Israeli settlers storm Gaza security fence

A group of Israeli settlers have breached the Israeli military’s security barrier around the Gaza Strip in recent hours.

Footage from the incident shows the settlers running and waving Israeli flags as they enter an Israeli military buffer zone, where soldiers block them from reaching further into the Palestinian territory and tell them to leave.

The reason for the settler incursion is unclear but its comes after a conference was held this week on in which Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for Gaza to be emptied of Palestinians, and said it was possible for Israelis to take and settle the territory.

I found a documentary from 2008 about smuggler tunnels in Gaza. Child labor to smuggle 'luxury' goods over to make some money. Also weapon smuggling no doubt.

Inside the Gaza Tunnels: Children digging for Hamas? | 2008 | ENDEVR Documentary



Most of Hamas' weapons are smuggled into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt. These tunnels are at the heart of the conflict with Israel.

Children usually dig these tunnels, aware they are in constant danger. Every night, 14-year-old Said scrambles down a narrow shaft leading to a tunnel. He'll spend the next eight hours digging without a break. It's claustrophobic, difficult work. The heat in the tunnel is unbearable and the more they advance, the harder it becomes to breathe. At any moment, the tunnel could come crashing down, burying them alive.

That's not the only danger. "Sometimes the Egyptians shoot gas into the tunnel that might kill us", states Ramdan. "There are risks of electric shocks and the Israelis might bomb the entrance". Since Hamas seized control of Gaza, the borders have been closed. The tunnels are the only way to import goods into the territory. "They're a gold mine!" states Said. But to his disgust, most of the profits go to other people. "We do all the work, then they swindle us", he complains. Once the tunnel is nearly ready, "other people will open it, do the trafficking and make more money than us". The money he does make will enable Said to support his entire family. But every time he goes into the tunnel, he knows: "You are digging your own grave".


The IDF left Gaza in 2005, but the siege never lifted. Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza in 2007 after Hamas was elected in power. (Supported by Netanyahu to drive a wedge between Fatah's control of the West Bank and Gaza)


Later on in the documentary they also talk about the Philadelphi line, basically cutting part of Rafah of that it's still in Egypt today.

What the Rafah border looked like in 2008


High school children digging tunnels to their friend's houses across the border to smuggle goods to make money for their family as there was/is little work in Gaza. They show how they used Google Earth to plot their routes.

Hamas of course knew about all this, profited of this and also used the tunnels to smuggle weapons.



These tunnels have since been destroyed by Egypt

Egypt has destroyed more than 2,000 Gaza tunnels, secret files reveal
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-army-leak-destruction-gaza-tunnels-rafah

2013 Egypt destroys smuggling tunnels on Gaza border
https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-destroys-smuggling-tunnels-on-gaza-border/

2015 As Egypt Floods Gaza Tunnels, Smugglers Fear an End to Their Trade
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/world/middleeast/as-egypt-floods-gaza-tunnels-smugglers-fear-an-end-to-their-trade.html

Floods and bombs: This is how Egypt handled Hamas' smuggling tunnels
https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/10/22/floods-and-bombs-this-is-how-egypt-handled-hamas-smuggling-tunnels/

The IDF dug up some of the old tunnel entrances in Rafah trying to insinuate smuggling was still going on. I wouldn't rule it out, where there's money to be made, people find a way. But there's no recent information about smuggling or children digging tunnels.

Contrast the lives of those children to the indoctrination in this video.
(Also where the link came from for the Rafah tunnels)

Israelism - A never-ending war for the Holy Land? | Israel Palestine War | ENDEVR Documentary



Two young American Jews – Simone Zimmerman and Eitan – are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military. Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield:’ America’s college campuses.

When they witness Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken. They join the movement of young American Jews battling the old guard over Israel’s centrality in American Judaism, and demanding freedom for the Palestinian people. Their stories reveal a generational divide in the American Jewish community as more young Jews question the narratives their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers fed them as children.

Indoctrination already starts in kindergarten. Israel and Zionism are taught to be equivalent to Judaism.

On trips to Israel kids get enrolled in youth programs getting introduced and used to being part of the IDF. Including handling and firing assault rifles.



Advocating for Israel and working with Aipac is stimulated in high school, continues in University. The us against them, us or them mentality is drilled in along the way. "Everyone is out to get you, you have to defend Israel".

I have a lot of personal stories there a couple students who said yeah I'm thinking about joining uh the IDF one day so my first thing is saying them are you sure because uh it's not an easy it's not an easy decision that being said it would probably end up being the most meaningful experience that you ever go through. You're going to tell your kids stories about it.

One of our former young emissaries just graduated into the air force I mean that's the greatest gift you can give you know and and we actually have had quite a few of our former students join the IDF amazing. I mean just amazing it's these are kids these are 18 19y old it's like something I've dreamed about doing since I was 7 years old.

You have like, you find your sense of purpose. All my friends are so proud of me and they understand that this is something that like I have to do almost 10% of my graduating class at my Jewish High School joined the Israeli Army and I had many friends from my summer camp and youth group who join the Army as well part of becoming part of Israeli Society is to join the military when I was in high school just join the Israeli military and make aah and live in Israel.


Then the documentary reveals the IDF practices in the West Bank, becoming part of the oppression. And that's really the first time Palestinians are mentioned at all. They're just Arabs that want to kill us.



This occupation I grew up in Bethlehem in Palestine. To be honest I do have my days where I wake up and look in the mirror and ask what is going on and and what can I even do today to change anything in the situation. I remember from the youngest age growing up with my parents always warning me always telling me not to go out not to go on the street not to play on the street because of the soldiers and the settlers of course.

Your first experience with a soldier is terrorizing you know. Especially because they would invade your house or your family's house late at night like after they love to work after midnight. My first experience with with soldiers as a child was an experience that put fear in me. An American Jewish Soldier talking to my father and yelling at him and shouting at him which of course as a child you feel very ashamed and insulted.

And then my father because ironically we are American citizens as well turned to him in an American accent and asked him where he was from. And then the soldier was almost like shocked by this by this question uh because for his mind you know he wants to say Israel and Jewish people but he's talking to an American now and he told him like from Chicago.

And just this this reality that like even as a child I remember this this this American soldier who just moved here to be part of an army to play Cowboys and Indians somebody who comes here from New York or from Chicago and claiming that this land is theirs. What makes like an 18 years old American kid who was given 10 days trip for free in Palestine what made them want to come in and sacrifice his life why would the Foreigner think it's okay to have Superior rights to the rights of the indigenous population because somebody told them it's home. This is our Land. This Is Ours.

How Israel won the West

The documentary examines how Israel has come to occupy such a privileged and protected place in the West.

It traces the journey of Jewish people from biblical stories of origin through centuries of persecution and the advent of Zionism. And it comes all the way to the creation of Israel and its ensuing occupation of the Palestinian territory.

The Big Picture: How Israel Won the West examines how Israel has come to occupy such a privileged and protected place in the Western world. It traces the journey of the Jewish people from biblical stories of origin through centuries of persecution and the advent of Zionism, all the way to the creation of Israel and its ensuing occupation of the Palestinian territory. Along the way, what is revealed is a process of transformation, of how Jews went from being despised by early Christians as "Christ killers" – seeding a vile anti-Judaism that would mutate into anti-Semitism – to being considered part of the white Western world, sharing a common Judeo-Christian heritage.

The film lays bare the alignment of Zionism with "Western civilisation", deliberately putting it in opposition to the people of the east – Arabs, Muslims. This would lay the foundations for an Israel where Arab Jews would be marginalised and European Ashkenazi Jews would dominate and go on to become the bedrock of support for right-wing governments and ultra-right nationalists.

What becomes apparent is the century-old policy, first outlined by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, that only force could impose Zionism and beat Palestinians into accepting the reality of colonisation.

Maintaining the imposition of this settler-colonial reality would require a "special relationship" between Israel and the United States. It would be fostered not just by US geostrategic interests in the Middle East but also facilitated by the "whitening" of Jews in the American and Western imagination, folding them into an opportunistic Judeo-Christian identity that excluded Arabs. This deliberate positioning of an "us" and a "them" has served to legitimise Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory and the massacre of Palestinian people, all under the umbrella and support of the Western world order.

The horror of Israel’s war on Gaza is clear for all the world to see. More than 40,000 people are dead, the majority of them women and children, killed in the name of “self-defence” by Israeli forces on a mission to “destroy” Hamas after the attacks of October 7, 2023. We are witnessing, in plain sight, an unfolding genocide. And yet Israel continues its war. Its mission creeping into Lebanon, where more civilians are killed as Israel targets Hezbollah. All this is playing out with the full support of the West as Israel claims to be fighting on behalf of Western civilisation and against “human animals” in a battle between the Judeo-Christian world and “barbarians” – a contrived narrative long in the making.

‘Reality hitting Israel again in the face’

Alon Liel, former director general at the Israel’s Foreign Ministry, says the feeling in Israel when Hezbollah leader Nasrallah was killed few weeks ago was that the war was over.

He said the belief was that Hezbollah would collapse after his death, but it did not happen. “The fighting is still going on and Israel lost 10 soldiers in the last 24 hours. The reality is hitting us again in the face” the former diplomat said, stressing that the situation in the conflict is very much affected by the upcoming presidential election in the US next month.

“The leadership of Israel would like to see a Trump victory,” the analyst said. “And I think at this moment, so close to the elections, everything Israel does – either on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran – is affected by American considerations.”

Hezbollah says launched drones at Israeli army base

Hezbollah says its fighters launched a drone attack targeting a military base in northern Israel after claiming rocket fire at the same area.

Hezbollah fighters launched “an air attack with a swarm of explosives-laden drones” on the base located east of Safad, the group said in a statement, shortly after announcing it had fired “a salvo of rockets” at the town.

Two killed in Israel by rocket fire from Lebanon

Two people have died after being wounded by shrapnel from a rocket barrage launched from Lebanon into northern Israel, according to hospital sources cited by local media.

“A 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman were pronounced dead after they were brought in critical condition,” a hospital spokesman said in a statement.

A further 25 injured people are being treated at the medical center, including two adults with shrapnel injuries and two children experiencing anxiety attacks, the spokesperson added.

Earlier, the Israeli army said “approximately 30 projectiles” from Lebanon were intercepted near the Arab town of Majd al-Krum in the Galilee region. Hezbollah also said it targeted the northern Israeli town of Karmiel with a large missile salvo.


_{Rescue workers work at the scene of an attack following a barrage of incoming rockets on Friday in Majd Al-Krum, Israel}

War crimes court replaces judge in Netanyahu arrest case

The International Criminal Court (ICC) says it has replaced one of the judges deciding on a prosecution request for an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – a move that could lead to further delays in the case.

In May, prosecutors asked for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders, saying there were reasonable grounds the men committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The court has no set deadlines, but has generally taken about three months to rule on requests for arrest warrants in previous cases. The decision had already been delayed by several rounds of legal filings from Israel challenging the jurisdiction of the court.

UN peacekeepers navigate ‘stormy’ reality in south Lebanon

Declan Power, a security and defence analyst and former UNIFIL peacekeeper, says it’s not unusual for peacekeepers to be forced to temporarily abandon positions during heightened tensions in southern Lebanon.

“I would liken Lebanon to a sea that sometimes can very quickly get stormy, and peacekeepers have had to navigate that reality over the last some 30-odd years,” Power told Al Jazeera.

Earlier, UNIFIL said its guards at an observation post near Dhayra were forced to pull out after being shot at by Israeli forces. It was the latest in a string of attacks after Israel’s army ordered the force to leave.

More attacks on UNIFIL positions could force smaller units to move out of their outposts, Power said, but in the bigger bases UN troops will remain.

Power said “it’s a bit rich” for Israel now to demand changes to the UN peacekeepers’ mandate, Resolution 1701, as it is a UN member and should not be “acting like a bad partner”.

Israeli army says three soldiers killed in northern Gaza

The soldiers were killed in the north of the enclave, according to the army, which added that the troops’ families were informed.

Wounded Palestinians dying at Kamal Adwan Hospital

The situation at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza is deteriorating as the Israeli army keeps besieging this area and pushing civilians. I was in the emergency room of the Kamal Adwan Hospital and patients were on the ground as there are not enough beds for them.

They don’t receive appropriate medical attention and supplies. There is not even clean water.

Wounded people here are dying and if there is no immediate intervention, many more lives will be lost.

Israeli drone strikes kill 12 Palestinians waiting for aid: Gaza rescuers

Gaza’s civil defence agency says 12 people have been killed by Israeli drone strikes on a group of Palestinians waiting to receive desperately needed humanitarian relief in the besieged north.

“Civil defence teams retrieved 12 martyrs and several injured individuals after Israeli drone strikes targeted a group of citizens and a vehicle waiting for aid,” agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said.

The Israeli drones struck near the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza City. There was no immediate comment from the military.

Israel forces detaining hundreds of civilians at Kamal Adwan Hospital

The Health Ministry says Israeli soldiers are holding hundreds of staff, patients, and displaced people during a raid on the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said its forces were operating around Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza, where it launched a major incursion earlier this month that’s killed hundreds of Palestinians and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.

At Kamal Adwan Hospital, Israeli troops are “detaining hundreds of patients, medical staff and some displaced individuals from neighbouring areas who sought refuge”, the ministry said.

Khan Younis survivor describes Israel’s deadly strike

A survivor of Israel’s attack on residential buildings – that killed 38 people and wounded dozens in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis city – has recounted the strike.

Saleh al-Farra, who lost his 17-year-old brother and 15-year-old sister in the attack, said shaking from the bombardment sent his family members running to the middle of the house for shelter.

The next thing he knew, he said, he woke up in the rubble of what had been his home. “I started screaming and screaming until my brother and father came, and they started trying to pull me out. I didn’t know anything about anyone.”

Footage from the Palestinian civil defence agency shows rescuers pulling the bloodied bodies of nine children from the al-Farra family out of the ruins.

Israel’s military issues new evacuation order for south Beirut

The Israeli army issued a new evacuation order for residents in two areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs threatening to strike Hezbollah’s targets there “in the near future”.

“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately and stay away from them a distance of no less than 500 metres [1,640 feet],” the military said.


Israeli air strikes pound southern Beirut’s suburb

At least two Israeli missile strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs with footage showing smoke rising from the area after Israel issued an evacuation call.

The official National News Agency said “enemy aircraft launched two new strikes” on the Haret Hreik district in the Dahiyeh suburb – one of the areas where the Israeli military earlier told residents to evacuate.

‘Terrifying’ scenes as Israeli bombs southern Beirut

It has become a nightly event – Israeli forced-evacuation orders followed by air strikes here in Lebanon. Those evacuation orders seem to happen at around 10pm (19:00 GMT).

Some terrifying videos appearing on social media show the impact of what we understand to be missiles that directly targeted buildings. And by and large, the vast majority of these buildings are residential – large blocks of flats containing hundreds of people’s homes.

That area of the southern suburbs before this crisis started had a population of around 700,000. It’s impossible to know exactly how many people are still living in that area. People will tell you just what a terrifying experience it is.

Beirut is facing great pressure in accommodating those forced out of their homes – about 1.4 million people, including 500,000 children, according to the Lebanese government. Local authorities will need about $250m a month just to look after the displaced people as a result of Israel’s bombing campaign.

Israel’s killing of journalists ‘direct targeting’

Human rights groups say deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime after Israeli forces bombed and killed three media workers in southern Lebanon and wounded three others.

“Journalists are civilians that are entitled to protection under international humanitarian law,” said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa. “It has been especially disturbing to see Israel target civilian institutions just because of their affiliation to Hezbollah.”

TV crews arrived in Hasbaiyya and deemed it safer after Israel ordered an evacuation order for a town farther south from which they were reporting.

“That is why we consider it a direct targeting, aimed at getting the journalists out of the south,” said Elsy Moufarrej, coordinator for the Alternative Press Syndicate in Lebanon. “They want to prevent the journalists from covering and having presence in the south of Lebanon.”

6 Israeli troops injured in northern Israel: Report

Israeli Army Radio says at least six soldiers were moderately and lightly wounded when a Hezbollah rocket landed from Lebanon in the Shomera area of the Western Galilee. Israel’s military continues to suffer casualties as fighting with Hezbollah intensifies.

41 people killed in 24 hours in Lebanon

At least 41 people were killed and 133 wounded in the past 24 hours in Israeli military attacks, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.

Lebanon’s crisis response unit recorded 125 air strikes and incidents of shelling in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon and the Nabatieh province, it said.

Several intense attacks targeted the village of Khiam in southern Lebanon, killing four people and wounding four others, Lebanon’s state media said.

Friday’s deaths raise the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,634 killed and 12,252 wounded.

‘What about Gaza?’ Pro-Palestine demonstrators interrupt Biden

Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted US President Joe Biden’s speech in the state of Arizona, calling for an end to Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.

While Biden was formally apologising for the US’s role in the Indian boarding school system a demonstrator shouted, “What about the people of Gaza?”

“Free Palestine!” others yelled out.

The president allowed the woman to speak and said he agreed violence in the region needs to end. “Let her go. There’s a lot of innocent people being killed and it has to stop,” said Biden.

US Muslim group says Biden administration allowing Israel’s genocide

The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) denounced the US government for doing nothing after its ally Israel launched a series of deadly attacks that killed dozens of Palestinians in Gaza, including many children.

“If the slaughter of babies in hospitals and children in their sleep does not shock the conscience of the Biden administration officials supporting the far-right Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza, nothing will,” said CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, in a statement.

“What crime would Israel have to commit that would end the Biden administration’s complicity in genocide? There is apparently no limit to the crimes against humanity that Biden administration officials will support or excuse.”

_{The bodies of Palestinian children killed in Israeli strikes on Khan Younis on Friday}

Military aid to Israel causing Gaza ‘catastrophe in the first place’

Nothing is going to happen to stop the war on Gaza as long as the United States supports Israel unconditionally. The international community today would like to talk more about increasing humanitarian aid.

But at the same time, they refuse to talk about reducing military aid to Israel, which is causing the humanitarian catastrophe in the first place. Why? Because it’s just much easier to do politics with slogans.

They know all too well that humanitarian aid is not even getting in, but at the same time are refusing to cut military assistance because Israel is an American-British ally and is doing their bidding in the Middle East.