

A child and a number of injured people were rescued from a bombed house on the al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City.

The western areas of the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in southwestern Gaza City have been targeted by Israeli artillery shelling and gunfire from Apache helicopters.

Israeli air attack kills nine people including at least 5 children in central Gaza’s Bureij

At least five people have been killed and several injured in an Israeli air attack on the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

Local sources told the Wafa news agency that Israeli bombs targeted a gathering of civilians near the Abu Rasas roundabout in the camp.

We now know from witnesses that all of the dead are children who were playing in the street when the Israeli strike targeted the the camp. Video footage verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad showed the arrival of the dead and injured children at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

The footage documented the grim moments of fathers saying goodbye to their dead children.

Gaza media office: 17 killed in earlier strike on family home in Nuseirat

Earlier today, we reported on an Israeli army attack on the home of the Freih family in the central Gaza refugee camp of Nuseirat, which our correspondent said had killed seven people.

In a statement, the Gaza Government Media Office now says that 17 members of the family were killed in this attack, including 14 women and children. This attack brings the death toll from Israeli attacks on central Gaza refugee camps to 29 within the last few hours, the ministry added.

_{The aftermath of an Israeli strike on a Nuseirat home}

Gaza Health Ministry: At least 38,243 killed in Israel’s war on Gaza

The ministry has given its daily update on casualties in the Gaza Strip since Israel began its war on October 7, 2023, with at least 38,243 killed and 88,033 people wounded. Its statement also says that at least 50 people have been killed in the last 24 hours and 130 wounded, as Israel continues its bombing and ground operations across the Strip.

Israeli forces hit with ‘particularly lethal’ IEDs in Gaza City offensive: Monitors

The Israeli ground offensive in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood continues, with Israeli forces claiming that they eliminated Palestinian fighters firing surface-to-air and antitank missiles as they came under attack from mortar shells fired by Hamas and other groups.

In addition to Shujayea, evacuation orders have now been issued for Gaza City’s Sabra, Rimal, Tal al-Hawa, and Daraj neighbourhoods, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) report.

Palestinian fighters hit Israeli forces with at least five improvised explosive devices (IEDs) as they advanced into Tal al-Hawa on Monday, with two of the IEDs comprising “particularly lethal and advanced” explosively formed penetrators, the report said.

The US-based defence think tanks note that the latest raid by Israeli forces on Tal al-Hawa follows after the neighbourhood was “cleared” of Palestinian fighters in February.

The military also claimed that hundreds of houses have been rigged with explosive boobytraps throughout Rafah city in the south of Gaza, where fighting is ongoing

_{Israeli tanks next to destroyed buildings in the southern Gaza Strip on July 3}

Powerful explosion in Nur Shams during Israeli raid

A huge cloud of smoke has been seen rising in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the Tulkarem governorate of the occupied West Bank following an explosion. It came during an Israeli military raid in the area.

The Tulkarem Battalion, a local branch of al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), later said it detonated an IED on a vehicle used by Israeli forces storming the camp.

#شاهد | انفجار ضخم في مخيم نور شمس بطولكرم قبل قليل. pic.twitter.com/EXa5KVrZKk

— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) July 9, 2024

Archbishop of Canterbury condemns closure of al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for hospitals in Gaza to be protected under international humanitarian law, following the closure of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. “In the face of intense Israeli bombardment, this closure puts injured and sick people in even greater danger,” Archbishop Justin Welby wrote in a post on X.

Large amounts of Israeli drone fire occurred in the hospital’s immediate vicinity on Sunday evening, and a statement issued by the Diocese of Jerusalem said the Anglican-run facility had been “compelled to close by the Israeli army”.

“This was followed by an [Israeli military] announcement that the area had been declared a red zone and that everyone should immediately evacuate all the buildings including everyone in the hospital,” the statement said.

Hospitals must be protected under international humanitarian law.

I stand with my brother Archbishop Hosam Naoum in protesting the closure and evacuation of the Anglican-run Al Ahli hospital in Gaza in the strongest possible terms. And I condemn the attack on an ambulance en… pic.twitter.com/z4kZPX2huu

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) July 8, 2024

Al-Ahli Arab Hospital abandoned after Israeli evacuation order

_{The al-Ahli Arab Hospital after patients and staff left following an Israeli military evacuation order for parts of Gaza City, July 08}

The hospital is managed by the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and had set up a temporary ward in a church building to treat wounded Palestinians.

Scenes inside hospital wards and operating rooms indicate patients and staff left quickly, with signs the hospital was treating severe injuries moments beforehand evacuation.

Red Crescent says all of its medical facilities out of service in Gaza City

Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, has said Israel’s latest evacuation orders in Gaza City took all of the medical facilities affiliated with the medical charity out of service.

The directive displaced thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip’s largest city, prompting Hamas to warn of “catastrophic consequences”. The UN estimates at least nine out of 10 people in the Gaza Strip have been displaced at least once since October 7.

‘It felt like a computer game’, Israel soldiers describe unrestricted shooting in Gaza

Six Israeli soldiers have described a “shoot first, ask questions later” culture within the Israeli army in Gaza, according to an article published by Israel’s +972 magazine.

“It felt like a computer game,” one soldier identified only as A told the magazine, describing his experience working in an operations room. “Every once in a while, a building comes down… and the feeling is, ‘Wow, how crazy, what fun,'” he said.

Another soldier, identified by the initial M, described shooting as “very unrestricted” even when firing with “machine guns, tanks, and mortars”.

The soldiers interviewed included Yuval Green, a 26-year-old reserve from Jerusalem, who recently signed a letter from 41 reserve soldiers refusing to take part in the Rafah invasion, and five other soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity. Green was one of two of the soldiers who said unrestricted fire from fellow Israeli soldiers was the greatest danger they felt while in Gaza.

_{Israeli army vehicles in the southern Gaza Strip on July 3}

Israel faces shortage of 120mm tank shells: Report

Israel’s Defense Ministry and the army are concerned about the possibility of ammunition shortages after arms suppliers have stopped responding to their Israeli counterparts and others have refused to supply raw materials used to make ammunition. That’s according to the Israeli newspaper Calcalist.

The report said the army is facing a shortage of 120mm tank shells and some tanks stationed in Gaza were carrying less shells to preserve the supplies in the event of war in the north with Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group.

Footage, testimonies suggest Israeli tanks crushed Palestinians

Exclusive footage obtained by Al Jazeera and witness testimonies indicate that Israeli tanks ran over and crushed members of a Palestinian family in Gaza last month.

In the incident, which took place on June 28, Israeli armoured vehicles reportedly surrounded and shelled the family that was sheltering in a farm northwest of Rafah in south Gaza. Five people were unable to leave while the rest managed to escape.

When Israeli forces withdrew from the area, the family returned and found the remains of their loved ones who appeared to have been tortured and crushed by tanks.

Israeli gov’t to provide new documents on October 7 failures

The Israeli government will provide the country’s State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman with new documents related to security failures that led to the October 7 attack by Hamas, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority has said.

The decision comes after Englman criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to cooperate with his office’s investigation, the report said. Among the material requested, the report states, were documents related to the transfer of funds from Israel to Hamas.

Israel’s intelligence establishment has come under enormous scrutiny for security failures on October 7 when Hamas fighters launched an unprecedented assault on southern Israel killing more than 1,130 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 captives.

The investigation is seeking to find out why Israel’s military was so unprepared for an attack despite a reported warning a year before and why the military had diverted resources away from monitoring Gaza.

Protesters in Germany display images of Palestinian children killed in Gaza

Palestine solidarity protesters in the German city of Mainz pushed strollers displaying pictures of Palestinian children killed in Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.

Ten children lose a limb daily in Gaza

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini and the Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi have held a joint news conference in Amman.

Here are some of Lazzarini’s comments:

Israel’s Zikim beach to reopen for first time since October 7

Zikim Beach is set to reopen to the Israeli public for the first time since October 7, Israel’s Channel 13 reports.

Some Palestinian fighters entered Israel through the beach, which sits just 3km (1.8 miles) from the war-torn Gaza Strip, during the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, killing 19 people.

The beach incurred significant damage during the attack and Israeli authorities have carried out renovations, including building a bomb shelter. Some 20 Israeli soldiers will be permanently stationed at the beach when it reopens on August 1, according to Channel 13, and it will only be open during the day.

_{The barrier with northern Gaza, as seen from Zikim Beach in Israel}

You can watch the smoke plumes, of children getting blown to bits, rising over Gaza while enjoying a day at the beach. Sick nation.