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

SvennoJ 4 days ago

Main points for October 27th

  • Israeli forces killed at least 53 people across Gaza on Sunday, including 46 in the north, where the military has tightened its siege with bombings and mass arrests.
  • Officials said the victims included two more journalists, bringing the death toll of media workers in Gaza since the start of Israel’s war to 182.
  • Egypt’s President el-Sisi proposed an initial two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners, followed by more negotiations within 10 days.
  • Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said “painful concessions” needed to be made if Israel wanted the remaining captives in Gaza released.
  • In Lebanon, Israeli air attacks killed at least 21 people, including three paramedics, in the past 24 hours, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
  • Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted on delivering an “appropriate response” to Israel’s assault on the country on Saturday as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the government had “received indications” about the “possibility of an attack” ahead of the strikes.



Around the Network
SvennoJ 4 days ago

Dozens remain trapped under rubble after Israel’s attack on Beit Lahiya

I’ve finally reached the bomb site in Beit Lahiya town where the Israeli army attacked a residential square, killing more than 45 displaced Palestinians. The entire residential square has been turned upside down. In the debris, you can see remnants of food and personal properties.

There are more than 30 displaced Palestinians trapped under this rubble but there are no Civil Defence forces to rescue them as the Israeli army has forced them to evacuate to Gaza City.


‘Horrifying’ situation in north Gaza as Israeli siege, attacks continue

The past 24 hours in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip and Gaza City have been horrifying.

Israeli forces began by targeting at least five houses in Beit Lahiya, where at least dozens of Palestinians remain under the rubble till this point. They also targeted a UN shelter school, where at least nine Palestinians were killed, among them three journalists and a nine-year-old child.

All of this comes amid a 23-day blockade and siege of northern Gaza, where no food and water is entering. There is also a large number of people who are still trapped under the rubble and no one can reach the northern areas because of this siege on Beit Lahiya, Jabalia and Beit Hanoon.

It’s still escalating, and people are trying to reach out, crying, feeling that they’ve been abandoned, asking for food, water and medicine.

Israeli forces raid towns, cities in West Bank

Israeli soldiers stormed the UNRWA-operated Arroub refugee camp in the occupied West Bank tonight, firing tear gas and causing several people to choke, according to the Wafa news agency.

Israeli soldiers also stormed Jenin, raiding several shops and detaining several young men on Nazareth Street, Wafa reported. The soldiers were also accompanied by a military bulldozer, it added.

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic reported additional Israeli raids, in the city of Jericho, the town of Jifna near Ramallah, and in the city of Salfit.



SvennoJ 4 days ago

Gallant says Israel’s wars lack direction: Report

Israeli media outlets are reporting that the defence minister sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet ahead of Israel’s attack on Iran on Saturday, saying Israel’s wars are being conducted “without a valid compass”.

In the letter, Gallant also called for Israel’s war objectives to be updated, according to Channel 13 and the Haaretz newspaper. He is said to have proposed four new goals for the arenas in which Israel operates – Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and the West Bank.

For Gaza, he advocated “establishing a reality without a military threat, preventing the enhancement of terror capabilities, securing the return of all hostages, and promoting an alternative to Hamas rule”. In the West Bank, he called for the prevention of “outbreak of violence by thwarting terrorism”; in Iran, “deterrence and keeping Iran out of the war”; and for Lebanon, “creating a security situation that allows residents of the north [of Israel] to return to their homes as soon as possible”.

Netanyahu’s office called Gallant’s letter “quite puzzling”, according to Haaretz. “There is one compass, which is the war objectives as determined by the security cabinet. The objectives are constantly being evaluated and were recently expanded,” it said.



Gallant, Netanyahu disagree on ‘where to draw the line’ in Israel’s wars

Disagreements between the Israeli defence minister and the prime minister have broken out in the open, with Gallant saying that Israel must make concessions [and] that it must better define the goals of the war.

In a letter he sent right before Israel struck Iran, Gallant said Israel’s goals weren’t very clear.

Of course, Netanyahu responded to that by saying the letter was confusing and that the goals were very clear.

These disagreements are not about the fundamentals. There isn’t really a disagreement between Gallant and Netanyahu about waging the war on Gaza or even the assault on Lebanon. The disagreement is on where to draw the line. And Gallant is echoing the sentiments of the families of the captives, saying that now, perhaps, is the time to reach a ceasefire. He signalled that in his speeches, especially at the memorial for the October 7 attacks, saying that Hamas and Hezbollah have suffered a lot of losses, their capabilities are degraded and now is the time to reach a political solution.

But for now, there aren’t really any indications on whether Netanyahu has changed his mind or is committed to reaching that deal. And the delegation that went to Doha was not reportedly authorised to make any concessions.



What is Netanyahu’s strategy for Gaza?

Said Arikat, an adjunct professor at the American University, told Al Jazeera that it was unlikely Netanyahu would ever agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Netanyahu never really had a strategy. And that is his strategy – to keep everybody guessing,” Arikat said from Washington, DC.

“What we have seen is a strategy of killing, destruction, making life in Gaza unimaginable or making Gaza uninhabitable and so on. These are the goals. We know that he’s killed a lot of Palestinians. He’s on a killing campaign of the Palestinians. He’s using starvation as a weapon of war,” he said.

“Netanyahu knows very well that whatever criticism is not going to be translated into any kind of tangible pressure to make him to stop the war, to make him agree to a ceasefire. That is as long as the Biden administration keeps aiding him and keeps giving him the kind of support that empowers him to go on,” he added.



SvennoJ 3 days ago

‘My life will never be the same’ – Ta-Nehisi Coates on Israel and Palestine

In an UpFront special, Marc Lamont Hill talks with award-winning writer, journalist, and author Ta-Nehisi Coates about the ties between Palestinian oppression and systemic racism.

Coates says witnessing Palestinian oppression in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem changed his life. He compares it to systemic racism in the US, while confronting his own misunderstandings of Israel’s history. He also calls out a news media that he says is complicit in the erasure of Palestinians.




Smotrich calls for ‘hundreds of thousands of new settlers’ in West Bank, Gaza

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has again called for hundreds of thousands of new Israeli settlers to establish “new cities and settlements deep in the [West Bank]”, The Times of Israel reported.

Smotrich made the remarks on Sunday at the Middle East Summit, a conference in Jerusalem sponsored by Israel365, a media outlet aimed at “pro-Israel” Evangelical Christians.

He also used his speech to justify creating illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza, saying that without a civilian and “long-term military presence… there is no security and there is an existential threat to the State of Israel and its citizens”.

Smotrich also called for forcibly displacing Palestinians to Arab countries, saying:

“Those who do not want or are unable to put aside their national ambitions will receive assistance from us to emigrate to one of the many Arab countries where the Arabs can realise their national ambitions, or to any other destination in the world.”


Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also spoke at a conference on settling the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on October 21



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Five killed in Israeli attack on Lebanon’s Tyre

The Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) is reporting that Israeli jets raided the Raml neighbourhood in the city of Tyre, killing at least five people and wounding ten.

The building struck in the attack belonged to the Muslimani family, it reported. Rescue workers and paramedics are at the scene, trying to remove the rubble and find missing people, it said.

The raid caused extensive damage to a number of nearby buildings and apartments, it added.


Hezbollah claims attack on Israeli forces near border

The Lebanese group says its fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers near the Fatima Gate with artillery shells. The attack took place at 6:30am (03:30 GMT), the group said in a statement on Telegram.

The Fatima Gate is a border crossing between Lebanon and Israel that is not used any more.


People in Tyre ‘digging through rubble’ after Israeli attack

Rescue efforts are ongoing in Tyre. The emergency services are combing through the rubble, and pictures are emerging of the aftermath of that attack where five people were killed.

This is a huge crater. A crater of that size usually comes not from one but from multiple strikes involving a much larger type of bomb used by the Israelis. A definite air raid, more likely from an Israeli fighter jet rather than something like a drone or artillery shelling, which we have seen a lot of in southern Lebanon.



Israeli attack hits residential building near Sidon in Lebanon

Nine people have been killed and many others injured in an Israeli strike on the coastal city of Sidon in southern Lebanon.

Multiple air strikes have also hit Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh.


Hezbollah claims attack on northern Israel settlement

The Lebanese group says it targeted the Kiryat Shmona settlement with “a rocket salvo”. Hezbollah added on Telegram that it carried out the attack at 8:30am (05:30 GMT).



Around the Network
SvennoJ 3 days ago

Israel raids three areas in Lebanon

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that Israeli raids are taking place on the outskirts of the towns of Qlaileh and Haniya in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, as well as on the heights of Jabal al-Rayhan.


Israeli military issues evacuation order for large areas of Tyre

The Israeli military has issued an evacuation order for large swaths of Tyre, including areas already ordered to evacuate and new ones, up to the edge of a hotel where journalists are usually based.


Israeli army urges residents in Lebanon’s Tyre to head north

We have more information on the Israeli army’s evacuation order for larger areas of Tyre in southern Lebanon.

“Hezbollah’s activities force the [Israeli army] to act against it forcefully,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X that included a map of targeted areas in the coastal city, urging residents to “head north”.


Two Israeli officers and a number of soldiers ‘killed’ in Lebanon

Israelis have said the ground operation in Lebanon continues. We are hearing that two officers and a number of their soldiers have been killed on the ground. We’ll be able to give the exact details on that in the coming hours.

What we do know is that the key area of the Israeli attacks is Aita al-Shaab, which has been almost completely destroyed in terms of its infrastructure.

It’s important to note that Israelis have not entered Lebanon in large numbers; instead, they are conducting hit-and-run raids, where Hezbollah is able to push them back across the southern border.

But Hezbollah has also taken losses. The difference is that they are not disclosing this information publicly, or at least not releasing specific figures. Israelis say that some thousands of Hezbollah fighters have been killed.

The fighting, however, is ongoing and Hezbollah is still very much a fighting force.


Death toll in Israeli attack on Lebanon’s Tyre rises to 7

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says the number of those killed in the Israeli air raid on the Raml neighbourhood in the city of Tyre has risen to seven. It also revised the number of injured to 17.




SvennoJ 3 days ago

Lebanon complains to UN over recent Israel attack on journalists

Beirut says it submitted a complaint to the UN Security Council over an Israeli attack last week that killed three journalists in the country’s south.

The strike early on Friday hit a complex in the Druze-majority town of Hasbaiyya in southern Lebanon, where more than a dozen journalists from Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.

“The repeated Israeli targeting of media crews is a war crime” and Israel must be “held to account and punished”, Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry said on social media platform X.

The Israeli army said on Friday that the strike was “under review”, maintaining it had targeted Hezbollah fighters


Israeli air strikes hit Tyre

Lebanese official media say Israel struck Tyre after the military issued forced displacement calls for swaths of the ancient coastal city, already hit earlier in the day.

“Enemy aircraft launched their first strike after the Israeli warning for the city of Tyre and targeted a residential apartment,” the National News Agency said, subsequently reporting “a series of strikes” on the city.


Buildings collapse in Tyre after Israel’s air attacks

We are witnessing unbelievable scenes. Building after building, air strike after air strike coming down on the historic city of Tyre. We have seen Israel carry out at least four attacks on buildings in and around the Corniche area in Tyre in the last hours.

These are buildings where Israel issued forced evacuation threats earlier on Monday and now it is hitting them. A number of these buildings collapsed following the air attacks and huge plumes of smoke are filling the Corniche area.

Tyre is one of the oldest cities in Lebanon and home to a world UNESCO heritage site.



This well-known city was once home to 200,000 people.


The entire city of Tyre is now shrouded in smoke’

The city [of Tyre] is reeling under Israeli aerial bombardment. The Israeli warplanes continue to shower the city with missiles, targeting the heart of the Old City, with the aim of turning this historic city into ruins.

The attack came in a series of air strikes, five to six air raids, on the city’s residential areas into its depth, as well as its marine front. We saw, during the first two air strikes, how residential buildings were directly hit, reduced to rubble. They were followed by successive air raids – more loud explosions, more destruction, and of course more victims.

The entire city of Tyre is now shrouded in smoke.


About 30 rockets fired at Israel from Lebanon: Israeli army

Israel’s army says about 30 rockets have been fired at the western and upper Galilee areas from Lebanon. “Some of them were intercepted by the Air Force, crashes in the area were detected,” it said on the social platform X.


Hezbollah claims to have hit two Israeli targets

Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group says its drone “accurately hit its target” in the Yudifat Military Industries Company southeast of Acre. The group also claimed to have targeted Israeli soldiers in the al-Omra area, west of the Wazzani village in Lebanon, “with a missile salvo”.



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Israeli army blows up buildings in southern Lebanon


Videos show Israeli air attacks on Lebanon’s Tyre

Videos published on X show Israeli air strikes on residential neighbourhoods in Tyre, southern Lebanon.

The footage verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad shows significant smoke rising due to Israeli strikes that hit residential buildings in Tyre and near the city’s Corniche.


Hezbollah claims to have clashed with Israeli forces near Lebanon’s Kfar Kila

Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group says its fighters have ambushed the Israeli ground forces advancing towards the Tell en-Nhas area on the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila “with machine guns and rockets”.

The group said two Israeli vehicles were burned and there were “deaths and injuries” among Israeli troops.

Separately, it said Israeli soldiers were targeted “with a missile salvo” for the second time today in the al-Omra area west of the Lebanese village of Wazzani.


Israeli raids target eastern and southern Lebanon

Israeli raids have targeted the city of Baalbek and the towns of Qasr Nabaa and Badnayel in the Bekaa Valley, eastern Lebanon, an Al Jazeera correspondent reports. An Israeli raid also targeted the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.


Four killed in Lebanon’s Baalbek district

An Israeli drone has targeted a motorcycle in the Lebanese village of Tarayya in the Baalbek district, killing two people. This was reported by Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).

Two more people were killed in the village of Brital, also located in the Baalbek district, where a car was targeted by Israeli warplanes.


At least three killed in Israeli attack on Tyre

There have been multiple Israeli air strikes on Lebanon’s coastal city of Tyre in the south. Ahead of the attacks, the Israeli army threatened people in large parts of the city to leave their homes immediately or risk being bombed.


Smoke rises from a building hit in an Israeli air strike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Monday, October 28


Hezbollah says rockets fired at navy base near Haifa

Hezbollah says it fired a barrage of rockets towards a naval base in the area of Haifa, a northern Israeli city, after Israeli military air strikes hit the Lebanese city of Tyre.


Lebanon’s death toll rises

The death toll from Israel’s attacks in Lebanon has risen to 2,710. Another 12,592 people have also been wounded in Israeli attacks since October last year, Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports. On Sunday, 38 people were killed and 124 wounded.


Israeli strikes kill 16 in eastern Lebanon

Lebanon’s Health Ministry is reporting that at least 16 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Baalbek in the eastern part of the country.



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Iraq complains to UN over Israel’s use of its airspace in Iran strike

Baghdad has submitted a complaint to the United Nations over Israel’s use of its airspace to strike Iran on Saturday, according to an Iraqi government spokesperson.

Iran and Israel have engaged in a cycle of retaliatory moves against each other for months, with Israel’s latest strikes targeting Iran’s military bases. Israel says it was a retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage on October 1, much of which Israel said was downed by its air defence systems.

Israel’s violation of Iraqi airspace reveals US double standards

Ibrahim Fraihat, an associate professor of international conflict resolution at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says Iraq was “obviously” not contacted by Israel when it allegedly violated its airspace to attack Iran, nor has it received support from the US.

“Whereas, when Iran attacked Israel, we saw the American forces in the region intercepting and fighting against the Iranian attack on Israel,” Fraihat told Al Jazeera.

“Iraq should be considered an ally of the US … but there is an obvious double standard there. It is doing nothing and implicitly supports and approves Israel’s actions even when it violates Iraq’s sovereignty,” he added.

 

Iran says it will use all available tools to respond to Israel’s attack

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has made the statement about the Israeli strikes on Iran on Saturday.

Israel targeted Iran’s military facilities in an attack it said was retaliation for Tehran’s October 1 missile attack on its soil.


Iranian media say Israeli strikes also killed civilian

Iranian media have reported a civilian was also killed during the Israeli strikes over the weekend, which Israel said targeted military sites. Iranian authorities had not reported civilian deaths earlier.

“The martyr Allahverdi Rahimpour, a civilian who was killed near Tehran during the recent attack by the Zionist regime, has been buried,” the Fars News Agency reported. The Tasnim News Agency also reported the death.

Iran had earlier confirmed four of its soldiers were killed in the Israeli attacks.



SvennoJ 3 days ago

Two explosions reported near vessel off Yemen’s coast

The UK’s Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency says it has received reports of two explosions near a ship 25 nautical miles south of al-Makha (Mocha), a Yemeni port city southwest of the capital Sanaa.

“The vessel and all crew are reported as safe,” it said on X. British maritime security company Ambrey shared similar information.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea in a show of solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s war on Gaza. Those incidents had been concentrated on the Bab al-Mandeb, a narrow strait between Yemen and northeast Africa.


Houthis say they targeted three vessels with drones and rockets

Yemen’s Houthi group says it carried out three operations targeting ships in the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea.

In the Arabian Sea, it said it targeted ‘SC Montreal’ with two drones and ‘Maersk Kowloon’ with a missile.

The Houthis also said they targeted ‘Motaro’ in the Red Sea with a number of ballistic missiles.