Fatah, Hamas hold talks on reopening Rafah Crossing

Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank, is holding discussions in Cairo with Hamas on proposals put forward by Egypt on reopening the Rafah border crossing, an official from the group told the Anadolu news agency.

“Fatah is keen on an immediate end to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, expediting aid delivery and initiating reconstruction,” Abdullah Abdullah told Anadolu.

“A Fatah delegation is present in Cairo discussing with a Hamas delegation Egyptian proposals related to reopening the Rafah border crossing [between Gaza and Egypt] and having the Palestinian Authority manage it on the Palestinian side,” he said.

Cairo has kept the Egyptian side of the crossing closed since Israeli forces occupied the Palestinian side in early May.

Abdullah did not disclose the nature of the Egyptian proposals, Anadolu said.

The talks come after the rival Palestinian factions met in China in July and agreed on steps to form a Palestinian unity government for Gaza as well as the occupied West Bank.

Israel is suffocating support for Palestinians: Aid worker

Ahmed Bayram of the Norwegian Refugee Council says the people of Gaza are suffering from a massive shortage of supplies.

“I think, at this rate, Israel is suffocating the support for these people,” he told Al Jazeera from Amman, adding that Gaza needs 25 supply trucks to enter each week instead of the “10 or 11” that bring aid into the enclave now.

“It is not only constraining access, the roads and the safety of the people and the aid workers, but also there is a systematic attempt here to keep people in the cold and keep them starving,” he said, adding the aid community is frustrated about the situation.

Haaretz says it won’t be silenced by Netanyahu

Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, has hit back at the Israeli government’s decision to boycott the left-leaning newspaper in an editorial titled, “Haaretz will not be silenced by Netanyahu”.

The Israeli prime minister has “never liked our reporting and our strong stance against his policy of occupation and annexation in the occupied territories and his overall denial of Palestinian rights”, Benn wrote.

“Now his political henchmen want to delegitimize and strangle us financially – but we are not alone in the government’s crosshairs,” he said, referring to an ongoing bid “to close Israel’s public broadcaster, which the government sees as too independent”.

Netanyahu’s “coalition colleagues are promoting anti-democratic bills that threaten to undermine free elections and other means of political expression, as they prepare for building Jewish settlements in occupied Gaza”, Benn added.

Ex-minister says his ‘ethnic cleansing’ remark targeted politicians, not Israeli army

Former Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon says his remarks last week on Israel taking the path of “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza were not directed at the army but at “the politicians, who speak proudly of the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip”, according to the national Channel 12.

Ya’alon, who was slammed by many Israeli politicians for his comments, stood by his words, saying: “I hope that my public appearance will stop the government from committing a war crime, while imposing the responsibility on [Israeli] commanders.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/middleeast/israel-idf-gaza-moshe-yaalon-palestinians-ethnic-cleansing-intl/index.html

The interviewer expressed surprise at Ya’alon’s use of the phrase “ethnic cleansing,” asking, “Is that what you think – that we’re on the way there?”

“Why ‘on the way?’” he responded. “What’s happening there? There’s no Beit Lahia. There’s no Beit Hanoun. They’re currently operating in Jabalya, and essentially, they’re cleaning the area of Arabs,” he said, referring to the IDF.

Netanyahu’s testimony in corruption trial moved for security reasons

Netanyahu’s testimony in his corruption trial will be moved from Jerusalem to an underground fortified hall in Tel Aviv, The Times of Israel has reported citing the country’s court administration.

The decision comes after the Israeli security agency Shin Bet informed the court about “threats” to the prime minister. Since the Jerusalem court does not have adequate bomb shelters, it was decided to choose a different location.

Netanyahu is scheduled to testify on December 10 in three cases related to fraud, bribery and breach of trust, filed in 2019.

Israeli forces continue to pound Gaza

Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip continued overnight, according to our correspondents on the ground, with attacks reported across the coastal enclave.

In the north, Israeli forces blew up buildings in the besieged Jabalia refugee camp and launched artillery attacks on nearby Beit Lahiya.

Additional Israeli shelling was also reported in Abasan al-Kabira in southern Khan Younis. The Wafa news agency, citing witnesses, described the shelling as indiscriminate and said the residents feared that the attacks were a prelude to a new ground incursion in the area.

Israeli attacks were also reported in the central Nuseirat refugee camp as well as the northern Gaza Strip.

WHO delivers supplies to Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital

The World Health Organization dropped off food, fuel and medical supplies to the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Sunday.

A WHO member who took part in the mission told Al Jazeera that the agency had delivered 400 food parcels for the patients and staff at the facility, as well as fuel to operate generators, and medical consumables and supplies, including blood units.

The staffer also said a team from Mercy International will be deployed to the hospital. “The team will be deployed here for one month – specialised medical staff,” he said.

Kamal Adwan is one of the last remaining partially functioning hospitals in the north of the Strip. Staff at the facility have continued to serve patients despite shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies, as well as repeated attacks from Israeli troops.

Attacks last week killed its ICU director and wounded dozens of medical staff.

Israeli soldiers raid West Bank, arrest Palestinian man

Wafa is reporting that Israeli forces arrested the man identified as Waqas Nofal during a raid on his home in the town of Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank.

His detention follows a night of Israeli raids across the West Bank, including the city of Nablus and the village of Burqa, east of Ramallah, Wafa reported.

There has been an uptick in Israeli raids, mass detentions and killings in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 733 Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas-led October 7 attack. Most of them were shot dead by Israeli soldiers. The number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons has now exceeded 10,200, according to the monitoring group Addameer.

Israeli army arrests more Palestinians in occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have arrested at least 12 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since yesterday, according to a statement by prisoners’ groups.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said the arrests took place across the governorates of Ramallah, Hebron, Qalqilya and Tubas as well as in occupied East Jerusalem.

The number of arrests by Israeli forces of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza has surpassed 11,900, the report said.

This Is The Most Blistering Takedown Of Zionism You Will Ever Hear

The Oxford Union debate over Israel hosted the most standout takedown of Israel and Zionism you will have ever heard. It is brilliant.

Right, so sometimes you come across a piece of writing or an oratory so profound and so exacting that it literally stops you in your tracks. That is how this particular speech I’ve come across today has left me and I make no apologies for this video being a little longer than usual as a result. It was breathtaking. To be able to write a speech that is so quietly and calmly eviscerating, I think is more powerful than a 100 news articles or political commentaries covering atrocity and I absolutely had to share this with you, shared on social media as it was today by Electronic Intifada’s Asa Winstanley.

This has come from Palestinian author and human rights activist Susan Abulhawa, the author of Mornings in Jenin, a story of life set in the aftermath of the 1967 6 day war and a book I now plan on getting as a matter of essential reading. This speech was made at the recent Oxford Union debate, a debate which actually descended into chaos as many students sought to leave the moment they became aware that a former IDF spy was present to speak on behalf of Israel in a debate where the motion presented was ‘This House believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide’ Zionists were apoplectic with rage when the vote came through, passing by 278 to 59 in favour and despite many people speaking in favour of the motion eloquently, emotionally and forcefully, Abulhawa’s contribution is one everyone has to hear.

Right, so Susan Abulhawa’s speech to the Oxford Union, speaking in favour of their motion which passed by 278 votes to 59 in favour of believing Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide I think is probably the most powerful statement I’ve ever read in response not just to the events of the last 15 months but long before that too. The daughter of Palestinians expelled by Israel following the 1967 war, this is her history, her heritage and is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an NGO that builds playgrounds for children in Palestine, as well as UN refugee camps in Lebanon. She was invited to speak in this debate at the Oxford Union and she absolutely did just that and frankly after hearing this only the hardest hearted of Zionists could possibly have voted against the motion.

‘Addressing the challenge of what to do about the indigenous inhabitants of the land Chaim Weizman, a Russian Jew, said to the World Zionist Congress in 1921 that Palestinians were akin to “the rocks of Judea, obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path." David Gruen, a Polish Jew, who changed his name to David Ben Gurion to sound relevant to the region, said. "We must expel Arabs and take their places” There are thousands of such conversations among the early zionists who plotted and implemented the violent colonization of Palestine and the annihilation of her native people. But they were only partially successful, murdering or ethnically cleansing 80% of Palestinians, which meant that 20% of us remained, an enduring obstacle to their colonial fantasies, which became the subject of their obsessions in the decades that followed, especially after conquering what remained of Palestine in 1967.

Video continues from here: https://youtu.be/m4snHu0SOm0?t=186

Israel accuses Hezbollah of projectile fire

On X, the Israeli army says it detected two Hezbollah projectiles fired at “Mount Dov” – what Israel calls the Lebanese Shebaa Farms. The area is illegally occupied by Israel. It says the projectiles fell in open areas, causing no casualties.

According to UN resolution 1701 Israel has to give Shebaa Farms back. One of the reasons 1701 was never fully implemented. Will it be this time?

After days of Israeli strikes, Hezbollah hits back, each accusing the other of ceasefire violations

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/middleeast/lebanon-hezbollah-israel-projectiles-ceasefire-intl-latam/index.html

For the first time since a ceasefire went into effect last week, Hezbollah has fired two projectiles toward Israeli-occupied territory, responding to repeated Israeli strikes since the agreement.

Israel has carried out daily strikes in Lebanon since Thursday, the day after a ceasefire went into effect. One person was killed in a strike in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

Hezbollah had fired two projectiles, which landed in an open area on Monday, according to the Israeli military, which said no one was injured. The military did not specify the type of projectile fired.

Hours later, Israel’s military said it began striking “terror targets” in Lebanon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate in a statement, calling Hezbollah’s attack “a serious violation of the ceasefire.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said earlier on Monday that its own cross-border strikes, despite the ceasefire, had been “in response to several acts by Hezbollah in Lebanon that posed a threat to Israeli civilians, in violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.” It said it had struck military vehicles at a Hezbollah missile manufacturing site in the Beqaa Valley and tunnels near the Syrian border in northern Lebanon.

Both the United States and French governments have warned Israel that they believe the Israeli military has violated the terms of the ceasefire, according to CNN affiliate Kan and Israeli news outlet Ynet.

A source with the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, says Israel has breached its ceasefire agreement with Lebanon “approximately 100” times since the truce went into effect last week. CNN has asked the IDF for comment.

Israel is above the law, ceasefires don't apply to them...


Hezbollah fires ‘defensive response’ to Israeli ‘ceasefire violations’

On Telegram, the group called its attack on an Israeli military site in the Kfarchouba hills an “initial warning defensive response”, carried out following “repeated violations” of the ceasefire between it and Israel.

Since the ceasefire went into effect last week on November 27, Israel has carried out more than two dozen attacks on Lebanese territory, which have killed and wounded people.

Israel says these are in response to violation of the ceasefire and to people moving near its self-imposed no-go zones in territory it occupies in southern Lebanon. However, this marks the first time that Hezbollah has fired back, calling into question whether the tenuous ceasefire can hold.

Hezbollah also cited “the continued violation of Lebanese airspace by hostile Israeli aircraft, all the way to the capital, Beirut” in its justification for these warning shots, and blamed the “concerned authorities” for failing to stop Israeli attacks on Lebanese soil despite the ceasefire.

Under the terms of the agreement, an international committee was tasked with ensuring that no side violates the ceasefire. There has been no statement on Israel’s repeated attacks yet.

Smotrich says Israel must respond to Hezbollah fire with ‘powerful blow’

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Hezbollah made a “serious mistake” firing into Israel and that Israel must respond with a “powerful blow”.

Smotrich is a member of Israel’s security cabinet and supported the US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Lebanese group which took effect on November 27.

Hezbollah earlier said its fighters fired towards an Israeli military site due to repeated ceasefire violations by Israeli forces.

A. It's not part of Israel, it's occupied Lebanese territory.
B. You've not stopping bombing Lebanon.

Israel promises ‘harsh response’ to Hezbollah attack

Defence Minister Israel Katz says Israel will have a “harsh response” to Hezbollah’s fire after the Lebanese group said it fired a “warning defensive response” into an Israeli military site.

“We promised to act against any violation of the ceasefire by Hezbollah – and that is exactly what we will do,” Katz said in a post on X. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made similar remarks, saying Israel must respond with a “powerful blow”.

Since the fragile US-brokered ceasefire went into effect on Wednesday, Israel has carried out more than two dozen attacks on Lebanese territory.


Israel's tactics never change. Provoke, provoke, provoke until they get a reaction. Then cry wolf and use it as a pretense to ramp up the strikes.

Netanyahu: Israel will ‘respond strongly’ to ‘ceasefire violation’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will respond to Hezbollah firing at the Israeli military.

“Hezbollah’s firing at Mount Dov constitutes a serious violation of the ceasefire, and Israel will respond strongly to this,” Netanyahu warned in a post on X. “We are determined to continue to enforce the ceasefire, and to respond to any violation by Hezbollah – minor or serious.”

Hezbollah said it fired “defensive” warning shots at the Israeli army in response to ceasefire “violations” that killed and wounded civilians.

After Hezbollah ‘warning shots’, Israeli army hits Lebanon

Our correspondent in Lebanon says Israeli warplanes have bombed the outskirts of the town of Yaroun and the area of Burghaz in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says Yaroun was attacked, and that the Israeli army also carried out attacks on the towns of Shebaa, Beit Lif and Talloussa.

The attack on Talloussa, it said, caused injuries.

A short while ago, the Israeli army said it would respond harshly to Hezbollah’s “warning shots”, fired today in response to what the group called Israel’s repeated ceasefire violations.

Here come the delusional Americans

Pentagon says ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel holding

The Pentagon says that despite some incidents, the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah is holding.

“Broadly speaking, it is our assessment that despite some of these incidents that we are seeing, the ceasefire is holding,” Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

His comments come as Israel is promising a “harsh response” to Hezbollah fire, which the Lebanese group said it launched in response to multiple ceasefire violations by Israel.

Israeli army says it is attacking targets in Lebanon

The army also says on X that it will provide more details on these attacks at a later time.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Lebanon says attacks have so far hit the al-Rayhan Heights and the outskirts of the towns of Jbaa and Houmin al-Fawqa in southern Lebanon.

State Department: US, France to look at ‘potential ceasefire violations’

The US will look into allegations of violations of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah as laid out under the terms it brokered.

“What we have seen since the ceasefire went into effect is that it has been broadly successful in stopping the fighting and getting us on a path where we are not seeing the daily loss of life that we had seen for two months prior,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a news briefing.

“Now with respect to violations or potential violations of the ceasefire, we set a mechanism up to look into this very question, where the United States along with France will engage with the Israeli military and will engage with the Lebanese military to look at potential violations.”

“We obviously anticipated that there might be violations because any time or nearly any time you have a ceasefire of this nature you have either claimed violations of the ceasefire, especially in the opening weeks, which are very fragile, or you have real violations.”

Earlier in the day, France accused Israel of violating the ceasefire more than 50 times.

And this is why the US is not an honest broker. Just stalling for time, making excuses, giving Israel the green light to go ahead with whatever.

Israel continues Lebanon attacks

Our correspondent reports more Israeli air strikes on Lebanese territory, including on Hawsh al-Sayyid Ali and Wadi al-Zein in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.

There was also a raid reported near the town of Yater in southern Lebanon.

Israel has still not provided information on this round of attacks, which it announced earlier this evening. Israeli officials had said a harsh response was incoming after Hezbollah fired what it said were “defensive” missiles at an Israeli army position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area.