Middle East Press On Saudi Arabia, Israel, Gaza, Iran,Egypt,Hamas, Sinwar AndUS: New Age Islam's Selection, 28October 2024
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
28 October 2024
Saudi Arabia Must Decide If A Relationship With Israel Is Worth Its While
Vote Harris, It's Best For Israel And The Jews
A Post-Sinwar Scenario: What's Next For Hamas And Israel Now?
Who Are Gaza's ‘Civilians’? Inside Gazan Identity, Hamas Ties
Israel Was Right To Restrain Iran Strike Before US Elections
Israel Must Remember Oct. 7 Victims And Hostages, Even As World Forgets
LIVE: Egypt Proposes 2-Day Truce As Israel Kills 53 InGaza, 21 In Lebanon
Plight OfGaza Civilians ‘Unbearable’ As Israel Kills Over 50 In A Day
'Endless Nights Of Terror': Six Constants Of Israel's War In Northern Gaza Strip
Iran’s Response ToIsrael’s Response Could Be A Game Changer
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Saudi Arabia must decide if a relationship with Israel is worth its while - editorial
By Jpost Editorial
October 28, 2024
After news broke early Saturday of the Israel Air Force’s extensive strikes on Iranian missile sites, drone facilities, and radar systems deep within the Islamic Republic, one country’s response was both typically mundane and yet tantalizingly intriguing: Saudi Arabia.
Given its strategic rivalry with Iran and its delicate, evolving ties with Israel, Riyadh’s reaction was anticipated as a key signal of the kingdom’s balancing act in the region.
A Saudi Foreign Ministry statement expressed the kingdom’s “condemnation and denunciation” of the targeting of Iran while calling for a halt to the continued escalation in the region.
Interestingly, the Saudi statement avoids any direct mention of Israel, not even referring to it as “the enemy,” a common phrase used by states that do not recognize its existence.
Ten years ago, Riyadh’s stance might have been more forceful. The current response reflects a more calculated approach: recognizing Iran’s sovereignty while showing an implied acceptance of Israel’s actions regarding regional security.
This careful positioning allows the kingdom to maintain restraint while still aligning with Israel in its efforts to counter Iran’s influence.
However, Israel may well have had reason recently to be worried. Although the Saudis came to Israel’s aid during Iran’s April attack, there has been a recent warming of ties between the kingdom and the Islamic Republic that must have raised more than a few eyebrows in Jerusalem.
New Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh earlier this month as part of a whistle-stop tour of Middle Eastern states. Iran’s role in ingratiating itself with Saudi Arabia and other countries, such as Egypt, should be seen as part of its overall plan to isolate the Jewish state.
Recent whispers of rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran cause concern – not just for Israel but for any state genuinely invested in a peaceful and stable Middle East. For decades, Saudi Arabia and Israel have pursued parallel interests, often quietly, in countering Iranian influence.
Tehran’s deep involvement in supporting militias, exporting its revolutionary ideology, and destabilizing governments across the region presents a threat to Arab and Israeli interests alike. While Saudi Arabia is considering warming ties with Iran under the pretext of diplomacy and potential de-escalation, the inherent risks of such a strategy outweigh the possible benefits.
Iran’s quest for dominance in the Middle East is built on a foundation of sectarianism, militarism, and economic coercion. Its support for terrorist organizations like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen has undermined efforts to create long-lasting peace. The Saudis themselves engaged in a long-term bombing campaign against the Houthis, based across the Saudi southern border.
What's the wait?
The Saudis have also officially stated on several occasions since the Abraham Accords were signed that any normalization deal with Israel depends on solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, diplomacy is very different between what is played out in the public arena and what takes place behind closed doors.
MBS, the young and forward-looking Saudi prince, is known to be less patient than many of his older predecessors in Saudi diplomacy with the Palestinians. In January, he allegedly told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he does not personally care about what he referred to as the “Palestinian issue.”
MBS’s vision to bring the kingdom into the 21st century and reduce its dependency on oil has given renewed hope for a Saudi-Israel normalization deal to become a reality.
Suppose Saudi Arabia diverts its focus from Israel to pursue a rapprochement with Iran. In that case, it risks undermining the very alliance that has the potential to secure long-term stability in the region. Instead of looking toward Tehran, Saudi Arabia should focus on deepening its engagement with Israel. The framework provided by the Abraham Accords offers a blueprint for cooperation.
Saudi Arabia must weigh the potential gains of relations with Iran against the far-reaching benefits of a strategic partnership with Israel. The lessons of the past are clear: Iran cannot be trusted to foster long-term peace. Instead, Riyadh should look toward Israel, a partner that has demonstrated its willingness to collaborate and innovate for a more peaceful future. Let us hope the Saudis do not squander this moment by turning toward those who have repeatedly shown that their interests lie in disruption, not peace.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826358
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Vote Harris, It's Best For Israel and The Jews
By Shaul Hanany
October 28, 2024
All of us who care about the Middle East – including Israelis, Palestinians, American Jews, and others – need a responsible and balanced US Middle East policy.
The only presidential candidate capable of delivering such sustained and consistent policy is Vice President Kamala Harris.
I grew up in Israel through multiple wars, served as a pilot in the IDF during one of them, and hiked Israel’s trails when I directed a nature center.
Having lived through those wars, I am intimately familiar with Israel’s security challenges.
While they are complicated and will take time to resolve, this much is clear: American Jews want to see the United States play a productive role in the resolution of those challenges.
Over the past four years, the Biden-Harris administration has shown unprecedented leadership in the Middle East, even when faced with daunting setbacks. This record bodes well for a Harris-Walz administration.
Just prior to October 7, 2023, the Biden-Harris administration had been coordinating a potentially historic agreement between Israel, the Palestinians, and Saudi Arabia.
Since October 7, the US has remained a staunch ally of Israel, participating actively in protecting its citizens while exerting its influence to reduce casualties in Gaza.
We can debate whether the US response has been optimal, but the administration has attempted a well-calibrated response, and it continues to play a key role in the negotiations to return the hostages.
I am now a physicist working at the University of Minnesota. (Yes, vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz is my governor. He is well-liked in the state and is doing an excellent job.) What choices do I have in the coming elections?
Already during his tenure, former president Donald Trump kept company with white supremacists and said there were “very fine people” on “both sides” of a neo-Nazi march.
He has since made lying his profession and he immerses himself and his followers in grievances and conspiracies. “But,” some say, “he would be better for Israel than Kamala.” No, he wouldn’t and for the following two reasons:
Trump only cares about one thing
First, Trump has only one consistent policy: The US should do what’s good for Trump.
He doesn’t care about Israel and has no pro-Israel policy. If what’s good for Trump were not to align with what would be good for Israel, Trump would promptly abandon the Jewish state.
He won’t hesitate to wield his executive power and make whatever foreign policy changes he sees fit, despite years of precedence or legacy.
Second, Trump doesn’t understand the value of balance. During his first term, he enacted one-sided policies, sidelining the Palestinians and thereby abdicating the US’s role as a trusted negotiator, leading to a strengthening of both Israeli and Palestinian extremists. This is not good for Israel nor for the Middle East.
For Kamala to earn my vote, two pillars had to be established. I needed to trust that, unlike Trump, she cared about more than just herself and her own interests and that she was committed to Israel’s safety and security.
She has passed both tests with flying colors. Her public service career, starting with her time as District Attorney, and that of her vice-presidential candidate Walz, illustrate their dedication and commitment to the public good. And they have both stated their unwavering support for Israel.
Beyond those two pillars, my vote for Harris and Walz is also based on ample supporting evidence.
Vice President Harris understands policy, stability, and – while it seems strange that this needs to be said – is behaving like a responsible adult.
The best choice to navigate the conflict
She is capable of hearing all sides of the conflict in the Middle East, and she would restore the US role as a trusted negotiator.
And, of course, as president, Harris would not keep company with racists and neo-Nazis.
She would come to the presidency from a place of strength and hope, not from one of grievance, pettiness, and meanness of spirit.
I vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz because they are a better choice for the United States, the Middle East, Israel, and American Jews.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826356
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A Post-Sinwar Scenario: What's Next For Hamas And Israel Now?
By Neville Teller
October 28, 2024
On October 21, two Hamas sources revealed to the media that the idea of appointing a leader to succeed Yahya Sinwar, assassinated on October 16, had been ruled out, at least for now.
The Hamas leadership, operating at arm’s length from Gaza in the Gulf state of Qatar, had decided that the organization would be run, at least until March 2025, by the five-man committee set up in August after the assassination of political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The committee, based in Doha, Qatar’s capital city, comprises Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mashaal, Zaher Jabareen, Mohammed Darwish, and the political bureau’s secretary, whose identity remains anonymous for security reasons.
The internal dynamic of the Hamas organization had certainly been severely shaken, yet an informed source, well acquainted with its inner workings, struck an interesting note.
Interviewed by the Associated Press, Sadeq Abu Amer, head of the Turkey-based think tank Palestinian Dialogue Group, believed that the removal of Sinwar, whom he dubbed “one of the most prominent hawks within the movement,” was likely to lead to “the advancement of a trend or direction that can be described as dove[-like]”.
He indicated that with Sinwar out of the picture, a hostage-prisoner exchange deal had become practical politics.
Abu Amer was quick to discount any suggestion that Sinwar’s brother Mohammed, if he is still alive, could replace him as leader of Hamas. “Mohammed Sinwar is the head of the field battle,” he said, “but he will not be Sinwar’s heir as head of the political bureau.”
Although somewhat off the mark, as it has turned out, he believed that Hamas’s Qatar-based political leaders might decide to elect one of their number to head the organization. He identified the two front runners as al-Hayya and Mashaal.
Al-Hayya, 63, was Sinwar’s deputy and headed the Hamas delegation in ceasefire negotiations.
In an interview in April 2024, al-Hayya said Hamas was willing to agree a truce of at least five years with Israel, and that if an independent Palestinian state were created along 1967 borders, the group would dissolve its military wing and become a purely political party.
Mashaal, 68, served as the group’s political leader from 1996 to 2017.
The subject of an assassination attempt in 1997, he now supports the forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad in the 13-year-old civil war still raging in Syria.
Consequently, he is not on good terms with Iran, or indeed with Hezbollah. He has good relations with Turkey and Qatar.
Jabareen, once sentenced to a 35-year prison sentence for the deaths of two Israeli police officers at the Temple Mount, was released on a prisoner exchange.
He headed the 2023 resumption of suicide bombings within Israel. Darwish, also known as Abu Omar Hassan, has been chairman of the Hamas Shura Council since October 2023.
FIRST REACTIONS to the news of Sinwar’s death on October 16 reflected hope in many quarters that a ceasefire in Gaza, and the return of the hostages, was a short step away.
Such immediate expectations seemed to be quickly doused. The first public statement after Sinwar’s death, made by his Qatar-based deputy al-Hayya, was that there would be no hostage release without “the end of the aggression… and the withdrawal from Gaza.”
A nuanced response
Israel’s position immediately after Sinwar’s death was nuanced. The first reaction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was that the war was not over. “Evil has suffered a heavy blow,” he said, “but the task before us is not yet complete.”
Yet in a message issued via the media, Netanyahu offered Hamas terrorists free passage out of the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of hostages. Anyone who laid down his arms and returned hostages, said Netanyahu, would be allowed to leave Gaza.
Could this formula provide the basis for a final hostage return deal? Possibly – provided Hamas’s new Qatar-based leadership committee is indeed that degree more pragmatic (more “dove-like” as Abu Amer put it) than its hawkish erstwhile leader.
A reassessment of Hamas’s situation and prospects might persuade the leadership that repositioning the organization outside the Gaza Strip might be the most effective way to recoup and recover.
Given the huge losses in manpower that Hamas has already sustained, it is certainly preferable to continue fighting inside Gaza to the last man.
This scenario, if played out, would not sit well with the aspirations of US President Joe Biden, Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the many other Western leaders who are so free with advice about how Israel should act.
The accepted international view has been that Israel should de-escalate on all fronts, negotiate a hostage-prisoner swap in Gaza involving an Israeli ceasefire, stop its attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and the rest of Lebanon, and respond only minimally to Iran’s massive missile launch on Israel of October 1.
As it turns out, Israel’s response, though far from minimal, was effectively targeted.
Netanyahu’s policy of slowly but surely eliminating the leadership of the Iran-supported terror armies in Gaza, Lebanon, and the rest of the axis of evil, while depleting their manpower and wearing them down, is clearly working.
No chance of success
The West’s continuous advocacy of unenforceable ceasefires, peace deals, and de-escalation would never have succeeded.
Against jihadist enemies dedicated to its annihilation, any such appeasement by Israel would have served only to guarantee the continuation of the multi-directional existential threat.
In the strictly limited area of the war in Gaza, however, Sinwar’s elimination may have opened up a chink of hope. Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar is reported to have visited Cairo on October 20 to discuss a possible revival of hostage deal negotiations.
Two days later, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel, where he reiterated his view that Israel should seek to exploit the advantage gained by Sinwar’s assassination and press on with negotiating a hostage deal. Netanyahu is reported to have concurred.
Blinken went on to Egypt, where reports suggest that discussions included the future administration and rebuilding of Gaza, which would include the establishment of an international force to oversee the process.
According to an October 19 report in The Wall Street Journal, Sinwar told Hamas negotiators in Qatar that if he were killed, Israel would offer concessions.
On this, if on nothing else, he was apparently not wrong. On October 21, Israel’s TV Channel 12 claimed that Israel had recently indicated to the US that it was ready to make concessions previously not considered feasible.
What such concessions might involve was not mentioned, but they could be based on Netanyahu’s free passage offer.
If the report is true, their success might turn on how flexible Hamas’s reconstituted leadership might choose to be in the post-Sinwar era.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826351
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Who Are Gaza's ‘Civilians’? Inside Gazan Identity, Hamas Ties - Opinion
By Yisrael Medad
October 28, 2024
A year has passed since an estimated 2,500 Gaza civilians followed in the footsteps of the Hamas Nukhba units that broke through the Gaza security barrier, and ransacked and decimated a dozen Jewish border communities.
Some assisted the Hamas terrorists by pointing out specific homes, while others looted.
Several dozen had themselves photographed joyfully celebrating the day’s victory by standing on burning tanks and at ripped open fences, smiling with their fingers in the V-sign held high.
Multiple video clips display their actions, including one old Arab limping on his cane as he enters the back gate of the kibbutz.
Many hundreds more joyfully greeted the returning Hamas terrorists with live or dead hostages on their trucks, cars and motorbikes.
They shouted and cheered and several are pictured stomping on dead Israelis as well as hitting and spitting at the hostages.
Ironically, despite the expulsion of all Israelis from Gaza in 2005, tens of thousands of Gaza civilians had been in contact with Israelis, mainly due to the effort Israel made to provide employment in Israel so as to wean Gazans from terror.
Some 50,000 others, according to a CNN report, had benefited from the Israeli Road to Recovery NGO whose volunteers, many from the Gaza border communities, transported sick Gazans into Israel for medical treatment.
Founded in 2011, it had 1,300 volunteers and was helping about 140 patients a day before the war.
Oded Lifshitz (84) and his wife Yocheved (86), among the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz, were two of its volunteers.
They were taken hostage on October 7, 2023: Yocheved was released two weeks later, but Oded is still being held captive after more than a year.
Another volunteer was Vivian Silver who co-founded Women Wage Peace and who had been a B’Tselem board member. She also transported Gazans requiring medical care in Israel with Project Rozana.
Silver was incinerated to death in her home in Be’eri.
A complex relationship
JEWS AND Arabs have had a complex relationship over the past century and a half.
Jews returned to Gaza in 1886, at the initiative of Zev Klonimus Wissotzky, a leader of the Hovevei Zion movement (Lovers of Zion), who invested in economic ventures in Gaza, Nablus (Shechem) and Lod.
Jews had lived in Gaza during the biblical period, Hasmonean times and in the Byzantine era. The Crusader kingdom virtually wiped out that presence.
After once again becoming a center of commerce, agriculture and mysticism in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman period stagnation set in.
During World War I, Jews in Gaza were subjected to Ottoman oppression and many were banished due to their foreign citizenship.
The Margolin family were the first to return and 54 Jews were registered as residing there in the 1922 British census. In the larger Gaza Sub-District there were 830 Jews. Then came the watershed year of 1929.
Arabs from Gaza, many of them agricultural workers employed in many of the kibbutzim and moshavim in the South, participated in the killings of Jews in the 1929 riots.
Thanks to the two Jewish wives of British policemen serving in Gaza, a rescue convoy was organized and the Jews of Gaza successfully escaped.
On August 26, 1929, Arabs from Gaza, some who were employed in the agricultural fields and orchards of Be’er Tuvia, participated in the attack on the moshav.
Binyamin Tzvi Rosen, who had hidden in the synagogue, was beaten and stabbed to death, then disemboweled and afterwards, rolled up into Torah scrolls and set afire.
Throughout the period of the 1936-1939 disturbances, many dozens of shooting, bomb throwing and other terror incidents were carried out against both nearby Jewish communities and the British mandatory authorities.
Gaza Arabs participated in the attacks of Western Negev kibbutzim as well as Kfar Darom, which was founded in 1946 on land purchased by Jews in the early 1930s in Deir Al-Balah.
Throughout the 1950s, Gaza’s civilians had the opportunity to participate in the Fedayeen terror operations. Following 1967, terror re-emerged in earnest.
THE FIELD of biopolitics investigates how political power shapes the behaviors of whole populations through diverse strategies and controls. Gaza, however, acts in the reverse: The politics of the location is influenced by the demographic makeup of the Gaza Strip.
The current population of Gaza is estimated at two million. More importantly, more than 70% of that population is defined as refugees of Palestine. In other words, the “native” Gaza population is a small minority. The refugees cared for by UNRWA make up almost three-fourths (74%) of the current population of Gaza.
A 1988 study found that in 1948 Arabs, from some 144 cities, towns, and villages came to Gaza. The area’s population tripled by 1950 with 42% originating from the Lydda District and more than 50% from areas surrounding what became the Gaza Strip.
These now “refugees,” their identity maintained through food handouts, schools and summer camps, all overseen by Hamas, were indoctrinated that they are “foreign” to where they live.
Add to this the high rate of under-18 year olds, who are most prone to be attracted to violent behavior patterns, and the result is a constant wave of Hamas reinforcements.
To that reality, and taking into consideration the history outlined above regarding Gaza’s violent reactions to the Jewish resettlement enterprise of the last 120 years, the mantra of “Gaza’s civilians” and “Gaza’s non-combatants” must be reappraised.
The role of many “do-gooders” – from UNRWA to the Friends Committee and other European groups, aiding these “civilians” – must also be rethought.
Who supplies the manpower for the terrorist organizations? Who supports them? Who allows them access to schools, mosques and playgrounds wherein recruitment is done, where exercises are practiced, where radical Islamism is preached and where arms are stored and from where they are fired off?
Who gets the benefits?
Who benefits from their sons being recruited into Hamas? Who gets food supplies before any other Gazan civilian?
Whose family had been involved in anti-Jewish terror in the 1930s and the 1950s with a “legacy” to uphold? Which civilians are actively assisting Hamas today either by hiding its members, hiding their tunnels or hiding Israel’s hostages?
This analysis is not suggesting that everyone in Gaza should be declassified as a “civilian,” but I do think that another review of the identity of Gaza’s “civilian” population is required.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826338
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Israel Was Right To Restrain Iran Strike Before Us Elections - Opinion
By Susan Hattis Rolef
October 28, 2024
I happened to wake up just before 2 a.m. last Saturday and switched on the radio to Reshet Bet’s hourly news broadcast.
A sleepy news presenter reported that we were finally on our way to attack Iran, in retaliation for the 180 missiles it launched at Israel on October 1. “We,” of course, referred to the Israel Air Force, and 100 fighter planes were on their way to attack 20 targets in Iran, traveling more than 1,600 km. away from their bases in Israel.
By the 7 a.m. news, a more alert news presenter stated that all our planes had returned home safely after completing their mission successfully.
Apparently, the planes only attacked military installations and weapons-manufacturing facilities, since Israel is reported to have responded positively to the US administration’s prodding (apparently resulting from the approaching general elections) that nuclear and energy installations be avoided.
In time, we shall undoubtedly learn more details regarding what was destroyed and where, while the Iranians will report on any coincidental destruction caused, and innocent civilians killed.
In such cases, these are usually minimal, because of the nature of the targets and their locations.
In the current war, the air force has been engaged in daily direct strikes that are carried out in mostly civilian areas, where the targets are specific persons.
These are invariably military and political leaders of the two terrorist organizations we are fighting – Hamas and Hezbollah, or weapons caches and/or the headquarters of these organizations.
According to Palestinian sources 42,000 Gazan men, women, and children have been killed and 10,000 are missing under rubble that has not been cleared since October 8, 2023.
The number of children killed is reported to be anywhere between 11,000 and 19,000. Whatever the exact numbers actually are, aerial attacks have been involved in many of the incidents in which not only Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were killed, but also innocent civilians.
It should, however, be pointed out that the IDF usually calls on the Palestinian inhabitants of buildings that are about to be attacked from the air or by ground forces, to evacuate the designated locations.
THESE FIGURES are behind the latest “scandal” in Israel concerning presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s comments during a closed election rally she held with students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on October 17.
Harris told the students that she is committed to their interests and welfare.
A pro-Palestinian protester then hurled back at her: “What about the genocide, billions of dollars? 42,000 people are dead, 19,000 children are dead, and you won’t call it a genocide.”
Harris’s impromptu response was “What he’s talking about, it’s real. That’s not the subject that I came to discuss today, but it’s real, and I respect his voice”.
The argument that erupted in Israel around this exchange concerned whether Harris meant that she respected what the protester had said about genocide, or what he had said about the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza in general, and that of children in particular.
Undoubtedly, Harris could have dealt much better with the issue in real time, had she specifically rejected the claim of genocide. But she didn’t.
Nevertheless, Harris has never claimed Israel is committing genocide – the systematic extermination of a whole people or race.
However, she has often claimed that too many innocent people are being killed in the Gaza Strip, and that there is an unbearable humanitarian problem developing in the Gaza Strip that Israel ought to address.
Journalist Chen Liberman, appearing on Niv Raskin’s morning news show on October 20, was scolded by the host and silenced by the other participants on the show’s panel, for justifying Harris’s comments.
Channel 14’s Patriots, a current affairs show, openly supports Donald Trump’s candidacy for president and has called on Israelis with American citizenship to register and vote for Trump. It also attacked and demeaned Liberman for her left-wing “treachery.”
REGARDING THE number of Palestinians killed by our forces, and especially the number of children killed: If a similar proportion of Israeli children (in proportion to the total Israeli population) were killed in the war, the figure would be 95,000 children.
To put this figure in perspective, according to the figures published every Independence Day by the Defense Ministry, from 1960 to May 2024 some 25,000 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in Israel’s wars as well as in other incidents of violence between Arabs and Jews. These are figures worth thinking about.
I am not accusing Israel’s Air Force pilots of being directly responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians, though perhaps greater efforts should be made by the IDF to try to avoid such occurrences.
A sincere discussion on the issue isn’t made any easier with Israelis who argue that there is no such thing as an “innocent Palestinian,” not even a child – just as there are many Palestinians who view Israeli children as nothing more than future IDF soldiers raised to fight the Palestinian people and deny their rights.
BUT REGARDING the successful attack by the Israel Air Force on Iran in the early hours of Saturday morning: Many Israelis were disappointed that Israel had not hit Iran much harder “to teach the Iranians a lesson,” and that we had conceded to the prodding of the Biden administration to avoid hitting any nuclear or energy installations.
The government was right to restrain the attack. We cannot risk a full-scale war with Iran at the moment.
Refusing to submit to the US administration’s prodding at this stage would be viewed as a rebuff to President Joe Biden and evidence that Trump’s claim that “Bibi doesn’t listen to Biden,” is true.
Something like this just isn’t done 10 days before a presidential election.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826340
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Israel Must Remember Oct. 7 Victims And Hostages, Even As World Forgets - Opinion
By Catherine Perez-Shakdam
October 28, 2024
The atrocities of October 7 have left a mark on the Israeli psyche that will not fade with time or rhetoric.
On that day, Hamas unleashed an orgy of violence that went far beyond mere warfare; it was a deliberate act of barbarism, intended to inflict maximum terror, grief, and despair.
The dead were mourned, the injured treated, and the rubble cleared, but the true cost of that day’s horror is still being paid by those who survived, by the hostages whose minds remain shackled by what they endured, and by the families left behind.
This cost is measured not just in the physical aftermath, but in the deep and persistent trauma that haunts every waking hour of those affected.
The research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) leaves little room for comforting illusions: survivors of extreme violence, particularly those who have been subjected to torture, captivity, or the violent loss of loved ones, do not simply “move on.”
For them, the ordeal is not a chapter that can be closed but a living, breathing reality that invades their present with nightmares, flashbacks, and a constant sense of dread.
Their wounds are not visible, and their scars are not marked on the skin; they exist in the mind’s darkest recesses, replaying the terror in an endless loop.
The aftermath of war and terror is a rich subject for psychiatric research, and the data consistently reveals that survivors of mass violence often develop what is known as complex PTSD – a condition that goes beyond the usual symptoms of trauma to include severe disturbances in emotional regulation, a shattered self-image, and crippling mistrust of the world.
Survivors of the October 7 massacre find themselves in a state of perpetual siege, unable to distinguish between past danger and present safety.
For some, every sound becomes a threat, every face a reminder, and every night an exercise in reliving the horror.
Hostages: A nightmare with no release
The hostages taken by Hamas during its rampage have endured ordeals that defy any civilized description. Physically, they may have been released, but their minds remain captive to the barbarism they experienced.
Captivity and torture, as the psychiatric literature makes clear, are not just physically traumatic but leave enduring psychological damage that can last a lifetime.
Former hostages often struggle with a range of symptoms: chronic anxiety, depression, dissociation, and a loss of connection to the world they have returned to.
The journey back to anything resembling normality is long, painful, and, for many, incomplete.
The trauma extends beyond the individual, affecting family dynamics, relationships, and even one’s sense of self.
The constant recollection of abuse, coupled with intrusive thoughts and relentless anxiety, can render even the most mundane tasks unbearable.
What the hostages experienced cannot simply be treated away; it will require a lifetime of care – a fact that should give pause to those who think the price of peace can be counted only in bodies and buildings.
For the families of the victims and hostages, there is no release from their ordeal. They live with a void that cannot be filled and with a grief that cannot be resolved, particularly for those whose loved ones remain unaccounted for.
The uncertainty about the fate of some hostages deepens their anguish, and with every day that passes without news, the silence itself becomes a form of psychological torment.
Studies on the families of terror victims show that they are at high risk of developing secondary trauma, where the unrelenting stress and grief can lead to anxiety disorders, depression, and even suicidal thoughts.
The passage of time does not heal such wounds; it only makes the burden more profound and isolating.
The world’s deafening silence
Perhaps the greatest insult to the victims, survivors, and their families is not merely the brutality of their experience, but the indifference of the world that has followed.
For many, the atrocities of October 7 are already fading from memory, dismissed as another episode in a long conflict.
Worse still, there are those who seek to deny, minimize, or reinterpret the events to suit a particular ideological narrative, one that is not only anti-Zionist but fundamentally antisemitic.
To these people, the agony of Israeli victims is not just inconvenient; it is something to be politically weaponized or swept aside. The world’s silence is not merely a failure of empathy; it is a moral abdication that compounds the survivors’ suffering.
When atrocities are downplayed and survivors’ stories met with skepticism, it is not just an affront to the truth, but a continuation of the violence by other means.
The global refusal to fully confront what happened on October 7 sends a message to the victims that their pain is politically expendable, that their ordeal must be reshaped or denied to fit the narrative of those who see every Hamas atrocity as an expression of resistance, rather than the barbarism it truly is.
The tragedy of October 7 has not only been monetized but weaponized. For some, the massacre is an opportunity to score political points, to obscure the identities of perpetrators and victims, and to frame the narrative in terms that are deliberately vague and misleading.
This process of political exploitation not only distorts the truth but desecrates the memory of those who suffered.
It is not merely a case of moral cowardice; it is an active betrayal of the fundamental principles of justice and the sanctity of human life.
The reluctance to fully acknowledge the nature of the atrocities and to speak plainly about who committed them and why, is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty that only deepens the survivors’ despair.
It is an insidious way of saying that Jewish lives are worth less, that the anguish of Israeli families is somehow less legitimate or deserving of attention. The victims, already brutalized by violence, are now being brutalized by the world’s willful ignorance.
Reclaiming the truth: A demand for justice
The events of October 7 must not be allowed to fade into obscurity. To move on, as some would urge, is not just an insult to the victims; it is a collusion with their tormentors.
It is imperative that the full extent of what occurred is acknowledged, and that the world bears witness to the depths of the evil inflicted upon our people.
The survivors’ suffering must not be allowed to be eclipsed by the demands of political expediency.
The time has come for a reckoning with the truth, and that means confronting the reality of what happened on that day.
It means recognizing the barbarity of the attacks and the trauma of those left behind, but it also means addressing the silence and denial that have accompanied the aftermath.
We must refuse to let their stories be erased or sanitized, and we must demand that their voices be heard, their pain acknowledged, and their suffering condemned without qualification.
The world’s indifference may be profound, but it is not invincible. It is up to all of us to ensure that October 7 is not forgotten, that the memories of the fallen are respected, and that the survivors are given the justice they deserve: the truth, spoken plainly, and the uncompromising condemnation of the crimes committed against them.
Anything less is a betrayal, not just of those who suffered, but of the very principles upon which civilized society rests.
In a world that so often prefers to look away, let us choose to bear witness.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826348
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Egypt Proposes 2-Day Truce As Israel Kills 53 InGaza, 21 In Lebanon
By Zaheena Rasheed and Umut Uras
28 Oct 2024
Israeli forces killed at least 53 people in Gaza and 21 people in Lebanon on Sunday as UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed shock at the “harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction” in besieged northern Gaza.
Egypt has proposed a limited two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Israelis for Palestinian prisoners as negotiations to end the yearlong war resumed in Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Three killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza’s Shujayea
Our colleagues are reporting that an Israeli attack on a group of people in the Shujayea neighbourhood in Gaza City has killed at least three people.
We’ll bring you more soon.
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18m ago (05:15 GMT)
Houthi
Three 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 three people and wounding two.
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.
If you are just joining us
Let’s bring you up to speed:
Israeli forces continued to pound Gaza, killing at least one person in the central Nuseirat refugee camp and another in southern al-Mawasi.
The bombings came after a day of attacks that killed more than 53 people, including 11 sheltering at a school in the northern Shati refugee camp. Dozens meanwhile remain trapped under the rubble in northern Gaza.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces raided a number of cities and towns and clashed with Palestinian fighters in the city of Jenin.
Hezbollah claimed two rocket attacks on northern Israel while the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed a drone attack on the same region.
Israeli media reported that Israel’s defence minister told Netanyahu in a letter that the country’s wars lacked direction and called for the objectives of the conflict to be updated, including promoting an alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza and keeping Iran out of the hostilities.
Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, meanwhile reiterated his calls for the removal of Palestinians from Gaza and for hundreds of thousands of settlers to establish “new cities and settlements deep” in the West Bank.
WATCH: Echoes of a Lost Gaza
Mariam Shahin has been making films about Gaza for more than 30 years.
When she moved to Gaza in 2005, she felt a powerful sense of optimism following the withdrawal of Israeli troops. But by 2009, war had badly damaged its infrastructure, neighbourhoods, businesses and communities – and that optimism had evaporated.
Now, in the wake of the even more destructive war that began on October 7, Mariam seeks out the people she has met in Gaza over the years – and reflects on the wasted potential and devastated lives after 16 years of blockade and a year of one of the most destructive wars in Middle East history.
What you need to know about Egypt’s truce proposal
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Egyptian president, told reporters in Cairo that Egypt was proposing an initial two-day ceasefire in which four Israeli captives would be exchanged for a number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
El-Sisi said the initiative was a preliminary step for a permanent ceasefire.
He said negotiations to end the war should resume within 10 days of implementing the temporary truce.
There was no immediate comment from Israel or Hamas.
El-Sisi’s announcement came as directors of the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency arrived in Qatar for talks to end the more than yearlong war on Gaza.
The Reuters news agency, citing an official briefed on the talks, reported that negotiations in Doha will seek a short-term truce and the release of some captives and Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli bombing kills Palestinian in Gaza’s Nuseirat
One person has been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli attack on a home belonging to the Abu Amuna family in the central Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Wafa news agency.
The bombing came as Israeli forces continued to strike Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Shujayea in the besieged north.
Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are also reporting that Israeli soldiers are blowing up houses in the southern city of Rafah. Israeli troops have yet to withdraw from Rafah despite promising that the ground invasion that began on May 6 would be a “limited” operation.
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.”
WATCH: ‘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.
Death toll from Israeli raid on Shati refugee camp rises to 11
As we’ve been reporting, the attack targeted the Asmaa School housing displaced Palestinians in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza.
The Wafa news agency said 11 people were killed in the attack.
Three of the victims were journalists.
Iraqi armed group claims attack on Israel
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it used drones to attack a military target in the north of the occupied territories.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The umbrella group of Iran-backed armed groups, which said it is acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza as well as the people of Lebanon, had claimed three attacks on Israel on Sunday.
Israeli troops, Palestinian fighters clash in Jenin
The Jenin Battalion of the Al-Quds Brigade said in a message on Telegram that its fighters confronted Israeli troops in the city of Jenin and repelled them after “showering them with heavy gunfire”.
Earlier, the Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces detained several young men from the city’s Nazareth Street and raided several shops there.
Israeli forces have sharply stepped up operations in the occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza more than a year ago. In total, Israeli forces have killed 732 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since October 7 of last year.
Despite all the Israeli offensives of the past year – in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and elsewhere – Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti believes that the Palestinians are closer than ever to achieving their freedom.
Barghouti tells The Bottom Line that Israel can’t achieve “total victory” as long as the Palestinians “refuse to give up [or] accept a life of subjugation or enslavement to the Israeli occupation”.
Regardless of anti-Palestinian bias and unconditional support for Israel in the West, Barghouti argues that Israel has “reached a point of crisis” and will be seen as a “pariah structure” over time.
Survivor recounts Israeli attack that killed 73 people in Lebanon
Hecham Al-Baba was visiting his sister at her home in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon in late September when the Israeli strike hit.
The entire six-storey residential building, with 17 apartments full of families, collapsed, tipping over down a hillside, killing more than 70 people.
At the bottom of the building’s wreckage, al-Baba was trapped in pitch-black darkness for four hours, squeezed with his legs bent under him.
He knew his sister’s family was dead from the constant, unanswered ringing of their phones.
“No one said a word. I didn’t hear a movement,” al-Baba told the AP news agency, as he recalled how finally he heard movement and the sound of a rescuer calling out.
Looking back now, Al-Baba fears “there will be no peace” in Lebanon and Gaza.
“No one will bring me justice. No one,” he said.
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.
Hezbollah claims rocket attacks on Israel
The Lebanese armed group said it fired two volleys of rockets at a gathering of Israeli soldiers between the settlements of Manara and Margaliot in northern Israel.
The attacks came after a day in which Hezbollah claimed 29 rocket and drone attacks on Israeli positions.
Eight people have been killed and 25 injured in an Israeli attack on the coastal city of Sidon in southern Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry.
The attack targeted a residential building without any warning and left rescue workers searching for survivors after several floors of the building collapsed.
Al Jazeera is reporting from Jordan because it has been banned from Israel and the occupied West Bank.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One person killed in Israeli drone attack on Gaza’s al-Mawasi
An Israeli drone attack has killed at least one Palestinian and injured others in the al-Mawasi area, near Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, the Wafa news agency is reporting.
Israeli forces also blew up houses northeast of the Bureij camp refugee in central Gaza, Wafa reported.
The latest attacks come after at least 53 people were killed by Israeli strikes across Gaza on Sunday, including at least 46 people in the north where Israel’s military siege continues.
A recap of recent developments
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.
Welcome to our live coverage
Hello and thank you for joining our live coverage of the conflict across the Middle East, including Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, and now Iran.
Stay with Al Jazeera’s Live team as we bring you all the latest developments, analyses and reactions.
You can find all our updates from October 27, here.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/10/28/live-medics-among-seven-killed-in-israeli-attack-on-south-lebanon
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Plight of Gaza civilians ‘unbearable’ as Israel kills over 50 in a day
27 Oct 2024
Israeli attacks have killed more than 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip in less than a day, most of them in the north of the enclave which has been the scene of renewed Israeli ground offensive for the past three weeks, leading the chief of the United Nations to call the plight of civilians there “unbearable”.
At least 11 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others wounded after a school in northern Gaza was hit on Sunday.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said the school is in the middle of the Shati refugee camp, a densely populated camp in northern Gaza.
“The Israeli strike killed at least eight Palestinians, including three journalists and an eight-year-old girl called Zayn al-Ghoul, who was waiting in a queue to receive biscuits from the school,” she said, adding that the death toll could climb as the number of injured was high.
The Israeli military has said it was looking into the report about the strike on the school. The military added that it had killed more than 40 Hamas fighters in the Jabalia area in the past 24 hours, as well as dismantled infrastructure and located large quantities of military equipment.
Israeli military strikes on the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza have so far killed about 800 people in the three-week offensive, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he is “shocked by harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction” in north Gaza.
“The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in North Gaza is unbearable,” Guterres’s spokesman said.
As the death toll from Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza approaches 43,000 since the start of the war on October 7, with the densely populated enclave in ruins, new ceasefire talks have begun in Doha.
On Sunday, the directors of the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency travelled to Qatar to meet Qatar’s prime minister to discuss a ceasefire agreement. Egyptian officials are also participating in the talks.
Separately, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has proposed a two-day ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for Israeli captives with some Palestinian prisoners.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon on Sunday, Israeli forces continued their air raids on the capital Beirut’s southern suburbs after warning residents of several neighbourhoods to leave their homes.
Israeli forces also targeted southern Lebanon. At least eight people were killed and 25 injured in an Israeli air strike on the coastal city of Sidon in southern Lebanon. Lebanese officials said at least 21 people were in Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.
In retaliation, Hezbollah has been launching attacks across the border into northern Israel.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday met with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati in London but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. Washington provides weapons and diplomatic cover to Israel, which has been condemned for violating the rules of war.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/27/plight-of-gaza-civilians-unbearable-as-israel-kills-over-50-in-a-day
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'Endless Nights of Terror': Six Constants of Israel's War in Northern Gaza Strip
27 October 2024
It's been 381 days since Israel launched its ongoing assault on Gaza, and I feel like an expert in the struggle to stay alive.
For readers who have not yet endured this sort of grim living, allow me to describe what you could expect. I'm using my own experiences as an example, but they are near-universal for the more than two million citizens of Gaza.
1. You will have endless nights of terror
Before 7 October 2023, nights were the best time for me to work, hang out with friends, or gather with my family. But now nights have become the worst part of my day, especially these days - as the Israeli military's escalating aggression in northern Gaza, where I live, enters its third week.
Each night feels like a hundred years of terror. The deafening roar of Israeli drones and jet fighters hums in my head, robbing me of any chance of sleep.
For days, I haven't had a moment's rest.
The relentless buzzing of drones and the thunderous artillery shelling - especially from 8pm until sunrise - rob me of any chance of sleep. Beyond the noise, the threatening sounds weigh heavily on my mind, serving as a constant reminder that death could be near. This psychological assault fills every moment with nervous tension.
The sky glows red at night, filled with flying shrapnel of wood, metal, and stone. The ground shakes beneath our building, and none of us can sleep until sunrise, when the air strikes and artillery shelling usually begin to ease.
On some nights in this war, I lost precious people. My sister's house was bombed. I believe that the Israeli forces commit their worst crimes at night, turning those few hours intended for rest into a long nightmare of deep horror and looming grief.
2. Your home will never be safe
I have been displaced 14 times, moving back and forth from relatives' houses to strangers' houses, and even once to a classroom in a school. Now, I'm back at home with my family. It's not safe; the threats of bombing, starvation, and water shortages loom large, tightening the chances of survival.
When the Israelis launched its recent assault in the northern Gaza Strip, my family's main concern was about the rumours of the "General's Plan", in which Israeli forces aim to "cleanse the area of Gaza City with almost no enemy”.
We discussed where we might go as a family. But we realised there was no safe place left - not even the south, where the Israeli forces had already committed massacres in schools, hospitals, and so-called "safe zones". So, we decided to stay in our home. At least if we are killed, we might be recognised and buried near the place we once lived.
3. You will be hungrier than you could ever imagine
This massive extermination campaign in northern Gaza is made even worse by the food and water shortages. We have already been living through famine for months, and now even the limited humanitarian aid that occasionally entered Gaza has nearly stopped.
The few parcels of food that come through are nowhere near enough to feed over 500,000 starving people that remain in the northern Strip.
Personally, the last time my siblings and I received a food parcel, was two months ago. It contained barely enough food for ten days under normal circumstances, but we have learned to survive on less, eating only two small meals a day.
We were supposed to receive a food parcel from Unicef last week. I went to the distribution point last week, but it was empty. The workers confirmed that no aid trucks have entered Gaza since the latest Israeli incursion in Gaza began. I didn't want to go home empty-handed.
What would I tell my sisters? What would I say to the children who were waiting for me to return with food?
I went to the shop to see if I could find something to buy, but there was nothing to eat. The farmlands in the northern Strip, places like Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, which once supplied us with a few vegetables like eggplant and mulukhiyah, are now being utterly destroyed.
For over 10 days now, like most people in northern Gaza, we've survived on what little canned food we had saved. Our meals have been reduced only to lentils, pasta, pea soup, and bread.
Every day, my nieces and nephews cry out for something else to eat, but we have no choices left. Starvation feels like a slower, more painful death than the bombs.
4. Your family will lie to each other that they are 'fine"
Yesterday, I was on a video call with my father in Egypt. My parents were lucky to flee Gaza a day before the Israeli troops invaded Rafah and closed the border. My mother's health had been deteriorating, and once they reached Egypt, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
In the middle of our video conversation, two air strikes hit nearby residential buildings. The phone slipped from my hand, and I fell to the ground to shield myself from the shrapnel.
My father remained silent, his wide eyes and ashen face said everything. I tried to hide my panic and told him that I was okay.
My parents keep telling me to save as much water and food as I can, to keep the emergency bag ready for any sudden displacement to the south, and try to stay safe.
They know the truth: there is no safety in Gaza. They try to comfort themselves, and I pretend that everything is fine.
When I ask how they are - especially regarrding my mother's health, they always tell me they're "fine". I'm left wondering whether to believe them or if this is just how we protect each other - by pretending, even when we know the reality is far worse.
5. Even your family members outside the war zone will suffer
My brother, Hamedo, also managed to leave and go to Egypt eight months ago, but every few days, he calls me and confesses that he feels he is still trapped in Gaza.
He tells me about a recurring nightmare that keeps him from sleeping: "I see myself in the house, then an air strike blows it up and buries me alive under the rubble," he says. "I scream out for help, but no one replies until I wake up drenched in terror."
My friend Ahmed, who left Gaza just before the war to pursue his master's in Dublin, told me during a video call that he has been suffering from panic attacks since the war began, knowing that his family is still trapped in Gaza.
Like most Palestinians from Gaza who live abroad, he feels a deep sense of guilt when talking about food, knowing that so many of us here in Gaza are still enduring famine.
"One day, while chatting with my mother, she mentioned that she missed eating fish," Ahmed told me. "That very day, I had fish for lunch and fed the leftovers to a seagull that visits my window. When I think of how the seagull eats better than my mother, my heart breaks down for our misery and poor fate, he added.
6. Despite living on the edge of death, you will still look to the future
Despite the constant bombing and dire conditions, my sisters - like many women in Gaza - continue teaching their children basic subjects at home or in tents. Even high school and university students are completing their studies for a tomorrow that may never come.
"I teach my five-year-old son, knowing we may both be killed before the end of this war," Linah, my sister, once told me. She even buys clothes for her children in larger sizes, fearing that next year's clothes will be unavailable due to the blockade.
This bizarre preparation for an uncertain future is not just limited to children. Many men have had to work jobs they'd never imagined before the war, having spent their savings just to survive.
Sami, a close friend and once an attorney, now sells goods from a small stall. "My two little girls don't care what I do as long as I can give them money for whatever candy is available," he said. His legal career feels like a distant memory, replaced by the need to provide for his family by any means possible.
I even found myself, in one hour, applying for a journalism fellowship and, in the next, wracked by the force of a nearby bombing.
One question on the fellowship application was to propose a topic to write about. Without hesitation, I chose famine.
Yet I'm not sure If I will survive famine, and if I do, whether bombing or being captured in the Israeli invasion will allow me to accept the fellowship if it is offered to me.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/six-constants-israels-war-northern-gaza-strip
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Iran’s Response To Israel’s Response Could Be A Game Changer
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
October 27, 2024
The tensions between Iran and Israel have escalated to a point unseen in the past four decades, marking a critical juncture for the region. Recent strikes by Israel on military facilities in three Iranian provinces represent an unprecedented direct attack, further intensifying the hostilities between the two regional rivals. This escalation does not bode well for regional stability. If the trend continues, it could spark a wider conflict that would not be limited to Israel and Iran, but could envelop other regional players and even global powers.
For several decades, Iran’s primary military strategy has revolved around asymmetrical warfare, leveraging proxy forces to achieve its objectives without directly engaging its enemies. This indirect approach has allowed Tehran to influence conflicts in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, while avoiding a full-scale confrontation with Israel. Iran’s government, particularly its Revolutionary Guards, has relied on Hezbollah in Lebanon, various Shiite militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen to counter Israel and its allies without provoking direct retaliation. This method has proved effective, allowing Iran to expand its influence without the risks of an all-out war. However, recent events suggest that there has been a shift away from this established modus operandi.
The dynamic changed dramatically in April when Israel launched airstrikes on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, which Tehran regarded as a blatant provocation. In response, Iran did something it rarely does — it directly attacked Israel with missiles and drones. This marked a significant departure from Iran’s typical strategy of using proxies to fight its battles. The launch of hundreds of missiles and drones into Israel showed that Iran was and is willing to take greater risks.
Following Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all of Iran’s domestic and foreign policies, particularly when it comes to matters of national security, wasted no time in ordering retaliatory strikes. However, despite the immediate strike orders, Iran chose not to sustain a prolonged attack. This restraint may have been a calculated decision, allowing Iran to express its discontent without fully committing to a costly conflict.
The situation intensified even further after the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which was followed by an Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon. In response, Iran launched over 100 missiles into Israeli territory, a dramatic escalation in hostilities. Israel, in turn, vowed to retaliate, raising the stakes to an even higher level. The dangerous unpredictability of these back-and-forth strikes has left both countries on high alert, where any miscalculation could lead to a full-scale war that neither side may be able to control.
The escalation reached a new peak with Israel’s attacks on military facilities within three Iranian provinces. This direct strike on Iranian soil signifies Israel’s intent to degrade Iran’s military capabilities and serves as a clear warning to Tehran. This unprecedented move has placed Iran in a position where a robust response may be unavoidable, escalating the risk of regional conflict. The international community, including the US and European powers, is closely watching how Iran will respond, as any retaliatory actions could further destabilize the Middle East.
The most critical aspect of this conflict is how Iran will respond to Israel’s latest and most direct strike yet. This moment could be the tipping point that either leads to a de-escalation of tensions or pushes the two nations toward full-scale war. Iran’s response will be closely watched by not only Israel, but also by the broader international community. If Iran chooses to respond strongly, it could trigger a chain reaction that would engulf the Middle East in a larger, more devastating conflict. On the other hand, a more measured response from Tehran could defuse the situation, at least temporarily.
There are several potential scenarios that could unfold in the coming days. One possibility is that Iran will downplay Israel’s retaliation, choosing to treat it as insignificant rather than escalating the situation further. This scenario has precedent; when Israel launched airstrikes in April targeting an Iranian air defense facility in Isfahan after Iran’s missile attack, Tehran decided not to escalate the conflict further. Instead, Iranian officials played down the attack, and the situation cooled down. Such a response is seen as favorable for Iran, as it avoids the risk of direct war, which Tehran is likely keen to avoid given the current state of its economy which is under immense pressure due to sanctions and mismanagement.
Iran may revert to its strategy of asymmetrical warfare, activating all its proxies across the region, including the Shiite militia groups in Iraq, to retaliate against Israel.
Another possible scenario is that Iran will vow to retaliate harshly, but will delay any significant action in an effort to de-escalate tensions. This would allow Iran to save face while avoiding a costly conflict with Israel. By keeping Israel uncertain about when or if the retaliation will come, Iran can maintain psychological pressure on Israeli leaders, who would be forced to remain on high alert. This tactic has been used before, most notably after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. At that time, Iran ordered retaliatory strikes, but did not follow through immediately.
Ultimately, Iran’s response to Israel’s latest move will be critical in determining the trajectory of this conflict. The tit-for-tat nature of these retaliations is incredibly dangerous. No matter how carefully planned a country’s military actions might be, the inherent unpredictability of war means that things can quickly spiral out of control. A full-scale conflict between Iran and Israel would not be confined to those two nations. Other countries in the region, such as Syria and Iraq, could be drawn into the fray, as well as global powers such as the US and Russia. This could lead to a conflagration that would engulf the entire Middle East, with devastating consequences for the region and the world.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2577008
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URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/arabia-israel-gaza-hamas-egypt-iran/d/133564
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