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

SvennoJ on 10 August 2024

Trust in Israeli gov’t almost non-existent: Ex-Egyptian diplomat

Hussein Haridy, a former Egyptian assistant foreign minister, says he expects the deadly Israeli attack on the Gaza school earlier today to affect the talks that the mediating countries have proposed to take place on August 15 either in Cairo or Doha.

Speaking on a personal capacity, he told Al Jazeera that his “trust and confidence in the Israeli government is almost non-existent”, further noting that it was unclear what level of authority the delegation that Israel was planning to send to the negotiations would have.

“Is this delegation empowered to sign the deal proposed by the mediators, as their communique stated, or [is Israel] just sending a delegation to just listen to what the mediators have to say?” Haridy asked.


Netanyahu has shown ‘relentless insistence’ that war will continue

Former Israeli government adviser Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera that Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has shown “relentless insistence” that the war will continue whether there is a ceasefire deal or not.

He said that Netanyahu is “putting down conditions across many issues, whether it’s the refusal on where Israel would withdraw from” or where Palestinians can move in Gaza.

He said he has also been placing conditions on “what kind of Palestinian prisoners are often being held without trial” in Israeli military courts” and what the conditions on those releases will be”.

“I can literally fill a day with Israeli named and unnamed military officials and commentators telling us that Netanyahu does not want a deal and therefore the onus shifts to the country [the US] that has the leverage right now with Israel” Levy said.


Houthis say new ceasefire proposal ‘provides political cover’ for Israel

The political office of Houthis, or Ansar Allah, in Yemen condemned the “new Zionist massacre” on the school in the Daraj neighbourhood of northern Gaza.

It says in a statement that the new proposal by the US, Qatar and Egypt as mediators for Israel and Hamas to negotiate once again for a ceasefire agreement “provides the leaders of the Israeli enemy entity with political cover” for more military action across the region.

“We renew our covenant and loyalty with Palestine, its people and its resistance, that Yemen continues in its solidarity and popular support and in the military escalation,” the group’s political office said.



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SvennoJ on 10 August 2024

Five people injured by Israeli fire in occupied West Bank: PRCS

Four of the Palestinians, two of them children, were injured in Beit Furik, east of Nablus, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says. The PRCS said two teenagers, ages 14 and 16, and two men were hit by live fire as Israeli soldiers raided the town.

During the raid, Israeli forces used live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades on Palestinians.

A fifth Palestinian was also injured by Israeli live fire near the village of Rummanah, west of Jenin, the official news agency Wafa reported. The man from the town of Silat al-Harithiy near Jenin was shot in the left leg and taken to hospital, Wafa reported.


Settlers attack Palestinian vehicles in the occupied West Bank

Local Palestinian media platforms have published footage verified by Al Jazeera documenting the moment settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Some of the settlers appear to be masked as they appear to run over a small hill and ambush vehicles at a turn in the road. They then proceed to throw rocks and the vehicles before retreating.

Settlers also attacked agricultural land between two villages in the same area northeast of Ramallah Allah and started fires.


Israeli forces detain 40 in occupied West Bank

The overnight arrests took place throughout the occupied West Bank, according to the Commission for Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Among those detained were a woman, children and several former prisoners, the organisations said.

“Since the war began, Israeli forces have detained about 10,000 Palestinians. The detentions are systematic and have increased in an unprecedented way since October 7, not just in numbers but also in the mistreatment exercised against the detainees,” they added.



SvennoJ on 10 August 2024

Israeli attacks on Nuseirat kills 10 of a family

Earlier today, 10 members of the same family were among Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack on Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Israeli bombs wiped out an entire residential building and killed displaced people sheltering in tents nearby. Survivors say no warnings were given. Doaa Abu Hamada was one of those who survived the air strike. But her only child did not. Her daughter was killed alongside nine other members of her family.

“We were sleeping, crammed inside the tent. All of a sudden, it all seemed like Doom’s Day,” Abu Hamada said. “My husband, daughter and sister-in-law were killed. All my family were killed. All of them. I am left with no one, with nothing.

“We woke up to an earthquake, to hear screams and I saw bodies everywhere. I do not know why the Israelis are doing this to us? They were innocent children sleeping in peace.”

Israeli bombs wiped out an entire residential building and killed displaced people sheltering in tents nearby.

Outside a hospital morgue, a father mourned two of his children killed in the attack. He and his family had fled Gaza City in the hope of surviving this war. “We woke up to a loud explosion and found ourselves buried under the debris,” he said.

“My son told me his brother, sister and mother had been killed. Zeina was the youngest. She was still breathing when I took her to the hospital. She asked how I was and then told me she was feeling cold. She had shrapnel in her stomach. Doctors tried to save her but she died this morning.”



Qassam Brigades reports close quarters fighting with Israeli forces in Rafah

The armed wing of Hamas reports that its fighters continue to engage in “zero distance” fighting with Israeli forces that are trying to expand a ground invasion in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood west of Rafah in southern Gaza.

Qassam Brigades said its fighters hit Israeli forces “that had fortified inside the Indonesian Hospital” in the neighbourhood with anti-fortification and antipersonnel shells and inflicting casualties.

It reports another attack on the so-called Netzarim Corridor using rockets, and said several rockets were fired at Israeli forces gathered east of Khan Younis.

Qassam Brigades claims an attack on a D9 Israeli military bulldozer using a Yassin-105 anti-armour shell east of Rafah as well.

The group also released a video that showed how it spotted two Israeli soldiers inside a building in Tal as-Sultan before blowing up two explosive shells that were hidden inside the building.



SvennoJ on 10 August 2024

Hezbollah launches rocket, drone attack on Israel

Hezbollah has fired multiple rockets and drones at Israel, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel’s Galilee. Some of the projectiles made it through Israeli air defences and made impact, but no casualties have been reported so far.

The armed Lebanese group has claimed eight attacks on Israeli positions so far, including rocket attacks on Eilon, along with occupied territories in Shebaa Farms and Kfarchouba hills.


Hezbollah confirms ‘squadrons of attack drones’ used on northern Israel

A short while ago, we reported that Hezbollah fired multiple rockets and drones at Israel. The Lebanese group now says the attack drones were in response to the assassination of a Hamas official in the coastal city of Sidon on Friday.

It said it hit the Michve Alon air base, adding that the drones inflicted “confirmed casualties”.



SvennoJ on 11 August 2024

Israeli forces raid several towns across occupied West Bank

Here are some of the latest developments from occupied West Bank:

  • Israeli soldiers raided the village of Qusra, south of Nablus. Israeli forces shot live ammunition, stun grenades and tear gas at mostly young men, Wafa news agency reported.
  • Soldiers also raided the towns of Kufr al-Lubad and Ramin, east of Tulkarem.
  • In Sa’ir, near Hebron, Israeli forces hurled tear gas at civilians, some of whom had to be attended to by paramedics in ambulances nearby.


Israeli forces assault, detain man in Hebron

The Wafa news agency has reported that Israeli forces severely assaulted and detained the Palestinian man in the West Bank city of Hebron and said the reason for his arrest was currently unclear.

Israeli raids have also been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, including in:

  • The villages of Rummana and Zabuba, west of Jenin, where violent clashes have been reported between Israeli forces and Palestinians
  • The town of Az-Zawiya, west of Salfit
  • The village of Nabi Saleh, northwest of Ramallah

Palestinian security forces have also re-arrested a man who was previously in Israeli custody in the village of Madama, south of Nablus.


Israeli forces shoot Palestinian man during clashes in Nablus

Israeli troops shot a man in the leg during a raid on al-Ein camp in the city of Nablus, according to local media reports. The severity of the man’s condition is not currently known.

The reports also said Palestinian resistance fighters targeted an Israeli vehicle with an explosive device during intense clashes in the camp. Israeli forces have also carried out arrests in the occupied West Bank.

Those who have been detained include:

  • A Palestinian journalist and a freed prisoner in the town of Silat al-Harithiya, west of Jenin
  • A man in the town of Kafr Dhan, west of Jenin, to pressure his brother to surrender




Fighting continues in Rafah as Israel attacks Deir el-Balah, Bureij

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting fierce clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in Rafah as Israel’s military also launched artillery attacks on the southern city.

The Palestinian al-Aqsa channel meanwhile reported Israeli quadcopter attacks in central Deir el-Balah, as well as artillery and air attacks on the nearby Bureij refugee camp and the town of al-Qarara near southern Khan Younis.

The channel said a Palestinian girl was wounded in the quadcopter attack. It also reported that Israeli gunboats shelled the coast of Gaza City in the north of the enclave.



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SvennoJ on 11 August 2024

Civilians continue to bear brunt of this conflict: UN expert

The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process has said that civilians in Gaza are experiencing “horror, displacement and endless suffering”.

“The cost in lives of this war is evident with every passing day as we have witnessed yet another devastating strike on a school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians, with dozens of fatalities,” he said in a post on X.

Translation: Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed by the occupation in the massacre of the al-Tabin School in Gaza City.


Israel’s claims about the massacre are false: Hamas

The group has issued a statement saying that Israel’s allegations about the presence of fighters in al-Tabin school are “false and baseless”.

“We confirm that those who were killed in today’s massacre did not include a single gunman, and they were all civilians who were targeted while performing the dawn prayer,” Hamas said.

It added that those killed included children, civil servants, university professors and clergy.

“The al-Daraj neighbourhood massacre is one of thousands committed by the occupation in Gaza that deliberately target defenseless civilians”.


Israel says ‘high probability’ a PIJ commander was in bombed school

The Israeli military is doubling down on its claims of directing only a “precision” strike at the al-Tabin school in Gaza City to target senior Palestinian fighters despite international criticism of its killing of dozens of civilians.

In an English-language video message, military spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed that “there is a high probability” that Ashraf Juda, the commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Central Camps Brigade, was at the school compound.

He added that there were approximately two dozen fighters at the site, 19 of whom were killed.

Hagari claims that “no women and children were present” in the area that was targeted by three bombs.

Officials in Gaza said women, children and the elderly are reported to be among the more than 100 killed and the toll was expected to rise. The attack took place while people were performing morning prayers and triggered a fire that ripped through the building.

Well that last part has already been proven false as well as a bunch of the 19 the IDF claims were fighters.



SvennoJ on 11 August 2024

‘Too many’ civilians killed in Israeli school strike, says Harris

Speaking to reporters during a campaign stop in Phoenix, US presidential nominee Kamala Harris has reiterated calls for a “hostage deal and a ceasefire” in Gaza.

When asked for her reaction to Israel’s attack on a school compound in Gaza City, which has killed more than 100 people, the US vice president said, “Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed.”

At least “11 children and six women” are confirmed as being among the dead, according to Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal.

Israel has claimed, without providing evidence, that it killed 19 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters in Saturday’s attack, and that the death toll has been inflated.

I dare any reporter to ask here what an acceptable number of dead civilians is... Is up to 30 (August 4th Nassan and Hassan Salameh schools massacre) an acceptable number to the US? Or is that just too common now to be concerned about.

Israel, too, recognises its attack on Gaza school is a war crime

Kenneth Roth, a visiting professor at Princeton University, said Harris – the US vice president – did not “quite state international law correctly” when she emphasised Israel’s right to go after Hamas fighters in her response to the Israeli military’s latest deadly attack on a Gaza school.

“She’s partly right in that Israel has a presumptive right to attack Hamas fighters,” Roth said from New York, “but it is supposed to refrain from an attack if the foreseeable civilian harm will be disproportionate”.

“She said, ‘Oh too many civilian casualties’, but she doesn’t put two and two together. She doesn’t explain that it is wrong, it is a war crime to attack Hamas fighters in a way that is endangering so many civilians,” he said.

Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch, added that he believes Israel, too, knows the attack “went wrong because they’ve now claimed to have killed 19 fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad”.

“Those 19 fighters were again presumptively legitimate military targets but not if many, many civilians also died. And when Israel received reports that 80, maybe 100, civilians were killed, they suddenly said, ‘Oh no, no, that was too many, our precision weapons wouldn’t have caused that many’ – as if to admit that if the number is that large this was a disproportionate attack.

“So this leads me to believe that even Israel recognises that this was a war crime. They’re just trying to cover it up and pretend it didn’t happen.”


Canada’s development minister condemns Israeli school attack

Canada’s Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen has condemned Israel’s latest attack on a Gaza City school.

“International humanitarian law must be upheld to protect civilians,” he wrote in a post on X. “An immediate ceasefire and the release of hostages is desperately needed.”



Get sanctions through then... But he's just a lone voice in a government full of genocide enablers.



SvennoJ on 11 August 2024

Israeli military confirms ‘damage’ after Hezbollah drone attacks

The Israeli military confirms in a statement that almost all of the explosive-laden drones launched earlier by Hezbollah punched through its defence systems but inflicted no casualties.

One of the unspecified number of drones was intercepted, while others impacted areas in northern Israel causing damage, it said without elaborating.

The Israeli military also released aerial footage to report a series of air raids across southern Lebanon today, purportedly to hit Hezbollah structures and operatives.

Aita al-Shaab, Khiam and Bilda along the border were some of the areas targeted by the Israeli military.

Translation: Scenes documenting drones in the skies of northern Israel.


Hezbollah says second drone swarm targeted Israeli soldiers

The armed Lebanese group says it launched two “squadrons of attack drones” on northern Israel earlier today, with the second targeting a gathering of Israeli soldiers “in the vicinity of the Birkat Risha site” and achieving a hit.

The first batch of the drones had targeted the Michve Alon military base.

Hezbollah has claimed a total of 10 attacks today, with earlier strikes also using a barrage of rockets and a guided missile.


Several US, coalition personnel injured in Syria drone attack: Report

Several American and coalition personnel suffered minor injuries, including smoke inhalation, during a drone attack in northeastern Syria on Friday, a US official told the Reuters news agency.

Still, some personnel are being examined for traumatic brain injuries, the official said.

We previously reported that a drone attacked US troops at the Rumalyn Landing Zone in Syria. No group has claimed responsibility but Iran-backed armed groups have carried out similar attacks in Syria and Iraq in recent months. This includes Monday’s rocket attack on the Ain al-Assad airbase in western Iraq that wounded at least seven US personnel.



SvennoJ on 11 August 2024

Israelis rally against Netanyahu’s gov’t, call for deal to release captives

Hundreds of Israeli protesters have gathered in Tel Aviv demanding a deal to release all captives held in Gaza, and against Netanyahu’s government.

Many waved the Israeli flag and chanted as they called for a Hamas-Israel deal to be finalised.

Protesters criticised the government’s handling of the war in Gaza and the increasing tension with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Egypt, the US and Qatar have scheduled a new round of ceasefire negotiations for August 15, as fears grow of a broader conflict involving Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.


Demonstrators hold smoke flares during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Tel Aviv, Israel, August 10

Jordan says it will not be a battlefield

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said that the country would not be a battlefield for any party, adding that Jordan will not allow the violation of its airspace.

Safadi’s comments come at a time when Iran and Hezbollah are expected to retaliate for the assassinations of two leading figures: Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran, and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in the Lebanese capital Beirut.


Demonstrators in Jordan condemn deadly Israeli air attacks on Gaza school

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have once more protested in Jordan after the Israeli military attack on the al-Tabin school which killed about 100 Palestinians.

Translation: Demonstration in the Jordanian capital Amman in support of Gaza and condemnation of the massacre of worshippers.



SvennoJ on 11 August 2024

‘Arms embargo now’, says Uncommitted Movement after Harris speech

The Uncommitted Movement in the US that has been refusing to vote to show displeasure with Washington’s handling of the war on Gaza believes an arms embargo is the only way to show support for Palestinian civilians.

“Being pro-ceasefire must mean committing to not send another bomb dropped on Palestinians in Gaza,” the movement said in a post on X.

This comes after Kamala Harris told pro-Palestinian demonstrators in a rally speech that “now is the time” to achieve a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement amid the latest US push, as the administration prepares to send more funds to Israel to purchase weapons.

Israel will never ‘negotiate in good faith’

The Palestine mission to the UN wrote in a letter to the Security Council that the Israeli military has committed “another massacre of displaced civilians” following the attack on a school in Gaza.

“The Security Council cannot remain paralysed waiting for Israel to suddenly decide to respect international law when it is loudly telling and showing the world that it does not respect the Charter,” reads the letter.

Ambassador Riyad Mansour wrote that by now it should be clear that “Israel does not want a ceasefire and will never negotiate in good faith”.

“Stop this Israeli genocide on the Palestinian people. Stop this illegal, immoral, criminal occupation and its savage attempts to exterminate our people.”

Israel’s finance minister hits back at White House criticism

Bezalel Smotrich has responded to the White House’s criticism of his opposition to a ceasefire deal.

In a post on X, the far-right minister wrote: “I respect the US position and thank them for their support of Israel against regional threats, but I expect them to respect Israeli democracy.

“Just as the US would reject international pressure to reach a surrender agreement with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, Israel will not yield to external pressure that compromises its security. A surrender agreement with Sinwar that abandons most hostages to death, releases mass murderers, allows the return of terrorists to the north of the Gaza Strip, abandons the border and allows Hamas to smuggle weapons and restore its strength in order to return and attack Israel, is bad for Israel and endangers its security. And we will oppose it with all our strength. No amount of criticism or attacks will distract me from this goal.”

The statement came after the White House issued a rare rebuke of Smotrich on Friday for levelling “ridiculous charges” against a US-led ceasefire proposal and calling his arguments against the deal “dead wrong”.