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

Only defiance from Netanyahu and Hayya

You’re hearing defiance from Netanyahu, and it’s echoed by Israeli politicians across the political spectrum, even members of the opposition who are saying that the Israeli army will stay in Gaza for years and the fight will continue.

With Hayya also expressing defiance, this calls into question what is going to happen, especially with those captives still being held in Gaza.

After it was announced that Sinwar had been killed, people in Israel were saying that now perhaps there is a moment for the government to enter a ceasefire and engage in diplomacy and get the issue of captives back front and centre.

What we’ve heard from Netanyahu, but also from Hayya, it seems as though it’s just defiance. We’re not hearing a lot from either the Israeli government or from Hamas as to what is going to happen next with the mediation of a ceasefire or how they can engage in a negotiation that will yield a prisoner swap for those captives.

Israeli PM thrives on a state of ‘perpetual war’

Netanyahu has molded an image of himself politically as an “indispensable wartime leader”, former Israeli government adviser Daniel Levy says.

Levy told Al Jazeera the coalition that the Israeli prime minister has formed “thrives on the perpetual war-making on the Palestinian people, their displacement, the ethnic cleansing”. He said this means Netanyahu has to keep things going as they are.

“Ideologically, this aligns with the positions, not only of Israel over decades, but even more egregiously, of this government.”


Killing of Haniyeh, Sinwar ‘decapitation attempts that fading colonial powers use’

Helena Cobban, co-author of Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters, says Israel’s killings of Haniyeh and Sinwar “are the sort of decapitation attempts that fading colonial powers use”.

“Colonial powers try to delegitimise national liberation movements as ‘terrorists’, and in the name of ‘fighting terrorism’, they inflict horrible violence, like the French in Algeria or the French and US in Vietnam,” she said in a statement provided by the Washington, DC-based Institute for Public Accuracy.

“But Palestinian resistance to occupation is wider than any set of individuals, and Hamas is not just in Gaza. It is certainly more popular among Palestinians throughout the whole of West Asia than the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas.”


PLO mourns death of Sinwar

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has expressed its condolences on Sinwar’s death and called for unity among all Palestinian factions.

The PLO is an umbrella organisation made up of several political parties that say they represent Palestinians worldwide.

In a statement, the PLO’s Executive Committee accused Israel of committing “massacres and genocide” against Palestinians and called for all Palestinian factions to stand united, especially after the death of Sinwar.

It called for a united struggle against Israel for the “full reclaiming of our rights, including the right of return, the end of the occupation, and the establishment of our Palestinian state on all our occupied territories based on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its eternal capital”.

In a separate statement, Fatah, a secular political party founded by diaspora Palestinians after the 1948 Nakba, said Israel’s policy of “killing and terrorism will not succeed in breaking the will of our people to achieve their legitimate national rights to freedom and independence”.



Around the Network

Thousands rally in Sanaa to support Palestinians after Sinwar’s killing


Protesters, mainly Houthi supporters, stand near a billboard showing Yahya Sinwar as they show support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip


Houthis mourn Sinwar, say Palestinian cause ‘destined for victory’

A spokesman for the Houthis says the Yemeni group is mourning Sinwar after his killing in Gaza.

“My sincere condolences and great blessings to the Hamas movement and the dear Palestinian people for the great leader Yahya Sinwar receiving the medal of martyrdom,” Mohammed Abdulsalam wrote on X.

“Gaza and the Palestinian cause are destined for victory, no matter how great the sacrifices.”

As we reported earlier, thousands of people in Yemen’s Houthi-held capital, Sanaa, rallied today in a show of support for Palestinians.

Since November, the Houthis have carried out numerous attacks on Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in what they describe as a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed at least 42,500 people.



Rallies in Iraq against Israel’s war on Lebanon, Gaza


Iraqi activists carry a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Firdos Square in central Baghdad


Large demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine, Lebanon fill downtown Amman


Demonstrators carry flags and pictures of late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar during a protest in support of Lebanon and Gaza in Amman, Jordan, October 18



Reports of telecoms blackout as Israeli forces attack northern Gaza

Just in the last hours, there has been more information that the Israeli forces have cut off communication and internet networks to the northern part of Gaza, in particular in Jabalia.

This was a highly predictable step because the army has been obliterating everything in Jabalia – residential homes, key infrastructure and even the communication towers that provide Palestinians with internet connection and signals to communicate with each other.

This means that the military might now expand its operation in Jabalia. They have worked before in destroying residential homes and civilians there are reporting horrific aerial and ground attacks over the past 24 hours.

We know that since dawn today at least 20 Palestinians have been killed, including 11 only in the Jabalia refugee camp.


People run from shelling in Gaza’s Jabalia; house bulldozed with family inside

Videos posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera show heavy smoke enveloping a heavily damaged building in Jabalia in northern Gaza and chaotic scenes as people run for cover amid heavy Israeli shelling.

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic, meanwhile, report that Israeli bulldozers have demolished a house in the al-Faluja area, where a family of displaced Palestinians are living.

Medical crews were unable to reach the house to evacuate the family before the house was demolished while they were inside.

There are also reports of an ongoing telecoms blackout as Israeli military vehicles and a large number of soldiers advance towards the Jabalia refugee camp from several directions.


Six Palestinians killed in Gaza City, Jabalia: Report

The Palestinian news agency Wafa, quoting Palestine Red Crescent Society medics, reports that four Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli drone strike in the al-Nusra neighbourhood of Gaza City.

It also stated that two Palestinians have been killed near al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia. Earlier in the day, three Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.


Seven people wounded in Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya

Gaza’s Civil Defence says in a statement that the Israeli army has attacked a home belonging to the Salha family, wounding seven people. The people were rescued from under the rubble of the home, the Civil Defence said, but one person remains missing.


Israel has killed a least 39 people in Gaza today, mostly in Jabalia

Medical sources have given Al Jazeera an updated death toll for today, saying that at least 39 have been killed across the Strip by Israeli attacks, with 20 of that number being killed in Jabalia refugee camp.

Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza reported that it received the bodies of five additional dead and more than 40 wounded as a result of Israeli shelling of homes in the camp.



The wounded in Gaza ‘are dying without intervention’: Health Ministry official

Dr Marwan Al-Homs, the director of field hospitals in the Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Health, says the health system in the besieged enclave “is currently under destruction and annihilation.” “Our wounded and injured patients are unable to find treatment, and they are dying without any intervention,” he said.

Speaking at a press conference, he issued a “call for help” urging the international community to “save northern Gaza before it’s too late." He said that Israeli forces are destroying the northern Gaza governorate entirely and “committing massacres and acts of genocide against our people.”

“Hospitals cannot provide care due to the overwhelming number of casualties and the high death toll. Our hospitals have no capacity for injuries, intensive care units are filled with severe cases, and we are forced to work on a priority basis.”

“The neonatal units are overcrowded, with no space for any newborns or premature infants. Any patient requiring care is postponed, and some cesarean sections have been delayed until a bed becomes available for an infant in need.”

“Our wounded, injured, and sick individuals, as well as our medical staff, civil defence teams, and the Palestinian people, cannot find food; they have nothing to eat.”

He said that Israeli forces deliberately prevent the entry of fuel and that the amounts allowed in are insufficient to meet the needs of the people in Gaza.


Another tent fire death in Gaza

The funeral of 10-year-old Abdul Ruhman, who died from injuries in an Israeli strike that ignited a fire in a tent camp for the displaced next to the Al-Aqsa Hospital, has been held in Khan Younis.

His brother, Shaban al-Dalou, was burned alive while still attached to an IV drip for an injury from a previous attack.


UN expert on food: Israel is starving Gaza

UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri has spoken to reporters about his report that detailed Israel’s starvation campaign, affecting 2.3 million Palestinians.

He was asked about Israel’s claim that it is supplying enough food, over 1 million tons of food to Gazans. Here was his response:

  • Israel’s rules on what is allowed into Gaza are opaque and absurd. It’s a system designed to be confused, to make it very difficult for aid to enter.
  • Then if we look over the last year, whenever humanitarian aid actually makes it through, those convoys often are shot at and targeted by Israeli forces, even though those convoys are coordinating with the IDF.
  • And then, even if those convoys get past that, civilians seeking aid have been shot at several times. I’ll add even more, Israel has imposed a full siege against Gaza, and especially northern Gaza, at several moments.
  • So … even if it were true that Israel is allowing in a few more trucks today, that does not mean that they are not starving Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli strike kills at least 30 in Jabalia: Wafa

The Palestinian news agency says at least 30 were killed, including 20 children and women, and more than 50 others were wounded, when the Israeli army bombed the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza.


Israeli military strikes Maghazi refugee camp

At least two Palestinians have been killed and others injured in the Israeli strikes on the Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.


Death toll in Israeli attack on Jabalia rises to 33

Gaza’s civil defence says 33 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids on the Jabalia refugee camp. The government’s media office confirmed the number and said 21 of those killed were women.