Israel 'Ethnic Cleansing' Gaza ADMITS Ex-Army Chief and Netanyahu Ally

Ben-Gvir fires back at ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza comments

Earlier, Israel’s former Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon said in an interview that Israel’s government is carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza.

In a post on X, Israel’s current National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responded by saying: “Ya’alon’s statements are extremely dangerous and directly contribute to tarnishing our country’s reputation in the eyes of the world.”

Ben-Gvir has staunchly opposed any deal that would end hostilities in Gaza, and has threatened to pull his party out of Netanyahu’s coalition government in the event of an Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

EXPOSED: US DEFENDS Israel’s MURDER Of 5 Year Old Gazan

Thousands returning to Lebanon from Syria following ceasefire

The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) says the number of people returning to Lebanon from Syria is gathering pace since the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah last week.

It said between November 27 and 29, some 15,000 people crossed back into Lebanon through the Jdaidat Yabous border post, while more than 11,000 people returned through the Joussieh border post.

These are the only two functioning border crossings since Israeli forces attacked the posts at Daboussieh, Jisr al-Kamar and al-Arida, according to the agency.

Most of those who returned were Lebanese seeking to go back home. Many of them expressed their strong desire to return home even if their houses had been destroyed, the UNHCR said.

‘Our seeds, our roots’: Sowing hope as Israeli bombs fell on Lebanon

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/12/1/our-seeds-our-roots-sowing-hope-as-israeli-bombs-fell-on-lebanon

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon – In Saadnayel, a few kilometres from Masnaa, a mudbrick farmhouse stands surrounded by abundant fields.

This is the home of Buzuruna Juzuruna (“our seeds are our roots”), an agroecological collective with Lebanese, Syrian and French members.

Founded in 2015 as an experimental project, the farm has steadily expanded to encompass 2 hectares of land (5 acres) on which it grows fruit and vegetables as goats, sheep and chickens roam around.

But most important of all on this farm is the dark, dry room in the main mudbrick building that holds an invaluable treasure: an extensive “seed library”.

Here, rows of boxes filled with heirloom seeds are stacked on wooden shelves, each with its species and variety written in Arabic and French.

“Here, we have about 1,000 kinds of seeds,” Youssef said, foraging through the boxes. “We have about 50 varieties of tomatoes, and as many of chillis , eggplants and lettuce, as well as 75 kinds of local and traditional wheat seeds from all over the Mediterranean basin,” he adds proudly.

So used to periodical war, creating a seed bank to recover.

Explosions on outskirts of southern Lebanese towns: Report

The Lebanese state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported several explosions on the outskirts of Yaroun and Maroun al-Ras, two towns in southern Lebanon, during the fifth day of the truce between Israel and Hezbollah.

The ceasefire has been repeatedly violated, with numerous Israeli attacks and bombardments throughout Saturday when, for the first time since the agreement was reached on Wednesday, civilians were again killed in Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.

Israeli military eases some safety restrictions in northern Israel

The Home Front Command is allowing larger gatherings and schools to reopen in border communities in Israel and in the north of the occupied Golan Heights, according to local media, as a ceasefire with Hezbollah continues to hold.

Under the changes, up to 200 people will be allowed to gather in open spaces and up to 600 can gather in closed spaces, The Times of Israel reported.

Schools in the area will also be allowed to operate if adequate shelter can be reached in time, it said. Beaches in the north, however, will remain closed.

Displaced Israelis reluctant to return home despite ceasefire: Report

The AFP news agency is reporting that many Israelis who fled their homes in the border town of Kiryat Shmona are not ready to move back despite the ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Rakhel Revach, 57, told the agency that she wanted to return with “full security”.

“As long as there is no full security and I still hear booms and see the army inside [Lebanon], I am not willing to return,” she said.

Doron Shnaper, spokesman for the Kiryat Shmona municipality, told the agency that most residents of the town had yet to return.

“They will not return until the war is officially declared over,” he said. “From the experience of past years … ceasefires have always been fragile… What if the residents return and again missiles fall? Then what was the point of being displaced for a year and two months?”

Some 60,000 Israelis fled their homes in northern Israel after Hezbollah launched attacks on the country in the wake of the war on Gaza.

US Muslim group decries Gallant’s trip to Washington, DC

The statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) came as the Times of Israel reported that former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is due in the US capital later on Sunday.

CAIR said the only international trip that  Gallant “should take is a flight to The Hague to answer the charges against him”.

“Although our government wrongly refuses to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the State Department should at the very least bar this fugitive war criminal from setting foot on American soil,” CAIR added in a statement on X.

Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including using “starvation as a method of warfare”.

Netanyahu says Israel is closely watching Syria developments

“We are constantly watching events in Syria. We are determined to defend the vital interests of Israel and to maintain the achievements of war,” Netanyahu said, visiting new military recruits at a base in central Israel.

Fighters swept into the Syrian city of Aleppo, east of Idlib province, on Friday night, forcing the army to redeploy in the biggest challenge to President Bashar al-Assad in years.

Syrian and Russian jets step up strikes on rebels after opposition seize much of Aleppo

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/01/middleeast/syrian-regime-airstrikes-opposition-forces-intl/index.html

Syrian and Russian jets are stepping up strikes on opposition forces in northern Syria in retaliation for the sudden offensive that has cost the regime control of the country’s second largest city, Aleppo.

The offensive has also led to the capture by the rebel alliance of an important military base east of Aleppo and large areas of both Aleppo and Idlib provinces. It has met little resistance on the ground from regime forces and also comes at a time when Syria’s key backers - Iran and Russia - are focusing on their own conflicts.

The rebels’ sweeping success has posed the biggest challenge in eight years to President Bashar al-Assad, when Russian air power helped reverse rebel gains in the civil war.

The newly formed rebel coalition, which calls itself the Military Operations Command, has captured key sites across Aleppo, including the airport, where video verified by CNN showed camo-clad fighters inside the main terminal.

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The rebel offensive has reignited Syria’s long-running civil war, which killed more than 300,000 people and created nearly 6 million refugees. The conflict never formally ended and the flare-up is the most significant since 2020, when Russia and Turkey reached a ceasefire in Idlib.

The rebels are led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria that used to go by the name Al-Nusra Front, along with groups backed by Turkey and others previously supported by the US.

This presents a dilemma for Western governments, Asli Aydintasbas, a Visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution, told CNN. “Should they be cheering the opposition taking over Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo, or should they actually worry about the city falling under Islamist rule?” she said.

Aydintasbas believes the events that have unfolded in Syria show a new balance of power in the country, with Turkey emerging as a “major actor,” while Russia’s power is weakened and Iran is “on its back foot.”

Israel’s former defence minister stands by ‘ethnic cleansing’ comments

Former Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon has again criticised Israeli policies for northern Gaza, saying he stands by his comment in which he accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” in the region.

“I speak on behalf of the commanders serving in northern Gaza, where war crimes are being committed,” Ya’alon told Israeli media. “Israeli soldiers are putting their lives at risk and will face lawsuits in the Criminal Court.”

He also criticised Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, saying he “is proud of the opportunity to reduce the population of Gaza by half and has no moral issue with causing the death of two million Gazans”.

Smotrich had stated earlier in the week that half of Gaza’s residents could be “encouraged” to leave the Strip within two years.

Israeli army acts according to the highest standards: Gallant

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defence minister who recently left office, has slammed Moshe Ya’alon for claiming that Israel’s leadership is taking the path of “ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip.

Ya’alon, who is also a former defence minister, was quoted as saying by the Israeli media that “the path we [Israel] are being dragged down is one of occupation, annexation and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip”.

According to Gallant, Ya’alon’s words are “a lie that helps our enemy and hurts Israel”. Gallant said on X that he saw the Israeli soldiers and commanders “up close as I led the difficult war against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran”.

“[The army] acted according to the highest standards that can be applied in the complex and difficult war that was imposed on us,” he said. “The instructions and orders were always given in accordance with the law,” Gallant added.

Sure, that's why you have an arrest warrant by the ICC...

‘Settlement in Gaza should be encouraged’: Ben-Gvir

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tells Israel’s Army Radio that “settlement in Gaza should be encouraged”. “The only times we defeated our enemies were when we took land from them,” he said.

Earlier this week, Ben-Gvir advocated for Israel to “reclaim the Gaza Strip and promote voluntary migration” as a path to achieving peace in the south.

His remarks follow a visit by Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf to Gaza, during which Goldknopf asserted that Jewish settlement in the area “is the answer” to the October 7 attack and the recent ICC arrest warrants.

Gaza Soup Kitchen chef killed in an Israeli drone attack

The relief group said Israeli forces “targeted and assassinated” its chef and co-founder, Mahmoud Almadhoun, in a drone attack in northern Gaza on Saturday.

“We believe he was killed because of his unwavering dedication to solving problems for Kamal Adwan Hospital and ensuring they had whatever they needed,” the group said, referring to the besieged medical facility in Beit Lahiya.

“Mahmoud was a lifeline, standing in the way of the ethnic cleansing they are determined to carry out—and they would not allow that to continue,” the group added.

Israeli forces have been laying siege to northern Gaza since October 6, preventing the entry of food, water and medicine, and bombarding the Kamal Adwan Hospital, in a campaign rights groups say is aimed at clearing the area of all of its residents.

Gaza Soup Kitchen said Mahmoud leaves behind seven children, including a two-week-old baby.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DC_tJ1nxVeW

UN food agency calls for ‘improved security’ for Gaza aid operations

The World Food Programme (WFP) made the appeal after two girls and a woman died in a stampede outside a bakery in central Deir el-Balah on Friday.

The agency said it mourned the “tragic loss” and that “this incident unfolded in a moment of desperation as people anxiously tried to get access to scarce food supplies in Gaza”.

The agency said Israel’s refusal to allow the entry of aid as well as increasing violence on the ground has restricted its ability to bring food into Gaza in recent weeks.

“WFP has tried to keep famine at bay for the past year, but the lack of food aid and the absence of the commercial sector, are driving people into hunger,” it said. “WFP urges authorities to provide the secure conditions needed for our operations to reach those in need.”

Israeli attacks on aid workers, food operations in Gaza

There have been a number of deadly Israeli attacks on aid operations and workers in Gaza in the past 24 hours. They are:

Palestinian Health Ministry says Gaza facing a ‘shortage’ of medical staff

Director of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr Munir al-Bursh, told Al Jazeera that northern Gaza and Gaza City are suffering from a shortage of medical staff amid intense Israeli attacks and an ongoing siege.

Al-Bursh explained that many injured people have died in the streets due to a lack of medical supplies, adding that more than 10,000 people are wounded in the Gaza Strip.

“The [Israeli] occupation uses internationally prohibited weapons, and there are testimonies of some bodies being evaporated. There were types of burns we had never seen before and entire bodies were vaporised,” he said.

Al-Bursh added that an international investigation was needed into the type of weapons used by Israel following cases in northern Gaza where bodies “evaporated” during an Israeli campaign of “ethnic cleansing and mass killings”.

Israel’s war inflicting ‘unprecedented and potentially irreversible harm’ on Palestinian children

Save the Children has published a new report on the impact of Israel’s war on Palestinian children in Gaza.

It said the conflict “has inflicted unprecedented and potentially irreversible harm on Palestinian children, with consequences that threaten not only their individual futures but the very fabric of Palestinian society for generations to come”.

The report identified several short and long-term consequences of the conflict on Palestinian children.

It said children in Gaza face acute risks from explosive weapons, starvation, disease, and lack of essential services, while malnutrition, inadequate healthcare, and constant exposure to violence are inflicting lasting damage on their physical and cognitive development.

_{Palestinian children get bulgur wheat at a food distribution kitchen in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip, November 22}

No medics, no ambulances to rescue Palestinians trapped in north Gaza

More than 40 Palestinians were killed yesterday evening when Israeli forces targeted a six-floor building in the Jabalia refugee camp. There are no civil defence teams, no paramedics, no ambulances operating in the northern Gaza Strip. The bodies were found by their neighbours or relatives.

According to people there, many are still trapped under the rubble, but there are no civil defence teams, so no one is able to rescue them. People there are trying to do so with their bare hands.

Israeli forces have also been shelling the area around the Kamal Adwan Hospital. This is not the first time Israeli forces have targeted this hospital. They previously stormed it and forced people and medical teams to evacuate.

Four killed in Israeli attack on southern Gaza

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that an Israeli attack on the Shaboura refugee camp in southern Gaza has killed at least four Palestinians.

Israeli attack kills 2 children in Gaza ‘safe zone’: Report

An Israeli strike has killed two young children in the tent where they were sheltering with their family, medical officials said.

The strike in al-Mawasi, a sprawling tent camp housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people, also wounded the children’s mother and their sibling, according to Nasser Hospital. An AP reporter at the hospital saw the bodies.

Palestinians displaced by the war are “increasingly forced to concentrate within the Israeli-designated zone in al-Mawasi”, an area of approximately 41sq km (15.83sq miles) lacking critical infrastructure and services, according to OCHA.

Two Palestinians die in Israeli prisons

We know that the prisoners … died in Israeli prison, and both of them were arrested from the Gaza Strip in the past couple of months. But these are only two of the Palestinian prisoners that we know about.

Every single day, there are hundreds of mothers that approach us, that tell us that their children have been kidnapped by the Israeli forces, and they do not know anything about them.

And this news is going to make a lot of mothers worried. They do not know where their children are, in which Israeli prison, where they are right now and they have been appealing to the ICRC and other international organisations.

The prisoners who have been freed from the Israeli prisons and received here in Al-Aqsa Hospital – we heard a lot of horrifying testimonies from them. They tell us how they were treated in Israeli prisons, how they were beaten up, and also the lack of food and medical treatment that they were receiving.

Video of ‘smoke bomb’ explosion prompts outrage online

A widely circulated video, verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad and posted by a Palestinian photographer, captures a gruesome scene in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.

Several Palestinian news outlets say the footage shows the aftermath of a “smoke bomb” explosion inside the body of a young Palestinian man, leaving a disturbing trail of smoke billowing from his head.

Qassam Brigades claim to kill Israeli soldiers

The armed wing of Hamas says its fighters hit an Israeli Merkava tank with a “Shawaz device”, killing its occupants. The incident took place yesterday in the north of Gaza City, a statement on Telegram said.

Palestinian journalist killed in Israeli attack on Gaza

Gaza’s Government Media Office has identified the victim as Maysara Ahmed Salah, a journalist with the local Quds News Network. It did not provide details about the circumstances of her death.

The media office appealed to the international community “to deter the [Israeli] occupation and prosecute it in international courts for its ongoing crimes” against Palestinian journalists.

It added that, with Salah’s death, the number of journalists killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, has risen to 192.

Israeli defence minister seeks to expand punitive home demolitions policy: Report

Israel’s Channel 7 reported that Defense Minister Israel Katz plans to present a proposal to the cabinet seeking approval to demolish the homes of Palestinians who have injured Israelis, expanding an already controversial policy.

The policy of punitive demolitions has been long criticised by human rights organisations as a form of collective punishment. Israeli officials claim it is aimed at deterring other Palestinians from planning or carrying out attacks.

Israeli forces arrest two Palestinian students in Nablus

The soldiers arrested the two students from An-Najah National University after raiding their homes in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera Arabic reported, citing local sources. The two were arrested in the village of Burin in the Nablus governorate.

Israeli forces carry out raids across the occupied West Bank

Israeli raids were reported in several cities and towns overnight. They include: