New Knesset laws pave way for ‘teachers to be targets for persecution'

One law allows for the deportation of citizens of Israel of Palestinian descent who happen to be family members of people who have attacked Israel or had planned to attack Israel. They would be deported if they were deemed to have had prior knowledge or if they had expressed sympathy with the act or with so-called terrorist organisations.

All Palestinian factions are labelled as terrorist organisations by Israel.

Any expression of sympathy with the victims of the war in Gaza has been labelled as an expression of support for terror, especially in the past year.

The other law targets Palestinian schools in occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed illegally, as well as schools inside Israel proper, run by Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Any expression of Palestinian identity, or support for Palestinian aspirations, any use of national symbols would be deemed in a very sweeping, very elastic notion of terrorism, those teachers would be sacked without prior notice.

The Ministry of Education could also defund the schools. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has sounded the alarm, saying that this bill against teachers in particular opens the way for Palestinian teachers to be targets for persecution.

Israel buys 25 US-made F-15 aircraft for $5.2bn

Israel has signed a deal for the purchase of 25 advanced US-made F-15 aircraft worth $5.2bn, the country’s defence ministry has said.

“The Ministry of Defense signed last night (Wednesday) the huge deal for the purchase of the next generation of F-15 aircraft, under which it will purchase 25 advanced fighter jets manufactured by the American company Boeing,” read a statement.

“The transaction, amounting to about $5.2 billion, will be carried out from American aid funds and it also includes an option for the future purchase of 25 additional aircraft.”

Netanyahu crossed ‘red line’ by firing Defence Minister Gallant: Report

In an interview published by Maariv news agency, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Israel’s Yisrael Beiteinu conservative party, says Netanyahu has “crossed the red line” by firing Yoav Gallant as defence minister “before a possible Iranian attack”.

In the interview, Lieberman accused Netanyahu of being willing to “sacrifice the security of Israeli citizens for his political survival”, adding the dismissal of Gallant was primarily aimed at passing the law exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service.

Lieberman also said Netanyahu’s government does not want an official investigation committee into the events of October 7 but a committee he can “control”, adding that Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara and all professional leaders in the security establishment are “next in line”.

On Monday, one day before his dismissal, Gallant had issued 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim, citing “urgent wartime needs”, according to local media.

‘Endless’ wars: What Israel’s political drama means for Gaza, Lebanon

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/7/endless-war-the-implications-of-israels-defence-ministers-removal

The news that Netanyahu had sacked Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has sparked protests and violence in cities across Israel.

Water cannon were fired at protesters on Tuesday in Tel Aviv, where crowds blocked traffic and lit fires. Similar unrest was reported in Jerusalem, Haifa, Caesarea and other cities.

Behind the immediate political unrest, analysts say Gallant’s sacking has also removed the loudest voice in the room calling for a ceasefire.

_{Israel Katz (L) greets French FM Jean-Noel Barrot before a meeting in Jerusalem on November 7}

Israeli military says it killed ’50 terrorists’ in Jabalia, expands assault on Beit Lahiya

Providing an update on its operations in Gaza, the Israeli military says its Division 162 continues to fight in Jabalia in the north, where “during the last day, about 50 terrorists were killed”.

It added that the division “began to operate in Beit Lahiya”, marking an expansion of military operations in the area which has been under a deadly Israeli military siege for weeks, trapping and killing many civilians.

It said this expansion was due to “preliminary intelligence information … which indicated the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the area”.

Last week, authorities in Beit Lahiya declared the area a disaster zone “due to the Israeli war of extermination and siege”, saying it had “no food, water, hospitals, doctors, services, or communications”.

Israeli military says no return home for north Gaza residents

The Israeli army will not allow residents of northern Gaza to return to their homes, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority says, citing a military briefing on Tuesday evening. The report said humanitarian aid will “regularly” enter the south of the Palestinian territory “since there are no more civilians left” north of Gaza City.

Israeli forces plan to split Gaza City off from the rest of the north, in an operation that appears to be the first official acknowledgement that Israel plans to permanently displace northern Gaza’s population.

Cities in the north, including Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, have been the focus of sustained Israeli air strikes, military ground operations and blockades over the past month. Israel says it wants to prevent Hamas fighters regrouping in the north and, to do so, has laid siege to certain areas, choking off the already scarce humanitarian aid allowed in.

Israel’s bombing of the north has killed about 1,300 people in the past month alone, according to Gaza’s Civilian Defence, and about 100,000 people had been displaced in the same period, the UN says.

Up to 95,000 people are estimated to remain in the north.

The Israeli army has repeatedly said it guarantees safe passage for civilians who want to leave the north. But Palestinian residents who spoke to Al Jazeera said they fear leaving northern Gaza citing the risk of being shot by Israeli snipers as well as the danger of being attacked in Israeli-designated “safe zones” elsewhere.

They also believe that they will never be allowed to return to their homes.

At least 6 killed in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya town

As we reported earlier, the Israeli army has been bombing the north of the Gaza Strip where it claimed to have killed scores of Hamas fighters in the past 24 hours.

Now, six people have been reported killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential house in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. The Palestinian Information Centre reported that the al-Asi family home was targeted there overnight.

According to witnesses cited by the news outlet, a number of family members were alive under the rubble, but later died due to the lack of first aid and they died of suffocation.

At least 11 killed in and around Gaza’s Jabalia

At least six people have been killed in Israeli artillery shelling targeting a group of people near the Abu Sharkh roundabout west of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

Palestinian media outlets also reported that at least five bodies were received by Jabalia’s al-Awda Hospital from the Tall az-Zaatar area.

Thousands remain without aid, medical care in north Gaza: Civil Defence

Gaza’s Civil Defence says its crews remain unable to access northern parts of the enclave.

The rescue service said in a statement on Telegram that they have been “forcibly disabled in all areas of the northern Gaza Strip” since October 23 when Israeli forces attacked its staff members, seizing their vehicles, displacing most of its personnel and kidnapping nine of them.

Israeli attacks making northern Gaza unliveable

Israeli military operations and attacks in the north have intensified in key urban centres, especially in Jabalia and Beit Lahiya, which are densely populated areas.

As part of the escalation, the Israeli army has been preventing civilians from returning to their houses by causing widespread destruction so that residents cannot have proper civil services, destroying medical centres and burning evacuation centres to the ground.

It is not just the northern part of Gaza that has been under relentless attacks in the past 24 hours, also in Nuseirat a three-storey building was reduced to rubble in an Israeli air strike. Sources said six people were killed and 17 wounded.

The level of destruction is extensive. It gives a clear idea that there is no sign that this war is slowing down or ending any time soon.

_{Aftermath of Israeli attacks on central Gaza’s Nuseirat}

Israel kills 8 people in central, southern Gaza: Report

We have been reporting on the continued Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza, which has been under siege for more than a month. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that three people were killed in strikes in the Nuwairi area west of the Nuseirat refugee camp.

In the south of the Gaza Strip, Wafa, citing local sources, states that five people have been killed in an Israeli drone strike in an area east of Rafah city.

_{A Palestinian man walks through the rubble at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Nuseirat}

• The villages and towns of Qaffin, Zeita, Attil, Deir al-Ghusun, al-Jarushiya, and the Shuweika suburb, all north of Tulkarem, have been stormed.
• The Tulkarem refugee camp has been stormed, with Palestinian fighters targeting Israeli forces with an explosive device during clashes.
• The village of Husan, west of Bethlehem, has been stormed.
• The city of Jenin has been stormed.

_{A Palestinian girl walks above debris on a road in Jenin}

Israeli air force attacks Tulkarem

The Israeli military has said in a post on X that its air force has “attacked a squad of armed terrorists in Tulkarem”, without providing more information.